Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Debate like it's 2008!

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  • Susan Snowdon,

    Global crime study heads TV3 'news' this evening. I guess most of the 'reporters' have left for their long weekend...

    Since Mar 2008 • 110 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    I/O You are trying to wind me up right ?

    Not really, kind of. I was trying to make a serious point in a light hearted manner.
    a] the 'awareness test' asked us to keep our eye on the white team and count the passes made. At the end we're given the answer and asked if we also saw the moonwalking bear. Good on you for seeing it (must be those years of cycling) but I didn't because I was asked to watch the white team. To me it's one of those BS Gotcha! tricks. I really really really hate those psychometric tests because altho' I can always spot the 'right' answer I can also spot the 'but also' answer.
    b] my comments about the bear-as-metaphor-for-cyclist was fair tho'. Smart cyclists make sure they're visible, especially at dusk/dawn. Wearing black whilst riding at night is so cool it's stupid. And yes, I've seen it. Curse the Grey Lynn/Ponsonby fashionista!

    But these are minor points, so let's get back to the main topic of debate ...

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • Chockasunday,

    Unless, of course, he actually wants our political culture to descend into Trevor Loudon-style ideological panty-sniffing ...

    Eww, yuck Russell - did Craig Ranapia ghost write this?

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 62 posts Report Reply

  • Tony Kennedy,

    Hmmm. I think I'll spend the long weekend reading up and developing a view.

    Alternatively you could put a call in to the "Yellow Peril"

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 225 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Eww, yuck Russell - did Craig Ranapia ghost write this?

    No, otherwise Russell would have been describing Mr. Loudon's work in significantly less generous terms. Pardon me, but I'm hardly shocked that the sectarian-left is full of people with bizarre views and who spend too much time attending meetings of groups with acronyms that wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Batman (POUM! TWAT! WHATEVER!)

    Coming from the right, there's not enough to criticise Keith Locke for without the stunning revelation that on June 17, 1973 he attended a meeting of the Land Rights for Gay Aboriginal Whales (Groucho Marxist) Ladies Auxiliary?

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Jeremy Eade,

    Cullen.He’s a good bloke. He is the best finance minister since……….well he is the best finance minister I have ever seen….yeh the competitions been shit but somebody had to be #1.

    Who in the last 20 – 30 years has managed our finances better?

    Keith asked him a loaded question , a great political question but loaded. He wanted a number. Any number is wrong, trading is a fucked up thing that as far as I understand fiscally has to be done. Correct me if I’m wrong?

    Cullen is from a generation who doesn’t handle loaded questions very well, they just get shot , he’s not gen x like Steve “fuck off “Mahary.

    He gets fucked off and it’s not good. …but the best finance minister we’ve ever had , in the pocket of no one, and making some decent economic moves finally and in the pocket of no one. Credit.

    auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 1112 posts Report Reply

  • Jeremy Eade,

    What the word fuck isn't used in politics. ...and they're "fucks " in perfect context by the way. I know my language. This is how many people speak and have spoken for along time.

    Do you want me to censor myself ; and actually one is a "quote" for a nickname which is perfect context. Mahary said that in parliament of all places.

    Should I censor.What was overstated in your mind?

    but geniune thanks for telling me but that's my answer

    auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 1112 posts Report Reply

  • Jeremy Eade,

    Words are beautiful
    If Fuck is a thought, it’s got to be a word.
    It is a word, it’s just banned from dictionaries.

    Fuck you, Fuck them. (to hell with them and you)
    Fuck this (that’s no good)
    Fuck that ( I’m not going there brother)
    Fucking great (Amazing, amazing, amazing news)
    Fucking fucked (pretty fucking bad)
    The Fuck (the liar)
    He’s fucking joking (I’m on candid camera)


    Derived from Victorian word ‘fuck’ meaning sex

    auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 1112 posts Report Reply

  • Tze Ming Mok,

    Alternatively you could put a call in to the "Yellow Peril"

    Exactly the kind of post I can no longer write, folks.

    SarfBank, Lunnin' • Since Nov 2006 • 154 posts Report Reply

  • samuel walker,

    This is how many people speak and have spoken for along time.

    yes jeremy, and do note that a well placed profanity can comfortably crop up in almost any of the posts here and not look out of place; but you should try to avoid using it as punctuation, It really detracts from the points you are trying to make.

    Since Nov 2006 • 203 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    Cullen.He’s a good bloke. He is the best finance minister since……….well he is the best finance minister I have ever seen….yeh the competitions been shit but somebody had to be #1.

    You just luuurrrve him cos he called Key a 'Rich Prick'!! (Why has no-one made the T Shirt yet?)

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • linger,

    Jeremy--
    As far as I can tell from observation, there is no language policy on PAS. Everyone is free to voice their opinion in whatever words they choose. There is no "censorship" as such. However, it is a public forum (the clue's there in the title), with -- and welcoming -- a fairly large and diverse audience.

    This has several effects.

    As in any social group, there is some (mostly self-imposed) pressure on long-term participants not to alienate or offend others.

    Freedom of speech also means these other participants are free to respond. (Sometimes people go "Ewww"; that's usually the extent of the peer pressure.)

    And, as in any social group, people will make inferences about your age, education, and social skills based on your choice of language (and whether they think it's appropriate for the topic) -- whether or not they actually comment on it. You may choose not to care, and that's up to you; but it's part of what people do with language in any society.

    (As, indeed, is swearing... at least in conversational style; but part of socialisation is learning what the appropriate limits are, and conversely, those limits tend to get renegotiated a little differently in each generation. As you note, Maharey is one of the younger MPs, and used it in a place that older speakers like Cullen would find highly inappropriate. If Maharey's usage had been unexceptional, it wouldn't have been newsworthy.)

    But none of this is "censorship". So, you know, if you're happy using "fucking" in every second sentence around your mother or grandmother [*], and you don't mind that your opinions may be less valued as a result (because the use of "fucking" is commonest among younger, less educated males), then hey, go ahead.

    [*] Who may very well be reading!
    Sure, it's a stereotype, and there are exceptions, but statistically, females of older generations are the least likely to use, and least likely to approve of, the word. "Fucking" is among the words in the British National Corpus most clearly distinguishing males from females and most clearly distinguishing younger from older speakers; it is also similarly strongly age-graded in the Santa Barbara Corpus of American Speech, and in the Wellington Corpus of Spoken NZ English.


    Lastly, an etymological note. "Fuck" seems to have been used in English for at least 500 years, and related words exist in other Germanic languages. You could try looking up the history in the Oxford English Dictionary (where it hasn't been "banned" since 1972), or even in Wikipedia, before describing it as "Victorian".

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report Reply

  • Shep Cheyenne,

    'Rich Prick' - T-shirt

    I'm sure it would be worn with pride at the golf clubs around the country.

    Since Oct 2007 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • Che Tibby,

    an etymological note. "Fuck" seems to have been used in English for at least 500 years, and related words exist in other Germanic languages.

    saw a doco that clearly linked it to dutch sailors.

    a lot of our "diritiest" words are ex-dutch, apparently.

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report Reply

  • Karen Hester,

    As to the iTunes story, it's sounds less impressive in other articles:

    A lump sum? Well, they're talking subscription plans too.
    Free access for life? Maybe only for the life of the device or subscription. (DRMed to the hilt)
    $20/$80? Some people say that's what Apple would pay the music companies; it could be a different charge to consumers.

    (http://techdirt.com/articles/20080319/015959582.shtml; http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/19/1927238)

    And finally: how much of a premium would you pay on your iPod for free access, for life, to the entire iTunes library? The music companies reckon $80; Apple says $20. Emusic, as you might expect, smells an antitrust case brewing.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 9 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    you don't mind that your opinions may be less valued as a result

    Care to guess who currently holds the UK record for saying 'fuck' the most times in a live broadcast?

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    I can't be the only person who now wants to insert the word 'fuck' into every. single. post. I make here.

    (OK, maybe I am. Yeah, I know, I know, this is probably a sign of some deep-seated mental problem.)

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Rich of Observationz,

    Care to guess who currently holds the UK record for saying 'fuck' the most times in a live broadcast?

    Fucked if I know. :-)

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    You just luuurrrve him cos he called Key a 'Rich Prick'!! (Why has no-one made the T Shirt yet?)

    Heh, they did, tried to use gold for the lettering, trouble was the 'Rich'bit kept falling off! Then they just ended up with a bunch of Pricks.Oh how we laughed....

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report Reply

  • linger,

    Care to guess who currently holds the UK record for saying 'fuck' the most times in a live broadcast?

    My initial reaction was exactly the same as Rich's. Damn. I suppose I've gotta be serious now. One strong contender, if only because she shatters the gender stereotype (while fitting the age and education profile), would be Jade Goody from Big Brother:

    Jade is the epitome of the British way of life, versed in such esoteric arts as curry sauce dispensing, knowing the difference between a “minger” and a “munter” and how to work the word “fuck” into any sentence (“Fuckin’ right, you minger”) or indeed amid a single word (“Poppa-fuckin’-dom”).

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report Reply

  • daleaway,

    I wouldn't go blaming too much profanity on the Dutch - after all Old English is a very close relative of Old Dutch and most of those words have been around in Old English long before the Dutch became merchant traders.

    The Dutch swearwords I learned while working in Amsterdam mostly do not bear much relationship to English swearwords. And indeed English "fuck" is modern Dutch "vok", a perfectly respectable word meaning to breed (as was its English origin). A cattlebreeder is a veevokker, which seems rather alarming at first sight.

    You can see the common derivation, but the two languages have nuanced it differently over the centuries.

    Incidentally, the Dutch for "rich prick" is "rijk lul". But then I never heard the Dutch use wealth as a pejorative.

    Since Jul 2007 • 198 posts Report Reply

  • linger,

    Steven, that study reveals a correlation -- which as we all know, is not the same as causation. So what could be the possible types of causal connection here?

    (i) People get put in prison because they're mentally ill?
    I sincerely hope that isn't generally the case; if true, that wouldn't just be sad, it'd be deeply disturbing. But it's probably more likely that prison inmates are there more immediately because they have been convicted of some crime. Of course, that just pushes the causal search back a step.

    (ii) Some types of mental illness increase the likelihood of committing some types of crime?Maybe, in some specific instances, but anyone would have to be very cautious about predicting any general effect across all types of illness, and even more so about generalising across all types of crime. (It's interesting that the more typical Hollywood fiction, of a criminal pleading insanity to "get away with it", is both directly opposed to any such conclusion, yet relies on it for any chance of success.)

    (iii) There is some common cause between mental illness and crime?
    Possibly: e.g. history of abuse; trauma; drug abuse (seen here as a cause of mental illness).

    (iv) There is some interaction between our definitions of "mental illness" and "crime"?
    Probably true to some extent (i.e., some symptoms of mental illness are more likely to be seen as criminal behaviour). It may be a bit counterintuitive, but while still "sad", this is perhaps the most hopeful possibility, because it is the most easily addressed. We could as a society agree to look at the intersection between "crime" and "mental illness", and change our definitions of what is criminal behaviour -- as opposed to symptoms of illness -- or of the type of treatment appropriate for such behaviour. I'd hope suicide attempts should lead to therapy rather than incarceration. Much drug abuse (in various forms) may also belong in this category, as a symptom -- or in some cases an attempt at palliation -- of illness.

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report Reply

  • Jeremy Eade,

    "You just luuurrrve him cos he called Key a 'Rich Prick'"

    No I have a respect for him because of his track record. The "rich prick" comment was his poorest moment. Is George Soros a rich prick, Bill Gates,Warren Buffett...?


    "But none of this is "censorship".

    Well, technically your wrong. Our language is evolving and we have some amazingly pasionate words we are hiding from or are being hid from us.Bugger.(annoyed or male anal sex).

    "because the use of "fucking" is commonest among younger, less educated male."

    Like me and my friends. None of us ever finished our doctorates.We all just turned 40.

    "[*] Who may very well be reading!"

    from heaven?


    "Fuck" seems to have been used in English for at least 500 years."

    Yeh, i forgot to wiki, but i knew someone would correct me. It's the dirty dutch though it seems. Send 'em back i say.

    'to fuck or not to fuck, that is the question.'

    auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 1112 posts Report Reply

  • Bob Munro,

    Russell and All:

    Bloody great points raised, which I'll pay the respect of a decent response when I'm not such a blot head.

    Another little piece to this puzzle regarding a response to the unrest in Tibet. Seems that Hu Jintao the present President of China was in charge of Tibet during the last brutal crackdown in 1989.

    Jonathan Mirsky provided this background to Hu’s tenure in Tibet when he met George Bush in 2002

    It was soon after Hu's arrival in Lhasa that I met him there. I was then the China correspondent of The Observer, a London Sunday newspaper. I asked him how he was enjoying his new job. He told me how much he disliked Tibet's altitude, climate and lack of culture. His family was in Beijing, he said, a safe and healthy place in comparison. When I suggested that he must have made some Tibetan friends, he replied that if there were ever a disturbance in Lhasa he feared no Tibetan would protect him.

    Christchurch • Since Aug 2007 • 418 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Withers,

    Bravo, Steve Judd for pointing out the media took the easy road whie the blogger did the homework.

    Bravo Russell for blogging on this report and demonstrating the diverse range of coverage rendered and also where to find the source documents so we can see for ourselves.

    Blogging at its best.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 312 posts Report Reply

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