Posts by Susan Snowdon
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I have been pondering this "class" thing for a couple of days
Me too, my brain hurts.
The great thing we do have going for us here in New Zealand is that it is quite easy to slip/slide from one class to another. In fact you don't even need a Lotto win to do it, just good luck and timing
But this assumes monetary wealth is the main factor in allocating 'class'. You can change this, but not 'where you came from'. (Neighbourhood, town/country, generation, species of culture, family attitudes to education, social behaviour, consumption, religion etc etc.)
It's not about the erasure of class so much as the take-over of political discussion by pure economics. And Labour, to a large extent, chose to buy in to that view of things, rather than say, hang on, maybe we're looking at the world the wrong way if that's our only measure of achievement. In a year where they did choose to come forward with a lot of policies considered politically unpalatable, I would have liked to see that.
Same.
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Ben - I work in retail. We get a wage, no bonuses for sales. I would be deeply, deeply embarrassed to be offered money by a customer. Wtf??! It seems patronising and unfair to other staff. I actually really appreciate a genuine thank you, and to be treated with respect and courtesy by customers. If they choose to write to my manager to commend my wonderfulness, even better. (Sadly, they don't...) Sure I would like to earn more than I do, but not at the cost of thinking, hmm, should I suck up to that looks like he's spending customer at the expense of the Jo Average who's wandering aimlessly. We try to be friendly and available to all customers and to do a good job regardless of whether they are spending $5 or $500. If we do a crap job customers vote with their feet, the business flounders, we lose our jobs. (And in the current retail market the latter two are happening anyway.) I think retail service in NZ is a million times better than it was decades ago, even if it still varies from business to business. And where else in the world do customers regularly ask where they might find the thing that your shop doesn't have? And you tell them! And then show them where it is on the map! I love it. And no, I do not own the shop I work in. I'm a minion.
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The Maori Party is radical free
Is that because of the anti-oxidants?
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I think there was a comment at some stage about the abuser being too intoxicated to comprehend lack of consent. Again, not an excuse, just a factor.
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It’s still wrong to rape drunk people.
Yup. No-one's disputing that.
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I didn't hear the promo but I did listen to Kathryn Ryan's interview. I thought that the interviewees pointed out simply that a lot of sexual abuse was associated with excessive alcohol consumption . Which it is - fact. Just saying. They were also at pains to emphasise that they were not blaming victims or casting them as agents of their own misfortune. They mentioned the issue of other drugs (prescription or recreational) interacting with alcohol to increase intoxication, and the effect of this on recall and consent. I couldn't see any reason to hate on the interview really.
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A very moving/distressing documentary on Maori tv the other night, called Lumo. About the treatment of women for terrible rape inflicted injuries in a pretty basic hospital in Goma in the Congo. (A fistula hospital, to repair ripped vaginal/bowel/bladder walls -no chance of children or marriage, incontinence, smell, social pariah-ism etc ). Lumo, a young girl, had five surgeries, three weeks in bed with a catheter, and 2 (two!) years later went home to her village. Unable to be contacted since because of rebels. And a local politician had the nerve to question women at a local rally whether their dress had contributed to it. Just as well they had some pretty fierce Mamas who looked out for these girls and women. But even they could do little with the 'rape culture', and rape as an act of war. Same, but different to Western experience of rape I guess.
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Koha, whip around, annual subscription, throwing in a wad of cash - I like how we're thinking. Thank-you Russell, and all other contributors.
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Because wild flowers need so much maintenance, how would they survive without us, eh?.
Actually, wild 'flowers' do need a lot of maintenance. They flower over summer, go to seed, and die. Then other things, generally weeds and grasses, take over. If the wildflower seeds survive they can't compete with these now established plants. To look good the wildflower areas have to be cleared and re-seeded every year, and that's really expensive on a motorway scale. If we considered assorted weed 'wildflowers' to be ok, that's fine (I know, a weed is just a plant in the wrong place), but they're not the pretty flowers most people have in mind. Our real wildflowers are flax, cabbage tree, manuka etc. Motorways have lots of those.
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Or Alnus acuminata, evergreen alder.