Posts by BenWilson
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I feel a little sad that this is sufficient to end a political career. It is entirely possible that it means bugger all to his abilities as mayor and might even make him better at it (having had some experience of one of the issues our society faces).
-
I think what was stunningly restored was our appreciation of the genre. I'm not surprised it was a box-office flop.
I quite liked it. The endless homages were like old friends.
-
It was good to hear your account. Thank you.
-
I believe that's the theory of sanctions. I haven't really seen too many examples of successes of them though. Sanctions are the slowest most painful drawn out method for change ever invented in political history. What they really seem to do is just slow change down. They put the isolated society in a time capsule, with the clock set right about the time they started doing whatever it was that brought the sanctions about. They actually freeze the attitudes in place. If you stop the flow of goods and ideas into an area, then you basically arrest the development.
-
People in New Zealand seem about as concerned as most Fijians, I guess. Or as my wife suggested, it is school holidays so maybe all Public Address readers are in Fiji on holiday with the kids.
Well I'm pretty surprised how relaxed Fijians I have spoken to have been about the coup. Their opinions have usually been that NZ overreacted big time and that the general feeling about the whole thing was a lot of bitterness directed outwards rather than inwards. A feeling that it's their own mess, and that being punished by the world for trying to sort it out their own way is very unfair. We're all high an mighty about the evils of dictatorship, and yet take no account of the corrupt and rotten system they had beforehand (their opinions, not mine - I don't really have one).
I have not taken the opinion of any Fijian Indians on the matter, though.
-
The 17 million stated includes the strengthening of the wharf in general and has bugger all to do with the shed. 8 fucking million is a joke, who's getting the back hander here?.
Yeah why don't they just buy Avondale Racecourse? It's already set up for large scale boozing and getting lots of people in and out.
-
Does NZ sell weapons?
I see no great harm in partaking of the scenery of other communities but once you get into receiving services from those with less economic opportunity, it all gets pretty slippery pretty fast.
That's pretty much 95% of the services I partake of right here in NZ. Should I stop eating out because waiting staff are paid less than me?
-
I'm surprised a few more businesses haven't tried to compete for the title of Party Central. The casino stands a pretty good chance of pissing all over some waterfront sheds, as do a number of event centers. Anywhere you can hold a big party, basically. Western Springs isn't a hard walk from Eden Park.
-
Yeah this is the argument against boycotting Fiji as a holiday destination and I'm sensitive to it.
Tourism is only a small part of their economy. Every sanction hurts them, drives them deeper into poverty and misery. Every business that has to shut up shop due to sanctions is a whole bunch of workers laid off. Now instead of pittance they have nothing. That's not an improvement. Now they are forced to become clients of the same state the sanctions are meant to undermine.
But my cynical belief is that my money does not get to the impoverished in part because of the nature of the government.
It's in the nature of capitalism. It was very much true before the coup, too. But I can't see the solution to "the poor don't get enough money" is "so stop them getting any money". That will only increase the imbalance, because whatever scraps are left are sure to end up in the hands of those with the guns.
-
Party Central has caused one of my first feelings of genuine cultural cringe. When I consider what used to happen in Ozzie when there was a big event, I just feel ashamed of NZ. We're going to get a real wake up call that stinginess is not a value widely admired in the rest of the world.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 738 739 740 741 742 … 1066 Older→ First