Dedicated to democracy, enjoying and restoring the Mahurangi, meaningful climate action, and curiosity—
primarily pre-pandemic content accessible from this page. Go to lastest content…
covid-19 climate and bird-flu-strength-pandemic clarion call
Spain, officially, has had not quite 0.5% of its population infected by covid-19, about a third of the rate the maligned country experienced during the 1918 Pandemic. But 10% of those undeserving more than 230 000 people have died, and its economy is in its worst…
Yes Aotearoa can mobilise by example
As the epitome of physical distancing, Aotearoa is perfectly placed to lead the global project to survive the covid-19 pandemic, and anthropogenic global heating. In respect to climate, after petulantly insisting cop26 must proceed, on 1 April it was finally postponed…
Splendid self-isolation opportunity for civilisation
Having wasted two months of preparation time, the challenge for civilisation now is to break its determined habit of wasting every crisis in its entirety. Aside from abiding by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s succinct advice to act as though one had covid-19, and stay strictly…
Octavius Browne second brother to visit Gordon
William Browne’s son Octavius Browne was born on 2 November 1809. Charles Browne says “the place of his birth and the date of his baptism is not known, but we have been told that just before he left Courtlands on the journey to Scotland in the course of which he died, he…
Climate action of the people, by the people for the planet
That government of the people, by the people, for the people, has perished from the earth, has placed all earth’s creatures in existential peril. All too foreseeably, the half-billion creatures and counting destroyed by wildfire this globally-heated Australian summer will later…
Octavius’s brother Gordon Davis Browne
Gordon Davis Browne was born in early 1805, and baptised at St Mary’s Lambeth on 22 March that year. The explanation for his given name of Gordon is not known. Charles Gordon Browne (who was born in January 1845, and whose own second name was obviously a…
Compulsory voting cart before smarter-democracy horse
Big business would be the biggest loser, was a Labour-led government to legislate to prosecute non-voters. Currently, unlike Australians, New Zealanders are legally allowed to abstain from voting. But with global voter turnout in determined decline, New Zealand’s lack…
Aotearoa might best advance stv by enhancing mmp
Aotearoa is not just the world’s first full democracy because it was first to enfranchise women. Thanks to New Zealand’s geographic isolation and late colonisation, a partnership approach was attempted from the get-go, with greater and lesser success. One uniquely…