someone called me feral today

Don't argue with a fool, Grandad always used to say, or people won't be able to tell the difference.

Someone called me feral today. Well, actually it was a couple of days ago, in the Sunday Star Times, but the effect - the namecalling, the dehumanisation - happens every day. Including, yes, today. And, yes, tomorrow.





I've thought long and hard about how to respond to being called feral. To being told that sexual abuse is part of Maori culture. That we're animals.





And right now, I'm not ready to respond. Sorry Michael Laws, but I've got bigger and more interesting fish to fry. Things to write, you see, and things to read.





So I'll be doing that, and planning how I will respond publicly. But in the meantime, I'm doing what I apparently do best. I'm writing. Oh, and yes... the sound outside tells me that this is the third day in a row that I've written until the streetcars start to announce it's morning time again.