Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: The war over a mystery, in reply to andin,
Sooo was it that way? Or just people covering their arse.
Oh, it became very much about the establishment protecting the "integrity" of the system.
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Up Front: Towards a Sex-Positive Utopia, in reply to Emma Hart,
just that sexual energy wouldn’t need to be actively repressed, and so pop out uncontrolled in other channels.
So in homes where sex was discussed openly and frankly girls wouldn’t go doo-lally over pop stars? I’m unconvinced. Also, you’re exercising a degree of judginess about that that I’m not used to hearing from you ;-)
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As a result of all of this, of living in a world free of sexual shame and repression, perhaps the two most significant benefits. One: teenage girls would be allowed to direct their sexual energy into sex, rather than One Direction concerts. There goes the screaming and fainting and incoherent babbling. Two: more people would be having more and better sex. Possibly with screaming and fainting and incoherent babbling.
Ummm … but is having actual sex the obvious or desirable alternative to 13 year-olds having a brief infatuation with a pop group? You’ve seen the Beatles movies, right? Elvis? You’ll remember the Bay City Rollers (whose management actively cultivated an absence of sexual threat)?
I’m honestly not sure why a phenomenon that’s as old as pop music would make you so ill.
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Islander,
Indeedy.
Communal view v. very individualistic view. In-view v. outview. Self (ish)/lone person learning community mores/ways of operating (or, indeed, co-operating.)
The twain have to co-operate – somehow.We are all both; indivisible and discrete. I think even grasping that is a really good start.
I’ve spent waaay too many years of my life trying to reconcile this stuff in “BAIT” -
Tease!
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Hard News: Belief Media, in reply to Ross Mason,
Too big and you won’t see the power pole. Too small and you won’t know what a power pole was/is.
Nicely put!
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Hard News: Getting Out, in reply to Graham Dunster,
Sadly the Union Avenue link doesn’t work for me.
The site's not responding. I'd try again later.
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This just in: Shayne Carter has announced two farewell shows from Dimmer -- KA May 24 and Bodega May 26 -- he's dissolving the band.
Support for both is Beastwars, which is cool.
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Don't forget to watch the show this evening -- 9.05pm, TVNZ 7.
After we finished recording, Roger Brooking told me something that made me madder than anything that's actually in the show.
Corrections dental policy is "pain-relief only". Meaning they don't actually treat even severe dental problems.
This is:
(a) Cruel. Obviously.
(b) Completely insane. Untreated dental problems expose the people who suffer them to any number of other, potentially severe, health problems. For which we as taxpayers eventually pay a lot more money than we would have spent in the first place just fixing prisoners' teeth.
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Hard News: The Very Worst, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Meanwhile, McVicar's idol has thrown his weight behind the Birther Movement, and the freakin' Feds have been breathing down his neck.
Wow.
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Hard News: The Very Worst, in reply to izogi,
There seems to be no shortage of criticism based around a premise that prisoners are treated to proper meals and “flat screen TVs” whilst victims are often left out in the cold to suffer with whatever fate left them, hence the call for more effective vengeance because there’s not much else up for grabs. There’s a strong perception that victims are ignored, or mostly ignored, and maybe there’s some merit given I see that New Zealand’s Victim Support organisation is pleading for donations. The Department of Corrections never does that.
Actually, the 2004-2005 International Crime Victims Survey (published in 2008) ranked New Zealand’s victim survey, but there was plentiful coverage of our relatively high (but still falling) rate of common crimes.. I wrote about it at the time, noting some of the problems with the survey.