Click on the title to see some writing I have done on the 3 News website...
Or read a review of Christchurch's Hotel So here:
http://www.3news.co.nz/News/HealthNews/Size-isnt-everything-at-Christchurchs-Hotel-So/tabid/420/articleID/86983/cat/58/Default.aspx
Click the title above for the Timesonline story.
One overlooked story from the US election is California's decision to ban gay marriage. Proposition 8, which stated that marriage is the union only of a man and a woman, was voted on at the same time as the presidential election. Anti-gay marriage supporters won the vote 52.1 - 47.9. It is the first time gay marriage has been banned retro-actively.
It is shameful that on a day when discrimination and those who wish to discriminate took a slap in the face, this backwards step has been taken. What right do those people who voted "no" have to impinge on a person's life in such a manner.
The discrimination of homosexuals is no different to discrimination of any other groups. Opponents may argue dubiously that being gay is a choice. Whether it is a choice or not, a person should not be discriminated against because of any choice they make - provided they are harming no one directly.
Offending narrow-minded people's sensibilities is not reason enough.
So America now has that rare thing. A leader that inspires people to be better, a phenomenom that draws huge crowds of supporters eager to make good in the world. The last time America had a president like that he was assasinated. Lets hope the same fate does not befall Obama. Footage of McCain supporters calling Obama a terrorist is easy to find and the new president may be considered a target by the far right.
It is also important not to get carried away. The World's problems are not insolvable but they are large and increasing. When Obama talks about change he is addressing the whole world not just American citizens. Across the world people hope that a changed America will solve all our problems.
It won't, it will help, but one man and one concept will not make fundemental change overnight. If there is one lesson to be learnt from the last one hundred years, it is that the World should take responsibility for its own problems and not rely on the shepherding of Superpowers.
The USA's power is waning in the bright sunlight of China and India's economic growth. The USA can no longer hope to provide a moral compass for such powerful nations, they must do this themselves. Human rights abuses in China and the Middle East and abject poverty in many areas of India are things that also must be changed.
Barack Obama cannot be expected to bring about change in these sovereign countries, but we can hope that a new spirit of governance from the USA may seep into the conscience of others and make the planet a better place to live in.
John Key was in relaxed mood after this Sunday's episode of Campaign 08. He took off his tie and enjoyed a couple of beers with the show's panel journalists, even though he has a strictly enforced 11pm curfew.
He was a different man, in this media-centric situation, to the man I met briefly over a year ago. He has either been well trained or learnt to relax. There were even a few jokes that people laughed at. Although, I wonder how much of this was to do with journalists wanting to be on the right side of a man who may be the next Prime Minister.
As he drank his bottle of Corona someone asked why he wasn't drinking a New Zealand beer. Fortunately for John there was only Steinlager in the fridge. Even politicians shouldn't have to drink Steinlager.
On the wide-screen, and we are at Sky TV so it's a mammoth widescreen, Barack Obama's waving and grinning face hogs the corner of our eyes. Key notices the placards that Obama supporters wave no longer read "a change you can believe in" but "the change we need". He points his PR guy, Kevin, towards this and says "maybe we should change ours"...
It's hard to tell whether his tongue is in his cheek.
Key left in good time for his 11pm bed-time.
Click on the title for a fascinating way of analysing the planet. These maps have been made in proportion to certain criteria. For instance the first map you see shows the world through the lens of the amount of books published. Consequently the UK looks like it is suffering from a rare form of giganticism - its nearly bigger than the USA and Canada.
The image above shows the most popular destinations for refugees. It clearly expounds the myth that countries like the UK are being overrun by asylum seekers. Most refugees, according to this map, cross national borders - not continents.
Click on the above title to read a story from the UK's Times newspaper about the use of Muslim Sharia law in the UK. Then read the comments; largely from denizens of the USA, but also, to my shame, from citizens of the UK.
I will copy a few examples:
Unbelievable! When do we get the first beheadings of Christians daring to hold a service in Bradford or any of those other Islamic areas Its time the politicians started looking at what is happening in this country, sorry they are too busy wallowing at their expenses trough in Westminster.
John Dykes, Pontypool, Wales UK
Insanity and disgusting. Are we going to see woman stoned to death in the street for having an affair like they do in Iran? In Iran they hanged to 19 year old lads because they were gay. There was a picture of it on the internet, they were hanged off two JCB diggers! Considering joining BNP!
Peter Duffy, Glasgow, Scotland
The only good thing that will come out of this, apart from the amputation of the limbs of proven thieves and the death sentence for murderers and traitors, will be the rise in support for the BNP. Out of bad comes good my mummy used to say.
Peter C. Lucas, Torquay, England
The crusades lasted 20 some years and where the desperate response after more rthat 400 years of aggressions by the Muslims, we need another crusade.
juan, Brownsvile, USA
Islam is not a "Religion of Peace" -- nor is it even a Religion -- it is a POLITICAL SYSTEM! This is a start of a Very Slippery Slope..... Adios, amigos.
Abigail, Tampa, FL, U.S.A
The people who have left these comments clearly have an inability to read. The story refers to a part of UK law which allows alternative arbitration for disputes if both parties are in agreement, the results are legally binding. They do not apply to criminal law, only civil law, and Jewish Beth Din courts have operated in a similar fashion in the UK for more than a 100 years. I don't see the UK being overrun by hordes of barbaric Rabbi.
The comments here, and of course there is no way for me to know their true origin, have a flavour of what I imagine hatred of the Jews was like in the first half of this century (or throughout history).
Ill-informed and exaggerated stupidity and hatred coupled with threats to vote for a racist, violent party (the BNP) are a sign the love of different cultures that many in the UK hold dear is being threatened. These comments are from an ignorant bunch of reactionaries too lazy to get out of their IKEA-clad box flats and walk down the street to talk with neighbours who are just that bit different..
Don't be appalled by their difference - be interested, it's what makes the world go round.
This is not to say the idea and concept should be without debate. I am against courts set up in the name of religion - religion should be a personal value not an arm of the state. However, I am prepared to argue the point without the use of such racist, ignorant language - instead using the time honoured tradition of logical argument and debate.
I also find it strange that, although these courts are for civil disputes, cases of domestic abuse have been heard. I thought this was a criminal offence and should therefore be heard before a criminal court. I am also concerned about the treatment of women in such a court - we cannot allow inequality between the sexes in our legal system.
So - I am fine with these courts with two recommendations. Firstly that they are not used for criminal cases only for dispute arbitration and secondly that the UK's equality laws hold sway over decisions.
There, I managed to say it without calling a single muslim a barbarian or calling for a new crusade - how clever of me.
Click on the title for a BBC news story about Tim Berners-Lee's ideas for making the internet more trustworthy.
His proposal for a foundation to vet internet sites is a good idea but I wonder about the sheer volume of sites and the amount of work this would create. I fear the creation of a bureaucratic monolith that slows down innovation on the web.
Important questions about who would control such a foundation and how it should be funded need to be answered. Would the process be thorough? Or would the sheer volume of internet sites mean that those setting up a website would have to jump through a few hoops to gain creditation? Who monitors a site's ongoing work - would a site need to be checked on a yearly basis and what could a divisive, race-hate site get away with inbetween being checked?
Berners-Lee is absolutely right in his assertion that the internet needs to be verifiable for it to succeed in the longer run as a reliable resource. However, I imagine that at some point newspapers would have been thought of with a similar level of distrust. On the whole, we trust our Western newspapers these days, despite the quality of some of their coverage of events in the Middle East and other controversial issues, and this is because their brand has been built up over a long period of time and is now considered trustworthy.
This trust is not based on any code of ethics that journalists share, or legislation that punishes journalists who lie or attack maliciously, it is branding pure and simple. No one buys The Sunday Times in the UK and trusts it because of the good work of the Press Council. They trust it because it is the Sunday Times and has been around for years.
Established newspapers know that it is suicide to break that trust and go to huge lengths to make sure they appear consistent (anyone who has spent any time designing a newspaper will know how painstaking the process can be to ensure that pages and copy are accurate and consistent). There is also a culture within most professional journalists that promotes honesty, bad apples are usually syphoned out (I accept that there are instances of unethical journalists though).
For the internet, I see the branding as being a cinch. It has only been in widespread use for ten to twelve years yet we already have sites such as Google that we, wrongly or rightly, trust. Websites are cottoning on that trust is essential for them to survive - the moment, and a moment is a long time in cyberworld, people start to distrust the Google search engine is the moment Google the company hits economic decline. What is needed now is a culture of professionalism amongst bloggers and the like to ensure that trust isn't broken.
At the moment this is where the internet fails, not enough people take it seriously. It's ok to break the rules on the internet because it is only the internet. New frontiers are often lawless and it's because the ethics for these frontiers are not understood yet - no one knows the consequences of cheating or no one thinks they will get found out. How many rogue cowboys were arrested and tried in Wild West?
The internet may develop in an instant but the ethical constructs of mankind evolve at a much slower rate.
You only have to look at the attitude of Auckland City councillor Aaron Bhatnagar, who has admitted writing detrimentally about other candidates on their Wikipedia sites, to see this problem in a real life situation. He claims what he wrote was true but by using the pseudonym "Barzini" (a psycopath from the Godfather novel) he was clearly trying to hide his identity and in doing so he must have known that what he was doing was not really top of the ethical billboard.
He was quoted in the New Zealand Herald as saying:
"Anyone can make a comment on Wikipedia and if someone doesn't like something that they see it is very easy to change it. I think it is all a bit of a storm in a tea cup."
Mr Bhatnagar, that is a very arrogant statement. What you have done is tantamount to electoral fraud in my opinion, it is certainly not in the spirit of fair play. I wonder if the people of Hobson would have voted for you had they known of your underhand tactics?
I imagine that Bhatnagar would shy away from such electioneering in more tangible form, his actions are borne of a misunderstanding of the internet's power and the ethics that surround it.
Once the ethics are more understood, more ingrained into our society, I think the internet will become a more trustworthy resource of its own accord.
Click on link below for Bhatnagar's story.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10531375
I was going to write a post about, what I consider, the blinkered, head in the sand concept of creationism and then stumbled upon this article in the Sunday Times which pretty much says it all..
Click on the blog title.
Fisk's suspicion of the internet is perhaps understandable; he is an old school journalist that has been much maligned by cyber critics.
However, there is a generation of young journalists who do not all share the same distrust. Fisk may be right that newspapers still have the only authority, but this ignores a growing wave of online media that although in its infancy will some day command the same respect.
A video of Robert Fisk, one of the World's leading journalists and middle east correspondent for the Independent newspaper.
Fisk is known for his outspoken views on the state of journalism, which he believes supports oppression and is a strong critic of American foreign policy in the Middle East.
Click on the title for Fisk's writing.
Katie Llanos-Small wrote this article for the Pacific Media Centre at AUT University:
http://www.pmc.aut.ac.nz/niusbeat/090909_Fisk-Small.shtml
More on Fisk later.
Low alcohol beer is becoming worryingly popular. For christ's sake if you don't want to get drunk drink water or a juice.
I wonder whether low alcohol beer can be considered a gateway beer for other stronger beers such as Heineken Cold Filter at 3.3%.
I have been published in Singapore - how novel!
The International Express (alongside the International Guardian) is one of the few UK newspapers readily available in New Zealand and should be a source of shame for expats living here.
Published weekly with a selection of the Express and Sunday Express's 'best' stories, the paper is aimed squarely at expats. Some strange breed of jingoistic expat that left the UK because it was getting too full of darkies - if the front page is to believed.
Not a week goes by without the International Express making us English out to be a bunch of racist twats. This week the front page headline reads something like "1,650 immigrants move to the UK each day as more real British people leave'. Never have I seen a newspaper so fond of using arbitrary statistics to beat up news stories.
So... to the International Express - bugger off home where you belong.
AUT University recently hosted a media diversity forum hosting talkers from programmes such as Tagata Pasifika and Asia Downunder among others.
The event was interesting and there was some positive outlooks for the future of minority culture programming as well as some more gloomy moments.
It seems that budgets are being slashed just as attitudes are changing. Taualeo'o Stephen Stehlin, of Tagata Pasifika, said there had been a "marketing change" at TVNZ and suddenly Pacific Island faces are everywhere.
In the real world though these programmes struggle on very tight budgets in very poor time slots. Tagata Pasifika is broadcast when the majority of its audience are asleep or at church and Asia Downunder gets shunted to tomorrow if there is a rugby match worth watching (or even not worth watching) on.
The producers of both programmes spoke of being under pressure from TVNZ to increase viewers, to run less positive stories and bizarrely to make sure their content wasn't "too worthy".
Programmes such as these need more support and more editorial control. Journalists are supposed to tell the stories of people who do not have a voice and the stories of the Asian and Pacific Island community are rarely told in mainstream media unless one has robbed and murdered the other.
This is akin to reporting on a general election but only writing stories about Labour's successes or National's failings. It is cock-eyed and short-sighted and ignores the needs of the viewing public.
***
A second point to make. Stop using the word 'ethnic'. It drives me nuts.
'We were eating out at an ethnic restaurant.'
'He wore ethnic clothes.'
To some people that food isn't ethnic it is just food. And the clothes... well a pair of trousers is always a pair of trousers.
Just because something is different to your culture doesn't mean it should attain the alien status of 'ethnic'.
The word is divisive - we should all stop being so astounded at our differences and instead take a convivial interest in them.
As news moves online, print is forced to evolve. Jamie Melbourne-Hayward and James Murray investigate how this will affect the industry and the way we use news. Illustration by Jamie Melbourne-Hayward, additional reporting by Carly Tawhiao.
“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
-Dylan Thomas
The newspaper is under threat. The newsprint has been on the wall since the spread of high-speed broadband and the decision by several UK papers to break news on their websites first in 2006. The media industry is at a tipping point and must evolve to survive.
Just recently APN, which owns the New Zealand Herald, announced an annual drop in advertising revenue of about eight to 10 per cent. A result of the recent credit crunch, perhaps, but across the pond in the USA, where new media is far more prevalent, newspapers are losing money hand over fist. For example, the Capital Times in Wisconsin is no longer a hard copy paper at all. In April this year the presses stopped and now the paper publishes exclusively online.
The only places where newspaper advertising revenue is increasing are emerging economies such as India and China. Advertising revenue on the internet is rapidly increasing. In the UK, internet advertising is poised to overtake TV advertising and will make up one fifth of the total revenue from advertising by the end of the year.
It’s ironic that a medium which was used to advertise hard copy newspapers is now replacing it. The Wisconsin Capital Times now issues a free-sheet twice a week that acts as an advert for the website.
So should the newspaper ‘rage’ against this death or are we actually seeing a reincarnation? Should newspapers go ‘gentle into that good night’ or bite back and move with the times?
Democracy is about knowledgeable citizens making informed decisions for the greater good of mankind. Power within democracies is supposed to be watched over by the fourth estate: the media. However, citizens can start to lose faith in the integrity of their media if they perceive it becoming the fourth branch of government or a vehicle of business interests.
In countries where human rights are in question, information is often biased by a polarised media. State run papers such as the the China Daily, which faces daily censorship are a good example.
People are increasingly turning to the internet to find what is seen as unfiltered information.
Newspapers have previously been complacent about the digital revolution, with an over reliance on reader loyalty to their brands. But recently the internet is proving a catalyst for the reinvigoration of newsprint.
Many UK newspapers have changed their format to a tabloid, and moved to a magazine look.
News was once dispensed in a ‘top-down’ format, where Murdoch-style management and editors decided upon content and direction. Now citizen journalism, blogging and discussion boards have become popular avenues for a population disconnected from the “national debate”.People can dictate which content they are interested in, and are able to access varying viewpoints and “twitter” to their hearts delight.
The Independent in London has picked up on this trend and is now unafraid to break the taboo of printing opinion on its front page. It has successfully rebranded itself as a ‘viewspaper’ with its most popular content coming from columnists such as Robert Fisk. But the digital revolution has not improved the content of newspapers entirely for the good.
Newspapers are being drawn into television sensationalism, and dependence upon flashy news cycles to sell copies. The 24-hour news cycle has also been duplicated online, with stories breaking as they would on television, but with more immediacy. This could have an affect on the accuracy and depth of stories.
So, should newspapers die? On the one hand, the increase of “an open market place of ideas”, which the internet provides, is liberating to democracy. But does that freedom come at a cost?
Journalists are no longer just answerable to the letters page and there is a value in having a wider dialogue between the public and the media.
However, the freedom of the internet also allows the spread of bigotry and hatred: blogs and comment should be taken with a grain of salt – along with everything else for that matter.
While western newspapers service a wide-enough spectrum of views, the same cannot be said for Latin America, Africa and Asia. Citizen journalism in these parts is sometimes the only available balanced coverage - and investigative journalism occurs only online.
As more funds enter the internet-news market, a flow on to investigative journalism is needed. Furthermore, journalists are trained to be fair and balanced. As objectivity is only an ideal, the internet’s draw card is its ability to bring together opposing views from around the world, and allow them to be debated in the electronic halls of democracy.
What are the consequences for the world if newspapers disappear altogether or, at the very least, can only survive if targeting a niche market?
Leading US journalist John S Carroll believes the national conversation has already changed.
“Millions of people who previously had been excluded have now been allowed to join in. Whoever saw it coming? This is a First Amendment miracle,” he said in a lecture at the University of Kentucky this April.
He is referring to bloggers and the proliferation of opinion on the internet. But the gathering and dissemination of news is still largely done by traditional reporters who either work for newspapers or websites that are affiliated to newspapers.
According to professor of journalism Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine, a blog which analyses the progress and role of new media, traditional media networks such as newspapers or television stations now have to operate differently to survive.
“Networks were defined by control of content or distribution. But now, you can’t own all distribution and content is controlled where it’s created. So, I wonder, where’s the value and where’s the money in the fully networked world?”
Jarvis suggests that the way ahead is for media companies to aggregate content. A good example of this would be Yahoo Xtra.
Yahoo Xtra makes very little content itself. Instead it bundles news and entertainment sourced from other content providers in a way that is attractive to advertisers.
John Hagel, a US expert on the internet’s effect on business, agrees:
“The most powerful brands in the media business will be held by successful intermediaries that help to consistently improve return on attention for audiences.”
If there is more money to be made from simply aggregating news, the incentive to gather it decreases. The Catch 22 occurs when news aggregators realise profit depends on poorly paid content providers. For this system to work, an effective way of sharing advertising revenue through link networks needs to be devised – if news aggregators are too greedy their content supply will dry up.
If the media’s future lies in aggregating the most popular blogs and websites in attractive bundles the balanced viewpoint is going to struggle to be heard. The controversial will always get more hits than the accurate.
The danger to our ‘national conversation’ is our own thirst for sensationalism. Our national commentators will effectively be those we vote for with our mouse.
On your mark...get set... (Illustration: Sally Conor)
Winning is at the top of everyone’s agenda these days – winning with style and not necessarily substance.
The opening ceremony at the Olympics celebrated style over substance when event organisers chose aesthetics over reality. A little girl who couldn’t sing became an overnight superstar, miming in the place of another little girl who could sing delightfully but didn’t match up in the beauty stakes.
And superstars are the theme of this year’s ‘presidential’ elections. In the US the front runner is Barack Obama, a man who says little more than “America is ready for change” to a country passionate for change of any kind.
Obama may well bring change in America and it may well be change for the good, but it is the style of US election campaigns that grates: all fist-pumping razzamatazz and very little in the way of policy.
In New Zealand you could be forgiven for thinking we are going to elect a figurehead rather than a political party to run this country, especially if you are a member of our supposedly ignorant and apathetic youth.
According to the Electoral Commission, 107,500 of 18 to 24-year-olds are not enrolled to vote in this year’s election. It is clear young people are turned off by this cult of personality.
Clark, Key and Peters dominate the political hurdles, falling over each other in their Olympian efforts to get the media high-ground in the run-up to the election.
Where are the rest of our politicians and why are the issues being discussed so narrow? An outsider might mistakenly believe that the only things New Zealanders care about are taxes and the cost of living.
This presidential style of campaigning lets the electorate down. It is the fault of a lazy media and political spin machines that prefer to focus on personalities rather than issues such as domestic violence and a lack of affordable housing.
The focus must be less on personality and more on character; a politician of good character should never put their ego before their country.
The opportunity to improve China’s human rights record has been lost at the Olympic games.
Several athletes, such as the UK basketball player and Olympic ambassador for Amnesty International John Amaechi, spoke out before the games about the possibility of protests in light of China’s human rights record.
Amnesty International proudly announced that 40 competing athletes had signed a letter condemning China’s human rights record. Fair play to those athletes and take note that they have been able to compete at these games without hindrance.
However, there are 10,700 athletes at these games so 40 dissenters is a disappointing number.
It is a shame that many athletes are now toeing the party line that the Olympics is not the right arena for political protest or that politics and sport do not mix.
These statements are simply not true – sporting sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid system, notably anti-Springbok tour protesters in New Zealand, ably assisted the downfall of that cruel regime.
The brave actions of senior members of the Zimbabwe cricket squad, who wore black armbands mourning the death of democracy during the 2003 World Cup held in Africa, alerted a whole nation to the villainy of Robert Mugabe.
It is foolish to tar all of China with the same brush and short-sighted not to acknowledge the way in which it is slowly giving its citizens the rights they deserve.
But as long as human rights are not being satisfactorily met in China there is room for protest and this protest should have been visible on the biggest stage of all.
Click on title for related story.
It’s not every day the missus suggests ogling Oceania’s finest from a shadowy corner of Showgirls. But then again it’s not every day that I take her to the ballet. It seemed a fair exchange.
Strip clubs usually fill me with a clammy fear. As if my mother and a whole procession of former teachers will see me enter and reveal me to be drunken pervert.
Walking in with your girlfriend though alleviates that problem; suddenly having some platinum blonde’s derriere waft in front of my face is pretty cool. Hell, it may even be socially acceptable, it’s probably something I can mention to my grandmother at Christmas nowadays.
I am here for the dancing I remind myself. A purely cerebral affair I note, as a leering buffoon steps drunkenly on my foot.
The cheering, star-crossed, morons inside Showgirls resembled Shakespeare’s ‘groundlings’ (Elizabethan peasants in the cheap-seats who came for Shakespeare’s more comic moments), especially self-confessed regular, city boy Dave who urged the crowd to “big it up for Showgirls”.
It was quite a different crowd at the New Zealand Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet at the EDGE Theatre, though in some ways no more engaging. A well-spoken lady unfairly berated the usher for letting in a couple of latecomers during the opening fight scene. Really madam, was your view that impinged?
The first act was nearly as exciting as Oceania contender Nicki’s flaming shaving foam trick. A pint-sized Mercutio snaps, crackles and pops his way across the stage, an engaging mix of arrogance, coquetry and tragic fool. Romeo is a wistful, hormone-filled, flirt – primed to fall passionately in love with the first girl that grabs his attention.
Romeo and Juliet is about doom and pre-destined fate. Tracy Grant Lord’s set portrays this excellently. Dark greys and blood reds are lit by a portentous moon which looms like the sword of Damocles over the stage.
Meanwhile back at Showgirls, Kylie takes the stage. Her dance is a homage to Baywatch, complete with shower scene. Despite struggling with her life saving ring and banging into her surfboard she is so far the hot favourite for the opportunity to represent New Zealand in the finals in Australia.
And then there is a break. The showgirls break sees two of the clubs exotic dancers take the stage offering gartered legs to money waving blokes. Incidentally, my lemonade cost four bucks and my change came in the form of a dollar note only to be used for tipping strippers.
The interval at the Edge is a more sophisticated affair, if of course you like the theatre tradition of queuing fifteen minutes for a drink that you then have to consume in two minutes. I can’t stress my dislike of intervals enough – they break the magic.
A disgruntled boyfriend sneaks outside for a cigarette telling a mate on his cell phone that it’s “not his cup of tea.” A woman in the toilet queue complains that the beginning was too “fighty”.
There are several scenes that really work in this production of Romeo and Juliet. The ‘fight’ scenes are excellent as is the dance where Romeo first meets Juliet – the high point of Prokofiev’s foreboding score.
Mercutio is portrayed with just the right measures of loyal friend and pompous fool. His dancing duels with the bullying Tybalt are full of Baz Luhrmann and the fights of martial arts legends.
Other scenes are slightly awkward. When Romeo and Juliet are married in secret the priest joins in their dance in a disturbing triumvirate that just looks and feels plain wrong.
The tragic ending is rushed and consequently the pathos is not sufficiently eeked out. I want to be an emotional wreck at the end of Romeo and Juliet – instead I went to the supermarket.
There was no such problem with the ending of Showgirls. Malaina, who had rushed from a job as a naked human platter to be the night’s final contestant, paraded down the stage as a sexy secretary. She actually had a sense of eroticism and won hands down, or knickers down as they say round here.
Romeo and Juliet is about passion over-riding the brain and Miss Oceania is about lust doing the same thing – it really just depends which is your cup of tea.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been criticised in some quarters for not having the guts to carry on in the struggle for power in Zimbabwe.
It is exactly this decision that contrasts him from despots such as Mugabe. His respect for humanity and human life distinguishes him from leaders for whom power is everything.
He may not be fighting fire with fire but he is fighting fire with compassion and diplomacy.
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