Posts by David Mir

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  • Discussion: Closer to Home?,

    Me too, although I've generally fallen into the "long time lurker" category....

    Sydney • Since Jan 2007 • 17 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    Oh, he's been mentioned here as well..

    Oops, hadn't read through all 5 pages... hardly surprised though given the subject matter. I have to say I've enjoyed his recent fall from grace just a tad... there aren;t too many people in the world I despise (hate being such a waste of energy and all) but he'd be one of them.

    Sydney • Since Jan 2007 • 17 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    Empathy is something you learn from those who raise you and the people around you - or not, it seems.

    True, some seem slower to get it than others.... the name Kyle Sandilands will spring to mind for anyone living in Australia.

    Sydney • Since Jan 2007 • 17 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    Express all the outrage we like but at the end of the day it's really nothing but a bunch of daft middle class kids doing something that they think is "shocking" with little understanding of the effect it might have on some people. It's hardly the first time, I remember a couple of similar incidents from my time at Uni, one was a satirical advertisment for a fictional stage production "The Importance of Being Furnaced - featuring a cast of Six Million!" and the other a student pub's tagline for a St Patrick's day celebration - "More fun than a potato famine!"
    Empathy is something you learn as you age, and kids will always be making light of Nazis, dead babies and cancer victims simply because they haven't always learned that particular trait yet.

    Sydney • Since Jan 2007 • 17 posts Report Reply

  • Discussion: Closer to Home?,

    Perhaps it's function of the later colonisation, I don't exactly know, but I'm grateful that though there remain injustices needing remedy, NZ's committed to remedies whereas not all Australians are.

    I think it's a pretty complex combination of factors- later colonisation, differences between the respective indigenous cultures themselves and their responses to colonialism, and the very different colonial and immigration histories of the two countries.

    Is that just patrotism or also a higher tolerance for flat out sexism? Ever watched episodes of the NRL or AFL footy shows? Far-freak'n-out! It's boorish, sexist, homophobic crap on network TV!
    Further evidence for this is that until recently, Netball tests were seldom broadcast even though Australia's got anti-sphoning laws to ensure national sporting events are free-to-air.

    I know what you mean- I'm a big NRL fan but refuse to watch the footy show as it certainly isn't about football. I don't really blame that for the Olympics coverage though- I think it was a straight up case of the Aussie media believing that their viewers were more interested in ANY story about Australian athletes than anything else. To their credit, many Australian sports fans didn't share their views, and agreed the coverage was terrible.
    Australia is a weirdly conservative place sometimes too- I can't envision a woman prime minister here, and the amount of clout that religious organisations here seem to have compared to in NZ is scary sometimes. Kind of like in the US, I think it would be pretty much political suicide here for an election candidate to admit to being an atheist, or anything but a "normal" family type- which obviously isn't the case in NZ given Helen Clark's tenure.

    Mustn't gripe but, mustn't. It's a grand country with much to commend it, it just isn't home.

    Oh, absolutely. But hey, again I think (at least on Public Address anyway) we're well beyond ridiculous "love it or leave it" sentiments where ANY criticism of aspects of a society is taken as traitorious slander.
    I could reel off a few things that annoy me about NZ too- for starters there's our tendency to constantly think of reasons NOT to do something before we undertake anything and end up doing something half arsed. When the debate over the waterfront stadium for the RWC was going on I couldn't how it would have panned out had it been in Sydney (a city that seems to understand the "if you build it, they will come" concept). The amount of public works that went into Sydney before the Olympics was staggering- yet NZers bitched and moaned and couldn't get their shit together enough to build ONE decent stadium and instead settled on trying to make a silk purse of the sow's ear that is Eden Park. It was frankly rather embarrassing.

    Sydney • Since Jan 2007 • 17 posts Report Reply

  • Random Play: Tragedy in our playground,

    We visited Samoa almost exactly a year ago, and it's been guit-wrenching seeing the devastation at many of the places we visited. Taufua Beach Fales at Lalomanu has been destroyed, and five members of the family that own it killed.
    The boat that I went diving from on the south coast is now sitting in the middle of the bar at Coconuts.
    Virgin Cove resort also looks like it's basically been flattened, although I was relieved to hear that all the staff and guests escaped pretty much unscathed.
    I've also heard that Manono Island was hit pretty hard, although details are sketchy, I really hope that Leota and his family are OK.

    Sydney • Since Jan 2007 • 17 posts Report Reply

  • Discussion: Closer to Home?,

    I've been in Sydney for 7 years and am about to head home to NZ for a few months for some further study. Part of the reason is expediency- the availability of student allowance and the exchange rate mean I come out a few grand ahead of where I'd be if I did the same course in Australia, and as I'd have to travel to another state to do it here (commercial diving certifications aren't offered in too many spots as you need a lot of gear and some very deep water to put it into) anyway the travel aspect is a non-issue.
    I moved for the same reason as most younger kiwis- the lure of the big city, Aussie salaries, sun and beaches, but the longer I've been here the less appeal it holds- the endless urban sprawl and astronomical property prices in particular are something of a put-off. There are also things I prefer about NZ culturally compared to Australia- the awareness of indigenous culture, and less of a tendency toward patriotic chest-beating for example. NZ is a small country and largely the NZ media acknowledge that- so the news, sports coverage etc are generally pretty internationally inclusive. Compare that to Australia, whose media at time seems almost American in it's focus on Australian events to the eclusion of others. Watching the Olympics here was bloody painful- no coverage of Val Vili's shot-put final, but every time an Australian swimmer so much as pulled her cozzie out of her arse-crack you'd be treated to half-hourly replays of it for the next two days.

    Sydney • Since Jan 2007 • 17 posts Report Reply

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