Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Nanny state

From today's front page:

"Playful Harry pushes the closet door shut and starts a nightmare in the dark for his mother"
The worst thing is that, under current law, he has to be tried as a juvenile.

26 comments:

  1. Sigh. Where do they find this shite? Did this appalling middle-class hosebag (no non-midddle class person calls a boy Harry) actually ring the paper to tell them what a little tyke Harry had been? Or have they got roving reporters listening in at coffee mornings? Or is it simply yet another case of a mate of a reporter getting in the paper?

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  2. I would say it's the latter. God knows how this qualifies as news but if this is the most important news in the country right now, we must be in pretty good shape.

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  3. "God knows how this qualifies as news but if this is the most important news in the country right now, we must be in pretty good shape."

    Yeah, 'cos it's not as if the 2025 report which has just been released is worthy of a bit of picking apart or anything (summary for those who don't want to wade through hundreds of pages of right-wing gibberish: a boot stamping on a human face, forever).

    Still, seeing has how today's Harold editorial more or less deep-throats Brash while simultaneously rimming him, I won't hold my breath for any sort of constructive criticism.

    Oh, and if I was dumb enough to lock myself in a cupboard and couldn't work out a way to get out, I wouldn't exactly be broadcasting my stupidity to the world. But that's just me...

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  4. "deep-throats Brash while simultaneously rimming him"

    There goes my lunch.

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  5. The Sunday Herald had a story about two women whose credit cards were cancelled after they used them overseas.

    This happens to roughly 95% of all people who travel overseas, so I wondered why it was suddenly news. It's not like the Herald even bothered to find out how widespread a problem it is, how people can avoid it, etc etc - it was totally "human (very little) interest angle".

    Turns out the women were a PR consultant and a journalist. I reckon most of these stories come over coffee at SPQR.

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  6. This story is a classic The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe tale... except without a lion or a witch... or a goat-legged man... or Christian allegory... But it did have a wardrobe which was hard to get out of and it went for about 7 hours.

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  7. "Turns out the women were a PR consultant and a journalist. I reckon most of these stories come over coffee at SPQR."

    The PR consultant must be paying the bill. I can't think of any journos who can afford to eat out. heh.

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  8. Dozy Woman! 7 hour nightmare indeed...many people spend their whole lives in the closet.

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  9. "many people spend their whole lives in the closet"

    ...perhaps there was some Christian allegory after all..

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  10. strange that the Times is interested in the story. Maybe it's not such a bad yarn after all?

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  11. I am still amazed that she couldn't break out of the wardrobe. She lives in Mt Eden, so odds are that she is living in a timber house with gib lined walls. As many drunked teen has found out accidentally, it is very easy to break a hole in a gib wall, especially in an old house.

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  12. It's happening already. You take away the parent's right to smack their child, and now the moment those litle fuckers find a weakness it's all over.

    It's only a matter of time before we're all raped by our own infant children.

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  13. I think it's time you revisted Rebecca Barry. While reading them may be as painful as gouging one's eyes out with a spoon, her columns are so agonisingly bad they deserve to be ripped to shreds more often.

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  14. As regards the Times being interested, will they also be splashing it on the front page with a nice decorative border and a picture of some journo's mate looking artfully distressed?

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  15. Do you have any similar tales? Email newsdesk@herald.co.nz.

    The front and back pages are becoming increasingly difficult to tell apart. It's only a matter of time before the lead story is an amusing example of poorly translated English.

    On a related note, email-forward youtube videos are creeping further and further up the 3 News bulletin...

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  16. no, but then the Times isn't a New Zealand newspaper.

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  17. Ah, not only The Times but also, it seems, the Sydney Morning Herald (The Miranda as it is known to its aficionados) seems to be interested in this riveting tale, publishing it in its 'strange but true' meme. See: http://www.smh.com.au/world/strangebuttrue/toddler-locks-mother-in-closet-for-seven-hours-20091201-k1i6.html. Does this, I wonder, indicate a renewed Fairfax interest in our fabulous organ or is it merely a legacy of our Mr Kirk's brief but tragic tenure at the Sydney paper. I think we should be told.

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  18. bearhunter
    It is clear your lack of practical newspaper experience is matched only by your lack of news judgement. That story went everywhere - and was the top story on the herald's website - for a reason: people like that kind of "shite".

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  19. The Sensible Sentencing Trust will no doubt be outraged that the pesky young offender will be eligible for home detention.

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  20. So I read the article and what I don't get (and maybe I misread it as I'm not about to read it again) is why the 2 year old would have been able to let the mother out but the three year old couldn't.

    It boggles the mind that you would want this in the paper, but I guess any advertising is good advertising...

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  21. I hate to say this, but the paper has turned amateurism into an art form today:

    Next to a story about the special olympics is a huge picture story about Paul Henry's comments on Susan Boyle, with the word 'retard' in the headline.

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  22. Uhh... 14 month old and 2 year old.

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  23. Seems our fine country is having one of those 'quiet news decades'.

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  24. "That story was the top story on the herald's website - for a reason: people like that kind of "shite"."

    And I've heard that there's a place they can get all they want of it - for free! Apparently, it's called 'the internet'. It even has pictures of cute kittens...with humorous captions!!!! LOL!!!! for when you get tired of reading about dumb bints stuck in cupboards.

    But personally, I'd prefer a 'newspaper' to actually report on some of the shit going on in the world that might actually have an impact on my life.

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  25. "The worst thing is that under current law he has to be tried as a juvenile"

    I'm sorry, I might have wet myself a little bit laughing at that line... hilarious!

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