Articles in ‘Editors Note’

It’s a song that experts say transcends generations, cultures, even religion. “Silent Night” — first performed in a small Austrian church over 200 years has not only stood the test of time, but found its own place in history. It is structured simply, easy to record, has been translated into over 300 languages and bridges both secular and non-secular Christmas music. But perhaps just as important is the song’s original message of hope and peace…

The election is over and New Zealanders got what they wanted. Change. What Change is yet to be determined, as a coalition is yet to be finalised, but it is change never the less. Will it be enough? Again, that all depends on who you talk to. one of the biggest mistakes leaders make is to view change as an event that happens at a single point in time. Accepting and then embracing change is a process not an event. An election will not bring…

The frosty U.S. and China decoupling talk is getting real as pandas are getting recalled from zoos across the country and across the world. It’s called “panda diplomacy” and it’s thought to have started as early as the Tang Dynasty in the 7th century when Empress Wu Zeitan sent a pair of bears (believed to be pandas) to Japan. This Chinese policy of sending pandas as diplomat gifts was revived in 1941, on the eve of the United States entering…

Don’t Waste Your Vote! If you are thinking about giving your party vote to one of the minor parties at this election, make sure you give some serious thought to if they are actually going to get into parliament. Any political party needs 150,000 votes without an electoral seat win before it gets into Parliament. Every election New Zealanders give their vote to a minor party as a form of protest of they like a particular policy that the party…

Fear Is Ingrained In All Of Us – Just Don’t Let It Take Over! It’s an evolutionary survival tactic known as our fight-or-flight instinct. The purpose of fear is to use adrenaline to tell us to protect ourselves and move out of harm’s way. You’ve probably felt different levels of fear throughout your life — in a dark theater watching a scary movie, dealing with an aggressive person, or a situation where you have no control. In the current…

There is no truth, there is only perception. As I enjoy a new, less crazy-busy season in my life, I’ve taken to switching the TV on early evening. Mostly it’s to give the elderly dog some background noise to distract her from alerting me every time the neighbours come home, but it also reminds me of younger years when the house gathered for the daily 6 o’clock news. Finishing paid work for the day, my ear was drawn to a US news item announcing…

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” George Orwell Freedom of speech is one of the most precious and important human rights. A free society depends on the free exchange of ideas. Nearly all ideas are inherently capable of giving offence to someone. Many of the most important, profound ideas in human history, such as those of Galileo Galilei and Charles Darwin, caused great…

A friend mentioned to me that other day that if everyone lived by the basics of the Ten Commandments, then we would live in paradise and it got me thinking… Would it really? The 10 Commandments are one of the cornerstones in Christianity having been given to Moses by God to share with all the Israelites after they left captivity in Egypt. Carved in stone, they were confined to physical oblivion when Moses smashed them, however a slab, probably…

I recently had the opportunity to question Chris Luxton and included a question about trust and what he intended to do about increasing the dismal survey results from a December 22 poll that showed only 39.6% of the poll respondents trusted the government. His response will be published next month, but in the meantime, just how important is trust in our Government and its Ministers? We will never I suspect get to a 100% trust rate, but…

I’m writing this in the aftermath of the terrible weather event that saw numerous festivals and concerts cancelled, (Elton John again!), homes flooded, landslips, roads made impassible, slips, crops devasted, our city’s airport terminals swimming in water and tragically four lives lost across Auckland. I’ve seen readings of over 200 mms of rain that all fell in one day and it doesn’t appear to have abated just yet. They are in fact warning of…