Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Russell Brown,
But Aspie still makes me think of some kind of snake, and really I don't like snakes. When one came into my wife's lab in California we both retreated to the back of the lab while the local laughed at us for being afraid of a grass snake.
Whereas most of my colleagues are somewhere on the spectrum and I like most ... er ... some of them.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to HORansome,
There are no circumstance where, if Arie was beaten by a police officer and that act means the end of that officer’s career, that such a loss of job would be unjust.
You are so certain. More certain than I could ever be I'm sorry.
Of course we demand our police perform to a standard most of us could not hope to maintain. Of course if an officer caused those injuries they will lose their job. But one blow could cause that black eye, one strike, one moment where the strain of the past couple of days caused a loss of control.
I don't know what happened. I'm not excusing police brutality. I'm demanding an investigation.
But I won't condemn yet, and I believe it is possible that an otherwise good person struck once, and that they will lose their job for that would IMO be unjust.
People rushed to condemn Aire, so certain that all looters are scum ...
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Idiot Savant,
Are you certain you could control yourself in that circumstance?
I'm not. And I haven't tried to strike another human since I was 15 and I really don't know that I could perform to that standard under that stress.
Empathy is critical here. Empathy for Aire first and foremost but also empathy for the police.
As I said we demand our police perform in a way most of us can't. And yes no matter what the circumstance if an officer caused those injuries that will be the end of their career.
It may be fun to bay for blood but it isn't helpful.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Idiot Savant,
I want prosecutions. Anything less is the police covering for their own – again.
I am as uncomfortable with baying for the blood of the police as I am with police parading an innocent for public humiliation.
It's possible that Aire was beaten by a disgusting thug wearing a police uniform who should never have passed the psych exam...
But it's also possible that the officer in question is a good decent person who had just spent the last couple of days dealing with dead bodies, horrible injuries, panicked members of the public. Someone who had his/her house destroyed, had spent hours worrying about whether their partner and children were OK while dealing with the worst disaster scene imaginable. Had just had a few hours disrupted sleep after working ridiculously hard and then seen what looked like someone taking advantage of someone else's loss for their own benefit and reacted by striking out.
In short we don't know the circumstances that led up to Aire's injuries. Yes we require our police to behave better than we expect ourselves to cope. But until we know what happened I'm not going to bay for blood.
Even with the most charitable circumstances, if Aire was beaten by an officer that is the end of that officer's career. And I can imagine circumstances where that might be unjust as well.
But we must we find out exactly what happened , it must be investigated independently and thoroughly.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Che Tibby,
their intention looks to have been to discourage more looters by making an example
Yup and they fucked up. It is the wrong thing to do. Even if they believe the man to be guilty, he is innocent until he goes to court. There is no excuse for that public parading of an innocent.
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I'd like to reiterate, the one thing we know for certain is that the police arranged for a "perp walk". They prep'd the media and then displayed the accused for public humiliation.
Whatever else happens from this case I want the police told in no uncertain terms that displaying untried people (Innocent until proven) for public humiliation is not acceptable.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Nikki Wysman,
His foster sister spoke to Arie and Arie confirmed that it was the police that Beat him
Can we get confirmation of this, please. This isn't a great story for anyone involved. Not meaning to doubt you Nikki but we need to get this right as much as the police should have in the first place.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Russell Brown,
Oh, look, me too. It has taken me a while to work this out.
Yeah I think everyone was operating in shock. Including police and reporters. If the Police did use unreasonable force then they were wrong and will need to be investigated and sanctioned. It is possible the bruising was received during, you know, that earthquake. As much as we were wrong to jump to conclusions about Aire's actions we probably want to be cautious about this as well, But we definitely need to investigate it.
What is of more concern is the obvious "perp walk". That's an action that cannot be described as "heat of the moment". Perp walks are cynical manipulation and worst of all prejudge the prisoner as guilty.
The final failure was the reporters who failed to notice anything wrong with the perp walk and the bruising. It's hard to be anything other than simply depressed about that. Yes they were tired and stressed like everyone else but it's probably just a symptom of the fact we don't have that many good experienced journalists out on the street any more.
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Hard News: The digital switch-off, in reply to Danielle,
You must stone him
Or throw perfectly cooked date scones
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Hard News: The digital switch-off, in reply to giovanni tiso,
One of the reasons why it’s cheaper
Harsh Gio, very harsh. Our primary producers are really very good at what they do. Yes part of it is because we have lots of land, which is a good reason for having primary production as an industry. Another reason is lots of water, so sue me we use the water and land and sell the results overseas this is bad how?
But a much bigger reason is that we spent a lot of time and effort developing farming practices from scratch rather than simply doing what great^10 grandaddy did. We have a very good set of skilled workers in the primary industries (milk/wool/trees/fruit).
And as for the negatives of farming, run-off etc etc. Some of that has been a learning process and farm practices are a hell of lot better now than they were 20 years ago and getting better all the time.
As for tariffs, it seems that in New Zealand we can't get our head around taking a middle ground. When we had tariffs and import restrictions we had them on everything and took it to the ridiculous extreme, so much so that it F'd our economy in terms of efficiency. Now we don't have any tariffs at all and we are F'd over buy any commodity speculator who has more money than us. Why the fuck can't we operate in the middle and make sensible case by case assessments?
To return to the topic, why can't we fund NZ current affairs, local documentaries, local and relevant analysis of what it is to be kiwi and at the same time tell idiots who want to make yet another reality TV show to piss off and get some other idiot to pay for it. Note my personal bias may not be the best deciding factor but somewhere there is a middle ground, we don't have to have all or nothing.