Colourful Dreamer

Fighting for the right to not learn Maori? Shame on all of those involved in this story! This news story appalls me on several levels. First that John Campbell even gave it air time. This did not need to be on our airwaves, and especially not during Maori Language week. This story is about ratings and pandering to the red neck community. Secondly, Te Reo Maori is an official language of this country. It gives expression to the culture of the indigenous people, whose culture the rest of us are willing to trade off when it suits us, like doing hakas at sports events, using Maori design to highlight our uniqueness for trade expos, and for young kiwis overseas on their big OE. Te Reo Maori is part of who we are, and we should embrace it proudly and with enthusiasm. In other countries people learn the official languages without too much bother. But not here. Here we have mono cultural people of European descent (I am not even sure I would call these people pakeha -  a name ...

Over the last few weeks and months our journalists have made a lot of noise about the Fiji Government's censorship of the press. Where will the press's neutrality be they ask? How can they ask the balancing and critical questions? Yesterday was the reporting of the Sensible Sentencing Trust annual event held in the Beehive in Wellington. Garth McVicars, the creator of this group was interiewed on TV1. And I had to wonder if I was watching an infomercial for the Sensible Sentencing Trust. Where, I wondered were the balancing and critical questions? Absent!!! Completely absent. Our media, or at least, TV1 (and my expereince is as bad of TV3) failed to do their job. McVicars wants parole abolished. The interviewer (Greg Boyd) lamely agreed, wondered why things were as they were, and suggested that McVicars simply was stating common sense. Is this our cherished free press at work? So is this what we want our country to be known for, as imprisoning more people per head of popul...