Backbencher

After scanning through the May 2nd issue of the New Zealand Herald, I found a couple of articles that caught my interest in relation to life in NZ and OZ. The first article was about a malnourished boy found in Perth, OZ who weighed 12Kg (which is about 26.5 pounds). Department of Child Protection was tipped-off by someone in the public and Sharlene Kerr, the boy’s guardian, admitted to confining the boy to a cot in a garage. This was so sad to hear about and I couldn’t believe someone could do that to a child. There’s also some early coverage of the NZBio’s annual biotechnology conference in Auckland. The 3-day event is starting today works to find possible improvements in biotechnology research and development. More than 500 people are expected to attend this conference dedicated to an industry involved in human health, agriculture, and industrial applications. Since I am a Biology major, I find advances in technology for this field very important. I also stumbled upon an article discussing “New Zealand Music Month” in Auckland. About 450 gigs will perform over the next month in order to increase exposure for native musicians on TV and radio.

After the recent lecture regarding bush ballads, I was interested to read about modern music and culture of New Zealand. I think that’s a great idea to help promote new artists from all around the country. As we’ve studied the history of Australia and New Zealand, I tend to indirectly view the two nations in the same state as talked about in class: working to catch up with the other more established countries. So without realizing it, I’m still kind of surprised to see that the newspaper there looks exactly like ours.