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Interesting explanation about truth (Veritas) and how it can be honoured in different ways sincerely with different emphases. And woman is seen as the epitome of truth. from which the term ‘the naked truth’ is drawn – but that is a muddled, idealistic idea surely?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veritas
Veritas is the name given to the Roman virtue of truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good Roman should possess. The Greek goddess of truth is Aletheia (Ancient Greek: Ἀλήθεια). The German philosopher Martin Heidegger argues that the truth represented by aletheia (which essentially means “unconcealment”) is different from that represented by veritas, which is linked to a Roman understanding of rightness and finally to a Nietzschean sense of justice and a will to power.
This is a report from the real world. I have just tried to phone Nelson’s Bunnings at 12.40 on Saturday and the phone is on a loop with first, hours, second an exhortation about them wanting you to enjoy the ‘experience’ of their store and avoiding abusive, aggressive and threatening behaviour, and then there is a promotion of their DIY workshops and then back to the hours and the whole thing again., etc.
I have a greeting card with a man on the phone which advises him that his call is important to the other party and he should hang onto the phone until his call is no longer important to him!
Bunnings have apparently no intention of answering the call now and no intimation of when to call when it may be answered. The requirement seems, to go in person, or use your device, order over the internet, would they answer a query by email? It is a means of cutting people off from their society and individual, personal status!
Any wonder why they get some abusive behaviour. It is just part of the sly pretence that business and their toady government actually care about what you need, but concentrate on telling you what you want and can get, and then forcing you to get it the hard way. It makes me think of suffragettes being force fed in gaol when they became agitated about improving the way things were run. ‘We will ignore or punish you by removing you from ‘free’ society until you learn to comply with what WE in charge have decided is your lot.’
I am really interested to read this. I wonder what we might have got agitated about?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/540176/david-seymour-says-kiwis-are-too-squeamish-about-privatisation-history-shows-why-they-lost-the-appetite
But er! “”If we want to be a first-world country, …” Where is a first-world country to compare to, they all come out with dirty bottoms when inspected.
“…the government’s half a trillion dollars-plus worth of assets?” This is not a site of a clearance sale. Go and pursue your auctioneering talents elsewhere. Step down from something not using your talents well – go west young man or anywhere.
…Writing in 2000, during the heights of this bipartisan privatisation boom, economic analyst Brian Gaynor argued:
“By selling 100 percent shareholdings in state assets, the New Zealand Government has allowed a small group of investors, mainly offshore, to make enormous profits. With just a little foresight these profits could have been kept for the benefit of domestic investors and taxpayers.”
At the same time, voters have watched levels of wealth inequality rise, and the transfer of public wealth into private hands.
And while asset sales can improve efficiency, they can also reduce access to services for those on limited incomes or experiencing higher unemployment.
Squeamish is like wondering whether someone has put a whoopee cushion or a brass tack on your chair. Boiling mad is how people I have talked to feel about privatisation. Though others don’t worry, the wind is blowing behind them pushing them along – but what when it changes against them – like in Wellington. They know a lot about content and discontent there. Brian Gaynor (b. 26 Sept 1948, d.16 May2022) argued; can we carry on that argument to some effect.
Or are we just going to be trampled by smart arses who think they are God’s gift or better than God, because they have found how to manipulate a system of tokens and promises that enable elaborate and long-lasting construction to be carried out using diverse materials and methods. What we want now is a reliable railway system with extras and reliable ferries with services. Can the clever ones put their minds to this?
National, Act, and Labour are a liquidating firm. Let’s call it, NAL Unlimited.
A good sign Labour is no longer Rogernomic pro-capitalist would be if it disassociated itself from The Standard. Run till now by a guy who was disgusted by govt interference in the old welfare state.
Don’t be too hard on The Standard – it was giving a space to the Greens and diehard old Labour men who thought that practical good sense and a spanner and proper mathematics would come to be the answer for the railways etc and a bit of forward thinking like shutting down the Marsden Point oil refinery and thinking about making green hydrogen there would take us into the future.
I just had to get out because we need to rethink entirely, go through the pantry and see what has got pantry moth webs in it and throw the stuff out and clean out and put the good stuff back plus some new stuff, organically grown of course. In other words it isn’t easy and maybe we will be turned out of our homes on some context so we won’t even have to bother. We’ll be wondering where to go after the blackshirts or brownshirts or blouses, let us go. It can come to that but people are still planning their twelfth cruise.
Try reading John Syndham’s logical fantasy stories, they would help in getting a mindset that managed positives out of negatives. Affection and support from each other in a group that have similar understandings does help I think, even if there is a downward path. It may rise again who knows. But think wonderingly about the orchestra which played on to calm the passengers on the Titanic. Try reading things – something to distract from the everyday stuff.
This from John Milton I don’t get yet. Have to think – so that’s good.
Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent
By John Milton
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44750/sonnet-19-when-i-consider-how-my-light-is-spent
John Wyndham is the author I meant. The Chrysalids is one he tackled about rigid cult-like behaviour imposed and unable to be changed or even questioned.
After a devastating event in the distant past, sounds like nuclear type, people are born with six toes or something and get called Mutants by the leaders who are careful to retain ‘purity’ of form and mind. If you didn’t declare your baby as being imperfect the child would be taken and put to death I think. The person would be sent to the Fringes area where the imperfects existed with no support, and lived in near starvation and would steal food etc from settled citizens.
It is all quite possible once one learns about our past history and our obsessions. Christians in the past were severe with others for believing something slightly different, attacked them even burned them as heretics.
But John W gives his people an out, first a vision, and then it became a reality working together. The people with power to have that vision and able to communicate got away to a better place, distant from their home, past the extensive mutant Badlands where plants were queer and animals rare. Only one stayed behind because another would be left alone, so the two would be together and supportive and hope for a later escape chance. There are no easy outcomes but he writes his characters as ones with values, commitment to each other and determination, hope, active minds, and vision.
John Wyndham understood about difficulties in life. and that gave his books a poignancy over science fiction or stories of conflict that may concentrate on a hero surviving. Wyndham’s are more about a community working and supporting each other going forward. Same in The end of Day of the Triffids.
Let’s take back democracy – have civil servants who are responsible to the community for their actions not just to whatever jiggery-pokery they have learned from university and what other administrators have decided and got away with. It must be a sort of planners social media mixed with Sim City that they work from.
Our country is in a bugger’s muddle – how do we get these insects out – it’s just not Gisborne (Australian cockroaches) that have got in and are defiling our pretty-okay country.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/540616/auckland-playground-removal-it-feels-like-the-drinkers-have-won
South Auckland community is left reeling after the town centre’s seating area and playground, fixtures for years, were fenced off and dismantled to deter antisocial behaviour and public drinking, despite the local area’s liquor ban.
Victoria Hearn is a volunteer and trustee of the Ōtara Gambling and Alcohol Action Group (OGAAG), an advocacy group that has been addressing alcohol harm and gambling concerns in the Ōtara Papatoetoe community for 20 years. She was caught off guard on Wednesday afternoon and saw the playground in the morning.
“I was a bit shocked. There was no warning. I literally like I just took a couple of photos there this morning when I got into work early. Because when you come in early and there’s no one there, it’s this beautiful space.
“And then a couple of hours later, I come back, and it’s just being demolished. And all that’s going to happen is those guys are just going to pull out all those, you know, milk crates that they sit on.
“And now they’re just going to sit along the front of these shops. And people I know just don’t come into those shops because of the drinkers that are sitting there.
Council act Taliban could be a headline that was quite truthful. Wellington people who support the city and its amenities that are worth saving will go for the begonia house protest, either to it or find a way to support people to go and make their desires known about maintaining the building in place and just cleaning it and a bit of R&M. (The scenario for modern admins in councils is to run up debt and build or rebuild which apparently gives them kudos like getting published is for university staff.)
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/540615/begonia-house-sit-in-protest-to-be-staged-by-friends-of-wellington-s-botanic-gardens
An advocacy group trying to save Wellington Botanic Garden’s iconic Begonia House are set to stage a “sit in” protest Sunday.
Wellington City Council has identified the building as an unsafe public space, and is planning to demolish the landmark glasshouse to save money as As part of its long term plan amendment process...
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/540663/it-s-for-new-zealand-crowd-protests-begonia-house-demolition-with-sit-in
Meeting was held with organised neat protest placards – Save our Begonia House. Now they need to do more and start Friends of the Begonia House and put money into a trust to keep it otherwise the Talibans won’t give up – be back when initial actions break dowen. And they might want to pick some begonias and put them on a Palestinian memorial because we are all feeling the weight of officious officialdom at different stengths round the world. It unites us but not in a healthy way.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/540236/as-the-digital-oligarchy-grows-in-power-nz-will-struggle-to-regulate-its-global-reach-and-influence
Analysis: The images of President Donald Trump at his inauguration surrounded by the titans of the global tech industry is a warning of what could come: a global digital oligarchy dominated by a tiny tech elite.
Companies like Meta, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, X Corp, and OpenAI (all based in the United States) now operate beyond the control of most governments. Countries like New Zealand are increasingly struggling to keep these companies in check.
In the past decade, New Zealand has taken several measures to curb the influence of powerful tech companies through voluntary agreements and tax legislation.
But the digital age has fundamentally changed national sovereignty – the right of individual countries to decide the rules within their own borders.
Big tech companies are gradually taking on functions traditionally reserved for government institutions. For example, these companies have begun to function as the arbiters of speech, controlling the visibility of certain ideas and comments.
This should be no surprise for those who have been watching the exponential rise in power of the moneyed beyond reason.