Posts by Heather Gaye
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Satanism. LOL. Go for it, but don’t hurt anyone. Is this a real religion?
It’s def a reaction, but I don’t know if that means it’s not a religion. I’d put it in the same category as discordianism and the flying spaghetti monster though.
I’ve only met a couple of people that explained atheism in a way that I understood and respected, and they were equally respectful when talking about religion. Granted, I’m sure there are many many more people in my group who are respectable atheists that I just haven’t had that conversation with.
Far more of my discussions with atheists about religion are along the lines of slagging off christians for “needing an imaginary friend” and “using religion as a crutch”, but when you actually have a serious talk their atheism seems to be as much an article of faith as religion.
-
From the comments on that Diane Taylor piece:
I have always been amazed that the increase in sexual activity among young people leading to pregnancy, abortion and STI's has happened alongside the increase in sexual education in schools. Instead of admitting it was making the problem worse, their answer is to educate more and more how to do it.
Also, direct correlation with global warming. Obviously teens are now wearing fewer clothes. There's a reason they refer to attractive peers as "hot", you know.
-
Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to Kracklite,
Q: How did the hipster burn his mouth?
A: He was eating pizza before it was cool.
-
Hard News: Is that it?, in reply to James Butler,
This is called "capitalism", no?
Indeed. My thought was how the market value of labour reflects directly on people's perceptions of / assumptions about the character of the labourers. I'm really interested to know if there's a way to change that association.
For all the horrible jobs that people have described here, I think that improvements to pay, environment and staff treatment (read; modicum of respect) would probably go a long way to making a lot of those jobs a bit more rewarding (or at least not horrible), and that maybe this can be achieved by training society to measure labour's value in a different way. I guess that's in part what the triple bottom line was about.
-
and possibly in turn improving work conditions and pay to better reflect the value of the work
oh, also this...I've long been extremely angry at the "I earn my money therefore I should keep it" axe, purely due to the fact that many rich people are completely oblivious to the fact that they benefit directly from the exploitation of others, thanks to the way our market society is shaped. It's ridiculous to complain about paying tax when you still only pay $4 for a flat white, and offensive to believe your underpaid barista isn't deserving of a student allowance.
-
What I’m getting from this is that we have a problem in which certain work is perceived to be undervalued. National’s made a whole philosophy out of the idea that wealth = value; the corollary being that even people earning minimum wage (not just people on the dole) just aren’t ambitious or industrious enough, or have the wrong attitude. From a policy perspective it’s perfectly acceptable to treat them badly or strip away their rights because if they’re not entrepreneurial enough to climb up the wealth/career ladder, they’re slackers; not the kind of “hardworking, decent” people that are worth protecting. Us bleeding-heart liberals thus come from the perspective that the government’s bad attitude is causing decent human beings to be stuck on poor pay under poor work conditions with tyrannical corporate bosses, and it’s our job to help give them the options they need to find something “more worthwhile”.
So… I guess my point is, wouldn’t it be cool to improve the perception of “drudge” work to better reflect its true value, thus improving perceptions of the character of the people doing the work, and possibly in turn improving work conditions and pay to better reflect the value of the work?
-
I love how the people in that that cuba mall video run the gamut from full 5-layer wraps to t-shirts. Wellingtonians are amazing.
Today I'm not changing out of my pyjamas.
-
My Ben’s theory is that it’s a pilot scheme tested on a small number of people that noone will kick up too much of a stink about, with the ultimate intention of privatising the welfare system; basically, the government paying private providers to “look after” beneficiaries, instead of paying the beneficiaries directly.
-
Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to Russell Brown,
[...] There are few things more dangerous to a society than a populace with nothing left to lose.
Wow. Thanks for sharing. I want to plaster that message all over Auckland.
-
Up Front: P.A. Story, in reply to chris,
a mental obsessed with removing all the H-es from our language
God, that'd make me eater.