Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Morgan Nichol,
So what’s the big fucking deal?
Oh, as I said – not a lot that I can see but it’s rather tricky to assess the credibility (or otherwise) of a story when the link runs you into a paywall head first.
If this is what the right have to descend to in their effort to find any muck on Brown, maybe I should re-examine my lack of support for the guy, because that must mean he’s pretty clean.
Quite. Can’t recall the attempt to make John Key’s address a character issue working terribly well. It’s one of the little ironies of public life how often the voters are a lot smarter and more focused than the media-political complex gives them credit for. Len Brown’s going to face a more sceptical (and hopefully policy-focused) media this time around, and that’s not a bad thing on balance. But I suspect the really interesting (and important) tussles are going to go on down the ballot, and my expectations that the media are going to report them at all well are low-to-non-existent.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Russell Brown,
Seriously? What a silly argument.
Would anyone like to liberate the meat of the story from behind the NBR paywall? As I understand it, the story (accurately) points out that Len Brown lives outside the Metropolitan Urban Limit -- which isn't "outrageous bullshit" if it's actually true. Personally, I'm struggling to see what "outrageous hypocrisy" that signifies on Brown's part but it would be nice to see first hand if the NBR makes a case. If only for the sheer entertainment value.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Sacha,
And taking a second look at that Orsman piece, I'm not sure he's exactly adding much value to the debate with sidebars like this:
Hate speech is coming to a street near you - if you live in a quiet piece of suburbia, like Poronui St in Mt Eden, and object to your neighbourhood being rezoned for apartments and infill housing.
Then three paragraphs later:
Suburbs, including Orewa and Browns Bay that helped elect Goudie to the council in 2010 are branded "soulless, geriatric timebombs" in the blog he calls "brilliant" but that others label "hate speech". [Emphasis added, not in original]
Um, who Bernard? I don't think it was a terribly well argued piece, to put it mildly, but not for the first time I really wish Orsman (and The Herald) would decide whether he's a reporter - and should properly source, attribute and contexualize quotes -- or an editorial columnist.
Nor am I particularly convinced this contributed more light than heat to the discussion:
Statements like this provide little comfort to Gosney and others. In fact, they confirm her worst suspicions that the council is paying lip-service and acting like the Government of Cyprus to steal property rights for a bankrupt agenda.
Even if that's an accurate paraphrase of Paula Gosney's views, wouldn't it have been appropriate to subject some turbo-charged rhetoric to some calming fact-checking and context? Again, if Bernard and The Herald want to editorialize they're perfectly entitled to do so. I just prefer they do so while keeping a line between news and editorial.
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The mayor’s office is aggrieved that the Herald’s Bernard Orsman has dubbed Goudie’s rant against anti-intensifiers “hate speech”, but I think that’s the risk you run when you use the word “hate” about Auckland electors throughout your silly screed.
Agreed, but it would be sweet if Bernard Orsman and his paper stopped treating local government - not just in Auckland but the other local authorities in it's circulation area - like some ghastly reality show/popularity contest. I know I'm well and truly flogging a dead horse, but it's really depressing when I feel better informed about local body elections in New York and London (and not just the top of the ticket) than my own backyard.
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Hard News: Satire's shooting star, in reply to Kumara Republic,
, I’m always reminded of when Jerry Falwell talked about his first time.
Sorry for wandering off topic here, but the most delightful defamation case I've ever heard of was Margaret Potter suing Mary Whitehouse for claiming in an interview on BBC Radio her son, Dennis, "had seen his mother having sex with a strange man in the grass.” That turned out to be a rather expensive confusion of fact and fiction (or more precisely, The Singing Detective's protagonist and author) for both Whitehouse and the BBC.
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Hard News: You can Roughan but you just…, in reply to Tristan,
I wonder what Auckland did before cars were invented
Complained an awful lot about horse shit in the streets, hooning cart drivers and the moral menace of women dispensing with the side saddle. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. :)
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A longer version of their film will screen at this year’s film festivals, but the TV cut is available for viewing here on the Maori Television website.
Someone will need to refresh my memory, but I believe Maori did something similar with Maori Boy Genius. And this Film Festival season, it might be instructive to take a close look at the credits on the documentaries. For a medium that was supposedly going to be the death of cinema, an awful lot of good feature length documentaries wouldn't have seen the light of day without a handful of TV folks (from Three and Maori here to HBO & PBS in the heart of the evil empire) who keep commissioning the damn things.
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Hard News: You can Roughan but you just…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Auckland Transport considers itself within the law, of course
Fair point - and it would be *cough* legally prudent not to suggest anything else, but I do think it's fair comment (and honest opinion) to suggest a disturbingly large number of cases that come to the Office of the Ombudsmen hinge on a *takes sip of water, considers next words carefully* very broad interpretation of the law. (If some people had their way, everything would be "commercially sensitive.")
You can hardly blame officials for taking full advantage of what they're given. Ultimately, that's all on Parliament, and you can cynically wonder if expecting politicians to write official information law with teeth is akin to asking foxes to draw up a security plan for the local hen house. :)
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Hard News: You can Roughan but you just…, in reply to Russell Brown,
This isn’t the place for this and I’m not going to sacrifice the disc with ussion to the policing of a vernacular we all, you included, use.
That's a fair call, because I'm still entirely capable of opening my mouth, disengaging my brain and showing my arse with unedifying regularity. I just don't get paid for it as often as John Roughan. :) But I do hope the next time I make a tendentious case on a matter of public policy (and it will happen), folks will pick apart the bad argument and not bring my mental illness into it.
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Even if Auckland Transport officials feel that their provision of the data in this form would only lead to faulty analysis, they should provide it on reasonable terms. It’s pretty basic democracy.
No, Russell, it’s not “pretty basic democracy” it’s OBEYING THE LAW. If Auckland Transport officials don’t like the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, they should make the case for amending it so potential political inconvenience/embarrassment becomes grounds for declining an OIA request. Until that happens Auckland Transport (and too many others) need to stop pulling imaginary excuses for flouting the law out of their collective arse.
Hide and other neolib loonies
Hey, Sasha, ableist mental-health shaming? Really? Dude, you know better than that so do better.
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