Research shows that sustained and repeated media exposure is associated with something called ‘high acute stress.’ Luckily, here at Nexus, we constantly operate under acute stress (or are just high) – we’ve read the news so you don’t have to. Make yourself a cuppa, give your vape a fresh squirt of juice, and cast your gaze upon the endless and all-consuming horrors of the world at large. Hey, anyone got a panadol?

On our own shores, noted scumbags Fletcher Building are requiring their COVID-19 infected employees to use sick leave, rather than use the free special leave subsidised from the Government. This means that if an employee gets sick from the cov’, they effectively aren’t able to take any leave for any other illnesses for the rest of the calendar year. If Fletcher Building sounds familiar to you, that’s probably because they were the ones attempting to build on the Crown-confiscated land at Ihumātao, the area in Auckland where Māori are understood to have first landed in Aotearoa in the 14th century. You’d think Fletcher would be slightly nicer to their employees after receiving over $66,000,000 from the government’s wage subsidy scheme, but… White supremacy (in Minecraft), I guess?

250 people are being charged by NZ Police for their actions during February’s protests at Parliament. Among those people are a few that probably have good reason to be aggrieved, but there is also someone who believes they can heal illness through eye contact and a Cher impersonator, who I’m sure has an extensive background in virology. In an act of unsurprising cowardice, protest organisers / knitting enthusiasts Voices For Freedom are reportedly nowhere to be seen at these trials. In my opinion, these protests were just a straight up grift. The organising groups (the chuds at Counterspin, the aforementioned Voices for Freedom, and the group I thought were a parody, Doctors Speaking Out with Science, and Tamaki’s goons) took advantage of a group of vulnerable people, worked them up into a frenzy, ran away with their tails between their legs when shit got real, and are now letting them take the fall as they count their money. If I can offer Voices For Freedom some free advice, it’s that if you can’t be with your people at their worst, you don’t deserve them at their best. Also, get a real job.

You’ve probably noticed fresh sheets of plywood covering the windows on your local dairy / piss shop lately – you may even be one of the lucky ones missing the quarter glass on your car window, or even missing your car completely. Small business owners around Kirikiriroa have come together to advocate for more protection after a sustained period of robberies, even enlisting our fearless Mayor, Paula Southgate, for a shift at Caltex last weekend. The group, made up of dairy and servo owners, believes that Police are not doing enough to protect them against ram raids and robberies, and the fact that there “will not really be any consequences” for the mostly teenage offenders only serves to embolden them further. Maybe these offenders need to start robbing supermarkets (in Minecraft)  instead, rather than small business owners just trying to get by.

Speaking of our supermarkets, there have been a fair few human interest stories coming out about how the price of food in Aotearoa is affecting our most vulnerable. Pensioners skipping meals, low income families struggling… You have to wonder if Foodstuffs and Woolworths big wigs feel bad, knowing they are taking advantage of a vulnerable population in a time of crisis. Mind you, making $1,000,000 a day in excess profits probably softens the blow a little, right? Luckily, Pak’n’Save, New World, and Countdown are spending millions of your dollars on advertising to tell you how cheap their products are. It kind of feels like they’re just laughing in our faces at this point, doesn’t it? Shoplifting from the supermarket is starting to feel like a moral obligation.

Staying on New Zealand politics, National leader and ex corporate CEO Christopher Luxon is still in need of some serious PR training. In an interview with Newstalk ZB’s Kerre McIvor, while speaking about improving our economy, Luxon said “[we] don’t just do bottom feeding and focus on the bottom, we focus on people who want to be positive, ambitious, aspirational and confident, right?” As a PR student, I can confirm that referring to poor people as ‘bottom feeders’ is bad optics, and also ironic, considering that Luxon himself reportedly owns seven properties and being a landlord is almost the dictionary definition of bottom feeding. This follows his recent comments where he referred to some on his staff as ‘high calibre Māori,’ implying that he has an internal system where he rates Māori depending on their level of usefulness to him. 

Antarctica recorded record breaking high temperatures, with weather stations on the frozen continent clocking an increase of 40 degrees celsius. 40 fucking degrees, guys, what the fuck? Scientists have described the simultaneous melting of both the north and south poles as ‘unusual,’ but for me, it was enough to send me into a panic last Friday night which saw me lying awake for hours, thinking about thousands of poor penguins being slow-cooked by the sun. A University of Wisconsin meteorologist was quoted as saying “it’s not a good sign.” You think, bro? 

To be honest, I’m finding it hard to read all of the coverage coming out of the war in Ukraine at the moment. While the popular Western concept of ‘hell’ isn’t really biblically accurate, humans are doing a pretty good job of creating it here on earth. Russia now seems to be targeting civilains by bombing hospitals and shelters, and are now reportedly using ‘hypersonic missiles,’ which can travel five times the speed of sound. Resistance against the war is rising from within Russia’s borders, with news reporter Marina Ovsyannikova’s on-screen protest causing ‘a stream of resignations’ from within Russian state media, according to the BBC. It’s starting to seem like there isn’t really a way out of this conflict except for a full scale WWIII. May God have mercy on us all.

We are currently working on a piece about everyone’s favourite government entity, Studylink. We are particularly interested in having a kõrero with someone who has worked for Studylink, but we’d also like to hear your experiences. Please send an email to news@nexusmag.co.nz if you can help us out.