Posts by Matthew Littlewood
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Tears still come to my eyes if I think about poor Dukie too much. Or Randy being let down by Carver. 'You gonna look out for me? You got my back, huh?' GOD. Series four ripped my cold, cynical heart out of my chest and stomped on it with steel-capped boots. (Yet it's my favourite.)
One of my favourite moments is when Bunny Colvin takes some of his "experimental class" students to a fancy restaraunt. The students, so bolshy and abrasive in class, and so used to living it pretty tough home conditions, are introduced to a turf so utterly foreign to them that they retreat into their shells.
Of course, their re-telling of the event to their fellow students the following day is somewhat different.
Or maybe it's the moment when it suddenly dawns on Prez that the schools are forced to "juke the stats" just as much as police.
That fourth season was the most devestating, but it was also the most moving. It really was a leap in the dark for Ed Burns and David Simon to think its audience would go with it. The late, great Alan Clarke would have been proud.
-
I have a kid who absolutely will not do stuff like writing unless he can see a purpose to it (and getting better at writing is not a purpose for writing thank you very much) so, for him and probably many other kids, subjects like science are the way to teach him literacy and numeracy skills.
Nice post, and it reminds me of the fact that although English, German and History were always my top subjects throughout secondary school, I think I even enjoyed the idea of science even more. Its disciplines still fascinate me, I guess it's the naturally inquiring nature of them, and the fact that you do (of a sort) come to a conclusion that's vaguely concrete, but often after exhausting a lot of other options.
I guess it's the fact that the sciences that aren't strictly linear that appeals. When I was features writer for Critic, the piece I most enjoyed writing (other than the John Key article or the "persons of the year" spiel) was one on the University's Bose-Einstein Condensate Lab. I mean, they're in the business of discovering a new state of matter. That's off the hook.
I've linked it down below if anyone's interested (apologies for self-promotion)
http://www.critic.co.nz/about/features/57And yeah, National Standards is just a ghastly idea, the only good thing you can say about something that will, ultimately, encourage "teaching to test" is that at least it's not based around a complete funding rort ala No Child Left Behind (thank you, GWB for peverting the original intention of Ted Kennedy's legislation by gumming up the funding and then watering down the curriculum).
-
I keep seeing free screenings of something called Zeitgeist advertised around campus. Haven't seen it but it's available online and looks fairly crazy.
Is this the same conspiracy theory movie to rail against celebrity culture and then conclude with a montage featuring John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix?
The reason I ask is that there was one that seemed to play on indefinite loop on one of ChCh's public access chanels. I know this because it always was playing whenever I got home after midnight.
It acted as a good cure for insomnia, actually.
The only other thing I can remember about it was is obsession with the "evil" Federal Income Tax. Something about it being unconstitutional. No, I didn't understand that either....
-
Sort of related, but here's a Salon article on how Glen Beck's frankly batshit theories frequently get laundered and then pounced upon by Republican congressman and senators. It's actually quite worrying.
This is what happens when a party's manifesto/ideology begins to eat itself. Say what you will about William F Buckley, but at least he articulated the "new way" for conservatism in a coherent and persuasive fashion. Whether one agreed with his philosophy, is, of course another matter entirely.
-
My thoughts on the early media coverage was that all of the NZ media were slow off the mark. I understand that Samoa is small and rarely a news worthy place but it plays a large part of NZs culture and one of the more important countries in the Pacific Islands - yet neither of our major outlets seemed to have any connections in Samoa.
It's always difficult when news as major as this breaks. The only way they can assure quick, authorative "on the ground" coverage as soon as it happens is to actually have regular correspondents stationed there. Otherwise there's a strong degree of reporters- through absolutely no fault of their own- coming into the event (pretty horrific in itself) somewhat blind. Of course, having a news bearau costs a lot of money, so it's a trade-off, too.
Regarding your point about "home" contacts- I have no doubt that they were being rung frantically throughout the day, maybe it was a matter of some of them being unreachable. As awful as this sounds, you are limited by who gets back to you, and when.
I think your comments were fair enough though- I definitely see what you're getting at.
-
Fair point Craig- I was going to say that the reports got better as the week went on, and yes, the early ones swayed too close to human interest for comfort. But there were a couple near the end about the thwarted attempts at reconstruction that were really well done.
It is a balancing act, for sure.
-
Further to the discussion of the media's coverage Samoa Tsunami, here's a feature from a Timaru Herald co-worker writing about her father's role in the rescue missions. It's worth a read.
For what it's worth, on the day the actual news broke, I thought Stuff.co.nz handled it better than the Herald's website, which stuck on the "New Zealand Tsunami threat" angle for too long after news of the damage the actual Tsunami had wrought on the Islands, to the point it seemed more than a little patronising. That said, the Herald rallied later in the week, and its coverage in the weekend edition was well done.
However, I do feel that given news consumers increasing reliance on Stuff and NZ Herald online for "breaking" stories, and the subsequent pressures it entails on those who have to cover the events, it wouldn't be amiss for the news organisations to employ a larger online team in addition to the other departments, so there are more resources to pool on when something as massive as this happens.
But then I would say that, wouldn't I? ;)
As an aside, I thought a lot of Campbell Live's episodes during the week really excelled- good, sober reporting, using a fairly wide range of sources, well edited and filmed and exactly the sort of thing it should be doing more often.
-
Righty ho, like I'm going to have some quack, cat, trick me into revealing my credit card numbers.
You say that, but wait until he starts purring...
-
Green eyes, Matthew? ether your monitor needs calibrating, mine does or one of us is colour blind.
Ha! Fortunately, it's the former, rather than the latter- there was dust and muck on the screen. Whatever, I can almost understand why George was mistaken for a hypnotist. Just look at him!
-
I'm not saying you have to go and look at pictures of kittens on the internet, but ...
Well, this story connects cats and quackery, which can only be a good thing.
(To be fair, George's green eyes are pretty hypnotic...)