Holy crap, two days in a row! This is another one about uni students, I think they deserve their own tag... fucking uni students. Although, to be fair, this is just a problem with complainy students, not the hard-working/grown-up/not bitchy ones. (as you might be able to tell, this is more anger filled than in recent times)
Whilst doing my routine 'morning Facebook check' today, I came across a petition (if you can call a Facebook page a petition) aimed at the Wellington City Council pleading for them to give poor little students half-fares on all forms of public transport... does that not make you as angry as it made me? Anyway, the reasons they stated for poor itty bitty uni students needing to pay half price on buses and trains were:
- Most Uni/Polytech students are poor, 'cause they have no time to get a job around study.
- Having to pay less would help students pay back their massive loans faster.
- Auckland has half fares for tertiary students, why can't Wellington?
Ok, so of the three examples they gave in support of them getting half-fares, I see precisely zero valid reasons for giving them what they want.
"Most students are poor"? Then what are you doing catching the fucking bus? How about you just walk or bike, it's not that far if you live in Wellington. And if you don't live in Wellington, why did you not think about how you were going to get into the city before deciding to go to university. You don't deserve half-price fares just because you have no fore-sight. And also, because you are poor?! So does your idea about half-price tickets also apply to poor families? How about the homeless? Also, isn't that what your student loan or student allowance is for?
Umm.... To be honest, the second reason seems like a liiittle bit of a stretch to me. Especially considering that most students are going to be paying their loans back once they are finished uni and have got their dream job of being a philosopher... and are no longer needing to pay for bus fares. Also, are you complaining about how MASSIVE your loan is? How about the government just doesn't give it to you then.. yeah, that's what I thought.
I think that the last reason really sums up the whole petition and idea. "But theeeey get it, why don't we?". You are acting like children. Weird children-adult hybrids. You have seen that someone else gets something, and you want it too. However, what you have to remember is that YOU AREN'T CHILDREN ANYMORE. You stopped being children a long time ago, and you stopped being children even more when you decided that you wanted to go to university, and when you stopped being children you starting being adults.. and adults pay full-fucking-fares when they take public transport. They pay it because they realise that they are been given a service, a service which they are not entitled to, thus a service that they must pay for.
So I end this rant by saying: Uni students in Wellington, you aren't kids anymore, grow some balls.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Selfishness of Humans.
Been a while hasn't it? This is a topic that plagues my mind, I think about it all the time, and reading another blogger's opinions on it inspired me to write something again. The topic of today being: How Humans are Inherently Selfish. (I get the feeling this isn't going to be an overly angry rant, just my own ideas)
Now, the idea that humans are selfish can be seen at any level of society, personally I tend to see selfishness everywhere, even charity is just making yourself feel that you have done something worthwhile and easing your social conscience... but the way I most often think about the idea (and how I am thinking of it now) is on a much, much larger scale.
We are the dominant species of the only planet that has 'intelligent' life on it in the entire universe (as far as we know).. we are an anomaly as far as the universe is concerned... and this is what we have done with that. We are slowly but surely raping our planet, we have crime.... lets stop on that for a moment.. think about the fact that we have crime. How unspeakably awful is it that we live in a world where a mother has a justifiable fear that if she takes her child to the grocery store, he/she could be kidnapped. That is what we did with the gift of existence.
It's a tough topic to think about, once you get stuck thinking about selfishness you begin to see it everywhere. The fact that we have a political compass, to me, is a great example. People want someone in power who they think will do what is best for them, rather than what is best for the country.. but, of course, they don't see any difference between 'them' and 'the country'. Humans, for whatever reason, lack the ability to see that 'the country' is made up of people just like them, each with their own complex problems that no one else understands, their own prejudices and ideals, their own thoughts on what will save the world, and each with the idea that their problems and needs are the most important in the world.
Now, the idea that humans are selfish can be seen at any level of society, personally I tend to see selfishness everywhere, even charity is just making yourself feel that you have done something worthwhile and easing your social conscience... but the way I most often think about the idea (and how I am thinking of it now) is on a much, much larger scale.
We are the dominant species of the only planet that has 'intelligent' life on it in the entire universe (as far as we know).. we are an anomaly as far as the universe is concerned... and this is what we have done with that. We are slowly but surely raping our planet, we have crime.... lets stop on that for a moment.. think about the fact that we have crime. How unspeakably awful is it that we live in a world where a mother has a justifiable fear that if she takes her child to the grocery store, he/she could be kidnapped. That is what we did with the gift of existence.
It's a tough topic to think about, once you get stuck thinking about selfishness you begin to see it everywhere. The fact that we have a political compass, to me, is a great example. People want someone in power who they think will do what is best for them, rather than what is best for the country.. but, of course, they don't see any difference between 'them' and 'the country'. Humans, for whatever reason, lack the ability to see that 'the country' is made up of people just like them, each with their own complex problems that no one else understands, their own prejudices and ideals, their own thoughts on what will save the world, and each with the idea that their problems and needs are the most important in the world.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Breast-Feeding in Public
So... it's not about whales.. but it's something.
This annoyance was sparked by an article I read this afternoon, and it made me want to rant about it so I figured that it was about time that I returned to the blogging game, rather than bugging people on Facebook with my thoughts.
Again, I'm gonna start of with a 'lets get something straight'... Let's get something straight, I am not opposed to breast feeding, nor doing it in public... they are breasts.. so I'm all for getting them out in the mall.. but not everyone thinks like that. And the people who annoy me are the ones who don't understand that not everyone likes to see random boob when they are out doing some shopping.
This is another kind of topic where the entire problem lies in the fact that some people are completely retarded when it comes to having perception or reaching compromise. If you read the article that i have linked above, you will see that the whole problem and protest stemmed from the fact that a women who decided to breast feed in a store was asked by an attendant, not to leave the store, but simply to stop breast feeding. Personally, I don't see why this sparked any sort of problem other than a little embarrassment for the breast-feeding women. It is completely within the rights of a shop owner/worker to ask a patron to stop doing something, especially if the thing they are doing could disturb other patrons, they are trying to run a business after all.
What particularly made me laugh was that there was a quote in the article from the initial breast-feeder saying: "It's shocking to me that, in 2011, people still have an attitude that women shouldn't breast-feed in public, I think it's absurd, especially in a children's clothing store". I will talk about the start of that quote in a bit, but for now I want to focus on that last line.. "Especially in a children's clothing store".. Reeeeally? You think that it is weird that people wouldn't be comfortable with you exposing your body to their young children while they are trying to buy them clothes? There is a time and a place for everything, a store filled with young children probably isn't the place to get a relatively taboo body part out.
Which brings me to my next point.. the part where some people just plain aren't comfortable with breast feeding.. You can say all you want about how that's wrong and not the way it should be, and how we should be comfortable with out natural naked bodies, but the fact of the matter is, we aren't, and that isn't about to change. It is how we are raised, we are taught to think of the human body as taboo, it is in our nature to shy away from it. It is a similar thing as, say, eating bugs.. there's nothing that wrong with it, it's not that different from eating any other animal, and we did it as kids. But as we grow up we are taught that it is wrong and disgusting, and now you go ask an adult to eat some bugs, you see how they react. The only way you are going to get a public that is unanimously okay with breast feeding is if you raise the next generation to be fine with the human body... possibly by making it compulsory for children to routinely watch soft-core porn.
You hear all these people talking about how it is just the human body, everyone has them, it's completely natural.... lets see if those people say the same thing when they are walking through the mall and see a male masturbating... it's just natural, ladies.
You may have noticed that I haven't actually talked about the act of feeding the child yet, that's because that isn't the problem, no one has a problem with the fact that these women are trying to feed their children, they just don't want to see body parts when they aren't prepared for it. Maybe if they knew that when they went to the store that day that they would see breasts, they would be okay with it (or they could just avoid going), but people don't like surprises, particularly when the surprises disagree with their built-in moral code. Besides, how hard is it for a mother to go to the freaking rest-room if she wants to feed her child? Unless you are trying to raise a Bear Grylls-esque child and refuse to feed them until they are on the brink of passing out from starvation, I don't think a walk to a private room is going to do that much harm, and it's certainly going to offend less people.
This annoyance was sparked by an article I read this afternoon, and it made me want to rant about it so I figured that it was about time that I returned to the blogging game, rather than bugging people on Facebook with my thoughts.
Again, I'm gonna start of with a 'lets get something straight'... Let's get something straight, I am not opposed to breast feeding, nor doing it in public... they are breasts.. so I'm all for getting them out in the mall.. but not everyone thinks like that. And the people who annoy me are the ones who don't understand that not everyone likes to see random boob when they are out doing some shopping.
This is another kind of topic where the entire problem lies in the fact that some people are completely retarded when it comes to having perception or reaching compromise. If you read the article that i have linked above, you will see that the whole problem and protest stemmed from the fact that a women who decided to breast feed in a store was asked by an attendant, not to leave the store, but simply to stop breast feeding. Personally, I don't see why this sparked any sort of problem other than a little embarrassment for the breast-feeding women. It is completely within the rights of a shop owner/worker to ask a patron to stop doing something, especially if the thing they are doing could disturb other patrons, they are trying to run a business after all.
What particularly made me laugh was that there was a quote in the article from the initial breast-feeder saying: "It's shocking to me that, in 2011, people still have an attitude that women shouldn't breast-feed in public, I think it's absurd, especially in a children's clothing store". I will talk about the start of that quote in a bit, but for now I want to focus on that last line.. "Especially in a children's clothing store".. Reeeeally? You think that it is weird that people wouldn't be comfortable with you exposing your body to their young children while they are trying to buy them clothes? There is a time and a place for everything, a store filled with young children probably isn't the place to get a relatively taboo body part out.
Which brings me to my next point.. the part where some people just plain aren't comfortable with breast feeding.. You can say all you want about how that's wrong and not the way it should be, and how we should be comfortable with out natural naked bodies, but the fact of the matter is, we aren't, and that isn't about to change. It is how we are raised, we are taught to think of the human body as taboo, it is in our nature to shy away from it. It is a similar thing as, say, eating bugs.. there's nothing that wrong with it, it's not that different from eating any other animal, and we did it as kids. But as we grow up we are taught that it is wrong and disgusting, and now you go ask an adult to eat some bugs, you see how they react. The only way you are going to get a public that is unanimously okay with breast feeding is if you raise the next generation to be fine with the human body... possibly by making it compulsory for children to routinely watch soft-core porn.
You hear all these people talking about how it is just the human body, everyone has them, it's completely natural.... lets see if those people say the same thing when they are walking through the mall and see a male masturbating... it's just natural, ladies.
You may have noticed that I haven't actually talked about the act of feeding the child yet, that's because that isn't the problem, no one has a problem with the fact that these women are trying to feed their children, they just don't want to see body parts when they aren't prepared for it. Maybe if they knew that when they went to the store that day that they would see breasts, they would be okay with it (or they could just avoid going), but people don't like surprises, particularly when the surprises disagree with their built-in moral code. Besides, how hard is it for a mother to go to the freaking rest-room if she wants to feed her child? Unless you are trying to raise a Bear Grylls-esque child and refuse to feed them until they are on the brink of passing out from starvation, I don't think a walk to a private room is going to do that much harm, and it's certainly going to offend less people.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Bill Maher
His first offence: he is a comedian, but he isn't funny. I cannot stand that, I know they say that humor is relative, but to find Bill Maher funny you have to agree with everything he says, and if you agree with everything he says, you are a sucker. Anyway, he shouldn't be as famous as he is as a comedian, I watched a show yesterday and didn't laugh once, even some women comedians get a laugh or two, come on*.
Alright, but onto the more serious matter. Bill Maher is one of the people who I hate most, not him specifically, but that sort of person.. that sort of manipulative, hypocritical, left-wing extremist that I said university is turning university students into in my last post. He tends to talk about one of two topics (sometimes both) when he opens his mouth: Republicans and religion... and he talks about them in the most fucked up, retarded, one-sided, hypocritical, close-minded, ignorant, un-funny, egotistical, pretentious, narcissistic way... that is to say, he talks about them whilst being a flaming bag of douche.
On Republicans, his talks are usually about how stupid and bad for the country (The U.S) they (Republicans) are.. so right there he is forgetting a few things. I understand that the left and the right do not get along, I don't understand why they don't or why they are so stupid about it, but I do understand that they feel the desire to mock each other. However, I feel that liberals, like Bill Maher, tend to forget everything they stand for when it comes to people on the right. They have always been heavy advocates for the freedoms of man-kind, but only when it comes to themselves, when it comes to Republicans they don't think that they should have the right to form their own slightly different opinions about what the country needs, nor for what they believe in spiritually, environmentally or any other sort of 'ly'.
Also, as his lecturers go on, it becomes apparent that he doesn't actually believe in the two party system, and he doesn't know how a democracy works. I think that he believes in the idea of a two party system, but he doesn't like it when his side doesn't win. So he takes this anger out by slandering the other side, and at the same time, becoming a massive hypocrit. He talks about how the Republicans are 'dumb' and makes them sound downright awful by telling half-truths and one-sided 'facts' about them and saying that they scare people into voting for them... Which I find interesting.. I wonder how one would classify his rants about them. He goes on and on about how they are going to be the end of the country, while leaving out any potential good that they do, almost as if he is scaring anyone who is listening into believing his point of view.. huh.. interesting.
As for not understanding democracy, it is simple, he doesn't understand that for one party to be in power, they have to get a majority of the votes. It is actually that simple. If a party is in power it means that the majority of the people in that country support them. He complains about how the whole country hates them and thinks they are as bad as he thinks they are, whilst forgetting that they did actually have the majoirty of support. Of course, he blames this on stupid, easily swayed people rather than accepting that some people just don't believe in what he believes.
As for his views on religion, if you have heard of Bill Maher, you probably know his opinions on the matter. Most of it can be summed up in my post about 'People who are extremely anti-religion'. One part I didn't touch upon in that post, however, is that the people like him seem to go on about (in a really high and mighty manner) how religion causes so much death and bad things.. and apparently that is a good reason to abolish it. Firstly, right there you are ignoring the first basic human right. Secondly, religion does not cause death and suffering, that is completely false. Humans cause death and suffering.
Religion is not the only thing that has ever caused death or war, that is just a cop out used by anti-religious people. The fact is, even if there wasn't religion, humans would find a reason to kill and invade, we are just a bad species. Think back to before Christianity was prominent, ancient Greek times for example. Those wars weren't about a difference in religion, they just made war because it was, and is, in our nature. You didn't have slaves in ancient Greece because the gods said it was fine, you just had them because you could and it made life easier. Blaming Christianity for bad things is pointless, it is like saying that the war in Iraq is a war for oil. We blame things because we have to have a reason for everything, we have to have something to blame everything on.. it is just in our nature.
* Yes, I am saying that women comedians aren't funny. Got a problem with that? Go watch a whole heap of women comedians and tell me I am wrong.
Alright, but onto the more serious matter. Bill Maher is one of the people who I hate most, not him specifically, but that sort of person.. that sort of manipulative, hypocritical, left-wing extremist that I said university is turning university students into in my last post. He tends to talk about one of two topics (sometimes both) when he opens his mouth: Republicans and religion... and he talks about them in the most fucked up, retarded, one-sided, hypocritical, close-minded, ignorant, un-funny, egotistical, pretentious, narcissistic way... that is to say, he talks about them whilst being a flaming bag of douche.
On Republicans, his talks are usually about how stupid and bad for the country (The U.S) they (Republicans) are.. so right there he is forgetting a few things. I understand that the left and the right do not get along, I don't understand why they don't or why they are so stupid about it, but I do understand that they feel the desire to mock each other. However, I feel that liberals, like Bill Maher, tend to forget everything they stand for when it comes to people on the right. They have always been heavy advocates for the freedoms of man-kind, but only when it comes to themselves, when it comes to Republicans they don't think that they should have the right to form their own slightly different opinions about what the country needs, nor for what they believe in spiritually, environmentally or any other sort of 'ly'.
Also, as his lecturers go on, it becomes apparent that he doesn't actually believe in the two party system, and he doesn't know how a democracy works. I think that he believes in the idea of a two party system, but he doesn't like it when his side doesn't win. So he takes this anger out by slandering the other side, and at the same time, becoming a massive hypocrit. He talks about how the Republicans are 'dumb' and makes them sound downright awful by telling half-truths and one-sided 'facts' about them and saying that they scare people into voting for them... Which I find interesting.. I wonder how one would classify his rants about them. He goes on and on about how they are going to be the end of the country, while leaving out any potential good that they do, almost as if he is scaring anyone who is listening into believing his point of view.. huh.. interesting.
As for not understanding democracy, it is simple, he doesn't understand that for one party to be in power, they have to get a majority of the votes. It is actually that simple. If a party is in power it means that the majority of the people in that country support them. He complains about how the whole country hates them and thinks they are as bad as he thinks they are, whilst forgetting that they did actually have the majoirty of support. Of course, he blames this on stupid, easily swayed people rather than accepting that some people just don't believe in what he believes.
As for his views on religion, if you have heard of Bill Maher, you probably know his opinions on the matter. Most of it can be summed up in my post about 'People who are extremely anti-religion'. One part I didn't touch upon in that post, however, is that the people like him seem to go on about (in a really high and mighty manner) how religion causes so much death and bad things.. and apparently that is a good reason to abolish it. Firstly, right there you are ignoring the first basic human right. Secondly, religion does not cause death and suffering, that is completely false. Humans cause death and suffering.
Religion is not the only thing that has ever caused death or war, that is just a cop out used by anti-religious people. The fact is, even if there wasn't religion, humans would find a reason to kill and invade, we are just a bad species. Think back to before Christianity was prominent, ancient Greek times for example. Those wars weren't about a difference in religion, they just made war because it was, and is, in our nature. You didn't have slaves in ancient Greece because the gods said it was fine, you just had them because you could and it made life easier. Blaming Christianity for bad things is pointless, it is like saying that the war in Iraq is a war for oil. We blame things because we have to have a reason for everything, we have to have something to blame everything on.. it is just in our nature.
* Yes, I am saying that women comedians aren't funny. Got a problem with that? Go watch a whole heap of women comedians and tell me I am wrong.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
University
Not so much a problem with the idea of furthering your studies, just with how it actually is.
The first thing that I noticed about the people who I know that have packed up and gone to university is that they have turned into... how do I put this.. ragin' liberals. I have no problem with people on the left (well, I find the whole political compass thing to be pointless and counter-productive, but that is not the point), but one gets tired of hearing about how fucked America is, and how Fox represents everything bad in the world... Hey, here's an idea, shut the hell up. You know what is worse than Fox news? Repeating everything your hippy lecturer says and adopting all of their values. I thought that university was for the open-minded individuals of our societies to go and learn about their desired field, not a place to go and become liberal elitists. "Fox news is just a mouthpiece for the Republican party/vice versa, I prefer more non-bias shows" oh yeah? Interesting that you care about that, considering you live in fucking New Zealand, and what exactly do you watch then? "Oh, I watch the Daily Show and The Colbert Report every night*"..... oh, those shows that almost exclusively mock those on the right... huh, I can see you have a very accurate idea of what the phrase 'non-bias' means.
Another thing that annoys me about university is the papers/courses available, seriously.. B.A's? Why even bother? They seem so incredibly pointless to me, mainly due to the invention and expansion of the internet. If you want to learn about media or theatre or communication that badly, why not just google it? How is it going to help you in a career hunt, at all, if you show a piece of paper that says you learned about movies for 3 years? **
In New Zealand, uni students tend to have a 4 month holiday over the end of one year and going into the next one, the purpose of this (I have been informed) is to let the students go out and get work experience in the field which they are studying. This is not done. They use it to drink, work at some crappy job, use the money to drink more. The reason for this is that a heck of a lot of students can't get work in their specific study-field, because jobs don't exist in that field. Which should really tell them to change their degree, maybe to something that actually has ample opportunities for work.. maybe. Otherwise just go for it, at least you can hang your degree in your office when you get a desk job, which doesn't utilise any of the skills/knowledge you spent all that time and money on, and never will.
Also, uni is full of hipsters.. filthy fucking hipsters.
*For the record, I actually really enjoy both of these shows, as well as highly respecting both of these men, but that is beside the point.
**An exception for the pointlessness of a B.A: if it is combined with something not pointless e.g. teaching.
The first thing that I noticed about the people who I know that have packed up and gone to university is that they have turned into... how do I put this.. ragin' liberals. I have no problem with people on the left (well, I find the whole political compass thing to be pointless and counter-productive, but that is not the point), but one gets tired of hearing about how fucked America is, and how Fox represents everything bad in the world... Hey, here's an idea, shut the hell up. You know what is worse than Fox news? Repeating everything your hippy lecturer says and adopting all of their values. I thought that university was for the open-minded individuals of our societies to go and learn about their desired field, not a place to go and become liberal elitists. "Fox news is just a mouthpiece for the Republican party/vice versa, I prefer more non-bias shows" oh yeah? Interesting that you care about that, considering you live in fucking New Zealand, and what exactly do you watch then? "Oh, I watch the Daily Show and The Colbert Report every night*"..... oh, those shows that almost exclusively mock those on the right... huh, I can see you have a very accurate idea of what the phrase 'non-bias' means.
Another thing that annoys me about university is the papers/courses available, seriously.. B.A's? Why even bother? They seem so incredibly pointless to me, mainly due to the invention and expansion of the internet. If you want to learn about media or theatre or communication that badly, why not just google it? How is it going to help you in a career hunt, at all, if you show a piece of paper that says you learned about movies for 3 years? **
In New Zealand, uni students tend to have a 4 month holiday over the end of one year and going into the next one, the purpose of this (I have been informed) is to let the students go out and get work experience in the field which they are studying. This is not done. They use it to drink, work at some crappy job, use the money to drink more. The reason for this is that a heck of a lot of students can't get work in their specific study-field, because jobs don't exist in that field. Which should really tell them to change their degree, maybe to something that actually has ample opportunities for work.. maybe. Otherwise just go for it, at least you can hang your degree in your office when you get a desk job, which doesn't utilise any of the skills/knowledge you spent all that time and money on, and never will.
Also, uni is full of hipsters.. filthy fucking hipsters.
*For the record, I actually really enjoy both of these shows, as well as highly respecting both of these men, but that is beside the point.
**An exception for the pointlessness of a B.A: if it is combined with something not pointless e.g. teaching.
Friday, October 15, 2010
This quote:
"In A Society That Has Abolished All Adventure The Only Adventure Left Is To Abolish That Society"
(Link)
Now, this is clearly a quote that is implying that anarchy would be good, not that the people who quote it know that, they think it is just saying that people don't take enough risks or some shit like that. But either way, it is ridiculous! I mean, by abolishing society in favour of adventure, you are just going to create a different society, one that is completely adventurous, but it will become the norm and you will be left with another 'boring society'?
But it isn't really the 'plot holes' in the quote that annoy me, it is the people who use this quote as some form of inspiration behind their life, it all links back to my previous 'Teenagers refusing to grow up" post. It's the sort of people who think that to grow up and accept your place in society is boring, who think that getting a 9 till 5 job is selling out, people who think that the only thing to life is adventure but only if it is their idea of the word... you know, immature people. What these people need to realise is that 'adventure' does not mean 'going out and causing disturbances by being a moron'.
This is a reasonably short post because I have covered most of it before.. but people need to realise that society is a necessary part of life, also they need to see that 'society' and 'adventure' can actually go together. Their thirst for adventure is actually just typical teenage rebellion, but when you have rebelled against everything the only thing left to rebel against is rebellion itself.
(Link)
Now, this is clearly a quote that is implying that anarchy would be good, not that the people who quote it know that, they think it is just saying that people don't take enough risks or some shit like that. But either way, it is ridiculous! I mean, by abolishing society in favour of adventure, you are just going to create a different society, one that is completely adventurous, but it will become the norm and you will be left with another 'boring society'?
But it isn't really the 'plot holes' in the quote that annoy me, it is the people who use this quote as some form of inspiration behind their life, it all links back to my previous 'Teenagers refusing to grow up" post. It's the sort of people who think that to grow up and accept your place in society is boring, who think that getting a 9 till 5 job is selling out, people who think that the only thing to life is adventure but only if it is their idea of the word... you know, immature people. What these people need to realise is that 'adventure' does not mean 'going out and causing disturbances by being a moron'.
This is a reasonably short post because I have covered most of it before.. but people need to realise that society is a necessary part of life, also they need to see that 'society' and 'adventure' can actually go together. Their thirst for adventure is actually just typical teenage rebellion, but when you have rebelled against everything the only thing left to rebel against is rebellion itself.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Journalists (in New Zealand at least)
Now I don't know what it is like with journalists in other countries, but in New Zealand, something is going seriously wrong with the way they go about their jobs, or maybe it has always been happening and I have only started caring recently.. either way, it is damn annoying.
I don't have any journalist training, so I don't know if this is how they are trained, but my idea of their profession is that they should be there to research and present facts, not opinion. And if they do really need to present opinion, they shouldn't be sharing their own, but the ones they do share should be shared in a way that represents both/all sides of the story! I am so tired of news programmes in NZ trying to have bias, but not being able to make up their mind on which bias that is, they sort of just end up presenting stories which say "the government did this, which is bad. But the opposition was offering this.. which is also bad.. now, a story about ducks". STOP TRYING TO EMULATE AMERICAN NEWS! Our left and right wing parties don't lean that far in their respective directions, certainly not far enough to warrant news programmes with political favouritism.
But then, if they don't succeed in having a political bias, they decide it isn't worth having actual news on the news. Instead, they have a sop story, where someone got ripped off by someone or lost something or got kicked out of somewhere, accompanied by a tear jerking musical number and the most one sided investigative journalism the world has ever seen. Case and point, Close Up. Which is comprised entirely of stories like this. Designed to tell people what they are pre-disposed to hearing to provoke an emotional reaction (and a sense of satisfaction about the fact that someone on television agrees with their views eg. animals are good, activists are good, humans are bad, zoos are bad, aquariums are bad, corporations are bad, builders are bad, governments are bad). An example of this, tonight on Close-Up they were doing a story about NZ's national museum (Te Papa), who came out today saying that they would recommend that pregnant or menstruating women do not go on a behind-the-scenes tour of a Maori exhibition so to respect some cultural beliefs.. they weren't saying you can't, just that if you are pregnant or menstruating and want to respect their beliefs, you shouldn't.. but, mind you, only for that one behind the scenes tour, the rest of the museum is fine. However, in the build up to Close-Up tonight, we hear Mark Sainsbury's voice yelling "Tonight, why has our national museum told women to stay away!?!"..... Fuck you, Mark Sainsbury. You are an abomination, and yet you get praised as one of our top journalists?
Really, all I want is to be able to sit down and watch actual, well researched, news stories from New Zealand and from around the world presented to me in factual and non-bias way, preferably with an attempt at showing both sides of a story. Instead I get sensationalised news stories for 15 minutes, and then articles which can best be described as un-news-worthy crap for the next 45. But I am not sure who to blame. Is it us for putting so much pressure on them with ratings, or by having short attention spans? Maybe if we took away the yearly 'Best News Show' award, they might just stop fishing for ratings and start presenting the facts.
(Although, if you are in New Zealand and want good news, Prime News at 5.30 is pretty good. Short and, in my opinion, far superior to channel 1 or 3's news.)
I don't have any journalist training, so I don't know if this is how they are trained, but my idea of their profession is that they should be there to research and present facts, not opinion. And if they do really need to present opinion, they shouldn't be sharing their own, but the ones they do share should be shared in a way that represents both/all sides of the story! I am so tired of news programmes in NZ trying to have bias, but not being able to make up their mind on which bias that is, they sort of just end up presenting stories which say "the government did this, which is bad. But the opposition was offering this.. which is also bad.. now, a story about ducks". STOP TRYING TO EMULATE AMERICAN NEWS! Our left and right wing parties don't lean that far in their respective directions, certainly not far enough to warrant news programmes with political favouritism.
But then, if they don't succeed in having a political bias, they decide it isn't worth having actual news on the news. Instead, they have a sop story, where someone got ripped off by someone or lost something or got kicked out of somewhere, accompanied by a tear jerking musical number and the most one sided investigative journalism the world has ever seen. Case and point, Close Up. Which is comprised entirely of stories like this. Designed to tell people what they are pre-disposed to hearing to provoke an emotional reaction (and a sense of satisfaction about the fact that someone on television agrees with their views eg. animals are good, activists are good, humans are bad, zoos are bad, aquariums are bad, corporations are bad, builders are bad, governments are bad). An example of this, tonight on Close-Up they were doing a story about NZ's national museum (Te Papa), who came out today saying that they would recommend that pregnant or menstruating women do not go on a behind-the-scenes tour of a Maori exhibition so to respect some cultural beliefs.. they weren't saying you can't, just that if you are pregnant or menstruating and want to respect their beliefs, you shouldn't.. but, mind you, only for that one behind the scenes tour, the rest of the museum is fine. However, in the build up to Close-Up tonight, we hear Mark Sainsbury's voice yelling "Tonight, why has our national museum told women to stay away!?!"..... Fuck you, Mark Sainsbury. You are an abomination, and yet you get praised as one of our top journalists?
Really, all I want is to be able to sit down and watch actual, well researched, news stories from New Zealand and from around the world presented to me in factual and non-bias way, preferably with an attempt at showing both sides of a story. Instead I get sensationalised news stories for 15 minutes, and then articles which can best be described as un-news-worthy crap for the next 45. But I am not sure who to blame. Is it us for putting so much pressure on them with ratings, or by having short attention spans? Maybe if we took away the yearly 'Best News Show' award, they might just stop fishing for ratings and start presenting the facts.
(Although, if you are in New Zealand and want good news, Prime News at 5.30 is pretty good. Short and, in my opinion, far superior to channel 1 or 3's news.)
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