But in the 1970s, a professor of Psychology in Vancouver called Bruce Alexander noticed something odd about this experiment. The rat is put in the cage all alone. It has nothing to do but take the drugs. What would happen, he wondered, if we tried this differently? So Professor Alexander built Rat Park. It is a lush cage where the rats would have colored balls and the best rat-food and tunnels to scamper down and plenty of friends: everything a rat about town could want. What, Alexander wanted to know, will happen then?
In Rat Park, all the rats obviously tried both water bottles, because they didn’t know what was in them. But what happened next was startling.
The rats with good lives didn’t like the drugged water. They mostly shunned it, consuming less than a quarter of the drugs the isolated rats used. None of them died. While all the rats who were alone and unhappy became heavy users, none of the rats who had a happy environment did.
In the video he says (paraphrased): Something has gone wrong with us, as a society/group.
And he’s right. That which has gone wrong is capitalism and it’s attack on community and society itself. Thatcher and the neo-liberals say that there is no society because they understand that a society hanging together can’t be abused the way that a bunch of individuals cut off from their friends and neighbours can be.
I wanted to get the first comment / announcement in (since I intend to be asleep in the morning!) and it wouldn’t let me unless the post was published. (Lynn – think we used to be able to comment on a post in the queue?).
Something has gone wrong with us, as a society/group.
And he’s right. That which has gone wrong is capitalism…
This is why pre-capitalist western societies had no experience of drug abuse and addiction, right? And also why “really-existing socialism” societies never had the problem?
The clue is in understanding why different strata and classes of society today might have widely differing levels of response to addictive drugs and the prevalence of drug abuse.
Although I will say that capitalism + criminalism has made the drug trade into a huge trans-national trade worth the GDP of entire countries, and that major powers like the Americans (and the CIA) have supported that.
Western societies have always been capitalist right back to Sumer. Very little is known before then due to the lack of written records. It was out of Ancient Sumer that bans on usury and 7 year jubilees came.
Other societies that weren’t capitalist don’t seem to have the same problem with drugs as we do.
And also why “really-existing socialism” societies never had the problem?
Of course they had the same problem – they were still capitalist.
The societies without a drug problem are the ones that tended more to the communist state where people were looked after and had connections to those around them. All those things that the capitalist state removes as it concentrates on competition amongst people as it drives for ever higher profits.
Loving the earlyness of this Open Mike, catering to the overseas listeners. Also allows for ridiculous comments to be made and not be read for many hours.
Another day another broken promise to the good people of Christchurch.
Last year the Government and Christchurch Council signed the Christchurch Housing accord under which the Government promised to “establish a $75 million Christchurch Housing Accord Fund to develop these and other suitable sites that may be identified in future.”
But the money has been taken away by Smith and transferred to Auckland. From Stuff this morning:
“The Government has diverted $52 million of funding meant to help Christchurch’s housing problem to Auckland.
As part of the Christchurch Housing Accord, signed between the Government and the Christchurch City Council in September, the Crown agreed to invest $75m to construct 180 new homes on two council-owned sites in Sydenham.
The new Sydenham homes were expected to provide temporary accommodation for residents getting their earthquake-damaged homes fixed and would later be sold as affordable homes on the open market.
Treasury documents released to Christchurch East MP and Labour associate housing spokesperson Poto Williams this week show $52.2m of the $75m promised will instead be spent on housing in Auckland.
Williams said the re-allocation was outrageous and neglected Christchurch’s dire housing issues.
“It’s basically saying ‘we think the Auckland situation is so bad, we need to focus on that and everyone else can shoulder the costs’.””
The terms of the accord are perfectly clear. I wonder if the Council was consulted.
So BIg Pharma is using the TPPA to
1. bypass the necessity of having to contest US regulations
2. inflict their desired regulation changes on the rest of the TPPA members.
Bloomberg) — “The Obama administration is caught in a trap as it tries to bring home a trade deal with its Pacific Rim partners. Some of the chief beneficiaries may be big drug companies like Novartis AG, Roche Holding AG, and Pfizer Inc. while the losers could be consumers in both the U.S. and the region.
The administration says it’s bound by congressionally imposed instructions to try to get as much current U.S. law as possible into trade accords — including stringent protections for patented drugs that it’s repeatedly tried to ease at home to encourage more cost-saving generics.
The disconnect has put U.S. negotiators in the position of pushing provisions in the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership that would preclude the administration from making further attempts to win the legal changes.
It also has negotiators pressing the region’s developing countries to sign onto a schedule for adopting the stronger rules, reversing previous exemptions to allow them easier access to cheap medicines.
Even though U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman says the talks are “in a closing mode,” American proposals for tough intellectual-property protections for drugs are meeting resistance from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other Pacific Rim nations. Chile’s foreign minister, for one, has said flatly that his country won’t accept some key provisions.”
Article about how the government is using accounting tricks to screw the Christchurch recovery (hence why the progress has been so slow) while performing a smoke-and-mirrors deception so they can still claim their 2014-2015 surplus.
I’m going to quote quite a few bits as I think it is a very interesting article and I recommend anyone who is interested in this government’s pitiful management of the economy should read it to get a glimpse at what they’re really up to.
However, what matters for the earthquake recovery is that it has left the Government permanently short of ready cash because every dollar spent is going to hammer that year’s surplus target.
Preston believes this is why he can see all sorts of accounting games being played when he looks at the Crown books.
Yet while the Government is being careful with its own money, Christchurch City Council (CCC) and Christchurch ratepayers are being pressed to spend every cent that can be scraped up on the recovery. Rates are being pushed to unheard of levels. Council debt is being stretched to its legal limit. The pressure is on to sell off the port, the airport, and every other asset the city owns. CCC finance spokesman Cr Raf Manji broadly agrees with Preston’s analysis, saying the council’s recovery spending will be around $6.5b in the end – but off a tiny revenue basis compared to the Crown.
So Manji says there is the impression being given of open-handed support for Christchurch, yet people can also see the puzzling slow-down of some of the anchor projects, the silence over what will happen to the residential red zone, and the likelihood of the city now being left with an expensive legacy of half mended roads and long-term land drainage problems.
Again the Government’s headline number, the one it always likes to quote, is that it is making a $16.5b investment in the Canterbury recovery. Yet the first thing to knock off that is the $8b which is simply EQC cash.
…
Preston says he finds it a bit much to count the natural disaster fund as a Crown contribution – especially as there is no word on how that particular pot is going to be refilled to pay for future earthquakes. And then scrutiny of EQC’s accounts reveals the $2b shortfall figure has been steadily shrinking.
Due to various savings being found – and he notes that the first line of the Minister’s letter of expectations to EQC states: “Returning to surplus in 2014-2015 is a key priority for the Government.” – the $2b has become $1b and now sits at around $500m.
So once a repair alliance, the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (Scirt), was formed, it simply started mending every damaged pipe and street it came across.
But by late 2012, it was realised the bill was likely to be double the early estimates. The damage was always worse once the ground was dug. So the Government changed the rules.
Scirt was told to recost the repairs based on what it would take to get the infrastructure back to an average pre-quake level of service, not what it would require to fix completely. Brownlee said Christchurch shouldn’t expect the Government to pay for betterment.
This allowed the Government to cap its infrastructure contribution at $1.8b – a sharp reduction on the $2.3b CCC had been expecting.
Preston says what also catches his accountant’s eye is the way the Government used the cost share to capitalise as much of the Blueprint spending as possible.
That is, projects were treated not as operating expenditure – cash spending that would affect that year’s surplus calculation – but instead as a capital investment, something that was being bought by the state to produce an eventual financial return.
Once capitalised like this, the provision could be entered in a different column – rolled into the general national debt, the $80b of borrowings, to which no one was paying much attention.
As an accounting trick, Preston says the corporate world does this all the time. An expense becomes an asset. But it has consequences. It builds in assumptions that later have to be realised.
Take the $400m the Government has spent on compulsorily acquiring land for the anchor projects. That is money going out the door in any particular year. But because the land has been booked as a capital asset, it doesn’t come off the surplus figure. Rather it is something new the Crown owns as a positive investment.
Of course the expense will have to be reconciled one day when the anchor project actually gets built. If the Crown simply gives an anchor to the city as a gift – as people seemed to be getting the impression would be the case with the metro sports facility, the convention centre, the green frame – then suddenly that land investment will have zero value. Its purchase price has to be recognised as a cash out-going.
Or even if the Government has to acknowledge a write-down of the booked land value – as it very well might with the East Frame being sold now for apartment blocks having been bought originally at commercial building land prices – then again, ouch, a direct hit on the budget surplus column.
Preston says this is where some of the delays and secrecy that surround the anchor projects start to make more sense. The cost share shuffled a large chunk of the promised core Crown spend – he calculates $3.6b of the $8b non-EQC money – safely out of the surplus spotlight. The question is then when can the Government afford to take the hits involved in parking the expense?
For instance, it was an open secret that Fletcher Living had won the East Frame tender earlier this year. However the official announcement was bafflingly delayed until just the other week – a few days after the June 30 close of the 2014/2015 financial year.
Preston says tally it up and this is why there feels to be such a distance between the spending promises and the spending reality.
First that headline $16.5b contribution figure has to halved because $8b of it is EQC insurance money. Take out the red zone and AMI bailout and that gives you the $6.7b core Crown spend. Then because cash is precious, there are the capitalisation tricks to park the costs and his figure of $2b for actual operating spending up to 2014, the last available audited year.
Dividing up the $2b, Preston says it amounts to $571m for sewers and drains, $293m for roads, $397m for Blueprint land, $393m for schools, hospitals, law courts and other Crown buildings, $220m for the business support package, plus a collection of sundry amounts like $28m for the AMI temporary rugby stadium.
So certainly not nothing, Preston concedes. But is it actually that generous in light of what the Government will have been earning in taxes on a largely insurance-fuelled rebuild? And has it been travelling with the handbrake on for the past few years because there has always been that election surplus goal hovering in the background?
How would we know though if Treasury is ever likely to attain this elusive tax goal? It is something I don’t think they will, especially if the current economic crises overseas and our not so rock star economy combine to form a super crisis.
Another finely polished piece of trash from limping career politician Nick Smith.
Blame Labour for commenting on the high percentage of 40% Chinese names in the list of buyers of Auckland property. That is racist. Pointing out trends and facts must be discouraged by Notional. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/278491/labour-accused-of-playing-race-card
And an opportunity for Notional to strike a home run on a number of concerns – poor housing, lack of employment, bad health from overcrowding and/or unsuitable whares for the peeps. They could embark on a holy war on cold, damp, illness producing housing but they actually don’t want to do anything for the poor in the houses. Because they are going to shovel them off in Richard Prebble style (as in our railways).
He said he was so eager to get shot of railways that he would have given the system away. Now the gift in pass the parcel is state housing, rather dilapidated, like NZs standards for people’s lifestyle.
Nick Smith is the Minister, but he can’t alter very tight specifications required for rented houses, like having more than one electricity outlet in a room. Why can’t he divide the list of wants into two? One of needs, for immediate or sooner attention, and one for later to improve standards to those now considered basic for the 21st century?
Radionz reported – A survey of 400 Housing New Zealand homes carried out in April 2014 found only 4 percent passed the WOF with flying colours, while 80 percent needed urgent or high priority repairs...
The homes were checked against 49 criteria developed by an expert advisory panel, Housing New Zealand and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment….
But the papers show 29 percent were not properly insulated, 28 percent were not safe or secure and 42 percent did not have the essential amenities like a working kitchen or bathroom sink….
Just under half (48 percent) of the homes needed urgent repairs – which is work required within two days or the tenants would have to move out. A further
32 percent needed high priority repairs done within 10 days…
The study estimated it would cost $230,492 to bring all the properties in the trial up to the WOF standard. Applying that across Housing New Zealand’s 60,000 homes, the repair bill swells to $34.5 million.
Nick Smith’s reply fudged the issues in his characteristic way. Dr Smith said…the scheme was not feasible.
“Other issues like window stays, glass visibility safety strips and hot water temperature are best improved by education.”
Dr Smith said the cost of regular inspections was also too high and many criteria were already covered by existing regulation.
He said most state homes were in better condition than their private sector counterparts. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/278493/cost-of-rental-wofs-too-high-for-govt
Katherine Mansfield: Pissing people off since October 14, 1922.
Or so I thought.
(tl;dr – don’t worry, most of the writing below is not my opinion)
Do you like quotes? The kind you’ll find in the opening pages of books, or now more commonly, attached to motivational posters: out-of-context, edited, sometimes even misrepresented? It’s a travesty. On the first pages of Helen Brown’s book*, “In Deep: Tales from Over the horizon” (1996) there is a quote:
“Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.”
Those words have been plucked from Katherine Mansfield’s Journal, an entry dated 14 October, 1922. Even though I tried to forget those words while I read about Helen and the people and places she visited, they pissed me off. Trite. The quote sounded trite. I hate having to read books to know what the book I’m reading it talking about; and waiting for books to arrive is like waiting the final 5 seconds for the microwave to heat a cup of instant coffee. I don’t have all second! Ping!
They sound quite authoritative, those words of Katherine’s, don’t they?
A directive from beyond what is now the grave, which you could imagine – if you didn’t know – are being made from some hotel room balcony on the Riviera, before see threw herself once more into another adventure of travel and thrills. As they are, they’re cold, dismissive, forcefully pushing you away to your own ends, practically masculine in outlook; or as vapid, elevated and distant as who we think collectively she might have been as an historical heroine.
Your self-assured Uncle might tell you something similar – that nothing that is not difficult is worth the effort, to face your fear – when you say, perhaps during a rare family dinner together, that you can’t decide which subject to major in at school. Or perhaps, if you’re about to write a book that reveals who you are to an audience you’ve never met, people who will judge you in ways you can’t control, and you know where your skeletons are and want to avoid them, it could be just the push you need as you close your eyes and take the metaphorical leap.
But Katherine Mansfield was a real person in her own right, complex and nuanced, just like you or me.
She once said, assertively and conclusively, that she was a writer first – and a woman second. Her journal is full of quotable claims. Life isn’t one line of words though, is it. Quotes can help you up, or point the way, but put them back into context and you’ll discover what was really being said. You see what the “hardest thing on Earth” really was, not for you, but for her. Is it right to appropriate her words as metaphors only? Want to know what we missed along with the context? Sweet Jesus, only the whole world as she saw it, as a woman and a writer, at the moment she felt she might depart!
If you’ve ever kept a journal of sorts, full of your thoughts, dreams or ideas, or just a plain diary of what you did each day… which milk you bought, who smiled at you on the train… you’ll begin to see patterns. Ideas and flashes of themes appear first as words and phrases and then later as central elements all of their own.
On September 30th, 1922, Katherine Mansfield’s journal said:
“‘Do you know what individuality is?’
‘No.’
‘Consciousness of will. To be conscious that you have a will and can act.’
Yes, it is. It’s a glorious saying.’”
This isolated thought shared with herself was the result of a discussion she had with an English social thinker and then Editor of The New Age, Alfred Orage, a month before.
People, she said, give up being complete people after their youth. They give up on themselves, lock away the passion and enforce their will on life, take control of anything and everything and “become adults”; swapping their hearts and imagination for smaller, fragmented, lesser wishes. Her view of New Zealand society was… unflattering… to say the least.
She was quite ill by then, separated from her lover while she sought remedies. Her comments on individuality would soon become a candid and beautiful piece of writing.
(Below is the complete context of her Journal entry.)
“October 14 Orage goes to Paris.
October 14 I have been thinking this morning until it seems I may get things straightened out if I try to write…. where I am.
Ever since I came to Paris I have been as ill as ever. In fact, yesterday I thought I was dying. It is not my imagination. My heart is so exhausted and so tied up that I can only walk to the taxi and back. I get up at midi and go to bed at 5:30. I try to ‘work’ by fits and starts, but the time has gone by. I cannot work. Ever since April I have done practically nothing. But why? Because, although Manoukhin’s treatment improved my blood and made me look well and did have a good effect on my lungs, it made my heart not one scrap better, and I only won that improvement by living the life of a corpse in the Victoria Palace Hotel.
My spirit is nearly dead. My spring of life is so starved that it’s just not dry. Nearly all my improved health is pretence –acting. What does it amount to? Can I walk? Only creep. Can I do anything with my hands or body? Nothing at all. I am an absolutely hopeless invalid. What is my life? It is the existence of a parasite. And five years have passed now, and I am in straiter bonds than ever.
Ah, I feel a little calmer already to be writing. Thank God for writing! I am so terrified of what I am going to do. All the voices out of the ‘Past’ say ‘Don’t do it’. Bogey says ‘M. is a scientist. He does his part. It’s up to you to do yours.’ But that is no good at all. I can no more cure my psyche than my body. Less it seems to me. Isn’t Bogey himself, perfectly fresh and well, utterly depressed by boils on his neck? Think of five years’ imprisonment. Someone has got to help me get out. If that is a confession of weakness –it is. But it’s only lack of imagination that calls it so. And who is going to help me? Remember Switzerland: ‘I am helpless.’ Of course, he is. One prisoner cannot help another. Do I believe in medicine alone? No never. It seems to me childish and ridiculous to suppose one can be cured like a cow if one is not a cow. And here, all these years, I have been looking for someone who agreed with me. I have heard of Gurdjieff who seems not only to agree but to know infinitely more about it.
Why hesitate?
Fear. Fear of what? Doesn’t it come down to fear of losing Bogey? I believe it does. But, good heavens! Face things. What have you of him now? What is your relationship? He talks to you – sometimes – and then goes off. He thinks of you tenderly. He dreams of a life with you some day when the miracle has happened. You are important to him as a dream. Not as a living reality. For you are not one. What do you share? Almost nothing. Yet there is a deep, sweet, tender flooding of feeling in my heart which is love for him and longing for him. But what is the good of it as things stand? Life together, with me ill, is simply torture with happy moments. But it’s not life. I have tried through my illness (with one or two disastrous exceptions) to prevent him facing wholly what was happening. I ought to have tried to get him to face them. But I couldn’t. The result is he doesn’t know me. He only knows Wig-who-is-going-to-be-better-some-day. No. You do know that Bogey and you are only a kind of dream of what might be. And that might-be never never can be true unless you are well. And you won’t get well by ‘imagining’ or ‘waiting’ or trying to bring off that miracle yourself.
Therefore if the Grand Lama of Thibet promised to help you –how can you hesitate? Risk! Risk anything! Care not for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.
True, Tchehov didn’t. Yes, but Tchehov died. And let us be honest. How much do we know of Tchehov from his letters? Was that all? Of course not. Don’t you suppose he had a whole longing life of which there is hardly a word? Then read the final letters. He has given up hope. If you de-sentimentalize those final letters they are terrible. There is no more Tchehov. Illness has swallowed him.
But perhaps to people who are not ill, all this is nonsense. They have never travelled this road. How can they see where I am? All the more reason to go boldly forward alone. Life is not simple. In spite of all we say about the mystery of Life, when we get down to it, we want to treat it as though it were a child’s tale…
Now, Katherine, what do you mean by health? And what do you want it for?
Answer: By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love –the earth and the wonders thereof – the sea – the sun. All that we mean when we speak of the external world. I want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious, direct human being. I want by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it’s no good –there’s only one phrase that will do) a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light and so on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be that. A child of the sun.
Then I want to work. At what? I want to live so that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I want to be writing. (Though I may write about cabmen. That’s no matter).
But warm, eager, living life –to be rooted in life – to learn, to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.
I wrote this for myself. I shall now risk sending it to Bogey. He may do with it what he likes. He must see how much I love him.
And when I say ‘I fear’ –don’t let that disturb you, dearest heart. We all fear when we are in waiting-rooms. Yet we must pass beyond them, and if the other can keep calm, it is all the help we can give each other.
Suppose, if this worries you, you show it to Dunning? I trust Dunning in spite of my thinking he did not really solve your problem. Let him see that, too. He will understand.
And this all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it’s no longer so. I feel happy –deep down. May you be happy too.
I’m going to Fontainebleau on Monday and I’ll be back here Tuesday night of Wednesday morning. All is well.
Doctor Young, the London man who has joined Gudjieff, came to see me to-day and told me about the life there. It sounds wonderfully good and simple and what one needs.
It won’t fit on a motivational poster, but why would you try? Katherine Mansfield died 10:30pm, January 9, 1923.
There was also a story in the Herald a couple of weeks ago about people living in cars. In both cases the media are good at presenting it as a lifestyle choice and not a fundamental societal issue that people literally do not have a home to go to.
It’s deeply disturbing how our MSM and much of the middle class like to frame homelessness as a “choice”. And it’s disturbing that they appear to actually believe it is!
They ignore that the rate of homelessness is a direct function of the wider economy. As is unemployment. When the economy does well… employment increases, unemployment decreases, homelessness decreases. When the economy is not doing well unemployment and homelessness increase. The relationship is constant and direct. It seems amazingly obvious and simple to me….
To reduce it to an issue of individual choice is convenient because then no one has to do anything about it. And particularly the government. They then don’t have to create an economic environment that creates enough jobs for citizens and enough housing for everyone.
Homelessness is pretty simple. People are homeless because they have no home!
There was an experiment done in London where they gave money to homeless people with zero strings attached. It actually worked, it reduced homelessness and was actually cheaper than the targeted interventions which are the norm.
Now, it was a small experiment. But the results are good enough for wider experiments to be done.
Some reading there Charles. She died of tuberculosis and I thought of George Orwell, Chekhov too, and did some reading on it. It was quite fashionable to die of it apparently! Such great thinkers, such a loss especially when Katherine was trying to plan for a new life and she was only 35 years, George Orwell 46 years.
But among the poor it wasn’t so elevated. And I’m thinking that NZ is developing the conditions for an outbreak of further illnesses of the 19th and 20th centuries from neglect by leaders of decent conditions similar to the circumstances referred to in the Wikipedia reports. .
White Plague
The tuberculosis epidemic in Europe, which probably started in the 17th century and which lasted two hundred years, was known as the Great White Plague. Death by tuberculosis was considered inevitable, and it was the principal cause of death in 1650.
The high population density, as well as the poor sanitary conditions that characterized most European and North American cities, created a perfect environment for its propagation….
In large cities the poor had high rates of tuberculosis. Public-health physicians and politicians typically blamed both the poor themselves and their ramshackle tenement houses (conventillos) for the spread of the dreaded disease.
eople ignored public-health campaigns to limit the spread of contagious diseases, such as the prohibition of spitting on the streets, the strict guidelines to care for infants and young children, and quarantines that separated families from ill loved ones.[55] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tuberculosis
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About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
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The Nation are teasing a big story for this morning…
https://twitter.com/TheNationTV3/status/619396131110281216
I don’t watch TV3 anymore. It has taught me to wait the additional minute before it is posted elsewhere.
Really? Open Mike at this time of night?
Oh well, I can work with that.
TED Talk: Everything you know about addiction is wrong
Huff Post article:
In the video he says (paraphrased): Something has gone wrong with us, as a society/group.
And he’s right. That which has gone wrong is capitalism and it’s attack on community and society itself. Thatcher and the neo-liberals say that there is no society because they understand that a society hanging together can’t be abused the way that a bunch of individuals cut off from their friends and neighbours can be.
Really? Open Mike at this time of night?
I wanted to get the first comment / announcement in (since I intend to be asleep in the morning!) and it wouldn’t let me unless the post was published. (Lynn – think we used to be able to comment on a post in the queue?).
+1 Draco
Yeah I am sure we did as well…. I’ll have a look when I have some time.
You can do it by publishing private, commenting, and then put it back into scheduled.
BTW: How did the install go?
I wouldn’t believe Johann Hari if he told me the sky was blue.
Rat….cage…isn’t that most of society nowdays?
Something has gone wrong with us, as a society/group.
And he’s right. That which has gone wrong is capitalism…
This is why pre-capitalist western societies had no experience of drug abuse and addiction, right? And also why “really-existing socialism” societies never had the problem?
Partly irrelevant.
The clue is in understanding why different strata and classes of society today might have widely differing levels of response to addictive drugs and the prevalence of drug abuse.
Although I will say that capitalism + criminalism has made the drug trade into a huge trans-national trade worth the GDP of entire countries, and that major powers like the Americans (and the CIA) have supported that.
Western societies have always been capitalist right back to Sumer. Very little is known before then due to the lack of written records. It was out of Ancient Sumer that bans on usury and 7 year jubilees came.
Other societies that weren’t capitalist don’t seem to have the same problem with drugs as we do.
Of course they had the same problem – they were still capitalist.
The societies without a drug problem are the ones that tended more to the communist state where people were looked after and had connections to those around them. All those things that the capitalist state removes as it concentrates on competition amongst people as it drives for ever higher profits.
Loving the earlyness of this Open Mike, catering to the overseas listeners. Also allows for ridiculous comments to be made and not be read for many hours.
not be read or moderated lol
What makes you think we’re not reading? Mwhaaa ha ha!
Well who would have thunk it aye……?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11478719
Especially since that nice Mr Key and numbers of the real estate chappies and chapettes all coining it hard have pooh-poohed the idea.
Then there’s this –
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11478720
“FO !” comes to mind. How many sweatshops need I own to entitle me to say what Mr Foreign Investor says ?
Another day another broken promise to the good people of Christchurch.
Last year the Government and Christchurch Council signed the Christchurch Housing accord under which the Government promised to “establish a $75 million Christchurch Housing Accord Fund to develop these and other suitable sites that may be identified in future.”
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/Christchurch_Housing_Accord.pdf
But the money has been taken away by Smith and transferred to Auckland. From Stuff this morning:
“The Government has diverted $52 million of funding meant to help Christchurch’s housing problem to Auckland.
As part of the Christchurch Housing Accord, signed between the Government and the Christchurch City Council in September, the Crown agreed to invest $75m to construct 180 new homes on two council-owned sites in Sydenham.
The new Sydenham homes were expected to provide temporary accommodation for residents getting their earthquake-damaged homes fixed and would later be sold as affordable homes on the open market.
Treasury documents released to Christchurch East MP and Labour associate housing spokesperson Poto Williams this week show $52.2m of the $75m promised will instead be spent on housing in Auckland.
Williams said the re-allocation was outrageous and neglected Christchurch’s dire housing issues.
“It’s basically saying ‘we think the Auckland situation is so bad, we need to focus on that and everyone else can shoulder the costs’.””
The terms of the accord are perfectly clear. I wonder if the Council was consulted.
So BIg Pharma is using the TPPA to
1. bypass the necessity of having to contest US regulations
2. inflict their desired regulation changes on the rest of the TPPA members.
Bloomberg) — “The Obama administration is caught in a trap as it tries to bring home a trade deal with its Pacific Rim partners. Some of the chief beneficiaries may be big drug companies like Novartis AG, Roche Holding AG, and Pfizer Inc. while the losers could be consumers in both the U.S. and the region.
The administration says it’s bound by congressionally imposed instructions to try to get as much current U.S. law as possible into trade accords — including stringent protections for patented drugs that it’s repeatedly tried to ease at home to encourage more cost-saving generics.
The disconnect has put U.S. negotiators in the position of pushing provisions in the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership that would preclude the administration from making further attempts to win the legal changes.
It also has negotiators pressing the region’s developing countries to sign onto a schedule for adopting the stronger rules, reversing previous exemptions to allow them easier access to cheap medicines.
Even though U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman says the talks are “in a closing mode,” American proposals for tough intellectual-property protections for drugs are meeting resistance from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other Pacific Rim nations. Chile’s foreign minister, for one, has said flatly that his country won’t accept some key provisions.”
http://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-NR4G50SYF01S01-00OGFB8ACUR6JDP696G4VA0G8N
Article about how the government is using accounting tricks to screw the Christchurch recovery (hence why the progress has been so slow) while performing a smoke-and-mirrors deception so they can still claim their 2014-2015 surplus.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/business/the-rebuild/70084887/how-much-is-the-government-really-spending-to-fix-christchurch
I’m going to quote quite a few bits as I think it is a very interesting article and I recommend anyone who is interested in this government’s pitiful management of the economy should read it to get a glimpse at what they’re really up to.
How would we know though if Treasury is ever likely to attain this elusive tax goal? It is something I don’t think they will, especially if the current economic crises overseas and our not so rock star economy combine to form a super crisis.
Can Fonterra representatives see the TPPA text?
If not – how can they be sure that Minister of Trade Tim Groser is acting in the best interests of the NZ dairy industry?
Penny Bright
Another finely polished piece of trash from limping career politician Nick Smith.
Blame Labour for commenting on the high percentage of 40% Chinese names in the list of buyers of Auckland property. That is racist. Pointing out trends and facts must be discouraged by Notional.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/278491/labour-accused-of-playing-race-card
And an opportunity for Notional to strike a home run on a number of concerns – poor housing, lack of employment, bad health from overcrowding and/or unsuitable whares for the peeps. They could embark on a holy war on cold, damp, illness producing housing but they actually don’t want to do anything for the poor in the houses. Because they are going to shovel them off in Richard Prebble style (as in our railways).
He said he was so eager to get shot of railways that he would have given the system away. Now the gift in pass the parcel is state housing, rather dilapidated, like NZs standards for people’s lifestyle.
Nick Smith is the Minister, but he can’t alter very tight specifications required for rented houses, like having more than one electricity outlet in a room. Why can’t he divide the list of wants into two? One of needs, for immediate or sooner attention, and one for later to improve standards to those now considered basic for the 21st century?
Radionz reported – A survey of 400 Housing New Zealand homes carried out in April 2014 found only 4 percent passed the WOF with flying colours, while 80 percent needed urgent or high priority repairs...
The homes were checked against 49 criteria developed by an expert advisory panel, Housing New Zealand and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment….
But the papers show 29 percent were not properly insulated, 28 percent were not safe or secure and 42 percent did not have the essential amenities like a working kitchen or bathroom sink….
Just under half (48 percent) of the homes needed urgent repairs – which is work required within two days or the tenants would have to move out. A further
32 percent needed high priority repairs done within 10 days…
The study estimated it would cost $230,492 to bring all the properties in the trial up to the WOF standard. Applying that across Housing New Zealand’s 60,000 homes, the repair bill swells to $34.5 million.
Nick Smith’s reply fudged the issues in his characteristic way.
Dr Smith said…the scheme was not feasible.
“Other issues like window stays, glass visibility safety strips and hot water temperature are best improved by education.”
Dr Smith said the cost of regular inspections was also too high and many criteria were already covered by existing regulation.
He said most state homes were in better condition than their private sector counterparts.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/278493/cost-of-rental-wofs-too-high-for-govt
This government works for Wall Street, not its people.
Katherine Mansfield: Pissing people off since October 14, 1922.
Or so I thought.
(tl;dr – don’t worry, most of the writing below is not my opinion)
Do you like quotes? The kind you’ll find in the opening pages of books, or now more commonly, attached to motivational posters: out-of-context, edited, sometimes even misrepresented? It’s a travesty. On the first pages of Helen Brown’s book*, “In Deep: Tales from Over the horizon” (1996) there is a quote:
“Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.”
Those words have been plucked from Katherine Mansfield’s Journal, an entry dated 14 October, 1922. Even though I tried to forget those words while I read about Helen and the people and places she visited, they pissed me off. Trite. The quote sounded trite. I hate having to read books to know what the book I’m reading it talking about; and waiting for books to arrive is like waiting the final 5 seconds for the microwave to heat a cup of instant coffee. I don’t have all second! Ping!
They sound quite authoritative, those words of Katherine’s, don’t they?
A directive from beyond what is now the grave, which you could imagine – if you didn’t know – are being made from some hotel room balcony on the Riviera, before see threw herself once more into another adventure of travel and thrills. As they are, they’re cold, dismissive, forcefully pushing you away to your own ends, practically masculine in outlook; or as vapid, elevated and distant as who we think collectively she might have been as an historical heroine.
Your self-assured Uncle might tell you something similar – that nothing that is not difficult is worth the effort, to face your fear – when you say, perhaps during a rare family dinner together, that you can’t decide which subject to major in at school. Or perhaps, if you’re about to write a book that reveals who you are to an audience you’ve never met, people who will judge you in ways you can’t control, and you know where your skeletons are and want to avoid them, it could be just the push you need as you close your eyes and take the metaphorical leap.
But Katherine Mansfield was a real person in her own right, complex and nuanced, just like you or me.
She once said, assertively and conclusively, that she was a writer first – and a woman second. Her journal is full of quotable claims. Life isn’t one line of words though, is it. Quotes can help you up, or point the way, but put them back into context and you’ll discover what was really being said. You see what the “hardest thing on Earth” really was, not for you, but for her. Is it right to appropriate her words as metaphors only? Want to know what we missed along with the context? Sweet Jesus, only the whole world as she saw it, as a woman and a writer, at the moment she felt she might depart!
If you’ve ever kept a journal of sorts, full of your thoughts, dreams or ideas, or just a plain diary of what you did each day… which milk you bought, who smiled at you on the train… you’ll begin to see patterns. Ideas and flashes of themes appear first as words and phrases and then later as central elements all of their own.
On September 30th, 1922, Katherine Mansfield’s journal said:
“‘Do you know what individuality is?’
‘No.’
‘Consciousness of will. To be conscious that you have a will and can act.’
Yes, it is. It’s a glorious saying.’”
This isolated thought shared with herself was the result of a discussion she had with an English social thinker and then Editor of The New Age, Alfred Orage, a month before.
People, she said, give up being complete people after their youth. They give up on themselves, lock away the passion and enforce their will on life, take control of anything and everything and “become adults”; swapping their hearts and imagination for smaller, fragmented, lesser wishes. Her view of New Zealand society was… unflattering… to say the least.
She was quite ill by then, separated from her lover while she sought remedies. Her comments on individuality would soon become a candid and beautiful piece of writing.
(Below is the complete context of her Journal entry.)
“October 14 Orage goes to Paris.
October 14 I have been thinking this morning until it seems I may get things straightened out if I try to write…. where I am.
Ever since I came to Paris I have been as ill as ever. In fact, yesterday I thought I was dying. It is not my imagination. My heart is so exhausted and so tied up that I can only walk to the taxi and back. I get up at midi and go to bed at 5:30. I try to ‘work’ by fits and starts, but the time has gone by. I cannot work. Ever since April I have done practically nothing. But why? Because, although Manoukhin’s treatment improved my blood and made me look well and did have a good effect on my lungs, it made my heart not one scrap better, and I only won that improvement by living the life of a corpse in the Victoria Palace Hotel.
My spirit is nearly dead. My spring of life is so starved that it’s just not dry. Nearly all my improved health is pretence –acting. What does it amount to? Can I walk? Only creep. Can I do anything with my hands or body? Nothing at all. I am an absolutely hopeless invalid. What is my life? It is the existence of a parasite. And five years have passed now, and I am in straiter bonds than ever.
Ah, I feel a little calmer already to be writing. Thank God for writing! I am so terrified of what I am going to do. All the voices out of the ‘Past’ say ‘Don’t do it’. Bogey says ‘M. is a scientist. He does his part. It’s up to you to do yours.’ But that is no good at all. I can no more cure my psyche than my body. Less it seems to me. Isn’t Bogey himself, perfectly fresh and well, utterly depressed by boils on his neck? Think of five years’ imprisonment. Someone has got to help me get out. If that is a confession of weakness –it is. But it’s only lack of imagination that calls it so. And who is going to help me? Remember Switzerland: ‘I am helpless.’ Of course, he is. One prisoner cannot help another. Do I believe in medicine alone? No never. It seems to me childish and ridiculous to suppose one can be cured like a cow if one is not a cow. And here, all these years, I have been looking for someone who agreed with me. I have heard of Gurdjieff who seems not only to agree but to know infinitely more about it.
Why hesitate?
Fear. Fear of what? Doesn’t it come down to fear of losing Bogey? I believe it does. But, good heavens! Face things. What have you of him now? What is your relationship? He talks to you – sometimes – and then goes off. He thinks of you tenderly. He dreams of a life with you some day when the miracle has happened. You are important to him as a dream. Not as a living reality. For you are not one. What do you share? Almost nothing. Yet there is a deep, sweet, tender flooding of feeling in my heart which is love for him and longing for him. But what is the good of it as things stand? Life together, with me ill, is simply torture with happy moments. But it’s not life. I have tried through my illness (with one or two disastrous exceptions) to prevent him facing wholly what was happening. I ought to have tried to get him to face them. But I couldn’t. The result is he doesn’t know me. He only knows Wig-who-is-going-to-be-better-some-day. No. You do know that Bogey and you are only a kind of dream of what might be. And that might-be never never can be true unless you are well. And you won’t get well by ‘imagining’ or ‘waiting’ or trying to bring off that miracle yourself.
Therefore if the Grand Lama of Thibet promised to help you –how can you hesitate? Risk! Risk anything! Care not for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.
True, Tchehov didn’t. Yes, but Tchehov died. And let us be honest. How much do we know of Tchehov from his letters? Was that all? Of course not. Don’t you suppose he had a whole longing life of which there is hardly a word? Then read the final letters. He has given up hope. If you de-sentimentalize those final letters they are terrible. There is no more Tchehov. Illness has swallowed him.
But perhaps to people who are not ill, all this is nonsense. They have never travelled this road. How can they see where I am? All the more reason to go boldly forward alone. Life is not simple. In spite of all we say about the mystery of Life, when we get down to it, we want to treat it as though it were a child’s tale…
Now, Katherine, what do you mean by health? And what do you want it for?
Answer: By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love –the earth and the wonders thereof – the sea – the sun. All that we mean when we speak of the external world. I want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious, direct human being. I want by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it’s no good –there’s only one phrase that will do) a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light and so on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be that. A child of the sun.
Then I want to work. At what? I want to live so that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I want to be writing. (Though I may write about cabmen. That’s no matter).
But warm, eager, living life –to be rooted in life – to learn, to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.
I wrote this for myself. I shall now risk sending it to Bogey. He may do with it what he likes. He must see how much I love him.
And when I say ‘I fear’ –don’t let that disturb you, dearest heart. We all fear when we are in waiting-rooms. Yet we must pass beyond them, and if the other can keep calm, it is all the help we can give each other.
Suppose, if this worries you, you show it to Dunning? I trust Dunning in spite of my thinking he did not really solve your problem. Let him see that, too. He will understand.
And this all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it’s no longer so. I feel happy –deep down. May you be happy too.
I’m going to Fontainebleau on Monday and I’ll be back here Tuesday night of Wednesday morning. All is well.
Doctor Young, the London man who has joined Gudjieff, came to see me to-day and told me about the life there. It sounds wonderfully good and simple and what one needs.
It won’t fit on a motivational poster, but why would you try? Katherine Mansfield died 10:30pm, January 9, 1923.
*Cheers, greywarshark.
Not sure if anyone saw this on TV1 news tonight. It was a surprise for me to actually see that TV1 had attempted to cover this story:
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/auckland-council-cracking-down-on-freedom-campers-in-central-city-q01021
There was also a story in the Herald a couple of weeks ago about people living in cars. In both cases the media are good at presenting it as a lifestyle choice and not a fundamental societal issue that people literally do not have a home to go to.
It’s deeply disturbing how our MSM and much of the middle class like to frame homelessness as a “choice”. And it’s disturbing that they appear to actually believe it is!
They ignore that the rate of homelessness is a direct function of the wider economy. As is unemployment. When the economy does well… employment increases, unemployment decreases, homelessness decreases. When the economy is not doing well unemployment and homelessness increase. The relationship is constant and direct. It seems amazingly obvious and simple to me….
To reduce it to an issue of individual choice is convenient because then no one has to do anything about it. And particularly the government. They then don’t have to create an economic environment that creates enough jobs for citizens and enough housing for everyone.
Homelessness is pretty simple. People are homeless because they have no home!
There was an experiment done in London where they gave money to homeless people with zero strings attached. It actually worked, it reduced homelessness and was actually cheaper than the targeted interventions which are the norm.
Now, it was a small experiment. But the results are good enough for wider experiments to be done.
Some reading there Charles. She died of tuberculosis and I thought of George Orwell, Chekhov too, and did some reading on it. It was quite fashionable to die of it apparently! Such great thinkers, such a loss especially when Katherine was trying to plan for a new life and she was only 35 years, George Orwell 46 years.
But among the poor it wasn’t so elevated. And I’m thinking that NZ is developing the conditions for an outbreak of further illnesses of the 19th and 20th centuries from neglect by leaders of decent conditions similar to the circumstances referred to in the Wikipedia reports. .
White Plague
The tuberculosis epidemic in Europe, which probably started in the 17th century and which lasted two hundred years, was known as the Great White Plague. Death by tuberculosis was considered inevitable, and it was the principal cause of death in 1650.
The high population density, as well as the poor sanitary conditions that characterized most European and North American cities, created a perfect environment for its propagation….
In large cities the poor had high rates of tuberculosis. Public-health physicians and politicians typically blamed both the poor themselves and their ramshackle tenement houses (conventillos) for the spread of the dreaded disease.
eople ignored public-health campaigns to limit the spread of contagious diseases, such as the prohibition of spitting on the streets, the strict guidelines to care for infants and young children, and quarantines that separated families from ill loved ones.[55]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tuberculosis
For a social democrat Bernie is all right