Posts by Sacha
-
Lets talk about art.
Please, let's not. Or copyright.
Think of the children. -
See also here, where JR Pereira claims to have a "government mandate" to represent the PI community in the Super City transition, and gives unusual accounts of his dealings with govt ministers.
Fiery stuff and great to see a writer laying out so fully her own connection to the story. Regarding the central clash of stories she notes, we now know that "the Minister" the PEDA folk met with was English not Te Heuheu.
-
Interests me that this Herald vox pop video outside the Council (embedded, 3 mins) shows people seeing the story for what it is quite clearly.
-
I *loved* that movie
Same. Unapologetically local, good script, good actors, tasty soundtrack, locations I recognised...
-
One result is that many of the public voices you hear are our parents
Can I add that parental love is a strong motivator to act on behalf of our children, and I wouldn't want to see that change. Get more balance by strengthening disabled people's voices.
-
The thing is, gender discrimination hurts _everyone_. It's not just a women's fight.
I agree, though the position of ally is a tricky one to pull off. I'd be keen to hear more from Josh and others about some of the relevant academic points about that, but that's just me. I'm enjoying the discussion though it took a long time to catch up.
In the disability movement (or more accurately movement*s*) we face the historic societal expectation that it's OK to speak on behalf of disabled people (because we're obviously not competent to do that ourselves). I'd say the same thing applied to women and children, and other marginalised social groups at various times.
The counter-trend is that disabled people don't actually demand competence of our spokespeople - they only have to know about their own experience of being disabled, not about how that relates to other disabled people's experiences, to history and theory for some context, or to particular subject areas they're advocating in like employment or local government. We also have no proper mandating or representative structures, because no one will invest in making them genuinely accessible so they actually work.
One result is that many of the public voices you hear are our parents or the well-intentioned people whose job it is to provide services to around half of us. As I've said before, it's like tolerating immigration consultants speaking on behalf of migrants. And yet, sometimes you need a good specialist - as an ally.
Finally, because it's media Friday, check the difference in tone between the most recent TV adverts for IHC and CCS (who also claim to represent disabled people not just our mothers, to whom we are such a burden). Making disability about charity rather than proper public services and innovative businesses reinforces those tired traditional expectations about who speaks out and acts to change the world for ourselves and for others.
-
Brown
refused, for privacy reasons, to say who he entertained that night.
Nope - if you want to spend public money (in what sounds like a perfectly defensible local cause), then that's not private information.
I'd expect the same if he was entertaining a table of property developers, wouldn't you? Our international low ranking for corruption is well worth preserving - which is why the dodgy dealings in Canterbury are so damaging beyond that region.
-
-
Applause
-
True but we are smarter now.
Which "we" counts. I'm not bothered by what scientists like Bart do - it's the commercial and political interests that shape how their work is driven and implemented that concern me most.
That's hardly a novel sentiment, and it's being played out again today in catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil damage caused by prioritising commerce and profit over prudent risk management and science.