Posts by Simon Grigg
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
As a New Zealander, I think that since seminal moments of 1984 we have not just caught up with but actually passed the average Australian in being comfortable in our sense of place, politically and geographically.
I'm not so sure about that. Living in Bali, and having done so for a while, the broad arrogance and bigotry I've witnessed from middle to low level Australians towards the Indonesians...who have a culture going back thousands of years, vastly more complex and developed than that of post 1788 (white) Australia, with a degree of day to day civility towards their fellow man that should make Australia (and NZ) weep..is appalling. Its pleasant to live in a country where there is very little violent crime.
Downer, too sweeps into Jakarta from time to time like some sort of self important Sahib as do a variety of lessor Federal functionaries, issuing demands and the like. Criticisms of this country flow from Canberra with regularity. Expat Australians I know here cringe with embarrassment every time Howard issues forth about this archipelago. There is a "who the hell does he think he's kidding attitude" and Indonesia's 250 million (including more practicing Christians than the whole population of Australia) tend to shrug it off. They know the pronouncements are largely irrelevant.
On the contrary I would suggest that Australia, under either Labor or the current lot have a sense of self importance beyond their real standing.
It might not be a PC thing to say, but often, from all quarters, you hear said here that there was an upside to the bombings: it scared off the Australian tourist. Tourism here is booming, almost at its highest levels ever, but noticeably the hole left by the refusal of Ockers to come, has been filled by Europeans, and that can't be bad.
-
-
I look forward to seeing Yes doing the complete Tales From Topographic Oceans in years to come
it was only a matter of time before the prog monster raised its bearded head again.
As Russell says elsewhere, perhaps we fought those punk wars for naught.....
-
Some of us lacked any talent for music (no, really, I tried). We had to write screeds of dodgy fan journalism to make up for it. That and jump around a lot
Well said RB. Some of us also simply formed bands so we could manage them..that seemed appropriately punk at the time too.
As Don Letts so aptly put it in his rather special Punk:Attitude doco from a year or two back...punk was simply a raised finger, no matter what your role or style.
That said, and I don't want to sound like a grumpy old f**ker but I guess I do, Tool have always seemed more in the not so grand US pomp rock tradition of the likes of Rush or Journey, than anything I thought I could identify with.
But its a joy to behold the reports of BDO. I've missed three now, one of which, sadly, was Kraftwerk (although some person recorded a large slab of trans Europe to my cell ansaphone which I listened to on the other side of he world)...its one of the things I miss about NZ...its a fantastic party and the after parties are often better.
-
This late into the game I'm bemused that there is any real question as to why Osama's crews attacked on 9/11. The blowback from 50 years of western, and in particular, US & UK intervention and interference in the ME was obvious.
Rightly or wrongly (and there is a great deal of wrong in the blanket assumption, there is plenty of blame to go around) the United States is blamed for much of the agony of the ME in recent decades.
The idea that "they too should suffer", and the strikes at the financial and military symbols of the entity that is deemed to have opened the door to such pain are obvious. The notion that western culture was a primary target is a non-starter...it may have been a convenient tag to add on afterwards but little more.
Nobody flew a plane into MTV's headquarters...
The bigger questions are why did it take so long, and when will it happen again (and from who...there are, courtesy of the events of the last five years, now dozens more players who would like to take a shot at the "great satan" at home)
-
Zwines could be pretty hard core - didn't go there many times - but on the whole most other venues seemed only very randomly violent, directly related to alcohol consumption. (hmm, or was I in cuckooland) Seems more kids have fewer inhibitions these days ?
the punk gigs from about 1978-82 were pretty full on, especially at the likes of Toy Love or Proud Scum at the Windsor, or anyone at the Reverb Room (which was the one in Symonds St...the former Liberty Stage), or, on blood splatterd a level of its own, XS Cafe. It was generally directed at outsiders though, or battles between bootboys and Polynesian or Maori gangs. The intellectual level on display with both those groupings left a little to be desired.
The police openly used the punk / band scene as a practice / dry run for the 81 tour too, with baton charges from Murrant's mob at several parties I was at. A sergeant at a party in Parnell, which was fairly orderly, but was charged anyway, told me at the time, as several of us pleaded for restraint, that they were trying out new techniques. That was the first time I saw long batons.
Zwines, which I went to probably close to 100 times in 78 and 79 had a danger factor all of its own...the disco kids in Babes which you had to pass on the way into it. Once there it was more or less a private members club...90% knew each other, were in bands, going out with band members or close friends with such. It wasn't that heavy.
-
Re violence: I think gigs are far less violent now. I actually can't recall ever seeing a fight at the King's Arms. We're lacking the two main contributing elements: boot boys and police. The boot boys were stupid and destructive and the cops weren't much better.
posted the below on my blog last year in a gig review thingy...thought it might be appropriate here...the was under worst gigs listing:
The Anti Violence Gig….XS Café, Auckland, 1980….somebody thought this would be a good idea….back, 26 years ago, the AK live scene was plagued with violence, mostly wrought by the skinhead and boot girl (who were often worse) element that tagged itself onto punk. I can’t recall who played, I know The Features and Shoes This High did, but it almost didn’t matter. It was perhaps the most violent thing I’ve ever seen. As skinheads beat anyone they could, including members of the bands who were dragged off stage, club owner, Bryan Staff, stood in the corner taking photographs (there is one inside the AK79 CD sleeve) saying there was little he could do but wait for the police. Before they arrived the Ponsonby gang, The King Cobras arrived and it moved into the street. The third gang, the Police then turned up and beat anyone still standing into a pulp.
-
James,
little do I care what Clinton said or thought. I don't and didn't agree with the man on Iraq and made that clear when I quoted Albright. Your wild swings of logic, fulminating against Clinton and making the assumption that he's my boy, do you no favours. Neither do silly phrases like the "hairy armpit brigade"That the CIA twisted the intelligence to suit is not really open to argument anymore, The CIA had no idea what was going on in Iraq after 1991, they had no agents or anyone else on the ground, but made it up to suit or took the word of the likes of Chalabi, often in the face of evidence that went against it...such as dismissing the information from series of connected Iraqi defectors in the mid nineties. After GWB was appointed Tenet made in very clear to his senior operatives, in a series of meetings, that the evidence was to be twisted to suit the policy, and Cheney said he wasn't interested in any intelligence that didn't fit the policy. This, to quote Tenet is now a slam dunk, and history has already recorded it as such.
They had no idea, they made things up, they twisted to suit...and US administrations both knew and encouraged such, the evidence to back that is both present and voluminous...end of story.
Incidentally, that the CIA twisted the intelligence to suit during the cold war is also not really open to question. They continually, over some 40 years overstated Soviet military strength. We know that now both from Soviet records and reports of those supplying the evidence. They do not and never have "understated"...twisting the evidence to suit policy is quite a tradition.
Dafour / Sudan... I could've sworn that both NGOs and UN agencies have raised any almighty noise over both in recent years, as have famous lefties like Geldof, Sarendon and others, and there has been quite a public noise in Europe. Certainly, and demonstrably, the "lefty" media like The Guardian have been pushing it for years, usually to deaf governmental ears. Your argument there is a non starter.
James, i have to be honest, I do admire your ability to rant in the face of overwhelmingly contrary evidence, to blame all the woes on your beloved leftist global conspiracy, to ignore and half state when it suits. I admire your ability to feel good about many of the things you've posted, even if the evidence for them is often weak.....my understanding from a friend who has just returned after a six month contract doing electrical work in Afghanistan, is that things are little better for women and there are few schools for them. I guess I'd rather believe him that looped Newsmax themes.
And I even admire admire your ability to trust without asking questions.
Perhaps you need to take a step back from your lefty / righty obsessions though. Your need to compartmentalise and attack your despised left clouds pretty much all your arguments and assumptions.
That said, being neither a Democrat or a Republican, I don't think there are many left any more yourself excluded of course, who would be, to use a word introduced by yourself, batty enough to argue that GWB has not left the word in a far worse state than it was in 2000. It feels that way to me and I hate the fact that future generations will have to deal with worse because of this man and blind supporters like yourself.
I have to go now, my North Korean flag needs ironing......
-
I guess it depends what you mean by 'the moneyed few'. With [insert big number here]% of the world without any kind of phone at all, that's pretty comfortable bet-hedging.
I guess I'm really responding to the "everyone" will want one theory thats been touted. Its simply not true. I think the 1% (of the phone market...thats a massive number), based on the pricing, the cingular tie, the name (or lack of..how long is that court case gonna last?), and, from what I read, the closed box nature of the device, is a tough call.
Really, MP3 player penetration and / or Mac usage in any territory is of little relevance, this is primarily a phone, and on that it stands or falls. And making it networkable is largely irrelevant. It has to be a phone that plays MP3s well, not the other way around, to make any real dent.
MP3 player / iPod & your niece...my daughter came home from school before Xmas and asked if she could get a Zen, as it was the current device denoting cool at her school. It all depends where you are.
That said, I want one too.....
-
James,
try reading State of War, or A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies, or a swag of other documents and reports including your own Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq. Your assertion:he intelligence that the US, the UK, France, Russia, Egypt, Israel and Jordon had on active WMD programs turned out to be inaccurate. Everyone seems to forget that every intelligence service in the world that had any interest in Iraq believed that Hussein had WMDs and or WMD programs
is simply not true, despite the number of times its repeated like a liturgy by the warbloggers. The European (including the UK) intel was largely based on the half baked nonsense being feed from the CIA, which we now know they knew to be untrue. Jordan repeatedly warned there was no evidence to support WMDs, as did Russia and the Germans warned the CIA and the State Dept that the asset they had could not be relied on...and indeed was mad...before he was quoted not only by Powell by by Bush.
Blix was Cousteau? No, actually he was right.... 1441 was an attempt by the UN to try to manouver a US Government determined come hell or high water to invade regardless, and touted as such at the time. Sadly, half a million lives later, it didn't work...
As Darryl says, its no surprise that Rupert Murdoch supports Bush's blowup...of course he would...what's Fox's position? NY Post? surprise, surprise
I have to admit James, you and your ilk do a surprising good job attempting to justify the unjustifiable, the chaos, mayhem and death that you ultimately have to take full responsibility for...its just not good enough. Every time a bomb goes off in Baghdad you need to understand that you did that. The blood is on your hands.
The opening of Pandora's box is now justified by the likes of reporting by a "guy in Anbar province" who blogs. Not the same guy who was on Fox just after the invasion taking the reporters on the tour of the 1 Sq Mile WMD factory that the CIA satellites had missed, was he? Like that report, your spinning is nonsense.
Outside the hard right the acceptance is that there were no WMDS, there was no evidence for such, and any evidence touted was either manufactured or twisted. And the leaders that sent to troops over the border did so in that full knowledge. Repeating otherwise over and over, does not make it so.