Posts by Paul Williams
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Incidentally, one of the better podcasts for news in Australia is ABC's background briefing. This one, on the banking crisis, and this on the media's reporting of the crisis are particularly good.
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Okay, the generalisations are annoying me now too. I can't speak for Australia, but there's fine work in the NZ print media every week. You can't just dismiss the whole field.
I'll accept that my comment was too broad a generalisation, but the balance in print media tipped along while ago I believe (radio less so). When last in Wellington, I honestly thought someone had pinched the middle pages from the DomPost and had to count them to be sure; most of the articles contained very little that wasn't in the media release or involved more than one or two phone interviews. After about page four, and half a page of commentators, the paper was mostly quarter page adverts. That's pathetic for the daily paper of the capital.
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Anyway it's a pretty simple formula: if you don't like something, don't watch/listen to/read it anymore.
Having done that, sometime ago, how do I now get what I'd like? Disengaging doesn't mean news gets better, just my annoyance abates.
In truth, I now rely on podcasts and various international services. Perhaps it is simply a function of the market for news/media that dailys cater to the lowest denominator and journalists have few options...
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And finally: Cameron Slater is "involved in all National's internal debates"? For serious?
That's cause, as I understand it, Slater's part of a talent development program led by graduate Michael Laws.
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I must say, I'm slightly surprised at the rancour greeting this post.
My rancour was qualified... but as Gio's said; the trivial joking around and gamesmanship is annoying mostly 'cause it is not newsworthy ('cept 'cause some other oaf has mentioned it as he tries to resurrect his gaudy career) and what is newsworthy is too often very poorly treated. I'm no less annoyed by some of the the silliness in Parliament that displaces meaningful political discourse...
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What a bunch of tossers, the lot of them: more concerned with besting their rivals, whom they admire greatly, than doing any journalism; and always willing to find the time to write a verbose screed of self-justification. This one could be summarised as "yes we did it, but it was not what you think, so no we didn't do it." You can see why the news stories are not worth reading when this is all a journalist can manage in his own defence.
Perhaps it is just my frustrated need to declare how crappy the NZ press is, perhaps it's my long held view that a fool's friend might be a little foolish him/herself... either way, Mr Litterick's said a mouthful!
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Saw it after I posted my comment - I took a while with my comment during which others appeared...
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Gio, I might have missed that conceptualisation if it appeared earlier in the thread, I like it a lot. I've not given up on the thought that there might be some super-sentience, though I've have given up on its various Biblical descriptions.
Hilary, great, glad you enjoyed them. I didn't see them myself but my four-year old still raves about them some months later (she's convinced that they are mermaids). Incidentally, Sydney's cold as hell today - winds that remind me of Wellington (not a bad memory).
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Where'd my capacity to engage on these matters go I wonder? I did the basic theological training via Catholic schooling and the metaphysics at uni and yet... I've so little to add.
Existence isn't meaningless. It's just that there's no external source of meaning.
I'm not all that opposed to this conceptulisation although the "no external" validation might be too narrowly defined for me (though I'm guessing you mean no deity?) I'd not disagree with this, I simply don't know, but does that mean none, or rather just no supernatural? What about the meaning of our lives validated by others? My kids validate me, I think. I know that's very local and personal, so how about global recognition of the humanity of Nelson Mandela? I rewatched Gandhi recently, I understand the meaning of his life as being both his commitment to his principles but also the political change he achieved. Is that external validation?
Or is that what you mean in the next sentence when you say:
Things only have meaning and force insofar as we give it to them
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This conversation has helped me calibrate the average age of PASers... 'cept ScottY, I know he's too young for all this but he'd 'fessed to that.