Posts by Lilith __
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Carter, a prominent Christchurch property developer and investor, is playing his cards close to his chest.
The prescriptive rules in volume two of the CBD plan around building heights, car parking, lane ways and design requirements will be unnecessary, he says.
Other developers agree the detailed rules are probably history.
So how will Carter meet the spirit of the CBD plan based in part on the wishes of Christchurch people.
“I’m in a general way reasonably supportive of volume one [of the CBD plan] which is setting that image but now needs to be developed into reality,” Carter says
Hmmmmm. This gives me a bad feeling.
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Instead of presenting conscientious objectors as an exceptional class of maligned innocents, he seems to conclude that the vast majority of prison inmates were equally victims of a needlessly punitive system.
Grouping wartime government with the peacetime justice system seems like drawing a long bow. I mean, aren’t conchies more like political prisoners, in that they’re imprisoned for their beliefs and for civil disobedience?
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
I’m wondering why there isn’t already a reality tv show about the rebuild – working title Que CERA, CERA
Que?
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Southerly: Coming Up For Air, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
and here’s what is going up (click on the little symbols on the map to see image of projected building
Why, it leads me to think of the TV Series ” This Is Not My Life” and I imagine in more ways like that for you guys down there.
Yep. Holy crap, I don’t want to live in that shiny, characterless place.
Unless...do we all get a Charles Mesure?
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There’s a good overview of conscientious objection to the war (WW2) here.
When conscription was introduced in July 1940, conscientious objectors could appeal their military service. But the Appeal Boards were made up of older, conventional men, and the government expected them to ‘prevent the coward and the slacker from sheltering under a convenient conscience’. In New Zealand, of the 3000 appeals against conscription on conscience grounds, only 600 were allowed. Most of those turned down gave in to the law and served as required, but 800 refused to comply. As lawbreakers, with no right of appeal, they were sentenced to detention – a ‘scheme of concentration camps designed to be less comfortable than the army, but less punitive than gaol’. The term of their confinement was an indefinite sentence, while the war lasted.
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In New Zealand, in spite of lobbying from supporters, more than 200 ‘military defaulters’ were still in camps or prisons at the end of 1945. In December, the RSA national executive made an unsuccessful attempt to get the government to keep the men detained for 12 months after the end of the war – and disenfranchised for a further 10 years. The last detained conscientious objectors in New Zealand were not released until May 1946, nearly 10 months after the war finished.
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to Bart Janssen,
The large Dutch community almost all experienced invasion and occupation
I was horrified to hear from a Dutch family friend some of her experiences in Amsterdam during the famine of 1944. She was a child at the time and had vivid memories of being sent out by her mother to scavenge and beg for food.
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I know almost nothing about his experiences let alone his feelings associated with those experiences. He simply couldn’t and wouldn’t talk about them.
My grandfather was an army doctor, and he never ever talked about those five years except (we think) with his ex-army buddies. His standard and final response to questions: "You wouldn't understand."
He returned home depressed and short-tempered and never recovered his pre-war temperament. His relationship with my grandmother became bitter and alienated.
During the war he sent letters home to my Mum and auntie and uncle which are heartbreaking in their cheerfulness, with reports of the scenery and local people and animals and no mention of anything else.
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WOW! Now there's a pinhole camera and a half.
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I do like that the Ancient Greeks had a bunch of words for different kinds of love: Not only eros (sexual love), but also storge (family love), philia (friendly affection or commonality), and agape (compassion).
I think we could probably add a few more. We need more words, not fewer!
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The new additions include the 2005 documentary Sedition – The Suppression of Dissent in World War II New Zealand. New wartime laws affected media coverage or even discussion of pacifism. It’s available for viewing in full. Lest we, you know, forget:
Look forward to viewing this. My father was a conscientious objector in WWII, and although his deeply religious pacifism was attested to by the bishop, no less, and he was allowed to continue to work and live in the community, he was a social outcast because of it. There were various other sanctions: he was kept on the wages of an army private for the duration of the war. But the worst thing was being socially humiliated and shunned.
My mother's family was military and they all-but-disowned her for marrying my Dad, and never forgave either of them.
Both sides of my family were idealistic and held strong principles, and both suffered greatly both during the war and after.