Were you with us when…

As someone who wrote his honours dissertation on the event, and was there, I can confidently say there was no basis for…

The New Zealand Parliament has passed an enactment – a law of the land – that affirms all New Zealanders have a right to peacefully assemble and express themselves. That's…

As soon as they prosecute the police who acted unlawfully during the early 90s student protests and aftermath in a fair trial held in public I will. Sure.

On the basis of this, I'd say you probably owe the Dunedin constabulary something akin to an apology. Wouldn't you?

Didn't they turn it into an internal corporate gym? Fine example of gender priorities in action.

Sir Mickey Fay says he wants to by the Crafar farms "to keep them in NZ hands" Irony.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, there was a one-off gathering outside…

Personally, as a Dunedin citizen, I don't mind if they stay there until…

So it's more akin to, "I don't like your…

Actually, public spaces are for everyone, whether they last their jobs in the crisis or not.

And what Occupy are doing is a shit load more important than a nice empty lawn to look at. Nobody said don’t come down and eat your…

I particularly liked: ‘However one concern remains. Police training does not cover this issue and it seems that some officers feel free to make up their own powers as they go. We recommend that the NZ Police should make sure…

Cos nothing like what happens in other countries happens here eh? It's not the NZ way. Nothing like nasty police state England where police informers infiltrate groups of people exercising their democratic right to protest, encourage them into illegal…

It's aimed at migrants who distrust police from their home country?

Name, address, date of birth, and occupation. You don't have to give them anything further, and you don't have to stay and talk to them unless they say they're questioning you pursuant to a particular enactment. You are,…

wrong.

Short answer as I understand: If you are in a public place and are stopped by the police, you can ask why you are being questioned and refuse to answer any questions they ask. Whoever you are. I do not think you have to give your name and address.…

Most young males are. Sometimes they grow out of it or else you get old, dumb etc...

Nope. Not alleging that at all. But can you see the Council doing it without checking with the cops first?

So you're alleging that the Dunedin fuzz put the city council up to this? That's a pretty hefty allegation. Got proof?

Unsurprised? The Dunedin cops are hard-arses, dull but hard. I remember in the early 90s how they were after a student protest got violent. They got it violent. After they took the numbers off their uniforms before the charge.

Then they patrolled the…

I agree about the discouraging effects of competition, Dyan. The problem is that it seems to work for the very top performers, driving them to extremes. The various human prowess records would possibly be lower if they hadn't been driven by competition.

In my discussions with SPARC people I was…

But what is also missed in this drive…

Paul Moon’s reputation among Maori scholars is……variable, I am told.

You ain't just whistlin' Dixie, as they say. He's a loon, but he's fun to laugh at.

He seems to think cannibalism is incredibly bad. Really, is it that…

Dyan – that is most emphatically violation of *your* copyright, and is sueable-

Thank you Islander, but it's not a matter of words, where I can prove it's this passage or that passage. it's a set of ideas.

I wrote a huge number of letters letters to a few of…

Dyan – that is most emphatically violation of *your* copyright, and is sueable-

Thank you Islander, but it's not a matter of words, where I can prove it's this passage or that passage. it's a set of ideas. Even

I wrote a huge number of letters letters to a few…

those who know little about generating wealth, but thump their chests when it comes to demands for its redistribution.

Oh not so subtle…

On the one hand, he caused a furore with a book on cannibalism. On the other hand, he got into a stoush with the macro-nationalists who call themselves the Coastal Coalition.

Dyan – that is most emphatically violation of *your*…

I think one thing the Auckland occupiers really got right was not setting themselves against the Rugby World Cup, which would have been death to any idea of an inclusive action.

It'd be like shooting yourself in the foot and I've seen too much of that lately.
But action and…

but is Paul Moon really an academic?

If you believe that AUT’s a university.

I nearly said something in defense of AUT’s academic reputation, but as I was bullied by people there into handing over a…

exactly – it's a gift angle from complainers, really

Totally, and it's a factor in me linking to the Herald more often.

from one of their staff, so I figure it's kosher

Nice one.

Since we're quoting. On books and revolution.

Every time there's a revolution, it comes from somebody reading a book about revolution. David Walker wrote a book and Nat Turner did his thing.
Mike Tyson

Auckland University of Tautology

The bill of rights with the careful ignore this if it’s too hard provision. Not sure whether that was in the original.

Not sure we want to make laws the way the…

Speaking of Galbraith...

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's the other way round."

It's such a university that it has 'university' in its name twice. Auckland University of Technology University. There is nothing about that name which even slightly smacks of protesting too much. No, not a skerrick.

Thanks especially for the Galbraith quote in it's entirety.
Appreciate you Canadians : )

And there in a nutshell is a key difference between electronic and print publishing. It is really hard to recall all the printed copies of a paper and have another go at something masquerading as journalism.

Which…

I'm planning on revisiting that first line every now & then.

some branches of Philosophy..

A particularly pungent cheese. A pungency that reminds you of something else...

John Key could have made blocks of cheese to hand out as election bribes.

No doubt that was the easiest and most economic option, but I wonder what else they might have done with it.

Speaking of valiant journalists telling the truth in the public interest, check out what Stuff’s decided the most interesting news about the Hobbit is today.

I wonder. Is that really how best to serve the public interest on the subject…

Paid to think would be nice, yes.

Highly implausible..

is Paul Moon really an academic?

I guess like other professions they have a range of competence.

Well yes, Sacha, exactly my point. So that's why I asked, is Paul Moon really an academic?

Gotta go back to work and do menial crap. I wish I was an academic.

Apparently the RWC coming to NZ will cause a minute variation in the planet's gravity.

Meanwhile, a classroom project in Geraldine correctly picked every score in the knock-out stage of the tournament.

I read in the Herald…

Sound more like breakfast TV to me, but it could be a breakfast TV with a fine cooking segment.

I guess like other professions they have a range of competence.

That's a cooking show, right?

And all bumper stickers are stupid.

What about the American revolutionaries? The Glorious Revolution? Tunisia today?

He criticises Anne Salmond’s choice of phrases “rights of man” and “human dignity” not realising they have specific practical and legal definitions in the EU Charter.

"From there, she swerves to the…

And there’s the core of the preservation strand. Out of private libraries will the restored libraries of the future be built. The problem at the moment is that you need to be part of a personal network to access them.…

A syncretic Cult of the Book perhaps? Librarians, archivists, historians, artists, writers, editors, but above all readers.

(Just in case you were wondering, ‘readers’ includes all users of books. All of my painter friends have large personal libraries. I’m unusual…

By my desk I have, on a faded yellow post-it, the line from that tortured soul Kakfa: a book must be an ice-axe for the frozen sea within us. On the other side of my office, on the shelves, I…

Any halfway decent student of art history will tell you that the notion of unidirectional cultural progress is a myth.…

Obviously, the first thing is to highlight the problem, let the barbarians…

Great book. The Angelic Darkness also. Must track down some more of his.

Giovanni wrote an interesting post about it last year: Marked for Deselection – about Victoria University library.

ARRRAGH

France in May 1968 also comes to mind somewhat. The Gendarmerie's use of excessive force only hardened the resolve…

What is wrong with 50 years between readings?

I had great delight a few years ago as the locals – again – were fighting to keep the Pinehaven Library open. At the Upper Hutt Rotary annual book sale I bought – for $1 – the biography of Murray Gelman (Physics…

A business growth model based on the economical use of knowledge. As in: use what you've got. You were not or are not going to get any more.

I hope it doesn't become a bonfire of hate or swing as far as you suggest.

The powers of the police and the state…

Librarians are not generally behind those kind of decisions…

Absolutely nothing...often a book & reader/s dont connect for decades. They sure as shit wont connect if the book has been sold or 'otherwise disposed of..'

Small admission: quite a few books from the GAL wound up on my shelves.

Many in the Far North. 3 in the street we are in with 3 behind the back of us. One admittedly being grazing…

Haven't they just been given a whole lot of sneaky surveillance powers? Unwarranted powers snuck in without debate? Didn't I read something about that recently?

New Zealand has a long and vibrant history of small press publishing, in both literature and visual…

Yes, I forgot all about the profit motive on intellectualism. Probably because it just seems so pissly compared to the kind of profits such clever people could make if they really went…

I see that the first police riot in connection to suppressing the "Occupy" movement in the United States has occurred in Oakland. Watching video of…

and given we have so few public intellectuals here, in a way they have even more responsibility to do this ....

I think that intellectualism and…

Re libraries – we have a long family history of librarianism -…

I (romantically again) like to think that NZ academics have failed in this respect less spectacularly than US ones – and given we have so few public intellectuals here, in a way they have even more responsibility to do this ....

Nice. And that is exactly what I meant by ‘ways and means’. I get books out for…

He does say that, but I've read and listened to a lot of Chomsky, and a constant theme of his is that American academics fails of this responsibility quite badly, as a class (although…

It's a bugbear…

It'd be a pretty fundamental shift in the function of a university library if it was closed to…

Quite, and what people like Ip and Anne Salmond do – as academics and public intellectuals – is remind us how very dangerous it is to grind away the jagged, ambiguous and exquisitely human edges of history to serve present ideological…

Like Russell, I don't think any degree of charity should be extended to what Mutu said…

Occupy Libraries: Keeping free public libraries on the agenda

Owners of Wellington Libraries (OWL) will hold a special event on Saturday 29 October to keep the pressure on for free public libraries.

The group of local library…

Erm, you can just walk into the James…

And let’s not forget Pieter-Dirk Uys, who was prepared to risk jail time for dressing like Dame…

Nope, I just think folks of whatever political complexion should be very careful about canonizing hypocrites – and that’s exactly what Bill Gates is, in my opinion –…

Or, to be more specific, the two wealthiest people in the world avoiding tax.

Ah, yes. Dismiss this as anecdata, but I know one elderly white South African woman whose membership in the Black Sash routinely attracted threats of rape, physical assault and harm to her children.…

I didn’t say it was easy! Ways and…

How is that "both ways", Craig? You've responded to "very wealthy people avoiding taxes" with some more very wealthy people avoiding taxes.

Great on its own.

I'm so so so willing it to swell and succeed and to accomplish something historic and I've decided to take my first foray into Civic Square…

That works both ways, Euan. Folks like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have become the fat cats it’s OK for the OccupyEkatahuna set to like, but I think it’s fair to point out that any income from a so-called “millionaire…

And sadly the Alan Gibbses of this world, if things come truly unstuck, are more likely to put razor wire fences between them and their mistakes, than own up to them. Not unlike insane survivalists who think…

Which part of 'disinterested seeker of the truth' is compatible with 'being an ideologue'?

Oh wait, that's right, they redefined the 'truth' to mean that black was white, ridiculed passion, and promoted 'irony' in its place. There are no things, only dynamic processes, and the rest…

To be really honest, I can't be bothered going into it in detail.

Short version: one of those things that mean whatever people want it to mean. That is, a word with no clear referent. Easily manipulable. A politician's word.…

Look again.

The story of how Mayan writing was deciphered is a salutary case in point.

The guy in charge of the field (a small one, in which one person could easily dominate, especially as it…

I do not believe I am.

That might have been the case for a hundred or so years between the abolition of mandatory state religions and the introduction of substantial government funding,..

Perhaps they should have that duty, but I haven't…

I believe you're confusing the latter with nutty neoliberal theories about private benefit from tertiary education that were used to justify introducing student…

This was, once upon a time, the alleged point…

I dunno, I reckon that there's…

'@' and '.' are legal characters in the path part of URLs. In fact, I think everything except ampersand, equals and space are.

Everyone has that responsibility. Ones ability to comment…

http://chronicle.com/article/LoveAnarchy/129467