On the ball

Let’s see now. A Liverpool footballer in the English Premier League bites another player and already it looks like, at the least, that he’ll be banned from playing for seven games; and according to the Guardian his very future with the club is in doubt. On the other hand, All Black Julian Savea is charged with assaulting his partner, and although the charge is yet to come to court, he has as good as admitted it by apologizing to her. Yet in full knowledge of the incident the Rugby Union allowed him to keep playing for the Hurricanes, and there’s been no suggestion of any ban, temporary or otherwise, from taking the field. Back to Luis Suárez. The chair of Britain’s Professional Footballers Association says: ‘Players are role models and are highly rewarded. This sets such a bad example.’ And Liverpool’s manager has cancelled an overseas trip to fly back to Britain and deal with the fallout from the bite. He says the club won’t tolerate (my italics) players who bring its reputation into disrepute. Still waiting to hear that kind of response from the Rugby Union or the Hurricanes management. All the focus, in fact, is is on the suffering of Julian Savea. One can almost see the wagons being drawn in a circle around him. Another day, another woman hit. But I guess the game’s the thing. What was it again that's not OK?

D

A little to my own amazement I find I have published exactly 500 blog posts over the past four and a half years. The question that will rise immediately to the lips of anyone apprised of this striking fact will naturally be: why? The simplest, straightest answer is that like every other blogger I blog because I like the sound of my own voice and want others to like it too. You scratch your mark on the cave wall and some time later—a few thousand years later, perhaps—someone else sees it and finds something of interest or value in it. You hope. There's a hell of a lot of cave walls around, and no one's going to miss your scratchings if they're not there. It's a funny old business, though, trying to accurately depict bison hunting at the same time as commenting on port disputes and partial asset sales. Sometimes I'm so bereft of inspiration that weeks go by without a post, other times I'm bubbling with it to the point of overkill. How other bloggers maintain regularity—and quality—is a source of wonder to me. I think of two in particular, at almost opposite ends of the spectrum: Giovanni Tiso, whose Bat, Bean, Beam blog is an elegant weekly fusion of culture, politics, history, technology, personal memory and private life; and the guy behind No Right Turn, whose fierce, polemical posts, always based on close reading and research, are hammered into the nation's door virtually every day like Luther's theses. If a regional blogosphere can have pillars, then these are two of New Zealand's.

Don't think, Bryce, it's all right

I am currently on research and study leave, and am soon to depart for four months in Berlin. I am keen to continue producing NZ Politics Daily, but will now do so on a more occasional basis—about two or three times a week. The normal service will return at the start of 2013.

Two or three times a week? Is he mad? I hope so. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has come to bless the name of Bryce Edwards and praise his extraordinary assiduity in pumping out NZ Politics Daily, well, daily. The fact that he could even contemplate doing it 'two or three times a week' from Berlin, of all places (why not Tuakau?), suggests a mind diseased with patriotic responsibility and political conscience. I met him for coffee in Wellington the other day and my good friend Norman Smith, who was there too, suggested that once a week might be enough. Instantly I sensed that such a commitment would not be suffering enough for Edwards, who almost singlehandedly has built an online marae for political korero in New Zealand. I told him then, and I repeat it now, that quite apart from providing a whole bunch of us with an instant daily link to the whole range of political debate in New Zealand, he has in effect validated the NZ political blogosphere and kept it relevant. In another country NZPD would already have the support and funding to make it a sort of Kiwi Huffington Post; and maybe it will yet morph into such a thing. I hope so. NZPD fills a need; maybe the very need that Bernard Hickey has just identified. We should all crowd-source it. Just ask us, Bryce. Don't think twice.

Epic Veil

I am at a loss to understand why the Veils are not universally hailed as New Zealand's greatest band and its driving force, Finn Andrews, as one of our best singer/songwriters. Maybe it's because they don't seem to spend a lot of time in the country. Maybe they don't hang out with the right crowd. Maybe Andrews seriously pissed someone off, I don't know. But they are New Zealand through and through: listen to 'Advice for Young Mothers To Be' or 'Grey Lynn Park' (the only song I know of with the word 'pohutukawa' in it). 'The Leavers' Dance' is quite simply a masterpiece. And, though I have no idea what it means, 'The Wild Son' is a beautiful, passionate, powerful song. Andrews has a great singing voice. That's it. I'm all out of rave for the moment.

Mate

Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate? Ryan, the ultra-fiscal conservative who was weaned on Ayn Rand? That Ryan? I'm betting they're down on their knees right now in the White House giving thanks to the Lord for ensuring Obama's re-election in November. It was going to happen anyway, I think—just—but of all the vice-presidential candidates Romney could have chosen to lose the election with (bar, say, Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh), Ryan's the one who seals the Republicans' fate. Obama must have been going to bed at night praying please, please, please don't let Romney choose someone like Tim Pawlenty or Rob Portman. The Tea Party has just claimed a major scalp, and it's not Barack Obama.

Got to give

It is difficult at times not to draw the conclusion that some political parties in New Zealand are occupying the place that should rightly be held by parties far more adventurous and dynamic. As I more or less blogged the other day, by virtue of little more than happening to have been there for about 100 years the Labour Party continues to sprawl untidily over the centre-left ground like a half-abandoned factory site, some of the plant still working but not actually turning out anything seriously productive. The Green Party has begun to colonize some of this territory but inevitably, as they gravitate towards the centre, the Greens themselves are becoming less radical and unsettling. One might have had hopes for the Mana Party, which, slight as it is, is the nearest thing we have to a mainstream working-class party; but despite attracting people of real stature (Minto, Sykes) it looks too much like Hone Harawira's creation and vehicle, just as the Alliance was Jim Anderton's—and look what happened to that. It's still perfectly possible to project scenarios in which National, Labour and the Greens dominate New Zealand politics for the next 20 to 30 years but I am haunted by the thought that/am prone to wishful thinking that (choose either of the above) political movements and parties of which none of us now can even conceive will emerge sooner rather than later—especially given the volatile nature of the world economy. This is happening elsewhere; why shouldn't it happen here? Look at Syriza in Greece, the Pirate parties in Sweden and Germany. The Italian city of Parma has just elected (by a convincing margin) a representative of the Five Star Movement as its mayor. Five Star was founded by comedian/blogger Beppe Grillo in the first place as a protest against Italy's endemic corruption, but according to a report in the Economist, recent polls have suggested it could take as much as 17% of the national vote. Some of these movements may not last, of course; I guess we are in the zone to which Gramsci's famous dictum applies: 'The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.' But some will; and I rather think they are being born as we speak. Cosy National/Labour, Labour/National with a side salad of Greens on and on into infinity? I don't think so. Not in these times. Something's got to give.

Tarnished gold

Now that the Olympics are over, and New Zealand has won all the medals it's going to win, it's time to face some hard truths about the performance of our athletes. No amount of anthem-singing and flag-waving can hide the grim truth that four of our five gold medals were won by people sitting down, and the other one by two women virtually lying down half the time. Gone, the glory days of Kiwis winning gold by running, throwing or at least remaining upright. Do we need further confirmation that this country has slipped into slothful couch-potato ways? No wonder obesity is soaring. The NZ Olympic Committee has work to do if we are to stand tall–actually, to stand at all—at the next Olympics.