CleverBlogName

No, not some sort of wanky litcrit nonsense. For real.

I used to take the bus from my house in Hataitai to Willis Street for work, back in the first year I lived here. I eventually quit in frustration.

Now Ada’s in a creche by the Basin Reserve, and I’m still working on Willis Street, I’ve been taking long lunch breaks to trundle down and see her at lunch time. I thought I’d cut down on the time by grabbing a bus. Now I remember why I quit using them to commute.

• Walking is just as fast as taking a bus. If I walk from the northern end of Willis Street to the southern end of Kent Terrace it’s 20—30 minutes. If I take the bus, well, it take about the same time. And costs money.
• Most of this time is spent sitting in a goddamn bus shelter. I always used to end up walking 80% of the way home because the alternative was spending the same amount of time waiting for a bus.
• The whole thing of being in a vehicle with no seat belts and lots of bare metal surfaces that want to meet my face if we hit something gives me the shits. Especially when…
• Wellington bus drivers are a pack of wankers. Specifically:
  • All those dents on the buses. Ever think there’s some sort of correlation between the dents appearing and your habit of roaring along too-narrow streets at inappropriate speeds?
  • You know, the reason those people are waiting for your mostly empty bus is because it’s raining. Driving past is perhaps not what you’re being paid to do.
  • If you then ignore the next driver bellowing at you to stop over your bus-to-bus radio you don’t get bonus points. Not from the would-be customers.
  • Red lights are not optional.
  • Nor pedestrian crossings.

Buses are a fine idea. But, I submit, as implemented, they are a piss-poor way of getting around town.

Something I’ve noticed in the endless discussions about Americans torturing people is that someone will, sooner or later, bring up a from an authoritative-looking source (say a former secret police type) explaining that torture isn’t very effective at gaining useful information.

This usually touches off a storm of indignation. From, oddly enough, some of the people who don’t like torture. They will often be very, very upset that the practicality is discussed because, the argument goes, torture simply shouldn’t be countenanced irrespective of whether it’s effective.

I find this an odd perspective. Surely “is this effective” is the first question to ask, not one to mark off-limits. If torture is an effective intelligence-gathering tool, well, then we have a moral quandry to deal with, and we need to consider all those wonderful ticking time bomb questions and so on.

But if we establish that torture doesn’t even have the effect of getting good quality information, well, then, we don’t have any further moral argument, since at that point, the only people interested in torture must either be lamentably ill-informed, or psychopathic sadists.

“Recently, I found a series of notebooks filled with cramped, pencilled handwriting - the diaries of Bella’s husband, Major General John Ludlow. The diaries were in the attic, proper quarters of fictional mad wives, but as I read I found that, far from hiding Bella away, the General did his best to keep her at the heart of family life. The diaries gave me an unbearably poignant account of her illness. Despite the unstinting love and support of husband, siblings and friends, this great-great-great-aunt of mine could not be saved from her demons.”