Posts by 81stcolumn
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Altogether now -
You can be active with the activists or sleeping with the sleepers while you're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
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I/O How old are you ? A good number of the people I interact with at SPARC are easily over 40.......
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I probably know a bit more about this than I have previously owned up to.
On media based health interventions.
I remember when an earnest PhD student called Mike Startup (I think) proposed this in the 1990”s. I was there and I snorted with laughter at the thought. I did point out that the context needed to be right (that the cartoons employed would look lame if not done properly). Nearly 15 years later it becomes clear that there is a growing body of evidence that done in the right way, media based interventions can work - certainly with respect to eating habits. I am quietly hoping that SPARC have adopted the same model. I could post at length on this, but would prefer to be asked to do so first and allowed some time to check a few facts and research first.
As for SPARC: I love and hate SPARC in equal measure but to be honest the one thing they don’t need right now is less money. I’ve seen the offices and they ain’t that flash once you get past the front desk. They have a few people whom I will not name who work damn hard trying to do sometimes the job of three or four people (occasionally not that well as a result). Their ability to engage resources outside of the Wellington ring is sometimes quite shocking, their lack of expertise in a number of areas is only too apparent. But these issues are not going to be solved with a smaller budget. In the same speech JK managed to smear them over pay…(How much do you earn John ?). Cowardly and unnecessary the speech outlined a plan that was as usual was big on rhetoric, but short on detail and real implementation. I loved the line about taking from anti – obesity and giving to sport (How about you stop pouring cash into a professional sport like Union instead). In fact I wish that JK would just STFU on this until he actually gets properly briefed.
The continued politicisation of the Sport Health agenda by both Labour and National is reaching the point of doing great harm (Only athletes in the top 16 get to go to Beijing – tell me that isn’t about medals and certainly about short term returns). There is also a vicious short sightedness in the sort of research that is being funded and recognised. This is caused almost entirely by researchers and civil servants responding to the accumulated ignorance and lack of vision from politicians who really don’t get it.
Backing away from keyboard before I put fingers through it………Rant Rant Rant apologies if this comes across as incoherent.
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I’m trying to get my head around this. The truckies come out to play:
i) And a fair few cars stay off the road …burning less gas.
ii) People get off busses and walk into town…burning less gas and walking is no bad thing of itself.
iii) The net speed of road haulage goes down and probably burns less gas and causes less road damage.
iv) We get to debate the place of road haulage in society.I suspect sympathy would evaporate if these dudes did this once too often (no bad thing either)…..should we get them to do this again ?
I’m off down the George to clear my head……… <big facetious wink>
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Paul -Thanks for the link, I read the follow up comments with interest. In my eyes accountability by measurement is the root of many evils; not least the way it has given politicians and media the whip.
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Well for most students including as measured by progress in reading literacy for Year 5, senior secondary literacy and NCEA progress.
Surely the dirty word here is measurable. Speaking as broad consumer of secondary product the students I see have a limited skill set at which they are very good push many outside of this envelope and the cracks show quite quickly. My point is that schools teach to the exam (measurable) portion of the syllabus. In doing this many broader issues which we have taken for granted are being missed.
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But as a twentysomething friend of a friend said: "I'm here for the five quid Es!"
Should have gone to Chatham for them......
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Now where's that wooden spoon.......
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I was thinking of whining about how this post is already at four pages of comments, while some of my more considered pieces languish with far fewer..
Heh - I love what you write and always take the time to read it. But the one on the 26th did take me a little while to get....by which time the little one has usually instantiated another cycle of activity.
As far as the issue of light smacking goes, well let 'em have what they want...but on the condition that those who wish to administer such forms of "correction" be trained and licensed to do so based on the considerable body of evidence there exists on how not to do it. To qualify in Applied Behaviour Management takes about erm seven years.
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We talk and talk until my head explodes
I turn on the news and my body froze
These braying sheep on my TV screen
Make this boy shout, make this boy scream
Going underground, I'm going underground
I'm going underground, I'm going undergroundOooh the beer swilling socialism of it all....anyone remember the the Cappuccino Kid ?
Either way...
The place I love is a million miles away...
RB's column in the listener was in a strange way one of the reasons why I chose NZ over Canada.....(Long story)
No regrets though