u/LillyPip — LillyPip

This took longer than I thought it would. It seemed like a priority during trump’s 1st term, then it stalled.

Given some of Putin’s comments lately, he seems increasingly restless. I wonder if this is related to that?

Not even a chair frame, but likely a wire frame, probably covered in foil and then crystals. That’s a common method for art pieces. This wasn’t a chair covered in crystals, but a ‘delicate internal structure’ in a chair shape.

e: that’s probably also why it was fairly easy to fix: re-bend the wire, then replace any crystals that fell of. This idiot is lucky he didn’t get a stabilising rod up his proverbial.

Your comment made it sound like the artist had defaced an historical object.

I’m no art critic, but I would interpret the work as a statement on a mundane, usually overlooked object becoming something dazzling and valuable (eta: as literally happened to Van Gogh, and you could go further and say he was sat on and used during life, etc; I can think of much more, but it doesn’t sound like you’ll care), but that’s just me.

It isn’t actually Van Gogh’s chair, that’s just the name of the piece. It’s described as having a delicate inner structure covered in crystals (probably a wire frame). It’s not a real chair, which is why it collapsed instantly – it wasn’t created to hold any weight.

I don't know about other commenters, but I'm absolutely not uninformed, and this was *in no way* out of line given the context.

Hakas have evolved from traditional war dances and are often performed at sports events, that's true, but the Ka Mate is also performed in many other contexts (including at funerals and after separation of families) and should not be boiled down to simple intimidation – it's more a show of *resolve*. Do you think groups of people meeting after a long absence are trying to threaten one another or that mourners are trying to intimidate the deceased? The meaning has nuance and is not a simple threat; it's about the will to overcome adversity, and is basically the national anthem of the Māori's iwi, which was fought for *in this very Parliament*, and which resulted in the Haka (Ka Mate) Attribution Act after colonisation. I honestly cannot think of a more fitting time and place to perform it than in this context.

If you've only seen it in a sports context, I can see how you might think it's simply a modernised war dance meant to intimidate an opposing group, but that's a very reductionist view of it.

From newzealand.com:

Ka Mate is the haka often performed by the All Blacks. It begins with ‘Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora, ka ora’, which translates to ‘I die, I die, I live, I live.’

One can only imagine how Ngati Toa Chief Te Rauparaha felt when he first chanted these words 200 years ago. He had just evaded capture by a rival iwi (tribe) and was given shelter by another iwi, who hid him underground in a kūmara (sweet potato) pit. Ka mate tells this story, describing how Te Rauparaha shook off adversity to emerge from the darkness of the kūmara pit into the light.

Te Rauparaha went on to evade capture a few more times and to become a great Māori chief and warrior, helping to expand Ngāti Toa's territory across the lower North Island.

You can read the origin of the Ka Mate from New Zealand Geographic – this is not a story of war and intimidation, but of perseverence and the will to overcome.

And here's a fantastic breakdown on the meaning and how to perform it from the Australian International School (AIS).

Ka Mate shouldn't be viewed as an intimidation tactic that's morphed from war to sports, but as a deeply cultural story that *absolutely* has a place in New Zealand Parliament, and some overstuffed colonists being offended is disdainful at best.

e: oh, I also meant to mention that, even long ago, haka weren't meant to be simply war dances to intimidate and threaten in preparation for battle but, ideally, to *head off* the need for battle in the first place. A well-performed haka was in *stead* of battle, not just in preparation for one. The point was to *not* have to fight, but to impress and come to agreement. That's nearly the opposite of what many people think these dances were for.

e: I replied to the wrong comment, sorry. Moved my reply to your parent.

The Speaker sure looked like he wanted to.

Wider angle video showing the whole scope of it plus his reaction, which was priceless.

I really liked that series when it came out. Now it hurts to watch.

If you didn’t vote, you voted *for* this. This is a representative democracy, and voting is the absolute *least* you can possibly do.

You don’t get out of your civic duty by abstaining – you’re implicitly supporting the winner by failing to do the bare minimum. You’re doing far worse if you uttered one sentence to convince others to abstain with you, which many, many did.

Unless you live in a literal cave, you’re complicit.

Good job everyone who advocated for 3rd parties or abstained because this ghoul was ‘the same’ as Biden or Harris. I hope you’re sleeping well that *razing Gaza* is the same as not doing that.

Great work. Perhaps you’ll get a discount on the new trump branded resorts they’ll build on that land, which we fucking warned you he wanted to do *years ago*.

I’m done trying to warn people. You won’t fucking listen so I’m wasting my breath, and these ‘I told you so’s just taste too bitter.

Wake me when you’re ruffling the ashes of your own countrymen from your hair (or don’t, because I’ll be seasoning your egg salad with what’s left of my bones).

e: MItHC reference, and since I’m both disabled and queer, I’m going down with this ship

It wasn’t meant as a gotcha, just an observation that they didn’t learn from the Nazis, near the same holy war has been going for a really long time with a few names changing, and it’s tiresome.

Isn’t it far* older than that? Didn’t Israel commit the main genocide in the Old Testament? Religious people tell me that’s a historical document.

To me, this same holy war has been raging for millennia and I really wish we’d outgrow it.

If the whole point of the trip was to get propaganda footage showing how much Greenlanders love and welcome the US and trump administration, the trip would be a waste of time without it.

Trump quotes read by Zapp Brannigan