Posts by Islander

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  • Up Front: Also, The Rain Isn't Gone,

    I have to upgrade my lenses relatively frequently: I love the part where the optician says 'Is this one better? Or this one?"
    After looking through many very slightly different lenses for 10 minutes, I'm crosseyed & couldnt pick a difference if the things were different colours & sxreaming Pick me!
    I also need an opthalmologist's consult (because of the real possibility of retinal detachment)- and I uncheerfully go to those - because without sight, I am nothing.
    But dentists... I havent been to one for over a decade, & my teeth look terrible, and two have broken in half (both had been root-canalled - well, almost all my molars have been rootcanalled- so that doesnt matter.) As long as I can still chew and they dont ache much, I'll keep on avoiding dentists.
    It's not stupidity - it is sheer terror. And the fact that I have an ability to replay anything that terrifies me *exactly* in my head. Takes the power of bad whisky to occlude the memory...
    My hearing is poifect-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Cracker: Of Tweets and Twats,

    Wow! Anyone with those qualities (whanaukataka, reciprocity, and grudgeholding) is kin as far as I am concerned (hides recipebook.)

    Anybody remember the writings of a very strange person called Grey Owl? There were porcupines involved I think...

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Cracker: Of Tweets and Twats,

    I've never lived in Canada, and it's such a vast country, that there's no way I can make generalisations about the dozen or so visits I've made there -except, I feel way easier there than I do in the USA (or England for that matter.) Still a foreigner, but most of the body language is...understandable. The rising 'eh?' at the end of sentences is - homelike.

    Unlike Joe Wylie, I've never had the pleasure of meeting Canadian porcupines, but would be on my best manners if I ever did (i.e not bringing out my infinite recipe book...)

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Cracker: Of Tweets and Twats,

    dyan campbell - when I was tobacco-picking in Motueka a *looong* time ago, we (Maori/mongrels) used to sing a wee song

    "I'm not a Coconut
    I'm a Maori-"

    (it went on from then, you understand.)

    We - the tobacco-pickers- were majorly Maori/Cook Islanders/bitsas - not a lot of NZ Pakeha (althought quite a few travelling-through Ozzies & such.)

    The point?

    Some things/names belong to a paticular place& time: like Eskimo pies or Eskimo lollies - they belong to here, not to Alaska/Greenland/Canada (because those people/places eschew the word 'eskimo'.)

    My mother, who is quarter-Maori - if you want to fraction out blood - which we dont - was greeted by her future English sister-in-laws as
    "O, she's got a touch of the tarbrush but isnt her hair lovely!" (It was: a deep auburn.)

    We were raised to be knowledgable & extremely proud of all our ancestors - Scots, Kai Tahu, English- and to stare down idiot racists
    (or smack em down if that failed.)

    I am proud of my stare to this minute-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Hard News: Veitch,

    mark taslov, there is already state-provided aid for people who cannot afford lawyers off their own bat - it's caled legal aid.

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Hard News: Veitch,

    Logan O'Callahan- I strongly suggest - taking into account your 'one of the most heavily governed"
    that the medical profession is at least - but probably more- as heavily governed?

    "There is simply no need for juries."

    Get a grip mate. I'd like to see an office liken that of the Continental examining magistrate here, but I'd hate to see the jury system disestablished - simply because - however political/warped/attempts-at-bias the selection procedure can be skewed by- it IS a jury of one's peers. (Which is why I really dislike mark taslov's views.)

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Cracker: Of Tweets and Twats,

    giovanni - read "Too Loud A Solitude"?- not yet! (but noted for near future consumption.)
    Stephen J- thank you for that bookmark (and I have.) I was saving Uncle B & his monk' wagon companions - but, as the old man's death becomes less painful (he died of emphysema at 80 - having started smoking ciggies as an 8yrold), I am thinking he'd like to know we remembered - stuff.

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Cracker: Of Tweets and Twats,

    Stephen J - my late uncle B was not a literary type (he was a roadworker, fisher, pighunter, and a damn good man) but he once asked me to get him a copy of 'that gargantuan thing?"

    I did (after working the title out) - and he knew where to look for the perfect bumwiper page/s. They'd been discussing it on the local county council dumprun (yep, true) apparently - which gave me a whole new appreciation of what roadies may be discussing at any time...

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Hard News: Veitch,

    (Thanks for that FletcherB!)

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Speaker: Copyright Must Change,

    Am doing Mark H- will continue!

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

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