Posts by dyan campbell
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Dyan C - the only city in the world (havent gone to many, mind) that I felt instantly at home in - aside from Dunedin (where I should feel at home in, given the considerable whanau connections!)- was Vancouver.
I'm glad you liked it, Islander - Vancouver is a very nice place to be (even the CBD) but mostly for things that are not the city at all - forest, beaches, mountain views (with snow the Lions really do look like Lions). Being able to watch sea otters play on rocks, eagles swooping around and raccoons ambling around is very appealing, especially right downtown in a big city.
Mind you, Vancouver is not without its horrors - the number of homeless people jumped (in 15 years) from under 100 to somewhere between 15 and 17,000 - which is a lot of people to be begging in the streets and sleeping rough.
This was maybe the most distressing change I found, after many years absence. Despite being on holiday there I spent a good chunk of my time at the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, trying to find some answer as to why there should be such a dramatic rise in homelessness - which in turn has caused a new callousness in Vancouverites that I found hugely disturbing.
I am told the main causes of homelessness is completely different now than they were when I lived there. 25 years ago the few people who lived on the streets were addicts or alcoholics, and were literally on a first name basis with the outreach workers who would care for them. These days the outreach workers tell me the addicts/winos comprise less than 15% of the homeless, who are now mostly mentally ill patients who are (apparently) able bodied, but unable to function. BC closed all facilities for mental patients a while ago, and this move coincided with a massive rise in real estate and rental prices - so all those marginal people who once had places to live now live out of dumpsters and in doorways. And even further to that, all the marginal people from colder provinces (i.e. the rest of Canada) flock to the west coast, as it is easier to live on the margins there than it is in elsewhere.
Uh, don't mean to rant, but it really disturbed me last couple of visits. But I do love the place myself - I was thrilled to read (NZ born WWII heroine) Nancy Wake's account of visiting and falling in love with Vancouver, so many years ago - in the early 1930s I think. She danced on the rooftop at the Hotel Vancouver exactly where I did some 50 years later.
Hey, Islander - how long have your whanau been there? I probably know some of them.
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after selected passate
Um, passage.
Slinking off in tech/typing disgrace now.
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so the bit before the quoted passage looks like this:
Er, apologies Luke, I screwed that up by activating the damn thing with my example. It should look like this but just imagine the word "quote" instead of "goat"
Before selected passage:
<goat>
after selected passate
</goat>
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In reality, there is a spectrum of land uses that ranges from the truly public to the purely private. Cafes and bars form a vitally important part of the "third space", and as the phrase "public house" indicates, in many cultures they are considered to be as important a public facility as a park or square. In fact, the ground floor of a building that houses a popular and accessible cafe can be much more relevant and useful as a sociable public space than a poorly designed and sited park.
Agreed, but this only works when the grounds of the pubs or cafes include green space, somewhere for kids to play and public art installations.
I'm from Vancouver and I understand that developers there are held to a strict code in the downtown area that requires them to provide for all of the above - plus public drinking water fountains. They are only required to have drinking fountains for people, but many have one fountain at people level and a corresponding one at dog level, which I thought was a nice touch for thirsty city dogs.
The waterfront in downtown Vancouver has the advantage of being next to a huge park, but on the seawall itself there are features that could be fitted into Auckland's waterfront.
This fountain is like a giant sprinkler system for kids, and is a nice spot for people with kids to have a beer or a coffee but are able to watch their kids play.
The seawall is about 10km long and the park end is like this
and the CBD end look like this
Another useful feature along the seawall was the use of specific paths (at slightly different levels) for pedestrians and those on rollerblades, bikes or skateboards. Much safer and more relaxing for all concerned, when compared to the bruising experience you have along Mission Bay, where the pedestrians and wheeled folks are only separated by a painted line.
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By the way, how do you get other people's quotes to be in grey text with that groovy little pinstripe alongside?
Like that?
After loging in (within the comments box) - before the passage you want to appear as quotes
1) type this symbol: <
2) then type the actual word: quote
3) close with the corresponding symbol >
so the bit before the quoted passage looks like this:Then:
4) using the edit function, clip and paste the post you want to appear as a quote, and at the end of the passage
5) type the symbol <
6) then the keystroke /
7) the word: quote
8) then close with >so the bit after the quoted passage looks like
.
Hope this helps. It was the posting links thing that got me (thanks Deborah!).
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Thanks, Russell, for the bulletin about Chris. I was extremely distressed to read the SST story
Yes, me too - thanks for the bulletin and I was also very distressed to hear about Chris. Best wishes to Barbara & family.
I understand things are a bit more hopeful than was suggested in the Sunday Star Times' front-page story
My husband Paul is a physiotherapist and has done quite a bit of work with stroke patients, and while not an expert on brain injury, he was familiar enough with them to be very dubious about this report, saying no one can really predict the outcome of a stroke - many people recover very well indeed.
My first thought when I read the article was that someone has misinterpreted what the hospital staff told them, because it's very doubtful any doctor would make a prediction about recovery from a brain injury this soon.
Paul says he has seen people 80 years old make excellent recoveries after a stroke - and for someone nearly 25 years younger the prognosis is that much better.
Best wishes to Chris and the Ward-Knox family.
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Do's he still wear electric socks?
I'm afraid they only survived a decade or so beyond the war, but I they got quite a lot of use during skiing, skating and hunting seasons.
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My dad survied 2 plane crashes, smoked for more than 70 of his 86 years and recently survived typhoid. This in no way means that plane crashes, smoking or typhoid are in any way safe - it just means that statistically speaking he is one lucky guy.
Or unlucky, in the sense that he was in two plane crashes. How unlikely is that!?
During WWII as an RCAF navigator it was pretty bloody likely, actually. The first crash was in Lachine (Canada) during training, and no one was hurt - though the plane crashed in freezing cold woods miles from anything - they lost their wings crashing through trees, and my dad drew the straw to stay with the wreckage while the other men walked out to get help. The worst part of that night was freezing despite the flight suit and sheepskin jacket, boots and electric socks.
The second crash was in Fulford, England and they crashed with full fuel tanks and a full payload of bombs - and all survived, all were injured. My dad was burned, but again lucky - only on the chin, neck and chest, 2nd degree in the worst parts, 1st degree for the most. He was in hospital 3 months and the techniques of the great Archie McIndoe (from Dunedin!) were responsible for restoring his skin - he had only the faintest scars on his neck, where the grafts were placed. The patients called McIndoe "The Chief" and said he used to make them laugh by barking at the junior surgeons, then winking at the men as the junior surgeons scurried around looking terrified.
A woman saved his life - I forget her name - but it was an English RAF ambulance driver who pulled him out (he was the last one out just before it blew sky high) and his first words were "Please don't tell my mother". Her bravery got her a mention in dispatches. I should really remember her name, as she also won a medal for getting him out.
He still gets a disability pension for injuries, from the RCAF but not for burns - he damn near dislocated his neck (wires from the headset) scrambling though the pilot's hatch.
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Dyan:
My third son was born at 37 weeks and he needed no extra care except for waiting for a few days for his jaundice to subside through feedings. 38 weeks is really not premature.Anecdotal evidence is meaningless: this isn't just a saying in science, it's a statement of fact. So you had a premature baby who was lucky enough to be well developed. This is not relevant to the discussion we are having. My dad survied 2 plane crashes, smoked for more than 70 of his 86 years and recently survived typhoid. This in no way means that plane crashes, smoking or typhoid are in any way safe - it just means that statistically speaking he is one lucky guy.
Abortion is absolutely fine from a medical, moral and ethical point of view. And in most countries it is also fine from a legal point of view. The intrusion of superstition and/or religion into those medical, moral, ethical and legal spheres is deeply offensive to those of us who do not find superstition or religion relevant. I don't think the catholics have any more moral relevance than devotees of voodoo or wicca. It's fine with me if raelians are waiting to be raptured to outer space. But where these people start demanding to have their personal beliefs considered relevant in a medical, legal or ethical context in a way that affects other people and their freedom, I am deeply offended.
For practical or ceremonial purposes, yes, I would respect the idea that a burial ground be left intact, or a taniwha not be disturbed, if there is somewhere or some way other that can be found. But the point at which these beliefs and the people who hold them try to dictate what happens in terms of other people's physical health, then of course they are going to be dismissed as irrelevant, This is why abortion is legal and available, and why creationism is not taught along with evolution.
I will comment back to B Jones though.
What if instead of abortion we swapped it for infanticide?Why would we do that? An infant can survive without the use of another person's body, a foetus can't.
If the infant in question needs their father's kidney, liver or bone marrow to survive they have no legal or moral right to demand that biological father hand over the use of his body to an infant. I would be horrified to see anyone's rights extend to the use of another individual's body, against the donors wishes.
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Sidestepping to swine flu for a moment. I was talking to someone who knows about these things who reckons it is about to escalate here rapidly. 700 cases in Melbourne suddenly and schools closed.
Yes, I have friends who know a thing of two about epidemiology, and they're terribly scared of this pandemic too. I hear H1N1 (as it is really a mosaic of porcine, avian and human viruses and not a swine flu at all) is about to be declared a Level 6 Pandemic Alert by the WHO.
The real problem they anticipate is really a cluster of problems - one of the biggest being the fact that there is no herd immunity to this disease. So where a conventional virus tends to pop up and fizzle out in communities, this one will spread exponentially, as there are no pockets of population (except perhaps those over 60 years of age) who have anything resembling immunity. And one of the problems that poses is the overload on ICU wards in developed countries, and as hospitals become swamped with cases we will see a sharp rise in mortality rate. This is why public health agencies are so anxious than this not spread so quickly - they are trying to buy us some time for the vaccine to be developed.