Archive

Celebz in NZ

Posted 11:52pm Monday 9th August 2010 by Staff Reporter

Celebrity in New Zealand is a weird thing. We subscribed to America’s world-conquering culture of celebrity worship, and then inevitably wanted to transpose the same devotion to homebred stars. But that’s difficult in a country of New Zealand’s size and humility. A country whose biggest celebrity Read more...

Religion on campus

Posted 4:34am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Susan Smirk

Faith shapes the world we live in. We may think that we live in a world of pure science and secularism, but our history, our society, and our individual lives are still shaped by world views grounded in religious belief. What we think about the universe, human nature, death, God, and the human soul Read more...

Religion: Explained

Posted 4:31am Monday 2nd August 2010 by Jonathan Jong

The oddness of religion.Every 12 years, millions of Hindus from all over the world gather in India for the Maha Kumbh Mela pilgrimage. In 2001, 70 million people attended, purportedly making it the largest gathering of people in history.   Somewhat less impressively, three million Read more...

Maori Mythos

Posted 11:16pm Sunday 25th July 2010 by Caitlyn O’Fallon

“Her body was like that of a human being, but her eyes were greenstone, her hair sea-kelp, her mouth was like that of a barracuda, and sharp flints of obsidian and greenstone were set between her thighs … Maui was determined to enter Hine-nui-te-po’s body, consume her heart, and then aimed to Read more...

A History of the Decline of the Maori Language (He Hatori o te Heke Haere o te Reo Maori)

Posted 11:03pm Sunday 25th July 2010 by Jared Mathieson

Once upon a time te reo Maori (the Maori language) was the only spoken language in New Zealand. However, these days only four percent of our entire population is able to hold a general conversation in te reo. Sadly, only 24 percent of all Maori are fluent speakers. It was once thought that the Read more...

Critic’s Easy Guide to the Essentials of Te Reo Maori

Posted 11:02pm Sunday 25th July 2010 by Hauauru Rae

Meet and Greet/ Wa Tutaki   Hello (informal) Kia ora  key-ah order    Hello (formal, to one person) Tena koe ten-are kweh Hello (formal, to two) Tena korua ten-are call-roo-ah Hello (formal, to three or more) Tena koutou ten-are co-toe   Read more...

BODY COUNT: What happens to the bodies donated to the Otago medical school?

Posted 10:35pm Sunday 18th July 2010 by Susan Smirk

There is a certain room in the medical school – a large and featureless room, lit with a fluorescent glow. In this room, there are corpses laid out on trolleys, in grey body bags. They are there right now. And if you are lucky enough the get into Medicine, you will spend two years cutting, probing, Read more...

Home is where the heart is.

Posted 10:28pm Sunday 18th July 2010 by Caitlyn O’Fallon

If we ever stop to think about it, most of us know little to nothing about homelessness. We’ve probably walked past unfortunates huddled down for the night in an alley or turned away from the guy at the bus stop asking for change. Caitlyn O’Fallon set out to find out who the homeless in Dunedin Read more...

3 minutes* (*More or less.)

Posted 10:24pm Sunday 18th July 2010 by Henry Feltham

People used to have attention spans – it’s the only possible explanation for opera, Charles Dickens, and cricket. Nowdays, I can’t imagine sitting through five hours of Wagner, even with chemical aid. Most of my friends watch a movie in two or three sittings, or can’t be bothered at all – they Read more...

SKEGG

Posted 10:52pm Sunday 11th July 2010 by Susan Smirk

Sir Professor David Skegg OBE BMedSc MBChB (Otago) DPhil (Oxon) MFPHM FAFPHM FRSNZ University of Otago Vice Chancellor Sir Professor David Skegg announced last month that he was standing down. Goneskies. Kaput. Done. So ovah it. Well, sort of – he is going to stick around for the next year. Read more...