Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Stories: Home, in reply to ChipMatthews,
Thanks for sharing that, Chip. You know, I've lived almost all of my life in Auckland, but had never heard there was a suburb called Windy Ridge before. But I've been there quite a few times, just didn't know the name. It's awesome to hear you're there with your mum nearby, and the old memories mingle sadness and fondness liberally together, reflecting life's ups and downs.
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Hard News: Ten Thousand Maniacs, in reply to David Hood,
They tell a pretty compelling story there. Even when we think our reactions have gone OTT, they're often not in the same ballpark as OTT of the past.
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Hard News: Ten Thousand Maniacs, in reply to Kay,
do you believe that we’re in a world war, even if not in the conventional sense?
Not even close. We're always going to have a period of feeling shocked and scared after any such event, but in perspective it's not even in the same ball park as quite small conventional wars, much less a world war. Modern wars involve millions of deaths, most of them civilians. What most surprises me, to be honest, is how few casualties there are most of the time, how rapidly these situations get shut down and controlled.
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Not policing the the extremists is not an option, but that is what is should be – policing.
It would definitely be worth trying first. The alternative has certainly had a pretty good shot, and here's the result - pretty much no progress whatsoever made despite all the military force in the world.
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Hard News: After Len, in reply to Jim Cathcart,
Housing has fallen into the too hard basket. There is no political will in this country to do a damned thing about affordability anywhere, let alone in Auckland. It's pretty much out of control. I'm not surprised, because it's got so bad that no half measures are going to have any effect. But we are at least in control of smaller things.
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Hard News: After Len, in reply to Keir Leslie,
It’s also not entirely clear that “proportionality” is a particularly coherent concept in a not-very-partisan environment like the Auckland council.
Yes, without strong parties, PR isn't really necessary.
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Up Front: Stand for... Something, in reply to Alfie,
Wax on, whacks off.
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Hard News: After Len, in reply to Sacha,
More trips around the region – the focus on the cbd is a red herring.
Well, it's not the whole picture anyway. It's surely the most popular final destination by an order of magnitude. But I see what you mean. Yes, the CRL also makes other trips that aren't to or from the CBD faster.
It's hard to understand the resistance to the idea - it's not like being right wing inherently means you think one kind of infrastructure is better than another for the purposes of commuting. I think the resistance is deeper than that - that the CRL represents some kind of quantum leap towards big city status - which is what is found unpalatable. "We like our little town and we don't want it to change". This is probably felt more strongly outside of Auckland than in it, a genuine fear that Auckland is growing too fast.
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Hard News: After Len, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Isn’t the right-wing council an artefact of FPP wards?
Not sure. FPP is certainly an artifact. But I'm just not convinced it's a good idea to chuck out popularly elected mayors with that bathwater.
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Hard News: After Len, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
If that turned out a right-winger, it would be because people voted for them
True enough. But if the council has a left wing mayor and the rest stacked right, that is also because people voted for them. I'm not against a better system for electing the rest of the council, but I'm not sure that being unable to vote for the mayor is such a good idea. As in, I'm really not sure, and would need a more convincing argument than that our national level system doesn't work that way. Some countries do have a system that works that way, and it's not axiomatic that it's worse that way. I tend to think that electing the top job is at least one way that the vox-pop can bypass all the layers of entrenched privilege that seem to cohere to political parties. The ability of South Auckland to at least elect the mayor by virtue of their numbers, even if they get nothing else from a council stacked with quacks, seems to me a good thing.
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