Spanish midfielder Jennifer Hermoso was collecting her winner's medal when the Spanish football president hugged her, grabbed her head and forcefully kissed her on the lips. Photo / Supplied
Spanish midfielder Jennifer Hermoso was collecting her winner's medal when the Spanish football president hugged her, grabbed her head and forcefully kissed her on the lips. Photo / Supplied
Which is worse?
Getting pashed by an official after winning the Fifa Women’s World Cup? (Yes, Spanish midfielder Jennifer Hermoso was collecting her winner’s medal when the Spanish football president hugged her, grabbed her head and forcefully kissed her on the lips.
The media focusing on your love life? (The headline reads: Boyfriend a tall order for 192cm South Korean volleyball star. The story went on to say that since Kim Yeon-koung is so much taller than the average Korean “it would be better for her to look for a boyfriend outside the country.”)
The palpable cringe at the 2015 Australian Open? (20-year-old Eugenie Bouchard was asked to “give us a twirl” by the male TV presenter during her post-match interview.)
Navigating the potholes of sexism? (Danica Patrick, the first woman to win an IndyCar Series race had to swerve around comments like this one from Formula One chief executive Bernie Ecclestone: “Women should be all dressed in white like all other domestic appliances.”)
All of the above.
They cut
They cut. Photo / Supplied
Seriously, New Zealand, grow some
Dressing up as a member of the KKK to go to a community fundraising event in 2023 is one thing. But not calling them out is just as bad. A group of New Zealand adults turned up in whitesheets and hoods to a quiz night in Kaimai. One was carrying a petrol can. The organisers said there were no complaints on the night. A woman attending the community quiz told Webworm’s David Farrier the team, named “Give us a Klu”, was awarded a prize for commitment to their costume because their cones of shame remained on throughout the night - not taking them off even to drink. The hood-wearers, full of remorse, blamed the booze and apologised to the organisers, who sat there and did nothing and gave them a prize.
Ignorance is bliss or something more insidious? Reality check: The rise of modern white nationalism has its roots with the KKK. In the 1920s, its membership across the United States was well into the millions. In Marion Indiana, photos emerged of members gathering to pose with the corpses of Black men who had been lynched by a mob. And in Aotearoa, all this low-level racism is emboldened by the likes of the Stop Co-governance roadshow and political leaders using the “just jokes” defence.
When David Seymour criticised the Ministry of Pacific Peoples, he told Newstalk ZB: “In my fantasy, we’d send a guy called Guy Fawkes in there and it’d be all over, but we’ll probably have to have a more formal approach than that.” The last thing we want to hear is Seymour’s fantasies, amirite? Meanwhile, social media fuels this take. Gordon from Palmerston North thinks people need to lighten up, and Leanne, originally from Palmy, garnered 96 likes for this: “Have a laugh, that’s funny. My husband who is Māori said I hope they were Māori. That would be funny as. People are so sensitive.” Graham, not from Palmy, put it best: “Good ole boys coming out of the woodwork.”
Posted on LinkedIn
An unprofessional employee tribute. Photo / Supplied
What did they say? I missed that
Tired of breaking the spell of a Peaky Blinders episode by having to decipher the drawl, we now watch our streaming shows with the captions on. Is it accents, dialogue garbling or poor sound quality? According to the New York Times, it’s a thing. “About 50% of Americans — and the majority of young people — watch videos with subtitles.” And here’s me thinking it was cognitive decline. One reason we struggle is that the audio has been compressed, to carry the sounds through the teeny, tiny speakers of your smartphone. The other is super-skinny flat-screen TVs prioritise pictures over speakers and sometimes blast sound away from the viewer’s ears. So, what’s the fix? Some tech companies are building their own dialogue enhancers into their streaming apps. A warning though, don’t faff about with the sound settings on your TV. “Modern TVs have software that automatically calibrates the sound levels for you — and if you mess around with the settings for one show, the audio may be out of whack for the next one.” Better streaming everyone!
