hmm

from the herald

Every time Health Minister Tony Ryall and Education Minister Anne Tolley use the term "nanny state" to justify their new food policies, many public health researchers wince.

They know the two words masterfully tap into the ideology that the state should stay out of matters like food consumption.

So much so that public health workers and researchers have felt virtually powerless to respond.

Until yesterday.

Now they are planning a counterattack against the use of the terms "nanny state", "bureaucracy", "political correctness", "health nazi" and others by politicians and the food, tobacco and alcoholindustries.

Dr George Thomson and colleagues from Otago University at Wellington searched the English language media internationally and their findings included a sharp increase in the use of "nanny state" after 2002.

In relation to obesity, tobacco and alcohol in New Zealand, its use peaked last year at 120 references per 100,000 articles.

Big rises in the use of "nanny state" and "bureaucracy" coincided with the proposal to make bars smoke-free and Parliament's obesity inquiry.

"When industries think their profits are at risk, they negatively frame the efforts of government to protect people from an industry's activities," Dr Thomson said.

"There's a need to reframe public health activity as stewardship that protects people. We need to emphasise the advantages of the strong state, the state that protects," he told the conference. But the public health community, delving into alien territory, acknowledges it needs some help from the country's top advertising brains in coming up with catchy counter-phrases.

Professor Boyd Swinburn, of Deakin University in Melbourne, promotes the term "ninny state", which he picked up from an Australian conference audience.

Dr Thomson said "ninny state" was used to describe some current public health policies that were "stupid, weak and not protecting people".

He also promoted the slogan "end corporate welfare", which he said was a hit at industries that benefited financially from inadequate controls on their products.

the ideology here is the question of who has responsiibity for looking afetr themselves. in the case of restrictions, the question is often pitched as removing choice from consumers in their own best interests. this tends to rub people up the wrong way.

the problem is that consumer choice means that people will often do the wrong or stupid thing, even though they know that its wrong or stupid (i speak as a smoker).
this leads to the problem 9according to pro-large state people) that the people who do these stupid things will then turn to the state for assistance with health problems. the most common exxample given these days is letting junk food into schools leading to greater costs in dealing with obesity and diabetes.

i will be interested to see how they manage this campaign, but i suspect that deleivering a message of "you need to be protected from yourself" will be a hard sell.

still railing against the corporate sector may have some results

may be funny

from the dominion post

A taxman driven around the bend by continuing work woes drove his car through the building where he had worked for 25 years.

David Jerrold Theobald, 47, drove his Mazda 626 through the foyer of the Christchurch Inland Revenue building on Cashel St at 6.30am on Saturday after a three-year employment dispute.

He crashed through two sets of glass doors and smashed a third on the other side of the foyer before coming to a stop.

Mr Theobald said he had gone to great lengths to avoid risk to any staff.

"I checked with the cleaners the night before to make sure no-one would be in the building. I drove right up to the doors, looked both ways, then slowly pushed forward till the doors broke."

Mr Theobald said he was fed up with what he saw as concealment of workplace bullying and incompetent management at Inland Revenue.

"This has been going on for three years, and now I've got four official information requests in with them and they're making that as onerous as possible ... This was just a way to make a gesture."

He also wanted to highlight how easy it would be for someone with terrorist intentions to ramraid the building with a truck full of explosives. "It's just another 9/11 waiting to happen."

Mr Theobald is a fixture of the Christchurch music scene. He is known as Mick Elborado when he plays with his band The Axemen and in other groups.

He appeared in Christchurch District Court yesterday charged with intentional damage and reckless driving and was remanded on bail till August 31.

He told The Dominion Post he had not decided how he would plead, but was prepared to accept the consequences of his actions.

Inland Revenue would not comment on the incident as it was before the court, but Mr Theobald has received a letter from human resources head Patrick Crawford.

In it, Mr Crawford said: "Information has come to my attention which indicates that you may have intentionally driven a car through Inland Revenue's Christchurch building ... I am concerned that your conduct may be inconsistent with the Code of Conduct."

Mr Theobald could face up to seven years in prison if found guilty of criminal damage.

what made this story for me was the letter from hr advising that his "conduct may be inconsistent with the code of conduct"

may? may??

but then, think about it. he did this in his own time,and having seen the IRD's code of conduct, I'm reasonable sure that it doesn't say that you're not allowed to drive your car into the builsing.

not dead yet

i was half-listening to the radio yesterday, when the news came on and i heard rge name of chris knox. unfortunately i didn't hear the rest of the news, so i had to wait.

it turns out that he wasn't dead. chris knox had a stroke on thursday night and is now in hospital.

still, the fact that he is still alive hasn't stopped the eulogising. highlights of his career were mentioned in the herald, and on stuff.

i've met him, you know. when i was doing the lights for francis sect, he occasionally played solo as support, and i ended up doing the lights for him as well.

at the they might be giants gig in 1990, he said hello. and when they started a singalong section, he was joining in as cheerfully as anyone else.

get well soon

annoying headline

from the nz herald

No NZers among 216 passengers on missing jet

well that's alright then, so long as it was only foreigners...

i know that this is a new thing; monty python satrised the british tendency to do this kind of thing in the seventies (and not the nine o'clock news did it again in the eighties)

it is irritating the way that papers need to have a local slant to try ands make it relevant for local readers

i remeber one headline that came out on september 12 2001 (kiwi slightly hurt in new york attack)

the irony is that print media is one of the most blatant signs of globalisation in the modern world. the herald is owned by an irishman (who is still in ireland), the sub editors are based in australia.

creative

An extortion racket has taken a new twist with would-be victims being offered protection from the extortionist – in return for cash.

At least two businesses have received calls asking for $2000 protection money, The New Zealand Herald reported.

The calls come as police investigate reports of a Mandarin-speaking man calling Asian businesses asking for sums ranging from a few thousand dollars to $20,000.

Counties Manukau police spokeswoman Ana-Mari Gates-Bowey said the caller claimed to part of an Asian gang.

"Police employees in the wider Auckland area have been deployed to the targeted businesses and are ensuring that there is no fear within the region," she said.

"Police advise the public if contacted by the caller to not present themselves as vulnerable and to not be intimidated."

Ms Gates-Bowey said the Asian community had responded well so far and urged anyone who was contacted to get in touch with police as soon as possible.

Police said anyone receiving these calls should note down all details of what was said, and whether any threats were made.

"Do not give out any bank details or pin numbers over the telephone and be alert around your business place. If you notice anything suspicious contact police immediately," Counties Manukau police's Asian liaison officer Justin Zeng said.

Police said no one had yet reported giving any money to the callers.

i saw the original article about the initial extortion attempt a couple of days ago.
at that stage, the potential victims were being asked for protection money. they were refusing to bite and reporting this to the police.

now someone is offering them protection for the previos extortionist

i wonder if its the same guy

new zealand justice

A

man who tried to steal grocery items from a Blenheim supermarket has been ordered to shout the staff a $200 morning tea.

In Blenheim District Court yesterday Judge Tony Zohrab said Steven Gary Page, 26, unemployed, should pay the $200 in emotional harm reparation to the manager of Redwoodtown Super Value after he put $9.77 of groceries in the pockets of his shorts on May 13.

The Marlborough Express reported that Judge Zohrab told Page, who had pleaded guilty to shoplifting, the money should be used to buy morning tea for the staff.

"Dealing with people like you is not the most pleasant part of their job," he said.

Judge Zohrab sentenced Page to 80 hours' community work. He said Page had a long history of shoplifting and stealing.

- NZPA

everyone knows that a couple of sausage rolls and a cream filled scone helps with post-traumatic stress disorders

kids today

LAROSE, Louisiana - A Louisiana middle school student stormed into a classroom and fired a gunshot over a teacher's head yesterday before shooting himself in a bathroom, authorities said.

Investigators found a suicide note and plans for a rampage in the teen's journal.

The 15-year-old student, whose name was not released, fired once around 9 a.m. local time inside a classroom at Larose-Cut Off Middle School, then shot himself in the head, said Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre. He was in critical but stable condition. The teacher had never taught the teen.

Webre said investigators found a note describing the boy's plans to "gear up" before his spree, along with a drawing of how he'd dress. The boy also scribbled "I am king" and "y'all will die!" on a sheet of paper investigators found.

Although he apparently was intent on killing people, he was armed with only four bullets for the .25-calibre, semiautomatic pistol he had taken from his father's home during the weekend. The boy's mother noticed he seemed nervous before school, but he said he was just worried about seeing his standardised test results, which were released Monday, Webre said.

About 500 sixth, seventh and eighth-graders attend the school in a rural community of about 7,000 people, some 72 kilometres southwest of New Orleans. Webre said the boy had no disciplinary problems at school and hadn't been in trouble with the law. The teen had no reason to be in the classroom, he said.

He was a year or two older than most of his classmates, who described him as a quiet boy who never talked about guns or violence.

Webre said investigators found inside the boy's bookbag a completely filled journal and two loose sheets of paper that appeared to be a plan for the shooting and a suicide note. The school has both standing and handheld metal detectors, but they aren't used all the time and weren't in use on Monday.

Webre said the boy arrived at the school in uniform - white shirt, khaki pants - but changed into camouflage pants shown in his drawing. In an expletive-laced note, he wrote, "First, I will tell my art class teacher that I had to go to the bathroom. Then I would go to the last stall and 'gear up.'"

The school was scheduled to reopen today with enhanced security and several counsellors on hand.

-AP

it has been ten years since columbine (yes, really) and sadly school spree killings are still going on

still, is this the most inept pree killing ever?

only four bullets and the first is a warning shot

i think there may be another story behind this

brief encounter

about a year ago, 15 year old pihema cameron and a friend decided to round off a day of smoking dak and drinking by spraying his mark on the fence of 50 year old bruce
emery, who had been tagged before, grabbed a knife and ran outside to confront the youths.
either emery stabbed cameron or cameron confronted him and fell on the knife-the end result was the same; pihema cameron died.
emery went home, cleaned the knife and went to bed.
he was arrested a couple of days later and was charged with manslaughter.
this afternoon, he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

this has been a contentious case. there is, of course, concern over the death of a "child" (15 is probably stretching that description), but there is also a lot of support for emery. tagging is a problem and had emery called the police, it was likley that they wouldn't have bothered taking the call.

did pihema cameron deserve to die? well, no, but it is disturbing that a number of my fellow citizens believe that he got what he disturbed.

there has also been the traditional cry of "where were the parents?"

then there is emery. he has lost his business and his freedom, his family have had to move as they have been getting death threats.

bad decisions all round