Comments on peterwellsblog.: The new book goes fishing...

If anyone wants to follow the whole unfolding of W...

2009-12-17T16:32:19.274-08:00

If anyone wants to follow the whole unfolding of Witigate, then go
to...

http://publicaddress.net/system/topic,2255,busytown-a-garden-of-forking-paths.sm?p=145609

It is a pretty astonishing trajectory.

Strangely Witi's face came to me last evening and I remembered a kind and eloquent side to his nature. It only makes it sadder.

Michael, thanks for this comment. I have been appr...

2009-12-15T16:27:41.419-08:00

Michael, thanks for this comment. I have been approached privately by people saying they think the blog is on message...but there still seems an unwillingness for people to make public comment. As I said in the blog, it is actually unthinkable - perhaps literally psychologically impossible - for someone who lives in New Zealand to have written the 'j'accuse' article in the LIstener. It had to be written by someone outside the tightly self-controlling world of New Zealand - a country which, ironically, prides itself on its casualness and relative openness.
In other words only someone living in the intellectual freedom of New York or some similar city could raise their voice, not even cough apologetically and say, 'hello everybody, the emperor has no clothes.'

A pithy and interesting take on it all Peter. I th...

2009-12-15T14:58:00.104-08:00

A pithy and interesting take on it all Peter. I think the crisis has changed one thing: his mana has been been considerably lessened by all this, and I somehow doubt that even a tearful Sainsbury appearance (though John Campbell's fawning manner seems more suitable) will entirely restore it.

The real shame is that his undeniable talent as a writer has been tarnished by sloppiness and evasion in this case, and it was all so easy to avoid.