Compiling the best reading from your friendly local website.
Bree Brown: A teenager on what 13 Reasons Why gets dangerously wrong about teen suicide
“The main failing of this show is that it continues to perpetuate the idea that suicide is a direct result of a person or an event. For years, experts have emphasised that suicide is always a culmination of many causes, and almost always those who suicide have severe mental health issues. Having someone suicide and then make tapes blaming other people for her death makes it seem like suicide is caused by one specific thing.”
Emily Writes: Putting to bed bad advice about infant and toddler sleep
For a period there – about three and a half years – I didn’t sleep at all. So when it comes to getting your baby to sleep, I’ve heard it all and I’ve tried it all.
And let me tell you, a lot of the advice about sleep is… how do I put this? … absolutely batshit and often literally made up by someone who wants to charge you $300 a “consultation” to teach you something your baby will eventually do on their own anyway.
So in the interests of saving the sanity of any mother I can, here’s an exhausted list of not exhaustive sleep methods that absolutely did not work for me. And a few that sort of did. And one that very definitely did.
Chris McDowall: How to buy your first house: a deep data dive into those miracle property stories
“Over the last few months I’ve taken to hate-reading the NZ Herald and Stuff articles about plucky young kiwis buying their first home. Last week, while reading Russell Brown’s excellent Behind those Herald home-buying stories, my bemusement devolved into fury.
This got me wondering how representative such stories are. Over Easter I tracked down every first time home-buyer Herald and Stuff article published during 2017 and summarised them in this spreadsheet.”
Branko Marcetic: Warning: Newstalk ZB’s new favourite guest is a really terrible person
“Few would accuse Newstalk ZB of being a fountainhead for enlightened ideas. This is, after all, the radio station that lets Mike Hosking yell at the birds outside his window every weekday morning. But even so, you might think there would be some guests that are beyond the pale.
Apparently not. Over the last year, the station has become something of a second home for Katie Hopkins, a British television personality and columnist for the Daily Mail (previously The Sun) and attention-hungry troll who has proven unflinching in her readiness to bravely insult just about any marginalised group that exists. It’s not for nothing she’s been dubbed the ‘Most Hated Woman in Britain’.”
Guest Post: St Patrick’s Silverstream parent: handling of school sexual harassment a ‘spectacular moral failure’
“They got away with it”
Five little words that say it all really.
That was what my son had to say when he came home one afternoon with the news that boys who had been caught secretly filming women teachers were coming back to school.
I asked him if the two teachers were OK about it and he frowned and shrugged.
“Who knows, Mum. They haven’t come back to school yet.”
James Dann: Parking nightmare! How the car lobby is hijacking the Christchurch CBD rebuild
“Cycles aren’t even the real problem, but have been made into one by a minister who wouldn’t know one if it was deep-fried in tempura batter and placed in front of him. Over the past couple of weeks, The Press has made a cycle-shaped piñata, then given politicians like Brownlee, Cr Deon Swiggs and Labour’s Christchurch Central candidate Duncan Webb a free swing with the bat.”
Alex Casey: The Bachelor NZ Power Rankings, Week Five – Karina drops a DOM-shell
“Ahh, nothing better after a long Easter weekend than to rest your rotten chocolate-coated dentures in a vat of Colgate Optic White and kick back in front of a relaxing episode of The Bachelor NZ. That is of course until Karina drops an ATOMIC DOM on everyone that she has had a relationship with Dom Bowden because of course she has because we live in New Zealand and also just statistics and she’s only human.”
Tara Ward: Deal with it: Outlander just dropped a season three trailer like a hot haggis
“Praise be to all things mythical and bagpipey, for the latest Outlander preview dropped yesterday like a hot bannock onto a dusty floor. The fevered sighs of malnourished Outlanderfans reverberated around the world, much like how the screams of a tormented ginger echoes through a deserted tower. The King of Men was back, but things were not looking good.”
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