David Lange: Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible
"Most New Zealanders watched David Lange contest and win the 1985 Oxford Union debate, arguing the proposition that 'nuclear weapons are morally indefensible' with a mixture of pride and astonishment. After decades of knowing our place, and several years of government by homunculus, suddenly we had a Prime Minister who could stride the international stage with insouciance. And briefly, we seemed to matter.
Although New Zealand's nuclear-free policy did not become law until 1987, it was integral to early years of the fourth Labour government. The 1984 snap election that made Lange Prime Minister was called by Robert Muldoon when National MP Marilyn Waring withdrew her support for her party over the issue of nuclear ship visits. Labour won the election with a nuclear ban as a flagship policy.
The policy was popular among New Zealanders, but not without cost. Our relationship with the US deteriorated in the early weeks of 1985. On the same journey that took him to Oxford, Lange, four days before the debate, met with a US State Department official who outlined the retaliatory measures that the US would be taking against New Zealand. The ANZUS alliance of which New Zealand had been part since 1951 was effectively cancelled at that meeting."
(Public Address, 14 October 2004)
This is the introduction to the transcript of the Rt. Hon. David Lange's 1985 Oxford Debate. The transcript is copyright to Public Address. It was prepared by Russell Brown and Fiona Rae, with the consent of David Lange. Thanks are due to Radio New Zealand’s Sound Archives/Nga Taonga Korero (File: Media Numbers T4705 to T4708), Infofind, the Parliamentary Library and Barry Hartley.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Crash test: the 2009 Chevrolet Malibu vs. the 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air
"In the 50 years since US insurers organized the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, car crashworthiness has improved. Demonstrating this was a crash test conducted on Sept. 9 between a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air and a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu. In a real-world collision similar to this test, occupants of the new model would fare much better than in the vintage Chevy.
'It was night and day, the difference in occupant protection,' says Institute president Adrian Lund. 'What this test shows is that automakers don't build cars like they used to. They build them better.'"
(Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 9 September 2009)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Pink Flamingos: a provocative celebration of otherness
"'Pink Flamingos was an antihippie movie made for hippies who would be punks in two years. It's a pothead movie. I wrote it on pot.' - John Waters"
(Jeff Jackson, DreamlandNews)
Fig.1 John Waters (1972). trailer for "Pink Flamingos".
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Les Enfants Terribles: Illustrator Robert Williams
"This alternative art movement found its most congealing participant in one of America's most opprobrious and maligned underground artists, the painter, Robert Williams. It was this artist to brought the term 'lowbrow' into the fine arts lexicon, with his ground breaking book of 1979, The Lowbrow Art of Robert Williams. It was from this point, that the seminal elements of West Coast Outlaw culture slowly started to aggregate."
(Robert Williams)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
2011 Calendar: Mapping Stereotypes
"A map collection depicting various national stereotypes in Europe and the world taken from the Mapping Stereotypes project by Yanko Tsvetkov."
(Yanko Tsvetkov, 2011)
Fig.1 Yanko Tsvetkov. "The World According to USA"
Fig.2 Yanko Tsvetkov. "Europe According to Gay Men"
Fig.3 Yanko Tsvetkov. "Hitchhiker's Guide to The Arab Spring"
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
