Posts by Sam F
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Alright, because I can't resist - in a nutshell I think that if you accept them, Prof. Bryder's points still do not indicate for a second that Green didn't do anything wrong - obviously, he did some terrible things, with unspeakable consequences for patients. Nor do they invalidate the Cartwright inquiry wholesale, or the positive changes that have come from it so far.
However, they do give more historical perspective on where Green's views sat in relation to other medical practitioners, and why he did what he actually did. IMO, that is the sort of information that might be good to know in understanding how these things happen, and hopefully in making sure they don't happen again.
It's also the sort of stuff that only gets dug up by historians who are willing to spend years researching and arriving at nuanced conclusions that are hard to pithily sum up and defend in the media.
Just my two cents as I'm waiting for the book like everyone else. Ignore at will...
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I just spent an hour preparing a post here with my thoughts on Prof. Bryder's points (as reported) and their implications, submitted it, and subsequently saw a "Page does not exist" screen and the loss of the entire thing. Christ.
Serve me right for not waiting for the book to come out. I probably wouldn't have done much more than showcase my ignorance here anyhow.
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In the present climate hopefully such corporate BS won't be allowed to pass unchallenged.
Funniest thing I've read today.
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I like that "cake stall to buy bombers" concept myself..
Phew, for a minute there I wondered if i was the only one who remembered that line.
But it's been done.
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Indeed it is.
Early yet, but I think the new thread asking if too many people are wasting their time at uni should be a goodie.
In before "We're producing too many eggheads wrapped in fluffy cotton wool pushing their social engineering agenda from ivory towers", etc.
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"That's a fucking clever headline"
PA has always had the best subs.
Roffles...
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Word O' the week
+1
I'm flattered folks, but a quick Google reveals how many people have had the same idea.
Oddly one of the Urban Dictionary definitions for fauxstalgia defines it as "thinking the past was better than it was, simply because your future hasn't turned out the way you wanted it to", which I'm pretty sure is simple nostalgia. Make sure you know before you portmanteau, kids.
Oh, and I've been dumpster diving at YV again so y'all don't have to:
I watched the telethon i didn't think it was a very good cause to support . You are only lining the pockets of these kids's parents so they can't support their own kids by providing the money for drugs alcohol and gambling. Not all kids will benefit from this 2 million dollars. i have a question: will all kids in ALL schools get free shoes and raincoats and free food?
Absolute rubbish. Watched it for 5 mins. Even the cause is questionable. Is it not just a way of getting the more well off to give their money to the less well off? Are we not taxed to do this already? Do we not already have huge (and costly) social welfare safety nets in place?
I find it very hard to believe that parents or caregivers cannot afford a few Weetbix for their kids, and cheap shoes and clothes to wear. The whole thing is absolute BS.
Do I sense a pattern here?
The charity is questionable all it does is encourage useless parents to continue being useless and for them to keep using the money that they should spend on their kids to spend it on booze fags gambling while taxpayers and the generous cloth and feed their kids.
How about the crap useless parents take responsability for their own children and dont leave it for others to do.
Yup, as is now obvious there is a whole ocean there of righteous presumption about the poor and the children of the poor. A few people are obviously trolling the topic but depressingly everyone else seems quite sincere in their towering judgments.
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In the meantime, the "best" of Your Views on the topic...
There is something wrong with the Telethon in New Zealand. In most countries I have lived in, the Telethon is used for mucoviscidosis and orphan illnesses. There is a rotation from a year to another and the money goes to the specific association for children who are in desperate needs of a new health and life. Not children who are in desperate needs of breakfast, shoes and clothes. If the parents who receive the dole and the allowances fail to provide their children with the basics, then take their children away and cut off the aids.
Erm...
Agree with Philippa. think the cause could have been a fund raiser for educating parents how to provide the basics for children and It's case of give a man a fish he will eat for a day.The real problem is some families having too many kids they can't afford to raise.
Without adequate resources, time and care many of these kids will never reach their potential - becoming the next generation relying on handouts, not contributing fully or fairly to society or any sense of civil duty and that's not fair for anyone!... the telethon perpetuates bad parenting by reinforcing the message to the bad parent that there are suckers out there who will donate their hard earned money and give it to them for free.
There are capable parents out there who have fallen on genuine hard times. However, I beleive for every dollar I donate to the telethon only a very small percentage will get through to those people, with the rest going to the bludgers. Consequently I didn't donate on this occasion.
Didn't watch and won't donate a cent. As a childless poerson I am already paying charity to every parent collecting Working for Familes.
I was one of those kids who went to school everyday of the year in bare feet, sure it was cold in winter and not that enjoyable however i still have all my toes, I think we have a tender nature to cotton wool some of our kids these days, we are becoming a nation of softies.
And the Sir Truby King Memorial Award for Well-Meaning Eugenics goes to... "McV" of Auckland!
Wonderful event, wonderful cause - however, are we not just entrenching the problem? Is this just another attempt to deal with the symptom not the cause of child poverty? When are we going to do something about the bad parenting in NZ?
Being on the welfare system in NZ still puts people in the top 7% of wealth on a global baisis - so more money for benefits is not the answer. Are we going to admit that people who are least capable of being good parents are the ones breeding the next generation of poverty stricken children.
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I saw a bit of Telethon, and was glad that it raised as much money as it did, but I wasn't driven to sit down and devote my entire weekend to it. I think it was a mix of all the stuff that's been touched on above, including that making an arse of yourself is now SOP for TV personalities, Telethon or not.
Having never seen a Telethon before, the word had fauxstalgic properties for me, and I expect a few people at least tuned in with a kind of retro sensibility in their heads. They must have been disappointed to encounter something that was so contemporarily cheesy, without the forgiving lens of nostalgia with which they remembered (or pretend-remembered) earlier, equally cheesy Telethons.
The constant presence of corporate promotion was irritating, but there's at least the presence of a good cause to soothe the itch, as opposed to the massive proliferation of advertising everywhere else on TV at the moment.
Despite Telethon being itself a symptom of fundamental disorder in our society, the soul of soulless conditions, the heart of a heartless world, et cetera, I'm going to go for $2 million extra in Kids Can's coffers being a win on points. Granted that it oughtn't be up to charity to meet this particular need, as many have said, but that's true of so many things. Once we've done as much as we can to persuade politicians to solve a problem, we can either do what we can to make a difference, or we can curse the darkness until the next election...
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Just on the topic of Bob McCroskie and media criticism in general, see today's superb, hilarious and rather scary Editing the Herald post...