Ire and Indignation, Shadowy LBE candidates, and the Arise report

Hello, it's Craig here - so, I'm back writing newsletters, after taking a three week break.

A few weeks ago, I had a family event to attend - the occasion of my mum's 80th birthday, so I was away for the weekend at a bit of a family reunion. Unfortunately, at that event I picked up Covid, having previously avoided it for the rest of the pandemic. So, with the Covid infection, that took me out for another week.

My experience of Covid was relatively mild, I guess. I'd had the recommended two vaccine doses, and had two boosters. I'm thinking that probably protected me against the worst of it - but nevertheless, it wasn't particularly pleasant. My symptoms included a cough, a persistent headache that didn't really go away with painkillers (though maybe it would have been much worse without them), and extreme lethargy.

Anyway, the symptoms have mostly subsided, though I still have a bit of a cough - that does seem to hang around. I'll certainly be doing my best to avoid getting it again, though.

Conference coming up!

This year's NZ Skeptics conference is going to be held in Wellington on the weekend of 25th - 27th November. We're still in the planning stages, but the dates are firm, and we're hoping to have the website where you can book tickets up and running in the next few weeks.

We would like some feedback and ideas on what you'd like to see at the conference. We've put together a very short survey where you can answer a few questions - we'd love to have as many people as possible fill this out.

>>> Please visit the survey here <<<

This week's newsletter includes coverage of the excellent Fire and Fury documentary that Stuff produced, and the reaction to it. Of course, this Tuesday will see another protest at parliament. I'm worried about how this will turn out.

The upcoming local government elections are in the news with shadowy figures from the various freedom movements putting themselves on candidate lists and hiding their affiliations.

Finally, guest author Lisa Ryan has written an excellent piece reviewing the leaked report from the Arise Church investigation.

Let's dig in…

Craig Shearer

Last week Stuff Circuit, part of the Stuff media organisation, released their Fire and Fury documentary. The documentary is a slickly produced piece of journalism, looking at the rise of the ... (1136 words)

Category: News

Craig Shearer

And now that I've just written about Chantelle Baker, the latest news is that her page, where she shared a lot of her content, has been removed from Facebook for violating community standards. It's ... (173 words)

Category: News

Craig Shearer

So in a couple of months we're all going to have the opportunity of voting in the local body elections, for our city, district and regional councils. And in some areas, there are elections for local ... (684 words)

Category: News

Lisa Ryan

Back in April's newsletter, Craig talked about David Farrier's investigative work uncovering alleged harms that happened within Arise Church. The lead pastor and founder of Arise, John Cameron, ... (878 words)

Category: News