Posts by Damian Christie
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Cracker: The Colorado Experiment, in reply to Blake Monkley,
Did you happen to have any discussions with employers or employees around 'Drug testing' in a workplace and if testing has been relaxed or tightened up around this major issue?
Not really - Colorado has at-will employment, so you can fire anyone at any time for any reason anyway.
As for back home, I did a story recently about the expansion of workplace drug testing - well beyond those areas where safety is paramount, and into the offices of NZ. Obviously I have no issue with an employer requiring their staff not to be stoned at work, but you're right about saliva vs urine. I interviewed one drug testing organisation who proudly told me how far back they could go with hair testing - they can tell what you did months ago! Yay...
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Cracker: The Colorado Experiment, in reply to Steve Curtis,
But hey, lets just visit some place, enjoy the vibes and then say go for it.
Yeah, that's exactly what I did. I didn't spend hours with the head of the Colorado State Patrol. I didn't spend half a day at the Colorado Department of Transportation. I didn't interview public prosecutors, lawyers, the Mayor, sellers, growers, smokers....
Oh that's right, I did all of that. I went looking for problems associated with legalisation. Problems that didn't already exist under prohibition. But thanks for reducing all that to a snide quip.
If you're worried about the fact that the tax will inevitably benefit the higher decile schools, perhaps you should consider the disproportionate effect that prohibition has on lower socioeconomic sectors - as you point out, it's not the chattering class smokers getting criminal records or worse...
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I've just come back from a week in Colorado, looking at the effects of legalisation there. I'll write a post about it as soon as I have time, but spoiler alert: there were no naked people in trees setting fire to their children.
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I can see why the public enthusiasm might be waning. Dotcom's tweet about not being stressed over problems with his "minions" might be some sort of ironic Despicable Me reference, but I'm surprised the Mana Party didn't run a hundred miles at such an arrogant phrasing.
Maybe together they can start campaigning for a Living Minions' Wage.
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Hey - thanks for the linky love. I was thinking much the same as you yesterday, as I was soaking my shirt and jeans in a bucket, and vigorously scrubbing my face to remove the purple stain...we live in a cool place where there are so many opportunities for fun if you venture out.
I didn't know Holi festival was celebrated here until that morning I turned up to work, but I'm setting a reminder in my calendar now, and next year will take the family along too, it was such a great vibe. I really hope it becomes an ever-popular annual fixture, along with so many of the other great events we have each year.
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I wasn't trying to be passive-aggressive at all Danielle. I ummed and ahh'd long and hard about whether to turn on comments in the first place, and decided a "go easy" would set the tone, and mean that this thread wouldn't end up like so many others on PAS, in a general discussion on how the media is letting y'all down.
There's place for that, and there's a place for that on PAS, I was just hoping that the place for that, just this once, wouldn't be here. There were a few nice comments and then once again it was heading down the same old route.
It's not a fight. You go ahead and say what you want. Discussion thread is and will remain open, but I won't be a 'warm body' here, nor Twitter. Knock yourself out.
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Cracker: How Media Made me a Bad Person., in reply to Hebe,
We need another “what I really hated on the news today and why xxx is so wrong” thread for that.
... I don't think you'll have any problem finding one :)
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Cracker: How Media Made me a Bad Person., in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
How do we do that while at the same time allowing any individual journalist the same right to bad days that the rest of us enjoy?
That's the tricky bit isn't it. I dunno, how often do you say "excellent piece of reporting there, such-and-such"? You could argue that such things don't happen all that often I suppose, but I make a point of giving good feedback to people when I see or read something I like.
I'm not arguing for no media criticism, I'm just partially pointing out the effect it has on journalists. And also, the explosion in blogs, twitter etc now, where everyone is an expert and can instantly publish exactly what they think about a reporter/presenter, and that reporter/presenter instantly gets to read it. There was a good reason why back before all this, management would usually keep the hate mail from ending up on the desk of the reporter bee. You might think your feedback is reasoned and reasonable, but an awful lot of it isn't.
Everyone can decide what to do, I'm not the criticism monitor (other than on this thread, which I make no apology for, but I'm happy just to turn off comments if it's easier than asking people to be nice) but all I'm asking, and it seems to have worked in your case at least, is for people to assess what they're saying, and maybe whether they'd say it to that person's face, because in effect that's what is happening.
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Cracker: How Media Made me a Bad Person., in reply to Danielle,
Uh, noted? I’m not sure where you expect this to go then, since the post seems designed to head the discussion precisely in that direction.
It's been interesting picking up on various comments (not just here, but to me personally too) that many outside the media read this as "the media are bad people towards the public" (simplifying), many of those inside read it as "the public are bad people towards the media". I'm saying it's a bit of column A and a bit of column B, and they're related.
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Cracker: How Media Made me a Bad Person., in reply to Kevin McCready,
I think you’re too kind about the ‘behaviour’ of Duncan Garner.
I was referring to something nice Duncan did for me this week. I'm not defending (or attacking) his behaviour in general. And again, this aint the place to do so.