Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Emma Hart,
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The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.I feel like I'm all 4Chan and shit.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Emma Hart,
So the great thing about things like TOFO and Megan and Boganette’s Feminazi Boner-Killer Drinks is that they’re a chance to get together, off-line, and remind ourselves that there are, in fact, lots of women who think the same way we do, to reassure and rejuvenate each other.
Much as I would not like having my boner killed, they also sound like a lot of fun when y'all tweet about them.
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For purposes of clarity, I have no objection to Key writing a book or having someone write one for him. Clark was only halfway through her term as PM when her hagiography was published, Muldoon churned out autobiographical tracts.
It was using that fact as a cute excuse to refuse to answer a direct and material question from a member of the interest group he’d come to solicit votes from. It was insulting.
A movie star can say “you’ll have to wait for my book for that”. A Prime Minister cannot.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I guess I’m trying to rescue some useful descriptors that feminists have come up with over the years from the use that stupid people (here’s a worthwhile generalisation) make of them.
Fair enough. It's just that the few men I've known who do think in those terms on a personal level, I regard as a bit sad and dysfunctional.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Jacqui Dunn,
For what it’s worth, I think Boganette might have got more agreement and less aggrievement if she’d used “some” in front of “men”.
Just for clarity, it wasn't her, but a commenter.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I haven’t read the comment in question, but I’m pretty sure it’s not about “you” Russell, and I think as a broader sociological term it has a certain far from undocumented applicability. At least where I’m from.
I read it as a hackneyed and unhelpful generalisation about all men. The first one quoted by Emma ditto, only more insulting.
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Just catching up, but this from one of the comments on Boganette's blog has been sticking in my mind and really fucking annoying me:
You've come a way recognizing some of the intricate problems our society presents for socialization of women. It's called the madonna/whore dichotomy - men want their women sexy, but not TOO sexy, and there really is no balance a woman can achieve because the goal posts are forever shifting.
Critique the media and society by all means -- but could you not insist on informing me what I "want"?
Could you possibly do me the credit of allowing that I might actually see women as fellow human beings? People I can be friends with and talk to and learn from? That I might actually be able to find a woman -- or, lord forbid, a picture of a woman -- attractive without descending into the kind of miserable dichotomy you seem to believe defines my intellectual and emotional scope?
Grrrr.
Thank you.
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Steven on Facebook:
National Radio is discussing the interview I did with John Key yesterday on Radio Ponsonby because I was the only one who bothered to remind him he voted against Civil Unions and asked him if he would vote for or against if it was in parliament tomorrow. He refused to answer. He wants us to believe in him even though he doesn't believe in us.
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I find that gob-smacking given the amount of bitching Key got around here from the moment he became leader of the National Party for being a vacuous ‘Mr Smile and Wave’ leading a government that makes candy floss look substantive. Just give me a call when the playing field levels out and I’m entitled to start expecting the opposition to campaign on actual policy.
Repeat: Had Key said exactly what Goff said, – that we’d come a long way but there was need for further reform – he would have been applauded. There certainly wasn’t a policy commitment in there, but there was some sort of philosophical position.
What Key said on stage – we won’t take away any rights you’ve already got – was hardly the same thing.
And then his refusal to answer a straightforward question about how he would vote on the civil unions bill today – because apparently we’d have to wait for his fucking book – was contemptuous, especially in that setting. To be honest, I feel more angry about it the more I think about it. Who does he actually think he is?
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
So what discomfort did Goff offer to anyone – because I sure seem to be the only person in any way uncomfortable with the pile of steaming hot waffle Phil served up.
I think you are.
Goff gave a political speech, acknowledging the need for action without being in any way specific.
Politicians do that all the time. Had Key done that, he'd have been applauded.
What he did say in the interview, OTOH, was weird and invited scorn. It was not the sort of response I would expect of a Prime Minister.