Posts by Stewart
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"Waitakere man"... jeez that expression gives me the shits, seeing as how I am a man living in Waitakere and not being what it is 'short-brain' for. Sure, I can understand the need for a pithy epithet characterising the type of (non) voter they are on about, but I'm taking it personally!
Re the PPP's or PFI's, the phrase that I felt succinctly sums them up was along the lines of "Socialising the risks; privatising the profits". So they give me the shits, too.
I think Labour have really dropped the ball since electing/appointing Shearer - not necessarily his fault, but they seem to have been treading water and totally failed to call the govt to account in its numerous failings (and, indeed, Johnkey for his fuck-witted witterings and being the most embarrassing PM I can recall, and I remember back to Holyoake).
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Cyber-marae
..and that's 1 of the reasons I love this place!
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Onya, Emma, for another insightful post. Covering both the bisexuality issue and the binge drinking brings things together nicely. And while bi's might be drinking because of social exclusion (and I am firmly of the "binge drinking is generally a symptom, not a malady itself" persuasion) so many of the ways that 'society' marginalises young people of all stripes means that most everyone is self-medicating in much the same way.
All but the most assured young people will feel excluded for varying proportions of their lives and alcohol has traditionally been society's go-to drug for the self-medicating that we all learn from 'the grown ups'.I drank way more than I should have for about 20 years as a result of low self-esteem and the examples provided by adults as I grew up - but I still managed to become (eventually) a fully-employed tax-paying property-owning hyphenating member of society. I really enjoyed drinking - and still do - but I rarely get more than a little pissed these days. No more of that alcoholic blackness for me.
So it can be done - it would just be a whole bunch easier for people if everyone else was as tolerant and accepting (and wise) as Emma.{apologies, on re-reading this sounds like I'm pissed now, but I'm not. Maybe all those years of boozing have finally caught up with me? Difficult to put out a well-reasoned argument on the fly...}
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Another hearty congrats from an only-occasional poster. I tend to have time for single posts but the succession of bosses I've had since starting posting here would be a whole lot poorer if I posted more.
Thanks and praise be to all who contribute to making this the only blog-site I ever bother to set up when the damn computer crashes & I have to set up a new bunch of favourites.
Sometimes you young people are so earnest and I feel old & jaded & cynical, then another of Emma's threads comes around...
Mr Brown - you ARE the man!
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Sounds to me like Armstrong is 'raging against the dying of the light' and not going quietly. The sad ranting of a man who sees his days are numbered (and not into very many digits).
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Yeah, that Howard Marks column gets it about right in terms of setting the scene for justifying a change of tack by governments. Bit I ain't holding my breath on that score.
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Hard News: Leaf and Tips, in reply to Sacha,
Dunno about you, but I've seen much more violence as a result of street-corner drinking than drinking in restaurants.
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Hard News: Leaf and Tips, in reply to 81stcolumn,
For example, given that the social harm of alcohol was rated more highly than tobacco, should we kick drinkers out of restaurants and make them pursue their anti-social habit on street corners?
To save us from the perils of passive drinking?
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Ah, Craig, there I was bashing out a wordy, rambling piece and you nailed it pithily in the meantime.
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I find it a little distressing that some people seem to feel they can make sweeping judgements on judicial matters when all they know of the case is what they have seen & heard in the media. Most know that the media are selective in what they report (tabloid preference for scandal & reportage by hyperbole, for instance) and that news media are often restricted in what they can report for judicial reasons.
But, based on an unreliable sub-set of all the evidence from a trial, they see fit to pass judgement. This is the sort of stuff that plays into the hands of the Sensible Sentencing Trust (not sure if that is the correct name, but SST could have referred to a Sunday newspaper...).
Why not accept that we only know a fraction, and likely enough an unreliable fraction, of the facts of a case & abstain from casting judgement?For myself, I see this tragic case (Hall, not the BoB) as a symptom of the degradation of our society - along much the same lines as espoused by our host, RB. The perpetrator, Hall, while manifestly guilty of abhorrent behaviour & deserving of punishment, should never have been in a position to commit the acts, should have had far better "parenting skills" before being in sole charge of the infant and in an ideal world should not have become a parent until capable of forming a loving and caring bond with his child.