I suppose its others that should be embarrassed, but the feeling has crept over me this week as more signs of madness emerge from my fellow Kiwis.
First, iconic author Witi Ihimaera admits plagiarism, then a few days later he gets a $50,000 award, and now it seems that he’s done it before. As if recidivist plagiarism is not bad enough, the University of Auckland is downplaying the whole thing. At least I don’t work there anymore.
Then there are those orange billboards with the jack-bootprints that have been around town for a while. What a cringe this is: a crowd of people demanding stronger legal rights to smack their kids.
I’ll certainly be voting with my feet tomorrow, by staying well away from these twits.
And for once I’ll forgive the Royal NZ Herald for constantly front-paging violent court news. This story, about the woman jailed for thrashing her son with a hosepipe is directly relevant to anyone considering joining tomorrow’s twits. The sentencing judge said that brutal beatings of children under the guise of chastisement are almost a daily occurrence in South Auckland.
I could go on, about the financial sector and guidelines for reporters, but I gotta get to work.
But first I must congratulate the Feds for finally saying something sensible about climate change. After all these years, they’ve decided that a fart tax might actually be a good idea. Still leaves them free to rail against ETS, but at least its a nice change from the trend of the week.