Tag: new zealand

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International News

International // New Zealand Prime Minister Resigns

On Sunday December 4, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, John Key, announced his intention to resign after eight years in the position.

According to the New York Times, Key resigned with his family in mind. “For my wife Bronagh there have been many nights and weekends spent alone. My daughter Stephanie and my son Max have transitioned from teenagers to young adults while coping with an extraordinary level of intrusion and pressure because of their father’s job,” he said in the speech announcing his resignation.

Key’s eight year term has encompassed a number of successes. WSJ reported his leadership has been marked with stability and prosperity for New Zealand. Key steered them out of a recession, rebuilt major cities after the 2011 earthquake, and ended a three decade old standoff with the U.S. over nuclear politics. He helped the country come to economic agreements with the U.S. and China, and he has partnered with Australia, Britain, Canada, and the U.S. under the Five Eyes agreement in an intelligence agreement. According to Reuters, this October, New Zealand reported its second straight budget surplus.

Should Key have chosen to run for a fourth term, his chances of winning were strong. Reuters reported a credible poll had his party ahead in support by a margin of 37.5%. Key was immensely popular among his constituents, and after his resignation the New Zealand dollar fell around a fifth of a U.S. cent to 0.7084.

Key’s career started not in government, but in business. BBC stated he was formerly a Merrill Lynch foreign exchange dealer before he moved into parliament, and was then elected Prime Minister six years later.  In his announcement speech, Key also indicated his belief that renewal would be healthy for the government. He plans to wait until an election can be held for his Parliament seat, currently set for December 12, to officially hand in his resignation, according to BBC.

Reactions from other government officials, both domestic and global have been overwhelmingly positive. New Zealand Green Party co-leader, Metiria Turei, stated on Twitter, “[I] fought every day against John’s politics but always supported his right to be a dad and a husband first. I wish him and his family well.” Another New Zealand party leader, Andrew Little also commented on Key’s resignation on Twitter. He said, “John Key has served New Zealand generously and with dedication. I wish him and his family the best for the future.” Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, had only five words on the matter, “say it ain’t so bro.”

Although leaders may mourn his decision, Key is resolute. “I have never seen myself as a career politician” he stated in his speech. “I have certainly never wanted my success in politics to be measured by how long I spent in parliament…. all I can say is that I gave it everything I had. I have nothing left in the tank…. it’s time for me to come home.”

Categories
Stories In Focus

Around the World in Seven Days

Glen Avery, International Marathon Runner.

International marathon runner, Glen Avery, faculty at Houghton for 28 years, will participate in the World Marathon Challenge in January. The challenge is to complete seven back-to-back 26.2-mile marathons, one on each continent. The challenge from start to finish must be finished in 168 hours. This provides an 8-hour window to complete each individual marathon. Avery will join 14 other runners as they board a plane headed for Antarctica. The event starts at Union Glacier in Antarctica where the runners complete their first marathon. From Union Glacier, the runners fly to Punta Arenas, Chile for number two. From Chile, to Florida, USA to Madrid, Spain to Marrakesh, Morocco to Dubai, UAE, these 15 runners will participate in an event that few people dare to try. Some challenges in the event include altitude and weather changes. The event ends with a midnight marathon in Australia.

GlenAveryMedalsRGBAvery’s running career started long before he signed up for the World Marathon Challenge. On his 51st birthday in 2001, Avery began to be concerned about his physical health. He decided to start walking at the gym. In April 2002, he ran his first 5k in Geneva, NY. After this first event, he bought shoes and started running more. His first marathon was in Athens, Greece and what initially interested him in this race was of the history of the marathon. The Greek soldier, Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver the news of military victory over the Persians in the battle of Marathon.

Avery and his wife, Margery travelled to Greece. This started a pattern of internationally traveling and running. Avery has run a marathon on every continent, twice. In his first tour of the continents, he completed races in Greece, NYC, Hawaii, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, Thailand, and Antarctica. Avery explained that it is imperative to mind the penguins when running a marathon in Antarctica. His first cycle took 9 years and ended with running into the sunrise of Cheng Mai, Thailand on Christmas day, 2011. The second cycle took him 4 years. During the second cycle, he ran in South Africa, the Falkland Islands, Cuba, Spain, Antarctica, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

Avery recounted, “I’ve made connections and learned so much about culture from these experiences. That’s what I take away from all this.” He explained that one of his most impressionable intercultural experiences was in the Falkland Islands. Avery and 30 new friends from the Falkland Islands visited 1982 war sites of the 74-day war fought between Argentina and the Falkland islands. His new friends invited him for meals, visited battle sites, and cemeteries where he saw his friends grieve the losses of the causalities from the war. Because of experiences like this, Avery assures us, “I am going to continue to do international marathons. I can’t imagine my life without these experiences.”

This June, Glen and his wife Margery are retiring from Houghton after many years. Glen will retire from his current Instructional Technology Librarian position and Margery will retire from her current duties as head of Academic Records. When they are not working, the Avery’s enjoy traveling, reading, hiking, and serving others.
To prepare for the World Marathon Challenge, Avery intends to run four back-to-back marathons in the Western United States this summer. Avery continuously trains for events year-round. He states, “I’ll keep doing it as long as I can.” During his retirement, he plans on writing a book about all of his experiences as an international runner.

Categories
Opinions

Honesty is Not the Best Policy?

honestyI started listening to Lorde recently.  She is a sixteen-year-old musician from New Zealand who just released her first album in September.  If you have not heard of her I am sure you have at least heard her hit song, “Royals”.  She has a haunting voice and the hook is super catchy without becoming annoying.  I like to listen to it when I run.  It was the only song of hers that I had heard so far, though, so I decided to learn more about her.  I stumbled across an interview in which she called out Selena Gomez, saying “I love pop music on a sonic level, but I’m a feminist and the theme of her song [“Come & Get It”] is, ‘When you’re ready, come and get it from me.’ I’m sick of women being portrayed this way.”  When I first read this, I was on board.  Without making a comment about the singer herself, I have long found the lyrics to “Come & Get It” to be damaging; “You ain’t gotta worry, it’s an open invitation.  I’ll be sittin’ right here, real patient.  All day, all night, I’ll be waitin’ standby.”  This passive voice paves the way for responses like Robin Thicke’s horrendously rape-y “Blurred Lines” (a song that has been banned at five universities so far), which asserts that women are too coy to express their desire for sex, so men should go ahead and take it from them.  Lorde was offended, and so was I.

Then, however, Lorde also mentioned Lana Del Rey, saying  “She’s great, but … it’s so unhealthy for young girls to be listening to, you know: ‘I’m nothing without you’. This sort of shirt-tugging, desperate, don’t leave me stuff. That’s not a good thing for young girls, even young people, to hear.”  I was a bit taken aback.  While I like to think I agree with Lorde on an intellectual level, personally, I have always strongly related to Lana’s lyrics, so much so that I would never think to criticize her message.  To me, her lyrics seem much more specific and thought-out as opposed to Selena’s general “come and get it” call to the world.  After all, on an individual level, people really do feel intense longing and desperation.  Are artists like Lana Del Rey supposed to sacrifice their candor and sincerity for the sake of idealism?  Is it not just as important to be honest about your emotions as it is to be a good role model?

Oscar Wilde wrote, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life,” and I am not entirely sure I agree with him.  To me, it seems more like a cycle.  Artists pick up on barely realized themes within culture, or invent idealized ones, society notices trends within art and embraces them, artists perpetuate the trends, society perpetuates the trends, and the cycle begins again.  Perhaps I relate so strongly to Lana’s lyrics because I have grown up listening to these common themes in pop music my whole life, and the mentality has become ingrained in me.  What would it look like if musicians began addressing issues of love and sex in a much healthier way?  Several years down the road, would we relate just as strongly to those lyrics, having been slowly changing our viewpoints and our actions over time until we were all engaged in relatively healthier relationships?

Where is the line between being honest and being a good example—and how can we find a foothold in the relentless life-imitates-art, art-imitates-life cycle?  After all, Lorde was right—these commonplace “I need  a man” pop lyrics preserve negative gender stereotypes and continually affect the way young men and women see each other.  But Lorde also qualified her opinion by adding, “People got the impression I thought writing about love was shameful. I don’t! I just haven’t found a way of doing it which is powerful and innovative.”  I don’t think we need to throw out emotional honesty and vulnerability altogether.  I think we can be honest about that fact that our dependence on romantic relationships is unhealthy.  I think we can be honest about the fact that we need to find more constructive ways to communicate our desires and our boundaries.  We can celebrate our independence without denying our occasional loneliness.  Pop music has an incredible influence, and that does not have to be a bad thing.