Ka ora!
Ka ora! (I live!) – the triumphant second part of the famous challenge in Te Rauparaha’s haka Ka Mate, composed after his narrow escape from seemingly-certain death. Ka mate is itself a symbol of life...
View ArticleInk by the barrel
There’s an interesting range of responses to the Tony Veitch guilty plea of reckless disregard causing injury to Kristin Dunne-Powell, his conviction and sentence to a fine and community service. Some...
View ArticleNormalising diversity
May I echo the inimitable Queen of Thorns, and say how great it is that Māori Language Week is being so well observed. Labour MPs on Red Alert are posting in te reo; Nickelodeon has done Spongebob...
View ArticleOn media bias and distortion
BK Drinkwater has posted a good response to some of the comments on Bryce Edwards’ synopses of chapters from the book Informing Voters? Politics, Media and the New Zealand Election 2008 (edited by...
View ArticleClimate credibility fail
I’ve remained largely silent on the so-called ClimateGate thus far, mostly out of an abject lack of expertise to judge the whys and wherefores of it all. It’s science, I’m not a scientist. But given...
View ArticleIn other news, 50% of teachers are below average
30 per cent of teachers need to lift their game – Key. Honestly. Anyone who thinks this is a meaningful statement needs remedial numeracy work themselves. L
View ArticleWhat not to say
NZ Herald website’s lead story: Telecom spokesman Mark Watts says this morning’s 111 emergency calls system failure “shouldn’t have happened” and is “a bad look” after the company’s recent repeated XT...
View ArticleBestest
Stuart Dye’s column which uses perfectly sound* logic to reach the conclusion that the All Whites are the world’s fifth-equal-best football team,** is a bit of fun. The only problem is that while...
View ArticleBrown still on the horse
Bless the Herald, burying the most important point of an article about the Auckland supercity mayoralty race at the very bottom: Mr Brown also spoke of leadership and the need to deliver a resounding...
View ArticlePersonal narrativium
From the NZ Herald, Why I should be the mayor: Len Brown: Every day I wake up and, for one thing, I’m thankful I do wake up. But secondly, I have the greatest job in the world and it’s a job that...
View ArticleWho knew solving our economic problems was so easy?
Missed opportunity: $176.4 trillion = estimated value of water in Lake Taupo (Assuming 59 cubic kilometres of water at $2.99 per litre.) Well, this sort of reasoning is good enough for the NZ Herald,...
View ArticleShame on the Herald
… for trying to run game on New Zealand, scaremongering the Foreshore and Seabed hīkoi: That was on page four of the dead tree edition, and online here, under the headline “Opponents put up roadblocks...
View ArticleEnough rope
On Mike Hosking’s Newstalk ZB show this morning, a discussion of the gender pay gap and Catherine Delahunty’s bill on the topic — and an object lesson in not believing your own hype: Alasdair Thompson...
View ArticleTen strategic communication lessons from the Alasdair Thompson fiasco
Today has been a remarkable day. Rarely do we see such an epic failure of communication as we have seen from Alasdair Thompson. Because these events have played out mostly in public, they also present...
View ArticleMaster-race baiting
[Updated 10 July 2011 to account for Don Brash's statements in response to John Ansell, and Ansell's resignation from ACT.] Many have remarked on the appropriateness of the website of the ACT Party...
View ArticleWhen the media says a woman is no more than a whore
A man moves in with his girlfriend. A few months later, in an argument over the rent, he strangles her to death. Media coverage: Prostitute killer’s appeal rejected Killer of sex worker loses appeal...
View ArticleWhen the media says a cop is no more than a woman
If Hayden Donnell of the Herald didn’t have a head full of preconceptions about policewomen and women fighting this is how his article would start Female cCop bashed, loses hair A policewoman officer...
View ArticleOn “average”
The New Zealand Herald’s archetypal “average” Kiwi family, the Ray family of Sandringham East, has declared the 2012 Budget “sensible and unspectacular”, probably the strongest endorsement Bill English...
View ArticleIt was not me.
Yesterday the Herald published an op ed that started out with the following: “I was asking an American professor a complicated question about Anzus in a university lecture theatre when he started...
View ArticleA bridge too far.
The Labour-led government in New Zealand has settled on a new mantra when it comes to addressing the US-China rivalry. It claims that New Zealand is ideally situated to become a bridge between the two...
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