Posts by James Littlewood*
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Although, I also recall hearing the end of the American war in Vietnam announced on the radio. I'm sure it wasn't the only time a kid ever asked "what will be in the news, now?"
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I've told this one before.
August, 1973. The lady who worked in the Remuera Primary office went home with a teacher, loaded her TV into the car and set it up on the school stage. It was a handsome thing: black, with swirly gold trim.
All 600 of us sat there on a sunny day as they fiddled with the rabbit ears to pick up the signal.
And all 600 of us watched, stupefied (it was intensely boring), as the president of a country we all dreamed of, but could never understand, announced his resignation in the face of impeachment. And they wonder why I took up media studies.
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Anthonie sounds ... kind of ... majestic.
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it became very difficult to see which party was saying what to who
Since the only broadcast media I get is free of advertising, this seems very apt.
The miracle of target messaging comes at the cost of ... unified messaging! Which means, it's only a short step from sophisticated targeting to incoherent mumbling.
Distinct advantage of attack politics: no need for fine-tuned targeted messages, making it easy to be coherent.
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Why doesn't Labour simply come out and say they'll reduce GST? Are they still embarrassed by the fact that they introduced it all those years ago?
The non-hole formerly known as $11b seems trivial, considering Labour is campaigning without a tax policy.
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Labour do seem to have found their own version of Teflon John. While the media can't be blamed for that, it certainly plays for ratings, and better than policy analysis.
Where coverage does focus on policy, there is a strong tendency for it to do so in terms of its popularity. I.e. analysis focuses on what the policy means for the future of the party advocating it, rather than what it means for the future of the country.
Any exceptions, I will hungrily pursue.
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Celia? Damn! Damn!
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It's a cute line of National's.
Meanwhile, almost every area of social policy is literally dying of cash starvation. Housing. Income equality. Education (or rather, the lack of it). Environment. Not everything's bad. Just all the basic stuff. Did I mention health?
So as a hard working New Zealander, I'm only too happy to cop a tax hike if it gives me some certainty that the train will get me to the doctor who'll have what he needs to patch me up; that good teachers can afford to live near good schools (and that there are no bad ones); that the twenty kids who currently die each year in cold, damp homes might escape such a miserable destiny.
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I think she’ll make an awesome anarchist.
Me too.
Ex Green Party Female Co-leadership Nominees' club. That's an elite group I'd like to see.
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Craig Young,
Bravo!
While it’s true that Metiria’s roll of the dice might not have turned up quite what she was hoping for, I don’t think it’s a bad outcome at all. I think both the Greens and Labour have demonstrated an ability to move fast and decisively and they’ve dominated the headlines now for the thick end of a month while National wallows in Colemanitis.
I think it’s good that bigger Labour is now clearly positioned to the right of smaller Greens. I think that will work to the strategic advantage of both: Labour’s there for disaffected MOR National 2014 voters, and Greens are there for both disaffected Labour voters and those on the hard left.
So even if there’s a push-me-pull-you between the Labour and the Green share of the party vote, there’s a coherency to the #ChangeTheGovt movement which was sorely lacking 2014.
Link includes a plug for Craig’s useful list.