OF BOOKS AND BLOGS

The debate over the publication of a "tell all " book by the mother of the Kahui twins Macsyna has been interesting to watch.

I would not buy it - That's my decision to make.

I write a blog - its about my thoughts and it pisses some people off but I dont care if people read it or not. Thats their choice.

Someone can put up a facebook page and say that the retailers should not sell the book. That's their right too. And its the right of Booksellers to stock it or not.

Everyone can say what they think, say what they want to, say what they believe and say what they want people to believe.

Just as its everyone's right to think and read what they want.

That's a basic tenet of our NZ society.

The social media machine is the modern day equivalent of the persecutions of the witches of Salem.

And its up to us all to ensure that just because the platform for communication is a huge machine that can sow the seeds of discontent in a nanosecondm that we should not worship it and everything that it germinates. And what it germinates is a weed that induces an online form of mass hysteria.

We need to hold fast to our values. As individuals we are strong enough to make choices. And the less we are driven by our heads and hearts to make those decisions and the more we listen to the machine the weaker our society will become.

So we will not buy the book. But that's because our heart says its not the story we want to read. And not because of some "page" on an internet site.

AIRNZ FACEBOOK DEAL CRASH LANDS

We saw a deal from Airnz via facebook a couple of days ago - its was touted as a fantastic deal that would only be accessed via a FB page for on hour on june 6

so we duly, along with thousands of others clicked at 7pm and the site crashed. then as Airnz scrambled to fix the problem they gave everyone the wrong code to access the deal. By all accounts ( we never managed to access it ) the deal was not that great anyway.

Al that would have been bad but the amazing thing was how fast people went feral.

This is known in the NZ Blogger world as a SMOG - Social media own goal.

Tens of thousands of people were seriously pissed off - pissed off to create an anti Airnz facebook page (450 followers in the half hour following the close of the deal) - and two tui billboards..

Will be interesting to see what AirNZ does to clean this mess up - also shows what an ugly beast social media can be. Its a cheetah on P.

STOP THE LAW BREAKING

Ohh Cool! Labour launched a campaign, it was highjacked. They did something illegal. They claimed the law was an ass. The were forced to remove the signs. They looked silly. And in true Labour form they blame someone else for the failure of their poorly executed idea. But the people who took the piss didn't break the law. They didnt make a pigs arse of the campaign and they didnt blame someone else for their cock-up.

TV3 reports that they have had to remove their signs from the main road to Wainui.

And they blame it on some group called "Right Wing Bloggers"

Hail to the Whale and the Kiwi, the Hong Kong Queen of Mean and Keeping Stock.

Let the Game begin.