Posts by Richard Aston
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Don't shit me Ian but I think you are onto something - I like the idea that black holes are the anus of the universe - all those scientists thinking they are some kind of gateway to a parallel universe and it turns out they were just taking the crap.
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Capture: Colour is the new black, in reply to Lilith __,
Lilith - its a special picture - yeah not the "hard enamel blue" of a South Island day but that liminal hue where sky and sea reflect each other so well that the horizon is barely holding the line between the two. I have been on the water in that light its a special place.
Thank you. -
Hard News: Most Discursive Website, in reply to nzlemming,
nzlemming - brilliant !
I think you have hit on an undiscovered law of the universe -
Hard News: Most Discursive Website, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
How about Copralitic?
Or am I a coupla coconuts shy
of a palm tree…Ian you are a thousand coconuts shy of a palm tree !
That is your gift and what is most interesting about you.And Copralitic is a most excellent word but what do you make of coprolactic. A sort of don't take any shit approach maybe?
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Sorry Ben but getting back to the all important discussion on coprolite or ancient shit.
I really like the idea than ordinary old shit gets elevated to a latin word when it gets really really old.What happens when coprolite hits the fan ?
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+1 to Henry B and Islander re Baby Boomer Bashing
First up a confession - born in 1952 I am in the Baby Boomer group. As a member of this group it has never felt like a homogenous group of , sex, drugs and rocknroll - yuppie greedies - hungry property speculators etc etc . It was diverse group and still is. As Islander pointed out people from the 1940's are quite a different generation to the 1960's and I think, people from the 1950s.
Slarty's attempts to blame a list of woes on baby boomers is just ignorant. The first of the Gen X are now 50! Are they by some miracle not working as stock traders, bankers, policy analysts, MPs, business leaders, property developers ( that term is so ironic) , etc etc .
I personally don’t want to blame Gen X either and I am very defensive of GenY ( lazy selfish etc) .Each generation has those within it who will tread on anyone to get ahead, who will enact dumb laws, try to destroy the social contract, kick off a war and deliver the odd clusterfuck . For me the inquiry is who are those people and what made them.
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Charter Schools - Tom I struggle with your take on this.
designed to enrich the National party's mates by privatising the attractive bits of the education system
Fro one thing the brief is to focus on underachieving areas of South Auckland - don't see these areas as attractive business opportunities.
Remember we had Charter schools back under Labour, Lange's Tommorow's Schools.
I was part of a Steiner school integrated under that legislation. The idea, seemed to me at the time, was to broaden out the approach to education - it included most of the Catholic Schools at the time and yes we could object to excessive religious influence in education but it did offer to broaden the options out from the homogenized mainstream education offering.
I am not sure it was a success this review shows what we at the time suspected, it was a tricky way of cutting education funding back.I still think the idea of individual approaches to education has merit - Maori have a very different approach to education that can be somewhat stifled in the mainstream.
Kohanga Reo is a classic example, their movement is fighting back against to much state interference with their education system. If they, and the Kura Kaupapa schools, were independent "Charter" schools and allowed a full scope then maybe we would get to see the growth of education generally.
The education system is broken in many ways , ironically not for the rich but for the poor and less privileged, for those with special needs, for those from different cultures and in some areas for specific genders.
What is wrong with encouraging a broader approach to education by fostering Charter schools free to explore alternative approaches? -
Hard News: Most Discursive Website, in reply to lprent,
But keep fondling your ancient coprolites if that is all you can do http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprolite</q>
Wow we have a fancy Latin word for old shit - handy I could use that sometime.
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Or “stupid cliche”. The wild West is my digs, at least half of the people I associate with on a regular basis come from the surrounding hills. More than half of my extended family are in the lower foothills. The cliches don’t really work. They’re a complex brew. Every extreme. Every business, every race, every class, every sexuality. People engaged, and totally disengaged. Hard honest workers and criminals. Students, the unemployed, hobby farmers. Gangsters. Cops. Artists, poets, dancers, writers. Stoners and meth-heads, and party pill poppers. Extreme sports lovers. Factory workers, office workers, tradespeople, professionals, technicians, businesspeople. And thousands more sub groups.
+1 Ben,
I live in the west too - and yup it is way more diverse than the cliche - even Henderson or Te Atatu don't fully add up to the cliche . -
Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Deborah,
Waitakere man = David Cunliffe What??!!! Best you explain that, Richard, because I don't see the connection at all.
oops completely missed the boat on that one and Sacha had no idea Cunliffe was a
Herne Bay millionaire - he's my local MP - don't like him much but had always assumed he was ... local .
Bugger