Jolisa Gracewood

Female #kakapo are utterly focussed on their chicks. Stella came back to the nest while I was checking her very young chicks two nights ago. Apparently unconcerned by me being there, she jumped in and started brooding them in front of me. #conservation #parrots #birds #kakapo2026

“She was a person for whom kindness was a very ordinary thing, who believed that the only acceptable excuse for not having a bird feeder in the back garden was that you had one in the front garden.” From the novel Leonard and Hungry Paul, by Rónán Hession (describing Leonard’s mother).

Lovely! By coincidence I had just noted this line in a book…

He aroha whakatō He aroha puta mai. If kindness is sown, Then kindness you shall receive.

He aroha whakatō He aroha puta mai. If kindness is sown, Then kindness you shall receive.

He aroha whakatō
He aroha puta mai.
If kindness is sown,
Then kindness you shall receive.

Banana's Loose

Dire warning at the supermarket

“so library”, on the other hand… 💁🏻‍♀️

Download advice on feeding newborns to teens

Reminds me of Swift’s Modest Proposal.

requiem for vanished birdsong

A sign at the supermarket advertising “Whole Raw Australian Banana” - as a “Meat and Seafood Deal” - and you have to read the fine print to discover these are, in fact, prawns. Banana prawns I guess…is that a thing??

Bananas defying categorisation, becoming ungovernable…

In terms of coherence of policy positions, Labour were moving towards lowering the voting age to 16 years old.

They would also be in favour of civics education for children, so that when they can vote, they understand some of how the system works.

But now they support cutting off access to info?

1908: the Lancet, one of the most respected scientific journals, calls for 18 age limit on reading in bed amidst a moral panic surrounding children becoming "addicted" to novels, which were "designed to keep kids hooked" and destroy their attention/mental health

1906: "Books have become the modern narcotic." Novels were compared to opium, alcohol and cigarettes and parents wanted restrictions on children being able to read them.

Novels were compared to narcotics, and people pushing the moral panic wanted restrictions placed on who could purchase them. Reading was compared to gluttony and it was believed those who read novels were brain rotted, low IQ.

Books about jazz were blamed for making children depressed and causing suicide and brain rot ("lop-sided brains"), they wanted to ban children under 16 from reading them.

AN OPEN LETTER ABOUT THE FUTURE OF CRITIC TE ĀROHI.

NZ hospital voice non-recognition system error caught by human transcriber.

Early morning - sun about to rise with peachy clouds over trees

The moon heading towards moonset

This morning

East vs West

Reet petite! Like she’s shrunk in the wash, but in a good way - the accidentally flattering crop top of dogs.

Oh I LOVE this!! Going to use this one a lot

The Brighter Future What would this country look like in a decade or so if we actually did what so desperately needs doing?

Emily Writes @emilywrites.co.nz and I are starting a new series called The Brighter Future, where writers and artists and poets and so on imagine what a better future might look like, if we actually did some of the needful that's right in front of us: www.emilywrites.co.nz/the-brighter...

Sunset shot of my jolly productive cucumber plant, defying gravity twice over by clambering vertically up the garden arch and dangling rather fruitily (the old-fashioned kind with spikes)

Daytime cucumbers, plentiful and shiny.

(I appreciate this respectful elucidation, gents... ye olde Twitter feelings.🥹

Some random cucumbers by way of thanks.)

This aligns with my suspicions, which are admittedly largely based on vibes - but am always all ears for more grounding details.

Was thinking of this too….will the oil crisis be so bad we will go back to car-free sundays because there isn’t going to be enough oil/petrol for everyone?

One of the most iconic photos of that time.

That is one scenic cat! Good to have an easy-on-the-eye companion to delight in, when other things are hard. ❤️‍🩹

Hehe, priors, innit.

Hmm… the “now” bit feels extremely newsworthy to me, but then I am just a humble news-watcher.

Agree tho, the survey result was headline-worthy, assuming no material changes to the survey in the interim. (Stuff’s take felt useful: a significant drop - but still a significant number)

Talk me through it? As a casual observer of the news, it was an intriguing juxtaposition of two not unrelated sets of numbers (which opened up good questions about the effectiveness of political approaches to issues that had been quite vigorously campaigned on…)

Genuine q, what was wrong with the story? It was just reporting numbers, no?

Excellent, thank you!

As the laid off Middle East News Editor, I concur. Management eliminated the positions of every single staff correspondent and bureau chief in the Middle East.

Another awful scarring of another generation.