After some delay, here are my rankings:

1. The Bridge of San Luis Rey
2. The Age of Innocence
3. So Big
4. Early Autumn
5. Scarlet Sister Mary
6. One of Ours
7. Arrowsmith
8. The Magnificent Ambersons
9. Alice Adams
10. The Able McLaughlins
11. His Family

Some strong similaries between Diablevert’s rankings and mine, some minor shifting of one book slightly above another, and a large difference of opinion on Bromfield and Cather. (Well, this particular Cather. My Antonia is one of my favorite books. One of Ours, not so much.) I agree with d.v.’s assessment of the post-frontier theme (and why is it that she always manages to put things so eloquently and then I come in and bat clean-up? The perils of having an awesome co-blogger… and yes, I am sucking up since my rankings are mucho belated.)

Anyhoo, this is mostly a matter of taste here: The Age of Innocence is pretty clearly a better book, more layered and masterfully written, but The Bridge of San Luis Rey had a magical clarity about it, that oracular quality that good speculative fiction has, that made me really love it. Both were books I might not have picked up and I’m truly grateful to have read. So Big is uneven at best, but there was enough humor and charm to keep me genuinely engaged, and Selina still stands in my mind months later as an engaging character.

I think I’m giving Bromfield more credit than diablevert because I went on to read The Green Bay Tree and A Good Woman. Not that I think any of those individual books is particularly good, but the three together present Bromfield’s project pretty well: the degradation of proper New England families to industrialization and the rabble. Then it’s pretty much a race to the bottom: Scarlet Sister Mary is interesting but paternalistic, One of Ours is too emo, Arrowsmith is too long with too much science talk, Booth Tarkington is condescending in both of his winning novels, The Able McLaughlins is just plain bad, and His Family was even worse. Sprinkle a hearty dash of sexism over the lot and you just about have the final six.

I do think the Pulitzers are improving in general, if they have a tendency to memorialize the patrician, the schlocky bestseller, and the schmoopy. The 1930s bring us a bunch of books that neither of us have heard of (and may not even be physically available to us… I think we irreparably damaged the already-tattered sole surviving copy of Years of Grace in any of the NYC public library systems). But we do have Gone with the Wind, The Yearling, and The Grapes of Wrath to look forward to… oh, and The Good Earth. *le sigh*

So we finally finished our first decade, and it seemed like a good time to take a quick look back and start an argument with my co-blogger by making sweeping statements about which books were best. Here’s my list:

1. Age of Innocence
2. Bridge of San Luis Rey
3. One of Ours
4. So Big
5. Scarlet Sister Mary
6. Magnificant Ambersons
7. Alice Adams
8. Arrowsmith
9. Early Autumn
10. His Family
11. Able McLaughlins

I think I may be going soft. Looking back at this first decade of the Pulitzers, I am struck by the virtues of the first batch of books that we’ve idly slogged though, even though at the time I whinged again and again about their flaws.

Succumbing — as we all must sometimes — to my inner Nick Hornby, I found I met in the middle while making my rankings.

Age of Innocence deserves its reputation as a classic, and The Bridge of San Luis Rey’s contemporary reputation could use a little dusting and buffing; I enjoyed both those books thoroughly. And while the plots of each had their flaws, both One of Ours and So Big had passages of quite fine writing (though I’d hand the laurel clearly to Cather over Ferber).

Meanwhile, down the other end of the scale The Able McLaughlins was plumb terrible, elevated, I must imagine, more for its wholesomely exotic frontier setting that for it style or its story, while His Family was frequently, leadenly awkward and Louis Bromfield hadn’t ever met a subtext he didn’t feel like explicating at tedious length.

The middle patch — Ambersons and Alice Adams and Arrowsmith — were more dull and irritating than bad, exactly; united in their snobbishness. And Scarlet Sister Mary is the odd duck; parts of it were charming, but the thorough racism of the whole text always left a sour taste beneath the sweet idyll of its island setting.

Looking at the books as a group, I’m also struck by how large a theme the Frontier is. The high prairie turns up as a literal setting in One of Ours, So Big, Arrowsmith, and Able McLaughlins. But many of the other books describe people pushing at the boundaries in other ways: Alice Adams and Ambersons describe the transformation of a small town into a big city. More metaphorically, His Family, Early Autumn, and Scarlet Sister Mary all share characters who rebel against sexual constraint, and try and strike out new roles for themselves, while Arrowsmith charts a doctor pushing the envelope of his field. Again and again, we find characters trying to cope with a world transformed from the one they knew in youth, to seize the new opportunities opened to them thereby, and not get stuck and crushed by the past.

Actually, after a memory-refreshing google and and a little bit more thought, I don’t know that Frontier is quite the word I want. Post-frontierism might be better, if that were a real word. These books aren’t really all that interested in cowboys and Indians and Conestoga wagons, about conquering the wilderness. They’re more interested in what happens when we’ve finally hit the end of the road. Picture a tired pioneer on a bluff over the Pacific, in that moment after the journey’s end, when, having drunk in its blue vastness at last, with the tang of the salt still in her nose, and the ocean breeze whipping her hair, she turns around to look back over how far she’s come, searching the land with troubled eyes: What is this place we have created? Does it have room in it for dreamers? For love? Who are these new people who have scrambled to fill the empty spaces? What has the scrambling made of them? For what do they scramble still?

Maybe it’s an odd thing that the books I like best and frankly think were best were the ones which don’t share this sense of tackling a new world of new mores; the Age of Innocence is set thirty or forty years before it was published, while Bridge is set in a half-fantasy world a continent and two centuries apart from the 1920s. Perhaps the seeming oddness explains itself: Only very fine writing could have put these books at the head of the pack when the judges were so otherwise swayed by the attempt to take on contemporary social concerns.

It looks like we might be getting a wider picture of the world in the decade to come, what with books set in China, on a Navajoh reservation, in Civil War Atlanta, and among the migrant workers of California. But after the first batch, I’m cultivating a sneaky hope that some of them won’t fit in at all, and will have bashed their way onto the list in all their frivolity on pure style alone…I think I may be turning into Oscar Wilde. Bit of a terrifying prospect, but maybe I’ll get to shag Jude Law.

Margaret and Stephen chat over skype

By Cara Sulieman

A MOTHER has been reunited with the son she was forced to put up for adoption more 44 years ago – never knowing that he had grown up living only a few miles away.

Margaret Wilson, 64, had to give her son David up for adoption when she was just 19 because being a single mum was frowned upon at the time – and she lost all hope of ever seeing him again.

But at the start of August she received a mysterious phone call that would eventually lead to her meeting her son – now called Stephen Basey.

A few days later Margaret, from Cardenden, Fife, received a touching letter from David, 44, asking to get back in touch.

“Really odd”

As soon as she realised who it was from she got on the phone and was talking to her son like they had never been apart.

She said: “A few weeks ago I had a phone call from a lady who turned out to be David’s wife Pauline asking for my date of birth and calling me by my maiden name.

“She said that someone in her family was trying to get in touch with me and I would get a letter soon.

“It was really odd, but I didn’t even for one minute think it would be about David.

“But when the letter arrived and I opened it my heart just burst with joy – the feeling was just indescribable.

“The tears just poured down my cheeks when I realised who he was.”

“Everyone was crying”

Margaret’s husband Bob was with her when she received the letter and initially thought that something was wrong.

She said: “I just couldn’t stop crying, my husband thought some bad news had come, but when I told him what it was he started crying too.

“For the rest of the day the house was full of folk crying and bringing me flowers and cards.”

Margaret gave her baby boy up for adoption four decades ago because her grandparents left her no choice.

With her parents dead Margaret’s grandparents struggled to bring up her and her two siblings and said they couldn’t afford another mouth to feed.

Visit

Margaret said: “It broke my heart, those nine months were really hard, because I knew the baby would be gone at the end of it.

“As soon as I gave birth David was taken away from me – and after 40 years I had given up all hope of ever being able to hold him.”

David and his wife Pauline came up to visit Margaret from their home in Duns, Berwickshire last month.

Margaret said that as soon as Stephen stepped out of the car she recognised him.

Stephen as a wee boy

She said: “He is the spitting image of me and has a lot of the same mannerisms.

“I ran over and hugged him for what felt like five minutes.

“We sat and talked for hours and poured over the photos of David’s childhood that he brought with him.

“When he told me where he grew up I couldn’t believe it.

“He stayed just a few miles away in Leven and used to play football even closer in Lumphinnans.

“I have missed out on so much of his life, but in all these years I never forgot about him.

“I would sit and wonder what he was doing and where he was.

“Now that we’ve found each other again where going to keep in regular contact.

“To have him back in my life again is just wonderful.”

“Nervous”

David, an off-shore oil worker, said finding his real mum still hasn’t quite sunk in.

He said: “It was weird meeting my mum, but weird in a good way.

“I didn’t want to get in touch with her whilst my adoptive parents were still alive because they were very good to me.

“I was very nervous. I didn’t know how she would react.

“But this is better than I could have thought.”

He and his own wife Pauline – a carer for disabled children – have been married for seven years.

Blessed

Although they have never had their own children together, Pauline, 52, has two sons from a previous relationship, Gary, 30, and Mark Bell, 31.

It means Margaret is now a great-grandmother to Gary’s son Ethan, five, daughter Brooke Lee, one, and Mark’s daughter Lauren, six.

Margaret and her husband Bob have been together for 35 years and married for 20 of them – celebrating their anniversary last Wednesday – never having expected that they would be blessed with a new son.

Doting Bob, 66, says Margaret has longed to see her son for 35 years.

He said: “This is absolutely brilliant, I can’t get used to somebody calling Margaret mum.

“She’s spoken about David every day since I’ve met her and I know how much this means to her.”

“She’s over the moon and I couldn’t be happier for her.”

See more of our pictures at our Flickr site and videos at our dedicated channel,  Deadline TV.

Alf salutes Dame Margaret Shields, who – we are told – was pressured by former prime minister Helen Clark not to accept the title “Dame”.

But the former MP for Kapiti did not buckle, and this afternoon she will be invested as a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

Dame Margaret is one of the 24 women and 48 men who will be formally installed as dames and knights at a ceremony in Wellington.

Helen Clark’s Labour Government replaced the titles in May 2000 with the non-titular honours of principal and distinguished companions of the order.

National restored the titles in March and gave the 84 people affected by the change four months to choose whether to become dames and knights.

According to the Herald, Clark sent Mrs Shields a letter setting out why Labour had abolished the titles and saying she hoped she would not accept one.

Dame Margaret obviously has given Clark the fingers.

She did not believe that accepting the title meant she was a royalist.

Dame Margaret said she and Helen Clark had agreed to disagree. “I have a great deal of respect for Helen, but I am not a clone.”

Former Speaker Margaret Wilson, on the other hand, has rejected the title.

But she always was something of a pain in the arse, that woman, and should never have been put in a position where she could decide to accept or reject being another Dame Margeret.

As Attorney-General, she had presided over the abolition of the right of appeal to the Privy Council.

Helen Clark, now Administrator of the United Nations Development Fund, is in New Zealand on holiday but could not be reached for comment.

But she is understood to have been deeply disappointed that Dame Margaret and some others to whom her Government awarded high non-titular honours had accepted titles.

Too bad. But who gives a toss about what Clark thinks, eh?

The electorate – like Dame Margaret – gave her the fingers good and proper at the election last year.

Miss Jessie Wilson, standing, and Miss Eleanor R. Wilson, seated, reading. c. 1912

(Excerpt from Doug Wead’s All The President’s Children) Nellie [Eleanor Randolph Wilson, 16 October 1889 – 5 April 1967] first met William Gibbs McAdoo at the governor’s mansion in New Jersey. He had been a guest of the Wilson’s and was taking an early morning train home. Nellie was assigned to see him off. McAdoo was a leader in the Democratic Party who had greatly impressed Woodrow Wilson and, unknown to the governor, had prompted a bit of a reaction from his youngest daughter, as well. Nellie was so nervous at breakfast that morning that she spilled the cream and almost spilled his coffee.

By the time Wilson was president, William McAdoo was actively pursuing Nellie Wilson, not that anyone noticed. He was the new Secretary of the Treasury, a fifty-year-old grandfather, a widower with six children. She was twenty-three and secretly engaged to a mysterious young man she had met months before on a Mexican holiday. Nellie was often seen riding horses along the trails in the Rock Creek Park and staying out at dances till three in the morning. The press, which had missed discovering Francis Sayre, was now on high alert. They speculated continually about each of Nellie’s dancing partners, but understandably missed the significance of the treasury secretary’s comings and goings at the White House.

Wedding gift to Jessie Wilson from the House of Representatives

(Woodrow Wilson House) Jessie, (born August 28, 1887) the middle daughter of Woodrow and Ellen Wilson, had always been lauded for her unique beauty. However, she was more than just a pretty face. Always aware of injustices, Jessie (along with her sisters), insisted that her father favor women’s suffrage and she continued to remain active in women’s rights until her death. She was even approached to run for Senator of Massachusetts because of her reputation as politically aware and a champion of social issues. She became secretary of the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee instead. Highly educated for a women of her time, Jessie studied, like her sister Margaret, at Goucher College and at Princeton University, where she earned a Phi Beta Kappa key for her academic accomplishments

In August 1913, two weeks before the first performance of Sanctuary, A Bird Masque, Jessie was thrown from a horse and discovered unconscious in the road by a passing doctor.

Francis B. Sayre married Jessie Wilson at the White House on November 25, 1913.

Jessie and Francis’ oldest son, born in the White House January 17, 1915, was “the Very Rev. Francis B. Sayre Jr., who in his 27 years as dean of the National Cathedral in Washington raised his sonorous voice against McCarthyism, segregation, poverty and the Vietnam War while presiding over construction of the cathedral’s majestic Gloria in Excelsis Tower.” He died October 3, 2008.

Jessie Wilson Sayre died after an emergency appendectomy operation on January 15, 1933, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Margaret Wilson, c. 1911

Margaret, the first Wilson sister, never married. She attended Goucher College from 1903 to 1905 and studied voice and piano at the Peabody Conservatory of Music from 1905 to 1906. In 1915 came her professional debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Central New York Music Festival in Syracuse, New York. She traveled throughout the midwestern and southern United States on a concert tour for the American Red Cross in 1917 and sang in Allied army camps in France, Belgium, and England during 1918/1919. Entering the advertising business in 1928, Margaret became a consultant and writer for the Blow Agency in New York, New York in 1930. In 1938 she travelled to the ashram of Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry, India where she died from a kidney infection on February 14, 1944.

(Time, February 8, 1943)On southern India’s Coromandel Coast New York Times Correspondent Herbert L. Matthews last week stumbled on one of Woodrow Wilson’s daughters. The spit and image of her father, she lives in the French town of Pondicherry (now occupied by De Gaullists). She told Mr. Matthews that she was very happy after three years as a sadhak (follower) of an Indian religious teacher, Sri Aurobindo. Said she: “In fact, I never felt more at home anywhere.”

(Cross-posted at From Laurel Street)

SEPARATED AT BIRTH – somebody in some hospital somewhere must have made a terrible terrible mistake.

Angel Locsin & Kristen Kreuk

Manilyn Reynes & Kelly Osbourne

Yasmien Kurdi & Alexis Bledel

Pokwang & Lucy Liu

Margaret Wilson & Audrina

(Emo) Gerald Anderson & Milo Ventimiglia

COULD PASS AS SISTERS – they must share the same DNA to share the same features.

Kristine Hermosa & Bridget Moynahan

Maja Salvador & Catherine Zeta Jones

Anne Curtis & Piper Perabo

Krystal Reyes & Zhang Ziyi

AND THE MISSING BROTHER

Seriously he should change his name to Matt Jonas, i.e. the missing Jonas brother.

Matt Evans & Guess-which-Jonas-Brother-is-his-Look-a-Like (Clue: it's the hair!)

Review by Jill Williamson

Margaret Wilson is heartbroken over the death of her friend, Finlay, who was killed by dragoons. Finlay wasn’t even going to a Covenanters meeting, but lately the dragoons have been striking first and asking questions later. King Charles II has recently taken the throne and claimed to be the head of the Church of Scotland. He demands that the people attend his churches only.

Margaret wants to take a stand for her faith, but she is afraid. Her parents are determined to attend the king’s services and not make trouble. She wants to obey her parents, but she feels that God is calling her to a different path. Believers should be able to worship God in their own way. Is that worth risking her life? Her determination puts her life and her siblings’ life in danger.

A woman tells Margaret that each person is called to serve God in their own way. For some that is a life of service. For others it is a life of sacrifice. Although Margaret wants to serve God without having to give up her life, she is determined to let God choose her path.

I knew little of Church history from this time period and found the struggle fascinating. Although Margaret’s story is incredible and heartbreaking, I was not drawn to her character as strongly as I would like to have been. Sometimes historical fiction reads like a list of researched events and this book got that way for me at times. If the author could have gotten deeper into Margaret’s character from a writing aspect, this book would have been amazing. I still enjoyed the history and peeking into the life of this woman who lived so long ago.

Age Range: 8 and up

Genre: Historical fiction

Part of a Series: a Chosen Daughters book

Pages: 209

Publisher: P&R Publishing

Released: 2007

Matthew d’Ancona writes intelligently at The Telegraph on the Damian Green affair. He makes some sound points which are worth taking on board and not just in the UK. One that resonated with Adam was the negative impact of having as Speaker a ‘tribalist’. Echoes of our immediate past Speaker, the illustrious Margaret Wilson.

Scoopit!

Phil Goff is renowned apparently for his volubility. This may get him into trouble. It would appear that he is another politician who may not always fully engage brain before opening mouth.

Gaffe #1 was his comments about the Maori Party. Leading Tariana Turia to accuse him of being ‘bloody patronising’.

Today we have Gaffe #2. On Morning Report this morning Goff was critical of National seeking to appoint Lockwood Smith as Speaker. Now there may be a number of reasons to object to Dr Smith as Speaker. Adam would not have chosen to make one of the main objections, indeed a primary one judging from some reports, a presumption that Mr Speaker Smith would be biased.

This from the leader of the party that put Madam Speaker Margaret Wilson into the position. A Speaker who many regard as less than stellar and far from unbiased. Indeed, on her watch the standards of debate reached a new low, as did the use of language. Further, she allowed Ministers far too much leeway in dodging questions. Such laxness will mean that if National adopts similar tactics, which Adam hopes they will not, Labour has only itself to blame.

So, uh….We’re back. Or rather, I’m back. It was all my fault. I could go into it, but why bore? New job, new city, new lots of stuff, including, eventually, a new library which had…..dunh dunh dunh…the Able McLaughlins.

Which was terrible. Worse than Poole? Ah, now there’s a puzzler. If you expect me to answer that you’ll have to pony up for the cost of a six month sabbatical on the top of a Tibetan peak, whence I could curl up into the Lotus position and truly devote my mind to such and abstruse and ineluctable philosophical puzzle. It’s terrible in its own way, really.

What was so terrible about it? Let me list the ways:

It had no plot to speak of. It had a succession of incidents which occurred in roughly chronological order.

Its main character is named Wully. Which is Scottish for Willy, it seems. It’s not the book’s fault that the only other person named Wully I’ve ever come across is the numb-skulled pictsie [sic] Daft Wullie in Terry Pratchett’s kids’ books. But it didn’t help.

It uses rape as a glib plot device. The victim is understandably and justly traumatized by the event when the plot requires it, and pretty much over it when the plot requires that, shuttling back and forth between these states several times. (You could easily say the same of several deaths which occur in the book.)

It was twee. As twee as fuck. Twee avant la lettre. When the most accurate, precise, and perceptive passages of description — the bits in a book where you read and go, Lo, here at least the author knows whereof they speak — concern a roomful of adults goo-ing at a baby, you’re twee and nothing but it.

In fact, that was maybe my biggest problem with the whole book….the most interesting, original, true-to-life bits felt like a rip off — when you’d come across a striking detail or telling bit of psychological insight, you’d think, “I wonder how she met her” not “I bet she made that up. ” It’s hard to pinpoint, exactly, yet I’m sure most people have had that feeling, especially reading a bad book — all of a sudden a character suddenly pops up off the page, a bas-relief portrait in a stick figure drawing, and you have the distinct feeling that this is a person the author’s remembering, not one they’re assembling. They say you can catch a liar by watching their eyes, that people look up and to the right when remembering, and up and to the left when making stuff up. Maybe that comes through on the page somehow.

Everybody steals, of course, especially from themselves — their own experience —but the good writers steal bits, use a glimmer of thread and not whole cloth. I remember when I was on a big Nabokov kick in college, I read several of his books quite close together, including his autobiography. I was somewhat horrified when he mentioned his mother had, after her husband’s death, worn his father’s wedding ring over her own, tying them together with thread. For he had given that same detail to the mother of one of his characters, in The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. (The mild-mannered protagonist of which was outfitted with Nabokov’s younger brother’s mouse-grey spats.) It seemed to me a violation, to steal such a gesture of sorrow from one’s own mother, and use it to make pitiable one’s fictional creation.

But that’s the thing — when I first read about the two rings in Sebastian Knight, I believed in them as fiction, because Nabokov’s a great writer. I believed him fully capable of imaging such a precise symbol of a widow’s grief, and it was a little shock to see he’d nicked it from reality. The observed detail enhanced the fictional world, and fit within it — Nabokov may have adorned his fictional widow with real jewelry, but the detail was selected to illustrate a character whose purpose and personality were known, and served the story.

Maybe that’s what the difference is with a bad writer, and a bad book — you read these sharp and particular descriptions about one character, and they don’t serve, they’re not leading to anything, they don’t snap like a puzzle piece into place, making the big picture that little bit clearer: They’re just there. That’s how you feel about a lot of Wilson’s best writing — it’s just there. She wants to cram it in, wants to show you these people she finds fascinating, the the plot of the story is just draped around them somehow, while they remain inert. Reading about the most interesting of them made me mildly curious about life on the plains back in the day, but if anything more contemptuous of the author.

So, in a word, blech. Onto So Big.

TV3 has video of yesterday’s travesty in parliament. Notice that Peters’ blink rate goes through the roof when Rodney Hide racks a round into his shotgun and aims at Peters: I suspect that those blinks were morse signals to Margaret Wilson, the speaker: “SOS…SOS…SOS…SOS…SOS…SOS”. Wilson showed herself to be incapable of adjudicating a dispute in a kindergarten; if she did attempt such a thing she’d just give all the toys to the kid who was the favourite of the principal. The transcript from parliament is a great read, click here to view it.

The NZ Herald has published letters from Glenn and Peters: for the benefit of those people who had a State education and never learnt any logic, someone is lying here, i.e. both statements cannot be true. It’s interesting that the State teaches relative truth, but no one uses relative truth when it comes to the things that really matter.

“Shall I cross the road now? I’m really in a hurry. I can see a bus approaching. Never mind, I’m sure someone else sees an empty road here, so it must be safe to cross”. Natural selection soon weeds out those people.

Scoopit!

Homepaddock has an amusing and firmly tongue-in-cheek piece on the proceedings at question time in Parliament on Tuesday.

Inventory2 at Keeping Stock is in no doubt as to his views on the Speaker’s ruling, nor is David Farrar, who in another post reproduces the transcript from Hansard.

Due to the fact that TV3 led with the Hide/Peters story and TVNZ did not, Adam was able to see the coverage on both stations. Adam considers that TV3 covered the story more completely.

The roarprawn covers this issue in several posts, the Peters issue that is, well worth a look.

Adam thinks there is more to come. Further, he thinks Peters must be subjected to a SFO investigation so that more light can be shone on the various allegations and the evidence, if there is some, tested in court.

Paul Gallagher writes about defence by parliamentary technicality and says Margaret Wilson’s hands were tied by standing orders today.

She didn’t have much in the way of options when presented with a claim of sub judicae from Winston Peters.

But:

With patience, Rodney Hide’s tenacity will hopefully see to it that these matters are properly and extensively investigated. He shouldn’t misdirect his frustration into challenging the Speaker. He should instead renew his pressure on Peters with even more vigour. Biding his time may offer Hide more time to consolidate his position.

And if the reliance on sub judicae is found to be unreasonable, Peters may have just managed this afternoon to dig himself a deeper, more hazardous hole.

And what was Hide trying to discolse today? Grant Flemming  writes:

ACT leader Rodney Hide has made explosive allegations that New Zealand First was paid off by Simunovich Fisheries to stop leader Winston Peters making corruption claims against it.

The allegations, made under parliamentary privilege, revolve around Simunovich Fisheries, which was at the centre of a 2003 parliamentary committee inquiry into the allocation of quota for a crustacean called scampi.

. . . Mr Hide’s allegations, included in questions to Prime Minister Helen Clark on the Government’s stance on corruption, included:

- that a businessmen had told The Dominion Post newspaper he was one of several people Simunovich boss Peter Simunovich had given cheques of $9999 in 2002 to pass on to NZ First in return for Mr Peters stopping allegations of wrongdoing by Simunovich Fisheries and he had said that “sure enough within a couple of weeks Winston Peters did shut up”;

- that a statement from the businessman, who was now afraid for his safety, had been passed on to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO);

- that the businessman claimed Mr Peters had gone to meet Mr Simunovich to discuss the evidence of corruption and had stated that for a payment of $50,000 “we would just slowly get rid of it”;

- that the businessman had kept the bank records.

Peters said the claims were baseless and formed the basis of a defamation case.

Mr Peters later attempted to ask his own question, which appeared to suggest there may have been cheques NZ First had received from some individuals or groups but never cashed.

“If there was a subsequent series of cheques, paid some substantial time later, despite the fact that there was an inquiry in this house that concerned a business and, here’s the relevant point, those cheques were never cashed.”

Mr Peters was then cut off by Ms Wilson on the basis that Mr Peters himself had claimed the matter was sub judice.

These are very serious allegations which must be investigated because it’s not only Winston Peters’ career at stake, it’s New Zealand’s reputation for the absence of corruption.

Hat tip: Keeping Stock

The Labour Party is in disarray tonight after Speaker Margaret Wilson admitted she has been assisting Rodney Hide with Act’s election campaign.

“It started on August the first when Rodney provoked me into cracking a joke. Everyone laughed and I liked it and people liked me. It was all such fun and I wanted more of it,” she said.

“I realised then it wasn’t going to happen with Labour in power, you see we’re not allowed to laugh. Helen says so and Heather makes sure we do what we’re told. But I liked laughing, I’m sick of being the bossy one, no-one likes, it’s lonely.

“That’s when I made the decision to help Rodney’s election campaign and that’s why I did what I did today.

“I kept saying I was sorry but I wasn’t really, because I knew that if I didn’t let Rodney ask his question and then sent him out he’d get all that wonderful publicity and Act would get more votes and join National in government and then we’ll all have so much more fun in the next parliament. Not that I’ll be there but I’ll still watch it on TV and be able to see Rodney. He’ll be a Minister and all because I helped him.

“It was going to be our little secret, but I had to come out about it because everyone’s picking on me. They think I was wrong  and they’re saying nasty things  because they don’t understand  what I was doing.

“Of course I wasn’t letting Winston Peters get away with anything fishy or hide behind standing orders or parliamentary privilege; and it had nothing at all to do with needing his votes to pass legislation for the Emissions Trading Scheme; and I definitely wasn’t being unfair to Rodney.

“That would be showing bias, it would bring the house into disrepute, goodness me, it might even prompt people to suggest I was incompetent and cast aspersions on my impartiality, then they’d start going on about freedom of speech and democracy. And we couldn’t have that just because they didn’t realise I was joking.”

Labour leader Helen Clark could not be reached for comment but her spokesperson Heather Simpson said she thought is was a hoot.

Hat Tips: Keeping Stock, The Hive, Roarprawn, Half Done,

I started the previous post by saying the headline was guaranteed to get media attention, so too was this one.

The slogan “Girls can do anything” needed to be reprised for a younger generation because the battle for equal rights was not over, National List MP Katherine Rich said yesterday.

Invited to speak by the New Zealand Federation of Graduate Women Otago branch, Mrs Rich chose the topic “Feminism is not an F Word” before addressing the more than 70 people at the Hutton Theatre, at Otago Museum.

… The provocative title was chosen because young women often told her the battle for equal rights had been won, and the word feminism, to them, conjured up images of “hairy armpits” and “burning bras”.

Feminism should be seen neither as a dirty word, nor as a relic of some forgotten past, Mrs Rich said. She was proud to be called a feminist and “people say they are really surprised by that”.

Bringing back the “Girls can do anything” campaign was one way to encourage girls to realise their ambitions, as the world was a different place once they left school. There was “still huge progress to be made”, particularly around pay disparity, she said.

A survey carried out by Mrs Rich on policy analysts in various ministries revealed men were paid between $2000 and $28,000 more than women even when working in more senior roles.

Policy analysis is policy analysis, if people have similar qualifications and experience, are working the same hours in the same sort of job gender shouldn’t come in to it. Are women not as good at negotiating as men? What role does the Public Services Association play here? Was she comparing apples with apples, or did women have broken work histories because of taking away from the work force to have children? If not we have a problem.

 While great progress had been made in recent years, representation of women in the workforce and pay equality were still issues worth fighting for, she said.

“There is no silver-bullet solution.”

In February, Mrs Rich announced she was stepping down from Parliament to concentrate on her family and a new career direction.

“I have had a good nine years,” she said. “I leave pretty positive about the whole democratic process.

“Politics isn’t a job. It is a life, all day and every day . . . and the public don’t deserve anything less.”

Mrs Rich said she was inspired to enter politics after hearing former National Party MP Marilyn Waring speak at St Hilda’s Collegiate School.

“I was just 13 years old and I have never forgotten her speech”.

Ms Waring was one of the first people she contacted after being demoted by former National Party leader, Don Brash.

“I rang her up and said we may have some things in common.”

One highlight during her three terms in Parliament was watching the first female speaker of the House, Margaret Wilson, be received by former Governor-General, Dame Silvia Cartwright and Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Not since she attended the Outram Brownies in 1975 had she witnessed three females in charge, she said.

“When my daughter grows up I hope she gets to see something like this again.”

In February Poneke asked, as New Zealand’s golden decade of female leadership  comes to an end, what will be the role models for our daughters? HIs 15 year-old daughter posted a response which resulted in a new post, daughter finds the “girls can do anything” refrain demeaning.

Role models are personal, and when I looked at the women in the three positions Katherine mentioned, and added Chief Justice Dame Sian Ellias and Teresa Gattung, who was then CEO of Telecom our biggest company, I noticed none had children.

I respect what they have achieved, their right to not have children and that their accomplishments may motivate others to follow them but they weren’t role models for me. I like, respect and admire Katherine far more not just for what she has been doing as an MP and how she did it, but also for making the very, very tough call to resign for the sake of her family.

[Correction - Poneke and Colin Lucas have pointed out I was wrong - Sian Ellias does have children].

Scoopit!

Inventory2’s post A Question of Privilege at Keeping Stock alerted Adam to Margaret Wilson’s ruling that the complaints from Gordon Copeland and Rodney Hide are to be referred to the Privileges Committee.

Adam must admit that he was surprised that Speaker Wilson made this ruling. He is inclined to agree with Idiot Savant’s view in Winston Must Be Sacked that the the ’so called all powerful Privileges Committee’ will prove to be a toothless bulldog.

Indeed, this comment in a Herald web item might be taken by some as suggesting that Madam Speaker had already formed a view on this issue:-

Mr Peters has denied any wrongdoing and Mrs Wilson said she had received a full and “compelling” explanation from him.

We must take into account here the comment by Duncan Garner when he blogged the other day that the Rt Hon Winston Peters is neither Right nor Honourable, saying in respect of his behaviour in the House:-

He is aided and abetted by Margaret Wilson who lets him get away with it.

Why we do not know.

Adam trusts that the SFO will launch a proper investigation.

The role of Speaker does not present many opportunities for exercising a sense of humour but Margaret WIlson got, and used, one yesterday:

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Because the member decided to descend to that level, I will tell the House what is not being honest and transparent-anywhere in the world, in fact. At a recent parliamentary function, an MP pretended that a woman friend was his new girlfriend, introduced her to the press gallery as such, and also introduced that same person in a Koru lounge as such, when he knew, demonstrably and palpably, that that information was not correct.
Hon Members: Who’s your girlfriend, Rodney!
Rodney Hide: Madam Speaker-[Interruption] Point of order, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: Point of order, Rodney Hide.
Rodney Hide: It was not you, Madam Speaker!
Madam SPEAKER: That comment was uncalled for; everyone knows I have taste and style.

Hat tip: Whale Oil

Chicane 4 July 2008 on Stuff

Defending the indefensible

Dear lord, how many of these books are about callow young men? (And one young woman?) Seriously, people, I’m getting bildungsroman-ed out. Anyway, the following summary of The Able McLaughlins is rather extended; I found this book difficult to obtain and scarcely described online, so for the good of other intrepid Pulitzer readers, here are the full deets.

Our 1924 winner by Margaret Wilson is mainly about one son of a large Scottish clan that has overtaken the Iowa plains in the years surrounding the Civil War. Wully, the eldest of sixteen, has just arrived home from a stint in the Union army, determined to marry. He’s had his cap set for Chirstie McNair since they shared a tender moment during his convalescent visit home from the front, but when he rushes over to her home to propose, she dramatically avoids him, weeping and hiding in her house with her father’s old gun. After a few weeks of anguished confusion, he learns that, in his absence, Chirstie was raped by Peter Keith, the town ne’er-do-well. Wully drives Peter out of town, confronts his personal rage and shame, and pretty much strong-arms Chirstie into marrying him right away, even though she is pregnant with Peter’s child. Wully sets up house with Chirstie and her younger siblings (their mother is dead and their father has returned to the old country for a spell) and tells his family that the baby is his, suffering great shame from his mother because everyone’s doing the math between the baby’s expected date of arrival and their wedding date, and they just don’t add up.

Meanwhile, Chirstie’s absent father arrives back from Scotland with a new wife, Barbara. Barbara seems to be a bit of Glasgow society, for she has trunks of fine clothes and feels generally deceived by her husband for bringing her across the ocean to live “in a sty.” (In a fairly amusing diversion from the main plot, Barbara cons her cheapskate husband to build her an expensive new house that becomes the envy of the community.) Wully and Chirstie move in with the McLaughlins to await the birth of the baby, suffering the constant complaints of Libby Keith, Peter’s mother, bemoaning her absent son. Chirstie’s baby, wee Johnnie, is born, and he’s beloved by all despite the shameful circumstances of his conception.

Wully and family move into a new house with Wully’s younger brother, John, and begin to cultivate their own plot of land. Their peace is shattered, however, when Chirstie spots Peter Keith at their back door. She flips the script, and Wully decides to find Peter and kill him before he has a chance to do his family any more harm. In searching for him, Wully inadvertently alerts the neighborhood of Peter’s return home, and Libby Keith works everyone into a frenzied manhunt when Peter fails to show up at the family homestead. Even Wully is forced into the search for Peter, which drags on and on. And on

Eventually everyone must return to the harvest, but Wully decides to bring in his wheat and then leave the farm to sell lumber in town, thinking that Chirstie would feel safer in a less isolated spot. Irony of ironies, when he, Chirstie, and Johnnie are passing an idyllic day in town, Wully meets up with the dying Peter Keith, whom he refuses to transport back to his distraught mother. Chirstie, however, can’t handle having this sin on their collective souls, so in the end they load Peter into their wagon to bring him back home. It’s all good, though, because in the end Wully can gloat that Peter’s last earthly sights will be of Wully content with a beautiful wife raising Peter’s own son as his own. Sucka.