tag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559Zeborahzeborahzeborah2017-03-24T07:05:34Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:149046In which she has a polsci theory2017-03-24T07:05:34Z2017-03-24T07:05:34Zpublic2Of course I'm not a polsci expert so this may be old news or it may be bunk or it may be both. But my theory goes: <br /><br />Every possible political/economic system has its strengths and its weaknesses, its virtues and vices. They're each good for some things, terrible for others. This includes capitalism, and communism, and totalitarianism. (I <em>don't</em> say that they each have equal proportions of bad and good.)<br /><br />So a pure capitalist society can't be perfect. No more a pure communist society, no more any society that's purely one system because humans are too complicated for any one solution to cover all the problems.<br /><br />If you try to solve all the problems with one system, things start to fall apart (kind of like now). At some point people look for a new system. When things fall apart enough, people actually try to implement it, and it does really well at solving the problems with the first system. So they idealise it: this is progress, this system is our future.<br /><br />The problem is that part of the reason it works so well is that the old system is still solving a lot of problems too.<br /><br />Capitalism is fantastic! Competition! Efficiency! Choice! Opportunity! But those things only work to any extent for as long as we retain the old-fashioned safety nets of social responsibility. When we pursue capitalism as if it can solve every problem, cracks appear and people fall through them.<br /><br />Whatever the solution after capitalism, I bet it will be eventually be the same. But if it was possible to find that sweet spot in the transition period and -- not stop there. A two-solution system is hardly perfect either. But if we could, instead of racing forward past that transtion point into a new one-solution system, hover there <em>and reach sideways</em> to add a third, and fourth, and fifth solution into the system, getting a happy medium of systems without getting all competitive about the ideologies....<br /><br />(Except maybe totalitarianism. Certainly a very little totalitarianism goes a very very long way.)<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=149046" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:140092In which she asks the government to be as civic-minded as a regional gang #feedthekids2014-10-30T07:23:46Z2014-10-30T07:23:46Zpublic0In response to Metiria Turei's <a href="http://blog.greens.org.nz/2014/10/30/please-help-get-feed-kids-bill-select-committee/">blog post on the Feed the Kids bill</a>, I've emailed the following to our prime minister:<br /><br />Tēnā koe,<br /><br />There's no more obvious moral position that children deserve to be fed. It's so obvious that nothing more can be said about it.<br /><br />It's almost as obvious that when children are well-fed, it's not only good for their future — better health, better socialisation, and better education — but also, by extension, for the future of New Zealand: lower healthcare costs, less crime, a more skilled workforce and stronger economy.<br /><br />At the moment, many children aren't getting the food they need. We can argue about who <em>ought</em> to be feeding them, but pointing a finger won't feed the children. We can argue about <em>why</em> they're not being fed, but trying to follow the complex chains of cause and effect back to their origins will open a can of worms that will make better food for birds and fish than children. And we can argue about exactly <em>how</em> a bill should be phrased and targeted and implemented to be most efficient, but the most efficient bill in the world is no use until it's passed into law.<br /><br />Children are hungry right now, and to solve that we need to do one thing: feed them. Right now.<br /><br />The Tribal Huks gang in the Waikato have recognised this and stepped up to <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10630573/Gang-feeds-hungry-school-kids">feed hungry schoolchildren in their region</a>, to an <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10643489/Sandwich-gang-humbled-by-offers">outpouring of public support</a>. Can National, the government, and New Zealand, show ourselves any less ready to give our children the food they need and deserve?<br /><br />Please support the Feed the Kids Bill.<br /><br />Nāku noa, nā<br />[wallet name, city]<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=140092" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:139534In which she proposes a cure for the world's ills2014-09-22T09:04:15Z2014-09-22T09:04:15Zpublic4Last week New Zealand's centre-right party won the election as thoroughly as you can or need to in order to govern unimpeded for the next three years, and the left-leaning among us are doing the usual post-mortem.<br /><br />Do we blame the non-voters? The misinformed voters? The greedy voters? The unappealing centre-left party? The corrupt centre-right party? The naive internet party who thought that people would change their votes when corruption was alleged?<br /><br />No, I think we need to accept the fact that 48% of voters <em>honestly believe</em> that the centre-right's economic policies are standing us in good stead as a country. Partly they believe this because said party has lied to them about how we're in fact doing. But mostly they believe it because it makes sense. It fits the Story, the story that's wound its way about the globe and is shaping society and economics worldwide by convincing us to fear and distrust our fellow human beings and vote for the government that will protect us from them.<br /><br />I call the Story "Bludgers vs Bootstraps". It's a story of the lazy beneficiary who's bludging off the state. You know they're a lazy bludger because they're a beneficiary. If they weren't lazy, they'd pull themselves up by their bootstraps, get a job, and become a productive member of society. But they don't have a job so they're not productive so they're a bad person -- or at the very least they've made bad choices and now they need to take responsibility for that. (At worst, they're actively milking the benefit for all it's worth, or even defrauding it.) And if they won't do it themselves, then they need to have their benefit taken away from them in order to motivate them to go and do the thing with the bootstraps.<br /><br />Like all victim-blaming, this story is tremendously comforting. Because if every poor person made a Bad Choice, then all you need to do to avoid poverty is to make all the Right Choices.<br /><br />And because people need the Story to allay their fears, the harder you work to point out a case that doesn't fit the narrative, the harder they'll work to identify the Bad Choice that proves it does fit it. (To see this happen, I refer to every newspaper comment section ever.) It's still worth telling these counter-narratives, I think, as innoculation if nothing else, but it's not sufficient.<br /><br />What we really need is a New Story, and this is what it is:<br /><br />People are inherently good.<br /><br />People want a job that's meaningful: a job that doesn't just support themselves, doesn't just support their families, but actually improves the world in some other way too. People will settle for a meaningless job if they have to, but they won't be happy about it, because people <em>want to be useful to their fellow human beings</em>.<br /><br />And whether luck grants them a job or not, people help their fellow humans in a thousand other ways. They look after children. They edit Wikipedia. They garden, making the environment more beautiful and sharing vegetables and fruit with neighbours and colleagues. They volunteer time in churches and clubs and charities. They write cheques and donate old clothes. They smile at people in the street. They pick up a wallet and hand it in. They give spare change to someone asking for 'busfare'. They yarnbomb construction fences and set up bookcrossing zones. They see a house on fire and go in to rescue the inhabitants and then they carry on to their dayjob.<br /><br />Running into a burning building isn't a smart thing to do, but it's the human thing to do. Because people are just this incredibly hardworking, generous, caring species.<br /><br />And when we all believe <em>this</em> story, we won't have to fear poverty because we'll know that people will support us. Just the way we support other people. Because this is what people do.<br /><br />And we'll want to spread this story, and there are two ways of doing that:<br /><ul><li>Telling the story: Tell your friends and neighbours and colleagues and busdrivers and checkout operators about one of those many times that someone did something nice for you. Obviously you want to try and have this bear some relevance to your conversation, but you know what I mean.</li><li>Creating the story: Be that person doing something nice for your friend or neighbour or colleague or busdriver or checkout operator, so that they have a story to tell too.</li></ul>I'm not going to promise that spreading this story will get the centre-left party straight back into power. Actually, I think its real success will be judged by how it changes the policies of the centre-right party. This will take time, just as the old story took time to spread in the first place. But it <em>will</em> spread, because it's true and because it's awesome -- and because each act of spreading it makes someone's life better, and that's what we all want to be a part of.<br /><br />[Links are welcome, as are stories of you or others doing nice things for someone else.]<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=139534" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:126850In which she links to that speech she mentioned, and others by people who aren't straight white guys2013-04-23T06:19:17Z2013-04-23T06:19:17Zpublic2One of our straight white male MPs is going to <a href="http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/2/article_13220.php">go on the talkshow Ellen</a>. He did give a great speech, but, um, what about the LGBT MPs and ex-MPs who also gave great speeches? And who did most of the work on the bill? Like, say, the Māori lesbian MP who submitted the bill in the first place?<br /><br />So here are some speeches from the night by MPs who aren't straight white guys.<br /><br />Firstly, the kōrero in which Te Ururoa Flavell (straight Māori guy) talks about about Tutanekei's hoa takatāpui Tiki, and gives more context to the history of Pākehā redefining marriage to exclude Māori customary marriage.<br /><br />(Procedural notes: a lot of MPs on the evening chose to share their speaking time with someone else, and Te Ururoa was the recipient of one such five minute slot from John Banks which is why he's acknowledging "Hone Banks". He gets cut short at the end for going over his time limit which is a tremendous shame given how informative his kōrero was, but the rule seemed fairly equally enforced against Pākehā MPs doing the same. And applause is normally I gather not allowed but that rule went out the window completely for the whole evening.)<br /><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BX51b6tPa8U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />More awesome kōrero on the evening included:<br /><br />Louisa Wall (Māori lesbian; submitted the bill; first name pronounced lou-issa)<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/i8VKcqRP1KQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />Kevin Hague (gay white guy)<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/voLw203g5MA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />Tau Henare (straight Māori guy; responding to straight Māori guy Winston Peters' vile speech which I won't link to because Winston is *that* MP, you know the one, who just always.)<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/IgX2_fCYURM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br />Mojo Mathers ((Deaf) straight white woman; bringing tears to my eyes every time I watch it)<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yazZTPgT_bY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=126850" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:126561In which she translates for the rest of the world2013-04-17T10:38:16Z2013-04-17T10:38:16Zpublic5New Zealand just passed the third and final reading of our <a href="http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/member/2012/0039/latest/DLM4505003.html">marriage equality bill</a> 77-44.<br /><br />(I was listening by radio after, having failing to get reception for Parliament TV and failing to get sufficient bandwidth for the internet livestream, I put out a plaintive tweet asking about livestreaming audio and someone pointed me to 882AM. Oh yeah, that dusty old machine.)<br /><br />After the Speaker's announcement of the result and before the tumultuous applause, a waiata was sung and harmonised upon.<br /><br />This is itself probably needs explaining. Waiata are traditionally sung (among other occasions) in support of a speech. As a non-Māori New Zealander I've most often witnessed/participated when this has happened during a traditional welcoming ceremony or opening ceremony; but also after some keynotes at New Zealand library conferences; or in support of family/friends at graduation. So for this to happen was very appropriate.<br /><br />But the particular waiata chosen is what really needs translation. It was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokarekare_Ana">Pokarekare Ana</a> which is a song extremely widely known in New Zealand, you may well even have heard it overseas, so it might just seem a bit twee if you don't know anything about it. And it's about a famous heterosexual love story, so if you know a little bit about it you might think that in this context, um, what?<br /><br />But the reason this song was perfect for the occasion was because earlier in the evening, speaking in support of the bill, Te Ururoa Flavell referred to another part of this story of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takat%C4%81pui#Hinemoa_and_Tutanekai">Hinemoa and Tutanekai</a> - to the part where after Tutanekai married Hinemoa, his hoa takatāpui Tiki grieved for losing him. Te Ururoa pointed out that people complaining about this bill seeking to "redefine marriage" need to be aware that, in New Zealand, marriage was redefined way back in the 19th century by colonialism.<br /><br />A lot of people, throughout the evening, pointed out that there's still a lot of work to do for justice and equality. But this was a great step, in so many ways.<br /><br />[For reference, words I had to redact from this post given I'm attempting to translate here: Pākehā; kōrero; pōwhiri; marae; tautoko; Aotearoa; ahakoa he iti he pounamu.]<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=126561" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:118965A thing we can do about evil laws2012-04-09T23:14:00Z2012-04-09T23:14:00Zpublic1(Please to link this around, unless you see someone else saying it better, in which case link that.)<br /><br />A week or so ago someone somewhere (I forget; possibly it was in the context of the Planned Parenthood defunding threat; should I remember or be reminded I'll edit a link back in) pointed out wisely that, though politicians are inclined to devalue an individual vote in favour of their knowledge about majority votes, businessfolk are inclined to value each and every customer. Governing tends (even in proportional representation environments) to be pretty much win/lose; business tends to be "How <em>much</em> do I win?"<br /><br />And perhaps more to the point, businessfolk own the politicians anyway.<br /><br />So while writing letters to politicians remains a good thing to do, if you've lost faith in that as a solution, try writing letters to businesses instead. In particular, find out which businesses have been funding the politicians who support these evil laws.<br /><br />An internet blackout may have stopped SOPA. (Or maybe it was the fact that big businesses signed onto the internet blackout.) But what stopped the Research Works Act was scholars worldwide putting pressure onto the company that had paid for that bill. (Never heard of the Research Works Act? And yet it got stopped without recourse to an internet blackout.)<br /><br />In the case of the present evilness in Wisconsin, it appears that <a href="http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/wisconsin-scott-walker-koch-brothers">Scott Walker is heavily funded by ultra-conservative Koch Industries PAC</a>. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries">Wikipedia article on Koch Industries</a> summarises a bunch of other pro-'free market' political activism on their part, and helpfully links to the <a href="http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/default.asp">Industry Areas</a> section of the Koch website. This page might also be titled "A list of things to boycott". Alas, Koch is friggin' big, and a large number of them are business-oriented rather than consumer-oriented. (I leave identifying the businesses they deal with in order to put pressure on <em>them</em> as an exercise for someone else.) But whether or not you live in the United States, you may want to <a href="http://www.kochind.com/Newsroom/contact_us.aspx">email or snailmail</a> and tell them that you'll be boycotting:<ul><li><a href="http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/fibers.aspx">LYCRA® fiber and COOLMAX® fabric; and STAINMASTER® carpet, ANTRON® carpet fiber, CORDURA® fabric, and COMFOREL® fiberfill.</a></li><li><a href="http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/forestry.aspx">(in North America) Quilted Northern®, Angel Soft®, Brawny®, Sparkle® , Soft 'n Gentle®, Mardi Gras®, Vanity Fair®, and the Dixie® brand of tabletop products; (in Europe) Lotus®, Colhogar®, Delica®, Tenderly® and the Demak'Up® brand of facial cleansing products</a></li><li>"hunting clothing and outdoor gear for men, women and children" from <a href="http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/ranching.aspx">Matador Pro Shop's online store</a></li></ul><br /><br />Honestly? I suspect in this particular case it will have little effect. Koch Industries is big and diverse and privately owned by a couple of very rich white male ideologues. But it's worth a try, because at worst you're giving them fewer dollars they can use to buy politicians.<br /><br />And in any cases, there are other battles where this tactic can work. Put pressure on the companies who fund the politicians. Put pressure on the companies who do business with the funders. Put pressure on the companies who accept their advertising dollars and on the companies who share advertising space with them.<br /><br />This is not how democracy and capitalism were meant to work, but right now it's how they do work. So work it.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=118965" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:99578In which dictation is fun2011-04-30T06:14:15Z2011-04-30T06:15:15Zpublic5Dictated a few hundred words of a new story tonight. So far so sucky. But if it works enough to finish I can always revise.<br /><br />I've also been playing Taipan by voice command. We used to play Taipan as kids on the Apple IIe; I remember reading Tom Sawyer while pressing F-F-F-F-F-F-F to keep shooting hostile vessels. 20+ years later I've got an Apple IIe emulator on my MacBook, and have taught Dragon Dictate the necessary commands so I don't hurt my hand. Instead I scritch my cat, saying, "Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight."<br /><br /><br />On weddings and royalty: I like having a Queen. I say this as someone with extremely liberal views. I feel that, given that a democratic government's job is to appeal to populism in order to retain power, it's really important to have an extra layer of government independent of all that who could, if necessary, provide a veto.<br /><br />Nevertheless (and despite my deep respect for the Queen) I don't really care about our royal family more than I do about any other random family, nor about their wedding.<br /><br />On the gripping hand, I have an amused total lack of sympathy for USans complaining that this totally irrelevant-to-them wedding is taking over their social network conversations. Whatever, folks, we have to put up with your election talk for <em>months</em>, you can cope with a day or so of wedding. (Text fails at tone. Please read benign irony, not snark.)<br /><br />--Ditto for other citizens of the Commonwealth. I put up with rugby talk; no doubt everyone has talk that they put up with. Now we just add a wedding to the list, what's the fuss?<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=99578" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:78198In which she passes on a message from the Mayor2010-11-01T07:33:25Z2010-11-01T07:33:25Zpublic5The Mayor wants you to know that Christchurch is back in business. Sorry, I meant to mention that a while ago. He says please to come and spend all your tourist dollars here. Not in so many words, but that's what he means. It's quite safe (we just had a 4.5, which spooked Boots, but Twitter's #eqnz feed has a distinct "ho hum" feel to it, and the last noticeable one before that was eight days ago) and all tourist amenities are intact.<br /><br />(Though the tourist buses have now I believe been convinced to keep out of Dallington. People need to use their Portaloos in private, y'know.)<br /><br />Funny story about the Mayor. Last Thursday, the newspaper was reporting in ill-disguised glee that he was off on a secret mission to a secret location in East Asia, and was asking for anyone who'd seen him to nark on him. And then on Saturday it was forced to report, in ill-disguised disappointment, that it turned out that his mission had secured a really awesome airline deal and the secrecy had been necessary for proprietary airline reasons. As you read the article you could actually <em>hear</em> the reporter's chagrin.<br /><br />Less amusing is our new Hobbit Law. Well, I suppose it could be amusing from a distance. Google it if you like, but I don't promise you'll understand and I'm not in a mood to talk about it. Le sigh.<br /><br />Anyway, so I foolishly said somewhere I was going to do IWriSloMo this month. I think that would be going better if I could bear the thought of writing. I'm in rather a funk at the moment, as per my most recent post, and the earthquake, and a year of nonsense at work. I'm very tired. It's the sort of tired that verges on a sort of mild situational depression. It's milder than funks I've coped with before, it's just that writing worked as an escape those times, and now I'm out of practice and creaky and slow and all my stories are sucky and pointless.<br /><br />...I should stop playing Solitaire on my iPod. As a way of passing ten minutes when I'm otherwise okay it's fine, but as a way of attempting to escape a funk it actually just digs me deeper. Also it drains the battery.<br /><br />Oh well. I'll go make myself write anyway. Given the likelihood that my judgement is impaired at the moment, I do really want to be writing again, so I need to drag myself back into the habit. And if the funk's mild enough then being productive will (partnered with destressing) help get me out of it. So.<br /><br /><glares at stubborn story><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=78198" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:71834In which she votes2010-09-21T09:01:03Z2010-09-21T09:01:03Zpublic0Local body elections are arguably less important than national government elections, but they're a hell of a lot more fun. Here in Christchurch we get mail containing our voting papers, instructions, and candidate information, and you get to read everything, tick your favourite boxes, and post it back.<br /><br />The fun comes in because many of the candidates hold views on the world which are somewhat orthogonal to reality. My normal method of voting goes: scan the 14 manifestos; eliminate those who couldn't be bothered to spell-check or include a photo; eliminate the weirdos (weird quotes are in bold so you can scan for those if you get bored); choose between the remaining 3 candidates.<br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a><strong>Candidates for mayor</strong><br />Actually this year someone's managed to get photos out of them all and possibly ran a spellcheck for them too. This is disappointing! Nevertheless, Candidate #1 refers to "Youth policy's" so he's gone.<br /><br />I just noticed something. They're all men. Also I think all white (based on names, badly lit photos, and general silence on subjects of race, but I could be wrong) but while disappointing this is not so startling.<br /><br />Candidate #2 is my preferred candidate; he's a politician so his manifesto has good grammar and says nothing. <rereads manifesto> Actually, dude. Quit with the implications that Christchurch is dangerous when we're actually the safest town in the country. Deleted!<br /><br />Candidate #3 is from the Workers Party which is fine until he randomly starts talking about national policies and opposing "NZ military presence in Third World countries such as Afghanistan". Deleted.<br /><br />Candidate #4 is a single-issue candidate (water - it's a hot topic but I fail to care). Deleted.<br /><br />Candidate #5 makes "euthenics" sound weird but interesting until he sideswipes the local Māori iwi and then caps it off with a stunning proposition to "<strong>[put] the city's drunken homeless in Sunnyside mental institution</strong>". I... Does he want to make certain everyone realises it's a joke or is he serious? Anyway, deleted.<br /><br />Candidate #6 has some ideas I like. But they are ideas rather than policies and I get the impression that he thinks he can get into office, implement them, and then make the rest up as he goes along or delegate it or something, maybe he hasn't thought that far ahead, who knows? They're great ideas, though. He should totally recommend them to our next mayor. Regretfully deleted.<br /><br />Candidate #7 at least <em>mentions</em> a woman, but I'm always suspicious of people who think that their greatest qualification is being married with children. And a company director and served in the army, and waffles about how we need a strong candidate to tackle the real issues which he doesn't name. Deleted.<br /><br />Candidate #8 is the current incumbent. I don't like him a lot. He responded well to the earthquake - mugged for the camera a bit (whereas my hitherto-preferred candidate did work out of the limelight on the grounds that traumatised people don't really need a camera in their face) but generally did well. But I don't need to vote for him on that grounds because everyone else will. Although he does refer to additional libraries, community centres and pools, and makes a point of saying that Christchurch is NZ's safest city. Obviously he does it to reflect well on himself but still I like it when people speak against the fear-mongerers.<br /><br />Candidate #9 is a smooth writer but again implies that the city isn't safe and manages to also imply that it's ugly. Okay, chunks of it are, but I think he meant before the earthquake. Deleted.<br /><br />Candidate #10 waffles a lot and ends "I am honoured to be considered for Mayor of this beautiful historic city" which, seriously, judging by some of the other candidates it doesn't take much to be considered so isn't much of an honour. Deleted.<br /><br />Candidate #11 wants us to become "<strong>the 51st State, or a commonwealth country of the of the United States." If you want to share the hilarity he has "an enlightening web page, <a href="http://51st-state.com">http://51st-state.com</a>, exposing ALL, any technical reasons .... Just Google me.</strong>" Deleted.<br /><br />Candidate #12 starts with "Kia ora". It's probably just appropriation but it's the only non-derogatory mention of Māori from the lot of them. He's mostly just a single-issue candidate though (water again). OTGH he's got Civil Defence and Emergency Management experience. Hmm, maybe I'll google and see what he means by "social inclusion". --Ooh, he seems to mean it.<br /><br />Candidate #13 is qualified because he owns a store and "<strong>I'm openly corrupt: I'll give you a free quote for every vote</strong>". He also has terrible spelling and grammar and I love how he ramps up his rant to "<strong>Lets get it right this time, I'm to busy for B.S. so make your vote count! Plus don't forget the leaky Homes.</strong>" Was this dictated onto an answering machine after one two many beers or something? Deleted.<br /><br />Candidate #14 seems to have issues with national energy pricing policies, and then he jumps to, "<strong>My experience with health suggests the government seems to favour medication over medical devices that can increase blood flow by 60%-70%, without tablets.</strong>" Then he tacks on the obligatory line about water. Deleted.<br /><br />So that narrows it down to two.<br /><br />But wait, there's more!<br /><br /><a name="cutid2"></a><strong>Two councillors for my ward</strong><br /><ol><li> has experience, is a generic old white guy</li><li>is young with two engineering degrees and financial qualifications, plus family history of serving in the council, plus some of his own experience</li><li>speaks in bullet points but mentions libraries and other good things (and some things I disagree with) and wants "Friendship hands extended to new residents particularly those from overseas" which is bad grammar but wow, someone making a point of being pro-immigration?</li><li>speaks in the 3rd person but has experience and also has experience with a local marae trust - a rare off-hand mention of Māori</li><li>opens with a pun. Which he extends into a longwinded metaphor. Forcing myself to read more I learn that he's married to a doctor and attends church. Um, yay?</li><li>is standing for mayor too. He opens by saying "Thanks for voting for me last time" which seems to be code for "I lost then, too."</li><li>loves the city. Hmm, "Neighbourhoods are the glue that holds a happy, safe city together" is capitalising on the fear that the city is dangerous but it doesn't actually promote it. Nevertheless his waffle bores me.</li></ol><br />(Boots entertains herself by knocking down my pen and chasing it back and forth across the room.)<br /><br /><a name="cutid3"></a><strong>Five board members for my community board</strong><br /><ol><li>tells us it's hard to choose the candidates you vote for, except in bad grammar. Has experience but his qualifications include being married with children and liking sports. Also fear-mongers over personal safety.</li><li>is bullet-point guy! Oh, he's missed out an apostrophe, what a shame.</li><li>says the city needs people. Also he's concerned about water.</li><li>is proud he went to school here. Sounds like he's got good experience otherwise though.</li><li>has a hotmail address. Also he refers vaguely to "an issue that has huge ramifications to our community" without spelling that out exactly, but I think I know what he means and disagree with him on it.</li><li>is a woman! And she's Ngaitahu-Taswegian Scots and Irish, and married to a Samoan! And has piles of experience! She mentions water but otherwise seems quite reasonable.</li><li>is another woman! She loves living here, but at least she has experience.</li><li>aspires to "use my skills of juggling and balance to assist in bringing greater harmony and vitality to the community of which I am a part" and points out that his experience in entertaining people would give him a unique expertise.</li><li>is the pun-meister</li><li>is standing for every election he's eligible for, isn't he?</li><li>again says "Kia ora" and refers to civil defence. Bet he didn't realise when he wrote it how topical that'd be.</li><li>has spelling mistakes and run-on sentences and his qualifications consist of being married with kids and lifesaving, yet seems to have been in council before. Can I cast a negative vote? We should be able to cast negative votes.</li></ol>This is always the hardest part of the election because I have to choose 5 candidates but only really like 4. For the other one I have to choose between the clueless youngster and the guy who forgets apostrophes.<br /><br />(Boots sits on my voting paper and cleans her toenails.)<br /><br /><a name="cutid4"></a><strong>Seven members for the district health board</strong><br />I was wrong, <em>this</em> is the hardest part. I have to rank them in order of preference. Have you ever tried ranking 28 people in order of preference? If only they'd printed these single-sided, then I could cut them out and shuffle them around.<br /><ol><li>has to tell us how his irrelevant experience is relevant</li><li>a woman with experience</li><li>bullet-point guy!</li><li>a woman with experience</li><li>has lived with a disability; law and political qualifications if not experience</li><li>lots of experience</li><li>experience is more political than health-related; but refers to "Lake Ellesmere 'Waihora'. Can't tell from googling if he's Māori himself but still.</li><li>no photo, boring, conflicts of interest</li><li>a woman with nursing and other medical backgrounds; copy-pastes part of her text from #11</li><li>"<strong>There's no such thing as 'schizophrenia'. It's all done with two way transmitting bugs to talk to mainly young people with potential. If the 'talking' is ignored, they are stung with an electronic cruelty machine.<br />"Major heart surgery may be a thing of the past if experiments I have done by flushing beins through with sulfaric (not sulphuric) acid with the registered CLR (Calcium, Lime, Rust) chemical, to get rid of lime, waterstone and cholesterol by making an insertion at a wrist vein. I can't go any further, and need 2 medical students to continue this.</strong>"<br />There's a short sensible paragraph then, "<strong>Genetically modified fat tomatoes etc, result in genetically modified fat people. Exercise is not much help. Watch what you eat.</strong>"</li><li>a woman with nursing and midwifing experience plus financial and IT skills; copy-pastes part of her text from #9</li><li>has a kid with a congenital disease</li><li>a woman standing for reelection</li><li>has a kid with severe allergies and asthma so thinks the most important issue is free parking at the hospital. I mean, yes, but...</li><li>a woman, various clues suggest Māori. Bio is brief but seems to have experience</li><li>Pacific Island heritage, experience in health issues for Pacific people, refugees and new migrants</li><li>City Missioner. I had cause this winter to write to him to tell him that Seasonal Affective Disorder should not be mocked in the City Mission's newsletter as an imaginary illness for rich folk wanting an excuse to go to Fiji. He responded to me pretty graciously and published an apology, but.</li><li>political rather than health experience; weird focus on birth</li><li>dentist</li><li>woman, physiotherapist, otherwise meh</li><li>GP with experience on the health board, a child has Down Syndrome</li><li>woman with experience in various non-health boards</li><li>woman who... goes to the doctor sometimes?</li><li>the guy who wants to cure all by using medical devices that can increase blood flow</li><li>woman standing for reelection; ties with Special Olympics NZ; mentions Māori, Pasifika and Asian health</li><li>financial experience</li><li>financial and political experience, psychiatric nursing, medical equipment servicing, and 25 years in the funeral service industry. Believes in free parking for visitors</li><li>is going to be old soon so has a vested interest in health; his actual experience is apparently secondary to this</li></ol><br />(Boots is getting decidedly skittish, but fortunately that's it for the next few years.)<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=71834" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:71152In which she doesn't have a hovercraft2010-09-17T08:57:44Z2010-09-17T08:57:44Zpublic5A law got passed that lets the minister in charge of earthquake recovery amend other laws if it's in order to aid earthquake recovery. (This is sparking woe and lamentation and wilful ignorance of the fact that he's not allowed to change civil rights or electoral laws, and the fact that every law he changes will revert back to normal on April 2012. So yeah, maybe he could become a terrible dictator in the meantime and wreak havoc and we wouldn't be allowed to prosecute him for it, but on the other hand from May 2012 we would be able to shun him for the rest of his political would-be career, so it'd be a pretty idiotic move on his part. Also, seriously, New Zealand politicians just <em>aren't that competent</em>.)<br /><br />Anyway, so I was reading through some of the <a href="http://www.pco.parliament.govt.nz/pco-news/#earthquake">oh-so-threatening amendations</a> that have been made since then, and came across the <a href="http://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2010/0316/latest/whole.html">Canterbury Earthquake (Civil Defence Emergency Management Act) Order 2010</a> which says:<blockquote><p>An authorised person may exercise all or any powers stated in section 89 of the CDEM Act in respect of any aircraft, hovercraft, ship or ferry or other vessel, train, or vehicle impeding civil defence emergency management in a specified district [but only if etc]</p></blockquote>and I found myself suddenly distracted from this menace to democracy by the urgent question:<br /><br /><em>Where are all these hovercraft?</em><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=71152" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:69924In which she disapproves of anxiety2010-09-13T06:21:54Z2010-09-13T06:21:54Zpublic3Work today was quiet, part twiddling thumbs, part tidying up details, part bonding and settling in.<br /><br />There was the thing with noticing that one of our shear walls has a crack running the length of it. A crack which you can see on both sides of the wall. This made us a little nervous but when FM came along to check it they promised it was safe.<br /><br />Not so one of our photocopiers, though, which received a yellow sticker. (The others got green stickers. I think the whole city is being triaged, piece by piece.)<br /><br />I spent most of the morning sort of informally liaising between various departments. (In Central Library there's a whiteboard up to sign in and out of the building.) When I came back to my own branch I started by cleaning the ceiling plaster dust off my desk.<br /><br />Some of my colleagues thought they felt slight tremors at lunch, but I missed them. Half an hour later I said, "I felt <em>that</em> one." (It turned out to be smaller than several I've missed, but near and shallow.)<br /><br />I learned I'm not the only person avoiding my bed: a colleague's grandson is convinced the earthquakes are being caused by his bedroom in her house (fortunately he was staying there that night, rather than in his normal bedroom in his mother's house). I already knew I wasn't the only person sleeping in clothes (though I've finally stopped now) and pretty much everyone is keeping a flashlight and cellphone close to hand. Also, no-one laughed when I mentioned I keep my shoes upside down to prevent glass falling inside. Instead I got told of a colleague's friend whose thermometer broke inside one shoe, and she carefully brushed and vacuumed out all the glass but when she wore it her foot gradually got more and more sore, and at the end of the day she realised she'd burnt her whole foot on whatever liquid had been inside the thermometer.<br /><br />At afternoon tea I shifted in my chair, accidentally making it creak, and my colleague next to me jumped. As we gathered to say our goodbyes and go home, another colleague leaned wearily against the lockers, making them clatter, and a fourth colleague jumped.<br /><br />The roads are crowded and the buses running late.<br /><br />Staring out the window as we drove through the suburbs, I mused. Thinking about that link that was talking about how one has to reconcile one's ordinary belief that the world isn't out to kill you with those moments when it did kind of give it a go. It's like these two things exist in your head at the same time, in some quantam superposition thing, and it hurts your brain. And over time I've been resolving that back to the single state of "The world doesn't want to kill me" (albeit with the caveat "but how about I get my emergency kit ready just in case"). This avoids brain-hurtiness, and it gets my anxiety levels down.<br /><br />And the thing that enrages me about 9/11 is the huge effort Certain Interests put in to resolve the quantam superposition in the opposite direction. To convince people that the (Islamic) world <em>is</em> out to get them. And doing this doesn't make the world any safer. All it does is keep people anxious. And (even if the various reasons the Certain Interests have for doing this were pure as the snow, which they're really not), keeping people anxious after a traumatic incident is itself evil. It is so many kinds of nasty I just cannot express.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=69924" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2009-05-04:271559:59635In which she makes a timely but embarrassing admission2010-05-07T06:11:40Z2010-05-07T06:11:40Zpublic0Every time someone talks about how terrible Margaret Thatcher was I feel a little bit sad because I kind of like her. But it never really occurred to me until very recently to work out <i>why</i> I kind of like her.<br /><br />It's not that <a href="http://www.yessirnigel.com/thatcher_script.html">she (maybe) wrote <i>Yes Minister</i> fanfic</a> (spoiler: it's not actually very good) because I only discovered that a year or so ago and I kind of liked her well before then.<br /><br />It's not that I'm a fan of her policies or of anything she did because honestly I wouldn't have the slightest clue about any of this stuff. In fact from what I glean I suspect I'd be a complete anti-fan, which is part of what makes me a little bit sad.<br /><br />It might be a little bit because she was the first female UK prime minister and that was pretty awesome.<br /><br />But, after much thought, I think it's mostly because of a cartoon which I think was published in the local Press when I was... hmm, it was probably her 1987 re-election so I'd have been going on 10. It depicted Thatcher dressed in the stereotypical dominatrix leathers, cracking a whip over the bleeding backs of a crowd begging "More!"<br /><br />And that image has kinda stuck with me. And I've always kind of liked her for it.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=zeborah&ditemid=59635" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments