New blog – Edge Times

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, February 22nd, 2015 - 45 comments
Categories: blogs, feminism, Politics - Tags:

edge-timesA few days ago folk were wondering where Karol had got to. While we’re sorry to lose her from The Standard, the good news is that Karol has started her own blog – Edge Times.

Karol aims to cover a mix of politics and popular culture. Recent posts focus on issues of women and political power.

Please head on over and visit, and / or look out for Edge Times in the Feeds to the right.

45 comments on “New blog – Edge Times ”

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  1. travellerev 1
    22 February 2015 at 9:30 am

    I am extremely sorry to hear that Karol has left the Standard. She was one of the most outspoken, critical and truth speaking voices over here.

  2. tc 2
    22 February 2015 at 10:09 am

    Good to see another site, go Karol.

  3. rhinocrates 3
    22 February 2015 at 11:45 am

    I’m sorry to see Karol leave the Standard mix – it really does work by being a mix, in my opinion.

    In any case, Edge Times is now on my favourites list. Good luck!

  4. adam 4
    22 February 2015 at 12:05 pm

    Silly question – but can we sometimes use Karol, and her wonderful posts here?

    • lprent 4.1
      22 February 2015 at 1:43 pm

      She still has a login. She is welcome to cross post or whatever as she pleases.

      And… nice – someone other than me has already added the site to the feeds. 🙂

  5. phillip ure 5
    22 February 2015 at 12:05 pm

    good on her..!

    ..the more alternative-media the better..

    ..but the blog is hardly ‘new’..

    ..it started in november 2012….

    • Chooky 5.1
      22 February 2015 at 3:26 pm

      ?…so it started in 2012….?…is she devoting more time to it then?

      …or has it changed format?…it would be good if it had an ‘Open Mike’ ….imo the biggest strength of this site is its capacity for participatory input and interaction…otherwise blog sites just become like magazines with articles…personally I would like a good feminist/Green site with scope for a lot of interaction

  6. DH 6
    22 February 2015 at 2:30 pm

    I wish Karol well. I would like to see her continue posting here though, the Standard needs its female contributors.

  7. ropata:rorschach 7
    22 February 2015 at 4:25 pm

    Solo blogging is damn hard, it requires a lot of passion, thought, and effort to write a decent blog post. Good luck Karol!

  8. karol 8
    22 February 2015 at 7:29 pm

    Thanks, everyone who commented above. It is good to get some appreciation. And, goodness, y’all have sent my little blog’s stats through the roof.

    Edge Times is my little experimental blog, ropata and chooky. Right now I’m just working through some issues on it, and trying to see if I can integrate posts on politics and popular culture.

    For a while I have been thinking about getting more focused in my blogging – on a smaller number of topics, and maybe more on the background to issues rather than the daily roller-coaster of political news.

    But, also, at the moment, I am pretty busy with some other (non-political) offline projects. Not a lot of time for blogging – exhausted tonight after a days work & I only work part time.

    Thanks, Lynn. Pondering. Always appreciate your support for authors and your savvy and hard work on this blog.

    • travellerev 8.1
      23 February 2015 at 8:05 am

      After 9 years of blogging I can honestly say that it is the most rewarding thing I have ever done but it is also damn hard work. May the force be with you and please keep posting some of it here too. Your opinions are much valued!

  9. Redelusion 9
    22 February 2015 at 8:49 pm

    Be good for the TS to take the opportunity to get a few new more bloggers with a less far left agenda with respect to critical analysis, if not just simply to avoid pandering to the convertet. it Gets boring with one way traffic, Saying that right wing blogs are no better, open up the debate and ideas, break the left vs right mold

    • One Anonymous Bloke 9.1
      22 February 2015 at 8:55 pm

      Bring your facts. The ones you have evidence for.

    • Paul 9.2
      22 February 2015 at 8:56 pm

      Then don’t read the Standard.
      And leaving your tr***ing elsewhere.

    • Colonial Rawshark 9.3
      22 February 2015 at 9:03 pm

      We have 4 major issues facing NZ:

      1) Fossil fuel depletion (20 year time frame to crisis).
      2) Climate change (30 year time frame to crisis).
      3) Loss of economic stability due to peak financialisation and peak globalisation.
      4) Loss of sovereignty via the global security and surveillance state.

      Both the Left and the Right who care about this country will need to come together to solve these issues and get NZ ready and working.

    • te reo putake 9.4
      22 February 2015 at 9:12 pm

      Well, BLiP and I have just joined the ranks in recent days. BLiP reckons Labour should go into a grand coalition with National and I was recently advocating sending troops to Iraq. Is that the sort of thing you mean, del boy?

      • lprent 9.4.1
        22 February 2015 at 9:50 pm

        IN my opinion Deluded is just a bit of a dickhead, and never seems to let facts get in the way of his inane bigotry.

        I’ve been known to write here on the odd occasion (ummm 671 posts). My work background is in private business, managing bits of companies or running development teams or just as a hard out programmer on greenfield startups. I’ve also been in the army, worked in public bars, and I’m not a unionist (I just think that unions are useful). FFS: I have a frigging MBA and my favourite reading each week is The Economist which pops onto my tablet every friday…

        I don’t suffer unthinking fools gladly, and I suspect my writing displays that.

        But I have seen a lot of inadequates like Deluded over the years. Too stupid to read they indulge in fantasies of adequacy by regurgitating the things that used to make their father cum with rage back in the 70s when he was reading the newspaper. The main reason they do it on blogs is because they don’t live up to their fathers literacy levels and have problems reading even our current tabloids, and they are absolute boring tossers in person and no-one wants to talk to them.

        But hey, I could just be dealing up a bigoted stereotype here. But I have never seen deluded show any real signs of intelligence. Can anyone link to one?

        • ropata:rorschach 9.4.1.1
          22 February 2015 at 10:02 pm

          Nope. Redelusion just drops inane little dollops of right wing memes without any links or evidence (or literacy for that matter), then runs away.

        • te reo putake 9.4.1.2
          22 February 2015 at 10:03 pm

          You might be struggling to find signs of intelligence, LPrent. Redelusion seems to think Michael Lhaws is the peak of political discourse.

        • les 9.4.1.3
          23 February 2015 at 8:44 am

          I find intelligent authors do not resort to childish name calling,self praise and assumptions.

          • ropata:rorschach 9.4.1.3.1
            24 February 2015 at 12:23 am

            les is not impressed,
            don’t stress or rip your dress,
            just acquiesce (say yes les)
            to freedom of the press
            and bloggers who transgress
            aggress and digress
            and need to express
            their distress for the oppressed
            nevertheless, it’s more fun than chess
            eh les?

    • Tracey 9.5
      23 February 2015 at 4:36 pm

      Looking forward to your guest post as a voice of the Labour Movement.

  10. red blooded 10
    22 February 2015 at 8:55 pm

    Surely The Standard exists so that people can explore thinking from the Left and discuss the issues of the day from a left wing perspective. If you want to be entertained, read The Civilian.

    • karol 10.1
      23 February 2015 at 8:38 am

      Great for those well into politics. It is necessary for that/this kind of fourm for the hard core of left wingers. But that on its own will not bring change. There needs to be a massive change within the general culture, and a grass roots led- movement supporting it.

      More people are into entertainment than are into the nitty gritty of politics. And those people consume political propaganda with their entertainment and leisure pursuits – unless they have an inclination to, or are encouraged to, be highly critical of the content of their entertainment and other leisure activities.

      The (so-called) “neoliberal” revolution since the late 70s/80s, was more a cultural shift than one led by a consistent economic theory: as David Harvey wrote, it involved whatever it took to shift politics and culture towards bolstering the power and wealth of the elites… and the corporates. The “freemarket” “small government” lines were just a cover for this continuing power and wealth grab.

      It occurred across multiple facets of life and included a shift to a stronger focus on infotainment in news – ie news/politics laced with entertainment and a consumerist ethos: as much popular culture as “news”. It included a massive shift towards consumerism infiltrating every area of life.

      Everything is political.

      • Draco T Bastard 10.1.1
        23 February 2015 at 8:41 am

        +111

      • One Anonymous Bloke 10.1.2
        23 February 2015 at 8:44 am

        🙂

        Well said.

      • Pete George 10.1.3
        23 February 2015 at 9:05 am

        “it involved whatever it took to shift politics and culture towards bolstering the power and wealth of the elites
 and the corporates”

        That’s debatable, and the evolution of new Zealand and world society id far more complex than that.

        New Zealand had to change drastically after being dumped by the UK as a major trading partner. And New Zealand had to change drastically after being nearly bankrupt by the draconian economic rule of Muldoon.

        And alongside that there have been the biggest changes to communications and other technologies.

        All of this can’t be blamed on a small powerful conspiracy.

        “Everything is political.”

        No it’s not. Everything is far more complex and interrelated than just being political.

        The more people decide to do for themselves the less importance politics will have. The more people expect Government to fix things the more influence politics has.

        • weka 10.1.3.1
          23 February 2015 at 9:21 am

          Continental drift is the movement of the Earth’s continents relative to each other, thus appearing to “drift” across the ocean bed. The speculation that continents might have ‘drifted’ was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596. The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912, but his theory was rejected by some for lack of a mechanism (though this was supplied later by Holmes) and others because of prior theoretical commitments. The idea of continental drift has been subsumed by the theory of plate tectonics, which explains how the continents move.

          • rhinocrates 10.1.3.1.1
            23 February 2015 at 10:55 am

            That’s very interesting, weka. On the theme of deep time, did you know that the azhdarchid pterosaur of the late Cretaceous, Hatzegopteryx was the largest known flying creature, with an estimated wingspan of twelve metres or more? Tracks left by closely related pterosaurs indicate that the creature was quite agile as a quadruped and it probably preyed up young dinosaurs, relying on its ability to fly to escape angry parents. It is thought that uniquely, pterosaurs launched themselves into the air ‘pole-vaulting- with their front limbs. Hatzegopteryx fossils have been found in central Europe, which at the time was an archipelago. I have friends who are from Hungary and Slovakia, where several fossils have been found.

        • rhinocrates 10.1.3.2
          23 February 2015 at 10:18 am

          I nominate the “Pete George” as a BDSM safe word. First, no one would reasonably cry this out spontaneously so it’s meaning is unambiguous and second, it’s a guaranteed passion-killer.

          • ropata:rorschach 10.1.3.2.1
            24 February 2015 at 12:33 am

            Also PG is safe from surveillance, because nobody wants to die of utter boredom. Watching paint dry is more riveting. (His blather is a documented cause of Ennui, or as Fred Dagg calls it “a case of the Henrys”)

        • Tracey 10.1.3.3
          23 February 2015 at 4:37 pm

          and people wonder why karol left?

      • One Anonymous Bloke 10.1.4
        23 February 2015 at 9:25 am

        Small government equals the wealthy get to help themselves to more and more.

        Everything is political.

    • Tracey 10.2
      23 February 2015 at 4:36 pm

      It is the voice of the Labour Movement

  11. xanthe 11
    22 February 2015 at 9:45 pm

    Pity its a load of factionalist crap

  12. mary_a 12
    23 February 2015 at 5:57 pm

    You go Karol. And a big thank you for introducing another alternative news site, to challenge msm.

    Ignore the naysayers. They need to get a life.