Posts by Craig Ranapia
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I had a serious discussion (yes, in a pub) about whether the real protagonist of OF is not Cheryl, but Loretta. It's my theory and I'm not entirely convinced by it, but Loretta is the character who changes over the six series.
I don't think anyone really "changes" in OF, but something much more interesting (and difficult) is going on -- you're presented with these very broad caricatures, and just when you think you've got everyone's number there's a shading or a twist laid on. Pascalle is always going to be dumb as a stump, but she's got an emotional intelligence that's easy to miss. Loretta was never as big a reptilian bitch as she'd like everyone (herself included) to believe. And so on...
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Meanwhile, here's the trailer for what comes next from Griffin and Lang -- the superhero-themed (but apparently still well Westie) The Almighty Johnsons.
It can't suck any harder than No Ordinary Family without turning into a black hole that swallows the galaxy.
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Craig, would it be possible to elaborate on what took place? I was on my OE in 1996 (which is the election to which you refer?), so I have no idea what took place and why.
Basically, Bolger used his last round of media interviews before the '96 election to say National supporters in Wellington Central should give their electorate vote to Richard Prebble in order guarantee ACT being in Parliament. Just to add insult to injury, even if Mark Thomas had won Wellington Central ACT neatly cleared the threshold with 6.1% of the party vote.
Losing a hard close fight is one thing -- and on paper, Wellington Central was always going to be a seat we'd have to hustle hard to win. But being stabbed in the face by your own leader when you've been working your arse off is quite another. It not only played hell with the membership and fundraising in Wellington Central -- and I saw people walk away who'd been beating the streets since Dan Riddiford knocked off Frank Kitts in 1960 -- but (surprise!) alienated a lot of potential voters who didn't much like being treated like fools. Thanks for nothing, Jim.
Would ACT have crossed the 5% threshold if this hadn't happened?
Who knows, Graeme. How different would New Zealand politics be if Margaret Wilson had encouraged her supporters to cast their electorate vote for Katherine O'Reagan in 1999 and one in ten had complied? Peters and his squalid personality cult would have been erased from Parliament, and exceedingly unlikely to be heard from again. "If only" is the saddest phrase in the language...
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Apparently the party you're a member of thought that Act deserved to be in Parliament and made sure it would.
Want to go there, dearest? I was on the ground in Wellington Central when we saw our own candidate fucked over quite literally in the last moments of the campaign a few weeks before he went into coalition with someone he'd previously (and coreectly) damned as a racist.
He "pragmatically" destroyed the National Party's support and organisation in Wellington Central because, oddly enough, a lot of people didn't take kindly to being treated like idiots. And I'd argue that National is still paying the price for Bolger's attempt to game the system but there's a fascinating case study in the perils of being too "strategically" clever for your own good.
Oh, and I'd expect exactly the same to happen in Auckland if National doesn't put up a credible and serious candidate in Epsom next year.
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Yes, he will be punished for reforming health care
He? And what were the 535 members of Congress doing through all this - sneaking cigs and braiding each others hair in the cloak rooms?
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David Farrar has headlined a post on the matter It's only official when it is denied,
David Farrar shags farm animals. Come on, big boy, deny that.
That's all very well, but if it takes 1 or 2% off the Greens vote and the Greens don't make into Parliament because of that, it counts for me as a disaster.
Up to a point, but if the Greens don't hold their support (which seems fairly solid, with all the usual caveats around polling) they don't deserve to be in Parliament. Nobody does.
For bonus points, you may feel free to also speculate on the prospect for a post-Act party of the angry right.
We already have one, considering Winston Peters still has the Press Gallery inexplicably fawning over him.
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ETA: Islander my "peculiar malice" includes taking your last in good faith. Would have saved me some distress if you'd said that in the first place. I've learned the hard way that it's no use going off at people when the failure has been mine to clearly and effectively say when I meant to.
Craig - I didn't take Islander's remark as a particularly loaded comment.
At the risk of being offensively presumptuous, I guess having mental unwellness casually used as a putdown -- or shaming language that (intentionally or not) can be read as stigmatising mental or emotionally unwellness -- strikes a different tone when you're living with manic depression/bipolar disorder and been advised to "keep taking your pills". (Well, I do Kiwibogger. Your point?) I do it as much as anyone; hell, I did it on this very thread. Michelle Bachmann isn't mad - she's worse: A cold, calculating liar, who is eye-rollingly casual with basic matters of fact when it gets in the way of her political agenda.
The one interview I've seen with Peter Jackson (on Campbell Live), he was obviously extremely angry -- whether you think he had just cause is another argument. Barely coherent, IMHO. Lost his mind or symptomatic of emotional/psychological "problems"? Well, perhaps we should leave that to the professionals, and all be a little more sensitive in the language we choose.
ETA: Just as Islander herself has challenged me to be more mindful of thoughtless, confining labels I put on people who don't fit into my reflexive gender/sexuality taxonomy.
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I have no empathy for people who are ostentatious, or who accept titles.
Well, you also regard Jackson as an over-rated mediocrity whose net contribution to the cultural wellness of this country has been less than zero. Think we're going to have to agree to disagree on all of the above.
However, you might want to frame it without the vulgar and impertinent suppositions about his mental health. Perhaps if you've had a few days of being called a liar, a "scab" and a thug without foundation you'd be less than entirely coherent too.
On a slightly more cheerful note, I was out for lunch today and came across Emma Woods' graceful but lethal takedown of Michael Laws.
Bravo.
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Just enough to respond within minutes :)
Come on -- it takes a nano-second to start laughing at an editorial with a headline like 'Come on PM, give us the facts". Given the Herald's own record of not letting facts get in the way when its in campaign mode, I'm going to be highly sceptical.
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Herald editorial all out of love for Key over his government's drink drive limit intransigence.
If the Herald on Slumday said anything nice about me, I'd sue them for defamation of character. And given that shitty rag's squalid record of junk science, lying with statistics and moral hysteria I don't give a shit what they think about anything.
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