Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: The silence of the public square, in reply to Judi Lapsley Miller,
You mean John Voldemort Key?
Yeah, because someone who (whether you like it or not) is still Prime Minister after not one but two free, fair and credible general elections is exactly like a fictional mass murderer.
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Hard News: The silence of the public square, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
Seems like a dream set-up for Internet/Mana. There are zero votes to be won from that electorate and good media coverage to be won by getting thrown out for failing to observe an utterly pointless rule like not mentioning the PM’s name.
So, don't like the ground rules don't fucking go and tell anyone who cares to listen precisely why. I've never really brought into "any publicity is good publicity, long as they spell your name right" but I don't the upside in, not to put too fine a point on it, trolling to get thrown out sounds more like a Lindsay Lohan-ish cry for help (and attention) than serious politics. But hey, whatevers...
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Let’s not scorn the value of an actual discussion about policy, or of voters being able to ask questions and be heard. But it’s not hard to envisage the policing of voters’ responses on pain of ejection going horribly wrong.
To be fair, Russell, nor is it hard to envisage the utterly worthlessness to anyone besides the media of a meeting degenerating into an audience stuffed with rentahacks turning the whole thing into a screechy circus. I think Ryan's intentions were good, but the execution is just begging for the kind of "well, what do you expect from Donkey's tame bitch" nonsense I've seen more than enough of elsewhere.
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Hard News: The crybaby philosopher, in reply to Michael J. Parry,
However that is a terrible statement. What the hell does a “New Zealander” look and sound like to you because to me it sounds and looks like anybody from New Zealand. Dismissing someone over their looks and sounds is a bigger mugs game than trying to defend the indefensible.
Thanks, Michael. You said it better (and more politely) than I was going to.
But I would note the irony, which seems to have escaped Tom, that our intellectual and cultural life has been vastly enriched by people who looked and sounded NOTHING like "New Zealanders" (whatever the hell that means) and an awful lot like refugees from Europe with their weird accents, funny clothes and exotic ways.
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Hard News: The crybaby philosopher, in reply to MxDEJ,
but surely the better way to oppose him is to accept his challenge to be civilised, rather than being a dick about it?
No -- I take serious people making serious (and preferably fact-based) arguments seriously, even if I vehemently disagree with their conclusions. Because I don't have any monopoly on wisdom and insight, and who knows? They might even change my mind or at least nuance my position a bit, which are all very good things.
But trying to rationally engage with the fundamentally irrational and/or unwilling to take good faith criticism without a meltdown? Sorry, don't have the time or the energy for that anymore.
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"They finally let you see Scarlett Johansson naked and they make it creepy."
Sounds like a pretty accurate precis of Under The Skin, and I loved every glacially elegant frame it. Take a vegan you can't stand, and enjoy the show.
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Hard News: Te Reo Māori in schools:…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
That’s a bit unnecessary, Craig. The world is full of languages and you’re never going to learn any more than a handful of them, no matter how hard you try.
True -- but making an effort to start the day with "good morning", end it with "good night" and filling the interval with a lot of "please and thank you" in the local tongue(s) is a relatively simple exercise in practical diplomacy. It's the small pleasantries that get people through the day the whole world over. :)
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Not everyone needs to be able to converse fluently and, indeed, to gain that ability as an adult is a considerable achievement. (My Media Take co-host Toi Iti and his wife Tipare took a year off their jobs to take a full-immersion course to get themselves to the level of their kura-educated children.)
No, but damn it... being able to manage the basics without committing linguistic GBH -- is it really that hard to manage? I was faintly embarrassed traveling through Europe a couple of years back and finding most people just found it easier to conduct a fairly simple English conversation than try and make something out of my very basic German, and basically non-existent phrasebook Dutch, Danish and Swedish.
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Hard News: Auckland's future: Keep calm,…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Government, local and central, should always be subject to robust media scrutiny, but Bernard [Orsman]’s reporting in the Herald really seems to have crossed the line into being actively destructive of the city’s interests.
Quite. And, sure, who the hell likes having their rates hiked and thinks their local government getting slap-happy with the overdraft is a good idea? Nobody I know. But we've all read The Story of The Little Shepherd Boy who Cried Wolf, right?
The really dangerous thing about trying to beat up a financial crisis that doesn't exist is we're not having a grown-up and reality-based debate about the hard calls and genuine risks down the road. And they are there.
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If the GCSB wants to read my spam, they have my commiserations in advance.