Posts by Carol Stewart
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Hard News: Villainy and engagement, in reply to Daphne Lawless,
the "Norman Bates" line was the kind of thing that I would consider clever "snark" if I read it in an online review or blog comment rather than on live TV
I thought the Doppelganger line sounded rehearsed as well.
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Envirologue: 1080, "eco-terrorism" and agendas, in reply to izogi,
Most likely to me is still just a looney who either didn’t think about the likely reception and repurcussions
I don't know about that, seems to me that the intended consequences - ie to create a big scare about 1080 and get it into the headlines, see this weekend's DomPost - were calculated and intentional to a chilling degree. I don't know if I'm alone in finding the condemnations of the action from the anti-1080 lobby a little insincere, or that they are that uncomfortable with its polarising nature.
It's a shame that this incident has ramped up the hysteria around the use of 1080 even further. In fact the EPA risk assessment suggested that the public health hazard would be higher if 1080 was not used:The acute health hazard to the public from cyanide baits is substantially higher than for 1080 baits due to the higher toxicity level and the speed of action of the poison.
Oh, and great post Dave, you really nailed it.
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It was a fascinating interview, Hilary. Thank you!
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And another recommendation: Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer. It is quite a departure from his earlier books Into Thin Air and Into the Wild, and is about the murky and weird world of Mormon fundamentalism, and more generally about the nature of religious belief and its role in American society.
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Happy New Year, good peoples. here is another nonfiction reading treat - great article by Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker, about NZ's crusade against mammals.
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How could I forget Dirty Politics? Word of the year, book of the year!
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Travelling overseas today so a bit pressed for time, but wanted to say that this new collection sounds really fabulous. We already own the Great NZ Argument and have much enjoyed it.
Thanks to being lucky enough to belong to a wonderful science book group, I’ve gotten to read some excellent nonfiction this year. Highlights include:
Spillover by David Quammen (who also wrote the excellent Song of the Dodo. Spillover is about zoonoses (infectious diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans) and is just a really great, and prescient, read.
Junkyard Planet, by Adam Minter, about the global recycling trade – fascinating and full of unexpected insights.
Tragedy at Pike River Mine, by, of course, Rebecca Macfie. Needs no introduction to PA readers, stunning book, should be read by everyone.
Better Angels of our Nature< by Steven Pinker. A very interesting read about how the common perception that the modern world is more violent and nasty than ever before is probably quite wrong.Looking forward to hearing others’ recommendations.
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Perhaps you need some resistors…
;- )I thought they were futile?
I’d love for Cut the Crap to win WOTY2015.
Me too.
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Speaker: David Fisher: The OIA arms race, in reply to Idiot Savant,
if they were refused as such, they were refused improperly.
They weren’t refused. They were all met within the specified timeframe.
Looking back, they probably just hastened the inevitable changes.
It’s very debatable that they were made in good faith in the sense that they were not about finding out information but about tying up board processes and scoring points. We had a ministry-supported facilitator working with us at the time, and she didn’t think they were good faith.I totally get your point that OIAs are an important tool for making governments more transparent. It just wasn’t a lot of fun to be on the receiving end of, as a parent volunteer.
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Speaker: David Fisher: The OIA arms race, in reply to linger,
Can you give a rough estimate of what proportion of the OIAs made to your school board were vexatious?
They were all made by the same person with the same motivation ..
To be fair, the context was that there were a lot of trust problems at the time between the board, the school management and the school community, as the subsequent ERO report identified. But the use of the OIAs in that way was corrosive.