Posts by Joe Wylie
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Muse: Indecision '11: Fighting the Grey, in reply to Stewart,
Personally, I would prefer to see a little more tolerance for some of these older folks who haven’t been brought up in our more enlightened times.
Des Dunlop is 71. He’d have started school at around the end of WW2. Compared to, say, former Whitlam Government Minister Tom Uren, or my own late uncle, both of whom were systematically mistreated as prisoners of the Japanese, but who lived to more than welcome their own Japanese grandchildren-in-law, there's no generational excuse for his bigotry.
If Dunlop requires the kind of care that an old folks’ home provides in his remaining years he’ll receive a salutary lesson in how vital immigration is to this country.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Kracklite,
Olaf Stapledon
So Odd John’s the man for you then…
:- )More the Last Men, really.
:)
Only at PAS :- )
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Hard News: Walking upright again, in reply to Hebe,
Lovely work Joe. Who are the two women in the foreground of that shot?
Thanks Hebe, Ms Gudrun who shot it will be most appreciative.
I believe that the woman on the left is TVNZ reporter Lisa Davies. -
Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Jackie Clark,
. . . the tendencies of mind nowadays are for protection, regression, simplicity, security and certainty.
Well if you want all of these in a bunch, the best thing you can do is to become a Jehovah’s Witness. You needn’t worry a hell of a lot about your morals; when you meet a Jay Dub you never get the impression that he’s going to be snooty about your moral life. The fact is he’s got his eyes fixed on the New Kingdom and any general drop in morals gives him a great kick because it’s a proof that the first part of the heavenly war is over and Satan has been well and truly slammed down upon this earth.Ian Hamilton, Till Human Voices Wake Us, 1953.
Conscientious objecter and pacifist Ian Hamilton’s memoir of his WW2 internment in NZ includes some interesting observations about the various varieties of internees, both political and religious. He points out that although Jehovah's Witnesses won’t serve in combat they are not pacifists – they’ll be right in there at the final battle against Satan, which will be fought down here.
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Hard News: Walking upright again, in reply to Rob Stowell,
. . . if not you, who? So please: just tell them!
Maybe you're right. Whatever they might think, it seems that the media aren't prepared to.
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Hard News: Walking upright again, in reply to Sacha,
Is Mike Coleman's letter available as a plain web page we can link to?
WECAN's use of online media leaves a lot to be desired. For me this doesn't affect their credibility as an organisation, it's an indication that they need help. Direct action is desperately needed right now, and they've been more than instrumental in co-ordinating some of the most effective protest.
In the absence of a web page I've knocked together this.
Though frankly I find some of his earlier writing more compelling.
I'm sure he's written better sermons, and while it's not my place to tell them so, WECAN's logo sucks. Again, the aforementioned disclaimers apply.
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Hard News: Walking upright again, in reply to Sacha,
If the rest of the country continues to buy into the current Government's 'I'm all right Jack' scenario, we're only perpetuating the complacency that's led to Christchurch's post-quake plight.
CERA have extraordinary powers, but as a self-perpetuating bureaucracy they're not structured for the greater good of society.
In the meantime, if you can help in any way to distribute WECAN/Mike Coleman's open letter to NZ, available here as a PDF, and here as cut 'n paste text, I believe that would go some small way to helping the rest of the country.
From Orange Zone protester Darla Hutt's Facebook page:
Wow ok posted the letter to New Zealand on National's facebook wall, and Jason Posted on it on John Key's wall, and what do you know, it has been removed by both. Good thing I also posted it on 3News, One News, Campbell Live ect wall's. It is a letter to New Zealand, so is it not the right of New Zealand to read it? Shame on you John Key!
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Hard News: Walking upright again, in reply to Sacha,
Senior Council reps tell the #eqnz Inquiry they can't enforce quake-strengthening . . .
CERA have the power. The paranoid post-election scenario is firming up:
Elements within the CCCouncil are effectively preparing for an Environment Canterbury-style statutory management takeover. By deliberate stalling and obstruction they are complicit in handing Brownlee the perfect excuse. Council-owned assets such as Orion will be flogged off to pay for the 'recovery'. New Year honours for the higher-profile enablers will be a likely early confirmation of this grubby little scenario. -
Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Just like the woman in the paper the other day who was voting National because the other parties would cut education funding. Where do people get their ideas from?
Perhaps a politician told her so. I don't know if Christchurch-based National list MP Aaron Gilmore is representative of a class of barely-accountable and semi-useful holy idiots spawned by MMP, or whether he's just in a class of his own. Here are a couple of examples of his peddling misleading nonsense on stilts, with no-one willing or able to effectively call him out:
http://www.imperatorfish.com/2011/07/effective-representation-not.html
http://avonsidechch.blogspot.com/2011/10/aaron-gilmore-please-stop-trying-to.html
Presumably he does it of his own volition as a self-appointed understudy out to score Brownlee points. It's a subject on which fellow Chch National list MP Nicky Wagner has been largely silent. Many people in the affected quake zones are elderly or vulnerable in other ways. Because Gilmore enjoys the reputation of being a card-carrying buffoon he somehow gets a free pass to spread disinformation that has the potential to seriously screw with people's lives.
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I spotted a Facebook comment where a Key acolyte added his $0.02 to a teapot-tapes media-bashing fest with "No wonder you lot are held in worse regard by the general public than politicians". A clarification followed: "Not politicians, used-car salesmen."