Posts by Will de Cleene

  • Hard News: News from home ...,

    Cunliffe not ruling out accepting finance.

    Raumati • Since Jul 2011 • 107 posts Report Reply

  • Access: Some aspects of New Zealand’s…,

    My old man was a bit of a eugenicist, which was why I spent a great deal of my childhood hiding my deafness.

    I did a bit of research into the history of deaf policy, seeing how most NZ histories on the subject tend to be school biographies, with all their subjectivity.

    In 1880, Vogel helped found what is now the Van Asch School, choosing Lip-reading over Sign Language for the curriculum. Sign Language become punishable behaviour and would not be taught again until 1979.

    By contrast, America's first deaf university was founded in 1859 and used Sign Language from the get go.

    Raumati • Since Jul 2011 • 107 posts Report Reply

  • Speaker: If political parties were beer ..., in reply to Andrew Geddis,

    Tasteless and with an icky flavour! Act just can’t win, can they?

    Like apple juice or making love in a canoe.

    Raumati • Since Jul 2011 • 107 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: The silence of the public square,

    Aro Valley really set the bar for how candidates meetings should go. e.g. water pistols for prolix, convivial but boisterous atmosphere. Great testing ground for the House too.

    Raumati • Since Jul 2011 • 107 posts Report Reply

  • Access: Respect, please,

    As I noted on Mojo's Facebook page the other day, ideally Norms would wear muffs from birth to get the full pre-lingual vibe of deafness. Extending the similie to breaking point, ideally you'd throw in some speech problem malware and a cocktail of drugs that induce tinnitus, high stress and chronic fatigue as well.

    The lesson of the muffs etc is to increase tolerance and humility for the impossibly singular experiences of others. There's no similie that nails the full experience, but they're better than nothing.

    Raumati • Since Jul 2011 • 107 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: A law gone awry,

    I had been sceptical that the PSA might have been newer version of Jim Anderton's novel Schedule D in the Misuse of Drugs Act in the '00s. Both were rushed and may have been set up to fail.

    Keep whacking those moles, Parliament.

    Raumati • Since Jul 2011 • 107 posts Report Reply

  • Up Front: Just Like Unicorns, in reply to Emma Hart,

    If we'd stuck with matrilinear inheritance, there'd be no need for this bollocks.

    Mitochondrial DNA is bringing matrilinear inheritance back into popular favour.

    Raumati • Since Jul 2011 • 107 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: The perilous birth of the…,

    Attachment

    From last weekend:

    Raumati • Since Jul 2011 • 107 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: Poor Choices, in reply to Craig Ranapia,

    I know this is hipster blasphemy, but basically everything Hunter S. Thompson published after 1980 was embarrasing.

    The dividing line appeared to me to be when HST missed the Rumble in the Jungle. He never seemed to forgive himself for that. He became a self-parody of sorts, throwing in the words atavistic, preternatural and fiend into his prose and passing it off as the good stuff. Poor bastard.

    Raumati • Since Jul 2011 • 107 posts Report Reply

  • Cracker: How Media Made me a Bad Person.,

    Media is much like Parliament. People enter with the best of intentions before the institution grinds them into wearing cynicism. The hope remains that both public services can surmount this obstacle and raise the level of public discourse.

    Oh lord, it's hard to be humble, when you wear greasepaint every day...

    Raumati • Since Jul 2011 • 107 posts Report Reply

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