FIGHTING TALK:
meat bones, military intelligence and Fahrenheit 9/11
Patrick Crewdson - struggling freelancer, Auckland
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
If you want to fit in, don’t throw meat bones over your shoulder.
It’s a rainy night and up at AUT's Four Seasons restaurant, overlooking Mayoral Drive, David Wang's hospitality class is
hosting a group from the Chinese Students Association interested in becoming less conspicuously Chinese.
Enticed by a photoshopped flyer of a knife and fork in traditional Chinese wedding dress, the students have come to
learn the fundamentals of Western style dining - things like recognising the salad fork and appreciating Norah Jones.
Patrick Crewdson - flag burner, Auckland
Saturday, July 24, 2004
When I play the Grand Theft Auto games, I enjoy tuning between radio stations as I cock my Uzi and roll down the window
for a drive-by shooting. Macabre, sure, but it's only a game. It's not as though I'm cueing up Rammstein as I prepare to
gun down students at the real-life neighbourhood high school. In Fahrenheit 9/11, which I saw just a few hours ago,
American soldiers on the sandy streets of Iraq load an OzzFest heavy metal tour CD into their tank's sound system.
Seemingly unaware it might be inappropriate to take such glee in their jobs, they set the music to pipe into their
helmets as they roam.
Lyndon Hood - workstation philosopher, Lower Hutt
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
It was probably astute of Helen Clark to say the New Zealand Government has "solid grounds" for believing it had caught
itself some misbehaving Israeli intelligence types. Rather than, for example, "clear and reliable intelligence". This
from the security service that brought you Ahmed Zaoui.
Having got that out of my system I have to admit that I'm convinced.
ends