By their works ye shall know them
We are presently being treated to the rather undignified and unedifying spectacle of the political right — particularly the authoritarians and liberthoritarians — crying foul because people are drawing...
View ArticleGaddafi is Gone.
The brutal end of Muammar Gaddafi’s life marks a political new beginning for Libya. The circumstances of his demise speak volumes about the road ahead. Gaddafi was summarily executed after being...
View ArticleA Modest Proposal, Poe’s Law and Libertarian views on welfare
I quote one of our friendly neighbourhood sociopaths from the gloriously-named SOLOPassion, in full: NZ Politics: I Have a Cunning Plan – Tax Childbirth I know! I’m suggesting a tax. Bear with me … On...
View ArticleElection Day
It is an offence to publish any material that might dissuade people from voting, or encourages voting for or against any party or candidate, on election day. So from midnight until after polling closes...
View ArticleSleepytime.
When I moved to NZ in 1997, one happy aspect that I had not considered prior to arrival was that I was headed back to the Southern Hemisphere. That meant that Xmas and New Year’s are summer events...
View ArticleA Culture of Impunity?
During the dark years of dictatorship in South America in the 1970s and 1980s, there emerged a phrase to capture the attitude of the elites who benefitted from such rule: the culture of impunity. It...
View ArticleA Turn to Mean.
As I watched various labour conflicts over the past few months, then took in accounts of greed-mongering of various types (the wheel-clamping rort being the latest), I set to wondering if things have...
View ArticlePutting the mandate to work
I struggle to believe the National party that read and led the public mood so well for most of the previous six years has so spectacularly lost its way. Recent months, and the past few weeks in...
View ArticleThe GC: is this what we’ve come to admire?
After some consideration of my sanity, I watched the first episode of The GC. It was more or less as I expected. I’ll probably never watch another minute of it, but it’s not a show for me. Nor is it a...
View ArticleACT and National Front to announce merger.
That is about all I can figure after reading this about Louis Crimp, Act’s largest individual donor in the 2011 election. The line about Invercargill is priceless but there are several other gems as...
View ArticleThe Crown Gets Its Pound of Flesh.
I am surprised by the jail sentences handed down to Tame Iti and Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara in the Urewera 4 case. I had expected substantial fines and at most community service sentences for all of the...
View ArticleIn Hellas, out with the new and in with the old.
The outcome of the latest Greek election is not surprising. When faced with uncertainty and dire predictions of collective and individual doom in the event that radical change occurs, voters often tend...
View ArticleOn Liminality.
For some time I have been pondering the issue of liminality. It is a term that appears in cultural studies and all sorts of post-modern rubbish posing as theory, but in this instance it resonates with...
View ArticleInterpreting the conservative take on the US elections.
If I read the conservative commentariat correctly with regard to tomorrow’s US elections, the following will happen: Obama wins: As the fifth rider of the apocalypse, Obama will bring the end of days,...
View ArticleAcceptable bigotry.
Until I moved to New Zealand I had never encountered prejudice against red-headed people. I was red-headed and freckled as a youngster growing up in Latin America, and I never met anyone who had...
View ArticleMaori Socialism versus Maori Capitalism?
Woe be it for me to venture into the minefield of Maori politics on Waitangi Day. Yet the ructions around “Escortgate” at Te Tii Marae got me to thinking that perhaps there is more to the story than...
View ArticleWith stereotypes, timing is everything.
Richard Prosser’s xenophobic and bigoted remarks about Muslims (which are not racist, since he was targeting a religion, not an ethnic or racial group) has rightfully met with wide-spread opprobrium....
View ArticleSelections matter
Justice Minister Judith Collins has appointed Dame Susan Devoy as Race Relations Commissioner. She replaces Joris de Bres, who has served two five-year terms and is very well-regarded in Māoridom (at...
View ArticleThe bin-Laden legacy.
Nearing the second anniversary of Osama bin-Laden’s death, it might be wise to pause and reflect on his legacy. The purpose is to give an objective appraisal rather than to engage in emotive debate or...
View ArticleNot surprising.
In 2007 a certain university lecturer, fed up with the managerial push to admit sub-standard and unqualified foreign students in pursuit of revenue, with the resultant pressure placed on lecturers to...
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