Posts by Sacha
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fixie-riding hipster
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Thanks, Stephen. We've touched on this before but shared spaces are about getting back to that sense that the road is not just for cars.
It's certainly not a new concept. Stumbled on this 1905 clip from a San Francisco streetcar before their big quake - note the fairly relaxed movement of other traffic and pedestrians.
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Discussion about the Chauvel "beat up" over at Te Standard - mentions other recent right-wing smears uncritically passed on by dumbed-down media, and some surprisingly entertaining comments. Also links the dots with Heine and co's childish homophobia.
Poor old Chris Carter’s getting the treatment again today, with Audrey Young seeing fit to cover allegations from Whaleoil (yes, Whaleoil!) that Carter only recently removed a taxpayer-funded phone line from his mother’s house. “Now with her good and loyal son not able to sup quite so often at the trough, she has had to move to having to pay for it herself”, Whaleoil is quoted saying in Audrey’s article. It’s bullshit of course – Chris Carter’s mother died in 1993. At least Audrey mentions this in her article, but you’ve got to wonder what she was doing wasting valuable space covering right-wing smears like this in the first place.
So what’s behind this trend? For the right-wing smearers it’s easy, the beauty of the politics of the personal smear is that even if the MP is proven to be in the clear it doesn’t matter. Explaining is losing and the damage is already done. It’s also no coincidence that both of the MPs targeted so far have been gay.
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For a practical illustration of the limits of Statements of Intent and so on, John Minto describes getting an existing Council to hold a CCO accountable.
A couple of years back I had personal experience of just how high-handed these organisations can be after a dispute I had with Metrowater over how it calculated water use for our property. It was an exercise in frustration.
The senior management refused to meet to discuss the issue so eventually I requested to speak to a meeting of the city council's finance and corporate business committee which had responsibility for Metrowater. I explained the situation and answered questions from committee members who had also received a report from Metrowater on the issue.
I asked the committee to require Metrowater to attend mediation to sort out the dispute.
A long discussion followed about whether or not the committee was able to require the council-controlled organisation to do so.
Councillors asked for clarification from the chair who consulted the council chief executive who informed the meeting it was not legally possible for the council to set such a requirement because to do so would be to interfere in Metrowater's management of the business.
The only accountability was through Metrowater's statement of intent by which the organisation outlines its responsibilities to the city council.
It was a frustrating discussion but eventually the majority of the committee took my side and voted to recommend Metrowater agree to attend mediation.
This was as far as they were allowed to go but I assumed the moral weight of these elected councillors would get Metrowater to the table even if the council lacked the legal authority to require it to do so.
How wrong I was.
Metrowater wrote to me following the council recommendation and flatly refused to agree to mediation. In an act of unaccountable corporate arrogance they gave me and the council committee the fingers.
It was only after publicity that Metrowater eventually agreed to meet and sort it out.
Throughout this dispute the elected councillors were impotent in dealing with this controlled organisation of which the council is the sole owner. It thumbed its nose at the mere thought of democratic accountability.
The elected councillors were trumped by unelected appointees.
Now you can believe Rodney Hide and Steven Joyce when they say that won't happen, but it might pay to remember which professions the public routinely says are least trustworthy. And look at who benefits.
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Or take your kids in with you
Lolnui
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I believe that was Danyl's point..
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Tired dogwhistle in the coverage I've seen about Chauvel not being a parent (which I thought he was, actually) - including from the smug mum concerned. Nothing like this corroboration from today's Herald on either of last night's main telly news either (starts with Chauvel quote):
"It didn't seem they had been given anything to do on the flight except to sit there and screech at each other, pretty much through the whole flight.
"I certainly noticed some people in the aisle opposite me rolling their eyes and at one stage sticking their fingers in their ears as a joke."
A person on the same flight said yesterday: "I was sitting in the aisle across from Charles and I actually said to my husband that I wished the parents would tell their children to 'shut up'. They were pretty loud."
Of course entitled braying might seem quite normal to Act supporters. Campbell Live spotted the irony in these brave champions of free speech bitching publicly when someone directs it at them, poor dears.
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Catching up I'm struck by a more basic question - why on earth the need to apply any notion of "best" or "better"?
I enjoy discussing movies, music, etc - not so I can rank them, more so I have a better idea what I might like next. Where they fit in culturally also interests me, and I'm certainly not a complete relativist about it.
Not everyone brings the same motivations but I wonder how many spend this much energy trying to decide whether movie A is "better than" Movie B? Except maybe when they're choosing what to see/hear next..
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sharing medics is not advised - call me monogamous
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still yet to see Citizen Kane despite a lifetime of assurances I can't live without it
I have the dvd for you, and I believe you'll like something about it beyond reputation