Poking the Woke
Montezuma's revenge, Winston's newbies, and the most beautiful word.
Please grab some water.
I need that water.
My belly is rumblin’
I shouldn't have ate it all.
Song: There I Ruined It, with inspiration from Adele.
A tsunami of squirts.
Donald Trump gets blamed for a lot, and quite rightly so. From enabling Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people to attacking Iran without any semblance of a plan and damaging economies around the world.
He’s blatantly guilty of decades of sexual assaults, regardless of what he may or may not have got up to with his mate Epstein, and he is laying the groundwork to claim the midterms were fixed. Even though they haven’t happened yet. He’s essentially saying that if his side does badly, it has nothing to do with him; it was rigged.
But I hadn’t reckoned on this latest headline, which highlights yet another way Donald has let his country down:
Trump Government’s cuts blamed for diarrhoea outbreak sweeping the US
With Trump’s fast-food diet, you’d think he’d be the canary in the coal mine when it came to an outbreak of the trots. Donald notoriously prefers Big Macs, but he has become known as TACO among his people after repeatedly threatening friends and foes alike, only to flip-flop.
President TACO - "Trump Always Chickens Out".
Whether canary or chicken, Trump doesn’t appear to have been affected by the outbreak, although it’s always hard to know with his proclamations of supernatural health, even as he looks like he has one foot in the grave. However, thousands of Americans have been dashing for the porcelain.
“Cyclosporiasis, a parasitic illness contracted from ingesting contaminated food or drink, has spread across 32 states and infected nearly 7000 people, with cases expected to increase.”
So, how you might wonder, is this Trump’s fault? America has long had issues with the quality of its food as corporations prioritise profits over nutrition and health, from pink slime in their meat to calling such an affliction a “stomach flu”, as if your food making you sick was just something to expect like a seasonal cold.
So how is this Trump’s fault?
It turns out that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s health secretary, has been rolling the dice with sweeping cuts and mass firings in the name of “government efficiency”, and America has crashed headfirst into a Tsunami of Squirts, to put it politely.
Senator Mark Warner, a senior Democrat from Virginia, said: “Last year, RFK Jr’s Centres for Disease Control cut back on monitoring cyclospora amid drastic funding cuts – now thousands of Americans are experiencing the horrific effects of this parasite.”
If there is one foot outlet in the US notorious for giving the customer time to contemplate their decisions while sitting on the loo, it is Taco Bell.
Taco Bell restaurants in Detroit last week told customers the chain was “currently unable to sell lettuce, cilantro, onion, pico de gallo, and guacamole due to a nationwide recall”. As the source was narrowed down, that became “Do not eat shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell locations in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia," which is the last message they should be giving to Americans - to avoid salads.
We’re also seeing a Tsunami here, and I’m not talking about one generated by Tacos or an earthquake, but a large, slow-moving wave of political candidates who are new to New Zealand First but are already washed up.
Flotsam and Jetsam
NZ First has been recruiting a series of moderately well-known figures and former MPs from other parties. Some of whom may have had their best days last century, but they’re going to bolster the party list with people voters know, both bad and worse, old and older, and they’re coming to a parliament near you.
Yesterday, NZ First announced a recycled MP with a difference: this one had left his old party on good terms and without disgrace.
Former Labour minister Rino Tirikatene joins NZ First
Tirakatene was a Labour MP from 2011 until 2024, when he announced his retirement to “reset and take up new opportunities”. I’m guessing such opportunities were not forthcoming with Rino now signing up to NZ First as a list candidate.
Reader Fiona was shocked and posted, “I’m trying really hard to be calm and sort myself out, but WTAF?? How does a long-standing member of the LABOUR Maori caucus sign up with NZ 2nd?!?! The party that is becoming more racist every day,” followed by some expletives.
It makes you wonder why on earth Tirikatene would do so, given that he retired from parliament this term and could’ve just stayed there. It also makes you wonder what Winston is going to do with all these candidates; he can’t give them all frontbench roles, although I imagine he has made many promises.
Winston held his get-together yesterday, and they trotted out their recycled candidates to say that National or Labour had lost their way, seemingly oblivious to the fact that NZ First had been part of most of those governments since the 90s.
Winston declared they would make NZ great again, while Shane Jones railed against vested interests, which was incredibly ironic.
Today Winston will give his campaign launch address, and whatever you’d say about him, the old crocodile knows a thing or two about campaigning.
Drowning in woke tears.
Winston also announced the names of the new Cook Strait ferries this week, seeking to stir up outrage where there was none and pitting woke against those who are happily slumbering.
Winston Peters v ‘snivelling wokesters’: Minister bracing for backlash over new ferry name
Like Trump announcing midterm fraud before the vote, so too did Winston proclaim that wokesters would furiously respond to the new ferry names before a placard was written.
“The snivelling wokesters will work themselves into a lather over the name Cook, while offering only passing approval for Kupe. That is how shallow this has become,” said Winston, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
To be honest, Cook wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it’s hardly new. There are reminders of the British explorer in towns across New Zealand, and even the body of water between the two islands - it does seem a bit unimaginative to have the Ferry Cook sailing Cook Strait, the sort of naming originality that gave us the North Island and the South Island.
Winston will have calculated it to cause offence, knowing full well that to many, Cook is symbolic of colonisation and not someone to be celebrated.
He could have chosen anything; he could have said we’re going to call them the Jools Topp and the Sam Neill, that would bring a smile to faces every time they took the Interislander. Or how about Nicola’s Blunder? That sounds memorable. Perhaps Corolla One and Corolla Two?
I think it should be a te Reo name. That is what distinguishes this from other places in the world. Aside from anything else, the Māori names are a bit more relevant than naming our things after British people from hundreds of years ago.
How about the Whina Cooper, in remembrance of her great journey to Wellington or what about the most beautiful word in the world?
Māori word ‘kaitiakitanga’ named world’s most beautiful by language app
I’m only kidding; ‘Kaitiakitanga’ is far too difficult for the sort of NZers that are just fine with ‘Cook’; it would become ‘Kaitiaki’ in no time or maybe even “K-Boat” like the road, but isn’t that headline awesome?
Kaitiakitanga, the responsibility to care for the natural world, has been named the world's most beautiful word by an international panel of linguists, writers and cultural experts.
Language expert Esteban Touma Portilla said, “As people around the world experience the effects of climate change, the resonant, distinctive word Kaitiakitanga reminds us of our responsibility to care for the environment and for one another.”
Wouldn’t you rather have the name Kaitiakitanga, which means guardianship and protection, than Cook Strait Ferry Cook - a name that is well and truly cooked, even for NZ First? One is beautiful and meaningful, and the other looks to celebrate a past that still carries hurt for many in Aotearoa.
How about you, what would you have called the new ferries?
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Have a good Sunday, folks, and stay away from the cyclospora.
Ngā mihi,
Nick.
To end today, here’s Adele, who’s regretting Taco Bell, as I assume is the person who commented under the video, “Well, this has aged horrifyingly well…”
The recycled rejects reappearing on Coalition lists is our own local version of an outbreak of cyclosporiasis - names that really give me the screaming shitz
Rather than using the divisive name 'Cook' the names should be 'Kupe' the earliest to sail to Aotearoa and 'Tupaia' who accompanied Cook and assisted his navigation and relationship with indigenous nga tangata.