Daily review 17/04/2024

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, April 17th, 2024 - 20 comments
Categories: Daily review - Tags:

Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

20 comments on “Daily review 17/04/2024 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Robert Guyton 1
    17 April 2024 at 6:52 pm

    Test
    Still in moderation!
    Not fair.
    There has been no indication of how long, no consensus for the need to constrain me and no invitation to absolve myself from whatever transgression I may (or may not have) made.
    Not fair.

  2. Robert Guyton 2
    17 April 2024 at 7:00 pm

    "Matt Doocey says,

    “What I want to be very clear about – we should be having gender affirming healthcare where we’re supportive of people and are inclusive.”"

    What a dreadful thing to say!! "sarc

    https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2024/04/17/matt-doocey-doubles-down-on-trans-healthcare/

  3. Robert Guyton 3
    17 April 2024 at 7:38 pm

    "Every act of communication is an act of tremendous courage in which we give ourselves over to two parallel possibilities: the possibility of planting into another mind a seed sprouted in ours and watching it blossom into a breathtaking flower of mutual understanding; and the possibility of being wholly misunderstood, reduced to a withering weed. Candor and clarity go a long way in fertilizing the soil, but in the end there is always a degree of unpredictability in the climate of communication — even the warmest intention can be met with frost. Yet something impels us to hold these possibilities in both hands and go on surrendering to the beauty and terror of conversation, that ancient and abiding human gift. And the most magical thing, the most sacred thing, is that whichever the outcome, we end up having transformed one another in this vulnerable-making process of speaking and listening."

    https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/10/21/telling-is-listening-ursula-k-le-guin-communication/

  4. Robert Guyton 4
    17 April 2024 at 7:42 pm

    Thanks very much, moderator!

  5. Robert Guyton 5
    17 April 2024 at 7:49 pm

    More from Ursula – and it's really good!!

    "In a sentiment that calls to mind Nikki Giovanni’s magnificent ode to what amoebas know about love that we don’t, Le Guin writes:

    My private model for intersubjectivity, or communication by speech, or conversation, is amoebas having sex. As you know, amoebas usually reproduce by just quietly going off in a corner and budding, dividing themselves into two amoebas; but sometimes conditions indicate that a little genetic swapping might improve the local crowd, and two of them get together, literally, and reach out to each other and meld their pseudopodia into a little tube or channel connecting them.

    This, too, she illustrates with a diagram:

    In an exquisite passage at the intersection of biology, anthropology, and sheer literary genius, Le Guin elaborates:

    Then amoeba A and amoeba B exchange genetic “information,” that is, they literally give each other inner bits of their bodies, via a channel or bridge which is made out of outer bits of their bodies. They hang out for quite a while sending bits of themselves back and forth, mutually responding each to the other.

    This is very similar to how people unite themselves and give each other parts of themselves — inner parts, mental not bodily parts—when they talk and listen. (You can see why I use amoeba sex not human sex as my analogy: in human hetero sex, the bits only go one way. Human hetero sex is more like a lecture than a conversation. Amoeba sex is truly mutual because amoebas have no gender and no hierarchy. I have no opinion on whether amoeba sex or human sex is more fun. We might have the edge, because we have nerve endings, but who knows?)

    Two amoebas having sex, or two people talking, form a community of two. People are also able to form communities of many, through sending and receiving bits of ourselves and others back and forth continually — through, in other words, talking and listening. Talking and listening are ultimately the same thing."

    • Descendant Of Smith 5.1
      18 April 2024 at 8:03 am

      Now if only you could work out how to increase the genetic information to random bodily fluid ratio in your posts you might be on to something. Remembering the purpose is to improve the pool not pee in it.

      • Robert Guyton 5.1.1
        18 April 2024 at 8:11 am

        Ha! Nicely conceived and put!

        I'll certainly try to enrich the mix.

        (Once I’m released from containment)

        (At the weekend, a thoughtful potter told me that traditional Chinese potters peed into their in-the-ground clay resource because the nitrogen in the pee caused a beneficial change to the plasticity of the clay over time and a generation or 2 later, when the clay was dug up for use by the original potter’s grandchildren, it was in the best possible state for potting.)

      • weka 5.1.2
        18 April 2024 at 8:12 am

        not so much from Le Guin (who clearly understands the difference between metaphor and material reality), but in the context of the recent transhumanism debate, for some reason I ended up thinking of this Dr Who character. Maybe it was the visual as well.

        Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17, better known as Lady Cassandra, is a recurring antagonist in the TV series Doctor Who, acting as the main antagonist of the episode "The End of the World" and the secondary antagonist of the episode "New Earth." She claims to be the last pure human, but due to lots of surgeries, she is now only skin with a face that is stretched in a frame.

        https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Lady_Cassandra_O%27Brien.%CE%9417

  6. SPC 6
    17 April 2024 at 8:00 pm

    Introduced in 2019 by the previous Labour government, the free school lunch programme currently offers meals to 230,000 students in about 1000 disadvantaged schools.

    Abercrombie said 50% of the workforce delivering the lunch in schools programme could be facing job losses.

    "I think there's absolutely room to make savings in the lunches programme, but I visit a number of schools and the schools are so proud of their lunch programmes."

    Associate Education Minister David Seymour has previously confirmed the programme itself is under review and is likely to be cut in the Budget.

    Abercrombie argues there is "no point" in the Government reviewing the lunch in schools programme if it has already decided to cut 50% of the workforce delivering it.

    Unless of course the purpose is to PR the public to get away with it.

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/04/17/moe-job-cuts-could-see-push-back-of-programmes-onto-schools/

  7. Anne 7
    17 April 2024 at 8:16 pm

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/350249067/man-misidentified-bondi-junction-killer-hires-lawyers-sue-seven

    Good to hear!

    There's too much of this kind of crap going down and innocent people having their lives and reputations screwed up.

    • weka 7.1
      17 April 2024 at 8:26 pm

      excellent.

      • weka 7.1.1
        17 April 2024 at 8:30 pm

        They're using the junior staffer excuse. Human error, my arse. That's an internal systems failure, and they have form.

        • Descendant Of Smith 7.1.1.1
          17 April 2024 at 8:48 pm

          Wanting to be the first. In the fast paced online world news is instantaneous – not dependent on the morning early edition to break the news. No time to do sensible checks and balances. Need those clicks.

          Ironically there were plenty of clear voices in twitter saying slow down, tai hoa in between the rabid racists and the deliberate misinformation trolls. Rachel Riley burst into print as well getting it all wrong but no doubt adding some legitimacy to peoples views.

          Publish and be damned.

          He was 'my own Wellington, who sighed over me and groaned over me by the hour, talked of my wonderful beauty, ran after me . . .' and he was 'my constant visitor', a 'modern Bluebeard', 'my old beau'. Harriet Wilson.

          • weka 7.1.1.1.1
            17 April 2024 at 9:25 pm

            If a man stabbing 6 women wasn't a big enough story, they could have covered the social media out of control aspect.

            I expect the junior staffer no longer has a career, but I hope that management have some consequences. I'm wondering if it's more than the pressure of speed. They could be short staffed, or using inexperienced staff, just like everyone else while we ignore the pandemic and its consequences.

        • Anne 7.1.1.2
          17 April 2024 at 8:54 pm

          Yes. A feeble excuse used by certain politicos and tabloid news outlets.

  8. Robert Guyton 8
    18 April 2024 at 9:37 am

    Still in moderation!

    I give up.