Posts by 81stcolumn
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All I claim is that paid work tends (many other things being equal) to make it easier to be happy, well-adjusted people.
Can I broaden this a little bit and say income=choices ?
To be fair, people all over the world make a dollar by controlling and charging access to their holy places.
RB - I think you would agree that an important issue here, is giving respective cultures the choice to make what compromises they see as apporpriate.
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I had a look at a Singapore government creativity website.
Yep so did I....you could have warned me about the sound.
Had the surround rig turned up loud...disturbing !
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Stumbles up to e-mic……knocks it over…more fumbling ensures…mutters “gonna go to bed early tonight…..”
Hadyn –
...excuse me, "football" is not as diverse as it first seems.
Might we choose to agree to disagree on that one, though I underline the earlier point: Football may not be as diverse as we might expect now, but it will be, just wait and see.
Football is played by more people and does get some sponsorship but the reason we tend to put funding into rugby is that, you may have noticed, we're pretty bloody good at it.
Yeah so bloody good that NZ has won one world cup in 20 years – despite the trophy residing in the southern for most of its life. Tri Nations and Bledisloe cup stats flatter to deceive on occasions.
Also the NZRU is too bloody minded to figure out how to fund the game so we have to rely somewhat on SPARC.
* You can throw money at what we're good at to stay good at it or
* You can throw money at what we're not good at and try and even the whole thing up. And as this is sport, and not say health, let's just specialise and be bloody good at rugby (the amount of rugby funding is an issue to be strongly debated as is the contribution of the NZRU).And the good in this is….
I quote:
SPARC is the Crown Entity responsible for sport and recreation in New Zealand. (my italics)
At SPARC (Sport & Recreation New Zealand) we're dedicated to getting New Zealanders moving.
My point being that SPARC isn’t just about Sport and even if it were it isn’t just about providing the development framework for the next generation of AB’s. New Zealand has a right to expect much more - a positive experience for little Rico, Joe or Xiao Liu regardless of size or rep status. Hence my objection to funding a sport that:
i) Provides a finishing school for European professional clubs.
ii) Doesn’t give a s**t about baby Ritchie, Joe or Liu Chen if he isn’t going to be good enough to wear the treasured Black shirt.
iii) Has a history of not delivering on the most important day in every 4 years.New Zealand Rugby doesn’t really do participation and should be left to suffer until it figures that out. SPARC can’t see past high performance and bloody push play - who’s looking out for the weekend warriors ? I love the sport and think it sad when people see national representation as the sport. So I guess in a debate over funds to the NZRFU my vote is for none until they provide something more. There is a poor record for throwing money at dysfunctional institutions. And don’t say stadium please.
As has been frequently reinforced on this thread professional teams quite often end up being brands that reflect a side with which to affiliate. Concepts of real national/meaning value get lost in the wash – Ask Manchester United or any of the Pro Cycling teams. Funding this process at a national level seems dumb.They can't afford footballs and badminton racquets at R'toto?
From what I understand of R’toto anything beyond basic provision in sport is paid for by players (read parents) that includes kit, coaching and officials.
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I've been led to understand the one thing you don't wanna do is turn up with a bodyboard.....
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Che-
i) Sorry about the public servant baiting...
ii) Yes I have said as much to staff at SPARC and it will cost me research funds for the rest of my career.But ! The point I so brilliantly hid in a rant was Spoonley and SPARC have both got it wrong.
spoonley's further suggestion was that it was assimilation that is the myth.
Football is like the freakin' Borg it will assimilate race, culture, gender, shoe size..... Ethnic bias in sport diversity is irrelevant set against the so called "beautiful game".
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heard an interesting talk by a prof paul spoonley the other day.
he spoke of rangitoto college in auckland, 43% ethnically asian.
the two biggest sports at the school are soccer and badminton, neither of which gets sparc funding (afaik).i) I’m not sure this popularity statistic would bear up to that much scrutiny. How did he define biggest ? Who are the ethnically Asian ?
ii) To tie this statistic up to an immigrant issue, is a big leap of logic that also fails to stand up to scrutiny. Asian also = cricket, table tennis, basketball, sepak takraw, golf etc. Football (so renamed this year) is the refuge of just about any kid that isn’t big enough to be into rugby, or of European extraction which makes up a lot of Rangi’s remaining 57%.
iii) Both sports to date still receive funding from SPARC. What I believe will change is that they will lose (high?) performance funding from 2008 if their performers don't achieve according to some quite stringent criteria or don't compete in areas of national importance. They will be made to bid for additional performance funds to be reviewed on a case by case basis.He tried to explain this to some sparc people, but was apparently told to "go away" (my interpretation of spoonley's description).
Based on the above I would hope that he made a better attempt at presenting the issue. Probably speaking to the wrong people – notwithstanding the fact that this particular issue is very political at the moment.
apparently kiwis play rugby, and all these new zealanders at rangitoto just better get used to picking up the ball.
Note: Nick Hill is an ex rugby player what do you expect. IMHO he has done a good job of managing sport but a very poor job of promoting it as a health/recreation vehicle. He knows f**k all about elite performance a la his spectacular outburst after the CWG (he and Mallard need the long run and the cold shower for that one). It may well be time for a change of boss at SPARC (no I don’t want the job) but this approach is unlikely to be particularly helpful.
National sport funding is an awful business and I agree that SPARC have got it badly wrong with the current strategy. The strategy document stinks. The national importance approach is going to be used as a way to bail out a failing franchise based system that is killing respective sports at the grass roots. But linking ethnic demographics to participation and then using this as a stick to beat SPARC with makes me uncomfortable.
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Note: Blair has yet to actually describe these actions as dishonest.
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Weston -
I fail to see what parallels may be drawn between the tribulations suffered by Gore and this outstanding act of sophistry.
I think Hansard will bear this one out.
"If you want to blame anyone for this, blame me. I am perfectly happy to take responsibility for it."
The context is that Blair denies the need for an investigation into bribes to a Saudi Prince processed by the MOD and then hidden from international scrutiny. His argument is that it is against the national interest to investigate such dishonesty.
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So making Tony a Kiwi citizen and asking him to run for PM here isn't an option?
He can come and try. However, he stay at your place in the meantime 'cos I don't want him near me.
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simon g - you are confusing London with Britain. Easy mistake but they are not the same. For example, only in London would George Galloway get elected :-)
Sorry Don to be so snippy: But the difference between concerns in London and in Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield etc. is that "up North" they are sat in cars on Motorway links in Bolton, Doncaster and elsewhere, wondering whether it was a good idea to tear up all that track and sell off all those stations. The concern though fundamentally different is non the less a concern.