North & South

Concerted Effort

As if we weren’t beset by enough problems: a world of shrill partisanship, raw demagoguery, vulgarity and philistinism; an attention-deficit culture addicted to the rapid visual scree of social feeds; a society in which the innocent are lost to first-degree murder, and marsupials to second-degree burns; a 73-year-old president who dyes his hair platinum-blonde and has an orange spray-on tan; a local leader of the opposition who gives the impression he gets at least half his nutritional intake from swallowing his own vowels; an intolerant “cancel culture”; the grueling spectacle of Bob Jones having misplaced his hearing aid, wearing of RNZ Concert radio.

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