worryingly jolly batman

Also, and importantly: Goodbye 5c coin, hello... new, shiny, much, much smaller ten, twenty and fifty cent pieces!



And the 10c has a bronze finish now, too.

omfg this is actually sort of exciting?

I have a cartoon on my door. Well, I have several, actually, but only one's relevant here. It's a Slane cartoon from the New Zealand Listener of October last year, just after the general election. It shows a carpark with a desk in a parking space; on the wall above the desk is the legend "RESERVED: MINISTER OUTSIDE CABINET." Sitting with his feet on the desk, dressed in a fabulous pinstriped suit and puffing away on a cigar is, of course, the Right Honourable Winston Peters, Minister for Foreign Affairs.

I'd take a moment to explain the true phenomenon that is Winston to those of you who are unfamiliar with his exploits here in New Zealand but, well, it would be very difficult. I will say briefly that he is a consummate politician, usually characterised as right-wing and somewhat populist; he leads the New Zealand First party, which runs mostly on a fairly racist anti-immigration policy. He is... well, he's a character in New Zealand politics. In the last election, Labour entered into extensive negotiations with Winston Peters that somehow culminated in him being given the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs and Racing- although he's not part of the government, and on issues that are not in his portfolio he is allowed to criticise the gvt. So he's in an interesting position, and I think most NZers viewed his appointment as a likely trainwreck - but probably an entertaining one.

Amazingly, he's proved to be rather good at it and relatively scandal-free - relative to a career in which he has consistently harassed the leaders of his party (when he was affiliated with National), protested, tantrumed, quoted unnamed sources and, let us never forget, had speeding tickets and free seafood meals. And today I was amazed to find this article on Scoop.co.nz which quoted Peters' response to Bob Geldof's criticism of New Zealand's international aid contribution. I was amazed because I agree with Peters. A lot. While more aid can always be given, New Zealand has a pretty good track record; our aid as a percentage of GDP is reasonably significant, our aid is mostly untied, and we contribute to peacekeeping and free trade. We also do a lot of work in the Pacific. I am inclined to think that to Mr Geldof, "third-world countries" really means "Africa." Indeed I think that most people, when considering global poverty, think first of Africa. In New Zealand we are a lot more aware, by dint of proximity, of the plight of Pacific nations.

And now, having effectively written an ode to Winston Peters, I'll leave you with a few words from Kate Camp.

Winston Peters with apologies to Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the right.
I have walked out in rain, and back with Regaine
I have gutdragged the final Marlboro Light.

I have Brylcreemed the thinning old campaign
I have whizzed by the traffic cop on his beat
And wound down my window, unwilling to explain.

I have been one acquainted with the right.

-- Kate Camp

Okay, so I got to replying to comments in that post I did yesterday about the use and abuse of Maori culture in non-NZ works. I was specifically thinking of issues 16 and 17 of the Gotham Knights comic, written by Devin Grayson and set in the DCU (that's Batman & Robin, Superman, and Wonder Woman, but not Spiderman, the Hulk, or the X-Men.) I really liked GK a lot when I read it, and I like Grayson's writing a whole heap as a rule; but parts of these did kind of grate on me, so I went through and scanned a few bits to explain why.

So, Batman is angsting away in Gotham in normal Batman styles, pausing occasionally to fight a little crime, when he runs into this dude calling himself Matatoa. Matatoa claims not to be Maori but to have spent a lot of time with them, and wants to - surprise! - kill Batman and eat his soul. The Maori culture related stuff in these issues can be split into roughly three sections: the actually pretty good, the wtf, and the out of my country NOW.

( some fairly large panels, and one full page, under the cut. )

So, in conclusion: the whole thing is a mishmash of imagery associated with a lot of different indigenous cultures, pretty much like someone wanted something vaguely ethnic and specifically First Peoples - hence blowpipes and totem poles. The sad thing is, some of it was absolutely right... it just didn't make up for the sheer awfulness of shaman. A little research would have fixed so much. It's also possible to fanwank this into something mostly vaguely believable, taking care of, say, the kookaburras and possibly the depiction of the Maori as a primitive culture. You have to make Matatoa an Australian whaler from the 1800s, but you can do it. But some of these sins are unforgiveable, like totem poles, and war dances, and medicine man. These are blatant borrowings from Native American culture (possibly even Native American pop culture misconceptions) and they're ridiculous and offensive and they would have been easy to avoid. Really.

AND! four pages that I really like a lot about these issues, because I really do.

Nightwing runs into Matatoa and starts to give him a beating, including some pretty good banter.

And Bruce has something he finds difficult to say. And this is almost what made me angriest: this whole kerfuffle happened for an absolute landmark moment.

Indulging in a little navel-gazing of the ethnic type, as Pakeha New Zealanders are so wont to do, especially in the weeks leading up to our census. Cut for length, but I think it's sort of interesting, and if you're a Pakeha New Zealander I'd love to know what you think. Or even if you've never heard the word Pakeha before.

For those of you who have not been following the debate (Tze Ming Mok and Russell Brown of Public Address have both posted on the topic over the last few days: what do Caucasian New Zealanders, who are born here, put as their ethnicity on their census form? The option given on the census form is “New Zealand European”, but historically a reasonably significant percentage have ticked “other” and put either Pakeha- the Maori word for white person, derived from an older word for pale-skinned fairies in Maori mythology- or “New Zealander.” The recent debate has been sparked by an email forward urging white New Zealanders to put down simply “New Zealander” as their ethnicity.

( More learned people than I have discussed why New Zealander is not an ethnicity )
Damn. Why is it so much easier to navel-gaze about my own ethnicity than it is to, you know, actually write real essays? 1500 words in forty minutes, man, If I could do all my assignments like this… I could completely turn this into an essay, people.

If anyone wants to take ten seconds to send a note to Meadow Fresh telling them not to ditch glass milk bottles for the South Island, the link is here. :( Glass milk bottles are better for the environment (because they're cleaned and reused), milk tastes better out of glass bottles, and they employ tonnes of people- kids with after school jobs & so forth. Glass milk bottles were already ditched for the North Island- stop them doing it in the South! Frogblog has a bit of information here.

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old;
age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the mornign
We shall remember them."
- from For the Fallen, by Laurence Binyon.

In a slightly different mood:

The Next War

Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death;
Sat down an eaten with him, cool and bland, -
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath, -
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.
He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed
Shrapnel. We chorused when he sang aloft;
We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against his powers.
We laughed, knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars; when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death - for lives; not men - for flags.
- Wilfred Owen

This is the kind of stuff that makes me wonder if George Bush has any idea what he's doing; if he's read any Wilfred Owen or Seigfreid Sassoon... May he and everyone else quickly discover them.

ANZAC Day: Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, World War One and Two.

Lest we forget.

EDIT: I forgot. The second poem ought to be prefecd by this, which Sassoon wrote to Owen:

"War's a joke for me and you
While we know such dreams are true.