Patrick Craddock

I have just read this in The Spinoff, a NZ media outlet. Just a couple of days ago I was writing about shoplifting and the law. Obviously this shoplifter needs help. Her jail penalty is going to cost you and me around $600,000. This coalition government  talks big time about money, money, money!!!!!! It needs to extend the money dialogue on how the money is used. It does know how to thump a person with a big stick.  Will it bother itself  to become  wiser  and to spend more money to try and get inside  the head of Misty  and   help  her? Is ” intensiveRead More →

I am not a criminal. Too old to risk it. I don’t want  to commit a crime, but I do believe the  coalition which talks about safety and cutting crime and boosting the economy needs to think about the future of NZ, not just the future of their own egos and arses. If I steal from a retail store this may happen to me … a maximum prison sentence of one year for thefts valued around $2000 or less, and up to seven years if the stolen goods exceed $2000 in value. Including police, courts and prison costs it is already approaching $200,000 a yearRead More →

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I’m a fan of Shakespeare. His thoughts and words have been inside me for many years. I understand part of him. I’ll die without knowing the writing of the whole man. But, no worry. Until my last minutes  I hope to keep exploring his head and heart. Frequently I think,  is there a way to reach into the head of a child with the Bard? Because, if that is possible then the Sweet Swan of Avon may become  a lifelong friend and companion to the child as he/she grows.  What a gift!. But, things go wrong, eh!  Politicians want  to force him down our throats.Read More →

I have been reading a little modern history today from the US Brown University Watson  Institute of International and Public Affairs . It notes  that US led wars resulted in in 940,000 deaths since 2001 in conflict zones. This ignores other indirect deaths such  as war related diseases, US military deaths and those linked to them, such as the tasks of contractors. DT says today ‘CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, ITS’ TIME FOR PEACE. A friend of the US, the Israel Culture  Minister Miki Zohar says, ”….what we’re facing – a regime that is trying to kill innocent people. When you are dealing with evil, this is aRead More →

…would surely be welcome. The President says his Director of Intelligence has got it wrong about Iran. Where does the DT get his information from?  Trump secret files and social media $$$$$$. Awful, Angry, Airy Intelligence.   Any intelligence at all? And let’s dare not talk about  care and concern and humanity!!!! Here in NZ, like the rest of the world we are sadly impacted by this DT man.   He  admires Israel. Please give him citizenship, an air ticket and a house.  Now!!!!! His talk about waiting for two weeks on an Iran War decision may be yet another message of false intelligence.  Read More →

In NZ we  trade with the world. Our P.M.today is in China  for that purpose. But  we sit on the fence about this latest war and did you look at today’s murder/genocide by Israel of the defenceless . This  headline was from the BBC. We trade with the world, how come we choose to ignore much of the world action? Its nothing to do with NZ, I hear you say!!!!!! Israeli forces kill 51 Palestinians waiting for flour at Gaza aid site, witnesses and rescuers say  Read More →

There was once an expression about ‘ Hitler’s Children’ . It had an ominous  feel and fear to it.  I think we can now talk about ‘ Netanyahu’s Children’. Who would be an innocent Israeli or a Jew (not the same) living outside Israel and feeling fearful for their safety? Trust in the US must be moving downhill at great speed.  Rubio says the US did not know about the attack on Iran, Trump says he knew . What I do know, is that I feel sick about war and peace.  The former word, war, seems to be the same as the latter for theRead More →

A dialogue on values.  Elon Musk says, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilisation is empathy”. Hannah Arendt who lived in Hitler’s Germany and covered the Israel trial of Adolf Eichmann, a German war criminal wrote, “The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.      Read More →

I have always read  the world news. Guess it’s the DNA of being a journalist and I was that for many years.  But theatre has been a huge love too.  I see world events recurring on stage again and again.. Today I saw it.  Some years ago ago I directed  the play Antigone, the Greek  legend about how a ruler stops the burial of a dead Prince after a war. His mourning sister. Antigone, defies Creon, the ruler and buries her brother. She dies too. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I revamped the legend  to  a modern setting  and made  Vladimir Putin, the ruler.  Today  theRead More →