Why Write (and Read)?
Written By:
- Date published:
12:24 pm, April 12th, 2025 - 10 comments
Categories: activism, art, books, Politics -
Tags: Emma Sidnam
Wellington-based poet and student Emma Sidnam penned a compelling piece about writing politically. It could be an obvious segue into political blogging, but her piece is so much more.
Staying with the political theme, writings like Sidnam’s expose the arrogant dumbassery of the Coalition to defund humanities and social sciences and point to a plausible reason: fear. The Coalition doesn’t like evidence, because it cannot handle it. The Coalition doesn’t like criticism, because it cannot counter it. The Coalition doesn’t like arts with and for a political purpose, because it might show that the Coalition is soulless in its pursuit of economic efficiency and productivity to feed its selfish members who are, without exception, wealthy and sorted compared to the vast majority of New Zealanders.
The quill is mightier than the sword and many feathers will strike down the neo-authoritarian Coalition. The cynical attempts by the Coalition to control the narrative and manipulate rules for freedom of expression to flood the zone with propaganda and dead cats should be seen in this light.
So, all you bloggers, writers, artists, and fellow New Zealanders keep up the good work in and through solidarity with each other despite and because of our material differences but united in our politics and purpose of life.
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- Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 18 April
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question? Send Newsroom your questions.The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 18 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...22 hours ago - Daily crossword, Friday 18 April
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Kiwi workers are disposable, especially 'bottom feeders' – Mammon is NAct's master.
The Complete Voyage of the RMS Titanic (in 90 Minutes) has its last performance at Centrepoint theatre in Palmy tonight (only 11 seats left) – the audience is partitioned into 3 classes (1st class, middle class, and (in the front rows) steerage) and pitted against each another in a game of wits and trivia as the play unfolds. Some references also to Nat party supporters – great fun.
DMK. Yes more, much more, Political satire needed. If you cant laugh with them (and you cant) Laugh at them : )
This abbreviated production does sound entertaining as !
Hopefully there wont be a…
From September 1, 1939 by WH Auden.
It's an old problem.
Was it Auden, Somerset Maugham, or Beckett that had the face with the most folds?
A close-run thing I'd say. But Beckett had the best hair to go with the face, so he wins.
But yes, the ‘folded’ metaphor is odd in that line of Auden’s. Perhaps the point is that something that is folded is very physically constructed, and a voice has no conceivable way of unfolding it.
Moonlanding – Auden.
Very possibly my favourite poet. (FWIW)
Thanks TV. I like Auden a lot more as I get older.
That alternative sentence for the young offenders to read from a specific list and then write essays about them shows a very creative judge and a judicial sentencing guideline that is not recognisable here.
I feel for people who write novels now because so very few people read them. There's far fewer bookshops than there used to be, and publishing companies together with their editors are for the most part out of busiess.
By and large creative minds and creative perceivers are funnelled towards gaming, and Youtube and TikTok clips.
But for those of us who remain with sufficient attention to consider the long form, we're lucky there's such a variety to choose from. And for the most part the long form is in podcasts, rather than novels or longer written essays.
Just from a different camera, I watch and enjoy the Maori Channel Films. Mostly World Cinema ,(incl NZ too of course! ) they are often thought provoking and this then lead to finding more on the Writers etc…
The World, as regards Writers/Thinkers, has many similarities to NZ….
John Fenton wrote about this on his FB from a NY Times article. https://www.facebook.com/jon4jaz. ‘Quoted from David Brooks opinion piece in the New York Times
“If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.” General Jim Mattis. He was talking about Trump, but the article went on to point out, that one third of adult Americans only have the reading age of a 10 year old or below. I am not sure what our scores would show here, but passively viewing social media platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram, instead of actively reading, dumbs humanity down. Reading presents us with a broad range of life experiences and throws up situations that require us to problem solve as we precede.
“ (this) weakens everything from your ability to process verbal information to your working memory to your ability to focus. You might as well take a sledgehammer to your skull.”