Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: The good guys, in reply to Howard Edwards,
NZ crowds would boo
Interesting isn't it that the team behaves so much better than our crowds.
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Hard News: The good guys, in reply to llew40,
And I think, this, above all else, is the outcome of good leadership.
Yes but - that doesn't take away from the effort the actual players have made to follow that lead. I get that someone needs to stand up and say "this is how we will behave" but there a numerous instances where that message has not been taken up.
So there is something a bit special about this team as well in that they have been willing to listen to the good advice.
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I'll say it again here, a beautifully measured and balanced post Russell.
For me the thing about the way this team has behaved is the most impressive, on and off the field they are adults. They have fun, they are silly at times, but they treat their job responsibly, real grown up behaviour.
That is impressive when you remember just how young some of them are, both in age and in life experience, going from school to professional rugby does not give you much chance to learn much about the world or yourself.
I was a doubter at the beginning of the RWC, were our key players too old, did we have the right wingers, were the combinations settled? Could they play the rugby I wanted to see? Could they be good kiwis?
That they exceeded expectations off the field as much as on the field is a testament to the way the team has been brought together and managed.
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Hard News: A Stand for Quaxing, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
when I come across people walking on the right as I ride on the left, I often stop and either indicate for them to walk on the left
Growing up in Titirangi I walked scenic drive a lot. In many places there was only one safe side to walk, but where there were two it was always much safer to walk on the right so you could see traffic and avoid it, rather than trusting the traffic behind you to avoid you.
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As of Monday, only 7.3% of eligible voters had returned voting papers in Auckland Energy Consumer Trust (AECT) election
I found the letter sent by C&R quite helpful in eliminating choices. It became pretty easy to identify those who just wanted higher prices and a bigger dividend compared to those who actually wanted to manage the trust for the benefit of all of Auckland including those who struggle to pay their power bills in winter.
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Hard News: Bringing an order Auckland…, in reply to Russell Brown,
fevered Paul Henry
redundant
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Reading the post and the comments in this thread is hard. What is clear is that some really abhorrent acts were carried out in CP, with the passive and active support of many of the members.
I was extremely discomforted by the jump to blaming the mothers, it felt a lot like victim blaming, gender specific victim blaming.
One thing that strikes me about CP is that it is very much the same as many many other cults. One or more very strong personalities leading a group of people into bahaviour that society find intolerable. From the outside it is extremely hard to understand how those in the cult could either participate in or accept the abhorrent acts.
Yet such cults occur again and again. It does no good to blame the cult members who allowed this to happen. The point is that it's pretty clear that for some people the need to be led/guided allows evil people to abuse that need. It does no good to ask "how could they let themselves be fooled?", the fact is that again and again through history (recent and deep history) people are led into evil behaviour.
What can be done is to recognise that this shit does happen and the key to limiting the damage is to actually respond promptly and thoroughly into the warning signs that a cult group is doing harm. For CP the reports and warning signs were there long before the police finally stepped in.
There are freedoms and rights in play here that deserve protection but hiding behind those rights to harm children should not be allowed to happen as often as it does.
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to SteveH,
Honestly, I don’t see much reason why your family should continue to benefit from your creation 50 or 70 years after you die.
I have mixed feelings about this, I see your point but I'm also conscious that for a number of enormously talented creative people their talent was only recognised late in their career or even well after their death. At that point their work started to generate income.
I'm not sure there is any clean and reasonable solution but it is nice for the children of a creative person to benefit even if they themselves did not. Even if that benefit only comes from selling the rights to Disney.
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Speaker: Built heritage, special places…, in reply to Russell Brown,
It's pretty clear which one works.
Why can't both work? I love both renovation man and grand designs. You don't have space for a grand design without removing something old but you also lose something if you destroy all the old. I personally want both kinds of space to work. But that doesn't seem to be easy.