Open mike 04/12/2009

16 comments on “Open mike 04/12/2009 ”

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1. prism 1

   4 December 2009 at 10:07 am

   Interesting thing about addictions like alcohol. Both the imbiber and the seller need it.
   The convenience stores that rely on it for 25% of turnover are shocked that they might be prevented selling it. The supermarkets that should be stocking food and household goods have pages of advertising promoting sales. Luckily they haven’t been able to wangle spirits sales yet. Alcohol bulk retailers have cartons of the expensive stuff being carried out by young men all the time. The ultimate depreciating purchase. The bars – either don’t serve coffee or fruit juice or couldn’t make enough money without the pull of alcohol.
   When mixed product stores are threatened with losing the right to sell alcohol which is a large part of their business which might put them out of business of course they resist. So they are as dependent on alcohol as drunks.
   So alcohol gets embedded in the community and the money spent on its passing pleasures pours down the drain literally, and the drinkers who don’t want to stop, gradually degrade personally both bodily and mentally and in their finances, degrade their relationships, their locality, and the society they are part of. It’s time we put reasonable limits on hours, places and age of alcohol sales, young people would have to drink with food eaten on the premises for instance. It’s not just the drink that’s the problem, it’s not recognising how it can bite you in the bum.

   This is a comment based on reality and the facts. Alcohol is so prevalent and an accepted drug and insidious that we forget how troublesome and how necessary to keep to our limits to stay in ‘sound mind’ control.
   • RedLogix 1.1

     4 December 2009 at 11:12 am

     “Alcohol soaked hell-hole” anyone?

     Ask someone why they drink (especially a binge drinker). The answer is usually something like, “It makes me feel better”.

     Hardly anyone asks the next question, “Why did you feel so bad in the first place?”.
     • Olwyn 1.1.1

       4 December 2009 at 1:29 pm

       A good question RedLogix, and two others follow: Why can some places have civilised drinking cultures, with very few regulations pressing them to be that way, and why do we so easily make the step from what we can do to help people to what we can do to “improve” them?
       • vto 1.1.1.1

         4 December 2009 at 1:38 pm

         Perhaps Olwyn they have civilised drinking cultures precisely because ofthe lack of regulation. Or in other words, regulation distorts and exaggerates. Create a rule and double the complexity, create two rules and quadruple it, and so on…

         Nonetheless you correctly identify the problem – cultural. It will need a generational change here in NZ to get to that point. Regulation may help but it is far far from the solution imo.
         • prism 1.1.1.1.1

           4 December 2009 at 2:40 pm

           vto Really we have just about had no regulation for years, long opening hours, younger drinking age, more outlets, discussions about fine wine, more sophisticated mixed drinks, gourmet bars specialising in fine wines etc. We are not a country of urbane drinkers yet and bloody never will be. We have a culture that embraces alcohol along with a sport that has young men built like young bulls tearing around a field, and then getting sozzled. I remember someone in Hong Kong or Singapore introducing rugby, and also the after match beers! Go together.
     • Unholy Allliance 1.1.2

       5 December 2009 at 5:17 am

       >Hardly anyone asks the next question, “Why did you feel so bad in the first place?’.

       What a crock! People drink to forget, some drink to socialize, some
       drink because its there, some drink to have memories, some to forget,
       some drink out of boredom. But the idea that we should never feel bad!
       Please! we need bad moments to assess good ones as good. If
       we don’t have bad moments, do away with them, then we are no
       better than zombies living in a false life.
   • vto 1.2

     4 December 2009 at 11:44 am

     so true your royal prismness. perhaps we could have boozeless days like Muldoon’s carless days. The addicts would then all be in a boozeless daze..
     • prism 1.2.1

       4 December 2009 at 2:43 pm

       Oh good one, your very towering omnipotence.
2. Lew 2

   4 December 2009 at 10:47 am

   Does anyone else find it funny that the bods in charge of Auckland’s governance have named their consultative group the Super City Advisory Board (SCAB)?

   L
   • felix 2.1

     4 December 2009 at 11:29 am

     Now I do. lol.
   • Jenny 2.2

     5 December 2009 at 8:02 am

     Nominative Determinism,

     A friend of mine once commented to me, on how coincidental it was that the names of National MPs often represented their political outlook. ie Powers, Rich, Banks, Key, Strange.

     Lew though it may be a coincidence, it may come as no surprise to many, that, as you say the un-elected body appointed by Rodney Hide and the Nats charged with Auckland’s governance have named their consultative group the Super City Advisory Board (SCAB).

     The New Scientist magazine once noted that there is a very high statistical incidence of Dentists called Dennis.

     In articles carried over several issues of New Scientist, N.S, further discovered that this sort of naming coincidence is often reflected in other fields of human endeavour. The writers at N.S. coined the term Nominative Determinism to describe this phenomenon. Their point being that they thought that people’s unconscious preferences often played a role in shaping the choosing of names and professions and vice a versa.

     http://www.consumingexperience.com/2005/02/jobs-reflecting-names-nominative.html

     It makes me wonder whether this phenomonen is at work here.

     http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf108/sf108p14.htm
     • Lew 2.2.1

       5 December 2009 at 10:19 am

       Jenny, I work in a media office and for a while we kept a register of such things, which we called ‘aptonyms’. A few I can think of off the top of my head:

       Jill Ovens, Service & Food Workers’ Union
       Mark Rocket, RocketLab
       Det. Emmett Lynch, Police
       Jan Pryor, Family Researcher
       Michael Hope, FDANZ
       Peter Watt, Electricity Commission
       Tim Rainey, Leaky Building Syndrome lawyer
       Melody Scales, Summer City music festival director

       Etc.

       L
3. Draco T Bastard 3

   4 December 2009 at 2:02 pm

   What Happens Next: A Timeline for Civilizational Collapse

   This civilization was both enabled and required by the discovery of tools (arrowheads, fire, and catastrophic monoculture agriculture) that in turn enabled us to expand outside our natural rainforest habitat, become carnivores, become settlers, eliminate natural predators, and hence expand exponentially our species’ numbers and consumption of resources.

   This allowed us to completely pillage the planet, just as quickly, to the point that we now have nothing left for other species or for future generations, and this has precipitated the sixth great extinction of life on Earth, and the destruction, in the blink of an eye, of an ecological balance that was co-created and sustained collectively by all-life-on-Earth for millions of years.

   Reality isn’t something that can be dodged no matter the technology.
4. Zorr 4

   4 December 2009 at 2:09 pm

   Anyone else get the National mailer touting their “achievements” for 2009? Can’t wait to see someone actually do a parody on this or something because I am too lazy to. Just some of the claims are disgusting and make me retch that people would swallow any of this.
   • Pascal's bookie 4.1

     4 December 2009 at 4:13 pm

     Yeah I got one. Had Finlayson, (I think), on the cover and it helpfully told me that Weta is based in Miramar, which would account for all the cars I suppose. Nice little parliamentary crest tucked away at the bottom too, which added a little class.

     Edit: predictive text on anti-spam word thing: not helpful.
5. prism 5

   4 December 2009 at 2:12 pm

   14.09 Prof Philip McCann has given two lectures this week
   now on Nat Radio with Jim Mora. On NZ joining with Australia. Interesting. NZ Economic Papers has 20,000 words of Prof McCann (spelling?) on matter.
   painful – capcha

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