Sunday, October 08, 2017

Another one bites the dust

What a blow. Rodney Hide announces his last column for the Herald on Sunday. I suppose it'll save a few minutes of my day not having to open the Herald page of a Sunday morning but that's the only upside I can think of and it's not a very good one.

There are countless opinion writers, as mentioned yesterday. There are three I take note of. Karl du Fresne, Martin van Beynen and Colin James. Occasionally I will glance at other writers columns, if the headline interests. But rarely do I reach the end. Mostly because it's recycled pap. The same ideas get expressed repeatedly with little thought about the manner of expression even. Originality is a rare commodity. In part that is why I blog infrequently now. I have said all I have to say and don't want to bore the readers or myself.

But Hide always had a new twist on something. Sometimes the twists seemed implausible but they never failed to either entertain or turn over the grey matter.

Perhaps he could be persuaded to start a blog? Creative thinkers need an outlet. And Lord knows, the rest of us need to hear their thoughts.

8 comments:

Barry said...

I think he created the Independent Maori Statutory Authority - he is despised forever for that.

Anonymous said...

He also created Auckland's super city chaos, despised forever for that, despite his good intentions. It's a shame the hard left Soper is there to say, everything he writes is a thinly disguised rant for the Labour/Green bloc. Basically they are calling it for Labour, how ridiculous, with National well ahead both in the party vote and electorate seats. How is that a vote for change?? Wishful thinkers, me thinks.

Anonymous said...

Hide is wrong on at least two counts:
- Scotland has MMP*. Seems to work well.
- The two week delay was nothing to do with MMP: it's the changed rules about late enrolment and special voting**

*OK, Scotland has a slightly better version of MMP than NZ. They use several regional lists rather than a single nationwide list, so you vote for an electorate MP and a regional MP: much harder to claim list MP aren't elected. Doesn't change the overall result though.

Mark Hubbard said...

Rodney is a great columnist. Outside of NBR, the voice of liberty is becoming swamped by the progressive agenda. It's very depressing.

Anonymous said...

I guess he is not progressive enough for Granny Herald. Yes, he writes well, along with Colin James. We will be left with no one but hard lefties, all making it up as they go along...globalist agenda here we come.

Anonymous said...

I like listening to him on the radio when its on as background white noise but never read his column because that would require buying a whole lot of otherwise useless paper to read just a tiny bit of it. I can light the fire with the local freebies.

It seems to me that he hasn't really delivered and that annoys me a bit - I hoped he would actually do something to reverse the rot. Becoming infatuated with a woman to the degree he, as a supposed grown up, forgot whose money it was paying for trips was the final straw.

I wonder why I hate politics then just spend 10 seconds thinking about that view to know I'm right to do so. I accept its a necessary evil but struggle with the evil doers being so stupid.

3:16

Anonymous said...

I always read Rodney's stuff - Hidesight's always good.

Anonymous said...

Fudge, Winston just chose the losing bloc, frigging disgusting. So much for the will of the people eh!!! MMP is a disgrace, and Winston just handed us a PM the people rejected by over 200,000 votes! Feel very sorry for Bill English, the true PM elect.