A little sanity from Laws
I often find myself thinking of a saying which I’ve seen variously described as Arabian, African and Chinese, but which I’m pretty sure every culture has in its own version: At the hearth: me against...
View Article“The many, not the few”
This is the theme of Phil Goff’s State of the Nation speech today, according to early coverage. And would you look at that: it’s even up on their website. It’s a sound speech full of bread-and-butter...
View ArticleIt’s official*
* (As official as a 1,000-person phone poll can be, anyhow.) Māori support for Phil Goff after “blue collars, red necks” is very low — 18% among all respondents, and 36% among Labour voters. That’s...
View ArticleBrief, subjective reflections on the Tino Rangatiratanga flag
In January and February 2008 my wife and I did a road trip the length of the country, twice — from Wellington to Bluff, back to Wellington, up to Cape Reinga, and back to Wellington again. For most of...
View ArticleFalse mean
I never get tired of this cartoon. It reminds me what being a Sensible Moderate™ is not at all about. The latest proposal for the foreshore and seabed is PC gone mad — put it in the public domain, but...
View ArticleSacred illusions
Pita Sharples has severely undermined his own and his party’s credibility with his Race Relations Day speech criticising “one person, one vote”. As a minister in a democratic government, he has taken...
View ArticlePerspective and colonial counterfactuals
It’s hardly the stuff of rigorous historico-social investigation, but Simon Schama sees much to celebrate in NZ biculturalism — particularly in comparison to our Anglo comparators: But it’s the story...
View ArticleNot dark yet, but it’s getting there
(Image, “Allan’s beach at dusk, Dunedin, New Zealand”, stolen from Nicola Romanò) The Foreshore and Seabed deal is not over yet, at least not as far as Hone Harawira is concerned. He has come out...
View ArticleJust don’t think about the offspring
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, and so it is that Chris Trotter finds common cause with Peter Cresswell in selectively revising the story of Ngāi Tūhoe to frame them up as our very own...
View ArticleClass, identity, solidarity and dissent
Recently commenter Tiger Mountain raised the parallel between solidarity with Actor’s Equity regarding The Hobbit and support for the māori party given their coalition with National and sponsorship of...
View ArticleIsolated
This brief report from Radio Waatea brings into crispish focus a few issues regarding the māori party’s support for the new Marine & Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill, and perceived collaboration...
View ArticleFarewell Dame Judith Binney
Sad news today that Dame Judith Binney, who was probably New Zealand’s greatest living historian, has died. Dame Judith is best known for her remarkable works on the history of colonialism in New...
View ArticleRevealed preference
Former National leader Don Brash addressed the ACT party conference at the weekend, which was half “catching Australia” boilerplate and half a warming-over of the infamous “nationhood” speech given at...
View ArticleWhite Queen
Andrew Geddis has a good post up on Pundit about Hilary Calvert and her apparent ignorance of the Humpty Dumpty scene from Through the Looking-Glass. The extent of Calvert’s idiocy being so egregious,...
View ArticleMaui Street
For some weeks now I’ve been meaning to give a big up to Morgan Godfery and his blog Maui Street. Over the past six months Morgan has been writing prolifically on NZ society, politics and...
View ArticleViolating ourselves
This post is more rantish and more polemic than even my usual here, and although I’ve said all this before (it seems like hundreds of times) I feel the utter dearth of understanding of what the Treaty...
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 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...
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