Are there things in the world that you encounter, products, points of view, activities that make you shake your head and ask, “how is that still a thing?” Not in an old-man-yells-at-clouds shake of the fist but a good humoured, a bewildered - why didn’t this end decades ago?
Not obvious things like luncheon sausage or Don Brash or Easter trading restrictions, but things that make you say, “Seriously – how is that still a thing?”
For example lets start with something small and most inconsequential. My daughter, she of the “Happy Birthday Poppa Jack” post this week, has a dance competition this weekend.
Now dance competitions require each piece of music to be an audio file burnt on a CD ROM. Not uploaded to a website, or emailed, or provided on a USB drive, but actually burnt onto a piece of physical media, that potentially can fail, for a one off use.
Not only that but if she is performing in half a dozen categories, perhaps her brother a couple more – that is 8 individual CDs to be burnt, provided, and thrown away each time the track is changed or cut differently.
This would have been all well and good 25 years ago when a burnable CD ROM was a feature of a PC, but when was the last time you bought a computer that had a CD drive?
What happens when the last two dollar shop sells the last of it’s stock of writable CDs? When the last computer with a CD drive heads off to the landfill? We have one computer left in the house, an iMac more than ten years old, that still actually has one – what happens when that dies?
I guess at some point it would have been sheet music you were providing so clearly some progress, but in 2022 – how is burning CD ROMs still a thing?
How about something a little more important - like Climate Change denial. How is that still a thing? Is it just to fuck with the rest of us?
Surely it’s like the whole flat-earth thing and no one actually believes it they just want attention, and seemingly the attention they want is “look at me, I’m stupid”
For politicians or the media there might be financial incentives to lie or obfuscate the truth but for Joe Bloggs what possible reason can there be for denying you’re on a planet with a changing and increasingly dangerous climate? Is it really just to fuck with the smart people?
How about Trickle-down economics, the idea that if we give the wealthiest people enough tax breaks, enough extra money in their pockets, that that wealth will trickle down to the rest of us, for example if they choose to hire a second pool boy.
I mean we all like a bit of 80s nostalgia, being on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, leg warmers, Dungeons and Dragons, but do we really want to still keep resurrecting a policy that should have been buried with Thatcher, Reagan and Roger Douglas?
Do they think voters are that stupid? Did we not bury Roger Douglas deeply enough? Was I kidding about the leg warmers? As far as I know they’re ready for a comeback, what do I know about fashion?
Josie Pagani is the representative for the left in political shows, our commentator to provide balance? Yeah nah she doesn’t speak for us. Seriously how is that still a thing - you may as well give us Peter Dunne!
Dairy owners want the government to pay for fog cannons to stop thieves, and bollards to stop ram raids from people who want to steal the cigarettes on site - how are dairies selling cigarettes still a thing? Surely if you only allow them to be sold on premises selling alcohol you at least greatly reduce the problem.
There might still be some ram raids but realistically not a lot of teenagers are going to steal a car to crash into a dairy in order to steal jelly tips and L&P. Premises have already been highlighting “no cash on premises” for years to deter robbers.
We want fewer and fewer people smoking so moving the ciggies to licensed premises seems a win/win solution with no downside other than for dairy owners who make a large chunk of their profits selling poison to the community.
Mild cheese - who is buying this? Who decides regular cheddar is too much cheese flavour for them and goes with a tasteless block of yellow protein instead?
Mocking the alleged female victim in an assault case - how is that still a thing?
Now I don’t know much about this Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard case although I’m assuming that with so many people having made up their mind about who is guilty Ms Heard winning would not be a good bet.
Obviously we want someone falsely accused to be cleared but is it really necessary to have the whole world laughing at a woman who claims to have been assaulted? I can’t see it doing good things for the cases where a woman brave enough to go to court as a victim of assault is accused of making it up.
Amber Heard may not be a compelling victim or witness but there are already enough people who wrongly claim many women make it up without this sad theatre.
Christopher Luxon made a post largely in te Reo in remembrance of Joe Hawke - good for him. Of course the comments were swamped by people saying he should only speak English, complaining angrily about the use of te Reo, and even suggesting Joe Hawke was not worth remembering.
How is it in 2022 that we have people complaining, people angry, about remembering a Maori leader who fought for the rights of Maori in the Maori language - how is that still a thing?
Perhaps we need a 501 type situation here, round up these people complaining at the use of te Reo in recognition of the passing of a famous New Zealander and say “right you had time to assimilate to living in Aotearoa, to understand there was another culture here and here long before you, but you didn’t so back off to where you came from with you”.
Some would no doubt complain “My family has been here five generations this is my country” to which I would say “yes, you lot tend to be the worst, tough luck you had your chance to be a decent human being in this beautiful place and respect the Tangata Whenua but you blew it with your racist nonsense still being there after five generations so back off to Blighty with you”.
But we let these racists live here, and say these awful things, without consequence while they moan about their right to free speech.
How is that still a thing?
I agree with your comment about Josie Pagani. She has become a regular opinion writer on Stuff, and although she is probably still Left of Janet Wilson ( not so "former" PR person for the National Party, and Damien Grant, John Bishop (,father of Chris, and initiator of the tax payers union ))and Ben whats his name who pops up everywhere (also a former PR person for the Nats ) - Josie shows herself to be somewhat underwhwelmed with the current govt. I gather she was an advisor to the Helen Clark govt. but has not been called apon by Jacinda Ardern - hence her regular criticisms of the PM, and her dismissive attitude to our Covid response. Then we have Andrea Vance -a Stuff journalist ( home country Ireland ) whose articles,and "opinion "pieces are always negative- never anything positive. She once wrote a piece entitled -"Jacinda Ardern is not always right. My response is that Andrea Vance is often wrong in her "reckons". I'm pretty sure the PM would not claim to be always right-and isn't good that we have a caucus and backbench MPs who also get a say, not to mention the other parties inparliament. Andrea Vance'slatest "opinion"piece on Stuff calls for an investigation into our covid respone. The title of her piece is that 1000 deaths cannot not be regarded as being alright. Of course she is right about the deaths- any untimely deaths caused by covid are sad/tragic. She implies that our covid response has not been good enough. She also implies that our health system became overwhelmed, and that needs to be investigated. I do hope she applies the same critical interest to her home country of Ireland. The latest numbers (from two days ago) state that Ireland, with a population similar to the size of NZ have had I MILLION,561 THOUSAND, AND 632 covid infections. Their current death toll is 7,271. according to the WHO. That is despite being a member of the EEC, and having access to all covid vaccinations produced within the EEC including thePfizzer vaccine, Astro-zeneca and others. I should say that I do think their should, and in fact will be a Royal Commission investigation of our covid response, but not one that will begin with the starting assumption that is already negative.
I couldn’t agree more & I am from Blighty.. 1st generation though 😳