Archive for the ‘Encouragement’ Category
Trevor Mallard demolishes Cameron Slater*
Congratulations to Labour MP Trevor Mallard for good-naturedly wiping the smirk off Cameron Slater’s face. Well, temporarily. The result of the much-hyped (on Cameron’s part) 60 km bike race held this afternoon around Bucklands Beach was: Mallard won easily … by more than 20 minutes. I dropped over to Musick Point this afternoon and met Cam’s [...]
A departing editor’s kamikaze attack on his crappy publisher
I’d never heard of Valley City, nor the happy sounding Horizon Publications, but heroic Lee Morris, outgoing editor of the Valley City Times-Record, somehow managed to slip this parting shot into the paper, detailing his very reasonble and well-written account of changes he sees as very negative (ahem) at the Valley City Times-Record. Morris had [...]
A cynical definition of ‘journalistic balance’
This double-headed response to my musings reminded me of a conversation I had with Richard Long, then The Dominion’s Parliamentary bureau chief, later the paper’s editor, and even later Spin Doctor for two under-achieving National Party Opposition leaders, Bill English and Don Brash. Richard, a Press Gallery veteran if ever there was one (20 years? [...]
School girl exorcists. Modelling on Buffy the Vampire-slayer?
Reads like a story from The Twilight Zone … Oh boy. ‘We’re not like normal teenagers’: Meet the exorcist schoolgirls who spend their time casting out DEMONS around the world By JEFF MAYSH Mail Online 11th August 2011 Brynne Larson, 16, is one of many newly-qualified teenage demon slayers Reverend Bob Larson of Spiritual Freedom [...]
Lucky to get out …
A while ago I was on a mid-winter tour with one of my authors and to end the trip we held a final session in Queenstown — arguably New Zealand’s ski capital. My events manager and I were booked to fly back to Auckland while our author and his spouse planned to take the ‘scenic [...]
A little bit of understanding of Asperger
Congratulations to journalist Janet McIntyre, giving us an insight into life for someone with Asperger syndrome via her ‘A tale of two light bulbs‘ documentary. I hope some more understanding of these people will result from such public/media exposure. (Is that too much to hope?) We discuss Asperger here on ThePaepae.com from time to time [...]
Assange … a right to scrutinise the state.
We support a cause that is no more radical a proposition than that the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state. The state has asserted its authority by surveilling, monitoring and regimenting all of us, all the while hiding behind cloaks of security and opaqueness. — Julian Assange Pretty hard to argue with that. [...]
Let me not into temptation
This book on LBJ’s succession to John F Kennedy after the assassination was an eye-opener. I’m reading Nixonland by Rick Perlstein at the same time, and I can perceive the seeds of LBJ’s and the Democrats’ destruction in the character traits and deep suspicion and disunity Steven Gillon highlights in his book. Certainly, the book [...]
Make no little plans
Inspiring. Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing [...]
