Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Fair enough, and something on which we can amicably agree to disagree.When it come to getting my rage on at the Herald, I’m stuck on four successive days of front page Bad Taste Tourettes. Really, when the media has classed up with mercifully few exceptions, this is the worse possible time for the Herald to sink to its usual level.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Lilith __,
I think there will be a lot of Chch people like me who have a delayed reaction. Until today I’ve mostly felt fine, hardly even cried. But today I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, emotionally.
Hugs, hon’ – don’t think you’re the only only going cold turkey on the Epinephrine high. The adrenal gland is awesome, but when it stops feeding you the crash is not pretty..
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Sacha,
I’ve asked for the comment to be deleted. I’m sincerely sorry if “Dorkland navel gazing” offended you, but really I don’t think another go around about how the Christchurch quake affects Auckland local body politics – or the constant plaint that Auckland doesn’t get its fair share of the central government pie – is either tasteful or constructive. Certainly not here and now. Plenty of time for politics - local and national.
Fairly or not, Public Address does get some stick for being awfully Auckland-centric. (I’m certainly trying to recruit a pool of non-Auckland based guest posters for Muse because there’s a lot going on that I practically just can’t cover. I’d certainly LOVE to hear from anyone who has a first-person perspective on how Christchurch’s creative communities and arts institutions are bearing up, and what’s next. I'll be patient, because not everyone has David's ability to turn out shapely prose on a phone in the middle of the night.)
Should have chosen my words with more tact and sensitivity, but I don’t think the observation was out of line.
Finally. and FWIW, I do get that Fran O’Sullivan isn’t particularly admired in these parts but being called a right-wing douche on PAS because she wrote (IMO & YMMV, of course) a fairly unexceptional if debatable business column wasn’t childish and uncalled for?
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
+1,000 on that -- at the best of times, I suspect there's a good chunk of PA readers who find Dorkland navel-gazing about as interesting as a discussion of the finer points of debate at the Council of Trent.
We might have to wait until Russell has recovered from wedding reception-itis, though. Lucky bugger. :)
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Well, I've got an acquaintance who is guilt-tripping herself for accepting an open-ended invite to stay with her brother in Nelson. FFS, she has no job to go to, her neighbourhood is basically intact (she's turned off the gas and electricity, locked up and thrown the dog in the back of the car) and I'll be buggered if I know what hanging around and working herself into a state would achieve for anyone. Don't think I'm the only one giving her a stern talking-to. :)
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Aw, Jacks – you give Kath a hug for me. Of course, what she’s feeling is totally human – this is probably sick to say, but at least when you’re up to your arse in mud and your house is a pile of kindling you’ve got something immediate and practical to focus all that adrenaline-high energy on. David has a workmate who was flying to a family wedding in the US on September 14, 2001 -- and he, his wife and kids ended up being grounded at LAX on 9/11. He said the worse thing was spending three days basically stuck in a hotel room with too much information pouring through the television, but still feeling utterly impotent.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
And at the risk of inducing apoplectic fits in the PAS populace, Fran O’Sullivan odiously uses Christchurch’s misfortune to demand cuts to the already-unbalanced funding that Auckland receives from central government and generally push her right-wing barrow.
Jesus, Matthew, I’ve already had a Twit-spew at Idiot/Savant over that. FFS, I don’t think it’s unreasonable – let along “right-wing douchery” – to suggest that Auckland might want to get the fuck over itself for a budget round or ten. What’s “unbalanced” is believing that the Auckland CBD rail loop – or another billion dollars worth of highways – is a more worthy recipient of central government support than making the Christchurch CBD fit for human habitation sooner rather than later.
Rant over, because this isn't the time or the place for a political discussion that's strikingly irrelevant south of the Bombays and north of Wellsford.
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Manda Paler was fascinating -- and she asks a really good question about the "performative" nature of creative people on social media. There's an interesting case study in her own life: Her husband, Neil Gaiman, recently marked his 11th anniversary as a blogger -- which started out with a fascinating behind the curtain record of how American Gods was put together. But for a man who, fairly or not, gets snarked for being incapable of taking a crap without Tweeting and live blogging, there was some genuine surprise on the internet when it came out that he and Palmer had (IIRC) been dating for several months and it had been quite a while since Gaiman quietly dissolved his first marriage..
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Keir Leslie,
I really don’t want to be used as a political bludgeon right now.
Certainly not - and I was stupid enough to scan post-quake commentary on Kiwibog and the SubStandard. Not as bad as I feared, but still way too much troll farming.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Mikaere Curtis,
IMO, fronting to the media is actually part of the mayor’s job description,
And I don't know anyone, least of all me, saying otherwise. Parker really can't win, can he - because there were plenty of people accusing him last September of cynically media-whoring the last quake into a second term.
It is his job to front the media. But it's his responsibility -- not only as the mayor but a decent human being -- to make sure every word out of his mouth is accurate, considered and constructive. Pulling speculation out of his arse is none of the above -- in fact, there are circumstances where it can be dangerous.
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