Posts by Stephen Judd
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Somehow it feels like we owe the people of Christchurch, even those not related or friends, the debt of spending enough time immersed in the horror of it all to reach a point of sympathy that becomes somewhat meaningful. Not sure I’m expressing that well,
That is very much how I feel. A duty to witness and pay attention.
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When I quoted Vicki Anderson's piece, I was actually thinking of her thoughts on media coverage, not that aside about Parker.
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Ben: colleague was in Timaru last night, is flying in to Wellington via Dunedin now.
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Account from a Press reporter of being in the building.
New Zealand, we need you to have our back on this one. We don't need insensitive journalism and voyeuristic pictures of our dead.
We do need decisive leadership - on the radio at 3pm Mayor Bob Parker's comment that he couldn't declare a state of emergency was met with jeers of derision from the affected. That said I don't want to give Bob a hard time, kudos to him for stepping up again. Maybe, though, it's too much for one man to be expected to lead us through another disaster like this?
New Zealand we need you to have our backs. Aside from practical support which we thank you for, we need you to understand how draining and anxiety-causing these aftershocks are. We need you to give us your strength, kindness and support to help us get through this anxiety-ridden time.
Wherever you live, whatever you do, hold your loved ones close, tell the people you care about what they mean to you, and please, no matter where you are in New Zealand, pack your survival kit - I used to watch those ads and think they didn't apply to me too.
Life is fragile. I stood on the edge of the abyss and peered into the darkness today.
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Deborah: I'm quite inclined to accept your reading. It's just that I was expecting the hate to manifest as being told to keep your pants on.
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Recommendation 11: Addressing incentives for parents to have additional children while on welfare
a) The Welfare Working Group recommends that ready access to free long-acting reversible contraception be provided for parents who are receiving welfare.
Fair dos, I wasn't expecting that.
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It was also expected to recommend that women who had more children when they were already on a benefit be required to go back to work when the baby was 14 weeks old.
I want to know where the recommendations for making contraceptives cheaper and abortion more accessible are. Otherwise, the 14 wk thing is basically saying “no sex while on a benefit.”
Someone has heard the gag about "so this is what the working class call fucking? It's too good for them" and not realised it was a joke.
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For me Unity (and when in Chch, Scorpio) are where I go when I want to buy a book, any book. For speculative purchases when I have a few $$$ burning a hole in my pocket. I can go and see my mate Toby and say "sell me a book" and he'll find something I will probably like.
When I already know that I particularly want to own a particular book, I tend to pop in and see whether Unity has it, on the principles that a) there's value in having it *right now* and b) it's worth supporting them so I can have the pleasure of serendipitously discovering something there in the future. If Unity don't have it, I get it from the Book Depository.
I don't use the library as much as I should. When I do it's usually for books that I don't see myself wanting to read more than once.
I'm not privy to any secrets of the book trade, but I wonder if the troubles of the big chains are partly an own goal of business strategy. By trying to outcompete small shops on range and margin, they ended up stocking a lot of dross that couldn't be sold to anyone when the economy contracted. Eg, I have wandered through Borders' popup shop where they sell discount books, and jeez, they're mostly crap. Huge piles of dull cookbooks and trash novels that weren't bestsellers and coffee table books and property books that were badly timed and basically nothing that you'd want to to read except in a dentists' waiting room. Look at those big shops on Lambton Quay. The rent must be enormous and the stock is frankly not attractive. One of the things I really like about the classier small bookshops is that they seem to have better at picking which books they actually stock -- their hit rate per shelf seems better to me. As opposed to my experience of wandering Borders where the shelves are groaning with mediocrities.
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Christiaan: reckon. I've been glued to the internet for days and days now. I am so relieved -- I thought I would wake up to news of a massacre. Still plenty of chance for things to turn horrible, but today is a frabjous day.
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A USENET classic:
When I am an old man I shall screw midgets
I shall stuff both my ears with taupe mint-flavored panties
And I shall beg my pension money, while wearing a monkey suit,
From alarmed pedestrians in the safety islands of urban traffic arteries,
And spend it on riotous living in marbled penthouses,
And on mailorder gewgaws, and say we've no money for church.
I shall sit down on the pavement for no apparent reason,
And gobble up frozen samples of my fellow citizen's expectorations
And run my cane up the nearest furry mammal
To make up for the inhibitions of my youth.
I shall wander disoriented in a bathrobe
Into other people's gardens
And take a whizz there.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat.
Be my guest. And eat a pound of sugar all at once
Or better yet: three of lard.
I practiced these things a little yesterday
And now am safely housed in a concrete blockhouse,
With quilts and padding on the walls
And bars on the doors.
I have a companion, though. She wears a purple dress
Has a surprised-looking Pekinese on a leash
and three pounds of Polish sausages in her red hat.