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Some decades ago I wouldn’t be so supportive of this. I had done social policy papers and thought that MOST OF the principles taught could be implemented. But then the government bought the magic beans off Treasury and its fashionable economists, who favoured a clean slate and new policies that brought out of the vaults those used in times of the industrial revolution and slave trade. We then closed down our routes to an intelligent, principled and enjoyable life.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018933142/on-a-mission-to-change-the-archaic-9-to-5-for-parents
This person is suggesting a small change in the rigid walls of business practice as they build Ozymandias in their own ways. Active parents should be able to have important time blending with their children, as bringing up the new generation is rather important to the human existence! However in the industrial days of ignorance from the lower class, and formalised social life of the adults in the upper, the children drifted into an odd enclave seeing more of the governess, (later for the boys particularly, the boarding school), and servants than parents, so formed a part of the inferior group in the house.
Children needing firm and loving direction is education by parents, is not acknowledged by the captains of industry making the money, and the wives who spend the money are often rated little higher than the children. Poor women needing money for the family had to work down the mines and poorly paid jobs in the industrial revolution, and their task of caring for the physical wellness and moral aspects was not acknowledged to its full importance.
Perhaps now there are a few emancipators who can lift the mental state of the materialist class higher then to just count their assets and money. Humankind is so malleable in its thinking process; there could be a new fashion for educating on parenthood at polytechnics, (not universities). And respecting the skills and duties of parents and allowing for them, so as to have team building encompassing all citizens, that could become the undoubted norm. Let’s do it, and have a happier more effective society, eh!
The middle class float on unaffected despite all the expensive education that has gone into their heads. Things are going to pot and the few must keep the soup bubbling!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/513573/up-to-schools-to-decide-if-protesters-absences-were-justified-principals'Associate Education Minister David Seymour criticised the rallies, saying students should be in school rather than protesting.’
(Why would it not be regarded as active learning about citizenship, more important than most of the perishable education being stuffed down them.)
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/513581/hamilton-mayor-s-anzac-trip-to-belgium-criticised-amid-massive-rates-rise
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/513576/christ-church-cathedral-rebuild-could-be-mothballed-as-cost-blows-out-to-248-million
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/513561/centre-that-put-whangarei-on-the-map-faces-financial-shortfall
…[Whangārei Art Trust chairman Bill Shepherd] said an independent economic impact report, commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, showed construction of the centre contributed $37 million to the Whangārei district.
On top of that was an ongoing $26m a year boost to Northland’s economy from increased visitor numbers, even if they did not set foot inside the centre.
He said the centre had “put Whangārei on the map”, and was the catalyst in the return of cruise ships to the city for the first time in decades…
(Note that this story reflects how NZ/AO will be in the near future. Fewer visitors and having to work hard to raise ourselves to manage daily and also ti raise our profile overseas; to get our own people to appreciate and support our own country, and keep money moving around. If we don’t watch out we will end up dry as a squeezed lemon and starting to go mouldy and smell! This Anzac Day I suggest make up your mind to support initiatives in your area with money and some physical time contributed from your family. We have to maintain the idea and universal benefit of community not just working bees to make mountain bike tracks etc only things that support your own group; Jaycees and Lions have been of inestimable value. Perhaps we need more of our weekends back, not open for business at all hours, shops open on Saturday morning, and fewer centres open on weekends, and having to pay double time for weekends if not cafes and food shops?? The selfishness of individuality seems rife and the demands for their own needs resounding. It doesn’t augur well for a balanced, resourceful and integrated society for the future. Like your country, like your town, encourage positive universal, systems low-cost where possible, and a few high-cost special things then are affordable and appreciated, and may bring in many volunteers who should be given a great afternoon tea in appreciation, which must be part of the budget – give back from the community to the hard workers, helpers and devisers. )
Libraries information for book lovers and library lovers too. Need to know. Required reading!
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2404/S00007/gordon-campbell-on-the-death-of-library-browsing.htm
Privileged neuro diverse gamer sent to prison for gaming
News from last month which seems to have slipped under the radar, Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years for stealing 10 billion dollars of investor funds and various other financial crimes as head of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. So for one of the largest financial crimes in history SBF received the equivalent of one year in a medium security prison for stealing $400 million (or 6 months inside per $400 million if he receives early release for good behavior). This is such a ridiculous precedent that it demeans ANY sentence given for theft in any country for any amount involved, it actually redefines financial crime and consequence, and makes a mockery of judicial fairness and consistency in law.
Eddie Izzard lost his mother when a child and treasures her memory and caring. See my point in earlier comment – about parents.
He/she now declared (since he came out when 23) She, says:
By David Marchese Photo Illustration by Bráulio Amado Jan.7/24
…I say we have to be brave and curious and not fearful and suspicious. The brave and curious, they probably feel pretty good about themselves for doing things, doing all right in life, and then saying, “So, what do you do?” You’re curious. Whereas other people, fearful and suspicious, they go: “Can you stand back? Get away!” That is a horrible place to be in life…
(On his desire to get into politics and get worthwhile things one for people, following Glenda Jackson:)
Last December, you ran for office for the second time, and for the second time you didn’t win.10 (In each of Izzard’s races, in 2022 in Sheffield Central and in 2023 in Brighton Pavilion, she lost in the British equivalent of a party primary.) What have you learned from those two efforts?
You only learn from failure; you never learn from success. I know I can appeal to the average voter. Everyone votes emotionally. I have a life narrative. Coming out as trans back in ’85, it just seemed: “I need to do this. This is my mission. I’m the right person to take it. They’ll fight me, they’ll abuse me in the streets and I’ll push back and stand up for myself, and I’ll get through.” I think your average person, it resonates — even though there are some transphobic people. It’s like before marriage equality. There was a lot of: “Men marry men? Women marry women? Cats marry dogs? What’s going to happen?” Since the legislation has gone through in multiple countries, everyone’s gone, “Oh, it’s for love.” I’ll just carry on. I know I could be a good politician. I could be good at Parliament.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/07/magazine/eddie-izzard-interview.html
Julian Assange Where are You ?
https://progressive.international/wire/2024-04-05-the-last-days-of-julian-assange-in-britain/en
…“One day in an American prison is like a year in a high-security prison in Britain. You could do a year in Belmarsh and it wouldn’t match a day in one of those places.”
Babar Ahmad is someone who knows. He was extradited to the US in 2012 on charges of providing material support to terrorism because of two articles published on his website offering support to the Taliban government in Afghanistan. He spent eight years fighting the extradition….
“He will get good lawyers in the US because obviously he’s got a lot of support,” Ahmad says. “But it is tough. Very tough. People can get through it, but I don’t know what he’s like as a person, what his resilience is like, what his childhood was like.”
Babar’s extradition to the US had been halted temporarily by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2007. But when it green-lighted the extradition five years later, things moved very quickly…
They told him to pack a small bag then gave him clothing to wear. “We called it the banana. It’s like a green and yellow sort of striped prison service uniform top and bottoms.”
Ahmad was then strip searched and put in a sterile cell. “Sterile, basically, meaning it’s empty completely,” he says.
He continues: “So I’m in the cell. I’m just sitting there waiting. A couple of hours go by. It was very heavy rain that day, I remember that. Then about 5:30pm they then came and got me and walked me to the small carpeted room where we used to pray and chill out.”
There was the governor of the prison and lots of officers. They put Ahmad on the “boss chair”: a body orifice security scanner.
“It’s to check if you’ve got, like, a mobile phone secreted in your body somewhere, or a blade or something like that. Normally that’s located in the reception section of the prison. But this one, they had brought it right into our unit. So I sat on the boss chair.”…
But while the UK legal system will then have been exhausted, Assange does have a further chance with the ECHR in Strasbourg.
If the High Court judges rule against Assange then his lawyers can apply to the ECHR for a Rule 39 injunction, which would halt the extradition until the European court had looked at the case.
The decisions are binding on member countries and there is no precedent for the UK not respecting a Rule 39 order on a proposed extradition.
Christophe Marchand is the Belgian lawyer instructed by Assange to coordinate and prepare the possible litigation at the ECHR.
“There is an internet platform for the European Court of Human Rights where you can introduce your Rule 39 application, and a decision can be rendered in a few hours,” Marchand tells me.
“After the decision is taken, the court then makes contact with the state saying that it has taken the decision and that the extradition must be halted.”
Rule 39
On the chances of the ECHR issuing a Rule 39 order if Assange loses this final appeal, Marchand is hopeful. “We are very confident that the court will take it very seriously, because we have many arguments,” he says.
“Remember, the first judge, at the magistrate court, already considered, from prison conditions, there was a risk that he would commit suicide if he goes over there, that he would be put in very restrictive conditions.”
However, the Assange case has been irregular from the start, as Declassifiedhas extensively reported. Some believe the UK could take the unprecedented step of not abiding by the Rule 39 order—or moving Assange out of the jurisdiction before it is issued.
In Belgium, in October 2013, Tunisian terrorist Nizar Trabelsi was extradited to the US extremely quickly before the Rule 39 was issued….
It becomes harder to find out what is going on about Julian Assange when google offers confusing time sets – first they are in Maori and I can’t recognise the meaning, so need a virtual code book beside me to advise and second the practice of not setting a definite date, just putting …days ago. What does that refer to? We aren’t in the Stonehenge era now, milliseconds are important to stock exchanges and hours affect lives like Julian Assange’s.
This is deliberate confusion under the aegis of transparency and fairness, something that has never come into the mix before. Even now our gummint sucking away, is talking abut having referendums for Maori Wards in NZ Councils.
And the latest loony stuff from Scotland – their Hate Crime Bill is so depressing. One would think they could find some balanced, intelligent people up there clustered around their great ancient universities.