Posts by Hilary Stace
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Re Jane Campion - do I hear secateurs snipping in the poppy patch? Who knows where anyone gets inspiration for their work - probably all over the place. She has done some memorable stuff in film, in both the Janet Frame work and her other movies. They don't have to work as popular hits every time.
What's more she's a Wellington girl and was at university at the same time as me. It wasn't her fault that she was beautiful, blonde, talented, wealthy, clever, and had the best parties.
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Sanctimonious (Wellington)
Sorry, that reply to my concerned friend,"Get Real" was mine, but I got flustered by this new fangled communication device, and overlooked adding my signature.Bring back the chalk and blackboards of Einstein's time, I say. Maybe writing with big white letters on a vertical black background would help the learning styles of some of our troubled youth.
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To Get Real (Auckland)
Your response did not display a very inclusive attitude. But I hear your concern about gender. You may appreciate knowing that conditions like autism and dyspraxia affect more boys than girls. But evidence-based research has shown that physical punishment is not a very effective intervention.
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Sanctimonious (Wellington)
I am shocked and disappointed at some of the intolerant and disrespectful comments in this thread.
Just because Einstein's brain worked a bit differently, it is no excuse for the rest of us to join the oppression of the disabling society. He may have had autism or dyspraxia and that is why he chose to express himself in numbers and letters.
We should remember Einstein for what he was - a bright spark in the diversity of humanity.
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A copy of the Mazengarb report was sent to every home just before the 1954 election to scare the public and show the government was acting. National increased its majority. I expect Key's advisors to take note of this tactic.
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Redmer Yska 'All shook up' (1993)
Great book on NZ in the 1950s
And to correct the first sentence of my previous post, Jack and Nigel were still alive then. -
Russell
Unfortunately, they are both dead, but Redmer Yska managed to interview them for his book on the era.
The Mazengarb incident has been an endless source of amusement for my family. My brother even used it as a topic for his PhD comparing it with a similar Canadian moral panic.
My father was the 'youth' rep (at 40 ish) and a good Jaycee. An editor, he had to do most of the writing. Later I met Jack Somerville, the Presbyterian church rep, who was also bemused by the whole thing.
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Who mentioned the Mazengarb report? What a beat up that was. My father and my son's great uncle were members of that committee. Mazengarb, who was a wealthy lawyer, declined payment from the government on behalf of the committee members so my poor father had to run a business and support his family, and work for several months full time, without any income, working out how to stem the depravity of youth. Apart from a steady stream of banned books that my sister took to school, and a second term for the National Government,what did it achieve? A legal ban on contraceptive advice for under 16 year olds that stayed in force for about 4 decades.
An inquiry into boy racers would probably be about as effective. -
With Waitangi Day coming up it would be good to have some suggestions for appropriate and enjoyable reading. One of my favourite pre-Treaty NZ sources is 'Letters from the Bay of Islands: the story of Marianne Williams' edited by Caroline Fitzgerald (Penguin, 2004).
Marianne was one of the small group of missionaries who settled in Bay of Islands in the 1820s. These letters give some insight into the daily lives of this group which were fascinated by the locals, while despairing of their possible corruption in nearby Korerareka (Russell). It puts the Treaty development in a local context.
A depressed Charles Darwin drops in for a visit at Christmas 1835.
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No, he even turned Kim down. But she can still play his music on Saturday mornings.