Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a take on the movie’s immortal line “May the Force (or fourth) be with you”.
It wasn’t long after the movie’s 1977 release that politicians began helping themselves to the phrase. This from Wikipedia:
The first recorded reference of the phrase being used was on May 4, 1979, the day after Margaret Thatcher was elected as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Her political party, the Conservatives, placed a congratulatory advertisement in the Evening News saying “May the Fourth Be with You, Maggie. Congratulations.”
Star Wars is a common reference point at a time when our lives have become more culturally disparate. However on the off chance that you, like Newshub’s Lloyd Burr, haven’t seen it, here’s a brief runthrough to explain what it’s all about:
I have many happy memories of the Odeon cinema. My mother took me there to see Gallipoli and she cried great sobbing tears, and to Watership Down where I cried and had to be taken from the theatre. Times my dad picked me up from school to take me to film festival movies, just the two of us.
Going with my mates to double header horrors or a Clockwork Orange when they deemed it permissible to show. Sid and Nancy brought out every punk in our provincial town, we were there of course.
Here’s the old place on opening night in 1966. When I was going there some years later it looked exactly the same.
My childhood sweetheart lived literally next door to the cinema. I remember us seeing Footloose and ET, lots of movies. We broke up, but a few years later we met again and a similar time later we got married. Maria and I had two children, Alex and Emma, and we share a grandson Ollie with the people we are married to now and have been for decades. Tom in her case, and Fi in mine.
As you might imagine there were trials and tribulations along the way, but it all turned out alright for the four of us Maria, Fi, myself, and Tom, with a bit of goodwill. I don’t really know why I’m telling you this, but it feels like something good that might not have been so. Life doesn’t always run to plan but if you are well intentioned it can work out.
Hmm, this is a bit more philosophical than I’d planned, I think maybe it’s thinking back to that simpler time. Of the cinema, some Tangy Fruit if you were lucky, and enjoying those movies that loom large in the memory. Not least for people my age, the original Star Wars trilogy.
But back to the more mundane. As usual we’ll start this review with Matakana Mike’s malodorous markings of the week. Hosking from ZB, in case that wasn’t clear.
Premium economy: 7/10 A 19% increase in sales at the front of the plane. What cost of living crisis?
Yuck. Mocking those who are struggling with the cost of things - which is most people, because more people are buying Premium Economy? Meanwhile people are hurting with rising interest rates, or shaking their heads in disbelief at the price of items in the grocery shopping.
Are there really people so shallow, other than Mike obviously, that they ignore all the bad news, the job cuts, the skyrocketing rates bills, and everything else and say don’t worry about all that? Some people are buying more expensive tickets on planes, folks must be doing just fine?
Julie-Anne Genter: 0/10 “She's unhinged.”
We all know that language don’t we, and why people like right wing shock jocks put labels like that on women? There are lots of words, hysterical, emotional, many of you reading this will know them much more than I do. They aren’t words that Mike would use talking about a man.
Hmm, that might be enough from Mike. Still he wasn’t the only one that didn’t appear to be a friend to women this week…
Yes, it was Dark Side 1: Women 0, from Minister Willis this week.
It was as if Nicola had watched Paula Bennett pulling up the ladder behind herself, cancelling training incentives for beneficiaries that she had benefited from. Nicola said “hold my beer” and announced that the job of the pay equity taskforce was done.
Which probably came as a surprise to some of the women of Aotearoa. It was as if Nicola was saying “Don’t worry ladies, I’m on a big fat salary, just got a nice big pay rise, so there’s no problem here.”
Other were less enthused about the announcement, like Nurses Organisation chief executive Paul Goulter who said:
“The demise of the taskforce will come with a huge loss in terms of the knowledge and skills required to ensure women do not remain the victims of sex-based wage discrimination, These skills were of huge benefit to both employers and the unions representing their employees in sorting pay equity issues.”
Labour spokesperson for workplace relations and safety, Camilla Belich, said that there were about 25 in-flight claims that would now be at risk. She also said the following:
“I am shocked that Nicola Willis, who has benefitted from the courage and determination of women before her, is making a decision that will leave women worse off. Her statement is gaslighting women.
The recent extra funding was to build capacity for pay equity, not to shut it down. Her argument that the taskforce has been so successful that its work is no longer needed is farcical.”
Sometimes it’s hard waiting around for the Empire to fall. Although with the polls this week at least the Death Star coalition is showing signs of vulnerability and a certain young Jedi was giving it to them right up the thermal exhaust port.
Basking in those results and the increasingly mad behaviour of the old Emperor that he had forseen. So let’s celebrate that. I posted the following and it got a really positive reaction, below the image are some of the comments in response:
Caroline: “I'm betting luxon is sweating buckets behind closed doors.”
Todd: “So right that a capitalised I TOLD YOU SO wouldn't be out of order.”
Ruth: “Winston seems to get grumpier and grumpier. Such a bully... Luxon is not reading the room, again.”
I thought Les summed the situation up perfectly, “Winston knows Luxon is powerless, Seymour knows Luxon is powerless, Luxon still doesn’t understand he’s powerless.”
Although I suspect the realisation might be starting to dawn on Christopher, despite his pre election claims that he could manage Winston, that both Peters and Seymour have Curly by the short and unmentionables.
Meanwhile young Chippy is growing in confidence…
Please spare me any suggestions that Winston ruled Labour out first. When it comes to commitments from Peters, yes might mean no, and no could mean maybe, or who knows what? Ultimately nobody has ever known what he’ll do except Winston himself, and I’m not even sure if he knows any more.
In any case, on to matters yet dastardlier…
If Nicola Willis’ cancellation of caring about woke considerations like pay equity wasn’t enough to get the audience booing, this time it was Minister Stanford saying “stand back and look at this.”
Our long running reading recovery programme, which helps those needing extra support with reading, “is being dumped as part of a $67 million dollar shake-up of the way literacy is taught in state schools.”
Erica said, “We will be getting rid of reading recovery, using that same funding and putting that into what we call tier two and three interventions which are small group and one-on-one for the very few kids who fall through the cracks.”
Someone has changed their tune, I thought we were going to be all laser focussed on reading. Not cancelling successful support programmes.
Look, I get it guys, you’re the Dark Side and you like doing cold-hearted evil things, it’s one of the perks. But this is pretty repugnant, even for you. Are you sure?
Stanford believes that Structured Literacy is a silver bullet, I don’t know enough about it to say. Although I would note the concerns raised by Labour’s spokesperson, Jan Tinetti, who has an enormous amount of knowledge about, and experience in, the sector.
She said, “We’re talking about structured literacy as if it is one approach and it isn't. And there are some approaches to structured literacy that are being taught in New Zealand that are... very damaging to young people.”
It feels like this government is always looking for a silver bullet, some shortcut to success that will magically fix all the problems.
I hope Erica is right and this does work but I can’t help feeling some sympathy for those in the sector. The primary teachers' union, NZEI, says “mandating a one-size-fits all approach does not work, and teachers know what is best for learners.”
If I was the Minister of Education I’d be listening to teachers to understand what the problems are and get their insights as to how to improve things. Not mandating a single solution for all scenarios.
As I say I wish the government well in their goal of improving educational outcomes, we all want that. I just hope that some who might have different needs don’t get left by the wayside as a result.
According to this article in the NZ Herald on election donations, “National’s war chest totalled $10.4m, while Labour raised less than half of that with $4.8m. The Act Party declared $4.3m, the Green Party $3.3m and NZ First $1.8m.”
So the three parties of the coalition had $16.5m to spend from their donors and Labour and the Greens had $8.1m. Less than half.
If one side spends twice as much as the other, because they represent big moneyed interests rather than regular people, that’s not democracy. It’s just not. If there wasn’t a correlation between the dollars spent and the votes acquired these parties wouldn’t spend all of those millions getting elected.
Our most recent election must have been influenced by the amount of sponsors money that was spent on advertising. You don’t have to be overly cynical to suggest that we might be seeing some payback to those investors in the government’s actions since the election.
For example, National “received $20,000 from AJR Finance, which has also donated to NZ First and whose director has links to a quarrying company that was among those sent letters about the Government’s proposed fast-track consenting process.”
“Act’s return includes a $13,875 donation from Sean Colgan, the businessman who loaned Act leader David Seymour a plane, dubbed Flying Pinky, to use on the campaign.”
I’m sure Mr Colgan was just helping out of the kindness of his heart, although perhaps he best keep an eye out for flying pigs.
Look, I get it. We’ve had our New Hope, our Jacinda, and now with these three The Empire Strikes Back. But can we just get on with the Return of the Jedi already?
Will it be a young Chippy, his strength renewed with the force, or perhaps a Chlöe, bringing new recruits aboard the Millennial Falcon? Heck, why not both?
Either way it’ll be good to see someone wipe the smirk off of Darth Luxon as he taunts the opposition with cries of, “who’s your daddy?”
Meanwhile Winston rasps in the background, “I am your father, Christopher” in a voice mellowed by whisky and cigarettes, from a man who can scarcely remember what he believed in before he went over to the dark side.
An appropriate track for the day. It’s pretty cool, and it certainly made me smile. 🙂
Oh Nick so many things to comment about. For me though the biggie is education as I have some experience there. In my view there is a silver bullet to improving educational outcomes and it is alleviating poverty so that every kid starts school ready to learn and able to continue to do so. Inequality is the greatest handicap. On a more amusing note you must surely remember the sound of Jaffas rolling down the bare boarded cinema floor from back to front. Or maybe that’s just we rural oldies.
What a malodorous roundup of the week to read with the first coffee of the day Nick - should have made it an Irish, double dram! - no criticism of the writing, it's terrific as usual, it's the cast of stomach churning characters within :/ Had a vivid vision of Hosking peeing in corners like an unneutered tom, of Truck Stop Bennett sneering and gloating (how high she's risen up the food chain from those far off days in Taupo!) and the ultra supercilious, ultra cold, privileged princess Willis destroying everything in her path in a desperate search for money to fund those tax cuts. The bright spots to the week were the poll numbers and the fact Bob Carr is going to commence defamation proceedings against Peters - we all know impotent Luxon isn't going to bring him to heel, what an embarrassment to the country they both are! Gawd only six months in with this destructive mob and it feels like a full and bleak year!