Posts by George Darroch
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Some wonderful stories here. I've enjoyed it.
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When Victoria wanted to close the Gender and Women’s Studies programme last year, the Students’ assn helped us fight it. We lost but at least we had resources to challenge the decision.
Yes, quite so. There are some broader, serious questions about the role of a university, which are the site of an ideological struggle. Students associations haven't been the sole site of that conflict, but they have contributed.
I think that Keith's argument is that this has been marginal to the experience of the populations they are supposed to engage. To the extent that any organisation's activities are meaningless to its members, the organisation can be seen to be a failure.
Does this mean that those engaged with the university (on either side) don't understand society? Perhaps. I'm disturbed by it all, but I can't make out what or how I think things should look like.
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At the worse of times, I don’t even have the words to describe this shit. Actually, sure I do: They lick piss.
Jesus fuck.
Public Address takes its responsibilities seriously. If you'd like to make a formal complaint to the Blogging Standards Authority... Fuckknuckles, cock and piss, balls.
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the assets like a privately owned student union building (if there are any?) will be nationalised, and overseen by the publicly owned institutions.
AUSA actually owned a lot of the buildings on campus. However, being a voluntary union, the University of Auckland effectively controlled our finances. We came to an arrangement. It's an interesting position to be in - a bunch of undergrads suddenly in charge of millions of dollars of assets. We mostly took the advice of our lawyer and the union's general manager. I didn't follow it closely afterwards, so I couldn't tell you what the legal structure is now.
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There’s a lot of dereliction in the duties of students associations. I’ve been at the Tamaki campus of Auckland Uni the last couple of months (postgrad, health sciences). Apart from the very occasional Craccum that makes it out here, there’s absolutely nothing that would give anyone any idea that the students association AUSA or PGSA exists. I’ve been an officer of AUSA*, and involved deeply in VUWSA and other student campaigning over the years. But I have to concede Keith’s point – they’ve failed to demonstrate themselves to the average student. There are complaints that people just want degrees, and I think this is fair. I just want a high quality education, my plate is too full for further involvement. But this is the reality, and wishing otherwise is not going to change things. The next few years will a time for reinvention, before Labour gives them back something they can work with. Perhaps students can regain their role as the conscience and critics of society, instead of the NGOs and think tanks that now have that position. But they’ll need to do it themselves.
*(Environmental Affairs, 2003, although I dropped it mid-year to move to Wellington and gave it to my co-officer, Joseph Randall, who was/is wonderful)
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If we (the non-religious) understand the function of religions as primarily a form of social organisation, then the proscriptions on who you mash your genitals with make a lot more sense. Having babies and social orders are important things. Particularly if you're a bunch of farmers in a desert 3000 years ago.
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In the context of comments about the consistent credulity of court reporters (breathlessly repeating police allegations as fact), it's worth dropping this link Brooke Gladstone's 'The Influencing Machine'. A brilliant exposition on media control, illustrated in comic form.
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STV is generally considered a proportional voting system.
Incorrectly.
It’s a preferential system, and its strength is that is delivers the most-preferred/least-unpreferred candidate in an electorate a victory. In a multi-member electorate, you get the most preferred candidates. (However, given NZ’s political environment, and those driving for change, I think we’d almost certainly get single member electorates).
It is not however a proportional system. A party can recieve a great proportion of votes, but because of preferences; both first, and second and third etc, and directed preference flows (political horse-trading), not recieve a single seat in the house. Between 1949 and 2010, not a single member of a third party sat in the lower house, despite third parties regularly attaining 5-12% of the vote in that time.
It’s closest to First Past the Post in its effects.
ETA: between 1949 and 2010 in Australia.
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I love it how your post wasn’t about porn to start with, but now it is.
It did take 16 pages. Mind you, that's not far, even for a short novella.
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I'm not contributing much here, but that's mainly because Lucy is saying things far better than I could. The insouciance is starting to get to me.