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By Ngai Tauira | 21 Jul, 2008
Ripiripīa, Haehaea
Ripiripīa, Haehaea
Tuakina! Paranitia te upoko o te ngārara
Kai tangata hue ha!
He aha te tohu o te ringaringa?
He kawakawa
Tuku ki raro kia hope ra
He korokio
Ko te whakatau o te mate
Hue ha!, hue ha! More
By Jenna Powell | 14 Jul, 2008
A decrease in funding and morality has caused the university experience of the average student to become ruled by the establishment’s business imperatives rather than the pursuit of knowledge. Hence the attempts to reduce gender studies and film from proper subjects to leisure pursuits. Campus spirit and student activism has been replaced by sleazy student politicians and scenester bullshit. More
By Matthew Proctor | 7 Jul, 2008
The war in Iraq has never left world headlines since the pre-invasion debate of 2003. Yet since the bombing of the UN Headquarters in Baghdad in 2004, and the consequent withdrawal of the New Zealand contribution to reconstruction, there has been very little debate as to what New Zealand policy towards Iraq should be. Salient Sub-Editor Matthew Proctor investigates. More
By Jackson Wood, Tania Mead, Tristan Egarr and Matthew Proctor | 26 May, 2008
In 2003, China, India, Brazil and South Africa led a walkout of developing nations from the WTO’s Cancun talks, in protest at the developed world’s trade-distorting agricultural subsidies. Pissed off at having the global economy dictated to them by the West, the Rest finally decided they don’t want to take our shit lying down anymore. Is this a sign of the new world order raising its head and finally escaping the rule of the west? More
By Jenna Powell | 19 May, 2008
It does not take an exceedingly sober individual to spot the different folks that stride down Cuba Street once night falls. The cute emo kids, the barefoot ferals, the bums – it all adds to the exciting atmosphere that is Cuba Street. Drinking a ridiculous amount of Kristov did not impair my ability to be slightly embarrassed when my tragically hip indie friends spotted me stumbling around Courtney Place singing Britney Spears’ ‘You Wanna Piece of Me’ at the top of my lungs. More
By Jenna Powell | 12 May, 2008
Men’s social movement groups are interest groups that believe there is not enough support for men and men’s issues due to gender discrimination. The movement in New Zealand is anything but homogenous, with different groups promoting different agendas. More
By Tania Mead | 5 May, 2008
“The pentagon war planners, with cold blooded lucidity, say the “feral, failed cities” of the Third World – especially their slum outskirts – will be the distinctive battlespace of the twenty-first century. Night after night, hornet like helicopter gunships stalk enigmatic enemies in the narrow streets of the slum districts, pouring hellfire into shanties and fleeing cars. More
By Tristan Egarr | 21 Apr, 2008
Between the 10th and 12th of April, Wellington experienced three notable protest actions: a $10 billion student debt day march on the Thursday, a pro-cannabis smokeup on parliament lawn on the Friday, and anti-Labour party protests outside the town hall on Saturday. More
By Jenna Powell | 7 Apr, 2008
Should you be at university?
Out of Victoria’s 21,000 students only a small percentage will graduate and an even smaller number will move on to do postgraduate studies. Only 15 per cent of students who enrol in a New Zealand university come out with a qualification. It is a safe bet that most students do not want to be professional academics. University elitism is again rearing its ugly head as Auckland University becomes the first to place all of its courses under the ‘limited entry’ category. More
By Tania Mead | 24 Mar, 2008
He’s no swashbuckling Romeo, but I could hardly fault John Campbell’s burning desire to propose marriage to Joseph Stiglitz during his brief talk last Friday. Erudite, controlled and surprisingly entertaining, the Nobel Prize winning economist amused large portions of the audience with his pithy observations on the disparities of global wealth distribution. Stiglitz was one of many authors to attend the 2007 International Festival Readers and Writers week, but the only deemed so compelling as to be given a prime-time slot and the grandeur of the Michael Fowler Centre to expound on his theories.
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By Jackson Wood | 17 Mar, 2008
The original space race kicked off in 1957 when the USSR fired Sputnik off into orbit. Tit for tat the USSR and USA fired off various metal objects and life forms up into space culminating in 1969 with Neil Armstrong stepping out onto the Moon’s surface. In the late 60’s China came along and fired a couple of rockets up into orbit then didn’t do much else.
In the 70’s, Skylab, the first “space station”, was put into orbit by NASA, and in ’86 construction of Mir space station began. From here the world’s interest in space seemed to dwindle and slip into the background of other global events. More
By Jenna Powell | 10 Mar, 2008
Despite Wellington’s café dwelling art appreciating ‘cultured’ reputation, the 2006 crime statistics have Wellington taking out the top spot for reported rapes in New Zealand. Recently Wellington has been portrayed in various media as a danger zone with an increasing level of violent crime. Salient feature writer Jenna Powell recently spent two nights on the beat with local police officers on the mean streets of Wellington. Here she reports on the various types of crime they faced. More
By Tania Mead | 3 Mar, 2008
As any self-respecting conflict theorist will tell you, civilian casualties are a regrettable but unavoidable repercussion of war; the gruesome legacy of the twentieth century. The mind numbing statistics of non-combatant deaths since the proliferation of automatic weaponry are exactly that: mind numbing. After the initial shock of discovery in fifth form History the overwhelming impulse is to try to forget what you’ve ingested. More
By Tania Mead | 25 Feb, 2008
Out of the eighty or so students currently enrolled in Film 231 this year (the compulsory second-year paper for a film major) few would suspect that in a year or potentially less, the degree they unwarily signed up for will effectively become defunct. Students this week were unexpectedly made aware of a new proposal to dissolve the Film programme as we know it and create a new school of Visual Arts in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. More
By Tristan Egarr | 18 Feb, 2008
Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association
Warning: Studying at Victoria, you will find yourself bombarded with a mysterious Acronym: VUWSA. Much talk of AGMs, late budgets, the seconding of constitutional motions, and grants – glorious, glorious club grants – will eventually filter through to you. But mother, what on earth is all this stuff? More
By Salient | 15 Oct, 2007
While sipping champagne and eating cake at the Salient Tea Party last week, a few of the Salient crew reminisced about the moments of ‘07 that have touched us deeply. In an exclusive and frank review of the year, we’d like you to journey back with us to the mighty year of the boar.
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By Tristan Egarr | 8 Oct, 2007
In 1958, the New Zealand police officer was armed with a set of handcuffs, a baton, a torch and a whistle. Cars were a luxury, radios a thing of the future, and guns, then as now, were generally kept in the station for emergencies. Since the rotary telephone was a new and clumsy invention, 111 calls were yet to become the foundation of policing. Yet our police are still run according to the 1958 Police Act. In order to bring policing into the 21st century, and in light of a plethora of policing scandals over the last four years, the police are currently rewriting the ‘58 Act. Salient Feature Writer Tristan Egarr explores the rewrite of the Police Act and asks just what the NZ Police are for.
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By Billy the dancing moose | 1 Oct, 2007
“Keep you doped with religion, sex and tv/and you think you’re so clever and classless and free/but you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see” - John Lennon, Working Class Hero
Debt is the modern form of slavery. When you are in debt, someone else owns you - your time, effort and labour - and calls upon you to make whatever sacrifices necessary until the debt is serviced on terms they dictate. (Upon a moment’s reflection language reveals much which is hidden - we “service” debts. Servants give service to their masters. Mortgages, literally, are a contract signed “on death terms.”) More
By Salient | 24 Sep, 2007
One in seven of us used cannabis in the past year; one in twenty took illegal stimulants in 2005. Despite the wishes of conservative New Zealand, drugs are a way of life for Kiwis. With most of the public debate on drugs and their effects revolving around issues like decriminalization of marijuana and the dangers of P, marijuana and the dangers of P, Salient asked seasoned drug user Amy L. Nightrate (not his real name) to provide a personal account of his experiences with drugs. Nightrate has experimented with a vast variety of drugs, regularly when he was in his twenties. He no longer uses any hard drugs, or hallucinogens, apart from occasionally when he is overseas. He has had counselling for substance abuse. Take a trip with us…on responsible drug use.
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By Rob Addison | 17 Sep, 2007
In this year’s Official Salient Presidential Debate, Salient Feature Writer and Political Reporter Rob Addison talks with Victoria presidential candidates Geoff Hayward, Lukas Schroeter and Joel Cosgrove on Voluntary Student Membership, the A-Team’s proposal to cut the student levy and reduce student funding and what Victoria University may become if they were president.
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