When you lose one parent early

19.04.2023/10.53

This is about as personal as you’re going to ever read on this blog. It’s written for whomever needs to read it now. I felt I had to put it out there. You know who you are. When you lose your mum to cancer at 22, you feel a lot of emotions. Grief, for one. […]

The Detail on New Zealand Chinese Language Week

30.09.2022/02.05

Thank you, Alexia Russell and Radio New Zealand, for giving voice to our concerns about New Zealand Chinese Language Week. You can listen to the episode of The Detail here. As they tagged Jo (chair of the NZCLW Trust), I decided I would get in touch via Twitter reply. This also addresses one of the […]

Modern masculinity doesn’t involve reinventing the wheel

29.11.2019/13.25

When Douglas Bader recorded in his log book on the aeroplane accident that cost him his legs, he wrote, ‘Bad show’. It was men like Bader, Audie Murphy, Claire Lee Chennault and Douglas MacArthur that my father spoke of as heroes from his childhood. There were plenty more from our own culture but […]

Time for a rewatch: Reza Aslan interviewed on CNN about Muslim violence

14.01.2015/05.00

Found on my wall today. While it’s over three months old, the responses from Prof Reza Aslan of the University of California Riverside address a lot of the comments that have surfaced post-Charlie Hebdo head-on—which shows that we continue to go round and round the same arguments and not making an awful lot of progress. […]

Modern terrorism and where we are in history

10.01.2015/04.47

Thoughts today on social networks, chatting to friends about issues stemming from the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the hostage saga in Paris’s 11th arrondissement. In response to an Australian friend of Chinese heritage: [Muslims] have been [speaking out against violence] since 9-11 and probably before but no one cared or no one could be […]

Je suis Charlie

09.01.2015/01.24

I was watching France 24 about half an hour after the Charlie Hebdo attack and made the above graphic a few hours later, in support of press freedoms and the victims’ families, and showing solidarity with other members of the media. One friend has made it his Facebook profile photo and I followed suit about […]

A year of random thoughts: 2014 in review

29.12.2014/12.05

For the last few years, I’ve looked back at the events of the year in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. (In fact, in 2009, I looked back at the decade.) Tumblr’s the place I look at these days for these summaries, since it tends to have my random thoughts, ones complemented by very little critical thinking. They […]

The religiosity of the superbrands

10.02.2014/11.29

Another friend asked the Windows laptop v. Macbook question on her Facebook today. You can predict what happens next. The cult came by. As with the last time a friend asked the same question. The cult always comes and proclaims the superiority of the Apple Macintosh. And it is a blinding proclamation, of […]

Glimmers of hope for the people of Christchurch

24.02.2011/13.06

As jobs are vital to any economy, there is, at least, a glimmer of good news from Christchurch’s manufacturing sector. Tait, Sanitarium, and Steel & Tube appear to have escaped major damage, says The New Zealand Herald. It’s not much solace to those who have lost everything from homes to limbs to family […]