Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: The Digital Natives, in reply to Richard Aston,
Why would Labour fight so hard to take Te Tai Tokerau off Harawira? Isn't that kinda dumb.
No - First, and I don't mean this to sound as bitchy as it probably does, a good chunk of Labour would like their Maori seats back. Thank you very much. I also think Labour is smart enough to know that doing an Epsom in Te Tai Tokerau, or anywhere else, would alienate a lot of members and flaxroots campaign activists you don't want staying home with their wallets shut in an election year.
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Hard News: The Fine Line, in reply to Bart Janssen,
jeez Craig you don’t half expect much do you.
I expect the best because, I deserve it. We all do. So do the people in the city where I live for whom Dawn Raid isn’t a cool record label but a living memory, and who’ve been on the receiving end of ‘Yellow Peril’ racism (and racist public policy) for decades. So, yeah, it might help to be mindful that there are plenty of people for whom a “a one-line suggestion buried in the monetary policy announcement” sounds a note a lot of us hereabouts just don’t hear, and IMO it’s just a wee bit privileged to say “well, it’s not as bad as Brash at the nadir of his immigrant-baiting populism nearly ten years ago”. That’s a patronizingly low bar to set, however unintentionally.
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Hard News: The Fine Line, in reply to Russell Brown,
It wasn’t a gaffe, it was a confusing answer.
I don't think a go-round on the semantics of "gaffe" is particularly helpful, but in my book it would be really helpful to quality debate if the two chaps who'd really like to be leading the next government could clearly and cleanly articulate their respective policies. I'm just freaky that way, and despite all attempts to prove otherwise I know Cunliffe and Key can do it.
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Hard News: The Fine Line, in reply to Russell Brown,
Whatever the measure of Labour’s thinking on immigration is, it’s not even in the same ballpark as this kind of naked hostility and dog-whistle racism. Feel free to remind your neighbourhood right-wing blogger.
Well, fair point as far as it goes. How about we don't set a low bar for anyone in 2014, because we still need a fact-based, careful public policy discussion conducted by adults who think very carefully before they speak on what can so easily turn into racist catnip. Yes, as I sad to you on Twitter, I'm glad Cunliffe's gaffe was the result of carelessness rather than naked bigot fluffing but that doesn't mean we shouldn't expect better.
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But of course, I only do this once a week. Things might be different if it was this way every night, like it was for poor Don Brash. I don’t think I could bear eating the same thing every night. Would I actually cook all the time? Or would the takeaway seem too alluring? I dunno. What do you guys do?
Oooh, I've got a relevant case study. I was left in Wellington for almost six months, because the house took a lot longer to sell than we expected and I got a tranche of housekeeping money direct credited every other week. It wasn't generous enough to pay for takeaways every night, so I ended up doing a lot of things you could either freeze (soups, stews) or could be palatable as bugger's muddle the next night or two. Everything is good on toast, I found.
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Hard News: Circumstance and coincidence, in reply to izogi,
but I agree with his comment about the spooky sinister music. When journos have something real, they shouldn’t need to decorate it with such artistic junk which is typically more about triggering an emotional conclusion from an audience instead of an objective one.
Oath – it also show a distasteful level of condescension towards the audience.
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Campbell Live may turn out to have grossly over-reached, as its critics insist. But there seems every reason to keep digging.
No argument there -- but it's just as important that journalists don't "grossly over-reach" as the Prime Minister groks the wisdom in the old saw it's better to keep silent (or say "I'll check and get back to you") and be thought a fool, than to open you mouth and remove all doubt.
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A small fraction end up junkies. I don’t see why we have to dedicate all of the discussion to the junkies.
For the same reason we don't talk much about adults who purchase alcohol legally, consume the stuff in moderation, don't drive drunk, commit crimes against others or their property under the influence, or end up with severe chronic alcohol-related health issues? Because they're not a public policy or public health issue.
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Hard News: The problems inherent in the system, in reply to Russell Brown,
Harm minimisation in response to AIDS was embraced by the gay community. Condom use was normalised and encouraged and remains the basis of AIDS prevention. People didn’t stop having sex.
Without engaging in a Pollyanna retcon of history (because being HIV+ has never been a cakewalk and never will be), that was also helped enormously by a sane, evidence-based political/public policy response. It wasn't perfect by any measure, but it did make a difference.
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Hard News: Softly, softly, in reply to Steve Curtis,
So does his ideological opposite Peter Hitchens , who writes in the Daily Mail
Jesus fucking Christ, after reading that I've got to grant Hitchens one thing: He's certainly got the family chutzpah to be accusing anyone else of dangerous ignorance on basic matters of historical fact. But, hey, Peter's got lots of friends in Christian Russia so what's the problems with Russia invading a sovereign nation (guess it's only bad when the evil Amurikans do it, right)? And the " the borders drawn by the victorious West in 1992" don't exist anywhere except Hitchens' imagination. But to be fair, your average Daily Mail columnist wouldn't recognize a fact unless it had really big tits.