Posts by Max Rose
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to Alfie,
This isn’t a purely NZ problem
It isn't a purely young men's problem either...unless you consider that the "problem" is not that men harass and assault women, but that they brag about it on facebook. Enough women have already told you that for untold generations men have been doing this: I haven't seen it much myself at gigs, since I've avoided gigs for a long time, but women say that it happened all the time. That means we have to look at some other source of the problem rather than alcohol or "respect for their elders". Now, what could the common thread be?
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to Russell Brown,
That is not to deny the societal pervasiveness of such a culture, but people who actually go for the music are starting to feel invaded.
It doesn't matter whether people are there for the music or just there for a good time: women have felt invaded for ever. It's not about whether what happened at rock concerts or R&V or whatever is now happening at Laneway. Women are abused and harassed at rock concerts, at R&V, at Laneway...and on the street, in their workplaces, and in their own homes.
There may be aspects of these particular incidents that seem shockingly blatant and uncouth, but it's just an extension of what happens everywhere. People should stop trying to blame RTDs, shirtlessness or commercialisation of festivals, and blame the underlying cause: the assumption in a patriarchal culture that men have the right to women's bodies.
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Up Front: Oh, God, in reply to Rich Lock,
Define ‘celebrate’, please.
I'd say that most of us celebrate Xmas with feasting, indolence, exchanging gifts, drinking, and inadvisable sexual encounters (well, if you count office Xmas parties). In other words, much more consistent with Brumalia, Saturnalia, and other winter solstice festivals than anything to do with the baby Jesus.
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Up Front: Oh, God, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
What surprises me about this conversation is the depth of anti – religious feeling….like, where is the fear coming from?
Others have put this better than me: it's not fear, it's anger. At least from us as adults: as children, if you are made to feel that your beliefs and desires are considered not only socially unacceptable but an offence to a supremely powerful being, then damn right we were fearful.
I went to a state high school, and not an integrated one. I got repeated detentions for refusing to sing along with hymns in assembly (I didn't make a fuss of it, just bowed by head and stood quietly), to the point where I was one hymn away from getting the cane. Fear of violence is a justified fear. Also, as Ben said, enforced ignorance is a sensible thing to be afraid of. We had a senior science teacher who refused to teach evolution, and who made sure that the whole school had no sex education. I'm angry about that, and angry for the fear that was driven into us.
And I was lucky enough to be heterosexual, with married parents. I can't imagine what it must be like to grow up in an environment where your growing sexuality is deemed evil, or your parents were said to be "living in sin". A very close friend of mine did grow up gay in a conservative school with Christian teaching, and he would sum up his experience thus:
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Not even Muldoon managed to get this one banned:
Also, it's a little disturbing to see how little the Parliament end of Wellington has changed since 1980.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Russell Brown,
And here’s the email, posted today by @whaledump. With Pleasants’ name in it.
The only defence that I can imagine is that Slater already knew the name, and asked Collins something like "Hey, what's Pleasants' job title?"
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Perhaps someone could adapt this?
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mc6eu1aYQB1r90bsso14_500.gif
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The thing that strikes me the most is that even if the revelations themselves don't directly affect the votes of many New Zealanders, the mainstream political narrative has changed. Gower, the young gallery journalists, Espiner and Garner have shifted from backing winners ("National surging in the polls, comfortably in charge, Labour in disarray, blah blah...") to holding the government accountable with some forceful language. If this continues, the cheerleaders (Hosking, Henry et al) will seem more like outliers than just a part of the general journalistic spectrum.
We've seen the welcome yet unfamiliar sight of Actual Political Journalism, leading to what looks, sounds and smells like the crumbling of Teflon.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Russell Brown,
Ede asking Slater "I do hope I can count on you to run some interference on Wood's local board position" - without knowing the full local context, that sounds a lot more than Key's office "sharing information with bloggers in the same way they do with MSM". Is that a correct interpretation?