Posts by Emma Hart
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Legal Beagle: Voting in the Flag Referendum, in reply to Marion Ogier,
Really? What if the informals outnumbered the first choice? Or if you don’t bother to vote at all – could a low, low turnout be construed as a protest. I really hate this whole process and how we have arrived at this point.
Really. Really really. A vote is not a protest. If you want to protest, actually protest. If you have at any point objected to the cost of the referenda, I'd suggest binning your ballot paper. It's the cheapest thing to do, and will be reflected in the % turnout.
I was mildly annoyed to see Annette King (I think) on the news the other night advocating that if you wanted to keep our existing flag, you should vote 1 (or 0) across all the flags in this referendum. That's spoiling your vote. Again, you may as well not vote.
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We also moved around a fair bit when I was a child. And since moving to Christchurch when I was eighteen, I've lived in ten places. Four of those, with my children. The place where we've lived for the last six years, which I'd intended to be my home for life, and to be the 'home' the kids could always come back to when they were grown, has encompassed for them the earthquakes, disruption to their schooling, and the break-up of their parents' relationship.
I really valued the stability of my mother's house, where I lived from 6 to 18, and where she lived until she died five years ago. That was Home for me, and remains my mythological home now it's passed from our family. As Jackie says, the place your parents move to after you leave Home is never home.
What I share with my mother is the sense that home isn't so much the building as the garden around it.
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Up Front: How I Learned to Stop Worrying…, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
Thanks Geoff. I guess at some point today I should get dressed and go buy a paper. It still feels quite unreal.
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Up Front: How I Learned to Stop Worrying…, in reply to despud,
Would there be a men’s quota as well as a women’s quota?
That's how it functions, both in the Green Party, and Trudeau's cabinet. It's not 'there must be at least X% of women', it's 'there must be at least X% of women, and of men'.
I sometimes argue that in one critical metric, men are strongly disadvantaged – our lifespans are several years less than women’s. What could be more important than that? So we should stop funding research and treatment of women’s health issues until the gap is closed.
Well, you're in luck there, because the gap is closing. We also know why women live longer than men. Partly it's because, to vastly over-simplify, testosterone is physically bad for you. Mostly it's behavioural. Men are less likely to go to the doctor. They're more likely to die from homicide and suicide. They're more violent. They drink more. Why? Because taking care of yourself, physically and emotionally, is seen as girly. Unmasculine. It's the patriarchy, dude. Men would live longer if they softened the fuck up.
What could be more important than that?
Quality of life? How much you earn, and so how much you can save for your longer retirement? How safe you feel, on the street, in your home?
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Kumara Republic,
On that note, how seriously do tough-on-crime types take rape culture? With the usual bluster of the usual suspects? Or do they take the ‘uncovered meat’ view and fob it off as PC gone mad?
"Tough on crime" is actually "tough on criminals". Well, poor brown criminals, not middle-class white guys who assault taggers. "Tough on crime" is also pro-smacking. It's weird in McVicarCoskrie land. There's about as much interest in rape culture as there is in poverty and racism as drivers of crime. Consensual sex in a book, now, that's a different matter...
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Speaker: Are there opportunities within…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’m impressed with the clarity and sincerity of what she’s said and as far as I’m concerned the matter is settled. If people think the issue itself is talked out, I’m happy to close the thread.
I agree entirely.
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Heh. I love that while I was typing, I managed to say the same thing as Russell, and the same thing as Ben.
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Speaker: Are there opportunities within…, in reply to ,
Why did Katharine deserve to be bullied.
When someone is saying things that are genuinely upsetting to other people - and I hope it's clear to everyone that this is an 'emotionally hot' topic for some people - it's not the person who responds who is causing the problem. This is Missing Stair stuff - the social expectation is that the people getting hurt will keep quiet to keep the peace. If they do speak up, they're condemned for causing trouble. They didn't: the person who hurt them did. If people behave badly, it's okay to treat them as if they've behaved badly. Katharine was asked to tone it down, she didn't.
But this is not a thread about moderation.
Ben's point about the chips being energy-dense food was basically what I meant by "fuelling" people. The chips are going to stop you feeling hungry. Your kids aren't going to be asking for more food in an hour. That's the thing about high-fat foods. (I have hypoglycaemia. I spent years trying to manage it using 'complex carbohydrates'. Turns out by far the best thing when I'm having a sweaty spinny meltdown is fat.) So it's not about 'nutrition', it's about 'energy'.
But the thing is, biological organisms are complex. If it was as simple as 'energy in, energy out', then everybody's results would be the same. But, to take things to extreme for a moment, if you put me and my hypoglycaemia on the same food-exercise balance as someone with PCOS, you'd get vastly different results. And every individual is going to be somewhere on that continuum.
But if you concentrate on exercise, there'll be health benefits for most people, whether or not they lose any weight. Surely that's preferable.
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Speaker: Are there opportunities within…, in reply to Katharine Moody,
“Bad” food is not free either. Something was paid for it. Take your example of hot chips. How much did they cost and how many people were you feeding them to? I’ll then provide you with a healthier alternative for the same cost.
Dude. 4 people. $4.
Also, I fed a family of 2 adults and 2 preschoolers on $40/week grocery money in the mid-90s. I was on a Sickness Benefit because I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and I still cooked six nights a week, and made my own fucking muesli bars. I was raised in a house where my mum fed a family of six on a part-time minimum-wage job. You'll forgive me if I sincerely doubt you have anything to teach me.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to feed my children some fucking hot chips.
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Speaker: Are there opportunities within…, in reply to Katharine Moody,
So was what we have done with respect to tobacco also morally and practically wrong?
Yes. Food and tobacco are exactly the same.
I have no idea what is meant by “functional poverty” – but how can drinking free water, as opposed to not-free fizzy drink increase poverty?
But you're not just talking about sugary drinks, right? You're also talking about taxing "bad" food. So the cost of some foods goes up, and the costs of no foods go down, so people have to spend more money on food. Except the poorest people can't do that, so they have to go without something. Functional poverty. We already have kids going to school with no breakfast and no lunch. Is no food better than "bad" food?