> The ominous paralysis continues. There has been a slight sprinkle—an exceedingly slight sprinkle—in the correspondence columns, of angry rebukes of the President for calling this cowardly massacre a “brilliant feat of arms,” and for praising our butchers for “holding up the honor of the flag” in that singular way; but there is hardly a ghost of a whisper about the feat of arms in the editorial columns of the papers.

https://www.marktwainproject.org/writings/autobiography3/autobiography/autobio_dictations/autobio1_1906-03-14/
#MarkTwain #ThePress1906 #ThePress #NYT1906 ?
#JoloMassacre #MassacreOfMoros

Great news. PapersPast have added issues of The [Christchurch] Press from 1990 to 1995! They will be a mine of information, especially for those researching recent family history, especially in that part of Aotearoa.

#genealogy #newspaper #ThePress #PapersPast

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers

There's a standout article in #ThePress by Charlie Mitchell detailing how in the 1960s Christchurch city, NZ, came within a whisker of having a major motorway built through the middle of Hagley Park. That's the big park in the core of the city. The majority of local politicians were all for the motorway and it was only stopped by a coincidental administrative change in the way parks were managed that was backed by a national government decision.

Christchurch's mayor in the late 1960s, Ron Guthrey, was an ardent motorway supporter. The Press article notes how, in his inaugural speech as mayor, "he floated the idea of allowing cars to drive through the Botanic Gardens". At the next election he became the first sitting Christchurch mayor to be defeated in nearly half a century.

I see some parallels here with our current self-described "petrol head" mayor who wants to dig up a central city cycleway.

In the 1960s, opposition to the motorway was led by conservative councillor Peter Skellerup. “Surely the cult of the motor-car is not so strong that we carve through our oldest and most beloved reserve,” he said in 1963. “You can't land an aeroplane in the city… surely the car should be restricted from certain places.” "Skellerup, running to reclaim his seat, won more votes than any other council candidate in New Zealand’s history."

https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/360820413/road-not-taken-how-abandoned-hagley-park-motorway-changed-christchurch

#Christchurch #nz #Cars #roads #UrbanPlanning #motorways

This is called a Kleptocracy, which is an inevitable characteristic of fascism - but it will be a cold day in Hell before mainstream news media will call it either of those things...

https://mastodon.online/@BlueBeachSong/115095493244322240

#BrokenTimes #News #ThePress

For the record, we are way past Betteridge's Law. In case you don't know it, it's the one about how any news headline formulated as a question can be answered "No".

In a time where erstwhile respectable outlets' headlines be like "Is Alligator Alcatraz illegal?" or "Is Trump a criminal?" or "Did a cop murder a black person?" etc., the new rule of thumb is that #ThePress will use the question format to avoid having to state something obvious/factual that might make rich people mad.

It's local election year in Christchurch City, NZ, which means we have some politicians, including our self-confessed "petrol-head" mayor, making noise about the city's allegedly high spending on cycle ways. There's a good article today in #ThePress pushing back against that, showing that cycle way spending will be about 0.11% of rates increases. They compare that with the 4.6% rates increase for our new stadium.

What the article doesn't do is compare the city's cycle way and car way spending. I found numbers for the region on the ECan website for the next 10 years, for building and servicing our transport infrastructure. It's 74.3% car spend (mostly road maintenance and improvements), 21.9% public transport (including operating the bus fleets), and 3.3% cycling and walking.

https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/360782234/what-cutting-cycleways-would-really-save-ratepayers

https://www.ecan.govt.nz/your-region/living-here/transport/regional-transport-planning/canterbury-transport-spend

#Cycleways #bikes #nz #biketooter #nzpol

Consider if you will this headline: "Are women paid less than men for the same work?"

Or "Did people die from COVID?"

Or "Does smoking cause cancer?"

OK, how about this one: "Did the Nazis kill Jews in concentration camps?"

NOW DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND WHY YOU DON'T FRAME FUCKING FACTS AS A FUCKING QUESTION, YOU FUCKING FASCISM-ENABLING DICKHOLES!?!?!???

#media #ThePress #news #communication