Posts by 81stcolumn
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<quote> It seems to me that a lot of people would be quite happy to pay higher prices for petrol if it means they get to spend more time with their families.</qoute>
Yeah I can empathise with that view. But at the risk of sounding really dull the radical argument is that the price just isn't high enough then. When it is, people will hopefully, demand better solutions and approach issues in a different way.
How do we make fewer/shorter journeys that don't steal time from our lives and and how do we make time in transit more useful/less damaging ?
How many more people could work from home if supported appropriately ? Where are the incentives to subsidise and support this kind of thinking ?
There is a big debate to be had in this context about the sustainability of our commodity driven culture. The refinement and commodification of the car though admirable is unsustainable/risky given the number of people who are likely to want one/drive one in the future. Think about all those Chinese/Indian folk over the next 40 years.
The very evolution of the internal combustion engine is a great example of how good human beings are at solving problems and refining solutions. That evolution only occurs when it becomes necessary/costly. The idealists argument here focusses on why aren't we making an alternative to the car necessary in the marketplaces of the world.
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In the circumstances I might take that as a compliment not sure about Merc though.
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<squelching sound of hungover head still oooozing>
I’m happy to appear a self righteous prick over this, if it does encourage a second or third extra thought.
Joe-
something that largely persists in the imagination of inner-city tossers
Wrong on two counts: My veg shop is about 1.5 km away, I live on the shore. I concede however, that it probably wouldn’t exist were it not for the parking spaces around it. Which is as you rightly imply is my concern.
As for your lovely wife, one doesn't 'present' at medical conferences while pulling a Stagecoach income. Nice of her to condescend to adressing the lumpenpoles.
Correct, my wife actually does this on less than a stagecoach wage. In order to present she applied for grants and stayed in a hostel. If canvassing the opinion of others is regarded as condescending then I do apologise. I always thought it was worse to regard people as invisible. BTW – she is only lovely some of the time.
Russ-
I do hear what you have said. But I stand by the sentiment if not the words here. Talking about how nice (or strange, ugly etc.) eco cars are and stereotyping people who use public transport is IMHO a nasty distraction. We all remember and report the loon on the bus which I would argue is an infrequent instance amongst many trips. The risk is that such tales make PT appear even more unpleasant than it really is and doesn’t develop ideas to make it better. The debate is about why you (and I at times) still find it easier/cheaper to go by car and whether current policy is in any probability likely to change that. This is a debate that needs revisiting and reinforcing regularly. I am looking at my council election forms trying to figure out which councillors would actually not vote car, which is really difficult, worryingly so. It is really easy to get sidetracked into a debate about what we might buy rather than what we should do in the broader sense.
Er, but surely if we're "largely smarter and better informed than [you]" then --by definition-- it must be you that is wrong. We have looked so far ahead that we have come back to a position just behind the dashboard.
<Giggles> No answer to that, other than to qualify now as people I thought were smarter than me. Perhaps I am getting really stupid really quick…..hmmm starts arguing with self….
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Eeeeeeeeeeeee…….pop…..burst….explosion of expletives….<sound of drunken head exploding badly>
F**k me
Am I the only person who finds this thread offensive ?
Let me get this right
Much of this thread revolves around the idea that the answer to our problems is to buy nicer cars:
Lets ignore the fact that such conspicuous consumption is unsustainable (no, we really can’t keep buying such large amounts of personal stuff)…lets look at the pathetic string of anecdotes that reflect the prevailing consumerist philosophy of, I will pay, expend and exploit what is necessary in order not to share my space with others (which includes the poor and mentally ill).
If public transport doesn’t work, then figure out how to make it work ! Don’t trot out the same string of rubbish supporting the belief that it can’t ‘cos it’s Auckland.
Sorry guys; my wife catches a bus, I walk most of the time. The car never does less than one job per trip. People like us wait for the day Auckland invests and legislates for public transport in the same way that is does for roads. We still walk from the Veg shop to home, it can be done.
I guess I’m disappointed that a group of people who are largely smarter and better informed than me can’t see beyond their own dashboard. It’s really kind of sad and self serving.
BTW. My wife is a PITA, she also talks to bus drivers…she doesn’t have a speech impediment in fact she has just won a prize for presenting at a medical conference. Are your communication skills that good ? Shove your stereotypes, this ain’t the time, it smacks of people who have heard a lot but not actually seen that much.
Sorry, I lost my sense of humour over this a long time ago.
No, I’m not trolling just passionate and personal on this one.
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<smile/embarrassed> Sorry Jackie it was perhaps a bit selfish of me to write in that way; victim in the tragedy of my own life and all. For much of the last ten years I would have agreed with you and I remind myself daily of how very fortunate I am. Progress is made by learning from mistakes; not a complete waste then.
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Oh golly this goes on forever....
Looking back with adult eyes I think I understood why they did it, one step further form the pawnshop and some control over their lives. I don't think either my mother or my father really grasped the consequences though. At the time they had been running an off license (bottle shop) for three years after dad left the Navy. The pay was so bad that mum earned more as a Legal Sec for three days a week than dad did for seven. So the talk swung towards "going back out again". This meant dad working abroad though not this time for the Navy as had been the case when I was born. At first dad went away and we stayed in the UK, renting a cottage out in the countryside. This didn't last and here was the pitch; Do you want to go to Boarding School ? (Wha?) You can fly out and visit in the holidays (you're leaving me behind)...you'll be one of the "jet set" (not sure what that meant but it sounded good)...You will have a privileged education, you get to live away from home (Images of plush Hotels...how naive). I agreed, I didn't understand what I was being asked to do but I knew from the look in my mums eyes that it was important and I was expected to be "responsible". Mum and I had talked a lot about responsibility while dad was away; me sat on the kitchen stool watching, listening and learning. Those talks were an escape from school, bullying and stupid farmer’s kids who despised the smart townie with the funny aaacsn't. It was as close as mum and I we were going to get. My agreement secured a tour of likely establishments; it then occurred to me then that this wasn’t going to be any holiday. But I still I agreed to go, I couldn’t by this stage bear the thought of saying no.
Eight weeks later and I am delivered to my third new school in three years, this time to stay. I arrived on the Friday; mum, dad and my sister flew out to Saudi Arabia on the following Tuesday. Mum phoned once over the weekend and I got caught up in the excitement and fear of my new home. In an effort to keep from being bullied I fought and beat the first kid who called me out. It proved an unwise move as it got me a beating from the older boys “to keep me in my place”. I quickly came to learn what young gentlemen where made of. Monday evening at shortly after six I was called away from my tea to answer the phone. This was my family’s last call to me before they left on the early flight on Tuesday. My sister told me all the things she was going to do in a room of her own, my dad reminded me to work hard and that it wouldn’t be long. Mum must have wondered if something was up, she asked me if I really wanted to do this. I had sufficient grasp of the situation to believe I knew what my answer had to be. I swallowed hard, banished the bursting tears and in my best responsible voice said I was fine. Mum said goodbye, I said goodbye, she said “I love you” and conscious of where I was I said “yeah……”. I was Ten years old and had made my first decision for my whole family.
I said goodbye to twenty years of my life that day. Wasted years, living with responsibility, spent not being me, not speaking with my own voice, never crying again. Harder than knowing what I had to do without question, was living through the consequences with no complaint. A lot happened in the following seven years (not much good) that finally led to me leaving school a year early. That July I had been expelled on a technicality. I got them to take me back, but in September when I was due to return I chose not to, I went to an FE in Oxford instead. But before then I had to get my leaving papers signed so I went back one more time to say goodbye. For all the misery, it was my home my family and seemed at the time like all that I had known. I actually turned and said goodbye to the place before getting on the bus. My family were already overseas.
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Son – Your hair is like your wage packet full and bursting with potential on Friday night. Enjoy it and make sure you remember how it went – By Monday it will be gone…….
Possibly the most useful thing my Dad ever said. I set a family record by having grey before serious bald – I digress. Yes as my hair has diminished Barbers make more and more sense. It is soooo hard to get a good short back and sandpaper these days. How hard ca it be ? Bay Rum doesn’t smell the same either….Gel ! Gel ! WTF is Gel…..Whatever happened to Brylcreem or the other stuff in the Black and white tin.
One reason I don’t go to hairdressers I look gay. Which can be as amusing as it is flattering, but it is sometimes bothersome. One trip to the hairdressers ended in the conversation “how can you not be gay ?” errrrr.
My Barber is Jose the most adventurous exchange we have had so far is about white tailed spiders. The barbers is safe they even have a fishing ruler.
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I could tell you about the bloke who left the remains of my wrecked bike in a pile outside the hospital door after running me over. Or the bus driver who kicked me off the bus because I didn’t pay the right fare – even though I was injured with ruined bike after a 70kph downhill crash. Out of kindness he dropped me off next to a phone box even though he had taken all the change that I had……But this I always remember.
Hard Bastard vs, Heartless BastardOnce upon a time young academics like myself were recruited for pastoral support of new students, this is how I met Kev. Having lived and worked in a back street pub I’ve met and known a few bastards in my time; Kev qualified on the very hard list. I watched him throw someone out of the student union one night and subdue the irate customer with a slap. When Kev first sat in my office I thought that if he stared too hard at me I might get a nosebleed, he looked that hard. As it was, I grew to know him over the next two years and something that amounted to mutual trust emerged. Nothing prepared me for what arose when he sat in my office for a chat two days before his final honours exams.
Kev - “me stepfather rang to say that my mums died and all my stoof’s on the lawn outside the ‘owse”
Me – “F**k”
His stepfather had cremated his mother, spread the ashes and implemented a will that had excluded Kev from even the simplest of inheritance. The bloke didn’t even get to see his mother off. He cried a little and I nearly did too. Kev, his girlfriend and I spent the day driving a hired van to an estate outside Birmingham to pick up what remained of his childhood. Kev finished with a 2i honours. Given the circumstances I remain amazed that there was no violence. I was more amazed to receive an e-mail two years ago from Kev telling me that he was married with kids and working for a bank in Hong Kong “earning shitloads”. I’m looking forwards to a visit. Hard bastard vs, Heartless bastard - hard bastard wins.
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Seriously, what kind of a terrorist puts a baby in a tumble drier.
Bored, Low Self esteem, doesn't feel in control of their own life and has learned not to value that of others.
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Violence at school ?
Reduce testing and increase education; but above all reduce class sizes. Make sure that primary and junior classes are very small and that the teachers can teach.
As for corporal punishment.
Sorry but I can’t really separate the personal in this issue. Corporal punishment was never part of the class struggle, not from my POV. I have a callous on the top of my head. I earned it whilst attending a “privileged” English public school. Like many kids the beatings didn’t stop at the school gate, when you lived there it was 24/7. I guess it must be the same for other kids at home. What did I learn ? After 25 years there is a bit of me that still wants to really hurt people. Physically, that bit never wins, verbally, emotionally.... at school when I couldn’t hit back I learned to be cruel and play nasty mind games. I was in part, the cause of two teachers leaving the profession. As I grew all the beatings turned into a desire for retribution and so boy turned into thug.