Columnists
A national concern
0 comments
MEGAN NICOL REED
AVAAZFOUNDATION 9173883988NYAUD1500 was the description. $19.86 the princely sum. February 8 the date.
I puzzled over my credit card statement. It wasn't enough to be the spa pool cleaner, nor those four tuna loins. Possibly that exorbitant parking at 277, Newmarket, or the back catalogue of Talking Heads my husband had downloaded at my request off iTunes. Then it came to me. Syria. It was for Syria.
AVAAZ, an online activism network, had sent an email imploring all receivers to urgently donate. Chip in to the Arab Spring Campaign, they had written, and get aid to the cities and towns most besieged by Assad's forces. I always sign AVAAZ petitions. Occasionally I cough up. I think the time prior was the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the last chance, it was said, to save the world from irreversible environmental damage. There has been a cornucopia of worthy causes in the interim. So I'm not sure why Syria in particular yanked at my heart strings. It's not like I have an aunty there or anything. I think the guy from the local kebab shop might be Syrian. He's something Middle Eastern, anyway.
Undeniably, the thought of men, women and children being killed in their beds by a corrupt government is horrible and the spread of democracy through such an unstable corner of the world can only be a good thing, but still, it got me thinking this week as the first anniversary of the big quake looms, why did I give almost $20 to Syria when I haven't given anything to Christchurch? I actually have extended family who live there. A member of my immediate family was there that day and had to flee the building, leaving all of her belongings behind. A friend's cousin, a young and vital man, had his legs crushed.
But, and I know I will not win myself any friends here, I feel oddly detached. Is it because it is not a city I have ever had strong feelings about one way or another? I have visited a handful of times. I fell in the Avon River when I was five, lusted after the period homes bordering Hagley Park when I was 35.
Sponsored links
Govt should intervene to fix quake-struck city
0 comments
MICHAEL LAWS
It may be the media, it may be me. But whenever I think of the Christchurch earthquake disaster these days, I ask only one question: where did the love go?
In the immediate aftermath of this appalling tragedy I reacted like most New Zealanders. I offered my home to a refugee family, donated dollars to the various appeals and got beaten up by Maori activist Ken Mair to raise further funds for the recovery.
None of these things give me any proprietary or moral rights. But I have been deeply saddened at the news stories emanating out of Christchurch these past three months. We all have.
They reek of disappointment distilling itself into disaffection. Columnists and commentators, still resident in the quaky queen of the south, write eloquently of their travails. Not of the hardship nor the shattered sleep nor the cost. Rather of the administrative inefficiencies and cock-ups.
Now I accept that the media are sensationalist bastards at the best of times. But this uniformity of upset speaks of a core to such complaint.
Love's labours
0 comments
MEGAN NICOL REED
This Tuesday: Kara Mary-Jo Hurring, 32, mother-of-one, lover to none, will go on trial for her unfortunate decision to flee to China with ex-partner Leo Gao after a Westpac employee misplaced the decimal and deposited $10 million into their account; a 47-year-old motel owner with name suppression will be sentenced for organising a child sex tour to Thailand, where, he reportedly boasted, he'd enjoyed local boys and found them "very green and really raw"; and the fate of the big cats at Zion Wildlife Gardens will be decided at an ownership hearing, the latest in a long-running saga which has seen mother-versus-son, freak accidents, domestic abuse and threesomes.
Feel the love: this Tuesday. Officially it's hearts and chocolates and single red roses. But life goes on. Fugitive accidental millionaires will have their day in court, creepy moteliers will pay, beasts will live or die. And lonely hearts everywhere will hold their breath.
Valentine's Day isn't for couples. Their love is already out there. Already declared. Valentine's Day is for the great unloved. On too many I waited and waited for true love to make itself known. And when it did, it came in the form of a crotch-high purple polyester teddy. Someone, secretly, somewhere, full of admiration, thought it capable of seducing me. It only made my skin crawl.
Finding love, I reckon, with the hindsight of 13 years of partnership under my belt, can be a bitch. When I met my husband my interest in going to bars on a Friday night dissipated in direct proportion to the number of dates we notched up.
Although there are a rare few who actively choose a celibate life, either for a higher purpose or because they have a really sluggish libido, humans are hardwired to want another; someone to make them avocado on toast on a Sunday morning, someone who knows they really, really hate rom-coms starring Owen Wilson, someone to hold their hair while they vomit.
I don't get SBW but I still won't knock him
0 comments
MICHAEL LAWS
As I constantly remind my children and any Facebook flirt, I am an old man.
I have reached that age – 54 – when I know there's no point in a Peter Pan pretence. I greet mates with talk of bowels rather than of hot chicks or deals we didn't score last night.
Therefore I don't feel jealous of those who have masculine gifts I've never possessed, which probably means that I am not just prepared to settle down, but to settle. Well, go sedentary anyway, but that's another column.
My preamble is thus this morning because I am required to admit that I just don't get Sonny Bill Williams. I don't get the adulation, the press coverage, nor the mainstream media's insane pursuit of anything remotely connected with the post-modern phenomenon known mostly by his initials, SBW.
Don't worry, I have asked. And I have been informed that he has the sex appeal of a herd of satyrs lurking within the body of an Adonis.
Waitangi Day is not just another day off
0 comments
MEGAN NICOL REED
Yanking out muscular, glutinous stalks of black taro from a back corner of my garden, a year ago tomorrow, I heard the distinct sounds of joy coming from next door. As a sweat moustache beaded on my upper lip, trickling stickily between my breasts, pooling in the cups of my bra, I peered through a gap in the fence. I effed blindly, slapping wildly at the mosquitoes bizzing around the bromeliads, and pressed my ear to the splintery paling.
The neighbours were having a party, a Waitangi Day party. Children giggled in the treehouse. Adults lolled enthusiastically around the patio. On any public holiday, day of national celebration, festival, secular or non, my North American neighbour's house is always the best dressed on the street. I could not make out the details but I imagined chocolate cupcakes decorated with peppermint koru. Black and red and white streamers. Kumara chips and individual pavs laden with kiwifruit.
I was jealous. Jealous that I wasn't invited, jealous that I toiled while others kicked back, jealous that I hadn't thought of it myself. But mostly I was shocked. Waitangi Day isn't a day to celebrate.
For most it is a day free of the office, of school. Typically muggy, it is a day to garden, to go to the beach or the zoo, to nap. For a few it is a day to egg, to be egged.
Many Pakeha prickle at the merest mention of Waitangi. That we are made to incorporate a treaty signed 172 years ago into the charters of our schools and kindergartens, libraries and museums and workplaces, irks us. That we are expected to heed something so seemingly remote, so apparently irrelevant to our modern requirements of tapas and indoor/outdoor flow, Soho channel and pinot gris, pisses us off royally.
Blog terms and conditions
You're welcome to post in the comments section of our blogs. Please keep comments under 400 words. When submitting a comment, you agree to be bound by our terms and conditions.
Lawyer faces impropriety allegations
Axe drink-drive author - kids books' creator
Drugs education link to Scientology church
North-South split on where to rebuild Christchurch
Push to copy Aussies and ban tanning beds
Greens refuse to play political little sibling
NZC looks at big restructuring for domestic game
Black Caps out to keep pressure on Proteas
Time may be right for Sanzar to expand Super Rugby
Study angles in on quake-shock critters