Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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__ Seems to me that that is misleading the court, if the judge is so inclined (I would be, but that's me). Also, IMHO, Dame Susan would be justified in taking Grieve to the Law Society for "conduct unbecoming". Graeme?__
Grieve is claiming to know nothing and that it was Veitch's father who solicited the references.
QC's command a pretty penny for doing a good job, and that normally extends to extensive oversight of anybody doing anything to do with a trial.
If the above is true then Grieve's a piss poor QC.
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I've read the executive summary report (which was sent to me as, wearing my elected rep hat, I am on a Community Board, the best in the city, Eden Albert).
Speaking as a private citizen, the Local Councils are kind of a Community Board 'supersized' so that it represents an entire region e.g. Auckland City. They will operate in a similar manner to current CBs, except the populace will have less represenation.
There is no referendum on this matter. It's up to the Government of the day as to what it choses to do with the recommendations. Usually they shelve them, but unfortunately for this government they have the business roundtable, the Employers and Manufactuers Assoc. and the Transport (Roads Everywhere) Assoc. all breathing down their necks. Let's remember, it was these kind folks that *wanted* this report.
Still speaking as a private citizen, the 'savings' are well, laughable. 2.5% savings. Is that all? At that rate I'm not interested in the pain of change. I would be at say 7-10% range, but anything below that and transaction costs (redundancies, increase in pay, new systems etc) outweigh any savings. Expect the Business Inc to magically inflate that 2.5%.
The report ignores, conveniently, the very real work going on in terms of the region starting to work together; the Regional Growth Forum, the One Plan strategy, regional agreement around public transport and the need to pay for it from fuel tax. Finally, local authorities are starting to behave nicely with each other as they've realised they can go further co-operating than bickering.
It's no big stretch to get agreement on one rates bill for example, and probably makes good sense to combine all treasuries into one subsidary organisation that serves all councils. Other areas of obvious co-operation will come to the fore over time.
Speaking still as private citizen, I'm underwhelmed by the report. All that for 2.5%? I'm off to get a latte.
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Maybe, just maybe, if people were more interested in history than fantasy then we might not be in this mess.
Fantasy is always more fun than boring old history. The more conservative, the more dull and dim witted, the more tory they are, the weirder their fantasy lives are.
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Great piece, and yes, there is a lamentation to be held over the loss of the physical nature of newspapers.
But, in the end, the fucken asses at Granny Herald dug their own fucken grave and I'll gladly pay to give the last shove. That paper was orientated to the one small demographic - Anthony Riley, and fuck anyone else, or everyone else was reduced to being amusing side shows in the lifestyle section.
Well, even Mr Riley has to die sometimes, and what do you know... there's a void out there - Granny has not only lost me, but virutally anyone with a brain, and that's a fair whack of us, who, most pointedly, are NOT mini-Anthony Rileys, nor could ever want to be.
In saying this I'm aware that I'm performing a lament of my own here. It's a lament for what Granny could have been, and a lament for the immenent loss of an institution, but in performing that lament, I also recognise that, well, things change.
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no matter how much I tried to communicate this, and more - the wondrous things I saw - I was always left with the feeling that I was a Martian talking incomprehensible gibberish.
Maybe they were just bored. ;)
I speak as someone who did the same thing in two different countries, so I'm not being snarky. I just think most people, wherever they are, aren't that interested in other people's experiences unless they have a reason to be, really.
Gosh, that sounds cynical.
Could be that they were bored, but I didn't get the impression that they were. It was more that it was a case of 'he's talking Martian so smile and nod politely' rather than 'oh this is boring'.
They couldn't locate in their frame of reference anything similar to their experience, so of course anything I said was gibberish.
Which made me eternally grateful for having learnt French in Canada to a reasonably high level. I distinctly remember one day learning Quebecois proverbs; one was something along the lines of falling flat on your face, but the geographical locators for that saying was different (unfortunately I can't remember), however the net effect of the saying was the same.
(Digression: an interesting proverb image was the saying tu pedale dans le choucroute - you peddle in the sourkraut - translation - you're digging a hole for yourself)
In other words I learnt that there are different ways of seeing the world.
Had I spoken to bilingual speakers, my 'gibberish' would have probably made sense, and they probably would become bored.
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Thank-you for an all too familiar reading of the 'arriving home / feeling dislocated' genre.
I suspect that this feeling is common to all those who lived overseas (as opposed to simply doing the OE). I lived in Canada for six years.
I came home, not for work, but for family reasons; they wanted me back.
My horizons perceptibly shrunk from a grand 180 degree horizon view to a narrow band of view provided by Unity Books and the lately missed Magazino. The shrinkage in the flow of ideas and concepts was shocking.
I learnt not to talk about my time overseas; it was another time, place and energy that I inhabited, and no matter how much I tried to communicate this, and more - the wondrous things I saw - I was always left with the feeling that I was a Martian talking incomprehensible gibberish.
I was terribly depressed for several years after coming back. Such a shock and no-one talked about it.
I learnt to focus on the things that Aotearoa does so well - good food, wine, beaches, bush, and to encourage where I could the flowering of 'culture'; as I said to a stall holder in the weekend at the AK09 Sing Sing festival event - it's actually rare to see a t-shirt with the word Aotearoa on it without the appending words 'New Zealand'.
The rhetoric about the brain drain is insulting and reflective of people who can't see beyond their small small world; I've got a brain and I stayed.
I think the discourse around people leaving/coming back (outside of the traditional OE) needs to be enlarged, celebrated, and marked; there is a rich vein of talent and ideas in people who come back after being overseas for a substantial period of time that needs to be tapped.
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I note that we don't yet have a Disability Act, let alone a Diffability one. I do like the idea of that word but is it just me or does it risk sounding like a lisp?
I tried doing a lisping sound, but it is difficult. It's you methinks.
Agree, although we have some way to go to make a more compelling case than "interesting" for some of our harder-nosed decision-makers. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on that, Christopher.
The EEO did a good education campaign in mid/late 90s about the business case for diversity in the workforce. Other than that - I'm going to have a wee think about this...
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I use the graphics card metaphor: the rest of us are wandering around with the latest Nvidia 3D graphics in our heads. ASD people are doing it all on the CPU. Life is a resource hog.
Word. And sometimes the CPU is last century's model.
And thanks for finding the word diffabled. That's what I am. That's what my two brothers are. Diffabled. :) You've made my day. Thanks.
I agree with all who've said that a) being diffabled is a little part of me but a big part sometimes b) that the diffabled community mirrors the abled community in all it's glorious wonderous diversity
For my part, most people are GREAT when they realise I wear HA's (hearing aids). I remember often the kindness of a political opponent who, in a meeting, deliberately and with care asked if I could hear ok - it was a big meeting. That he took the time to check and care made me feel great.
Perhaps I'm biased, but I think all ASD lives are worth living. Not everyone will think that way. But even then, there's a huge societal risk in losing ASD.
Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol, is Asperger syndrome. If he wasn't, he might not have been moved to create a rules-based protocol for reciprocal relationships (most of us don't consciously form rules, we just muddle through). It would be a serious bummer if we lost those people. We need systematising nerds.
We certainly do need them. Diversity is key, and the different skills, abilities and wonderous natures of different people makes for an interesting world.
Last night I was thinking that perhaps the Disabilities Act could be re-conceptualised as the Diffabilities Act, and a concept created where there is a continuim of abilities, and some provision is made for those at the more constrained end who need pragmatic assistance to express their abilities, and a little less provision for those less constrained, all the way up to the fully able end where there is no provision.
You'd be looking at diffabilities on an abilities scale which to my mind seems to place emphasis on ability not the absence of ability.
Just a thought. But I'm game to lobby to rename the Disabilities Act the Diffabilities Act.
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disabled. I hate that word. I HATE it.
Christopher, please, what word do I use instead? Not being snarky just a pure honest question because damned if I can find a word that describes er you know ... that hasn't been made derogatory. I end up with that word because it feels accurate without being as derogatory as some others.
Granted if I'm describing deafness then deaf is just fine. But what if I'm referring to one of several possibilities?Thanks for asking Bart.
Use differently abled instead. 'Dis' - abled removes the person to whom you are applying the label from society. 'Dis' indicates a lack of ability, which is not true of course. And lord knows that 'ability' is critical in our society, culture - it says in part, who we are.
I myself have a ton of abilities, and I suspect that even the most 'disabled' person, mute and incoherent, unable to move except in basic ways, has abilites - by being that person make us think, and trust me, that's an ability. Our abilities are there - they are just different.
So, I'm differently abled.
As for deafness, I prefer hard of hearing. I'm not Deaf as my loss is moderate to severe and I have some residual hearing, which permits me to function in a hearing world - to a degree. But functioning in a hearing world, even with hearing aids, taxes my mental resources so it's exhausting sometimes. Smiling and nodding goes a loooooong way sometimes.
Again, thank you for asking Bart, it's appreciated.
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Ummm well, there's plenty (well, ok, one) of NYTimes stories on how the young thought of the idea and in tweeter style put it into plan. The fags in the clubs - they got political after they realised they'd been snookered by the Mormons . So they thought, let's have a Day without yada yada.
From what I understand the reasons were varied; people needed the money; they weren't out at work; they couldn't do it because they didn't have the leave.
Sometimes ideas fly, sometimes they flop. Sometimes Muldoon and Birch just rammed them through like English/Key/ and a floating third depending on the issue (Collins/Bennett/Ryall etc) do. The young clubbers? They have experienced campaigning for a half-sucessful day, so my hope is there's enough who campaign for smart moves that'll be successful for a week.