Posts by Adrian Humm
-
Ihumatao
Superover
-
OK Boomer.
Global heating.
-
Oh yeah, and
Woke
-
TERF
2018 has been the year that my poor little ”right on!” brain has become so confused. I feel like I don’t have a clue what’s going on any more and this word sums up my “Wha’...??”1080
More confusion. My mates are DoC workers doing their best to improve our environment and they’ve copped so much abuse, you’d think they were worse vandals than every oil, mineral and pharma business combined. Because they use 1080. -
Liability sounds great. Bowie/Mott the Hoople influence?
-
Congratulations Russell and all the Public Address team. I was on a Big OE from the UK in 1992 when I first heard Russell's understated rant on air. That was all it took for me to make NZ my home in 1993. That and the passionate way in which New Zealanders fought for social justice. Here we are 23 years later and I still come to Public Address for refuge from Godwin's Law. I'm glad you can still summon the energy Russell.
-
Hard News: And so it begins, in reply to Nathaniel Wilson,
Alternatively, we could all just send our children to the local high schools of the communities we've chosen to live in, and base where we live on the quality of the neighbourhood, not the schools.
I've taught for 18 years in a small rural town. Our schools are low decile and the district has more than its fair share of problems with unemployment, family violence, etc. I'm in awe of local teaching staff who constantly manage to guide students to "good" results.
My kids are lucky enough, bright enough and fit enough to harvest the academic and sporting high fruit so we've been happy to use our local schools. Other parents have felt that these schools don't provide what their children need. Often this is for reasonable educational or demographic reasons based on the needs of their own kids and what small schools are able to provide.
There are also many instances of parents sending their children to schools outside our district through fear founded on hearsay and gossip about the 'problems' of local schools. And a fair few kids are sent away for no better reasons than family tradition or snobbery.
As some of our brightest and best children leave the area so the schools' ability to excel diminishes . Naturally, this leads to a greater degree of truth in the negative comments about our schools. So more parents send their children elsewhere. And so on...
I'm not convinced that parents have grasped the effect this has on our town. The high school is the community to a large extent. It's not quite hyperbole to state that these parents' actions are causing the "quality of the neighbourhood" to stagnate if not spiral further into decline.
Fast forward to the brave new world of league tables and charter schools. Multiply our experience by the number of small rural towns with single, medium-sized high schools. I see more problems ahead than opportunities. How about you?
-
No, he's human all right. He's a reminder of quite how dark and damaged a human can become.
Thank you, Russell, for articulating this idea. I'm finding it more and more difficult to express such thoughts to people who, when it comes down to it, advocate torture and execution.
Would I bay for the blood of someone who harmed my family? Probably. But giving up the right to vigilante justice is a price I'm willing to pay. I love living in New Zealand where the justice system seems, by-and-large, to protect us from such people.
When we fully accept the truth in Solzhenitsyn's words that "the battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man" then we might make more progress in shaping a happier society. -
Attention to detail, incisive thinking, connecting the dots: Russell, I think YOU should be working for the Herald. On second thoughts, don't even think about it...
-
The 'Technology Themed Songs' discussion seems to be fizzling out. But I had to mention Television by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. Watching the "news" on Nightline tonight reminded me how far we haven't come since Michael Franti released this song.
Order of stories: Sue Bradford resigns from the Green Party; big cannabis seizure; possible cure for AIDS.
Let's just think about that for a second shall we...