Posts by Kracklite
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
You are soooo right, Steve.
-
You're talking about offices. Try a building site
Try academia. Imagine a boss who yells out in great detail her fantasies of an underling's sexual infidelities at meetings while suffering the delusion that she's being witty.
This sort of thing was routine with her, and not the worst. Anyone who complained about her behaviour was eventually forced to leave or made redundant.
-
You wouldn't hear that 220 second rant in any normal workplace. Any decent employer would be looking up employment law to find if they could skip warnings and just go straight to the firing stage.
Clearly a "university" that I've worked for and isn't Victoria (though that has had its problems) is not a normal workplace. There was a certain individual who would routinely, compulsively indulge in such behaviour, likely due to Borderline Personality Disorder (as far as can be judged by their apparent conformity to the known pathology of the disorder).
The "university" had to pay out tens of thousands over and over again in settlements in and out of court to a number of people persecuted by this individual (and who often suffered severe ill-health as a result), but they never changed their behaviour - and has never been sacked either. The weasels in (In)Human Resources just did their best to brush it under the carpet every time.
I suspect that there are a lot of workplaces that are not "normal" (I don't mean to mock - I know that you mean "decent").
Emotional and psychological abuse has been touched on in relation to the domestic violence debate, and I wish there were a campaign on this kind of bullying too, but no doubt the current political climate with its antipathy to "nannyism" would be against it.
-
<tenuous relevance>Fine, references to BSG, Watchmen (well, Juvenal, but I'll award a point) and Dune in the same thread so far. It's building towards a nerdgasm here.
What are the odds that the Solace in the Wind sculpture on Wellington's waterfront is going to be painted blue come (sorry) March?</tenuous relevance>
-
"OXYmoronically", damnit.
-
I wonder how much damage this has done to activism in exactly that sense - "can't be too careful these days". It could make people too wary of each other to become too friendly, reducing trust, etc.
Less than you might think - there is in fact little new about this. All that's new is that it's known to the public now as well. An ex of mine noticed police fishing when she was working on editing a film on the '81 Springbok tour. No doubt older activists have their stories.
The fact is, I gather, is that most activists groups today already know that there'll be someone in the pay of police or private investigators and they're very easy to spot and quietly sideline - too nosy, too ingratiating, too provocative, trying too hard. There are no George Smileys in police intelligence or their employ - "intelligence" really is used orxymoronically.
-
I think the general tactic is to have a group of columnists who have such outlandish views that hopefully the audience will be drawn back in outraged fascination
A standard tactic of talkback, for sure - and certain subeditors handling letters to the editor. Capital Times' indulgence of the frothing H Westfold comes to mind.
I am very much concerned about the general police surveillance of groups like Greepeace
I'm told by an activist acquaintance that the infiltrators are easy to spot, as they're the ones who suddenly show up and push hardest for the most direct, extremist action. It's not just fishing... it can annd does go further into planting or entrapment.
-
We could do a controlled experiment, get twelve PAS readers and ask them to summarise the contents in 300 words or less
It would have to be Proust of course.
-
OK, I must confess I didn't directly hear what she said, but I gather that she uttered words to the effect that something had been discovered and isn't it interesting? rather than explicitly attributing to herself investigative work and insight, so "passing off" (when the journalists she was relying on themselves were only recycling press releases) may imply rather more design on her part than was actually the case.
I'm making an assessment based on the most casual observation, however.
-
That's it, I guess - we have to deal with degrees rather than essentialist judgments. Quothe Paracelsus, "The portion maketh the poison" - mayhaps.