There’s Something Wrong With Me! By Trevor Plumbly
It’s not that I think life is passing me by, more a sense of personal detachment from trivial stuff that others seem to regard as important. The biggest offender in this is still the print media. As I’ve mentioned before, the flood of internet news gathering has made sub-editors and a huge number of working reporters redundant, and this has led to gaps in column space being packed with an increasing amount of mail order, asinine trivia rather than news of any informative value. This week for instance I learned that… Read More
The Party’s Over for Julia and David by Trevor Plumbly
The Political Guillotine Down Under It’s all happening down under folks! Politically that is, because heads are rolling like drunken pool balls. Over in Australia the ignominy of having a ‘Sheila’ in charge of the country proved to be too much of a burden for the ‘Cobbers’ to bear. Whilst here in New Zealand we’ve got the decapitated body of the leader of the opposition as evidence of what happens to perfectly nice people if they fiddle with politics. In my youth, politicians were elderly, eloquent in a restrained manner, and generally… Read More
The Scales of Justice Aren’t Working by Trevor Plumbly
What Constitutes Justice? In an interesting recent case here in NZ, a man found guilty of seriously injuring an elderly lady was sentenced to a period of home detention. This was subsequently increased on appeal to a two year prison term. Up sprang the Penal Reform proponents in one corner to face The Sensible Sentencing Trust in the other. Both sides have good articulate advocates who present their cases well without mawkish sentiment or a ‘throw away the key’ spiel, and that’s where the problems start for me, at least. I like… Read More
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