Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: The McCully Touch

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  • Steve Barnes,

    How many bars are there on Ponsonby Rd? Close it to traffic from Crummer Rd to Three Lamps, put up screens in Western Park.

    Not a bad idea Phillip, in fact, why stop at Crummer Road?. Include Myers park and K' road and we have a winner, bugger the CBD.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Young,

    Russell, you poor thing!

    Take large amounts of caffeine immediately,
    or failing that, chocolate, to wash the acrid
    taste of sock con nincompoopery from your
    ravaged throat!

    Craig Y.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 573 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Young,

    Of course, I'm old enough to remember when Pat Bartlett
    and SPCS campaigned against making spousal rape a
    crime. back in 1982. At some point, I really must head down
    to the National Archives and provide some embarassing
    historical research about rancid bigotries long since past...

    Craig Y

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 573 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    Get a room in a Motel in one of the nicer parts of NZ, sit back and enjoy the News coverage of all the drunken revelry and resulting chaos of a badly organised fiasco.

    What about the rest of us who, well, want to avoid the rugby? putting all the drunken rugby fans inside what's basically a big cage has some appeal - perhaps we could designate a couple of cities as "rugby free" for the duration.

    While we're on the topic I'm also in favour of a check box on next year's income tax forms (and that form you fill in at the border):

    [ ] willing to pay for Rugby World Cup - if checked include checking account number here ___

    people who don't check it wont be allowed to attend games, party centrals or watch it on TV.

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Couldn't help myself. Went back.

    Ditto. From Lucia's cogent analysis:

    Giving men sex without expecting any sort of commitment is training them to become predators.

    See? Apparently sex is this thing I have, possibly in some kind of box. And I can give it to a man, but I have to be black-mailing him into marrying me when I do. Whereas if we were to take sex out of its box and play with it together because I wanted to, that would be encouraging rape.

    Can't stop giggling. That's not even cogent enough to be wrong.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Can't stop giggling. That's not even cogent enough to be wrong.

    I don't know. It has a certain je nes sais WTF...

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Beard,

    Hang about... Didn't we just spend 100 squillion on Queen St to make it People friendly? You know, with stuff for tourists and the like? Didn't the Council know about the RWC?

    Well yes, but it's mostly a shopping street rather than a boozing street. And "closing a street to traffic" is presumably heresy in Auckland, right?

    I presume Aotea Square has already been looked at and dismissed. Would it collapse under the weight? How about the yet-to-be-developed spaces at Britomart?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1040 posts Report Reply

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    The Ponsonby green bus does the loop into town and back up past the Cavalier(a rugby pub with screens already) so one could get all over the city without so much as a "wait at bar till a bus comes along". Sorted.

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

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    I presume Aotea Square has already been looked at and dismissed. Would it collapse under the weight? How about the yet-to-be-developed spaces at Britomart?

    That was what the council originally wanted until it was hi-jacked by the twits. The Britomart area you mention is doing rather nicely with more space to still lease and guess what, recently whilst down there for a drink I noticed several new bars down there (even popped into a few), but Aotea would work as it stretches up to Myers Park, K Rd etc.

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

  • Julie Fairey,

    Is "don't argue with these people, you'll just end up driven to drink" a new perspective?

    Thing is, they came over to my place and started the fight. I'm not supposed to argue with them at my own blog?

    I'm not going to read Lucia's post, just as I'm not going to read Chris Trotter's rant about abortion. I know that that way Bad Things lie. I'm very glad though that people have been debating with them in their homes, albeit I suspect that visitors from here to theirs will have been much better behaved, and much less deliberately offensive, than they have been at mine.

    Puketapapa Mt Roskill, AK… • Since Dec 2007 • 234 posts Report Reply

  • JackElder,

    Apparently sex is this thing I have, possibly in some kind of box.

    Tupperware?

    Wellington • Since Mar 2008 • 709 posts Report Reply

  • Julie Fairey,

    Apparently sex is this thing I have, possibly in some kind of box.

    Tupperware?

    Definitely see-through, right?

    Thank you Emma, I like your analogy a lot.

    Puketapapa Mt Roskill, AK… • Since Dec 2007 • 234 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    Whereas if we were to take sex out of its box and play with it...

    It would never become a collectors item to be flogged off on Trade Me.
    I'll get back in my box now... No wait... that's not what I meant.
    Damn it, where's my hat...
    Digging deeper to find a way out...
    Bugger, why am I always misunderstood...
    OUCH!!!!

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    It would never become a collectors item to be flogged off on Trade Me.

    I can't even remember what the original packaging looked like, honestly.

    Thank you Emma, I like your analogy a lot.

    I was thinking of this:

    some people still subscribe to a commodity model of sexuality, where a woman’s precious internal chastity orb is depleted every time she ‘gives it up’ to a new guy. Men, on the other hand, rack up points by claiming these chastity bits when we discard them.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • dyan campbell,

    "I agree - they are very much the old guard of the rugby/racing/beer NZ male stereotype."

    For the first year or so after I moved to NZ I was genuinely under the impression that nearly all people in NZ (with the exception of my husband Paul and my mother in law Myrtle) were racist, sexist and homophobic. Actually come to think of it, my M-I-L was pretty sexist and homophobic but I loved her dearly, as she hated racists, loved Paul and was immensely kind to me.

    Within a few weeks of moving here Paul gave me a copy of James K. Baxter's poems Pig Island Letters to "help explain" his culture. But I was shocked that he had spent a lifetime accepting crap from people who insulted his mother, his heritage or anything, if they prefaced it with the comment that it was "a joke".

    I was equally shocked and deeply horrified to find complete passivity was the socially appropriate response to offensive behaviour. Some guy grabbed my breast at a barbeque, saying "ooo-errr, that Paul, he's a lucky man" and had the nerve to complain that I bruised his arm doing the classic self defence move (windmill at 12:00) in response to anyone grabbing any part of me from the front.

    Within a year or so of moving here I finally met lots of NZers who were really not that type, and I began to love this place. Cautiously at first, then later with some enthusiasm.

    It was an overwhelming relief to me to discover that the pro-apartheid, pro-bullying, sexist, racist, moronically dull demographic in NZ was just that - one small slice of a very diverse pie. But good god, I got sick of the "jokes" and the "good natured banter" that was for the sake of provocation, or as they call it "stirring". I went around mentally muttering that line of Woody Allen's "Oh, for a great big sock filled with manure" .

    This society seems a good deal healthier to me now than it did 22 years ago, but I may have a skewed perspective based on the type I first met when I moved here.

    The concept of sexist and racist bullying does seem linked to certain sports, and the same type exists in Canada, but the boundaries are way, way different. Sex with an unconscious person in Canada is and always has been viewed as rape.

    auckland • Since Dec 2006 • 595 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    "internal chastity orb" is quite splendid.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    And I thought you were thinking of this...

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • dyan campbell,

    I can't even remember what the original packaging looked like, honestly.

    Oh, my dear Emma that's so sad. But someone (was it Jolisa?) wrote of a process where you can get it bejazzled, or vajazzled or something. Get it covered with rhinestones to make it all purdy.

    auckland • Since Dec 2006 • 595 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    rotten martyrs - let us prey...
    Does the Latin quote on the NZ Conservative site Sine Dominico Non Possumus ("We cannot live without this thing of the Lord" - referring to the regular Sunday celebration of the Eucharist)
    indicate that these people are allegedly Christians?
    God (insert preferred deity here) help us,
    The Martyrs of Abitina will be spinning in
    their reliquaries...

    what part of the Christian ethic
    "Do to others what you would
    have them do to you"

    let's her arrive at:

    "When women draw attention to their bodies, they are asking to be defined by their bodies, and at some point, they will find themselves treated as if they were nothing more than a body."

    to paraphrase Lucia Maria:
    "When idiots draw attention to their stupidity, they are asking to be defined by their ignorance, and at some point, they will find themselves treated as if they were nothing more than a laughing stock."

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Thing is, they came over to my place and started the fight. I'm not supposed to argue with them at my own blog?

    Good people should be paid to deal with the other end of the bell curve. Otherwise it's just using up energy for no benefit.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    Latin quote on the NZ Conservative site Sine Dominico Non Possumus

    I thought that meant "There's a sign in the Domain that says "No Possums""

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • JackElder,

    the other end of the bell curve

    From the internal chastity orb to the bell end in seven comments. Efficiency.

    Wellington • Since Mar 2008 • 709 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    I thought that meant "There's a sign in the Domain that says "No Possums""

    Whereas it actually means "Tell me why I don't like Mondays".

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • DexterX,

    The sheds - at present the inability of the parties involved to work together is a childishly insane.

    A few thought on the sheds are that they could relatively easily and cheaply remove the asbestos sheets, clad the sheds in a mix of iron and clear sheeting leaving exposed timber visible or any other features that are worth preserving.

    Make the big shed resemble, both on the inside and outside, a sports club/local ruby club rooms (with a range of bars) and have the small shed as food court/restaurant/multi cafe space.

    At ground level have clear sliders that allow a view of the harbour.

    This could be done in the short term while "they" work through a design process more suitable for the long-term use.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1224 posts Report Reply

  • Stephen Judd,

    Hang on, this would be the same Lucia who some years ago was advancing the theory that homosexuality led to Nazi atrocities. Her views on any subject should be viewed with bemused pity to the extent that they engage your attention at all. I can't remember what led me to "NZ Conservative" back in 2007 where I found that post but I hope never to go back there again.

    I don't know what the correct name for the poisonous, conspiracy-prone reactionary crap they peddle over there is but it's a disgrace to the word "conservative."

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report Reply

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