Sunday and Monday Outrage

Sometimes I think Facebook should create a special 'posting' function for me. Instead of the usual 'what's on your mind?' question, it should also include a second option: 'what are you outraged about today?'. Such a option is desperately needed after reading the New Zealand Herald on Sunday and Monday.

The first example of outrage was on Sunday Morning, when I opened up my laptop to check the news. Are Kiwi male vulgar? the Herald on Sunday asked. Groaning inwardly I could sense that the article would be outrageously sexist, but I clicked anyway. I must by a sadist. I wasn't disappointed.

I'm used to the usual arguments put forward by douche bags when it comes to sexual harassment. Take the Lara Bingle photo scandal - she had revealing photographs taken for magazines before, therefore, she shouldn't be upset by other revealing photos taken of her (without her consent).

But I was absolutely shocked by the total douchebaggary of Ian Long, the spokesperson for Tourism New Zealand. 

You see, Anna Faris (from Scary Movie fame) didn't have a great time in NZ:

Appearing on American television to promote the movie, the 34-year-old said Kiwi men had shouted obscenities at her in public and demanded she show them her breasts.

Tourism New Zealand, clearly freaking out about this, respond in the most bizarre way:

But Tourism NZ spokesman Ian Long said no one would take Faris seriously.


"In the same segment, she accepts an award for being a pothead stoner of the year and she's quite clearly had a few. I don't think she has any credibility," he said.

Ladies. It appears that we've moved on from Lara Bingle territory. We can't point out sexual harassment and make a joke a minute later, or have fun. That wouldn't be acting like a proper sexual harassment victim!

I also love the way Long dismisses her point completely. As if street sexual harassment doesn't happen in New Zealand.

On Monday morning, having spent a large chunk of Sunday being annoyed about the article, I get sent this lovely article from the New Zealand Herald - Sharapova's value made a mockery of equal pay claims.

From the first sentence, I knew that the article would offend my feminist sensibilities:

Women don't deserve equal prize money in tennis.

It gets better:

The men's matches are longer, of a higher standard and attract a bigger audience. Quite simply, the men are cheated out of a deserved greater share of the prize pool.

Sigh. I just don't know where to start.


This morning was much better. Very happy to read in the NZ Herald about the Labour Party's plan to extend paid parental leave.

On a completely different note, you should read this article in the New York Times - Darkness on the Edge of the Universe

If astronomers in the far future have records handed down from our era, attesting to an expanding cosmos filled with galaxies, they will face a peculiar choice: Should they believe “primitive” knowledge that speaks of a cosmos very much at odds with what anyone has seen for billions and billions of years? Or should they focus on their own observations and valiantly seek explanations for an island universe containing a small cluster of galaxies floating within an unchanging sea of darkness — a conception of the cosmos that we know definitively to be wrong?

 So cool.