"On Tuesday there was a photo of some appalling parking with the challenge for anyone to find a worse example of car parking anywhere in the country," writes Rene. "I'm pretty certain this beats it - in Auckland City last Sunday this tiny car was parked out on a road
on a corner by a large parking space. Was still there after an hour."
The listening protocol
Maddie Holden asked people to send their stories of men who asked them zero questions on a date. She got flooded with answers.
"Lots of men are apparently more ready to talk about TV, Socrates, Amnesty International, acid, monogamy, war — and to perform songs, adopt the downward dog position, and do magic tricks — than to ask the human women (and men) they are presently on a date with a single question."
"I was wearing a reversible top. White with navy stripes on one side and just plain on the other. So I nipped to the loo and swapped my top over. NOTHING."
"Men who have travelled a lot seem to be particularly insufferable.
Comedians are repeat offenders."
"New dating advice book for men.The Listening Protocol.
1. Ask a woman a question about herself.
2. Actually listen and be interested in her response.
3. Ask another question arising from her answer.
4. Continue conversation with this protocol in mind."
CIA goes 'full woke' in new recruitment ads
A social media campaign, Humans of CIA, aimed at boosting diversity at the agency has united critics on the right and left in a moment of shared derision. The focus of the uproar is a video about a Latina intelligence officer, who declares: "I am a cisgender millennial, who has been diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder. I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box-checking exercise," she says, in the voice-over to a film of her walking confidently through the CIA's Langley headquarters with a T-shirt emblazoned with a clenched fist motif. "I used to struggle with impostor syndrome, but at 36 I refuse to internalise misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be," she adds. A former CIA operations officer asked Fox News, "What happens when you hire a bunch of folks who are wokesters going out into the world that is not woke?" On the left, the critics accused the agency of appropriating woke language to gloss over an unsavoury history. "Diversity is an operational advantage. Simple as that. I want case officers who look like the UN," a former senior officer said on Twitter. Watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X55JPbAMc9g.
