Posts by Heather Gaye
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
*coff*mudgeon :-P
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to Heather Gaye,
FWIW I’m skipping this year’s BDO because the ticket price triggered my “not-worth-it” mental block. I almost caved when I saw Regurgitator were playing. Then I discovered I could spend the same money on a trip to Wellington to see Gurge in their own show. Ace!
Russell: not a Gotye fan? I thought *everyone* was a Gotye fan. I’m SO AMPING for Laneway.
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to Grant McDougall,
I take exception to Kimbra being lumped in there (to a lesser extent Gin Wigmore, but I understand the sentiment - Winery Tour material if ever there was). Despite her background, Kimbra's doing some really good and innovative stuff. Lady's a beast.
In the last 10 years, complaints about BDO's lineup have seemed to me more correlated to a predilection to curmudgeonliness due to age, rather than the actual quality of the show. I think the problem BDO lineups suffer most is nostalgia. I didn't go to the earlier BDOs, but I'll bet there was plenty of filler between those era-defining acts everybody remembers so fondly.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Steve Barnes,
When all others had shown dignity and decorum johnkey came across like a 12 year old, making fun of others to improve his own standing.
This is something that's rankled a *lot* recently - JK's habit of smarmy offhand rebuffs. I spat when I heard his comment about putting Shearer on the poverty committee provided Labour offer confidence and supply. I read that as nothing more than a hearty middle finger (and I'm really happy Shearer addressed the obvious partisanship in his speech).
Given the comments here about it, I'm not going to bother reading Key's response, but given how tired he's been looking ever since the teapot tapes (granted I've no doubt that was partly to do with the media cherry-picking the photos), I wonder if his increasing churlishness is indication of rising stress levels?
...well, good. Probably it's just as churlish of me, but what I want for National and John Key with all the grand plans I despise - asset sales, beneficiary bashing, national standards, welfare privatisation, name it - is for their jobs this term to be an utter fucking nightmare.
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…just weighing in on the “don’t be a dick” debate, since it still seems to be ongoing, one thing that I find both interesting and slightly taxing is how often people here end up arguing semantics. Arguments can go on for pages before someone says “I think we’re on the same side here” or someone comes to the realisation themselves that they misinterpreted a post (or its intent), at which point there’s hope for a constructive discussion. Even then, by that point people have been arguing for so long and are so fraught they’ll just keep adjusting and adjusting, over semantics, in order to “make their point”, or to make a different point about not communicating properly, or whatever.
I think more often than not, what starts the arguments is that people think they’ve come under attack when they *were* exercising good grace. Can I suggest that the corollary of acting in good grace is to presume others are communicating in good faith? Take a breath, consider that if you read something that seemed especially dickish/bigoted/stupid it’s very unlikely to have been meant that way (or at least is borne of ignorance rather than malice)? I reckon that rule of thumb would apply to nearly all the members of this community - that is, they're speaking in good faith - at least until an argument actually starts. And most of us can recognise trolls by now, I think.
My self-censorship tends towards either over-qualifying, or just not posting if I think there’s a reasonable chance people will misread it badly. Perfect example: something as innocuous as “munted” – someone expressed surprise that it was nominated because they didn’t associate it with the earthquake, and then was berated when the post was apparently read as minimising the earthquake’s effect on the people of Christchurch.
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Jacinda is absolutely who I want in my corner against PFB, and if Shearer can do for science and innovation what Aunty Helen did for culture and heritage I'll be a happy camper.
It still kinda looks like they think the Greens are their competition, but.
Also, how many finance spokespeople does one party need?
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Deborah,
I suspect that thinking about the power to effect change, and the power to withstand government intervention, and the power to access government services (very broadly understood), might be a more useful way to analyse class structure in New Zealand
OH PLEASE can someone pick this up and run with it. Of the whole conversation I’ve read, this one sentence jumped out as the most illuminating/interesting observation so far. Worth unpacking further.
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Hard News: Word of the Year 2011 -- The Vote!, in reply to Sacha,
it was in nearly every TV news story, let alone online discussions, etc
OK, so not regional then, but hand on heart, I didn’t encounter it. I don’t really watch TV, and it probably wouldn’t strike me as a particularly standout choice of wording in online discussion, if I read it.
Basically I just posted because I think it’s worth noting that a number of people are reporting the same confusion. I felt like a few people here were being unfairly attacked for basically existing in what’s evidently a bigger-than-negligible black spot.
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I also didn’t think to associate “munted” specifically with #eqnz either.
Is it a regional thing? Like – perhaps the people of Christchurch claimed it in a notable way, but that special use case didn’t necessarily filter this far north…? I vaguely remember hearing Bob Parker’s statement, but it didn’t strike me as particularly… well, anything, other than accurate.
For my part, given the variety and relevance of the list to choose from, I decided to pick words that were informally appropriated into popular culture, rather than hashtags, people's names, or descriptions related to specific events (like Party Central or slutwalk). Just “munted” didn’t really resonate with me at all.
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I'd feel pretty weird saying I should be able to vote for a specific individual to represent my party preference – after all, that’s partly what the National campaign was based on – that people would ignore politics in favour of a personality. I want to pick a party because I like their policies, and know that all the members are working together to implement those policies – and that’s not contingent on, say, whether or not list MP x gets on my wick. I vote Green after all – if I wanted to exclude everyone that said or did things that got on my wick, I’d probably have pre-retired most of their front bench years ago.
…and as a Green supporter / member, even if there are particular people that I want (or not) to represent me, they’ve done some good work toward solving that problem anyway. All Green members get to vote for the list, so essentially, everyone on the party list has already been elected. It doesn’t take much to be a member (about $15/year, I think?), and even if I wasn’t a member I’d be fine with trusting the views of the people who *have* gone to the trouble to sign up because they believe in the same things I do.