It’s a truism of column writing for the tabloid press that, if you want to attract a decent-sized readership, you can’t afford to be too rational or too even-handed. Writing in a considered way or seeing both sides of an issue is likely to lose you not only your audience but the job as well. What your editor wants is stuff that will stir readers up and have them reaching for their pens or laptops – outrage!

Given that brief, it’s difficult for the tabloid columnist to go too far. Michael Laws, who appears to view himself as the only pure-bred in a society of ferals, might seem to be an exception, but in fact represents the finest qualities of the breed.

One might have thought that Paul Holmes was a different kettle of fish. He is after all hugely intelligent, extraordinarily well-read, a talented writer in my estimation, and an award-winning columnist.

His column in last Saturday’s Weekend Herald, headed Waitangi Day a complete waste, reveals none of that. It is an appalling piece of offensive, unintelligent, uninformed racist claptrap that makes his 2003 ‘cheeky darkie’ reference to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan seem innocuous.   Read the rest of this entry »

Returned home from a week in Sydney. It hosed down for the entire time, forcing us to stay indoors reading. “Forcing” is entirely the wrong word for Judy whose idea of heaven is a limitless supply of books and limitless time in which to read them. I, on the other hand, find reading difficult and only read when there is nothing else to do – on holiday, in bad weather, with nothing on the box.

The iPad comes close to providing Judy with her limitless supply of books, courtesy of Kindle and at a fraction the price you’d pay in the shop for “the real thing”. Curiously, I’ve started reading more thanks to Mr Jobs’ wondrous invention. It may be that the illuminated screen suits me better than the printed page. And there’s the added advantage that I don’t have to go searching for a dictionary when, as is often the case,  there’s a word I don’t understand.

This was particularly helpful as I ploughed my way through Christopher Hitchins’ memoir Hitch-22. “Ploughed” is the right word. This is heavy going, but every now and then you dig up a thought gem that makes the whole thing worthwhile.

Hitch, a take-no-prisoners atheist, would have been as entertained as I was, when I returned home, to read that Kereama Pene , a senior minister of the Ratana faith believes that Hone Harawira may be the fulfilment of a prophecy by the Church’s founder, T.W. Ratana.    Read the rest of this entry »

 

 

 

 

 Rodney Hide, leader of ACT,  the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, has apologised for bilking the very people his party purports to represent – taxpayers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hone Harawira has reportedly sent an email to the Maori Party apologising ‘unreservedly’ for any harm he had done to it in his ‘choice of words’ to  former Waitangi Tribunal director Buddy Mikaere. The ‘choice of words’ included ‘white man bullshit’  and ‘white motherfuckers’.

I was reminded by these events of my Northern Irish Protestant mother’s uncharitable interpretation of confession in the Roman Catholic church - that you could sin on Monday, confess on Tuesday, commit the same sin on Wednesday and so ad infinitum.

Confession of that sort would be worthless since it would not be motivated by genuine remorse or real intention to change one’s ways, but would  simply be a device to get oneself off the hook.  

Hide and Harawira’s ‘apologies’ strike me as equally worthless. Read the rest of this entry »