Posts by Che Tibby
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manakura, kao. i'm going to have to come clean and admit to very recently purging all my old articles, and swearing to return to academic only under duress (i kept all the old books, mostly because they seem to impress people).
just too little money for too much workload. in my current job i'm in a position it would have taken me at least 5 years to reach in a university, and with substantially less sniping, back-biting, and general nastiness.
the good news is that i'm developing my research skills twice as fast, working in a role that's satisfying, and i don't have to deal with students or marking!
there is the whole 'sending things to ministers' vibe, but... meh.
yeah, research and evaluation isn't a bad gig.
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yeah, three or flights a year doesn't make the koru club justifiable.
my gripe with air nz is that it has no consistent or reasonable level of service. i worked in service in big and small places for nearly twenty years, and what marks a decent business is the simple act of putting the customer first.
NOT whacking them with a drinks trolley, then looking at them like they're stupid for getting in the way (i was asleep), or asking them to move to another seat so the host has his bag in a easy to get place when it's time to leave the plane.
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i wrote my thesis criticising kymlicka (and kymlicka was my external examiner).
after arguing in favour of group rights, he goes on to state that the practice of those rights is best maintained 'in the vernacular' (it's a book called, unsurprisingly, "politics in the vernacular"). he even goes as far as to suggest that some minorities need their own homelands within larger nation-states to practice their own rights, and speak their own language. the obvious case study is canada.
i agreed with kymlicka, but argued that his example only works in specific countries, and went on to argue that NZL (and australia) is a case where his model would not work. there is no way that separate, federal, states could be maintained in a society as small as new zealand.
however, the core of his argument, that minorities need specific rights, and to speak their 'vernacular' i fundamentally agreed with, and argued that new zealand is a mature enough society to allow the same national politics to be spoken in two languages.
time will tell if i am right.
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i tend to agree with lewis, because the history argument reminds me of the "fight and die for a flag" line.
i prefer to think my ancestors were fighting against fascism in at least one war. the flag was just a something to rally round, so you didn't shoot the wrong side.
the flag's just a marker, it's the people who are the real asset.
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doh! [drags out te reo textbook] korua and raua both mean "you two".
so make that maua, taua, matou, and tatou.
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Perhaps in some future hypermultiethnic society there will be seven different ways of saying "we"
how about; maua, taua, korua, raua? that's four off the top of my head.
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tze ming, i take your point, and as the next few comments demonstrate, i'm singing to the choir.
but, like weta's sports comment indicates, there's the perception that the drunken yobs at the tennis are the 'normal' ethnics. of course, they're not.
finally, the restaurant round is a way to indicate all the ethnics who are just going about their business, nice and peaceful like.
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Your gustatory powers, Che, are positively mythic.
someone has to jolly the aussie economy along. i mean, what the hell else are they going to do, sell worthless contracts to aboriginal land-holding trusts and take all their minerals royalties?!
i mean, please...
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It's funny because it's true.
and you good sir, can stay on the christmas card list.
furthermore, i can neither affirm nor deny my membership of any political party. especially not the crazy ones.
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hmmm... only just found this post. melbourne is great. am writing from the state library building. the room i'm in is a vaulted dome four stories high.
looking forward to taking some time to read this!
maybe tuesday.