Posts by Joe Wylie
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to dyan campbell,
I nearly said something in defense of AUT’s academic reputation . . .
My attempted 'If you believe that AUT’s a university' snark wasn't motivated by any kind of snobbery. Just a festering annoyance at the underlying shabbiness of doing education on the cheap, brought to a head by the Herald's collusion in passing off the weaselling results as a contribution to public debate.
I should fess up to a long-ago passing involvement with the old ATI. Despite the glaring contrast between its run-down facilities and those of the 'real' university literally across the street, with the feeling that most of the students were there under sufferance, there were still dedicated teachers of 'tech' subjects who did a phenomenal job.
Rather than consecrate the place as a university in its own right, with the virtual duplication of many subjects already taught by its immediate neighbour, why wasn't it simply made part of the existing University's campus? Presumably because it wouldn't have met Auckland University's standards without a massive upgrade. As Frank Zappa said, if you can't be free you can always be cheap.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Kumara Republic,
Partly because those sorts of people would rather farm culture war pigs.
Roger Douglas and Paul Keating both dabbled in running piggeries. Both of their operations ended in bankrupty long before their political careers puttered out. Douglas told an interviewer that he'd named individual pigs after people he didn't like, and claimed to have a David among their number. Given his grasp of everyday practicalities it's doubtful that he could have distinguished one pig from another.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
What’s wrong with Jackie Blue?
More's the point, what's she done?
Nothing to make anyone consider her untrustworthy so far as I know.
So far she's shown that she can be trusted not to frighten the roosters by attempting to deliver on whatever urban liberal noises she might have made in the past. Like her colleagues Nikki Kaye and Nicky Wagner, the vaguely progressive aura that they once lent to the Nats has faded to the faint whiff of stale deodorant.
Nicky Wagner accepted an invitation to address the Avonside red zone rally a few weeks back, then pulled out at the last minute with no explanation. Perhaps it's to her credit that she may feel acute embarrassment at being required to heel to her master's voice.
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Garden City:
At today's containerville city mall opening a harmless cardigan climbed onto the gravel of a raised garden bed to catch a glimpse of John Key. A large policeman promptly hauled him down and admonished him with "Would you do that on your own garden at home?" The poor guy looked so crushed as he slunk off into the crowd. -
Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to David Cormack,
I just meant in relation to having kids push for something they don’t really understand or have opinions on.
Perhaps you're similarly exercised over little innocents being indoctrinated into organised religion, rather than being left until they reach some arbitrary stage where they're able to decide such things for themselves. Or you're taking a swipe at people you don't like by concern-trolling about their kids.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to David Cormack,
Like having kids at a protest…
Yeah right. Those horrid protesters who use their kids as human shields as they brutally thrust their adult groins into the knees of innocent police.
Don't hold back David. -
Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to dyan campbell,
but is Paul Moon really an academic?
If you believe that AUT's a university. After reading your splendid rebuttal I'm hardly inclined to continue to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Thanks especially for the Galbraith quote in it's entirety.
Appreciate you Canadians : ) -
Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and Cera chief executive Roger Sutton will deliver an update at 2.15pm. (28 Oct)
Details released online via CERA's Land Check website.
True to form, the site crashed in the first few minutes and is still down. -
Hebe:
I regret that I never pushed along my children to go up the Anglican Cathedral spire; there was always "another day" because it had "always" been there for me.
I guess that's what familiarity does. Although I've got ancestors here from since the early 1850s I grew up in the North Island, so Chch was overseas exotic for me.
Pink mice with pinched ears and angelica tails and cinnamon bars and acid drops were Mary Gray for me.
Burned into my infantile memory. If anything justified the South Island's claim to mainland status it was those mice.
Just thinking:
Thanks for that, encouraging stuff re. the Arts Centre.
Interesting too that the 2005 OPUS seismic risk study unearthed by Joel Cayford made a pretty accurate prediction of where major ground movement eventually occurred, with the Arts Centre on the fringe and Mountfort's museum just outside.Keep in mind the total failure of our Christchurch Brutalists Warren & Mahony and Peter Bevan architectual demise (along with their lesser works).
I went along to a public meeting in the Arts Centre great hall a few years ago, where a visibly uncomfortable Miles Warren spoke in favour of "improving" the museum by, among other things, demolishing Mountfort's ultra-ornate gothic-columned entrance. Peter Bevan provided an impassioned opposition, while appearing to revel in the role of rank outsider. I got the impression that Warren would like to have broken ranks and joined him. Both likeable men of unquestioned ability, but these days only of interest to the development juggernaut if they serve its purposes.
Thanks for the Warsaw pics. While I've never had the fortune to visit there I'd heard a great deal about it from Eastern Europeans I've known, and I've often thought about it in recent months. I believe there were also extensive post-WW2 rebuilds in cities such as Prague and Bratislava. Interesting that they were carried out with such finesse during the Soviet era.
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Hebe,
I really really miss the natural assets like the Port Hills walks . . .
You’ve reminded me of the words of Harry Ell, onetime Postmaster-General, muscular christian and the driving force behind the summit road and it’s romantic constructions. His idea was to open the Port Hills to inspire the benighted flatlanders, as they were “the same hills that Mountfort walked” – Benjamin Mountfort being his hero.
Now so much of Mountfort’s work is gone, even the Avonside church where he’s buried. I can get over the cathedral, though I’ll never forget climbing the spiral stone staircase as a child. Like a real-life fairytale. In some ways I’m glad that people I remember who really loved those things in a way that I never could aren’t around to deal with the loss. Thanks for the kind words re. the picture, just venting.