Posts by Howard Edwards
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"Talk therapy, expensive and time consuming as it is (from an accountant’s point of view) is pretty much always first to go ..."
This is exactly what happened with the Family Court a few years ago. Couples experiencing relationship difficulties could attend up to six counselling sessions which could potentially save them a lot of stress and legal costs, but the Government cut the funding. The result - another rich-poor divide with only better off couples now able to afford private counselling.
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Access: The Paralympics and visibility, in reply to Hilary Stace,
But there are a couple of things that worry me about the Paralympics. A few years ago the Hallberg Trust decided to spot and nurture potential Paralympians. That has been a successful strategy, but it meant the Hallberg Trust no longer funded things like swimming lessons for young autistic or Down Syndrome kids. Many of them can access Special Olympics but not until they are older. SO still has a vision of including everyone and as a consequence the SO barely gets a mention in the media. Not much elite sporting stuff.
A thought-provoking article by the often-controversial Chris Rattue in the Herald touches on this point and others. And not just in relation to the Paralympics but to sport vs high performance sport in general.
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Polity: Behavioural economics and Hekia Parata, in reply to Adam H,
I guess what leaves me most frustrated with the economics profession are the ones like Friedman who seem to think that using Greek notation is an excuse to behave like a sociopath. Look what it did to Thatcher:
Hey - I rho-epsilon-sigma-epsilon-nu-tau that!
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Love that Collision track - play that funky music indeed!
Reminds me of the 70s sound that bands like Ticket and Quincy Conserve had.
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Hard News: The Unitary Plan and grown-up…, in reply to BenWilson,
Remind's me Jimmy Fallon's parody of the Trump University student survey questions, which included the following:
On a scale of 9 to 10, how would you rate Trump University?
Which of the following words best describes your experience at Trump University:
a) Awesome!
b) Awesome!!
c) Awesome!!!
b) Awesome!!!!
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Up Front: The Best Possible Taste, in reply to Prudence,
"There was all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly-lookin' people on the bench there .
. . there was mother-rapers . . . father-stabbers . . . father-rapers!
FATHER-RAPERS sittin' right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean
And nasty and ugly and horrible and crime fightin' guys were sittin' there "Love that movie!
Here's the full monologue.
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A couple of recent news items about cannabis decriminalisation in some US states:
1. Teenage use of marijuana in Colorado has dropped;
2. On BBC radio last night a reporter visited some of the growers and retailers of legal cannabis in Washington state. Because selling cannabis is illegal under federal law, retailers get no tax breaks at the federal tax level. However this also means that big food and pharmaceutical corporate retailers aren't interested in breaking into the local cannabis market so all retailing and distribution is effectively local (which IMHO is a good thing for both consumers and retailers.)
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Thank you Chelle for sharing your experience of losing a leg and your subsequent steps of recovery (no pun intended) with the rest of the world.
My father lost a leg as the result of a hunting accident when he was a young man, so I grew up thinking that amputee-ism was perfectly normal. Being as selfish as most young children naturally are, I used to wish sometimes that he could have played sport and run with me like other Dads. Also he was very protective of me in the outdoors because of course he couldn't run after me if I took off unexpectedly.
As I grew older I not only felt ashamed for my selfishness but also came to admire how he did so many amazing things with no apparent effort - maintaining a big vege garden, mowing the lawn, riding a bike (while drunk!). Prosthetic limbs back in the 60s were heavy cumbersome devices, and even with a stump sock he would often suffer from chafing and blisters. Later on his heavy metal leg with a shoulder strap was replaced by a lighter model which eased a lot of his stump problems.
An abiding memory was the day he was mowing the lawn at our bach, Part of the section was slightly hilly, and one day he slipped and his leg came off completely, just as a group of kids wre walking past. Did they run a mile!
Have you by any chance been watching the excellent ABC drama series "The Time of Our Lives" that is currently showing on Choice TV? The patriarch of the family loses his leg after the car jack fails while he is working on his car, and it takes us through his rehabilitation including the reaction from his wife and adult children. You can catch up with previous episodes at this link (requires registration but is free).
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Hard News: An interview with Ben Goldacre, in reply to Bart Janssen,
You mean like this?
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Speaker: If the fish stinks ..., in reply to Ian Dalziel,
I thought Shane Jones had sorted out the fishing industry in NZ and the Pacific - surely it can't be broken again?
(NB: May contain traces of sarcasm
Indeed - if anyone knows about video footage it's Shane "a mighty kauri has risen" Jones.