Posts by Joe Wylie
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Hebe,
I notice around the city that we still have the trees and big sky, and they go a long way to keeping the “feel” of the place . . .
I think we kind of knew back in February that most of the iconic human-made stuff was gone forever. The Arts Centre’s still there, but even those who loved the place from the years they worked there admit that they’d be reluctant to return, now that we know what can happen. I think most of us also know that there are no guaranteed methods of proofing massive masonry structures against the inevitable strange days.
We still have the most gorgeous human construction of all, the vast park and botanic gardens. People cope pretty well considering, but some things need to be broken gently.
-
Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Hebe,
Thanks Hebe, wish you a happy back on track.
-
Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Russell Brown,
Did not do that. I didn’t even mention violence.
Fair enough, but it's more than a little cute to deny the implication.
All the protesters needed to do was express a little sympathy for working people and their families. Instead, there were a number of public quotes (and I’m going on memory here) that were unbelievably arrogant.
You seem to be applying a rather vague and selective form of memory, along with a massed bogeyman image of protesters that wouldn't have been out of place in the Herald's 1981 tour coverage. It's as though you're willing the current occupy movement to put a foot wrong, like a cat watching mice. But of course you wouldn't do that.
-
Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Russell Brown,
I remember (I think) the CHOGM protests in Melbourne a decade ago, which caused huge disruption, separated parents from their children, etc. The publicly expressed attitude (suck it up, basically) from many of the activists was pretty awful.
There was a huge paid disinformation campaign aimed at those protests, involving the notorious Hill & Knowlton among others. Notable slurs, eagerly repeated at the time by partisan commentators and later proven to be concocted, include protesters throwing urine-filled ballons and tossing ball bearing under the hooves of police horses.
It's a disappointingly cheap shot on your part to blame the violence entirely on protesters. There were a number of accounts, which I clearly recollect, of sometimes elderly protesters and family groups being shocked and distressed at the level of police aggression. Being charged by mounted police, as I can testify from an incident in Sydney some years ago, is extremely intimidating.
-
Hebe:
No idea what you mean by that, any suggestion of malice on my part is ill-founded. All the best in your troubles.Steve Barnes:
Funny how insurance is the ruin of so many small players, but cause for dancing in the streets for those above a certain critical mass. -
OnPoint: PREFU 2011: "What credit downgrade?", in reply to David Cormack,
. . . I just think we could dial back the rage and hatred a tad, they aren’t trying to hurt you.
Just because they happen to place ensuring one another's second pension above any concept of the public good doesn't mean that they don't dream of rainbows 'n unicorns.
-
Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to 3410,
According to the Herald, quoting a candidate is now a "dirty tricks campaign".
It's an ACT thang - 'how durst thou mock the differently abled'. Since Brash's return it's pretty much the house style.
-
Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Hebe,
I don't agree with much of Brownlee's actions or beliefs, but I do not wish those eq-related posts on anyone.
With so many lives turning to custard for a whole heap of quake-related reasons, isn't that a bit like fretting about whether grass feels pain if it's walked on? Because whether or not Brownlee is prone to occasional Garden of Gethsemane moments about being lumbered with something he's plainly not very good at, there are others who'd be more than happy to step in given the opportunity. Clayton Cosgrove, for example, who happens to be his shadow opposite ("for my sins"), and has been on the case since before the CERA legislation was passed.
Brownlee, and those whose interests he represents, pushed from the very beginning to consolidate as much power as possible in his own hands. His present situation is very much of his own making. The reason that there are so many resignation rumours about is a measure of CERA's failure to communicate.
-
Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Hebe,
I heard that Brownlee keeps trying to resign as earthquake minister. Maybe they all want to resign; I would -- what a bloody awful job to do.
There's been a huge amount of genuine courage and goodwill displayed since the quakes. You only need to have attended the meetings of disaffected red and orange zoners - something Brownlee and Sutton have consistently failed to do - in Avonside, Kaiapoi, Bexley, and most recently in the botanic gardens on the Sunday before last, to realise the appetite that exists for constructive engagement if only people are accorded the simple respect of being fully informed on matters that vitally affect them. Many of these people are suffering more than Brownlee is ever likely to from the burden of his wretched portfolio.
-
Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Just thinking,
Roger Sutton has presented his resignation on three seperate occasions to Gerry and it has been refused each time.
Picture St George having to ride the Dragon, rather than slay it.
Interesting image. For some reason it evokes the lyrics of an old Korn Kobblers number:
Some day they'll bury me out on the prairie
Out there among the sage brush where the skies are blue
But when they dig a hole for me to rest in
They better dig it big enough for twoOh, I can't get offa my horse
All day and night I ride among the cattle
'Cause some dirty dog put glue on the saddle