Posts by Tom Semmens
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Lets cut the outraged virgin routine? Gleefully re-telling the latest rumour over some beers is human nature. It is NOT the same as constructing a careful laundering process for spreading rumours full of depraved filth.
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Hey, can you tell where one can buy a decent coffee grinder at an economical price Mr. Brown?
I saw one I liked for like $149, and I was "To hell with that!"
But maybe that is what you have to pay. -
I find it interesting to see the connection though - Hooten has a spot on National radio, which one would think confers some sort of credibility to the man; the fact that the creepy Cameron Slater leaked to him first up shows how these wannebe wide boys of the right stay in close touch with other.
In particular, to me its at least prima facie evidence of how those who like to spread whispering hate campaigns against (in particular) Helen Clark use people like Slater to launder their filthy rumours out via the likes of David Farrar, Matthew Hooten and Bridget Saunders and thence into the "respectable" media - whilst maintaining a respectable arms length from the disgusting stories they so gleefully put out.
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It is only now, after reading your post, that I've realised my roughly contemporary schooling was comparatively blessed. I went to a small Catholic boys school in the provinces, and we had some quite old fashioned things going on even for the times - an echo of fagging still existed, caps were still available, and blazers were the norm. We also wore shorts 365 days a year in the junior school, but we were boys in the bloom of youth and young men at that age are made of stern stuff, I don't remember the cold being anything other than just part of life.
The senior school was given powers of discipline over the juniors which would be mind boggling to today's infantilising world, prefects were the school police force with none of the deeply disillusioning and cynical nonsense of rigged student "elections" for the role - you were appointed by the rector to the position of prefect, and your job was enforce the school's values and culture. We had bullying, but it wasn't that bad and we also had a sense of otherness which bound us together against the outside world. Certainly, the powers given to seniors was in most instances a maturing experience for the young men involved. I remember one priest suddenly stopping our class and urgently gesturing us to the window, where he pointed to a couple of state school boys wandering down the road, with rounded and stooped shoulders, socks down and hands thrust in pockets. After some seconds of puzzled looking on, he said in a deeply disappointed tone "Boys, bad posture, bad posture". For some reason, we sat a little straighter after that - no one wanted to be a slummy state schoolboy.
Of course, we had a barely sane "discipline master" who seemed to relish thrashing schoolboys. Of course, we had a priest who it later turns out was also a kiddie fiddler when he was at St. Pat's in Wellington. Of course, I had the obligatory teacher who resented the fact I could take it easy in cruise mode and then get straight A's at exam time, and clashed with my ferociously protective mum when he had the temerity to mention this view at a parent teacher meeting. Unbelievably, when I went back to my old school on the one occasion I have done in the past 25 years, he still resented me. But all in all, it was school where the teaching staff were fantastic, and the religious teachers in my experience to a man had dedicated their lives to the vocation of raising fine young men with strong Christian values. My Latin teacher was a genius educator, whose main technique for teaching Latin was to conduct the entire class in sotto voce on the grounds that if you had to be quiet and concentrate to hear him, all the better. It may have been the times, but they seemed almost as happy if you just turned out to be an atheist with a strong streak of liberation theology in a well-developed social conscience. The education on offer (necessarily because Catholic school's were broke back then and couldn't afford flash equipment) was strong on languages, history, and geography. It was an excellent, liberal arts classical education for us blessed in the "A" stream, and it has stood me in good stead all my life. I came away from school a somewhat sheltered, idealistic and naive boy, already politically aware and active, who had been confidently trained to believe his role in life was to go off and rule the Indians or, since regrettably India was no longer part of the empire, exercise command over those unfortunate enough to be churned out of the great, grey state school factories.
And all in all, you could do a lot worse than come away with that.
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The debate was inconclusive, which is all Obama needs because paradoxically even though he is the front runner he has the most convincing to do to many white Americans. I reckon the only reason McCain is still in the race is white American racism, the elephant in the room that the US media refuses (or is extremely reluctant) to discuss. Otherwise Obama would be another 6-10% ahead of McCain and threatening a landslide. McCain's purely tactical gamble on Palin could come back to haunt the GOP in the VP debate. I squirmed watching the Palin CBS interview, it was clear Palin hasn't got a clue. She is clearly unfit to be vice president of the United States. I was struck by her apparent brittleness, and I would imagine that if she merely repeats that performance on Friday against Biden the credibility of the Republican ticket will be shot to pieces, and if she cracks under pressure and makes some true howlers, it could be game over for McCain/Palin.
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"...That might be the fund that Charles Upham donated rather than take a gift for killing Germans..."
Political Correctness gone mad. -
Watch out, Pammy will have the lawyers on ya.
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To those who exult in the fall of Winston, all I can think of is to paraphrase Earl Long - one day the people of New Zealand will elect good politicians, and they won't like it.
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Yes Danyl... But it is kinda like the America's Cup - if you buy into it then its a big deal, but if you don't, then it's a sickening display of the abuse of wealth, complete with a sycophantic media pack.
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Jesus Christ Danyl... Are you REALLY thanking shadowy people with an agenda paying private investigators to go through someones's dirty linen until they finally find a blue dress with a stain on it?