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Disappointed with Occupy – Again
*Names are changed* The first time I visited our local Occupy site I was going to write about it, titled “Disappointed With Occupy”. Me, my partner and baby visited the site on a sunny day. One person,...
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Encouraged By #Occupy – Again
If you read my last post you will know I’ve been checking out my local “Occupy Wall Street” movement. I can now report that my initial misgivings were both well-founded, and completely wrong....
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How to Change Subconscious Cultural Assumptions
Tena kotou katoa. Ko Jonathan Elliot taku ingoa. Kia Ora Tatou! No reira, you just had a cultural experience reading those words. Most likely it was uncomfortable or confusing. Perhaps your cultural...
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Sorry Hitch, You’re Nothing
Christopher Hitchens is dead. Long live… No, can we please not do that. Let’s tell it like it is. Hitchens, like all men of sense and reason™ was an atheist and a materialist. In other words, there is...
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Trust and Occupy
In my years of on-again and mostly off-again activism I’ve met a lot of people. It saddens me that so many of those I meet, even in supposedly honest movements, display a basic lack of honesty and lack...
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Agamben, Exile and Compassion
Today I worked outside with others on a spontaneous project to create an outdoor stage for our New Year’s party. It’s summer solstice, the longest day. The sun was hot, the sky, cloudless. I made a...
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Alcohol
Instead of intimating once again that much has happened and leaving you tantalised, I shall simply write: About five weeks ago I foreswore the use of alcohol. Although there was much going on in my...
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Why Occupy Wellington Failed
It is hard for me to write the words “Occupy Wellington has failed”. Ever since the majority of campers left Civic Square in December I have been waiting and hoping that new life will spring up. Ever...
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Why Does Existence Matter? Simondon and Ontology
I’ve been reading about Gilbert Simondon, a French thinker (1924 – 1989) who has been very influential on the Continent, but is only just becoming known in the English-speaking world. I’m wondering if...
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Optimism Doesn’t Work. Voltaire’s Candide.
Christmas is a low stress affair in my family. We don’t give gifts to adults any more, so the frantic “What-on-earth-do-I-get-X?” is removed from the holiday. One of the few gifts I did receive is a...
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