Open mike 10/01/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, January 10th, 2023 - 31 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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

Step up to the mike …

31 comments on “Open mike 10/01/2023 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Tiger Mountain 1
    10 January 2023 at 7:39 am

    A nice little summary from stuff on generational groups. And it confirms a few observations. My Pākehā son in early 30s has only one or two close euro friends–friend in the real sense–spending time with etc. the rest are Chinese, Korean, Tongan and Māori–went to school in Far North still has the same friends from there.
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/90189060/baby-boomers-v-millennials–what-we-know-about-the-generation-gap

    Generational stereotyping is not majorly helpful because a number of NZ “boomers” do not have multiple properties and are doing it hard. Elder poverty is increasing.
    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/11/charity-says-hungry-and-struggling-elderly-new-zealanders-account-for-80-pct-of-calls.html

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/119609682/poverty-loneliness-behind-high-rates-of-suicide-among-elderly-men

    https://borgenproject.org/elderly-poverty-in-new-zealand/

    One stream from political pundits as boomer numbers lessened was that new gens would not go left, they would somehow just mimic and transfer the class position of their elders.
    Not so sure about that now with “Make it 16” etc.

    • weka 1.1
      10 January 2023 at 9:06 am

      people become more conservative as they age, that's natural. Not necessarily in their voting position, but generally. Consider if you're more or less likely to get on a motorbike at 80 than 18, our bodies matter and they inform our sense of place in the world. People's priorities change as they age. The responsibilities for children or career make people more conservative (cautious and thoughtful) in the decisions they make.

      I've always thought the whole boomer pejorative meme was stupid because everyone ages, and it's not like there's anything inherently selfish about the generation born after the war nor anything inherently altruistic about the generations after Gen X. In fact, I remember seeing Millennials being scathing about Boomers regarding home ownership as completely ignoring their working and under class age peers who would never have been able to own a house anyway and were in increasing poverty. I think the Millennial as selfish meme is stupid as well.

      Every generation ages. Awareness has increased but so has the effect of neoliberalism and the push to the individual ethic. Our best chance is to bring all generations along rather than making up stereotypes about each one.

    • tc 1.2
      10 January 2023 at 9:09 am

      lazy stereotyping from the media is to be expected to work in with their memes.

      Nuance is playing out with each poll as more Gen z's become eligible to vote. Granny, ZB etc are messaging to a reducing audience of angry white privilege IMO which is a common play across the western world.

    • Visubversa 1.3
      10 January 2023 at 11:11 am

      I was at a cousins get together on the weekend. My cousins, their respective partners, their children and their children's partners. About 20 of us. The ethnicities represented were as follows and in no particular order: Pakeha, British, West African, Fiji Indian, Chinese and Japanese. My generation were all varieties of the first two, The wider group on my side contains the above range, plus Dutch and Thai. The same cohort on my partners side includes Chinese and Maori.

      • Patricia Bremner 1.3.1
        10 January 2023 at 2:04 pm

        yes Brilliant.

      • Belladonna 1.3.2
        10 January 2023 at 5:52 pm

        Agree. My son's friendship group has him as the 'token' white (or olive) skinned guy. In no particular order: Mainland Chinese, Indian (Gujarat), Kenyan/Kiwi, Indonesian/Kiwi, Singaporean Chinese, Colombian.
        Shared interests are of much greater importance to this group of teens than ethnicity.

    • Tiger Mountain 2.1
      10 January 2023 at 11:28 am

      Mr Bolsonaro was stabbed in 2018 on the campaign trail…but…it is rather convenient to say the least for some lingering or related effect to be in play right now.

      Dictator Pinochet was cremated at his request to avoid vandalism and his ashes are at Los Boldos, Santo Domingo, Valparaiso, Chile; one of his personal residences. The military would not allow his ashes on their properties and a full state funeral was not held.

      A mild wiki entry describes Jair Bolsonaro well enough, as does his connection with the Trumpers.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jair_Bolsonaro

      • joe90 2.1.1
        10 January 2023 at 12:12 pm

        I've little doubt that more than a few of the far right thugs brought into government by Trump are neck-deep in Brazil's anti-democratic movement.

        "The whole thing smells," said a guest on Steve Bannon's podcast, one day after the first round of voting in the Brazilian election in October last year.

        The race was heading towards a run-off and the final result was not even close to being known. Yet Mr Bannon, as he had been doing for weeks, spread baseless rumours about election fraud.

        Across several episodes of his podcast and in social media posts, he and his guests stoked up allegations of a "stolen election" and shadowy forces. He promoted the hashtag #BrazilianSpring, and continued to encourage opposition even after Mr Bolsonaro himself appeared to accept the results.

        Mr Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, was just one of several key allies of Donald Trump who followed the same strategy used to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 US presidential election.

        https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64206484

        Jason Miller, a former senior adviser to Donald Trump, said he was briefly detained and questioned by Brazilian authorities in the country’s capital on Tuesday.

        https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/07/politics/jason-miller-brazil/index.html

  3. Visubversa 3
    10 January 2023 at 11:16 am

    Now look at our Relationships and Sexuality curriculum in schools in the light of this work.

    From the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine.

    "The highly medicalized approach to managing gender distress in youth, integral to the “gender-affirmative” care model, rests on several key assumptions. Publications promoting “gender affirmation” of youth fail to explicitly call out these assumptions—or misrepresent these problematic assumptions as proven facts."

    https://www.segm.org/false-assumptions-gender-affirmation-minors

  4. joe90 4
    10 January 2023 at 11:19 am

    But Democrats….

    /

    House Republicans are making clear that they intend to seek cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare with their new majority in the 118th Congress.

    Their plans to target health care programs follow demands from a group of conservatives that helped elect House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over the weekend. Those far-right lawmakers have sought across-the-board spending cuts in order to tackle the growing national debt.

    […]

    The Republican Study Committee proposed a budget for fiscal 2023 that would gradually increase the eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare, and change the Social Security benefit formula for people 54 and younger, while not changing it for people closer to receiving benefits.

    https://news.yahoo.com/republicans-signal-cuts-social-security-175927429.html

  5. Jimmy 5
    10 January 2023 at 12:25 pm

    Good follow up article in the NZ Herald regarding MP's pays. I have to agree, I think all our MP's are over paid when compared to other countries around the world. Ridiculous salaries for a country of only 5 million. No wonder they are so out of touch with reality.

    Political Roundup: MPs set for a big post-election pay increase – Bryce Edwards – NZ Herald

    • joe90 5.1
      10 January 2023 at 12:56 pm

      think all our MP's are over paid

      Inadequate remuneration means we end like Nebraska. A plutocracy, where only the wealthy get to govern, on behalf of, and for the wealthy.

      But that's what you want, isn't sport.

      https://northeast.newschannelnebraska.com/story/47961244/the-cost-of-low-pay-the-dollar12000-salary-is-warping-the-nebraska-legislature

      • arkie 5.1.1
        10 January 2023 at 5:59 pm

        There is an argument for a middle position.

        Ardern argued at the time that a politician pay freeze was “the right thing to do”, and she cited the need to make New Zealand a more equitable nation.

        She highlighted that the pay gap between politicians and the public was too great. Similarly, around that time Green MP Chloe Swarbrick said “I think politicians in regard to the rest of society are overpaid and I feel pretty gross about it”.

        Surely there is a compromise position, with MP remuneration tied to the national median income. It could provide a personal incentive for them to work to make that median higher.

    • RosieLee 5.2
      10 January 2023 at 5:46 pm

      And, of course, they all seem to have a few nice little earners on the side.

    • Mac1 5.3
      10 January 2023 at 6:31 pm

      I remember this discussion in the 1980s with Geoffrey Palmer who agreed that MPs need to be paid well to avoid any possibility of bribery due to insufficient salary.

      Another argument of a limited nature thankfully is that an MP need to be compensated for life after Parliament. We locally were represented by a man who firstly had his barn burnt down on the night of the election he lost after two terms, and who was told that he would never be employed locally afterwards. He survived as a very small farmer. So, there are financial risks for some in seeking to be an MP.

    • Anne 6.1
      10 January 2023 at 7:22 pm

      I recall drawing the 'Bola" map. It was in the days before automated computer map drawings. It took me an age to sketch.

      Looking at the current map I don't think this cyclone is as strong as Bola, but time will tell.

      Bola required weeks of military assistance in the form of transport aircraft and boots on the ground.

    • Muttonbird 6.2
      10 January 2023 at 7:45 pm

      The monthly anomaly tab under precipitation is interesting. Purple (+100mm to 150mm) over the upper North Island. Yes, we know it's been wet.

      But red right through the west coast of the South Island (-100mm) so much drier than usual for this time of year.

  7. joe90 7
    10 January 2023 at 8:56 pm

    I guess “pointless” to talk about a new call-up is Moscow's admission that they're going to continue with one of their their cruelest tactics. Throwing bodies at their problems.

    .

    Ukraine’s military intelligence has claimed that Russia is set to order the mobilisation of as many as 500,000 conscripts in January in addition to the 300,000 it called up in October, in another apparent sign that Vladimir Putin has no intention of ending the war.

    Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine’s deputy military intelligence chief, said Ukraine believed the conscripts would be part of a string of Russian offensives over the spring and summer in the east and south of the country.

    Russia has denied it is preparing a second wave of mobilisation, with Putin saying last month it was “pointless” to talk about a new call-up, claiming that only half of those already mobilised had been sent to Ukraine.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/06/russia-preparing-mobilise-extra-500000-conscripts-claims-ukraine

  8. Hunter Thompson II 8
    10 January 2023 at 9:20 pm

    Trying to work out what has happened on E Cape since Bola.

    As I understand it, the Lange government got a tree planting scheme going on the erosion-prone country but after several decades those trees got felled so we are back where we started, with the land slipping into the sea.

    Anyone know?

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 8.1
      10 January 2023 at 9:35 pm

      I have followed some of this. Plant Manuka and Kanuka. (as in what USED to be there ! )

      When marginal land is planted in mānuka and kānuka, the number of pests such as rabbits, possums and wallabies also tends to decrease, benefitting the surrounding area as a result.
      They grow very fast and develop deep, flexible root systems that bind unstable soil together. This helps to prevent erosion around waterways and hills. Land that has been planted in mānuka and kānuka is more resistant to being damaged by severe weather events. When Cyclone Bola hit New Zealand in 1988, areas planted in mānuka and kānuka suffered much less damage:

      https://manukaessentials.com/pages/manuka-regenerates-native-forests

      There is quite a bit more Info on google…(incl a lot of PDF's..)

      • DB Brown 8.1.1
        10 January 2023 at 9:55 pm

        Manuka is also a prolific host of both endo- and ecto-mycorrhizal fungi. In this manner they pioneer a complexity of ecosystems unlike many other pioneering plants that may host only one of two major mycorrhizal groupings.

        Truly a border species between pasture and forest, unique, promiscuous, beautiful.

        • weston 8.1.1.1
          10 January 2023 at 10:05 pm

          And not called ' mother of the forest ' for nothing

        • PsyclingLeft.Always 8.1.1.2
          10 January 2023 at 10:26 pm

          I looked that up…and an amazingly awesome Plant Is Manuka !

          Is this some of what it helps?

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectomycorrhiza#Restoration

          And also the Manuka honey..tasty AND Medicinal : )

          • DB Brown 8.1.1.2.1
            11 January 2023 at 12:14 am

            Soil detox is a complex beast. The endo and ecto mycorrhizae can both be involved according to substrate as well as saprobes and likely other fungi e.g. trichoderma, bacteria e.g. bacillus spp. and fungal like organisms e.g. oomycetes.

            Ecosystem restoration and soil detox go hand in hand in that they can both be forwarded with knowledgeable application/steering of microbial life. But one is a reversing of a lack of vegetation (and accompanying microbial life), the other a reversing of injurious applications as a removal/reduction of toxic substances.

            Manuka bridge microbial communities. The microbial communities do all the detox.

            • PsyclingLeft.Always 8.1.1.2.1.1
              13 January 2023 at 7:56 am

              Hi DB Brown.Gotta say..reading, you definitely know your Science stuff !

              And from what Ive read over quite a while..using your Practical Application of same for making improvements and better for your (and our) Environment : )

              I sometimes wonder why..similar people I know…arent actually in charge of making the differences ?..that IMO would be not too hard. These differences that would actually change how "we" (actually, we already know) see our interaction with our home planet..Earth.

              Anyway…I seen this on news : forest slash….and flood damage

              "All that can be done, has been done," he said.

              https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/482272/tairawhiti-flooding-our-whole-property-was-underwater-damage-after-logs-block-river

              IMO think his statement ..is BS. The situation is just the same year after year.. maybe, just maybe not leave the flood causing slash? And intensive urgent planting Manuka/Kanuka on slip/flood areas?

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.