Posts by Graham Dunster
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Life has been too hectic to engage with PA in recent weeks, doing my best to catch up now. With regard to these mooted changes I’m caught up in the out of scope changes. My place is on Schofield Street in Grey Lynn, bang in the middle of the pre 1944 buildings. For some reason three of these houses (all pre WW1) are now earmarked for no restrictions whilst other equally old (or not as old!) properties remain restricted. There is no obvious reason for this situation and no way to engage with AC to discover their logic. Irrespective of my philosophy the lack of democratic engagement sucks.
-
The best Chemical Brothers song is actually Speed Caravan's version of Galvanise.
-
"How do they get around our minimum wage laws?"
Easy, make them independent contractors. The erstwhile 'employee' is then responsible for everything (including ACC levies on their payments) and the 'employer' is responsible for nothing. The film & tv business, amongst many others, is run this way and the 'employees' just seem to accept it.
-
Speaker: Marcus King: A cocktail of art…, in reply to Peter Alsop,
Thanks, Peter, looks like there's enough available at NZ Fine Prints to keep me quiet for a while.
-
Hi Peter
Thanks for the information on the breadth of Marcus King's talent and output, looking forward to getting this latest book for my next significant date!
As we have touched on briefly outside this forum, and having seen the wonderful exhibition of travel posters in Rotorua recently, wouldn't it be wonderful if it were possible to buy full size (or even just large) reprints of the posters? The existing books are wonderful but not able to be hung on the wall.
-
Same situation as the reaction to the Paris atrocities - populist disinterested politicians in charge lash out as it's easy and they assume it'll make them look good, but all it does is intensify the problem/s. The drug war has been a ridiculous snafu since its inception, your reporting on it continues to show that the country suffers from a grave lack of humanity here (as it does in so many other areas). As far as I can see nothing to choose between the parties, all too populist but blind to actual people.
http://www.nytimes.com/live/paris-attacks-live-updates/victims-husband-tells-terrorists-i-will-not-give-you-the-gift-of-hate as highlighted by Colin James ColinJames@synapsis.co.nz
Antoine Leiris, whose wife was killed when gun-wielding militants invaded a crowded concert hall in Paris, has this message for the killers: “I will not give you the gift of hate.”
Mr. Leiris, a journalist for France Bleu, a network of local and regional radio stations, met his wife, Hélène Muyal-Leiris, 12 years ago, and has been left to raise their toddler son, Melvil, on his own.
Of the 129 people killed during the attacks on Friday, 89 died at the Bataclan concert hall, where Ms. Muyal-Leiris had been attending a rock concert.
In a moving tribute on Facebook that had been viewed more than 90,000 times by Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Leiris said he would not allow his grief to turn into hatred.
Addressing the attackers, he wrote: “You won’t have my hate. On Friday night you took the life of someone exceptional, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but I will not hate you. I do not know who you are and I do not want to know. You are dead inside. If the God for whom you blindly kill really made us in his image, then each bullet in my wife’s body is a wound to his heart.”
He went on: “So I will not give you the gift of hate. Even though it is what you were hoping for, responding to hatred with anger would be to fall to the same ignorance that made you the people that you are. You want me to be scared, to distrust my fellow citizens, and to sacrifice my liberty for security. I will play on.”
Mr. Leiris said he had seen his wife’s body after the massacre, after waiting for several days. “She was as beautiful as she was when she left on Friday night, as beautiful as when I fell forever in love with her more than 12 years ago,” he wrote.
“Of course I am devastated by grief, I will concede you that small victory, but that will not last long. I know that she will watch over us always and that, one day, we will meet again in that paradise of free souls where you will never be admitted.”
He ended on a note of optimism. “Now it’s just the two of us, my son and I, but we are stronger than all the armies of the world. In fact, I do not have any more time to waste on you, I need to go and get Melvil, who is waking up from his nap. He is only 17 months old, he will eat his afternoon tea as always and then we will go and play as always, and this little boy’s entire life will be an affront to you by being happy and free. For he will not hate you either.”
-
Sadly there is always disaffected youth, not so long ago it was the Angry Brigade, Baader-Meinhof Group/RAF, IRA, currently it's ISIS/Daesh. It seemingly only takes a few adherents to create panic but these people are not even a visible minority, they are but a few misguided individuals. We as a society do ourselves a grave disservice by magnifying their exploits into a credible threat, we are better served by ensuring that our governments/bureaucracies do not behave as they have done since 9/11. By overreacting, by following in such footsteps as the Australians with their unacceptable policies to refugees and residents, all we do is create more disaffected people rather than a more harmonious society.
-
The failure at all levels is encapsulated in the way that the people/entities who have rebuilt and repaired houses have failed to do a proper job. The leaky buildings attitude. If the people at the coalface are not prepared to behave and work to the highest level it is really no surprise that those 'above' them have a similar cavalier attitude. We as a nation really need to examine ourselves and our individual morality at the same time that we, hopefully, hold our elected and paid representatives to account. There are no excuses, simple pride in one's own existence should easily preclude this sort of behaviour across the board.
The flag 'debate' indeed encapsulated the trivial and self interested nature of so much NZ life.
Too negative? How's the Pike River remedial actions going?
-
Hard News: Friday Music: If DJ was your trade, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
They rocked Womad in March!
-
It's not just journalists that are are hurting in the media world, funds available for drama and other local broadcasting are static at best and the fees paid to performers and writers are sinking whilst the hours worked are no less. A lot of this is down to the apparent disinterest in the broadcasters in helping create material that could be of appeal internationally. Whilst happy to import Oz/UK/USA drama there is no traffic going the other way. With the upgrade of the rebate for offshore expenditure here (after a tooth and claw battle) there is a small increase in offshore production but with the parlous state of studio infrastructure in Auckland that is not about to take off much further anytime soon. Read how the Welsh have made a difference and weep for the lack of political vision and support - http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/14/welsh-tv-industry-captures-bastard-executioner-show-of-strength?CMP=ema_546.
It really wouldn't be so hard to harness all the individual creative giants here to make impressive film, tv and webseries if the industry was given the support that, say, farming gets. The world is crying out for more and more content - and that goes for proper news reporting and analysis too, imho.