well i guess they were lucky in 1991 that they could put the blame square on their inept government and did not have to deal with a serious and deadly viral disease.
there are now 200.000 people on less then 300$ per week base rate, if they don't have a partner who is now solely responsible for feeding everyone.
I'd rather the government creates some jobs for these newly and old unemployed people. If this number increases by another few tens of thousands suddenly you have issues.
also yei, abatment rate at $90 is 10 bucks more then now. Party time!
The amount one could earn before the abatement was $80 back in 2001, it had remained the same for nearly 20 years.
As for the low income, under the JSB regime its $250 (single) + $90 then any more and abatement at 70 cents in the dollar off that (as well as tax). This effectively caps income for 10-15 hours work at under $400 (and the time and effort of reporting extra income to W and I each week)
With UI for those under 25 without FT employment, there is no abatement – 100% of extra income is kept. Get 10-15 hours work at $18.90 MW/$20 next year and this is near the $500 a week rate some laid off are getting for a few months.
Under 25 I'd go for that maybe even a bit older – maybe tail it off. heck that should give a tax free fire zone for anyone under that age to keep equity. I'm attracted to the idea. Beats youth wages which only benefit employers.
And sign them up to a union so they have somebody to represent them and stop anyone taking too much advantage of them
Re youth wages – for mine the best thing about UI for those under 25 is that it also allows people to intern for free (you cannot do this and get JSB as you have to be available for paid FT work). This does not mean exploitation as it is voluntary and people would only do it in return for training – and they could leave any time and use the training to get a paid job.
Or intern part-time and top up it up with a part-time/gig/casual job income.
Actually I wonder if the Right is really getting very worried.
Yes we have to reallocate our labour force and that will take a little time but if we manage that, keep our exports up, run surpluses on our balance of payments, put the fewer people we have into the housing that exists ,increase wage bargaining ability, increase GDP per head then the whole country will be able to see that the Right wing policies are a load of rubbish that does not make them better off.
Covid challenge: How do we reinforce concepts like cooperation, caring and protection in our public discourse?
The right will be pushing 'freedom' and business-as-usual; 'Opening up' to the world as a good plan rather than a reckless stunt; Getting back to a way of life that is right and ordained.
Latest reports from the US indicate its getting more infectious than it was (higher viral loads). This would explain why it is spreading so well in the American summer.
The study, titled Tracking changes in SARS-CoV-2 Spike: Evidence that D614G increases infectivity of the COVID-19 virus, was recently published in the journal Cell after a lengthy review process.
The study found the dominant global strain of Covid-19 is now the a variant coined G614, which spread to the US from Europe. Previously, D614 was the dominant strain, according to the study. A mutation to the virus’ spike protein – its mechanism for attaching to cells – is what sets it apart from the previous variant. "It is now the dominant form infecting people," professor Erica Ollmann Saphire of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and the Coronavirus Immunotherapy Consortium, who worked on the study, told CNN. "This is now the virus."
People with the G614 strain were found to have higher viral loads, with the virus situated more in the upper respiratory tract, making it easier to spread.
The list, to be published on Thursday or Friday, will lift the Foreign Office ban on non-essential travel to nearly all EU destinations, the British territories including Bermuda and Gibraltar, and Turkey, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand….
It means that from Monday travellers to the 75 countries will no longer have to quarantine for 14 days on their return to the UK although some like Australia and New Zealand are expected to retain border controls and quarantine for as long as the rest of 2020….
All part of Boris' Very Good Plans that he thinks up at breakfast meetings. Wishful that UK can skip a quarantine on return. If you didn't laugh you would cry.
google keywords – Sweden covid19 figures
Sweden is interesting they have a regular sharp peak and drop of new cases, which on 24 June was 1697 then 477 on 28 June, then on 30 June 1445, yet 250 on 2 July.
Coronavirus: Why has Melbourne's outbreak worsened? So how did the virus spread? Allegations of blame have been levelled at private security firms contracted to operate the state's quarantine. Neighbouring New South Wales took a different approach – using the police force.
Victoria has faced accusations of systemic failures such as guards being improperly trained or not given enough PPE.
Mr Andrews [Premier Daniel Andrews] has also described cases of illegal socialising between staff, listing examples of workers sharing a cigarette lighter or car-pooling. Local media also reported claims of sex between guards and quarantined travellers.
The government has ordered a judicial inquiry into their quarantine operation and fired the contractors…
In early May – during Australia's lockdown – authorities expressed concern about a virus cluster among workers at an abbatoir in Melbourne's west. About 111 cases were eventually linked to the site, which had been the subject of a rapid trace-and-track response from authorities… But experts believe that secondary cases from that cluster – and possibly others – were still festering undetected in the community. "It seeded the population… and there were enough cases out there when the precautions relaxed," Prof John Matthews from the University of Melbourne tells the BBC…
.
Officials were still exhorting social distancing, but group limits were expanded. Large family groups reconnected and some cases stemmed from people with mild symptoms attending those gatherings, authorities said. "Once the feeling got around that it was over – when it really wasn't – Victoria copped it," says Prof Matthews…
.
…communication of public health orders was insufficient for non-English speakers, .. Given Melbourne's significantly multicultural make-up – a language other than English is spoken in almost 35% of households – this was a notable oversight, critics said…
"If you can't stop the spread – you lose control – you get to the stage where you can't keep up with contract tracing… essentially what happened in Europe and North America."
.
For now, Australia remains in a far better position than most nations. Only 23 people with the virus are in hospital in Victoria, and testing is widespread and rigorous – over 2.5 million tests have been conducted in a national population of 25 million.
"It's hard to say where we'll be in a month's time", says Prof Mathews. "We used to say Australia's response was one of the best in the world. And we can still say that, but with the qualification that we got caught."
Not so sure on that – feels like we've relaxed levels for several weeks now, no random cases appearing from undetected clusters.Whereas Victoria seems to have had errors in their eradication effor
So the risk is a quarantine breach, and that would involve localised level increases and intense testing and tracing. t.
That's an even more absurd than the flipside, that we'll be all good in a year or two.
For the next 5-10 years, there will be a basic schism in the world: those countries that have managed to control or eradicate it, and those that basically surrendered to it and watched thousands or millions of people die.
Best case for the latter group is that exposure gives long term immunity to survivors. Worst case is that it gives limited immunity and lots of long term health problems.
Best case for the former group, the ones that effectively limited the disease within their borders, is that a vaccine is developed in a year or two and the WHO coordinates a global eradication program. Worst case is that no effective vaccine is developed and only moderately effective treatments are developed, and NZ and other countries basically have to treat the surrendermonkeys like they have super-rabies for the next century, always worried that some "plan B" arsehole will try to smuggle it in like a farmer with RCD.
…communication of public health orders was insufficient for non-English speakers, .. Given Melbourne's significantly multicultural make-up – a language other than English is spoken in almost 35% of households – this was a notable oversight, critics said…
"Fired the contractors" This should go down as a prime example of a case study for "how contracting out to acquire private sector efficiencies" is a complete load of rubbish. How much is this new lock down costing the local economy and the people in it.
We have been warned – don't be cheap and outsource such a vital service. Failure costs are huge.
All day long radio repetition aka rnz has been telling us of the arrest of epsteins former girlfriend and the witchhunt continues .Hes constently refered to as a pedophile because he had a thing about underage girls apparently and because it sounds much more salacious to the media and underpins the negative framing necesary for the legions of parasites getting ready to feast on his estate .However odious you might think epstein was he paid the ultimate price for his deeds by being murdered in his jail cell .So now the vultures are after the girlfriend the suposedly evil whatever her name is maxwell ?perhaps and today we here some damn yank prosecutor extolling how evil she is living in luxury etc etc hand on heart as if her morality was non existant and the great american people absolute .Makes me sick thinking of all the war criminals living happy filthy rich lives in the good old US of A .That country doesnt have a morality it can spout about if it had one it disappeared a long time ago .Its not about morality imo its about money filthy lucre for the hundreds of lawyers for the prosecutors for the prison for profit corporations for the media and for the so called victims waiting for their multi million payouts .There got that off my chest think i,ll stoke up the fire an have a nice cup of tea !
After decades of "empowering" young girls what the hell has gone wrong.
I think we went the wrong way by presenting prostitution as a perfectly ok profession, that young women could be "empowered" by this career choice.
Weren't these Epstein victims teenage prostitutes, at any rate lured into becoming prostitutes .I argue that most prostitutes arrive at that career choice by a combination of poverty, lack of education, drug addiction and dysfunction.
That plus a total inundation of the culture with porn, showing women supposedly enjoying bondage and other painful practices
We can excoriate Epstein and Maxwell but we need to look at our exploitative culture as well
Queensland has imposed user-charges on interstate quarantine so of course an underground railway has sprung up to smuggle Victorians across the NSW-QLD state line.
This one goes out to all who are cold and alone in the deep of winter.
So Now? by Charles Bukowski
the words have come and gone,
I sit ill.
the phone rings, the cats sleep.
Linda vacuums.
I am waiting to live,
waiting to die.
I wish I could ring in some bravery.
it's a lousy fix
but the tree outside doesn't know:
I watch it moving with the wind
in the late afternoon sun.
there's nothing to declare here,
just a waiting.
each faces it alone.
Oh, I was once young,
Oh, I was once unbelievably
young!
"Bukowski was shy and socially withdrawn, a condition exacerbated during his teen years by an extreme case of acne. Neighborhood children ridiculed his German accent and the clothing his parents made him wear. In Bukowski: Born Into This, a 2003 film, Bukowski states that his father beat him with a razor strop three times a week from the ages of six to 11 years."
Compared to mine, his father was relatively kind. But the regime of inexorable continual excessive thrashing likewise made me "shy and socially withdrawn". I actually stopped talking to anyone else unless it was necessary when I noticed they were all incapable of intelligent responses when I was a young child.
Bukowski published "over 60 books. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column Notes of a Dirty Old Man in the LA underground newspaper Open City." I read a biography of him around 30 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski
Bukowski on style:
I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.
When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun,
that was style.
Or sometimes people give you style
Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Jesus
Socrates
Caesar
García Lorca.
I have met men in jail with style.
I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail.
Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you, naked, walking out of the bathroom without seeing me.”
It’s one thing for military personnel to hone skills with first-person view (FPV) drones in racing competitions. It’s quite another for them to transition to the complexities of the battlefield. Drone racing has become a ...
Seymour says there will be no other exemptions granted to schools wanting to opt out of the Compass contract. Photo: Lynn GrievesonLong stories shortest:David Seymour has denied a request from a Christchurch school and any other schools to be exempted from the Compass school lunch programme, saying the contract ...
Russian President Boris Yeltsin, U.S. President Bill Clinton, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, and British Prime Minister John Major signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in ...
Edit: The original story said “Palette Cleanser” in both the story, and the headline. I am never, ever going to live this down. Chain me up, throw me into the pit.Hi,With the world burning — literally and figuratively — I felt like Webworm needed a little palate cleanser at the ...
Myanmar was a key global site for criminal activity well before the 2021 military coup. Today, illicit industry, especially heroin and methamphetamine production, still defines much of the economy. Nowhere, not even the leafiest districts ...
What've I gotta do to make you love me?What've I gotta do to make you care?What do I do when lightning strikes me?And I wake up and find that you're not thereWhat've I gotta do to make you want me?Mmm hmm, what've I gotta do to be heard?What do I ...
Here’s my selection1 of scoops, breaking news, news, analyses, deep-dives, features, interviews, Op-Eds, editorials and cartoons from around Aotearoa’s political economy on housing, climate and poverty from RNZ, 1News, The Post-$2, The Press−$, Newsroom3, NZ Herald, Stuff, BusinessDesk-$, NBR-$, Reuters, FT-$, WSJ-$, Bloomberg-$, New York Times-$, The Atlantic-$, The Economist-$ ...
Australia, Britain and European countries should loosen budget rules to allow borrowing to fund higher defence spending, a new study by the Kiel Institute suggests. Currently, budget debt rules are forcing governments to finance increases ...
The NZCTU remains strongly committed to banning engineered stone in New Zealand and implementing better occupational health protections for all workers working with silica-containing materials. In this submission to MBIE, the NZCTU outlines that we have an opportunity to learn from Australia’s experience by implementing a full ban of engineered ...
The Prime Minister has announced a big win in trade negotiations with India.It’s huge, he told reporters. We didn't get everything we came for but we were able to agree on free trade in clothing, fabrics, car components, software, IT consulting, spices, tea, rice, and leather goods.He said that for ...
I have been trying to figure out the logic of Trump’s tariff policies and apparent desire for a global trade war. Although he does not appear to comprehend that tariffs are a tax on consumers in the country doing the tariffing, I can (sort of) understand that he may think ...
As Syria and international partners negotiate the country’s future, France has sought to be a convening power. While France has a history of influence in the Middle East, it will have to balance competing Syrian ...
One of the eternal truths about Aotearoa's economy is that we are "capital poor": there's not enough money sloshing around here to fund the expansion of local businesses, or to build the things we want to. Which gets used as an excuse for all sorts of things, like setting up ...
National held its ground until late 2023 Verion, Talbot Mills & Curia Polls (Red = Labour, Blue = National)If we remove outlier results from Curia (National Party November 2023) National started trending down in October 2024.Verion Polls (Red = Labour, Blue = National)Verian alone shows a clearer deterioration in early ...
In a recent presentation, I recommended, quite unoriginally, that governments should have a greater focus on higher-impact, lower-probability climate risks. My reasoning was that current climate model projections have blind spots, meaning we are betting ...
Daddy, are you out there?Daddy, won't you come and play?Daddy, do you not care?Is there nothing that you want to say?Songwriters: Mark Batson / Beyonce Giselle Knowles.This morning, a look at the much-maligned NZ Herald. Despised by many on the left as little more than a mouthpiece for the National ...
Employers, unions and health and safety advocates are calling for engineered stone to be banned, a day before consultation on regulations closes. On Friday the PSA lodged a pay equity claim for library assistants with the Employment Relations Authority, after the stalling of a claim lodged with six councils in ...
Long stories shortest in Aotearoa’s political economy:Christopher Luxon surprises by announcing trade deal talks with India will start next month, and include beef and dairy. Napier is set to join Whakatane, Dunedin and Westport in staging a protest march against health spending restraints hitting their hospital services. Winston Peters ...
At a time of rising geopolitical tensions and deepening global fragmentation, the Ukraine war has proved particularly divisive. From the start, the battle lines were clearly drawn: Russia on one side, Ukraine and the West ...
Here’s my selection1 of scoops, breaking news, news, analyses, deep-dives, features, interviews, Op-Eds, editorials and cartoons from around Aotearoa’s political economy on housing, climate and poverty from RNZ, 1News, The Post-$2, The Press−$, Newsroom3, NZ Herald, Stuff, BusinessDesk-$, Newsroom-$, Politik-$, NBR-$, Reuters, FT-$, WSJ-$, Bloomberg-$, New York Times-$, The Atlantic-$, ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 9, 2025 thru Sat, March 15, 2025. This week's roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. We are still interested ...
Max Harris and Max Rashbrooke discuss how we turn around the right wing slogans like nanny state, woke identity politics, and the inefficiency of the public sector – and how we build a progressive agenda. From Donald Trump to David Seymour, from Peter Dutton to Christopher Luxon, we are subject to a ...
The Government dominated the political agenda this week with its two-day conference pitching all manner of public infrastructure projects for Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories shortest in our political economy this week: The Government ploughed ahead with offers of PPPs to pension fund managers ...
You know that it's a snake eat snake worldWe slither and serpentine throughWe all took a bite, and six thousand years laterThese apples getting harder to chewSongwriters: Shawn Mavrides.“Please be Jack Tame”, I thought when I saw it was Seymour appearing on Q&A. I’d had a guts full of the ...
So here we are at the wedding of Alexandra Vincent Martelli and David Seymour.Look at all the happy prosperous guests! How proud Nick Mowbray looks of the gift he has made of a mountain of crap plastic toys stuffed into a Cybertruck.How they drink, how they laugh, how they mug ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is waste heat from industrial activity the reason the planet is warming? Waste heat’s contribution to global warming is a small fraction of ...
Some continue to defend David Seymour on school lunches, sidestepping his errors to say:“Well the parents should pack their lunch” and/or “Kids should be grateful for free food.”One of these people is the sitting Prime Minister.So I put together a quick list of why complaint is not only appropriate - ...
“Bugger the pollsters!”WHEN EVERYBODY LIVED in villages, and every village had a graveyard, the expression “whistling past the graveyard” made more sense. Even so, it’s hard to describe the Coalition Government’s response to the latest Taxpayers’ Union/Curia Research poll any better. Regardless of whether they wanted to go there, or ...
Prof Jane Kelsey examines what the ACT party and the NZ Initiative are up to as they seek to impose on the country their hardline, right wing, neoliberal ideology. A progressive government elected in 2026 would have a huge job putting Humpty Dumpty together again and rebuilding a state that ...
See I try to make a differenceBut the heads of the high keep turning awayThere ain't no useWhen the world that you love has goneOoh, gotta make a changeSongwriters: Arapekanga Adams-Tamatea / Brad Kora / Hiriini Kora / Joel Shadbolt.Aotearoa for Sale.This week saw the much-heralded and somewhat alarming sight ...
Here’s my selection1 of scoops, breaking news, news, analyses, deep-dives, features, interviews, Op-Eds, editorials and cartoons from around Aotearoa’s political economy on housing, climate and poverty from RNZ, 1News, The Post-$2, The Press−$, Newsroom3, NZ Herald, Stuff, BusinessDesk-$, NBR-$, Reuters, FT-$, WSJ-$, Bloomberg-$, New York Times-$, The Atlantic-$, The Economist-$ ...
By international standards the New Zealand healthcare system appears satisfactory – certainly no worse generally than average. Yet it is undergoing another redisorganisation.While doing some unrelated work, I came across some international data on the healthcare sector which seemed to contradict my – and the conventional wisdom’s – view of ...
When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he knew that he was upending Europe’s security order. But this was more of a tactical gambit than a calculated strategy ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Over the last year, I’ve been warning about Luxon’s pitch to privatise our public assets.He had told reporters in October that nothing was off the cards:Schools, hospitals, prisons, and ...
When ASPI’s Cyclone Tracy: 50 Years On was published last year, it wasn’t just a historical reflection; it was a warning. Just months later, we are already watching history repeat itself. We need to bake ...
1. Why was school lunch provider The Libelle Group in the news this week?a. Grand Winner in Pie of The Yearb. Scored a record 108% on YELP c. Bought by Oravida d. Went into liquidation2. What did our Prime Minister offer prospective investors at his infrastructure investment jamboree?a. The Libelle ...
South Korea has suspended new downloads of DeepSeek, and it was were right to do so. Chinese tech firms operate under the shadow of state influence, misusing data for surveillance and geopolitical advantage. Any country ...
Previous big infrastructure PPPs such as Transmission Gully were fiendishly complicated to negotiate, generated massive litigation and were eventually rewritten anyway. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesLong stories shortest: The Government’s international investment conference ignores the facts that PPPs cost twice as much as vanilla debt-funded public infrastructure, often take ...
Woolworths has proposed a major restructure of its New Zealand store operating model, leaving workers worried their hours and pay could be cut. Public servants are being asked how productive their office is, how much they use AI, and whether they’re overloaded with meetings as part of a “census”. An ...
Robert Kaplan’s book Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis paints a portrait of civilisation in flux. Drawing insights from history, literature and art, he examines the effect of modern technology, globalisation and urbanisation on ...
Sexuality - Strong and warm and wild and freeSexuality - Your laws do not apply to meSexuality - Don't threaten me with miserySexuality - I demand equalitySong: Billy Bragg.First, thank you to everyone who took part in yesterday’s survey. Some questions worked better than others, but I found them interesting, ...
Hi,I just got back from a week in Japan thanks to the power of cheap flights and years of accumulated credit card points.The last time I was in Japan the government held a press conference saying they might take legal action against me and Netflix, so there was a little ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: on the week in geopolitics, including Donald Trump’s wrecking of the post-WW II political landscape; andHealth Coalition Aotearoa co-chair Lisa ...
Hi,I just got back from a short trip to Japan, mostly spending time in Tokyo.I haven’t been there since we shot Dark Tourist back in 2017 — and that landed us in a bit of hot water with the Japanese government.I am glad to report I was not thrown into ...
I’ve been on Substack for almost 8 months now.It’s been good in terms of the many great individuals that populate its space. So much variety and intelligence and humour and depth.I joined because someone suggested I should ‘start a Substack,’ whatever that meant.So I did.Turning on payments seemed like the ...
Open access notables Would Adding the Anthropocene to the Geologic Time Scale Matter?, McCarthy et al., AGU Advances:The extraordinary fossil fuel-driven outburst of consumption and production since the mid-twentieth century has fundamentally altered the way the Earth System works. Although humans have impacted their environment for millennia, justification for ...
Australia should buy equipment to cheaply and temporarily convert military transport aircraft into waterbombers. On current planning, the Australian Defence Force will have a total of 34 Chinook helicopters and Hercules airlifters. They should be ...
Indonesia’s government has slashed its counterterrorism (CT) budgets, despite the persistent and evolving threat of violent extremism. Australia can support regional CT efforts by filling this funding void. Reducing funding to the National Counterterrorism Agency ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Resource Management (Prohibition on Extraction of Freshwater for On-selling) Amendment Bill (Debbie Ngarewa-Packer) The bill does exactly what it says on the label, and would effectively end the rapacious water-bottling industry ...
Twilight Time Lighthouse Cuba, Wigan Street, Wellington, Sunday 6 April, 5:30pm for 6pm start. Twilight Time looks at the life and work of Desmond Ball, (1947-2016), a barefooted academic from ‘down under’ who was hailed by Jimmy Carter as “the man who saved the world”, as he proved the fallacy ...
Foreign aid is being slashed across the Global North, nowhere more so than in the United States. Within his first month back in the White House, President Donald Trump dismantled the US Agency for International ...
Nicola Willis has proposed new procurement rules that unions say will lead to pay cuts for already low-paid workers in cleaning, catering and security services that are contracted by government. The Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill passed its third reading with support from all the opposition parties and NZ ...
Most KP readers will not know that I was a jazz DJ in Chicago and Washington DC while in grad school in the early and mid 1980s. In DC I joined WPFW as a grave shift host, then a morning drive show host (a show called Sui Generis, both for ...
Long stories shortest: The IMF says a capital gains tax or land tax would improve real economic growth and fix the budget. GDP is set to be smaller by 2026 than it was in 2023. Compass is flying in school lunches from Australia. 53% of National voters say the new ...
Last year in October I wrote “Where’s The Opposition?”. I was exasperated at the relative quiet of the Green Party, Labour and Te Pati Māori (TPM), as the National led Coalition ticked off a full bingo card of the Atlas Network playbook.1To be fair, TPM helped to energise one of ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkGood data visualizations can help make climate change more visceral and understandable. Back in 2016 Ed Hawkins published a “climate spiral” graph that ended up being pretty iconic – it was shown at the opening ceremony of the Olympics that year – and ...
An agreement to end the war in Ukraine could transform Russia’s relations with North Korea. Moscow is unlikely to reduce its cooperation with Pyongyang to pre-2022 levels, but it may become more selective about areas ...
This week, the Government is hosting a grand event aimed at trying to interest big foreign capital players in financing capital works in New Zealand, particularly its big rural motorway programme. Financing vs funding: a quick explainer The key word in the sentence above is financing. It is important ...
In a month’s time, the Right Honourable Winston Peters will be celebrating his 80th birthday. Good for him. On the evidence though, his current war on “wokeness” looks like an old man’s cranky complaint that the ancient virtues of grit and know-how are sadly lacking in the youth of today. ...
As noted, early March has been about moving house, and I have had little chance to partake in all things internet. But now that everything is more or less sorted, I can finally give a belated report on my visit to the annual Regent Booksale (28th February and 1st March). ...
Information operations Australia has banned cybersecurity software Kaspersky from government use because of risks of espionage, foreign interference and sabotage. The Department of Home Affairs said use of Kaspersky products posed an unacceptable security ...
The StrategistBy Linus Cohen, Astrid Young and Alice Wai
One of the best understood tropes of screen drama is the scene where the beloved family dog is barking incessantly and cannot be calmed. Finally, somebody asks: What is it, girl? Has someone fallen down a well? Is there trouble at the old John Key place?One is reminded of this ...
The ’ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, plays a significant role in the global cocaine trade and is deeply entrenched in Australia, influencing the cocaine trade and engaging in a variety of illicit activities. A range of ...
In the US, the Trump regime is busy imposing tariffs on its neighbours and allies, then revoking them, then reimposing them, permanently poisoning relations with Canada and Mexico. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on agricultural goods, which will affect Aotearoa's exports. National's response? To grovel for an exemption, ...
Troy Bowker’s Caniwi Capital’s Desmond Gittings, former TradeMe and Warehouse executive Simon West, former anonymous right wing blogger / Labour attacker & now NZ On Air Board member / Waitangi Tribunal member Philip Crump, Canadian billionaire Jim Grenon who used to run vaccine critical, Treaty of Waitangi critical, and trans-rights ...
The free school lunch program was one of Labour's few actual achievements in government. Decent food, made locally, providing local employment. So naturally, National had to get rid of it. Their replacement - run by Compass, a multinational which had already been thrown out of our hospitals for producing inedible ...
New draft government procurement guidelines will remove living wage protections for thousands of low-paid workers in Aotearoa New Zealand, said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff. “The Minister of Finance Nicola Willis has proposed a new rule saying that the Living Wage no longer needs to be paid in ...
The Trump administration’s effort to divide Russia from China is doomed to fail. This means that the United States is destroying security relationships based on a delusion. To succeed, Russia would need to overcome more ...
Living Strong, Aging Well There is much discussion around the health of our older New Zealanders and how we can age well. In reality, the delivery of health services accounts for only a relatively small percentage of health outcomes as we age. Significantly, dry warm housing, nutrition, exercise, social connection, ...
Shane Jones’ display on Q&A showed how out of touch he and this Government are with our communities and how in sync they are with companies with little concern for people and planet. ...
Labour does not support the private ownership of core infrastructure like schools, hospitals and prisons, which will only see worse outcomes for Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is disappointed the Government voted down Hūhana Lyndon’s member’s Bill, which would have prevented further alienation of Māori land through the Public Works Act. ...
The Labour Party will support Chloe Swarbrick’s member’s bill which would allow sanctions against Israel for its illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories. ...
The Government’s new procurement rules are a blatant attack on workers and the environment, showing once again that National’s priorities are completely out of touch with everyday Kiwis. ...
With Labour and Te Pāti Māori’s official support, Opposition parties are officially aligned to progress Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in Palestine. ...
Te Pāti Māori extends our deepest aroha to the 500 plus Whānau Ora workers who have been advised today that the govt will be dismantling their contracts. For twenty years , Whānau Ora has been helping families, delivering life-changing support through a kaupapa Māori approach. It has built trust where ...
Labour welcomes Simeon Brown’s move to reinstate a board at Health New Zealand, bringing the destructive and secretive tenure of commissioner Lester Levy to an end. ...
This morning’s announcement by the Health Minister regarding a major overhaul of the public health sector levels yet another blow to the country’s essential services. ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill that will ensure employment decisions in the public service are based on merit and not on forced woke ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ targets. “This Bill would put an end to the woke left-wing social engineering and diversity targets in the public sector. ...
Police have referred 20 offenders to Destiny Church-affiliated programmes Man Up and Legacy as ‘wellness providers’ in the last year, raising concerns that those seeking help are being recruited into a harmful organisation. ...
Te Pāti Māori welcomes the resignation of Richard Prebble from the Waitangi Tribunal. His appointment in October 2024 was a disgrace- another example of this government undermining Te Tiriti o Waitangi by appointing a former ACT leader who has spent his career attacking Māori rights. “Regardless of the reason for ...
Police Minister Mark Mitchell is avoiding accountability by refusing to answer key questions in the House as his Government faces criticism over their dangerous citizen’s arrest policy, firearm reform, and broken promises to recruit more police. ...
The number of building consents issued under this Government continues to spiral, taking a toll on the infrastructure sector, tradies, and future generations of Kiwi homeowners. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Prime Minister to rule out joining the AUKUS military pact in any capacity following the scenes in the White House over the weekend. ...
The Green Party is appalled by the Government’s plan to disestablish Resource Teachers of Māori (RTM) roles, a move that takes another swing at kaupapa Māori education. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
After months of mana whenua protecting their wāhi tapu, the Green Party welcomes the pause of works at Lake Rotokākahi and calls for the Rotorua Lakes Council to work constructively with Tūhourangi and Ngāti Tumatawera on the pathway forward. ...
New Zealand First continues to bring balance, experience, and commonsense to Government. This week we've made progress on many of our promises to New Zealand.Winston representing New ZealandWinston Peters is overseas this week, with stops across the Middle East and North Asia. Winston's stops include Saudi Arabia, the ...
Green Party Co-Leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have announced the party’s plans to deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative vision to the Government’s trickle-down economics and austerity politics. ...
At this year's State of the Planet address, Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick announced the party’s plans to deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative vision to the Government’s trickle-down economics and austerity politics. ...
There may be a lot of acronyms, but caring for an electric vehicle, and getting the most out of it, can be very simple.You’ve brought home a shiny new treat. It’s got two darling little ears, four rubbery feet, multiple glowing eyes and oh! – no tail at the ...
A new report suggests a focus on export industries will provide the best opportunity for growth in an expanding Māori economy.The Māori economy is at a turning point, with rapid growth, a diversifying asset base and untapped export potential creating new opportunities. But despite nearly doubling in five years ...
“If Brooke van Velden is genuine when she calls for an evidence-based approach to this issue, then she must support a full ban on engineered stone products,” said NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff. ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a ‘broke’ volunteer and former policy adviser explains how he gets by. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Man. Age: 31. Ethnicity: Mixed ethnicity. Role: Unemployed (ex-policy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Randall Wayth, SKA-Low Senior Commissioning Scientist and Adjunct Associate Professor, Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy, Curtin University The first image from an early working version of the SKA-Low telescope, showing around 85 galaxies.SKAO Part of the world’s biggest mega-science facility – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Galyna Piskorska, Associate Professor, Faculty of Journalism, Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University (Ukraine) and Honorary Principal Fellow at the Advanced Centre for Journalism, The University of Melbourne Three years into Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, Ukrainian journalists are facing enormously difficult challenges to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeannie Marie Paterson, Professor of Law (consumer protections and credit law), The University of Melbourne Late last week, corporate watchdog the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) issued a warning to lenders that provide high-fee small-amount loans – known as payday lenders ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marc C-Scott, Associate Professor of Screen Media | Deputy Associate Dean of Learning & Teaching, Victoria University Shutterstock This month marks a decade since Netflix – the world’s most influential and widely subscribed streaming service – launched in Australia. Since ...
Around 70% of New Zealanders find their homes too hot at least some of the time in summer. Those in townhouses are suffering much more than most, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. A summer of broiling ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa M. Katerina Asher, Retail Academic Researcher, PhD Candidate & Sessional Academic, University of Sydney non c/Shutterstock New Zealand’s concentrated supermarket sector is back in the spotlight after Finance Minister Nicola Willis said she was open to offering “VIP treatment” to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Stebbing, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University Lightspring/Shutterstock Imagine a world where bacteria, typically feared for causing disease, are turned into powerful weapons against cancer. That’s exactly what some scientists are working on. And they are beginning to unravel ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary K. Waite, Professor Emeritus, Early Modern European History, University of New Brunswick In this etching from Dutch theologian Lambertus Hortensius’ 1614 book ‘Van den oproer der weder-dooperen,’ Anabaptists warn the residents of Amsterdam of the coming vengeance of Christ in 1535. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Allyn Dale, Director of the MA in Climate and Society program at the Columbia Climate School, Columbia University After the devastating 1994 genocide, Rwandans returning from the violence established homes and began farming where they could find land. Since then, ...
It started with a hug.On the steps of Hyderabad House in Delhi, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon leaned in first. Once Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi embraced his new friend, the pair walked the flag-adorned lawn, and Luxon patted Modi on the back one, two, three, four times. .wp-block-newspack-blocks-homepage-articles article .entry-title ...
Whangārei District Council reaffirmed its defiance of the government’s fluoridation order on Monday, despite mounting costs, legal threats and a bitterly divided chamber.Whangārei District Council (WDC) spent Monday afternoon in what may be one of the most chaotic and heated council meetings in recent memory. After months of defiance ...
Media strategist, advisor and author Kevin Chesters joins Duncan Greive for a deep dive into advertising, creativity and the demise of the monoculture ahead of his appearance at AXIS Speaks in Tāmaki Makaurau. Kevin Chesters has 30 years of experience leading strategy on both agency and client sides, serving ...
Two months into US President Donald Trump’s presidency, leaders around the world are picking their battle strategies: butter him up, or speak truth to power?To date, New Zealand has largely steered clear entirely, treading a careful line. Earlier this month, Winston Peters fired Phil Goff from his position as High ...
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, Tuesday 18 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Mark Forman’s exemplary new biography, Tony Fomison: Life Of The Artist, has been published after 12 years of research and writing – and over those long years I’ve diligently answered Mark’s emails on his subject. Between 1985–1989, I was Tony Fomison’s friend/gofer/lackey/ Sancho Panza/Sundance Kid/Boswell/Baldrick.I look back on my time ...
Seven people have died on the Wellington waterfront since 2006. What should be done about it? In 2021, 30-year-old Sandy Calkin died in Wellington Harbour after a night drinking with friends in the city centre. A coroner’s report into Calkin’s death, released last week, confirmed the cause of death was ...
Professor David McGiffin knows his trade. A top Australian heart-lung researcher and a retired head of cardiothoracic and transplant surgery at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, McGiffin has seen huge advances in his field over a long and distinguished career.Listen to the podcast But one thing that remains unsolved ...
Comment: Russia’s four-yearly training exercises have become genuinely dangerous events The post Putin’s dangerous war games appeared first on Newsroom. ...
MediaRoom column: A wider play for the Herald owner is possible; Plus, machines take over the Herald site. And a new media trust survey. The post Will a white knight ride to the Herald’s rescue? appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Themiya Nanayakkara, Lead Astronomer at the James Webb Australian Data Centre, Swinburne University of Technology The Big Wheel alongside some of its neighbours. Weichen Wang et al. (2025) Deep observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed an exceptionally ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has won facetime and favour with global heavyweight Narendra Modi on a frenetic full day in India, where both pledged greater military cooperation. ...
200.000 unemployed people? Maybe the government could hire a few of those to be working at Winz processing benefits claims.
11.2 percent unemployed in 91. The result of daft Government policies, not Covid. But it shows we have had worse than now.
well i guess they were lucky in 1991 that they could put the blame square on their inept government and did not have to deal with a serious and deadly viral disease.
I'd rather they paid those under 25 UI payments and left them to find work as they can – gig/part-time/casual.
Having to report other income and pay 90% abatement over $90 a week will suck the life out of them.
This says $80 and 70%. Still sucks. Greens want to change that to $165 and 60%.
https://communitylaw.org.nz/community-law-manual/chapter-22-dealing-with-work-and-income/benefit-rates-how-much-youll-get-and-how-much-you-can-earn/how-earning-money-will-affect-your-benefit-abatement/
Well it's good they have taken the abatement rate down to 70%, I am fairly sure they intend/the exemption is to go to $90.
i am quite s serious.
there are now 200.000 people on less then 300$ per week base rate, if they don't have a partner who is now solely responsible for feeding everyone.
I'd rather the government creates some jobs for these newly and old unemployed people. If this number increases by another few tens of thousands suddenly you have issues.
also yei, abatment rate at $90 is 10 bucks more then now. Party time!
The amount one could earn before the abatement was $80 back in 2001, it had remained the same for nearly 20 years.
As for the low income, under the JSB regime its $250 (single) + $90 then any more and abatement at 70 cents in the dollar off that (as well as tax). This effectively caps income for 10-15 hours work at under $400 (and the time and effort of reporting extra income to W and I each week)
With UI for those under 25 without FT employment, there is no abatement – 100% of extra income is kept. Get 10-15 hours work at $18.90 MW/$20 next year and this is near the $500 a week rate some laid off are getting for a few months.
I hadn't realised there were different abatement rates for different benefits.
Those with partners and or children can earn a higher rate before abatement applies.
Under 25 I'd go for that maybe even a bit older – maybe tail it off. heck that should give a tax free fire zone for anyone under that age to keep equity. I'm attracted to the idea. Beats youth wages which only benefit employers.
And sign them up to a union so they have somebody to represent them and stop anyone taking too much advantage of them
Re youth wages – for mine the best thing about UI for those under 25 is that it also allows people to intern for free (you cannot do this and get JSB as you have to be available for paid FT work). This does not mean exploitation as it is voluntary and people would only do it in return for training – and they could leave any time and use the training to get a paid job.
Or intern part-time and top up it up with a part-time/gig/casual job income.
In regards the 'gig economy job's, perhaps the laws get rejigged so that these foreign fast food chains have to employ their delivery drivers.
I know of a couple of teens doing deliveries, and they are headed to a world of trouble.
Not bothered with taxes, insurance etc. Just spending the money as they get it.
Surely we can pay a little more for our pizza and have these people entering the job market a little better protected.
Actually I wonder if the Right is really getting very worried.
Yes we have to reallocate our labour force and that will take a little time but if we manage that, keep our exports up, run surpluses on our balance of payments, put the fewer people we have into the housing that exists ,increase wage bargaining ability, increase GDP per head then the whole country will be able to see that the Right wing policies are a load of rubbish that does not make them better off.
Covid challenge: How do we reinforce concepts like cooperation, caring and protection in our public discourse?
The right will be pushing 'freedom' and business-as-usual; 'Opening up' to the world as a good plan rather than a reckless stunt; Getting back to a way of life that is right and ordained.
Meanwhile, the plague is just getting started.. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12345158
Latest reports from the US indicate its getting more infectious than it was (higher viral loads). This would explain why it is spreading so well in the American summer.
They are sooo screwed.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/new-study-suggests-covid-19-mutation-makes-three-nine-times-more-infectious
UK and travel.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/01/75-countries-exempted-quarantine-individual-air-bridge-plan/
The list, to be published on Thursday or Friday, will lift the Foreign Office ban on non-essential travel to nearly all EU destinations, the British territories including Bermuda and Gibraltar, and Turkey, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand….
It means that from Monday travellers to the 75 countries will no longer have to quarantine for 14 days on their return to the UK although some like Australia and New Zealand are expected to retain border controls and quarantine for as long as the rest of 2020….
All part of Boris' Very Good Plans that he thinks up at breakfast meetings. Wishful that UK can skip a quarantine on return. If you didn't laugh you would cry.
google keywords – Sweden covid19 figures
Sweden is interesting they have a regular sharp peak and drop of new cases, which on 24 June was 1697 then 477 on 28 June, then on 30 June 1445, yet 250 on 2 July.
.
Victoria why the rise?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-53259356 Jul.3/20
Coronavirus: Why has Melbourne's outbreak worsened?
So how did the virus spread? Allegations of blame have been levelled at private security firms contracted to operate the state's quarantine. Neighbouring New South Wales took a different approach – using the police force.
Victoria has faced accusations of systemic failures such as guards being improperly trained or not given enough PPE.
Mr Andrews [Premier Daniel Andrews] has also described cases of illegal socialising between staff, listing examples of workers sharing a cigarette lighter or car-pooling. Local media also reported claims of sex between guards and quarantined travellers.
The government has ordered a judicial inquiry into their quarantine operation and fired the contractors…
In early May – during Australia's lockdown – authorities expressed concern about a virus cluster among workers at an abbatoir in Melbourne's west.
About 111 cases were eventually linked to the site, which had been the subject of a rapid trace-and-track response from authorities…
But experts believe that secondary cases from that cluster – and possibly others – were still festering undetected in the community.
"It seeded the population… and there were enough cases out there when the precautions relaxed," Prof John Matthews from the University of Melbourne tells the BBC…
.
Officials were still exhorting social distancing, but group limits were expanded. Large family groups reconnected and some cases stemmed from people with mild symptoms attending those gatherings, authorities said.
"Once the feeling got around that it was over – when it really wasn't – Victoria copped it," says Prof Matthews…
.
…communication of public health orders was insufficient for non-English speakers, ..
Given Melbourne's significantly multicultural make-up – a language other than English is spoken in almost 35% of households – this was a notable oversight, critics said…
"If you can't stop the spread – you lose control – you get to the stage where you can't keep up with contract tracing… essentially what happened in Europe and North America."
.
For now, Australia remains in a far better position than most nations. Only 23 people with the virus are in hospital in Victoria, and testing is widespread and rigorous – over 2.5 million tests have been conducted in a national population of 25 million.
"It's hard to say where we'll be in a month's time", says Prof Mathews. "We used to say Australia's response was one of the best in the world. And we can still say that, but with the qualification that we got caught."
This could very well happen to us.
It will.
Its the New Normal, even for the 100% Purists.
Back to TINA.
There being no alternative to zombie neo-liberalism.
nothing now can be normal
Not so sure on that – feels like we've relaxed levels for several weeks now, no random cases appearing from undetected clusters.Whereas Victoria seems to have had errors in their eradication effor
So the risk is a quarantine breach, and that would involve localised level increases and intense testing and tracing. t.
Check the rest of the world.
Neither the world, nor ourselves within the world, are ever going back to "normal".
That's an even more absurd than the flipside, that we'll be all good in a year or two.
For the next 5-10 years, there will be a basic schism in the world: those countries that have managed to control or eradicate it, and those that basically surrendered to it and watched thousands or millions of people die.
Best case for the latter group is that exposure gives long term immunity to survivors. Worst case is that it gives limited immunity and lots of long term health problems.
Best case for the former group, the ones that effectively limited the disease within their borders, is that a vaccine is developed in a year or two and the WHO coordinates a global eradication program. Worst case is that no effective vaccine is developed and only moderately effective treatments are developed, and NZ and other countries basically have to treat the surrendermonkeys like they have super-rabies for the next century, always worried that some "plan B" arsehole will try to smuggle it in like a farmer with RCD.
The coronavirus is not forever.
Which means chaos and the inability to plan for anything with all the economic downside that produces
Sorry , I'd rather find solutions for survival within NZ than open up and surrender to a chaotic maelstrom
Racism costs.
"Fired the contractors" This should go down as a prime example of a case study for "how contracting out to acquire private sector efficiencies" is a complete load of rubbish. How much is this new lock down costing the local economy and the people in it.
We have been warned – don't be cheap and outsource such a vital service. Failure costs are huge.
I guess that's David Clark's fault too.
lols Gabby. The Brit Govt have privatised testing and tracing etc, should be interesting to see how that goes, with BJ in charge, sheesh.
About as well as everything else over there has gone I imagine.
All day long radio repetition aka rnz has been telling us of the arrest of epsteins former girlfriend and the witchhunt continues .Hes constently refered to as a pedophile because he had a thing about underage girls apparently and because it sounds much more salacious to the media and underpins the negative framing necesary for the legions of parasites getting ready to feast on his estate .However odious you might think epstein was he paid the ultimate price for his deeds by being murdered in his jail cell .So now the vultures are after the girlfriend the suposedly evil whatever her name is maxwell ?perhaps and today we here some damn yank prosecutor extolling how evil she is living in luxury etc etc hand on heart as if her morality was non existant and the great american people absolute .Makes me sick thinking of all the war criminals living happy filthy rich lives in the good old US of A .That country doesnt have a morality it can spout about if it had one it disappeared a long time ago .Its not about morality imo its about money filthy lucre for the hundreds of lawyers for the prosecutors for the prison for profit corporations for the media and for the so called victims waiting for their multi million payouts .There got that off my chest think i,ll stoke up the fire an have a nice cup of tea !
"So called victims", a seedy old man taking advantage of girls under 16, makes them victims, so fuck off mate.
Hopefully not before we get to hear about how the lizard people's 5g towers give everyone cat aids.
After decades of "empowering" young girls what the hell has gone wrong.
I think we went the wrong way by presenting prostitution as a perfectly ok profession, that young women could be "empowered" by this career choice.
Weren't these Epstein victims teenage prostitutes, at any rate lured into becoming prostitutes .I argue that most prostitutes arrive at that career choice by a combination of poverty, lack of education, drug addiction and dysfunction.
That plus a total inundation of the culture with porn, showing women supposedly enjoying bondage and other painful practices
We can excoriate Epstein and Maxwell but we need to look at our exploitative culture as well
Your comments aren't welcome here Weston
Queensland has imposed user-charges on interstate quarantine so of course an underground railway has sprung up to smuggle Victorians across the NSW-QLD state line.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/border-inspections-for-smuggled-travellers-amid-difficult-days-ahead-20200703-p558rb.html
This one goes out to all who are cold and alone in the deep of winter.
So Now? by Charles Bukowski
the words have come and gone,
I sit ill.
the phone rings, the cats sleep.
Linda vacuums.
I am waiting to live,
waiting to die.
I wish I could ring in some bravery.
it's a lousy fix
but the tree outside doesn't know:
I watch it moving with the wind
in the late afternoon sun.
there's nothing to declare here,
just a waiting.
each faces it alone.
Oh, I was once young,
Oh, I was once unbelievably
young!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S9HNM31XUQ
"Bukowski was shy and socially withdrawn, a condition exacerbated during his teen years by an extreme case of acne. Neighborhood children ridiculed his German accent and the clothing his parents made him wear. In Bukowski: Born Into This, a 2003 film, Bukowski states that his father beat him with a razor strop three times a week from the ages of six to 11 years."
Compared to mine, his father was relatively kind. But the regime of inexorable continual excessive thrashing likewise made me "shy and socially withdrawn". I actually stopped talking to anyone else unless it was necessary when I noticed they were all incapable of intelligent responses when I was a young child.
Bukowski published "over 60 books. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column Notes of a Dirty Old Man in the LA underground newspaper Open City." I read a biography of him around 30 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski
Bukowski on style:
I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.
When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun,
that was style.
Or sometimes people give you style
Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Jesus
Socrates
Caesar
García Lorca.
I have met men in jail with style.
I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail.
Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you, naked, walking out of the bathroom without seeing me.”