Posts by giovanni tiso
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Giovanni, I wonder how long you've been in nz?
Eleven years next month.
And whether you find it unsettled, tenuous - like a young tree with shallow roots, compared to Italy? Do you think the quality of collective memory in Italy,being such an historic, much layered, long-settled place, is quite different to here - where amongst pakeha, anyway, there's only a few generations' worth of memory?
That's an easy question that I'll attempt to answer in 8,000 words or less.
Okay, Italy has been peopled for a while longer, but how much of that heritage is actually lived memory passed on from person to person? The art to make wine and olive oil or dry-stone walls, sure. And certain institutions, notably religion. But Gothic architecture, Renaissance painting, Roman sexuality? We know about these things, and to a certain extent we might feel like they belong to our collective memory, but really they are an object of study, not unlike
paleontology. I think the bulk of actually lived, collective memory has a much shorter timespan, and the NZ indigenous cultures, Maori and Pakeha (if you excuse the simplification) have plenty of past to draw upon. It is and unsettled past, and that's a healthy thing, but no more than the Italian collective memory, which is far more fractured.I think NZ has a tremendous advantage, though: its oldest indigenous culture is cherished as a national living treasure. If you take an Italian culture that was around when NZ was colonised by the Europeans - that of Rural lombardy, say - there is simply no way to preserve it, not as lived memory. I'm a big fan of Giovanni Guareschi, who tried to do that in his Don Camillo books, but he was a reactionary (as opposed to a conservative or a traditionalist in a
positive sense): he wanted modernity to simply go away. In NZ, on the other hand - and I don't feel at all off-topic saying this - you can be a (cultural) nationalist and a progressive, a radical activist and somebody who looks to the past for inspiration and guidance.I'll gladly leave it to John Key to make this election all about the future. (Git.)
I read your blog about memory & technology - tis fascinating stuff. Are you conscious of fictionalising your memories of Italy - even though technology enables you to keep in touch?
As an emigrant you are naturally more aware of these things, but we fictionalise the countries that we live in, too. Again, the direct experience of national life is partial; my knowledge of what it's like to live in Auckland or Timaru, or to be a cleaner, or an investment banker, or a parent on the DPB, is mediated. Isn't that why we obsess about the power of the media to shape public perceptions and determine public opinion? Although here too NZ is lucky I think, in that there are far fewer worlds apart, ways of life that are completely unknown by those on the outside - the result of living in a relatively egalitarian and yes, perhaps a touch monocultural society.
But: I could go on about this stuff, and on and on and on until somebody would have to come to my house and punch me to make me stop.
Sue Kedgley: standing between me and voting for the Greens.
Sue Bradford: standing between me and Sue Kedgley and not voting for the Greens.
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How about The Greens:
The Greens greet hens, I think there is no question there.
A month or so ago a Wellington community paper asked the local candidates what animals they'd like to be, or would best represent their personality, and the responses were all more or less lamely humorous, but nothing that made you want to weep. Except for Sue Kedgley - never one to pass up on an opportunity to suck all the innocent fun out of life - who answered "I certainly wouldn't want to be a battery hen..." followed by a short lecture on the wretched life of the poor creatures. And at the end of it all she didn't even bother to name a bloody animal that she WOULD like to be. (My guess: the hectoring dolphin).
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I don't want to give the impression that I think of the standard the things that Craig said - I was just following the line of argument. I know you all care a lot about this particular distinction I'm making.
I so wish I wasn't working at ten past midnight on a Friday. Blah.
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Um... well, that's like saying Helen Clark has contributed to The Standard; there's been some truly vile things and cretinous comments on the thing; therefore Helen Clark is "linked" to The Standard. Not exactly the kind of syllogism that going to score an A in first year logic.
If The Standard also happened to be a major cash cow of the labour party and its candidates, and prominent members of the party that Helen Clark is the leader of kept stroking it and writing for it, then I'd ask the tutor to consider at least a B+.
Writing diaries for the site and then using that to link him to the Bristol story is a hell of a stretch IMO, Giovanni. Kos is just that, a series of diaries, none tied to each other beyond common cause and none having any responsibility for any others. And that is the key word..responsibility..
No, sorry. A series of diaries it may be, but Daily Kos is hardly a place where anything goes and everybody is responsible for his or herself. It bans users all the time (including plenty of democrats seen to cross this or that line - see most recently the Edwards affair) and it deletes diaries all the time. There are no ironclad guidelines except for, ironically, conspiracy theories, which are an absolute no-no. So there is a reason why half the commenters on that diary were screaming for a moderator to come and delete it. And it was generating so many hits and comments, that the mods couldn't possibly pretend not to have noticed it. They kept it going for a political calculation, and it was deleted only after Bristol's pregnancy was made public (which was extremely cowardly, at that point).
I'm with you on everything else, but especially since the distinction in strategies is so marked, having given fodder to the republicans to claim it's all tit-for-tat is inexcusable.
Then there is the vile factor: I haven't heard the other side say anything quite as repulsive about Obama. And that's no mean feat.
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Both sides have sunk at various times (I don't think it was Dem central that orchestrated an email campaign that said Obama was an Islamic Manchurian Candidate...millions of those went out..I got one for gods sake) but there is a very clear and defined difference. Obama verbally and clearly distanced himself from the dirt, McCain, as recently as yesterday, continues to embrace it as a campaign cornerstone.
I don't think it's grossly unfair to link DailyKos to Obama, actually. He has written diaries for the site, so have other prominent democrats - Elizabeth Edwards no longer than a month ago. The Netroots are very important to his campaign, even if there is no direct operational link, and DKos is a major voice in the Netroots. The site sided with him during the nomination, and I'm sure it helped him quite a bit. The thing is, too, that the left is always so quick to attribute every single smear campaign to 'Republicans', lumping guys operating out of basements with the people in charge of the top campaigns. So I think it's defensible in the circumstances, especially given the prominence of the source, that Republicans should do the same when the tables are turned. The tarring with the same brush has to go both ways.
Now, sure, Obama has come down against the basest attacks, but so has McCain on occasion. Remember when he chastised that guy who kept saying Hussein Obama when he was introducing McCain to the stage a while back? It was seen by many on the left as cynical posturing on McCain's part, a convenient way of giving more air time to the slur and insulating himself from the dirty politics. I think you could make the point that since Obama keeps benefiting in so many ways from his Netroots support, people should be allowed to be sceptical of his motivations here too.
I still can't believe Moulitsas was so monumentally stupid.
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I'm always on the lookout for horror stories involving the Internet, and I'm struck by the fact that - asked to come up with worst moments - pretty much nobody has (myself included, I'd hasten to add), save for a hint by Rob I think and maybe one other. So I though I'd invite the CEO of United Airlines to tell us all about his.
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And the latest: Palin links the 9/11 attacks to Saddam.
Mmmmhhh... I can see it in the headline, but the quotation in the article doesn't support it. She reportedly said to a contingent of soldiers about embark that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans," and I think nobody is disputing the fact that Al Qaeda is in Iraq now. I don't have the full text of the speech, but I'll reserve my judgment until a better quotation comes up.
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$2 every time a politician claims to know what I think on an issue because I have children, and $5 if it's the exact opposite of what I actually believe.
And if any of your children play soccer, you can throw the term soccer mum into that particular mix and double your money.
No, I'm going to vote for the first party that comes up with an entirely fanciful solution to The Schleswig-Holstein Question.
If we're ever in trouble at sea together, I'll insist that you're allowed onto the lifeboat first. "Let Craig go, the world needs laughter!"
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<quote>"What New Zealanders reallywant is...<quote>
...commonsense solutions to the problems they face every day?"
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Do kiwis actually work hard?
Yes, but only at night. I'm looking forward to an appeal to kiwifruit - they promote regularity.