Deep stuff

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By Nature Unfair

Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, August 18th, 2022 - 28 comments

You can be the most moral nation on earth and have no reward for it.

Was This The Change We Needed?

Written By: - Date published: 1:07 pm, August 9th, 2022 - 11 comments

Crises that profoundly test a small developed state like New Zealand have required huge growth in state strength and policy power. But was it the change we needed?

Rage and the Woke

Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, June 14th, 2022 - 69 comments

The past couple of years has seen a significant increase in far right activity and rapidly increasing racism.

 Gang Control Policy Is Back Big Time

Written By: - Date published: 6:08 pm, June 12th, 2022 - 16 comments

We are about to have a proper gang control  policy contest. It’s about time.

Ukraine as a Multi-Year war

Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, June 12th, 2022 - 20 comments

The Russian war of aggression against the Ukraine is now three months old. Prepare for a very long grind.

Truthiness or Ignorance*

Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, June 10th, 2022 - 53 comments

The world is too complex and hostile, so why bother trying to learn and understand.

Who Will Protect Us From Media Power Now?

Written By: - Date published: 6:28 pm, April 26th, 2022 - 9 comments

With RNZ and TVNZ now in full merger mode, we have yet another untested state megalith upon us. But where is the power that will hold it to account?

RNZ’s weird take on MIQ

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, April 20th, 2022 - 93 comments

RNZ’s recent shock horror reporting on a memo from November 2021 proposing a wind back of MIQ is severely deficient.  The framing is one sided and ignores the subsequent emergence of Omicron as a variant of concern.

Why trust in the media is declining

Written By: - Date published: 2:09 pm, April 10th, 2022 - 47 comments

A recent study into New Zealand’s media suggests that trust in what the media says is declining and that views of what is good and bad media is more and more dependent on the participant’s world view.

Water and Money

Written By: - Date published: 7:26 am, April 7th, 2022 - 20 comments

If the 3 Waters reforms can survive its attacks and be implemented, a consequence will be that we are going to have a most enormous nationwide economic argument about the price of water and who pays for it all.

Should We Just Settle?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, March 29th, 2022 - 60 comments

New Zealand does not have to settle for being small, quiet, and weak.

The right to protest Christchurch version

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, March 22nd, 2022 - 31 comments

Christchurch Council has billed Destiny Church for traffic management fees relating to recent protests.  For once I am firmly if reluctantly on the side of Destiny Church.  Exercising the right to protest should not attract Council bills.

Pick a side

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, March 17th, 2022 - 351 comments

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelinsky has made a direct appeal broadcast to the United States Congress. That will sort out the Putin supporters from the rest.  And with climate change beckoning it is time to pick a side.

The world in 6 months

Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, March 15th, 2022 - 117 comments

In six months time the world could be in a very precarious position.

Remarkably Hopeful

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, March 1st, 2022 - 18 comments

We will probably never get over the feeling that somehow, if enough people just banded together, it would all get better again, like we did when the United Nations charter was struck.

Why the Wellington protestors are wrong

Written By: - Date published: 10:52 am, February 20th, 2022 - 72 comments

The Wellington protest has exceeded any moral mandate to protest.

They Are Us

Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, February 20th, 2022 - 129 comments

The people camping outside Parliament are also us.

We are better than this

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, February 20th, 2022 - 40 comments

Trying to remember the numbers of protestors in Wellington are small in number compared to the rest of us

100 Things We’ve Lost

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, February 16th, 2022 - 25 comments

Over the past two years we have lost so many things that are not coming back.

The right to protest

Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, February 13th, 2022 - 131 comments

Complaints that the police are unnecessarily interfering with the Wellington Convoy’s right to protest appear to be vastly overstated.

Chloe Swarbrick Needs A Reset

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, February 10th, 2022 - 42 comments

Chloe Swarbrick has requested that the government help Auckland central’s restaurants.  But in a post Covid pre climate change world this is not going to help.

What Do We Keep?

Written By: - Date published: 9:04 am, February 7th, 2022 - 37 comments

The things we don’t regret keeping are a strong measure of what we don’t value. COVID’s 2 year anniversary asks us this simply through what events we commemorate.

Going cold turkey on Spotify

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, January 29th, 2022 - 166 comments

Neil Young’s decision to withdraw his music from Spotify because of its insistence on highlighting self declared idiot Joe Rogan has seen a number of people either cancelling their subscriptions or considering alternatives.

Weird stuff Jacinda Ardern has been accused of

Written By: - Date published: 9:25 am, January 25th, 2022 - 212 comments

It appears that social media allegations against Jacinda Ardern are becoming more and more extreme.

The problem with middle of the road politicians

Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, January 23rd, 2022 - 21 comments

Joe Biden is struggling to get his agenda passed by the American Legislature.  Because of two Senators, one with significant coal interests and the other Senator more willing to protect the rights of a minority of Senators to hold up legislation than the rights of a minority of Americans to vote.

Let’s help Tonga

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, January 19th, 2022 - 12 comments

In 2010 the poor but proud Island Nation raised $705,000 to donate to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal Fund.  If New Zealanders were to reciprocate their generosity we would donate over $30 million.  It is time for us to return the favour.

The Department of Earthly Gifts

Written By: - Date published: 1:11 pm, January 16th, 2022 - 151 comments

Where western minds are busy arguing if indigenous knowledge is science, botanist and first nations woman Robin Wall Kimmerer exemplifies how to do both at the same time.

Unwanted guests?

Written By: - Date published: 10:40 pm, January 8th, 2022 - 22 comments

When I heard US Secretary of State Blinken’s take-away line from his D.C. press conference on RNZ’s news bulletin today on events in Kazakhstan  ‘I think one lesson in recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave’ I wondered what the Iraqis would think.

Book Review Helen Kelly: her life

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 pm, January 8th, 2022 - 12 comments

The Helen Kelly biography by Rebacca Macfie provides a clear and intense overview of what has happened to New Zealand society over the past 40 years from a time of high union membership and equality to now where unions struggle and inequality is significant.

On the death of Joan Didion

Written By: - Date published: 6:58 am, December 29th, 2021 - 5 comments

We need to remember Joan Didion, who died December 23rd, as perhaps the best defensive pessimist we’ve ever had. She nailed the feet of her times down to the floor to make sure it talked and wept all its pain out. It’s not enough to call Joan Didion just a pessimist, because she wrote hard […]

Die Hard is a Christmas movie

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, December 25th, 2021 - 33 comments

Here at the Standard we choose to debate the important issues of the day.  What needs to be done about climate change, how the Country’s covid response is going (remarkably well and don’t believe the naysayers), and which National faction is leaking and undermining which leader.  But there is one debate that is currently raging that has until now not been addressed …