Josh writes:
Regarding the "Kiwi"/"New Zealander" on census forms issue, like Jack, I'm all in favour of a change that will allow for what I feel is a more accurate categorization of my identity. In which spirit, I will still refuse to tick anything marked "Kiwi", as I am neither flightless bird nor hairy fruit. Seriously -- would the Australian census have a box marked "Ocker"? Does the English one have a "Pom" option?
That aside, my only real problem is that my ticking "New Zealander" on the grounds that it's the most literally correct option will be indistinguishable from other people ticking it to stick it to the PC feminazi multiculturalists with their socialist agendas and soy lattes and "Pakeha" is Maori for "stupid white pig", you know. Maybe that should tell me something, maybe not.
Moving on, it's a shame the Herald doesn't have its letters page online (copyright issues and whatnot); otherwise I could have linked to the letter in Saturday's edition from a man whose argument was basically "I am such a good driver that it's actually unsafe for me to drive at the speed limit -- doing 50 is so boring and pedestrian to my superior driving skills that I become tired and inattentive, thus making me a danger to those around me." Here's a lovely example of the denial and doublethink exemplified by those I complained about earlier. "I'm a Good Driver, and therefore not a danger, unlike those Bad Drivers out there" -- there's a lecture on Sartre and Bad Faith in there, but there's no need to subject innocent bloggers to that. And, no Mr. The Whig (can I call you The?), I don't believe that more speeding tickets will change his ways, but he's a cock so it's OK to laugh at him. A-haw!
Keeping with local events just a little bit longer, while people are alternately complaining at or nodding sagely in agreement with Deborah Coddington's comments on blogging and the facile bitchyness thereof, now seems like a good time to link to one of the better summaries of Internet "dialogue" I've seen recently...
Finally, in other news "evil" "satanist" runs for governor of Minnesota. Naturally, being dark and spoooky, he announced his candidacy last Friday... the 13th! Not even the word "gubernatorial" can soothe my contempt for this article.
Oh, for Christ's sake -- he even spells "vampire" with a "y". Every day alcoholism looks more like the realistic option...
5 comments:
Whilst holidaying on the Main-Danube Canal an American of my acquaintance (named 'Rich' but improbably pronounced 'Reg') asked whether refering to my Mother and I as Kiwis was offensive as it was basically calling us 'fruits.' He was most surprised to know that it was offensive not due to the fruit reference but because he was calling us evolutionary dead-ends with little to no eye-sight and a tendency to be eaten by rats.
With regard to the good driver/bad driver thing, I recently read in Cicero, a German magazine (afraid the specific article is not online) that when asked to judge their driving skills, over 90% of drivers consider themselves to be above average drivers. Scarily enough, there's a similar percentage who consider themselves to be of "above average" intelligence. Hmmmm.
Actually, having driven in Germany I'm sure 90% of German drivers are above average on an OECD-wide comparison, but that's presumably not what the survey was getting at...
on the self-perception, above-average thing - apparently (and I have no real basis for this but, you know, The Grapevine) men tend to think they are above average in the looks dept while women tend to think the reverse.
And I am an excellent driver. all the people I hit say so.
I am such a good driver that I stalled at the lights yesterday.
Twice.
At rush hour.
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