Posts by Joe Wylie
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
What crisis? says Brownlee
So he's not in denial, it simply hasn't been brought to his attention.
Also from that first link, more evidence to bear out Sacha's assertion that NZ First are more proactive on quake issues than Labour. Christchurch list MP Denis O'Rourke continues to demonstrate that he actually believes that he went into politics to make a difference.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Sacha,
I do feel bad about how the rest of the country has so let down Christchurch's residents.
It seems more like one of those human nature things that only becomes apparent through living in 'interesting times'. Perhaps the ugliest examples of self-absorbed contempt for the misfortune of others have occurred right here in Christchurch.
I realise that attempting to moralise why bad things happen to people is some kind of coping mechanism, and it's certainly faded in the light of common day. What gets me is the kind of institutionalised cynicism that banks on that attitude, embodied by Brownlee, who seems happy to, as Mike Coleman has put it, "absorb the hits".
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to 3410,
I didn't mean denigrate Chchch's level of community organisation, just to make the observation of what was "apparent" . . .
Understood, sorry if I didn't make it clear. As it happens I've spent rather more of my life in Ak than I have down here, but I'm working on it :)
The disturbing thing for me about post-disaster Chch is how the apparent ladders were abruptly pulled up and public concern treated as something to be event managed. I assume that would be the pattern we could expect anywhere in NZ. Perhaps the same could be said for the apathetically small voter turnout for local government. Maybe it's a Chch phenomenon to elect shallow minor media figures and victims of high profile crime. Perhaps that explains the deep political cynicism I've encountered from long-term residents here. While they despise Parker's post-quake performance, they assume that any organised opposition is someone's vehicle for a tilt at the spoils of public office.
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Re. feeding the tweeties - if you're of the vego persuasion, coconut-based shortening such as Kremelta is a good substitute for lard when making those birdie feeder cakes.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
lots of the little birds have come down to the plains, from their usual sub-alpine areas, looking for food - time to get the bird feeding bags up in the trees...
If we don't placate the little ones with offerings the keas will descend like a pestilence, wreaking havoc on rubber windscreen gaskets. Zombies & brains, keas & kidney fat.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to 3410,
From an Auckland perspective, the apparent community organisation in Chchch is currently nil.
While from this end, Len Brown seems to become more like Bob Parker with every public utterance. Auckland doesn't exhibit a lot of apparent community organisation either, but when it does, as happened with the turnout against mining in conservation land in 2010, it's enough to seriously rattle the likes of Brownlee.
It's been by far the most significant speed bump that this Government has struck, and it had sweet FA to do with Labour, who apart from Lianne Dalziel continue to oblige by assuming the position whenever National wish to wipe the floor with them on quake-related issues. While the approx. 4000 who showed up in Hereford St on Feb 1 was enough to temporarily rattle Parker, next month's planned turnout will need to take the fight beyond the unembarrassable Tony Marryatt.
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Sacha,
Where's the coordinated opposition to that viewpoint?
At least some appear to be taking the legal fight to the insurance companies over the very issue that sparked this thread.
"The insurance industry have a line of QCs lined ready to take this to the Supreme Court. There is hundreds of millions of dollars at stake here."
Not to mention the active collusion of their friends in Government. -
Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Lilith __,
Perhaps the single nastiest thing to have emerged post-quakes is the realisation of the corporatised and dehumanised bureaucratic culture that's become entrenched in NZ. Even if we're no longer prepared to have what's left of our collective intelligence insulted by the squirming ineptitude of Roger Sutton, promoted beyond the level of his competence and cynically paraded as the "human" face of an organisation that deliberately seeks to dampen public expectation, we're locked out of any form of effective consultation.
This online comment from last October 13 seems truer than ever, although given the fate of ECAN and the slow self-implosion of the CCC the writer seems a tad overoptimistic about the eventual departure of CERA and its ilk:
The problem with people in cardigans descending on the city and seizing control is that this is the dream of a lifetime for many of them. To be able to emerge from their lifetime of drudgery in government and corporate offices and suddenly have a few months of total power is just too much for them to resist the temptation to take that power to extremes
At one of this week's CERA meetings where contractors are de-briefed, a fuss was made about the fact that someone had been seen with a dog in their vehicle in the redzone! Oh My God! Stop everything! We can't have that! CERA needs to start to lighten up a bit, and to develop both a sense of humour and a sense of humanity. Thank god, they and their bureeaucrats will soon be gone (or at least have to relinquish their micro-managed world of control).
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Market dog parking by Ms Goodie.
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Capture: Roamin' Holiday, in reply to Hebe,
Basilica stairs at the back of the altar. Stairway to Heaven?
I remember being taken to visit the Basilica by my devout Catholic aunts on a childhood visit to Chch. There was a little side altar set into an alcove, where a candle glowed from within a red glass lamp. One of the aunts whispered that it was for the souls in purgatory.
I noticed a door off the side of the altar, and wondered if it was some kind of direct portal to purgatory. As a good little Catholic you were encouraged to pray for the suffering souls. Perhaps the initiated would actually pop through with the glass of water that we'd been assured they craved.
During mass, when the Basilica would have been firing on all cylinders, heaven might have seemed close. But in that spooky whispery near-silence, purgatory was rather more immediate. Great pictures Hebe, though almost too poignant after this morning's passing glimpse of the sorry ruin in Barbadoes Street.
