Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: Campbell interviewed, in reply to simon g,
If TV3 news struggles, we all suffer the consequences.
Classic example tonight: Corin Dann
Two things: TV3 news is already dead. It is now controlled by Weldon and Christie and only exists to advertise shows like dancing with the D-list.
Patrick Gower is as bad as Corin Dann. Political reporting is simply passing on the latest gossip from their "friends" on the government benches.
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Envirologue: Choose Wisely, Grasshopper:…, in reply to BenWilson,
I’m always a little bit baffled when people get bitter on a PM for following polls, like popular opinion isn’t supposed to be what democratically elected leaders should be considering.
Yes but.
Only some people get polled. Only some people respond to polls. People only respond to the question being asked in the poll. And most importantly sometimes people ask for one thing but need something different.
It's relatively easy to do things that are popular. It is a much harder thing to do the things that are right and even harder to do the things that will be right in the future.
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It does seem as though we have some really good journalists underused at the moment who if they got together would make for a really nice entity that I'd love to help fund. Perhaps using something like https://www.patreon.com/Patreon
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Hard News: Campbell interviewed, in reply to Alfie,
As I recall that didn’t go down well with station execs who didn’t think maori should expose wrong within maori organisations
And given the example from mediaworks that capitalist right wing owned and managed TV stations shouldn't criticize capitalist right wing governments, they exercised their power
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Envirologue: Choose Wisely, Grasshopper:…, in reply to Dave Hansford,
Any eagerness to be part of a Government is completely understandable
What are you basing this on?
I haven't seen a single thing from Mr Shaw indicating he plans to give up Green policy backbones simply to get a seat at the table (surely two seats or doesn't your female leader count?).
If anything what he has said about climate change is (insultingly (and good on him for that)) suggesting that The Greens could help National develop a real climate change policy since they clearly have no clue themselves.
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Envirologue: Choose Wisely, Grasshopper:…, in reply to Dave Hansford,
Regarding the swing
Dude you were worng. There was no swing towards the right. The data show a failure of left leaning voters to actually vote. That is actually important because it changes the approach that should be taken towards the next election.
Failure to properly understand what happened will only lead to repetition.
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Envirologue: Choose Wisely, Grasshopper:…, in reply to Dave Hansford,
I have made no judgement whatsoever on James’ credentials, nor on what he has to offer the Greens. I most certainly do not “hate” his appointment, as someone has suggested.
And yet when I read your post it sounded like a petulant rant from someone who didn't get the candidate they wanted.
Whether you meant to give that impression is irrelevant because more than one reader got exactly that from your post.
Goodness sake you Godwinned your own column! Raising the spectre of Nazi Germany in response to the election of ONE part of The Green leadership - drama queen much?
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Up Front: Not Uniform, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
Are you saying I’m lying?
Misguided?
Or simply not allowed an opinion, based on experience?
Of course you are allowed an opinion. However, based on my personal experience I don’t believe you are correct. In five years at such a school I saw no such “huge issues”.
So no I won’t simply “believe you”
Nor will I accept that uniforms have any power to reduce suicide or bullying. Frankly I think that is utter nonsense.
If you want to address youth suicide do that. If you want to pretend a uniform is affecting youth depression and mental health then I’m going to suggest you look at countries where uniforms aren’t forced onto children and consider that if there was a causative relationship then you’d expect those countries to have a higher youth suicide rate. Good luck finding that relationship because those countries that treat their children more like adults would appear to have a better mental health record than New Zealand.
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Up Front: Not Uniform, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
Believe me
Nope I don't. Sorry but I went to such a school. There was angst but no more than my friends had who went to uniform schools.
Perhaps we could trust kids to learn to cope with angst
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Up Front: Not Uniform, in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
I have a whole other reason for supporting school uniforms that include trousers.
If only they made warm clothes that weren't part of a uniform ... oh wait.
As for angsting about "what to wear" - yeah some days it happened - sort like real life that we all have to learn sometime. Teasing about not wearing the right clothes - yeah I got teased about those red courds - I also got teased about my hair and my grades and my name and ... oh yeah everything. Uniforms had nothing to do with it.
One thing that was true was you couldn't easily distinguish students from staff well except that staff were usually (not always) up front teaching in class. Apart from that our teachers were friends with whom we played sport after class. It was like they were humans too ...
oh that's the point uniforms define students as less than human ...
That's a really important lesson. Like learning to hate gays and have fights ... which BTW we didn't have at Green Bay high School when we were uniform-free and were treated like young adults.