Category: Uncategorized

Among my most prized possessions is the deluxe DVD set of the TV series Freaks & Geeks, packaged as a yearbook with all kindsa wonderful extras. It looks like this:

And, in what is a typical example of my treatment of prized possessions, I have no idea where it is. I must have encouraged someone to borrow it and then forgotten about it. It is somewhere in Wellington, that much I know.
Do you have my Freaks & Geeks? There are other people wanting to borrow it. And I’d like to finish listening to the commentaries. And it has been missing for a while now and I’m starting to get worried.

And so, today it all kicked off. The small groups took shape, and with them came the small group actions that will be the basis of a whole bunch of Psyc undergrad assignments.
It was neat to see. Mostly, I think, the students are treating this just like we want them to treat it – as a chance to do something they think they should do anyway, but haven’t had the motivation before now. And as co-researchers in our exploration of the question, why is it so hard for us to live up to our own good intentions?
It is good. I love this research. I hope it finds its way to the close without the discovery of unforeseen pitfalls.
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The Nia Glassie post continues to sit in the top ten Google results for her name, and draws heavy traffic (and the occasional comment) as a result. (Those out of NZ will not have heard that Nia died from her injuries a few days ago.)
Things have moved along quite significantly since I made that post. While there was no shortage of venom directed at Maori culture, that has been eclipsed by what amounts to an adoption of the problem by a cross-section of Maori voices. “Child abuse is a Maori problem” – the words are the same as those used by Michael Laws and his ilk, but their meaning here is diametrically opposite. Child abuse within Maori community is a Maori problem because Maori are best-placed to help; because Maori have a responsibility to help; because Maori help is the best kind of help. It’s an amazing approach, forceful with its claim for a legitimate and positive cultural identity, and it seems to be winning the battle of public perception.
In soundbite terms: Laws and his talkback electorate see Maori culture as the problem; but the rest of us are happier seeing Maori culture as the solution.

Had an odd kind of weekend. Spent the entire time dodging human contact, slipping through the fence, keeping out of the light. Felt sensitive to people, like I would bruise easily. Had to keep escaping. It was a familiar headspace from many years ago, reappearing with vigour. An overwhelming sensitivity to self in context, perhaps a need to regather the unspooled threads and re-weave the centre.
Not entirely a hermit. Dropping in on the Confusion event, seeing several friends there. Attending the farewell gathering of two other friends. Visiting others and their newborn. But through all of these I didn’t feel right, as if the surface had come out of alignment with what sits beneath.
Before, when I went into this kind of space I would seclude myself and write about it, try to capture the moment in words. I have dozens of pages of that sort of writing but I’ve fallen out of the habit. In the past few years, only three or four scrappy accounts have been added to my archive. This may mean I’ve given up trying to understand; more likely, that I understand enough now to defuse the old urgency and confusion.
I sat in the evening by the lagoon looking across at the city, for an hour or so, listening to the muffled music from the boatshed, skipping thoughts across the surface and watching the ripples that they made.

Rounding out what has become a short series on how the Nia Glassie abuse case has been reported in the Dom Post, today’s (Thursday’s) paper carried a piece by Barbara Lambourn of UNICEF NZ. It’s good stuff.
First, as I was first moved to comment by Michael Laws’ comments about the ethnic (Maori) angle to the story, I can quote with satisfaction Lambourn’s paragraph on the subject:

Maori whanau feature disproportionately in child abuse and the experience of other indigenous cultures around the world shows a link to the underlying causes – dysfunction related to poverty, alienation and deprivation, not ethnicity.

Exactly. And, fittingly, Lambourn doesn’t feel she needs to say any more about that and gets into the meat of things. She has two main themes:
(1) the horrible and shameful prevalence in NZ of violence towards children inflicted within the family gives us a collective responsibility to engage with our community. “Simple, old-fashioned neighbourly concern can do wonders – like an offer of help to a stressed parent, or a suggestion about community support… How to ask the right questions at the right time in a supportive way is something we all need to learn.”
(2) the NZ government has a similar responsibility – to get past political point-scoring and settle on a cross-party commitment to resource communities adequately and pursue actions and strategies that we know can help matters.
She makes it sound simple, and in some ways it is, but in others it isn’t. Deeply dysfunctional families can be completely resistant to any amount of neighbourly concern, for example. That said, the society that would result from fully enacting just these two suggestions would make such deeply dysfunctional families less likely to develop in the first place.
Nevertheless, it’s the best piece of writing I’ve seen about this deeply sickening trail of events. I hope people in the Beehive were reading their Dom Post this morning.
(Additional point of note: Lambourn’s article refers to the repeal of Section 59 of the crimes act, the so-called “anti-smacking bill”, a “triumph for child protection”. Hear, hear.)
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Friday linky of note: the return of the greatest anthology comic of them all, Dark Horse Presents, as a MySpace page featuring fresh new comics free every month. First issue includes a strip written by your friend and mine Mr Joss Whedon, and to make old DHP-heads like me feel at home there’s even a Rick Geary two-pager.
Did I say it was free? It’s free. Skive off work for ten minutes and read some comics.
(No idea yet what kind of revenue model Dark Horse are on for this. The big comics companies have been stressing for the last year about the inevitable big move to digital delivery, because they haven’t yet worked out how to make money from it. This launch just makes things more confusing in that regard.)
Other Friday linky: the truth about man’s intuition (the little known counterpart to woman’s intuition); the AV Club interviews Bret from the Conchords; Monbiot attacks the false comforts of Green consumerism; and Andrew Rilstone devotes an entire blog entry to dig deep into the question, Is J.K. Rowling actually any good.

June 5 is when NZ marks Arbor Day.
I remember very clearly that as a child this was an important day in the calendar. Arbor Day! The day on which some people plant trees!
My question, then: has Arbor Day faded in prominence, or is it just that Arbor Day is a schoolkid thing?
(And if it has faded in prominence, isn’t it about time it was unfaded?)
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I am marking assignments. Michelle today accused me of being a teacher. My protests sounded hollow even to me. And for the record, I am kinda ashamed about not seeing any film fest movies. It has not been a good movie-going month for me.

I can feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes
Daffydmas is all around me, And so the feeling grows…
It’s that time of year again… Today, 29 July, is the traditional date on which members of the Church of Daffyd celebrate the birth of Daffyd.
This year I have chosen to mark the celebration by sitting at home with a cold, and watching Bill Nighy kick ass in Love Actually with Cal.
Keep rocking until the break of dawn, oh mighty one. Happy goddamn birthday.
And if you really love Daffydmas, come on and let it snow…
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[David is the originator and host of the additiverich blog collective as well as being a deity]

The Onion AV Club agrees: the new Flight of the Conchords TV show is funnier than the Simpsons, is increasingly hilarious, and is part of the top 1% of TV.
Nice one, lads.
(Although it is also ‘inconsistent’.)
Binary solo, repeat to fade: 100000011000000110000001….

It is with great satisfaction that I note the success of the hospital cleaner’s action in the face of a lockout. They have won a wage increase to a starting wage of $14.75 an hour, which is much more fair for their hard and essential work. It’s an enormous increase, $3, which only shows how much these vulnerable workers have been allowed to lag behind.
More promising still is the expected flow-on increases to pay rates for other low-wage employment. This all makes me much happier. While we are not a wealthy society, we are certainly not a poor one, and the number of people scraping by at the bottom of the wage scale has always been troubling.
Well done to all those involved!
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Just got a text from Cal, who is en route back to Wellington. This makes me very happy indeed. Hurrah.

NZ vs Aussie netball: loss.
NZ vs Venezuala basketball: loss.
My team vs. some other team basketball: loss.
Not that I’m downhearted, but it would have been nice to get one of those three in the W column…

D3vo likes to refer to his network of online scribblers as his “bloglings”. Well, neat. Here are some of my bloglings getting some long-overdue shouting-outing:

• T writes a splendid account of why George Monbiot is worth your time. I’ve mentioned the man a bunch of times here, and he’s linked in my fanboyism sidebar, but T calls his writing ‘epiphanic’ (apparently a real word). If you’ve never read anything by him, hop over here to see his latest missives.
• Sonal’s musing on the etiquette perils of Facebook ricocheted off a random comment by me to create a post that follows the maxim, What Would Jane Austen Do?. Amusement factor is increased by Sonal’s admission she’s never read any Jane Austen. Most etiquette solutions
  proposed thus far seem to end in marriage. Hee hee. (Also of note: she links to the Skinhead Hamlet, which I haven’t seen for years – you must check that out.)
• The Alligator and friends have achieved step one in the grand plan for world domination via yummy foodstuffs: the launch of their ice cream business in Seattle. Aaron’s highlight was witnessing a very young child taste ice cream for the first time. Congrats man!

And I’d link to more bloglings but it is time for basketball! Gotta run…