Hard News: Chew before swallowing
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Feed the obese kids to the ones that don't have any breakfast
or at least tell the skinny ones how tasty the fat one's are.
fear should cause the bigun's to *actually run*, and the wee ones can eat the abandoned lunches.
a natural equilibrium should ensue, with minimal bloodshed.
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When I was at high school ('88 - '92), many of my friends and I went through phases of not eating breakfast because logic dictated that eating makes you fat, and so therefore fewer meals means fewer kilograms.
One PE teacher would talk to us about the importance of having a good breakfast, but it's hard to be swayed by a frumpy old PE teacher (or rapping vegetables).
I also remember one of my friends declaring that from now on she was only going to eat "healthy food", which that day was represented by a box of Tiny Teddies.
I ate absolute rubbish for the first few years of high school - the sort of thing that would make any middle-class mother cry - but I did really well at school.
It wasn't until I was in my mid 20s that I learned about good nutrition.
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Seems Key has achieved his real goal of setting the agenda of talking points. Doesn't matter a damn whether he has any solutions. The purpose of a speech like this is:
1. To differentiate him from Brash
2. To push some emotional buttons
3. To see the reaction to the buttons
4. To get people listening to himSuccess. His choice of emotional buttons is different from Brash. It attacks Labour where they are perceived as strong. And from government responses and the media including the blogosphere, it seems that we're all listening. The reaction provides National with feedback on which buttons to target.
Hungry kids is a good choice, it pushes lots of buttons. As a problem it's very hard, so no quick solution from Labour will just fix the issue. As many note, kids often don't eat breakfast because they don't want to. I was like that.
Underclass issues are always popular. There's always an underclass, depending on definitions. The bottom 1% pretty much fit the bill no matter what the actual state of their lives is. People living in shanty towns might think our underclass has it pretty sweet, but NZers have little perspective on the matter. Good button.
But Key is still on honeymoon. Brash already tried the approach of pushing buttons but offering no alternatives other than tax cuts, and it didn't work for him. Nothing has changed but the buttons. Key has chosen buttons that are actually a pretty hard ask for National whilst still maintaining a minimal state agenda. Labour can be expected to hammer this when the time comes.
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His choice of emotional buttons is different from Brash. It attacks Labour where they are perceived as strong.
Yes indeed. Whether it's deliberate or not, I can't tell, but that's precisely the strategy Karl Rove is known for.
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The other classic Rove strategy is to accuse your opponent of your own weakness. I wonder how that will manifest?
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FFS... I really wish some of the faux outrage flowing around here would kick in when we get another fatuous scare story about the so-called 'obesity epidemic' - another health scare story that ends up being much less than meets the eye. (Gee, you mean that when you consume more calories that you ever expend - and too much of it is made up of sugar and fat - it all goes somewhere. And banning fizzy drinks and treating kids like crackheads when they have a bag of crisps in their lunch boxes occasionally isn't really that useful.) Sorry, Russell, but it's hardly a clutch-my-pearls moment to be reminded the Herald is hardly the gold standard for statistical literacy.
Then again, it has been interesting spending sixteen days in Australia - where the politicians are at least trying (with very mixed results, admittedly) to have a semi-rational debate on shit that actually matters. Like making sure children (and everyone else) will continue to have access to a water supply fir for human consumption.
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Craig said "fit". This was always what Craig said.
Where will the Rove blame the other guy strategy hit? I would have thought it had already hit. The "underclass" speech was a rainbow-six style double tap. It tagged the emotional buttons, it tagged the supporting the people who struggle within a society.
Basically, he's claiming that the benefit system (is evil and must be replaced with tax rebates) isn't up to the job of ensuring all NZers are equal. When National have a clear history of creating inequality in NZ(ers) - bing, both Rove requisites tagged.
[this comment is admittedly hideously partisan, given the generally bipartisan and cosmopolitan nature of these boards (nice work Russell et al), but I've lived enough of Nationals solutions to a failing economy and families that can't support themselves alone to know I don't like it.]
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Greg:
Basically, I don't blame Helen Clark or John Key for the simple fact that I'm over-weight - and am only moving the cholesterol in the right direction by *gasp* eating properly and exercising more. Strangely enough, I don't think the right has any monopoly on the notion that not every problem in the world can be reduced to a fatuous bumper sticker and legislated away.
As I said, it's not really a jaw-dropper for me that the media (or politicians for that matter) don't always let intellectual rigour get in the way of scaring the shit out of people for fun and profit. It would be a delightful novelty, for example, if some folks would cease to accuse others of being Darth Rove's apprentice, while slagging off anyone who doesn't agree with them as a kitten-eating bastard.
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Is it just me or is there a stack MORE junk food being pedalled in the last couple of decades than ever before?
Kids, like it or not, don't know everything. That includes about how to eat decent food and what it all does to your body. You learn it, you don't just know it. So any helping hand they can get to learn that information is good. And any helping hand to stay away from it would also be good. No?
We would do well not to stick shit food in their face in supermarkets, dairies, homes, and schools. Look in a fridge in a lunchbar, or behind the counter of anywhere that sells drinks. The bottles of fruit juice and water aren't usually at face height, dominating the fridge. Take a look at a "coke machine". They haven't been called that for nothing. They don't get swathed in advertising for the finest mineral water.
We don't need to ban junk food, but banning it in certain places seems like a pretty mild thing to do. No smoking in bars for adults, no fizzy drinks and bags of chips at school. Trust me, sh*t arse food has a rather dogs balls flow on effect into classroom behaviour which is a major pain in the rear for the teacher and gives their classmates a bloody headache.
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It would be a delightful novelty, for example, if some folks would cease to accuse others of being Darth Rove's apprentice, while slagging off anyone who doesn't agree with them as a kitten-eating bastard.
Now you see Craig, if you'd just lay off the kittens, you'd find that your cholesterol would come right in an instant.
But yeah, I think the Rove comparison's a bit strong. What we're seeing is the news media being so friggin' desperate for a narrative that they're jumping on every Key diversion, even when there's not a lot there (and, as the Herald did, they have to make stuff up). As John Armstrong noted, Key is just flipping from one thing to the next at the moment: the media follows him and Labour seethes.
But Key will want to be careful. The 12 year-old girl whose new friend he is comes from just the kind of family that National and Act MPs have vilified in the past: Mum on DPB after split; has two more kids, making five in total with new boyfriend who doesn't live on the premises. At some point Judith Collins or someone is going to spit venom about DPB mums, and someone is going to ask Key whether that applies to that nice welfare family from McGehan Close.
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Then again, it has been interesting spending sixteen days in Australia - where the politicians are at least trying (with very mixed results, admittedly) to have a semi-rational debate on shit that actually matters. Like making sure children (and everyone else) will continue to have access to a water supply fir for human consumption.
I don't disagree but "trying" is about right... it's only been since they taught geology and conservation to my parents in '50s that there's been a problem with the Murray/Darling...
Howard's doing a variation on the Rove tactics described above by claiming concern about salination and drought simultaneously with advocating carbon sequestration etc... his promotion of Turnbull is astute however because Turnbull's both good and informed and also because Garrett's got fantastic bona fides.
I'd not look to Australia for meaningful politics, it's just as theatrical and vapid as anywhere else.
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I'd not look to Australia for meaningful politics, it's just as theatrical and vapid as anywhere else.
Well, up to a point. Putting aside Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbot's recent attack of bickering over where Jesus would put his first preference - which is funny in every sense - Australian politics is a hell of a lot more 'meaningful' than anything going on here. And that's sad.
And just as a request, could PA readers try not to make 'Rove tactics' the political equivalent of "snakes on a plane!"
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Craig, I don't agree. Not least of all becuase there's something like 20 different parliamentary chambers across Australia. There's nothing inherently smart about Australian politics, nor the Australian electorate. My own view is that much of the debate in the Federal Parliament is in fact a lot less meaningful than NZ's - it's certainly more feral; Latham's famous "congaline of suckholes" is extreme but nevertheless representative.
Also, in reference to the Rove-characterisation. Howard is attacking Labor on their issues, as Labor is attacking the Coalition on there's - a number of Rudd's speeches have had an economic focus because Labor feels the Coalition is vulnerable; whether they are or not is less clear.
Incidentally, Rudd's invocation of Christ was fair enough too, from my perspective, I'm frankly sick to death of Christian meaning moral conservativism.
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What ever happened to that good old hoary tory chestnut of blaming the parents? Is Key really saying now that Government has a responsibility for the welfare of its citizens and the upbringing of children? Give me a break!
Oh no, I forgot - Key wants to give a schoolkid feeding contract to oz muesli bar company Tasti foods. Now that sounds more like it. Must have shares in it.
BTW, anyone notice Dr Jacqui Blue is "human shield against dangerous protestors" Aroha's mum and nana's GP?
Do you really think Key just happened across them in McGehan Close?
Do you really think he actually "charmed" them into compliance?
Have political journalists in this country never heard of a PR set up?
Oh, I have so many questions! If only the MSM would ask them.
How close does the association have to be? Aroha's mum and nana have Dr Jacqui Blue as their GP. Surely just a coincidence.
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Um Riddley, I hate to burst your bubble of Mikey Havoc-esque paranoid conspiracy theorising but Tasti Foods is based in the Te Atatu Peninsula (that's where they manufacture their products). As far as I can tell Tasti is a privately owned NZ company: http://www.futureintech.org.nz/Employer_Profiles.cfm?id=79
According to Scoop, Tasti approached John Key after the latter announced National's nascent Food In Schools Programme. Tasti has since agreed to donate cereals and snack bars to Wesley Primary:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0702/S00059.htmGiving away product is unlikely to put squillions into the pockets of Tasti Foods shareholders and being a privately owned company it won't have many shareholders anyway.
Who is Jacqui Blue? I'm assuming you mean Jackie Blue but the NZ Herald article from Feb. 4th, which I'm guessing you got your info from, (but you never cite your sources so who knows) says Jackie Blue was once GP for Aroha's grandmother. Was once, meaning former but no longer, the grandnana's GP, but never Aroha or Joan Nathan's MP.
The chances of this being a PR set up is sooo unlikely. First Jackie Blue would have to have known all about a former patients family - who they were, where they lived - then they would had to have happened to live in a street elegible to be touted as a dead end socio-economically (whether McGehan Close is in fact a dire place is debatable). How likely is this really?
It seems much more likely that Key took advantage of an oppurtunity born of coincidence. You'd be much better off questioning his ethics in taking advantage of an entire street and then of a young girl. There is something morally reprehensible about the befriending of a vulnerable youngster by an MP when (if) it is done purely for political profit.
C'mon, Riddley lay off the post-apocalyptic sci-fi about 12 year old boys; it's affecting your ability to think rationally and construct a valid and properly referenced argument.
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Heh, I've never read the book, I got tipped off on the name and then googled it.
I stand corrected on Jackie Blue being Joan Nathan's GP. But still, there's not a lot of evidence for your claims in this thread or the Yellow Peril 'underclass' one.
I'm all for criticising the actions and motives of politician with no mercy but having no evidence to back it up makes one sound like Mikey Havoc... which is fun but inconsequential.
BTW: what do people think of Blue's organ donation private member's bill? It was very hotly debated by many Maori last year and I often wondered if non-Maori had same/similar thoughts about it?
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Paul Williams wrote:
Incidentally, Rudd's invocation of Christ was fair enough too, from my perspective, I'm frankly sick to death of Christian meaning moral conservativism.Well, as I've said at great length here and elsewhere I'm sick to death of any politician who has taken the term 'bully pulpit' in directions Teddy Roosevelt never imagined. If Rudd wants to get into a 'my vote is holier than thou' pissing match with folks I wouldn't waste my urine on, it's a free country. But some of us who go to church would actually to see a meaningful distinction between faith and politics (or religiosity and campaign rhetoric, to be harsh) widened, not eroded further. Of course, doesn't doesn't mean folks like Rudd and Tony Abbott should pretend their faith doesn't influence their political views. What I object to is the implication - explicit or implicit - that if you don't vote like them, you're not really a good Christian. That strikes me as rather monstrous spiritual and political arrogance, and to hell with it.
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Craig Ranapia wrote:
What I object to is the implication - explicit or implicit - that if you don't vote like them, you're not really a good Christian. That strikes me as rather monstrous spiritual and political arrogance, and to hell with it.
I've not heard anything from Rudd that suggests he thinks along these lines Craig? I might have missed something while I was back in NZ recently, however the comments I've seen/heard instead challenge the view, espoused by Howard and Abbott, that Christian means conservative.
Last election we had the sight of Costello, a high-Anglican, attending a Hillsong service meanwhile numerous Liberals accepted the support of the Exclusive Brethren.
I'd very much like candidates, from either party, at least represent the diversity of the Church... the Liberals have actively tried to link a particular set of policies with "Christianity" and it needs challenging (it's worth noting that Rudd's approach is not one that Labor is particularly keen on given their tendancy to prefer agnosticism).
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Paul:
With all due respect, we're just going to have to agree to disagree whet
er or not Rudd's playing exactly the same game - but I have to admit he's coding it more subtly. (And I'd also respectfully suggest the ALP hasn't historically been as fastidious about appealing to sectarian prejudice as Rudd likes to pretend.) I'd just like everyone to stop frolicking in that particular toxic waste dump, not least because it only ends up trivialising both faith and politics.And Paul wrote:
Last election we had the sight of Costello, a high-Anglican, attending a Hillsong service meanwhile numerous Liberals accepted the support of the Exclusive Brethren.Oh please... Do the words 'Ratana Pa' mean anything to you - because seeing who can bring the biggest posse is a politicial farce that's even starting to make most of the Ratana of my acquaintance unconfortable. And I know it's not a comfortable truth to tell, but there are plenty of Labour politicians both here and in Australia who are quite happy to be seen (by the right people, anyway) cuddling up to some very creepy clerics in campaign season when it's politically useful.
By a strange coincidence, while I was in Oz the ABC screened the wonderfulr episode of The West Wing where the (sadly ficiticious) Republican nominee Arnold Vinnick says this:
__"I don't see how we can have a seperation of Church & State in this government, if you have to pass a religious test, to get in this government. And I want to warn everyone in the press & all the voters out there, If you demand expressions of Religious Faith from politicians, you are just begging to be lied to. They won't all lie to you, but a lot of them will, and it will be the easiest lie they ever had to tell to get your votes. So every day until the end of this campaign, I will answer any question anyone has on government, but if you have a quesion on Religion...Please go to church. Thank You."__
And if Mr Rudd wants to play that game, then he's going to be treated by me with the same contempt as anyone else who treats the front steps of a church as a backdrop for a photo op, or dares to even imply the true test of faith is at the ballot box. But I guess the real test is whether enough Christians of good faith - on both sides of the political divide - start pushing back.
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Craig Ranapia said:
The West Wing where the (sadly ficiticious) Republican nominee Arnold Vinnick ...
Sadly fictious - now that's something we can agree on and I'm happy to agree to disagree on other matters.
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