The Daily Blog Open Mic – Wednesday – 1st December 2021

1. Great paintings done in early 1900s on display in lucky Wellington. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/standing-room-only/audio/2018822374/the-belated-fame-of-hilma-af-klint
   City Gallery Wellington is hosting Hilma af Klint: The Secret Paintings – “secret” because she left instructions that her work be locked away until at least twenty years after her death.
   The artist started producing large-scale, brightly-coloured, abstract works in the early 1900s, before her better-known contemporaries like Kandinsky and Mondrian.

   There seems to have been an expansion of spirit and imagination then before the tedious modes of titled peoples took centre stage in 1915 and millions? of ordinary lives.
   Also at that time Alphonse Mucha was producing his immense Slav Epic taking 18 years, immense in extent and also in size.
   In 1909, he managed to obtain grants by an American philanthropist and keen admirer of the Slavic culture, Charles Richard Crane.[5] He began by visiting the places he intended to depict in the cycle: Russia, Poland and the Balkans, including the Orthodox monasteries of Mount Athos. Additionally, he consulted historians regarding details of historical events in order to ensure an accurate depiction. In 1910, he rented part of the castle in Zbiroh and began working on the series.[6]

   Mucha continued working on the cycle for 18 years, gradually submitting paintings to the city of Prague as he completed them. In 1919, the first part of the series comprising eleven canvases was displayed in the Prague’s Clementinum. In his opening speech, Mucha stated:
   “the mission of the Epic is not completed. Let it announce to foreign friends – and even to enemies – who we were, who we are, and what we hope for. May the strength of the Slav spirit command their respect,

   What wonderful things we could have been doing in the 1900s instead off the testy fighting and the destructive machines and chemicals developed. We now have a last chance. Mucha said. because from respect, love is born. Let us respect our young ones, but also reach out to them, to inculcate respect in return, that way love is born.

2. https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2021/12/01/nz-killer-robots-policy-welcome-at-critical-juncture-new-zealand-campaign-to-stop-killer-robots/
   Killer robots – this must be something that everyone cam be drawn to.

3. Money, money I love it especially when Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey are singing the song.
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8P80A8vy9I

   When I see a Christian Hawkesby of the Reserve Bank being quoted relating to money I take note.
   Because I fear if we don’t use it we will lose this system; the harbingers of all things good with technical fixes for the future for everything will take it over. It has a lot of uses and probably lifted us out of primitiveness. But the big boys exploit it, and sometimes the girls. Also I always see a certain message and loftiness in people who call their boys Christian. The Hawkesby indicates that he might be related to an astute wheeler dealer from the past, called John. Yes he is the son. Are we allowing a landed gentry, with nepotism to get established in NZ – as MB puts it, ‘Luxon’s first move was to defend the landed gentry’?

   There is a rash of items about it at present, time to scratch that rash?
   What does interest.co.nz say? https://www.interest.co.nz/currencies/113507/new-consultation-paper-reserve-bank-says-without-policy-response-cash-system-may

   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/456887/reserve-bank-still-consulting-on-the-future-of-cash
   Look here: https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/notes-and-coins/future-of-money/cash-system
   The Reserve Bank is doing another round of consultation on the future of money as it looks to ensure cash remains available for as long as it is needed.
   The central bank has been looking at the issue for the past few months, raising a range of options for future payments systems while preserving physical notes and coins even though usage is declining.
   Options include consolidating public and private cash sector functions into one or more public utilities, banks paying merchants to provide cash-out services on their behalf, requiring some merchants and government agencies to accept cash, and requiring banks to provide cash services.
   Assistant governor Christian Hawkesby said the use of cash continued to fall, and banks and retailers were increasingly moving away from cash as well, which was a threat to financial and social inclusion for some.
   RBNZ wanted to keep cash available for as long as it was needed, he said.

   https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/127136547/plan-to-save-cash-should-we-force-banks-and-shops-to-accept-and-provide-cash

   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/as-cash-use-declines-should-banks-pay-more-to-keep-it-available/XSLVQOUUGHJTYXUT63XCYS6AZI/

4. Greenpeace is organising a petition against ‘mud farming’ in NZ.
   https://community.greenpeace.org.nz/petitions/stop-intensive-winter-grazing-on-landcorp-pamu-farms
   https://petition.act.greenpeace.org.nz/agriculture-intensive-winter-grazing?source=actioncallout

   https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2109/S00070/mud-farming-clear-evidence-of-too-many-cows-greenpeace.htm
   Keeping pressure on about this will yield action sooner rather than sometime hopefully in the future.
   NZ Minister of Agriculture … The current Minister of Agriculture is Damien O’Connor.

5. Given Lyn Prentice’s response to me here and his non-allowance of my contributions on The Standard since despite what he said let’s talk about them. They are immensely popular but slithery shallow. He’s a Rogernome. All those who talk there are prepared to put up with neoliberalism. Are disgusting from a 1935 point of view. 300 contributions on their latest daily talk. Say things about those cunts. Fight a bit about reality. It matters.

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