The Daily Blog Open Mic – Sunday – 28th November 2021

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Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.

EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist language, homophobic language, racist language, anti-muslim hate, transphobic language, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, Qanon lunacy, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics, 5G conspiracy theories, the virus is a bioweapon, some weird bullshit about the UN taking over the world  and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.

8 COMMENTS

  1. Some thoughtful words from a long known and respected academic, Dame Anne Salmond.
    Dame Anne Salmond is a Distinguished Professor in anthropology at the University of Auckland.
    https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2021/11/16/anne-salmond-hope-on-horizon.html
    History tells us the future is what we make of it, for better or for worse. In the wake of World War I, New Zealand joined the League of Nations, making a lasting commitment to multilateral diplomacy. The ‘black flu’ led to a major reorganisation of the health system, regarded as world-leading. In response to the loss of Māori lives, Apirana Ngata, Te Rangihiroa and Maui Pomare fought for equality for their people, and held fast to ancestral tikanga.,,

    MIQ has become an ethical and practical nightmare.
    At the same time, New Zealand’s proposals to COP-26 were dismaying,..

    With both MIQ and COP-26, the task of designing our collective responses has been delegated to officials working in silos with obsolete rule books, and this has to change. If ignoring science in a pandemic is life-threatening, ignoring complexity at a time of climate change and collapsing ecosystems puts human survival itself at risk.

  2. The GP practice is essential for maintaining our good health and managing problems and chronic conditions when bad health comes. It was ominous when they were not in the group of frontline people allocated vaccines or protective gear early on in the pandemic.
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/456679/south-auckland-gps-facing-burnout-due-to-increased-workloads-monitoring-covid-19-patients
    The package included nearly $1b for increased testing, contact tracing and case investigation, $300 million for new medicines to treat the virus and $204m in welfare support for people isolating at home, or who have lost their job after contracting Covid-19.
    But the funding did not include any additional targeted support for GPs and primary healthcare providers.

    Now the expectation that they will rise like the phoenix to meet any emergency thrown their way is distressing. And care for visiting nurses and support people is also important. Planning things on computer screens is important; more important are those who carry out the work and front up to the coalface. We must look after our GPs and nurses, and ensure high quality and motivation to help people. A few see the clients as a gravy train. We must support the good and dedicated. We can do better,

  3. Pattern of our democracy. Decide what is to be done and then when settled invite interested people to spend a lot of time being consulted, wait a while for the heat to dissipate and then go ahead with some token changes.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/456673/whangarei-onerahi-community-vows-to-fight-looming-northland-emergency-rescue-helicopter-shift
    “Our existing base is also adjacent to a busy sports field which we often use for approach and departure from/to the base. We would prefer to have an approach/departure area which is controlled with no people or property in the immediate vicinity.”

    Pragmatic and may not have the money to meet the demand. Query – ‘is everyone contributing to their air transport when sick or injured?’

    Residents affected, emotional but based on real problems envisaged.
    Beach Road resident Miles Brown said the noise from regular scheduled plane flights was quite different from that of constant, unscheduled emergency helicopter flights coming and going, around the clock, day in and day out.
    Brown said Onerahi residents’ health and wellbeing mattered just as much as that of those who lived around Kensington base.
    Ahlers said noise issues were not the only reason the base was being moved from Kensington.

    Problem for NZ – is our way of life being sacrificed for others’ benefit ? Are we toothpaste to be squeezed till we move so other people can enjoy what we had? And what happened to their homes; what ‘footprint’ did they leave behind

  4. Exercising my mind today. Stretch, hold, relax pheww.
    I see our good friend in the peaceful Pacific, the USA has seen fit to give us the benefit of its pacific presence.
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/127106937/us-warship-arrives-in-wellington-harbour-for-official-engagement-with-defence-force
    Maybe the ‘boys’ will put on a ‘rendition’ of South Pacific. Here is a verse a bit like Bali Hai.
    Most people live on a lonely island
    Lost in the middle of a foggy sea
    Most people long for another island
    One where they know they would like to be
    A….roa may call you
    Any night, any day
    In your heart you’ll hear it call you
    Come away, come away.

    So Veni, Vidi, Vici. NZ.

    Pacific Overtures –
    Stephen Sondheim and Hal Prince put on a production on Japanese – American exchange after WW2, which was far from a long- term hit. But venturesome and exploratory. according to Harold Prince. It was done in Japanese Kabuki? style, with men actors only. Pacific Overtures it was called. Harold Prince tells about this USA cultural venture. 2.30 mins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn14ePfDlg0

  5. Stephen Sondheim at his work.
    ‘Someone in a Tree’ Part 1 of 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFkldZHOp_k
    and good words –
    From Sondheim’s “Company”
    “Somebody crowd me with love
    Somebody force me to care
    Somebody let come through
    I’ll always be there
    As frightened as you
    To help us survive
    Being alive
    Being alive
    Being alive”
    Michiko Kakutani
    @michikokakutani
    Stephen Sondheim, dead at 91: He was the theater’s most revered and influential composer-lyricist of the last half of the 20th century and the driving force behind some of Broadway’s most beloved and celebrated shows. https://nytimes.com/2021/11/26/the

  6. On Lprent’s response to me 3 days ago here. Apparently I wasn’t adept enough to get through his techno gates to comment on The Standard. Slimey. Like politics. Bad politics when you’re talking about the supposed Left. Where ideals are everything. Where truth is everything. Politics always comes second to truth from the Left position. Yes, many decades out of power for that. But immediate power comes second to right.

    • think. Truth is said to be important in politics especially to the left perhaps. But drop the T and what do we get ‘Ruth’. And many of us were stuck on the need for ‘good’ in politics and thought of good as being beneficial to the citizens, but ‘good’ has another meaning that Labour politicians have taken up with gusto:
      benefit or advantage to someone or something.
      “he convinces his father to use his genius for the good of mankind”

      Labour have used their genius to benefit themselves and diminish that of NZ people-kind.
      Salaries, what range of income do our politicians get? e.g. ‘ …Assistant Speaker of the House, the yearly salary of which is $179,713. …as a Minister outside of Cabinet, will be earning $249,839…

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