Fish shop for freshly caught snapper for ceviche, Farro for heirloom tomatoes. 7 am on Christmas Eve is a liminal space in which women (largely) create magic.

They’re out of heirloom tomatoes at Farro. This means I have to go back at 7am tomorrow to acquire the essentials for caprese salad.

Especially relevant in NZ, where funding for the Archives NZ digitisation programme of official records was axed in 2024.

I appreciate this graphic issued by the NZ Central Sikh Association in response to the Destiny racists for its inspiring message of anti-discrimination, mutual aid and unity across ethnic & faith communities, and also its subtle reminder that Sikhs are known badasses so why would you fuck with them.

Me: I am a pacifist Also me: show me Andrew Tate getting punched in the face in slow motion from every angle.

What fabulous novel should I request for Christmas, team? I don’t really read books by white men (I’ve got a masters in English Lit so I’ve read “the canon” and more).

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality. And trans lives are grounded in reality. We see y'all. No matter what. www.popsci.com/science/tran...

Great piece about my dear friend Melissa Hortman. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Swastikas, stickers, police cars stationed outside synagogues (just in case, you know?) and Jewish bakeries closing down due to antisemitic harassment and threats of violence.

The complex system that is calling out Zionism & condemning antisemitism sure has a whole bunch of people weighted over that away. IDK 🤷‍♀️ maybe don’t conflate the actions of some to represent the collective?

Virginia Heffernan wrote this shortly after the 2016 election and it still holds true

I’m going to need the people who’re leading with “Zionism is the reason for Bondi” to remember that antisemitism predates Zionism by many centuries. Our safety lies with each other. Australia is their home & they should have been safe there.

We honor the bravery of Ahmed al Ahmed, a bystander who risked his life to protect those under fire. The lesson, yet again, is all too clear: Our safety is bound up together.

We grieve the loss of life in Sydney, Australia, where gunmen attacked a celebration of the first night of Hanukkah, killing at least 11 people. This was a terrifying incident of hate-fueled violence that no community should face.

Longstanding Otago business Harraways and Sons is investing millions into its oat mill to meet growing demand for the healthy and humble locally-grown oat.

We drove past the local shul yesterday as we took our Christmas tree home. The community were decorating for the first night of Hanukkah 🕎 & it crossed my mind “how brave” in the face of increasing antisemitism (equating every Jewish person with the actions of Israel). And now, Bondi. 😭😢

This. Jews are no more to blame for the actions of Israel than Muslims are to blame for the actions of ISIS. Collective blame is bigotry.

Folks, it’s in our acts of care, solidarity, and (good) tradition that community is made & sustained. The message of Advent is a radical one: that power resides in the most forsaken & the most vulnerable.

Bro, literally I vote for aspirational policies that SET THE TONE for who and what is valued and cared for. It’s only unrealistic if you don’t account for how you’d do it (tax is love buddy).

Two victims of previous school shootings — Mia Tretta, who was shot in the stomach in 2019 at Saugus High School, and Zoe Weissman, who survived the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — are now at Brown. Gun violence is out of control in this country.

My lukewarm take is that IKEA was easy as to get to, parking was fine, there were plenty of people there but the layout works well for that & we found the things we needed (record storage, rechargeable tealights) & everyone else there was having a nice time.

My position on taking action. And on the important space between everything and nothing.

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

3️⃣ A ban blocks access. It does not address harm. Online harm comes from platform design, governance failures, and adult misuse. An isolated ban will not change platform behaviour.

1️⃣ NZ doesn’t have Australia’s online safety infrastructure. We aren't starting from 0, but we are starting with a weaker, more fragmented system. Oversight, enforcement, and privacy protections will be major challenges.

I have a nasty cold post travel & have been off work, pottering about doing Christmas stuff at home in between coughing up a lung. Key observation: those command hook things really are a load of bullshit.

The post is for Webworm members, but I want to sneak this point from behind the wall (sorry David) because I think a lot of adults don't understand what social media is to today's young people. A social media ban aims to separate kids from their communities.

Aotearoa/New Zealand just designated the Terrorgram Collective as a terrorist organization. Having tracked the, done research on it and given talks on it as recently as last week, I'm pretty stoked to be cited in the case documents from the New Zealand police. www.police.govt.nz/sites/defaul...

Has the opinion-haver ever tried to email anyone in France during July-August? Get in the sea mate.

I didn’t have NZ media vs the people of NZ on my Xmas news cycle list, but there you have it. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

The brutal yuletide assaults haven’t come from Atheists, Agnostics, Muslims, the Liberal Media, Progressive Christians, or the mythical Woke Mob. The very white Conservatives who’ve been loudly sounding the alarm are the incessantly advancing hordes. johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/the-war-on...

Also more reminders why I’d really like to see other nations’ regulatory and advisory bodies state clearly that at this time they do not use advice from, or current regulations in, the USA in their decisions. The USA’s system has been taken over by pseudo-science players, and unsound decisions.

Girl guiding UK faces a volunteer exodus as members resign over the ban on trans girls and young women. Members say the exclusion betrays the charity’s core ethos of inclusivity

Fanny Osborne's stunning watercolours including the only colour depiction of the extinct Adams mistletoe... a Great Barrier Island special edition. www.rnz.co.nz/life/culture...

The artes and humanityes are the soul of innovacioun

Seymour: let's not make "assumptions" that a serious food safety incident is the responsibility of a company with a record of food safety incidents so bad that officials strongly warned against contracting it. Maybe it was the person who reported it! What a prick. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/christchu...

End of an absolute era.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Whoever set up a functional gmail style inbox of Epstein's inbox deserves a journalism prize. jmail.world

Trigger warnings abound, but this is an important read.

Yesterday a squirrel 🐿️ gave me a lil high five in Hyde Park & today a sausage dog in a navy Barbour jacket insisted on coming over to say hi & lick my hand so all & all I’m saying things are going well.

We’re in the UK at the moment & I’ve just realised that the many many posters for the Jacinda film and/or book I’ve seen on the underground are not defaced.

A woman on TikTok did a very simple experiment: With SNAP benefits paused, would churches give a poor mother with an infant who was starving a can of baby formula? Spoiler alert: the Protestants failed. religionunplugged.com/news/kentuck...

"Bovino is basically leading a rebel cavalry, a la Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who raided and terrorized communities in...the Civil War. That latter analogy holds up particularly well in one specific respect: Forrest became the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan after the war."

Hey peeps! It's been 2 weeks since I launched my crowdfunding campaign, and your support and generosity have blown me away. You folks rock! But with 3 research grant rejections this month & 2 weeks left to go I’ve decided to set a new stretch goal & pivot… 1/8

Recalling back in 2019 when Krauss was supposed to be the keynote at a conference here in NZ. A group of us had to explain to the local organisers his ah, reputation.

Further fallout in wake of damning IPCA McSkimming report

IT PASSED!!! The Bill passed with the full support of ALL parties, which is a rare and lovely thing. Huge congratulations to @beefaerie.bsky.social for successfully uniting the House behind the Bill. It WILL make a difference and I’m so proud to have been a part of it. #nzpol

Deeply grateful to the cops who pushed hard against this, the journos like Paula who get the sunlight disinfectant out, & Ms Z who has been victimised at every turn.