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Showing posts from February, 2006

Thoughtspurs™ 2

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein Big Al is always good for a quote. Watched a documentary on TV the other day about the end of his life. After the success of his theory of relativity (maybe you've heard of it?) he struggled with the concept of quantum mechanics. He was determined to arrive at a unified theory of everything. Hey, why not? It never pannned out for him and he died a somewhat irrelevant character on the science stage - which doesn't change the fact that his thinking changed ours.

Pulp Friction

There is a discontent in the plush retirement village of ‘Eminent’ New Zealanders. ‘Pulp!’ they chant loudly – over the clatter of false teeth and MBEs and the Grand Order of Knowing Better Than Everybody Else . Who better to understand pulp than a group whose diet must be strained and refined? ‘Television New Zealand should be fully funded by the government! (a.k.a ‘Hard Working New Zealand families’) For such an apparently intellectual mob (albeit now subscribers to the large print edition of the journals of record) one can’t help but wonder how much more out of touch they could possibly be. Perhaps reception in ivory towers and palaces is a little fuzzy. Unlike the malcontents listed I don’t claim to represent the views of anyone but myself. But I think that Television in New Zealand is pretty darned good. There is variety. Some is good and some is bad. Very little is appalling. Variety makes it an interesting diet and one consumed happily by the great unwashed…er, majority…of us q