Hard News by Russell Brown

nice one Russ

Beautiful.

This is what the world needs right now.

just what I needed - thank you

Beautiful Russ. This post feels like hope. Thank you.

Thanks Russell

Well said Russ.
Your story just made the world seem a better place, thank you.

Thanks Russell. In a time when there seems to be so much bad stuff around, it's important to recognise the good when it happens.

Beautiful Russ. This post feels like hope.

That's what I felt, and what I wanted people to feel. I'm moved by the response across the various social platforms and feeling like it's a great tribute to a good man.

We grumble sometimes about dreadful old people, but it's good to remember there are many more good people like Fred.

This sort of thing is why I keep up my subscription even though I haven't had much time to read Public Address for a while. Thank you for a little bit of light against the dark.

the basic goodness of people

This is the thing we have to hold onto.

Great post. The comment about 'first strike' reminded me of two idiots I shared a house with in Hawera during 1985. There was a lot of hot air at the time about Mt Egmont being renamed Taranaki, with some people claiming it was the thin end of a wedge that was going too far to accommodate Maori wishes, etc, etc.

Being part of metropolitan elite from Auckland [well, mostly Mt Roskill which was hardly elite turf in the 1980s], I kept out of such arguments. One day I discovered one of the other guys in the house was keeping a loaded shotgun under his bed as he expected civil war to break out at any moment. If the Maori came for him in the night, he planned to take as many of them with him as possible.

Knowing better than to argue with a brain-dead drongo armed with a loaded shotgun, I made arrangements to move out ASAP. No great moral to the story, simply pointing out bell-end racists have always been with us [more's the pity]. The net just gives them the chance to mouth-breathe their fuckwitted stupidity at everyone, when it used to restricted to hotel bars.

Lovely story Russell.

....a great antidote to all the "othering" in the current narrative about Muslims

Thank you for this Russell. Its so so good to hear and give honour to the many generosities of spirit that were in your story: not just Fred but all of those others too. When the story "sings" for me, as this did, is special.

Its so so good to hear and give honour to the many generosities of spirit that were in your story: not just Fred but all of those others too.

Cheers, and thanks for saying so. I included Sam quite consciously, in that he represented his own kind of difference. My sons used to play with him back in the day and I actually didn't even recognise him from then, until Shane pointed it out.

The other thing I've been thinking about since I wrote the post is that Fred and Trish and Malik and his family lived in a neighbourhood. It's a little village, that cluster of townhouses tucked in under the motorway – and I think the story shows how important that can be.