Posts by Susannah Shepherd
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Wandered down to our local school on a lovely sunny day, although I was a bit disappointed that the school wasn't being a bit more entrepreneurial on the sausage sizzle front: one of the mums at Petone Central makes a mean chop suey every school fair day and I was hungry.
One of the things that pleased me most was the number of potentially marginalised NZers out voting - Jackson Street can look a bit white on the average Saturday afternoon, but not today. Nice.
I was disappointed my 'Yes I've voted' sticker wouldn't stay stuck though - the footpaths around the booth were littered with orange.
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Muse: Indecision '11: Fighting the Grey, in reply to M Pearlstein,
That said, I don’t see why predominantly european countries should ever voluntarily agree to become minorities.
I believe if you consult a map, you'll see this debate isn't taking place in a European country, so the argument hardly stands...
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Hard News: The Solemnity of the Day, in reply to Emma Hart,
I have to have my phone off from 8am to about 10pm. I dunno how I'm going to cope. I need someone to sneak me count updates from Ohariu.
Good luck with that one... I remember the contortions of trying to get an 'unauthorised' pizza into the count - we had a complex polling station handling three electorates, so the count took much longer than normal. IIRC we ultimately had to resort to some sort of 'airlock' system to get the thing in. Then again, you could get someone to slip notes into the pizza box on the way.
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to James Butler,
A quick Google™ suggests that "Affluenza" may well be worth reading, so I shall reserve judgment for the time being.
Yes, it is worth reading and reflecting on - and I say that as someone who disagreed with quite big chunks of it. What interested me about the study I am trying to recall the details of was that it looked at Asian countries of differing wealth and consumerism levels - so that the effect of cultural norms you describe was (partially) controlled for.
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Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to James Butler,
“Citation needed” indeed – I’ve heard variations of this argument before, and I don’t really buy it.
Argh, I have seen similar research cited but can't remember where - perhaps in Oliver James' book "Affluenza"? From memory, the study/ies looked at depression rates in a particular ethnic group spread across many different countries, and found that the rate varied wildly between countries and was far higher in Westernised or consumer societies. So while there was a 'base' rate of depression, it did appear that some societies were more depression-inducing than others.
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The buffalo yogurt (non-vanilla) turned into an amazing baba ganoush in the hands of my partner. The pain is it's bloody hard to find.
For the Wellingtonians, I recommend you get it from the lovely Wendy at Cultured in Petone. Must try the baba ganoush idea, if only because I like setting fire to eggplants.
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Legal Beagle: Asking the next question, in reply to Matthew Littlewood,
Can I just say that my family has nothing to do with this particular “Littlewood Treaty”.
I don't blame you for putting some distance between you and its proponents, although it seems there'd be no shame in a family link to the original Mr Littlewood.
I do find it sad, though, that the tinfoil-hat brigade have had such a paradoxical effect by insisting that it's the "real" Treaty despite the absence of fairly critical features like the signatures of Messrs W. Hobson and H. Heke. In doing so, they've diminished the historical value of the document in giving some insight into the Treaty-making process.
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And, on the subject of those having a bad day, I thought the best response to John Ansell's views on us silly women was from a blunt-speaking female colleague: "I might find this offensive if I wasn't laughing so fucking hard."
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Legal Beagle: Asking the next question, in reply to Sacha,
Sadly, the answer of the Brashes of this world will be:
- (on a good day) it's all too long ago and completely irrelevant
- (on a bad day) savages can't enter into a contract -
It's a variant on previous questions, but mine would be:
If you entered into a contractual arrangement and the other party decided to ignore the clauses in the contract that protected your interests, but still demanded you honour the clauses that protected their interests, would you agree and comply? If not, why not?
And the Littlewood Treaty - it must be a contender for the highest average level of lunacy per item of correspondence to Ministers...