Posts by Carol Stewart
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Polity: Leaving only footprints, in reply to B Jones,
I’ve never tried hiking overseas – the absence of large predators and small poisonous things has a lot going for it.
Another fabulous thing about NZ tramping is the back country hut and track system. I've done a fair bit of tramping in Canada and the Pacific Northwest, and with a few exceptions (there are huts in the Rockies) you are a lot more on your own in the back country. Two Canadian friends of mine are over in NZ at the moment on a five month tramping sabbatical, and they really enjoy the brilliant hut system, and the lack of bears. It's difficult to relax, tramping or camping in bear country.
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Hard News: Mt Eden: Not a closing but an…, in reply to Philip Bendall,
Maybe if *everyone* climbed down into that steep, deep hole then the grass and soil might get eroded, but could the rock crater really get destroyed
It's a scoria cone, Philip. Basically a big pile of basaltic tephra (fragments of magma thrown out during eruptions). Many of Auckland's scoria cones have been damaged by quarrying for construction materials, which is why it is so important to preserve the remaining ones.
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I miss Tapu Misa's columns in the Herald.
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Christmas day tends to be complicated with us, with many different nuclei of family around the country. This year we're hosting it at home, with a subset of family, plus various overseas students and their partners who'd be on their own otherwise. I've had so many kindnesses while I've been overseas at Christmastime, and have been so warmly welcomed into other peoples' homes, that we are more than happy to be inclusive.
One of my visitors is Canadian/Latvian, and has kindly offered to cook up a Christmas eve feast of piragi - small bacon turnover things.
The Christmas pudding is made - I used a Nigella Lawson recipe for 'ultimate Christmas pudding'. I'll have to say that I am a little dubious about the finished product - which may be my fault as I cheated on the suet and used a packet suet product - but once we've flamed it in brandy and smothered it in brandy butter it will probably be just fine. -
Up Front: Reading Murder Books, in reply to Hebe,
A few years later a bit of Rebus went down well,
I'm very fond of Ian Rankin's Rebus as well. I also went through a Patricia Cornwell phase, but I wearied of her humourlessness as well as the carnage you mention. In that genre I much prefer Kathy Reichs.
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Legal Beagle: Voting in the Flag Referendum, in reply to David Sherry,
I wrote “None of these flags” and also wrote under the Red Peaks abortion that “this is a stolen design”.
Whom do you think it is stolen from?
Are you also perturbed by the resemblance between the fern designs to the logos of the NZRU, Tourism NZ, Qualmark etc?
I'm not disagreeing with you that the whole process has been awful.
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Envirologue: 1080, "eco-terrorism" and agendas, in reply to Alfie,
1080 is a cruel poison which should not be used anywhere near people.
Actually, Alfie, the EPA review concluded that there was a greater public health hazard associated with the use of the alternatives such as cyanide.
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Hard News: Everybody has one, in reply to Russell Brown,
Du Fresne is a puzzle. His feature writing is generally excellent. His columns, or worse, his blog posts, are often weird and cranky.
They're pretty much all weird and cranky. His DomPost column last week, bagging Otago University public health researchers, was a shocker. Luckily a few people struck back via letters to the editor, pointing out that public health research has brought us longer lifespans and relative freedom from infectious diseases. Cranks gonna crank, I guess.
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Great post, Kirk. I'm really enjoying your analysis.
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I really enjoyed George Lakoff's book Don't think of an elephant which is all about how the political right in the USA has nailed the
framing of the debate on issues such as income tax - e.g. they speak of 'tax relief', thereby implying that tax is a burden. I then assumed that the problem of the right dominating the framing was a US problem and never really thought about how it might be the case here. So thank you so much for this thoughtful and excellent piece.