Even though I can’t read (according to an email from a lecturer I received last week), I squinted my moron eyes really, really hard and worked my tiny little brain so hard steam came out of my ears, just so I could bring you the news this week. Spoiler alert: there’s nothing good going on out there. Maybe just stay inside and watch TV. 

Let’s start off with a few Aotearoa stories this week, shall we? People suffering from endometriosis are pushing for the Government to give a shit about them – even just a little shit. Endometriosis, which affects about 10% of people with uteri globally, is a serious condition where cells that are meant to grow inside the uterus grow outside of it instead, causing extremely painful periods and general shit vibes all round. In Aotearoa, there are as many people with endo as there are those with diabetes and asthma, but sufferers are often not taken seriously by their doctors, workplaces, and schooling systems. Advocates are now calling for an official apology from the New Zealand Government, after a recent local study found that it takes, on average, around nine years (NINE YEARS?!) and five doctors to get a diagnosis of endo. Stuff asked the Ministry of Health to comment on the delay, but they just sent back a Generic PR Statement™️ that you can look up if you care enough.

A survey by NZ employment marketplace SEEK has found that higher hourly wages don’t necessarily make people stay in jobs anymore. Often companies will give an employee a ‘counter offer’ of more money if they want to accept a job offer elsewhere, but of those surveyed by SEEK, only a quarter said they’d accept an offer of more money from their employer to stay in their job. Now, I’m just thinking out loud here, but I don’t think more money is gonna cut it for this next generation – rangatahi want flexibility, opportunities for growth, managers that don’t check on their team’s status and make you have your camera on during every meeting, and management that don’t make casual sexist and racist jokes. Is that too much to ask for? We’ve already accepted that the economy is fucked, our dreams are dead, and we’ll never afford a house, so y’all are gonna have to cough up something better than ‘living wage.’ Also, no one wants to be a ‘Social Media Rockstar’ for your furniture company. Not every business needs a TikTok. 

Drug testers KnowYourStuffNZ has identified a new batch of “potentially lethal” drugs doing the rounds at the moment. Thinking they were purchasing some Oxy, users were shocked to find out the pills they’d purchased actually contained the synthetic opioid N-pyrrolidino etonitazene, with Stuff claiming that “a dose equivalent to a few grains of salt can be lethal.” These little blue pills (‘M’ on one side, ‘30’ on the other) are no longer being sold by dealers, but it’s a good reminder to be careful when taking drugs, especially when they come as pressies and you have no idea what’s actually in them. Just smoke weed, guys. Seriously. A small dose won’t kill you, but it might make you eat your flatmate’s last bag of chips. Sorry Matt.

(CW: sexual abuse) For those of you who grew up singing Mighty To Save a thousand times, you probably would have heard that Hillsong Church’s founder Brian Houston has resigned from his position of global senior pastor. For those who don’t follow all the different flavours of Christianity, Hillsong is an Australian- based pentecostal megachurch, known for their loud music, celebrity attendees, and general extravagance. Following Brian’s recent court case where he was charged for covering up some incredibly serious sexual abuse committed by his father, details emerged of two instances where he behaved ‘inappropriately’ toward two women on two separate occasions, leading to his resignation. Even though I’m a God-fearing man, my disdain toward Hillsong has always been thinly veiled (and not just because they make boring, generic, white bread worship music). I probably would have had more grace for them during this time if they hadn’t given such bullshit excuses for Brian’s behaviour, blaming his abuse of women on a ‘sleeping pill addiction’ and ‘a mixture of alcohol and anti-anxiety medication.’ We are ALL living on a mixture of alcohol and anti-anxiety medication, Brian. It’s 2022. The New York Times reports that over the last fortnight, nine of Hillsong’s 16 churches in America have closed. Bye!

The Oscars happened. No one cares about who won or whatever (it’s about movies right?), but Will Smith did walk on to the stage and bitch slap host Chris Rock for a pretty distasteful but probably harmless joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. During a monologue, Chris poked fun at Jada’s baldness, which (probably unbeknownst to Chris) is caused by alopecia, an autoimmune condition that causes your body to attack your own hair. There is a lot of history to Chris and Will’s long standing beef, which dates back to 2016, and there is a lot to unpack about Will and Jada’s frankly bizarre marriage, and there are a lot of layers around chauvinism – all too much for a short paragraph in a student magazine. I think the main thing to remember here is that you probably shouldn’t go around punching people in the face.

Due to an increase of commercial traffic going to the moon, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is planning to launch a highway patrol system in space. I can’t even tell you any more details because as soon as I read that, my mind started racing with possibilities of a CSI, Criminal Minds style TV show in space.. Maybe the moon is going to turn into an important drug trafficking highway, and maybe there’s only one man who can stop it.. Chris Pratt. But he’s gonna need a team of secret special agents that don’t play by the books, but by God, they get the job done. Maybe there’s a comic relief robot involved too.. Oh wait, now it’s just turned into another boring 3 hour Marvel movie everyone has to pretend is good and well written. Never mind. Let’s move on.

North Korea just test-fired a giant intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) over 6000 km into the air. The test was accompanied by a hilarious/bizarre video on state-controlled media, which featured a leather jacket-ed Kim Jong-un dramatically checking his gold watch in slow motion about a thousand times and pointing in random directions (which is strangely still less cringy than, say, Captain America). These missiles are particularly scary because if they work properly, these ICBMs have the range to strike pretty much anywhere in the United States. The Korean Central News Agency claims that the missiles are to keep North Korea “ready for long-standing confrontation with the US imperialists.” In response, Biden said “uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” and then fell asleep.

Within Russia’s borders, those speaking out against the war are being targeted. Journalists are coming home to shit, decapitated pig heads, and stickers claiming ‘a traitor lives here’ on their doorsteps. This follows the Russian Government passing a law earlier this month that can see people jailed for 15 years for spreading “false information” about the war – the complicated part being that the Government is the one deciding which information is true. On the front line, Ukraine’s military claims that Russian troops are withdrawing from their capital city of Kyiv following “significant losses.”