Posts by Andrew E
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Ah, Damian, many thanks to you for that link to your earlier interview with Ans. Very nicely done. She recently showed some new photos of Cuba Street at the Thistle Hall gallery, but it opened one day and closed the next, gone before I could get there.
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Last one... some folks on their way home after the races. Melbourne on Cup day has a good vibe.
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The time I like is the rush hour, cos I like the rush
The pushing of the people - I like it all so much
Such a mass of motion - do not know where it goes
I move with the movement and ... I have the touch. -
One from a while ago on Willis Street.
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Vanguard pigs, I think they're called.
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Except this one’s run for four days. Hurry up and write a new post, Keith.
ETA: ;-)
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Indeed, great photos. I haven't seen a photo as cheeky as the first one since, hmm.... possibly Gary Winogrand's shot of the plump old lady outside the rhino enclosure at the zoo.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Bart Janssen,
It's called networking and is consists of being told (quietly) that so-and-so is about to announce X and now would be a good time to by shares in ... Or being told that a certain council is about to change it's zoning and now would be a good time to ... Or being invited to dinner with Y so you can convince them that changing that law would be good for ...
This is precisely why I guffaw with cynical laughter every year when the Transparency International Corruptions Perceptions Index is published and the New Zealand political and media establishment pats itself on the back about how little corruption there is here. I'd never heard the phrase 'shoulder tap' until I got here. In the UK it's called nepotism.
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Without wishing to get too drawn into this too much further, I will (again) state my support for Giovanni. I don't think the reply of his to Damian that prompted Russell's intervention was over the top. It seems to me that it is precisely because people get defensively prickly about class labels that any offence which might have been intended or caused has been magnified. He's right too, when he suggests that it's not being a dick to find it helpful to define our terms. The wooliness of too much of language around politics has come from politicians bending things out of shape for too long, to enable their desire to sell you a chimera of 'fairness', 'community', 'justice', 'sustainability', etc.. If we are not clear about what we mean by these terms, and do not demand clarity of meaning from politicians when they wield them, then we all do ourselves a disservice. Which, coming full circle, is precisely what I thought a blog like Keith's was dedicated to doing, and why I - and Giovanni - found this particular post to be a disappointment. It purported to demand something of politicians, but in fact was engaging in a hoary old vaudeville trick of misdirection: look over here at this shining principle we can all agree on, and while you're looking over there, I'll stick this knife in over here.
So, in the interest of attempting to be constructive, perhaps I could propose something a little less ad hoc in terms of topics for blogs for a while. Instead, why not have more structured series of posts on which the intelligent, articulate, crowd that populates PAS can get stuck in. What do we consider to be important principles, and useful actions, to tackle poverty, improve education, ensure adequate provision of healthcare, conserve our environment, build our cities and transport networks? What has attracted me to Public Address has been the debate, but it many ways it reacts to events too much. If the new Labour leadership wants to hear from people, then this as good a locus for constructive, proactive, discussion as anywhere. The work that was done around 'Open Labour' was a useful start, but if politics that is remotely left of centre is to be reinvigorated in this country, that kind of openness needs to continue, and not just take place in spaces owned and defined by one political party.
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Ermm.... Lolcats?
