Open mike 15/12/2009

15 comments on “Open mike 15/12/2009 ”

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1. Pascal's bookie 1

   15 December 2009 at 7:15 am

   ooh look!

   journalism

   I had the block to myself for several minutes before a blue Pontiac with tinted windows pulled up. Rolling down his passenger-side window, the driver, a black guy in a Tigers’ cap, leaned towards me and asked, “Do you mind telling me why you’re taking a picture of that building?’ After glancing at my NY Press business card, he said, “We used to have thirteen houses on this block, now there is only one left. We had a grocery store we could walk to when I was growing up.’ Before trailing off, he added, “That probably doesn’t sound like much to you. It was still the ghetto, but to us, you know .’….

   …Suburbanites discussing Detroit’s disaster speak from a cultural script reflecting decades of “white flight.’ According to that script, the city was, as its publicity machine once boasted, a “Wonder City’—until the 1967 Riots, when ungrateful blacks suddenly turned savage. Shaped into a cohesive narrative by neo-conservative journalists like Tamara Jacoby and Ze’ev Chafets, it’s a framework that has influenced the entire country. Summing up this framework perfectly, the cover blurb to Chafets’s “Devil’s Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit,’ published in 1990—when another round of disinvestment rocked the rust belt—reads, in part: “Overnight, Detroit was violently jerked from an existence as a prosperous, integrated industrial center, to that of a seething ghetto.’ As Rep. John Conyers frequently points out, black Detroiters hold a very different picture of the city’s decline. Disinvestment and white flight, he says, began in the early 1950s. Economic figures and census data from the 50s and 60s strongly bear him out. In 1961 Time, the weathervane of the media establishment, reported, “Detroit’s decline has been going on for a long while.’By the late 50s, Ford Motor Company fled Highland Park; whites had already been leaving for a decade. Lee Iaccoca made repeated pledges not to abandon Chrysler’s long-time home, but in 1992 the automaker moved fifty miles away, to Ann Arbor. Overnight, 4,500 people were left unemployed—and Highland Park lost over half of what little remained of its tax base.

   Worth clicking at just for the photo’s.
2. Craig Glen Eden 2

   15 December 2009 at 8:18 am

   So Mr Williams releases his text list and once again Key has been caught telling lies.
   No text at 3am like he has claimed, two in the am 1217am and 1037am. John seems to get quite confused when ever numbers are used, how many shares did he have again????

   Still maybe he was still in bed when the am text arrived.As for Maurice Williamson now there is a man who you would want standing behind you aye.
   • Olwyn 2.1

     15 December 2009 at 4:11 pm

     Yes I saw an interview with that mayor on Close-up last night. He pointed out that he had printouts of his texts, and that the most untimely one was at 12.17am, after parliament had sat late under urgency, and also that he had not texted John Key for two months. The interviewer, whose name I have forgotten, unheeding of anything the guy said, just kept repeating, “texting the PM at 3.30am, what was that about, etc,” more or less like a parrot. The idea that if this man’s records were correct, then the PM must have at least been mistaken, if not actively lying, was simply not permitted to emerge.
3. Dan 3

   15 December 2009 at 8:33 am

   Interesting response by Education Minister Tolley, and Granny Herald in sync, to the negative response by teachers and all to the national standards. Their negativity is directed at teacher unions (plural). As far as I can see, it has been one teacher union (NZEI) and the Principals Federation.
   Am I just cynical or is the NACT party, once again, setting up a round of union bashing and teacher bashing for next year?
   • Draco T Bastard 3.1

     15 December 2009 at 9:29 am

     NACT don’t like unions as they force them to realise that there’s a minimum cost to living that business needs to pay.
4. Tigger 4

   15 December 2009 at 8:36 am

   More creepiness from Sharples – this time about the flag issue.
   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10615550

   So he’s going to force a flag on people who don’t want it?
   • Deus ex Machina 4.1

     15 December 2009 at 8:58 am

     No problems with flying the Maori flag on the Harbour Bridge, as long as we can also fly a Pakeha flag (the St. George Cross, perhaps?) and a flag for the Chinese community in New Zealand, and the Islanders, and one for all the other communities and cultures in New Zealand to show that we are, ah, one.
     • Tigger 4.1.1

       15 December 2009 at 9:08 am

       It’s the future of this flag that will cause division. Audrey Young is trying to spin it differently, of course, but this flag was effectively foisted upon Maori. It’s a pity – if handled differently the process and outcome could have meant something.
   • Craig Glen Eden 4.2

     15 December 2009 at 9:23 am

     Sharples now not only speaks for Maori he thinks for them all as well!

     “People don’t understand how we think as Maori”

     I bet there is quite a few Maori who dont need you thinking on their behalf Pita,
     a few Labour Maori MPs spring to mind.
   • Draco T Bastard 4.3

     15 December 2009 at 9:33 am

     “Flags are a symbol of rallying and being strong. This shows the Government is recognising a relationship with tangata whenua and that’s going to be good for Maori and race relations in the long run.”

     No, it’s not going to be good for race relations in the long run as it’s going to cause even more disassociation and divisiveness.
5. Outofbed 5

   15 December 2009 at 9:15 am

   Worth a look or a post
   This was released last night at a press conference in Copenhagen
   Climate Change Performance Index 2010
   New Zealand rated 55 out of 60
   We don’t appear to be striking a balance between the economy and the environment
   • Draco T Bastard 5.1

     15 December 2009 at 9:34 am

     That’s because the capitalists are in charge and they only believe in their wallet.
6. tf 6

   15 December 2009 at 10:00 am

   Was that Nick Smith wife I saw arriving with him at Copenhagen ?
7. Quoth the Raven 7

   15 December 2009 at 4:29 pm

   Great article the tyrant Obama’s peace prize: The Atrocity of Hope, Part 7: Our Ignoble Laureate

   So our President Incarnate, his hands dripping (metaphorically I’m sure he washes them regularly) with the blood of Pakistani and Afghan children, along with shredded bits of the principles of Nuremberg, jets off to Norway to accept a prize that is supposed to be awarded only to those who have worked for “the abolition or reduction of standing armies.’
   There, having given Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King a patronisingly dismissive pat on the head, he adds: “But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation [Note: clearly he must have taken some secret version of the oath of office, because that’s not what the public one says], I cannot be guided by their examples alone.’ And then he has the effrontery to propound a bizarro version of history in which, “for more than six decades,’ the united states has “brought stability,’ “helped underwrite global security,’ “enabled democracy to take hold,’ and “promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea.’
8. vto 8

   15 December 2009 at 5:02 pm

   Yes the Danish are such civilised folk aren’t they?

   Such a great and long history reflecting the passing of civilisations and humanity over the countless centuries. Something to be truly proud of all that tradition and heritage.

   If only that were so.

   It seems the savage nature of humanity is reflected in some form in near every single race and community on the planet.

   Hang you heads in shame Danes… http://www.driftsurfing.eu/index.php/archives/3351

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