Born on State Highway 1

I do like how efficiently political cartoons can get across a point. A little commentary also from the Omnipotent Poobah.

To assure us that Sir Anand is a bona fide Kiwi, the Herald tells us…

He and the Satyanand brothers would go to football games and cricket matches, at Eden Park, with their father.

It’s interesting that, in order to combat one kind of notion of what it is to be a New Zealander (presumably Pakeha, though Henry didn’t specify), Herald writer Vaimoana Tapaleao provides us with another – the sport-watching Kiwi. Doesn’t look or sound like a New Zealander?! But he watched cricket matches growing up!

Does anything more need to be said than that Anand Satyanand was born and raised in New Zealand?

I remember years ago, my friend James noted how awesome it would be if some US presidential candidate was ahead by 20 points in the polls and then suddenly announced that he was not a Christian. (He!) Expensive experiment, as it would immediately destroy his chances of being elected. (His!)

Forget the first New Zealand prime minister of Indian descent – how long do you think it would be before we progress to the point where someone who doesn’t give a shit about rugby becomes prime minister?

Several years ago, I was telling a friend about an Australian comedy called All Aussie Adventures. I liked one particular gag, and here’s basically how I explained it to her. “Every time he meets someone, he shakes their hand, and it shows stock footage of his hand shaking an Aborigine’s hand. Then one time he meets an Aboriginal guy, shakes his hand and they show stock footage of his hand shaking a normal hand.”

That was almost a decade ago. Don’t go quitting your gadgets slot on my show or anything. Read more »

Fun times on C-SPAN.

Whatever you’re doing right now, is it really more fascinating than Palestinian and Israeli human-rights protesters dressed up like characters from Avatar having tear gas fired at them? I didn’t think so.

(Hat-tip to MeFi.)