Posts by Caleb D'Anvers
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Heh. I just found this in the 19th-century Napier print-trade journal Typo:
The Manawatu Herald quotes as follows from the local school inspector's report:— « Pronunciation of names in the colony should receive more attention from several teachers. For instance, that 'ang' in Wanganui, Tauranga, & is pronounced by them like ang in 'hang,' seems very curious. » The Herald thinks that the critic should have gone farther and indicated how the vowel should be sounded. Does he adopt the vulgar pronunciation, which turns the a into the o in « song »? The a is the same as in « Rangiora » —longer than the English vowel in « hang, » and not quite so long as the a in « far. » The g is commonly mispronounced. In the Maori the ng is always inseparable, and is very commonly an initial sound. In divisions of words this is often overlooked by the comp. « Tau-ra-nga » is the proper division—not « Tau-ran-ga. » The Herald pertinently asks why, if the Inspector stands up for correctness, he falls into the common error of dropping the h from « Whanganui. »
That's from May 31st 1890.
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It sounds so bad I reckon it can't be right. I'm holding out until I hear the story from a more reputable source.
Good point. This morning's Dom Post story is considerably more equivocal. It's hard to know quite what's going on with this deal.
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Re: the Maori Party's support for the ETS:
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A couple of things that have been over-looked in the discussion both here and at large are a) the lower drinking age and, b) the marked increase in recent years by the booze barns near the campus to cynically promote binge drinking.
This. Anyone who thinks there isn't a supply angle here isn't thinking like a booze baron.
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If you want to attack consumerism, fine, be my guest. But individualism is perfectly compatible with being on the left.
So, um, what is it we're disagreeing about so vehemently, again?
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Dammit. Closing my tags this time:
Clearly those of us who take the language of equality seriously and believe that it isn't just about rich and poor should just STFU, take our lumps, and bow our heads in obediance to our self-appointed leaders of the economic-only left.
Oh, come on. That's hardly what I was saying. Rather, I was pointing out that Labour, other than in its first term where it had pressure from the Alliance, rarely made much attempt to address the economic bases of the forms of inequality you quite rightly decry. Instead, like other Third Way parties, it accepted the neoliberal consensus while focussing on a series of symbolic, rather than substantive, examples of inequality. This is where I think talking about the "language" of inequality, rather than its actual social manifestations, is suspect.
Labour had 9 years in office, yet failed to do much meaningful about the massive structural inequalities and straight out social deprivation that arose in the wake of the reforms of the '80s and '90s. It failed to put really effective paid-parental-leave and paid-childcare provisions in place. It failed to significantly reduce class sizes in schools, particularly in "at risk" communities. It failed to undo the damage in terms of staffing, morale, and resource availability that the neoliberal reforms unleashed on the health sector. And it failed to stop private, sorry, "intergrated," schools from continuing to drain millions of dollars from the public education budget. You might notice that all of these have a significant impact upon minority and disadvantaged communities, and that they also have a large economic component.
If the left isn't for individual freedom (in its substantive sense of requiring the economic resources to be actually realised rather than merely theoretical), then what is it for?
So, what are you saying? 4WDs and flat-screen TVs for everyone? The Left is a broad church, and I, for one, think it should still have room for those who think there should be moral, ethical, and practical constraints on consumption. (Or, as you put it, the "realisation" of "economic resources.")
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Clearly those of us who take the language of equality seriously and believe that it isn't just about rich and poor should just STFU, take our lumps, and bow our heads in obediance to our self-appointed leaders of the economic-only left.<quote>
Oh, come on. That's hardly what I was saying. Rather, I was pointing out that Labour, other than in its first term where it had pressure from the Alliance, rarely made much attempt to address the economic bases of the forms of inequality you quite rightly decry. Instead, like other Third Way parties, it accepted the neoliberal consensus while focussing on a series of symbolic, rather than substantive, examples of inequality. This is where I think talking about the "language" of inequality, rather than its actual social manifestations, is suspect.
Labour had 9 years in office, yet failed to do much meaningful about the massive structural inequalities and straight out social deprivation that arose in the wake of the reforms of the '80s and '90s. It failed to put really effective paid-parental-leave and paid-childcare provisions in place. It failed to significantly reduce class sizes in schools, particularly in "at risk" communities. It failed to undo the damage in terms of staffing, morale, and resource availability that the neoliberal reforms unleashed on the health sector. And it failed to stop private, sorry, "intergrated," schools from continuing to drain millions of dollars from the public education budget. You might notice that all of these have a significant impact upon minority and disadvantaged communities, and that they also have a large economic component.
<quote>If the left isn't for individual freedom (in its substantive sense of requiring the economic resources to be actually realised rather than merely theoretical), then what is it for?
So, what are you saying? 4WDs and flat-screen TVs for everyone? The Left is a broad church, and I, for one, think it should still have room for those who think there should be moral, ethical, and practical constraints on consumption. (Or, as you put it, the "realisation" of "economic resources.")
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Slightly off topic but fascinating to learn about the role of the infamous right wing blog commentator Dad4Justice in the current Christchurch murder case. Mr Burns was their praying family counsellor.
Yes, and I wonder if he might have learned something. Perhaps along the lines of, "just because CYF does it, it doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong":
Burns last saw the couple a month ago and was devastated when the bodies of Chamberlain and Tisha Lowry were found. "I'm just thankful now, in retrospect, that I wasn't successful in getting their two daughters and son back."
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Danyl, and I think the relevant Standardistas pushing this line, are straight white males. Its easier to dismiss things as 'social engineering', 'nanny state' and (to quote Danyl) "the tendency of many on the left to reduce almost every debate to a grievance issue that puts them offside with 99% of the population," when you're not a member of the small minority with a genuine grievance.
I take your point, but still think that the movement really needs to have a conversation about the influence of the New Left, and the long-term viability of its associated ideologies. Many, I think quite rightly, suspect that the main contribution of the "personal is political" to the Left has been the movement's increasing atomization and its frustrating tendency to focus on the purely symbolic. There's been a corresponding unwillingness to talk about the "big picture," economically speaking. And it's here that we might start talking about the accommodation, since the Lange government, between social liberalism and economic liberalism. To what extent has the decision to focus on individual rights and social issues been a kind of symptom of neoliberalism itself, of individualism and consumerism more generally?
On the other hand, I'm a straight, white-enough-to-pass male, so I guess I would say that.
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Man. They so need a Walter Nash. And a Mickey Savage, for that matter. And a Peter Fraser. And a Harry Holland ...
Come to think of it, so do we.