Saturday’s soapbox is yours to use as you will – within the bounds of decency and absence of defamation. You’re welcome to look back or forward, discuss issues of the moment, to pontificate, ponder or point us to something of interest, to educate, elucidate or entertain, amuse, bemuse or simply muse, but not abuse.
You will love and not be loved back. Give and not receive. Hep and be left helpless. Teach and not be taught. Forgive and be forgotten. Trust and be doubted. Pray and be cursed by others. You will be unnoticed, unliked, unloved and unappreciated. But never, ever, ever let anyone stop you from being you. Because you are the one stretching, growing and rising. Never subtract the best of you to add the worst of anyone else. – Howard Britt.
Homepaddock 
“Nettles struck by lightening”
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“Prime Minister John Key is again having trouble with details.
Mr Key has had much difficulty over the years remembering dates and times when things may or may not have happened.
The latest issue centres on when he became aware of allegations concerning National’s Northland MP Mike Sabin.”
ODT
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/332081/pm-needs-take-more-care
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“However, there are several questions for National, its president Peter Goodfellow and Mr Key to consider.
At the top of the list is whether they are in fact treating voters with the disdain they think we deserve.
Or is Mr Eagleson keeping bad news from his boss so Mr Key can distance himself from anything unsavoury?
This is not the first time the unelected Mr Eagleson has been linked to a conspiracy.
It should be the last.
Mr Key has to take responsibility for ensuring he openly admits when he becomes aware of incidents like those associated with Mr Sabin.
One thing can be guaranteed: it will not be the last time before the next election the Prime Minister will have to deal with such an incident.”
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/332081/pm-needs-take-more-care
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Catton and the right-wing hissy fit
“Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. For the purposes of this essay, the central element is defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence and “insensitivity” or non-observance of taboos. It is different in nature and degree from simple criticism or disagreement in that it is aggressive, organized and skillfully applied, often by an organization or representative of a special interest group, and in that it consists of several characteristic elements.
As Digby also noted, the article laid out a set of defining characteristics, such as “the method of attack in a ritual defamation is to assail the character of the victim, and never to offer more than a perfunctory challenge to the particular attitudes, opinions or beliefs expressed or implied. Character assassination is its primary tool.” She also called attention to this:
The power of ritual defamation lies entirely in its capacity to intimidate and terrorize. It embraces some elements of primitive superstitious belief, as in a “curse” or “hex.” It plays into the subconscious fear most people have of being abandoned or rejected by the tribe or by society and being cut off from social and psychological support systems.
It is, in short, an existential threat—or at least it strives to become one. Another point the article makes is that “to be successful, a ritual defamationmust bring pressure and humiliation on the victim from every quarter, including family and friends.” This further underscores that it is a socialprocess, not a fact-based one.”
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“carrying capacity: maximum permanently supportable load.
cornucopian myth: euphoric belief in limitless resources.
drawdown: stealing resources from the future.
cargoism: delusion that technology will always save us from
overshoot: growth beyond an area’s carrying capacity, leading to
crash: die-off.”
William Catton
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