Gordon Campbell: The Sian Elias speech about crime
The recent speech by Chief Justice Sian Elias may have been greeted with some – sensational headlines – “Top Judge Suggests Prison Amnesty” – and […]
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The Winston Peters Comeback
Only Winston Peters could say the hardest word in the political lexicon – “Sorry” – by implying that his mistakes were really due to his […]
The bogus benefits of PPPs
Occasionally, someone in business lets the cat out of the bag in a way that is impossible to satirise. Thus in the NZ Herald this […]
The Greens’ new peace initiative
Click to enlarge Non aggression pacts tend to get a bad press, both in real life and in fiction. Hitler and Stalin, two of the […]
Phil Goff Interview
An interview with Labour leader Phil Goff
Eyeball Economics
Making a living on the Net
Worth Fighting For
The battle to bridge the gender pay gap in New Zealand.
Get That Camera Out of Here, We’re Making a Film
The ‘Fourth World’ cinema of Barry Barclay
Left Coasting : In California, Education Just Doesn’t Pay
How California has screwed up the funding of education
Classics: The Rabbits Wedding by Garth Williams
Children’s book illustrator Garth Williams and The Rabbits’ Wedding
The Complicatist : Bradford Cox
Bradford Cox of Deerhunter doowop.
Sporting Life : Big Big Fighters
Talking Sport. Are heavyweight boxers these days are getting way TOO big
From the Hood : The Irony of Satire
“Only if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.” [Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic]
The Erosion Of Justice
As the civil rights we enjoy get whittled away, the pattern is becoming very familiar. Initially, fresh powers of search, detention, use of secret evidence […]
Paula Bennett’s welfare abuse
To date, the government’s response to the recession has been faulted on the demand side – for not giving sufficient stimulus to the economy, as […]
National Education Tests, And Michael Jackson
The current struggle between school principals and Education Minister Anne Tolley over national standards has the hallmarks of a rushed and insuffiently funded process. No […]
The Government’s failure to cope with unemployment
There was a quite telling difference of emphasis on Radio Waatea this morning. While Greens MP Sue Bradford was calling on the government to make […]
Iraq, And Its Foreign Oil Deals
Remember how, when the US invaded Iraq in 2003, critics said it was all about oil? Next week, political events in Iraq – and the […]
David Garrett’s lewdness, and the incredible Christine Rankin
Rodney Hide’s excuses for the lewd comment by his Act party colleague David Garrett – that he is new to Parliament, that he may be […]
Gordon Campbell on Peter Jackson’s review of the Film Commission
The selection of Peter Jackson to lead the ministerial review of the New Zealand Film Commission guarantees the review a prominence that no-one else in […]
John Key’s Zen press conference, and Iran’s stolen election
Faced with the dying embers of the Richard Worth scandal at his press conference yesterday (audio & report, video), John Key reached for gasoline, not […]
Classics : Grasshopper on the Road by Arnold Lobel
Gordon Campbell on Arnold Lobel’s Grasshopper on the Road
On censorship – bring back Worth!
Click to enlarge One downside of Richard Worth’s exit from his ministerial post at Internal Affairs will be to further postpone any fix of the […]
Rodney Hide’s latest plan for gutting local democracy
Rodney Hide’s agenda for local government involves – as Scoop reported six months ago – the importation of an American model that has resulted in […]
Art politics in the 2000s
Helen Clark’s legacy to the arts, and will it survive her?
Smackdown over the S59 law
Why the citizens referendum in July is a futile way to spend $10 million
Countdown Lebanon
Will the Byzantine voting system confound the doomsayers about the election in Lebanon?
Absolute Bollard
Gordon Campbell interviews Reserve Bank Governor, Dr Alan Bollard
Classics : Abel’s Island by William Steig (1975)
Gordon Campbell on the children’s author and illustrator William Steig