Posts by izogi
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Hard News: The Minister's Brain Has Exploded, in reply to Sacha,
When someone pays you to provide a service, they tend to have the upper hand in the relationship
I wish somebody would tell this to my landlord.
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Hard News: Towards the Truth, in reply to Simon Grigg,
I use iTunes podcasts - the direct TVNZ feed is very hit and miss overseas.
Thanks for the tip. Unless I'm missing something though, the RSS feed hasn't included the Extra segment. Only parts 1 and 2 of the main show. Oh well.
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But it wasn't until the very end of an online-only "Extra" segment, as long as the broadcast show itself, that he spoke the words that made the news.
From Australia I can stream the main two segments of Episode 5. When I try to stream the Media 7 Extra segment, though, the website tells me it's only available in New Zealand due to international rights agreements. Is this intended or has TVNZ mixed something up?
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Hard News: Towards the Truth, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
but I also hope they're "real people" who know the difference between a democracy and a military dictatorship
I'm sure the military would simply use robots for everything if it were practical and accurate. The days in which we even have the luxury of unpredictably autonomous soldiers on the ground who can return and annoyingly tell tales of bad and illegal things happening may be numbered.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
I think smoking is something the government should commit to eradicating in New Zealand.
I've often wondered what this sort of goal might do for tourism if fully implemented, and potentially for business relationships if rich people from overseas who want to visit NZ for some reason might not be allowed to smoke. Would they be put off?
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to Danielle,
Come, smoke vaguely near me in a park, you hapless addicted souls! I will happily move six inches to the left!
To be honest I appreciate the right and need for people to light up without being sneered at, whether it’s because they’re addicted or because they want to. I just wish public spaces would be built with more thought towards encouraging and sometimes shifting people who want to smoke away from commonly used public places and thoroughfares. I’d be happier if we treated smoking in the same way that we often restrict people from taking bikes or food or dogs into certain areas because of how it changes a place and the annoyance it causes to others who are there for different reasons, as long as there are other reasonable places set aside for it. Presently, especially with things like cafes pushing all their smokers out into big long lines on sheltered public footpaths that continue to be pushed as major walking routes between points A and B, we’re encouraging smokers into crowded places.
As I said earlier though, I think the question of there being a “right to fresh air” is a separate issue that’s not being discussed here. I’m mostly taking exception to the claims that effects of outdoor smoking — whatever they are — are easy to get away from. For many people I don’t think it’s true.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to BenWilson,
Yes, it is possible to smoke in a particularly obnoxious way. It's also very easy to point that out, which most smokers will take immediate note of, conveniently moving away, or extinguishing their cigarette.
My point is that outdoor cigarette smoke is ubiquitous in outdoor urban places at any time with enough random people around and can't easily be gotten away from by people who need to interact with urban places. Yes you can ask some people to stop or shift away if they're nearby and some people will do so, some will feel offended or embarrassed, some will ignore you and finish what they're doing and some will start arguing with you. Right now it is socially acceptable to smoke in public places, and the official message is that everyone who smokes has to do so outdoors. People's smoking concentrates in the time they're outside, typically for the same reasons as others. That's just how things are, and the smoke from it gets everywhere that people collect together. It's simplistic and untrue to say that those who dislike it can just avoid it -- it's a fact of being in a city. If you can avoid it after spending a reasonable amount of time in an urban setting then I'd suggest you're either very lucky in the places you frequent, insensitive to it or you're ignoring rather than avoiding it.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to BenWilson,
Like smoking out of doors, where the volume of air into which the smoke dissipates is enormous. It's a very long way from the harm generated by passive smoking to just disliking an odour that you are sensitive to. On that one, unless in, say, an actual crowd, it seems to me that people could simply do what they do for all things that they don't much like, avoid them. It's really not a lot to ask.
I'll leave aside the question of whether fresh air should be a right, but I still think what you've just said about avoiding it is a simplistic and incorrect assertion.
When there are frequent public outdoor spaces designed for people to stand or interact as part of what they need to do from day to day, it's only a matter of time before someone shows up, lights up, breathes out and stinks up the air for everyone occupying the same space. I'm talking about bus stops, train stations, footpaths where there's little choice but to share the same air as 50 people ahead of you, outdoor stairways, park benches, tables outside cafes, lookout points, ticket outlets, pedestrian crossings, taxi stands, doorways of any large building you might happen to work in which often have people standing outside for a smoko. With pretty much anywhere that you might need to stop and wait outside for any length of time whilst in a populated area. the chances are that other people need to stop and wait there too, and smokers who are waiting tend to pull out a ciggie. You could spend your outdoor time in the middle of a deserted sports field and not interact with any public spaces, but it's unrealistic if you want to live a normal life going to work day-to-day in an urban environment and avoid being affected by smokers. Perhaps you just don't notice or care about air around you, but it's there and avoiding it is a very difficult thing. Avoiding it, for anyone who wants to, is a lot to ask.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to BenWilson,
Here in non-crowded, temperate, windy NZ
I’m not convinced the most relevant factors are about the size of the crowd so much as the nature of our urban layouts that place smokers into walking corridors which everyone uses with people who are smoking, or encourages them to stand near doorways and entrance-ways where stale smoke lingers for hours on end and becomes unpleasant for people who use them.. References to wind can also be misleading, given how people tend to gravitate towards sheltered non-windy spaces when they can. I’m fairly sure the Wellington City Council was caught out by an air quality study a few years back, having previously assumed that wind was blowing away all their problems.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
I'm not denying the right of people to puff away anywhere where I don't have to suffer it, but surrounding my head with smoke is never cool. My asthmatic friends also applaud the wardens.
I'm not qualified to comment on health effects, but I definitely agree with the prevalence of outdoor smoke. Perhaps not everyone can detect it, but it's certainly there and it lingers.
I found it frustrating enough when living in Wellington that it really was impossible to walk down Lambton Quay during any vaguely populated time of day (morning, lunch, evening) without becoming trapped behind people 10 to 15 metres away puffing smoke back into the faces of everyone all over the footpath behind them. I actively avoided walking anywhere near cafes that have shoved their smoking customers out onto the streets for the same reason, except when I really had to. I've since shifted to Melbourne where it's impossible (no exaggeration) for me to walk 5 minutes from my CBD railway station to work at 7.45am without having to traverse a gauntlet of people hanging out on street corners and both sides of footpaths, puffing smoke into everyone who walks past.
Some of this effect is no doubt a consequence of legislation that restricts smoking indoors around workplaces, but it's a side effect that's not been addressed in any way. I appreciate that smokers need somewhere to light up too, I may be unusually sensitive and perhaps smoker breath isn't different from someone with bad breath for some other reason in which case I haven't decided if it's reasonable to differentiate. For me, though, I'd appreciate some kind of acknowledgement of a right to fresh air in public spaces where large amounts of people have to visit and use for day-to-day living, including outdoor spaces. Often I've found the middle of the roads to seem less polluted, but I guess today's cars actually have emission standards whereas cigarettes probably don't.