Precious – the movie that had champagne socialists all gooey in 2009 – finally found its way to my DVD drive the other night.

It was disappointing.

Man, how I miss Richard Pryor and George Carlin.

In an old Looney Tunes cartoon, Daffy Duck, playing a sheriff, holds a gun to a crim’s face who proceeds to bite the gun in half. “Must not have had his iron today,” Daffy says. He pronounced iron EYE-run. That always made me laugh. So I would like to talk briefly about our country’s irony deficiency. I fear it may be getting critical or...

Last Sunday at around 6pm I was sitting in a fish and chip shop in Tairua waiting for my order. It was humid and everyone in the place was wilting.  A few flies buzzed around.  The late day sun was pouring in through the front window making me sweat. A group of people entered the shop. The first guy I saw was wearing a yellow T-shirt with white gym socks pulled up...

Avoid gender-specific language unless it is necessary. In particular, avoid terms such as “man”, “men” or “mankind” to refer to people in general.

A clip of the Canadian Governor General on the earthquake in her birthplace.