Posts by Joe Wylie
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Who did that Ian?
Thanks for that Ian (& Sofie), nice to know.
I'd probably have been more inclined to have passed that "Oil clot NZ 100% Pure" image on if I'd known who did it.
Because I've found that's what people want to know. -
Though I'm a bit partial to this one.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to hamishm,
The invisible hand of the market is strangling us.
hamishm, they could do with a shot of your talent down at the Occupy Christchurch placard factory.
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Hard News: Where are the foreigners?!, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Yep, that reinforces what I wrote in an earlier post.
Thanks Red, acknowledgment due. If it's from upthread then it's not yet part of the Universal Mind, maaaan.
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I see that Stuff estimates the turnout in Christchurch as "around 50". At the time of the march to Riccarton there'd have been easily five times that number. I wonder if their figures for Auckland and Wellington are similarly screwy?
BTW has James dropped by yet to tell us that there aren't really any protesters on Wall Street, just webtrolls counting heads?
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Hard News: Where are the foreigners?!, in reply to Sacha,
Yet tourist attractions suited to visits by campervan prospered . . .
It's an old story. The planners seem besotted by cargo-cultish projections of passive big-spenders who never arrive, while ignoring the vanners and backpackers. Perhaps the solution is to make the big-ticket attractions globally mobile, like this 80s monument to corporate hubris.
Built in the mid-80s in Singapore and moored on the Barrier Reef as the world's first floating hotel, it remained empty during a time of huge growth in backpacker numbers. It enjoyed a brief boom after being towed to Ho Chi Minh City, after which it returned to Singapore to be refitted as a planned casino for Palau. Instead it wound up moored on the North/South Korean border as accommodation for South Koreans visiting the North. It's present whereabouts seem unclear.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
I stayed for a bit, listening to the thankfully few speeches, but became amused at the committee nature of it. Very middle class, but ultimately, very productive . . .
Good on the middle classes. No, really. Traditionally the class of relatively painless innovation, short of knock-down-drag-out revolution. Even if you've been tipped out of the income bracket you still try to retain the values. Buy free-range eggs. Or cage-free, in a tight week.
At the Kaiapoi red zone rally three weeks ago, one of the organisers, recently politicised by having his home condemned despite there being no evidence of real damage, concluded his speech by asking the crowd for their thoughts. A thirty-something presumably non-homeowner stepped forward from the only group carrying banners and proposed a deal.
With a mixture of jargon and inarticulacy he proposed to "stand in solidarity" with aggrieved property owners, provided they'd join him in opposing the kind of injustices he'd been dealing with, such as "employers treating people like shit". Mr Homeowner appeared to give the proposal his brief consideration before agreeing - "Um, yeah, that sounds pretty good". Homeowners and workers united, sealed with a shrug and a smile.
The always excellent Avonside Blog has a brief and to-the-point post on the bigger picture:
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to Hilary Stace,
These days my activism strategy is to encourage others. Then retreat to a cafe.
Good on you.
Occupy Chistchurch.
Gives a reasonable view of the turnout. A few remained behind to mind the camp while most marched to Riccarton & back. Nice mood.
Bit chilly tonight for the brave campouts though. -
Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
To be fair I suspect Dean Kozanic has been voicing these sentiments since they were initially excluded, but photographers usually don't get a word in the papers, just a byline. I cynically think that it probably only now serves his masters' purposes to publicly air them, after trying all other avenues...
Reckon.
The Press are fortunate to have Kozanic on staff, plus a few others who could be singled out for honourable mention. If only the paper could crawl out from under its ancient assumption that it's there to influence opinion, rather than objectively report . . . -
Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Staff photographer, Dean Kozanic, has a great piece in the Press today about the exclusion of Media from the Chchch Central City Red Zone - makes many good points, methinks...
So he does, but I think we're entitled to wonder why he's waited until now to voice his frustration. The exclusion of Kozanic and his colleagues is a symptom of the deliberate dumbing-down of earthquake coverage, first under civil defence, then in a more organised form with CERA. In the months that the media have been largely sidelined from the CBD red zone, CERA has given near-exclusive access to Wellington photographer Ross Becker.
Commissioned and funded by the National Library to make sense of what happened and provide a disciplined record of the progress of recovery, Becker travels from Wellington for his assignments. In return for near-exclusive access to restricted areas he effectively functions as CERA's official photographer, and as a state-appointed substitute for the likes of the Press's Kozanic. Something of a self-promoter, together with his wife he runs a Facebook fan page displaying his earthquake work. In a recent posting they gloated over
a user count of 5004. Even more spectacular is the number "1574 people are talking about this" which is a measure of how many of you talk and interact with us. I like the way we share knowledge as we try to get to grips with what has happened and what will happen in Christchurch.
Nice to see that the quakes have provided a career-boosting silver lining for a couple of Wellingtonians.
This is the kind of media coverage that CERA, and perhaps more disturbingly our own "National" Library, appear happy to foster - a Facebook page with 5000+ "likes", playing to the lowest common denominator by presenting a sanitized and dehumanised version of the "recovery". Dean Kozanic might do well to remember that, at the time he was sidelined from the red zone, his own newspaper ran this fawningly uncritical piece on his substitute's work.
