Posts by anjum rahman
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ah, well, given that i'm technologically challenged, i'd best stay where i am then... managing to get a gravatar that works was my moment of technological glory (that, and managing to learn how to txt).
span, i think al gore didn't quite have the past that blair does (largely because he managed to avoid becoming potus), so could reinvent himself. mind you, he was still vp while the sanctions and various other bombings of iraq were taking place... but that just doesn't seem to match the scale of the current mess.
i just can't see blair being accepted in the way gore has been; his brand has been tarnished. however, if ribena gets back it's brand value, i'm prepared to reconsider my views on blair.
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"Best blog for making work bearable"
you actually have paid employment??? please tell me where, cos i want a job like your's (or riddley's or craig's or ... well you get the point)!
oh and congrats from me too russell. well-deserved.
re blair, he can put his hand on his heart as much as he likes, but i don't think he will ever be remembered for anything other than his complicity in the iraq invasion & occupation.
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hey, i'm all for being called up to cause a little mayhem on someone's blog, in the name of fostering diversity. where do i sign up??
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it's interesting about women's voices in the public sphere. i haven't bothered to go through and count, but i bet this thread still has more male than female contributors. and watching what was happening, most of the women were pulling out as things started going downhill.
so one of tze ming's key points of how we get more women to get involved and active on the web has remained largely ignored and unanswered, and i don't know whether this thread or tze ming's original post has helped at all. as with span, i'd like to get back on topic and actually look at how we can do this. it's a little more important than "light relief" just now.
unfortunately i don't have any particular insights to offer, but would appreciate hearing from others.
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aaagh!! i hate that i came to this thread so late... been busy all weekend. and i can't believe i turned off "sleeping dogs" to read it, but it seems to be just too important, and have too many wonderful contributions. thanx tze ming for your post that started this great discussion.
i'm not sure that i have a lot to add. i don't ever log on to kiwiblog anymore, though i did go through a period of reading it. but i can't do it any more. it's too depressing, and the bigotry does hurt. rich, it's easy to tell us to ignore the words, but i can't. not only because the words hurt personally but also because i feel powerless against them.
that's part of the reason why i never get involved in threads about muslims. they are so many negative and really harsh voices, yes even on pa, and i feel like a lone battler who can't possibly take them all on. i watched manakura (sp?) doing it last year around maori issues, watched him singlehandedly take on heaps of people and win. win in the sense that he managed to change opinions and make others see things in a new light. and he won respect - well, mine definitely. but he must have spent hours and hours doing it.
for myself, i just don't have the time and energy to do the same thing. i have 2 kids to bring up, a home to take care of, a job, 3 trusts i'm a trustee of, and a nascent political career that may or may not go anywhere. i have to be mindful that anything i ever say or write can and will be used by political opponents to attack me, now or years later. or by ian wishart wannabe's to make out i'm some kind of terrorist sympathiser or straight-out terrorist (or whatever other nasty label they can throw at me).
mostly though, i'm just tired. i spend most of my days feeling exhausted, so i only post when the topic excites me enough to overcome the tiredness! but the kind of research and hours it would take to get into an indepth debate around, say muslim issues, is just beyond my capacity. so i leave it, and try to make a difference in other ways - like interfaith forums, public speaking etc. yes, these also take a lot of time and energy, but the fact is that people say things on the web that they would never have the guts to say face-to-face, which is why these other activities seem less threatening.
in terms of misogyny, i've never been attacked for my gender. i also haven't yet received hate mail (alhamdolillah). but i have to agree with you tze ming, that gender abuse is an issue and a serious one. whether or not the threats are real, they are frightening, and we shouldn't have to put up with them.
so, i'd love to contribute more. but it's down to time, and to not being tough enough to take a lot of negativity.
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"As to NZ's interest rates, I reckon it's time to revisit the dreaded tax on investment property - might be more palatable to the general public now that people who don't own homes feel like they're competing with investors, and exporters are getting such a pounding. I'm no expert though - any thoughts from people more qualified to comment??"
not particularly qualified, but i'll comment anyway... a capital gains tax on investment property won't work, cos it didn't in oz. another alternative would be to limit the amount of loss property investors can claim against their other income to (say) $2,000. that would mean that all those heavily mortgaged investment properties could no longer be funded out of a hefty tax refund, which would probably bring house prices down. probably political suicide though... -
when one of my daughters was 6, she told me that the class had to write a letter to santa that day at school. i said "but you know there's no such thing as santa, don't you?" she replied "yes, i know that! but my teacher doesn't..."
the other daughter, after long contemplation at the moon one night came up with: "mummy, when the moon becomes half, do all the people on the other side fall off?"
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speaking of ownership, i remember a piece on mediawatch (radionz) some weeks ago re al-jazeera's english network. the point was made there as well about the difference of ownership by the sultan of oman.
i did end up watching a little bit of al-jazeera in malaysia, and was quite impressed. not only did they have actual news (ie none of the tabloid nonsense like anna-nicole's baby's father), but they covered the globe. there was in-depth coverage of south america, africa, asia, & the middle east. i watched a piece on the one-legged soccer team of congo - which was a very moving piece about the effects of civil war in that country, the practice of chopping off limbs, the trauma faced by these young men, and how the soccer was being used as therapy to help them come to terms with their personal tragedies.
the coverage was balanced, eg they had amnesty & other human rights groups interviewed about the sham trial of saddam hussein & the sad joke that was his execution. they followed this with coverage of saddam's brutality towards the kurds.
what i liked best though, was that they ALWAYS used local reporters - a somalian reporter broadcasting from somalia on the civiian war there, brazilian reporters broadcasting from brazil etc. it meant that you had reporters with an in-depth knowledge of the culture & history, who could give a much better report than an outsider.
brought to home the advantages of a news organisation without a "maximising shareholders' returns" motive. wonder how we can get al-jazeera broadcast here...
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no, dear garth no longer compiles the letters page, he retired at least a year ago & now only does the weekly column. given there's no retirement age now, we're stuck with that until people stop reading his column, or he finally decides he doesn't want to do it anymore. sigh.
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oops, the link thingies didn't come through, so here they are:
CAIR: http://www.cair.com/
chicago tribune article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703270505mar28,1,7295145.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
AFP article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070327/wl_afp/egyptconstitution_070327115149