Posts by Lynda Johansson
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Don't know who the aging drunks were that got your attention at Friday's gig, Russell, but I do know that it was my 20-year-old daughter who ended up KOed on the floor after taking a blow to the head from a couple of youths scuffling at the front, just before Collapsing Cities came on. She was picked up and taken outside. Recovered enough to watch safely from the back but she's left with bruising all down one side of her face today. Nevertheless, it was a fantastic night and it's great to see how the generations can mix and mingle at an event like this, and to see how the older musicians are fostering the up and coming talent.
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This post is on a completely unrelated topic, I'm sorry, but is in response to Act's stirring of the education voucher pot on behalf of the Education Forum. I think it was Roger Douglas who came out with how social democratic Sweden has adopted a voucher system. I went digging a little further and found that there the private schools are mostly start up ones in response, offering alternative models of education, as there were virtually no private schools there before. Although introduced by a conservative government (still seeming somewhat to the left of Labour here), there is political consensus and union support as there are considerable safeguards around the system such as having to use registered teachers, the schools not allowed to charge top up fees, and a first come, first enrolled basis, so no cherry picking of students. Even so, there is some nervousness in the sector that segregation may yet arise. I'm not convinced that this is the model that Act, Key and the Education Forum have in mind. Any thoughts? I'll try to supply a link to the article I found: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/3717744.stm
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A couple of interesting comments coming out of Joe Nunweek's Wire interview with Victoria's Bill Ryan: the comparison between the more generalised stereotypical armchair critics and the 'extraordinarily high satisfaction ratings' found in attitudinal studies of clients of NZ government agencies; also his surmising that a lot of the people Key was talking about may well have come from those public servants engaged in providing the answers to parliamentary questions from non-govt parties needed by ministers to use in the house, along with legislative requirements for agencies and that thorny matter of 'accountability'.
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Just a thought about Saturday's entertainment offerings: Garageland is probably a one-off whereas I assume you can see Phoenix Foundation at another time.