Posts by Ian Dalziel
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Hard News: Music: Telling Stories,
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It was 40 years ago today…
Sergeant Pepper (and Iggy, et al) taught a band to play
They’ve been going in and out of style
But they’re guaranteed to raise a smile
So may I reintroduce to you
The act you’ve loved for all these years?
Toy Love
- first official gig at Zwines Jan 19, 1979ps they played at Sgt Peppers on Jan 28th!!
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Access: The long road to real space,
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For when you want to get away from it all…
The IsolatorThe author at work in his private study aided by the Isolator. Outside noises being eliminated, the worker can concentrate with ease upon the subject at hand.
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Hard News: Cannabis reform is a serious…, in reply to Mark Cubey,
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Spooky – i was thinking about you, and things Wellington, this very morning Mr C. – and here you are.
Ian clambers up on to soap-box…
I heard the final bit of this in the car last evening and I too was incensed at Janet Wilson’s derogatory dog-whistling dismissal of Green Party policies – “crazy far left madness” – none of which she could actually articulate – luckily one of the other panellists, David Cormack, had worked on policy for the Greens and took her to task on this.
She has morphed from the caring, bright thing I remember back at South Intermediate School, Chchch in the late 1960s into a lazy Michelle Boag clone, maybe it’s daily exposure to Bill Ralston?
I can but assume she is doing what many other PR folk on The Panel do which is double dip, as I assume there is some modest payment for their appearance in this ‘bully pulpit’, and they also get to push out their clients’ barrows of often dubious wares.I have to say Wallace Chapman pretty much lets them get away with this as well – and I am constantly surprised by the things he doesn’t seem to know.
But he shouldn’t allow people to just plain conflate or make stuff up like synthetic smoking drugs are “classified as Marijuana’ – next we’ll be told ‘you can’t vote for the Maori Party if you aren’t on the Maori Roll’I also took The Press to task on their ‘columnist*’ Mike Yardley’s diatribe yesterday pro-Trump and his Wall:
OPINION: It’s a monumental construction. Across the hill from my house in Christchurch, a neighbour who is fed up with the scourge of burglaries is splashing megabucks building the kind of formidable perimeter wall that would set Donald Trump aglow.
It’s reminiscent of the grand-scale walled constructions Hollywood celebrities have a propensity to deploy, whether it be fortress walls to safeguard their Beverly Hills mansions, or the gold-plated refuge of gated communities in Bel Air and Malibu.
The irony couldn’t be more majestic, given the loud-mouth Hollywood luvvies are particularly strident in their foam-flecking condemnation of Trump’s grand designs for a US-Mexico border wall.
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Over the years, every leading Democrat, from Bill and Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama has talked the talk on expanding the wall system. A decade ago, Senate Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, authorised building about 700 miles of fencing along the southwest border. But it never happened.Apparently (according to the editor) Stuff do not have the resources to ‘fact-check’ their columnists, they check local -related assertions and that’s it - so Yardley is free to ignore the fact that the bipartisan Secure Fence Act 2006 was not only passsed, but implemented/built by 2015!! – according to the US Government Accountability Office.
Plus he ignores the fact that conservative Republicans stopped Schumer’s Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 - the bill would increase the number of CBP officers by 3,500 people by 2017, authorize the National Guard to participate in missions related to border security, fund additional surveillance and surveillance technology, and provide funding to build a border fence.
Don’t start me on his closing statement either –The fact that so many socialist economies of Central America are corrupt,
(cough) Iran-Contra scandal in Nicaragua. the other 9/11 in Chile 1973, etc, ad nauseam.
*Perhaps he is a ‘fifth columnist’?I’ll be pushing for a retraction and apology from Yardley.
Sorry for the thread-jack.
As you were… -
Speaker: Cannabis: make it legal but…,
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Hard News: Music: A Teutonic Tonic,
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In lieu of any more recent music posts I'll put this here.
I've been trying to get Stuff to also run this Spotify story in the Entertainment/Music section - not just the Business section.
In their report Music Doesn't Just Happen, Recorded Music New Zealand said that while 83 per cent of New Zealand record company's income came from downloads and streaming, platforms like YouTube that don't negotiate licences with rights-holders have created a value gap.
Not great for the labels, but it's musicians that are getting the raw deal according to David Harrow, an LA-based musician and dub producer, who has worked with New Zealand acts Salmonella Dub and Headless Chickens.
"Streaming is a total scam in my opinion. There's a huge amount of money being made from it. Huge. Just none of that goes anywhere near the artist," he said.
Why wouldn't you put such a story where the actual consumers of disruptive models like Spotify can read it and then make better informed decisions - rather than leaving it to only be read by the Business wonks.
The news editors don't seem fussed or interested, to be honest - so much for Stuff's much vaunted community engagement.
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Hard News: About that Rhythm and Vines…,
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The lumpen proletariat weigh in, in the comments at Stuff... sigh
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/109695491/its-a-drugs-lolly-scramble-out-there-and-its-time-for-the-law-to-change -
Hard News: Another year on earth, in reply to Hilary Stace,
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But sad to hear that her husband, Ian, died that morning.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/109679074/the-aunties-founder-jackie-clarks-husband-dies-on-same-day-she-is-awarded-qsmMy condolences to Jackie and extended family.
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Hard News: Another year on earth,
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Goodbye 2018… so long… sayonara.
I was just wondering if there was anybody out there…
Wrote a long screed with complementary links,
accidentally refreshed the page and lost it all!But when it came back there was Ben – Yay!!
Welcome back to ‘civilisation’.Now I know the funfair is filling up again
I’ll grab my sack and head back up to the top of the ride…
Helter skelter!Here comes 2019!
A happy peaceful and productive new year to all
Keep on running!
…and keep on keepin’ on
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Hard News: Another year on earth, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
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very personal commentaries about his cancer treatment.
... Not that it's a competition in any way, but Blair Parkes has also written expansively, eloquently and honestly about his year involved in the twin processes of cancer discovery and treatment coupled with creating two damn fine albums. (Also contains a fine endorsement of Shortland Street's public advocacy plot lines).
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Hard News: WOTY: The Kindness Scandal,
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<after thought – Le video esprit d’escalier?>
Riding through the Glen…
