Posts by Tom Semmens
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I am struck by the odd elitism/racism of the reporting of this story.
1st story: "ZOMG! The Sri lankan team has been attacked"!
5 minutes later...
"Thank God, it was only six local policemen who were killed".
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Glucina is an idiot, and so is anyone who actually reads her inaccurate drivel.
As for the Herald - I doubt that anyone who counts is embarassed. After all, using your muscle and once august reputation to indulge in a nasty tabloid bullying (AKA "campaigning journalism") seems to be their stock in trade these days. Doesn't matter if it's the EFA or Andy Shaw, if it sells copy & pleases their key advertising market the Herald can be guaranteed to throw objectivity out the door. If you think I am being a bit harsh, how else can you explain the Herald acting as head cheerleader for Auckland's increasingly desperate property developing class? Did anyone else scratch their head then guffaw at the sheer audacity of the Herald's "now is a great time to buy a house" headline the other day?
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Push the lever, get a reward. Gambling is hardly high science. I hate it and I hate its temples of misery where no one actually appears to be having any fun. Being around that many people and noticing the lack of a conversational hum is positively unnnerving.
I wonder WHY people would want to blow their hard earned money at such soulless joy.
I reckon we should legalise MDMA, make Auckland the Ibiza of the South Seas and turn Skycity into a megaclub like Space, or Amnesia. You see a lot more fun in the clubs of Auckland than on the floor of SkyCity.
I heard of some people I know dressing up in their fancy dress and then necking pills at the rugby sevens in Wellywood. I doubt that without the influence of the dress-up ethos of club culture we would have quite such a vibrant sevens tournament so I think the sevens give us glimpse of the sort of party town we could become...
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Ah yes, "Beano", "Cor!" and 'Look and Learn" were the stuff of my childhood.
Back in those days the local suburban shopping centre had a bookstore to go with the dairy, haberdashery, fish and chip shop, post office, local hair dresser, and chemist. They were wiped out by Rogernomics of course, but those were the days when you had a regular magazine order which we kids were dispatched to pick up from the man who ran the bookshop, and my parents paid on tick. I well remember how my brother and I at the age of 13 and 14 respectively managed - don't ask me how! - To persuade the bookstore owner my father wished to add "Playboy" to our regular order, and how and my brother and I became suddenly religiously keen to pick up the magazines. We got an entirely new perspective on things from Playboy - and it was at least six months before our Mum rumbled our little subterfuge.
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I also found myself detached from the whole Waitangi thing this year. it just seemed so "other' - these days it seems little more than an exercise in the French disease of out-of-touch École elites living in their world while everyone else lives in theirs.
I was intrigued by Roughan's use of the word "spirit". For someone who says he is an unbeliever, he spends an awful amount of time in his columns talking about spirit (as in things that go bump in the night) and Christianity. From his musing, I expect his Wishartian revelation daily. Which leads me wonder at the why the likes of Roughan, Wishart, Garth George and substantial slice of the KBR mob can’t seem to let go of their dislike of Helen Clark? I suspect the linking theme here is an unreformed fundamentalism. It is definitely the case in Wishart's and George's case, and Roughan seems to spend a lot of his time engaging in wishy-washy spiritual waffle as well. As for the KBR crew I could probably prove by analysis of posts that the happy-clappy crowd is well over-represented there, but that's a particular abyss I'm not game to peer into.
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"...Not me, Tom. I've never 'got' the whole driving fast and dangerously thing and wanting a flash car. I just don't understand it. Never have..."
Well, neither have I - but that didn't prevent a fifteen year old me and my three mates badly side-swiping a parked car in my Morris 1100 because we too busy looking at a group of girls from Sacred Heart, who had obligingly hitched their skirts up the minute they got out of school...
With all the maturity we could muster, we fled the scene and made up a story for my parents. Since in the intervening decades the long arm of the law hasn't come calling, so I think we got away with it...
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Oh well, at least they are not getting themselves killed in Lancasters over Hitler's Germany, which was our great-grandparents remedy for over-enthusiastic youth.
Oh and one other observation about compulsory insurance. It doesn't involve us adopting the full Blairite panoply of ASBOS's, CCTV, and other weapons in the U.K's baby boomer war on youth.
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Stephen - no, not for minute do i think being middle class entitles you to leniency! But I do think the whole thing smells of kids who think the law applies to someone else, which is very a middle class trait indeed.
making third party insurance compulsory will stop these kids because not having insurance would result in an instant impounding of the vehicle until proof of insurance was produced. At the moment, the cops rightly have to wait for an offence to be committed. Spot checks for insurance would easily weed out dozens of vehicles. Secondly, even if a boy racer had insurance, it would only take one offense for the insurance o be cancelled, keeping him off the road.
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Matthew Poole, that was quite a little rant! Do you also confiscate the ball when the neighbour’s kids kick it onto your lawn? I would say what characterises the Christchurch boy racer problem is their very middle class ability to use police scanner to organise an ambush. As such, characterising someone's little darlings as vermin presumably requiring some variant of Zyklon B is hardly helpful.
Like I said, in a free country you can't stop youths being complete idiots. Let’s face it - if we could have afforded a rice paper rocket when we were 16 we would have been off in a squeal of tyres and big puff pile of blue smoke as well.
With age comes maturity, and these kids will grow up. We should all stop our baby boomer moral panic over boy racers, and do want wise adults should do - make them PAY WITH REAL MONEY for the pleasures.
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Boy racers = affluenza at it's worst.
Ultimately, you can't stop them though. We live in a free country and unless you commit an offense, you've got a right to go about your business. The type of sweeping powers the police are looking for in Christchurch are well and good when used on stupid little half wits like boy racers, but of course it is only a matter of time before some dull-witted copper decides they are an excellent way to stop a group of people on strike picketing a factory or prevent a spontaneous march down the street.
At the end of the day it is just young people with too much money and not enough sense. The best way to stop boy racers then is to hit them in the pocket - with compulsory third party insurance which is so high for modified vehicles driven by teens that they can't afford it.