Saturday Morning for Saturday 24 June 2023

8.10 Nick McKenzie: Ben Roberts-Smith - the war hero turned criminal

Earlier this month Australia's most decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith lost his defamation case against three newspapers who reported he had murdered civilians in Afghanistan.

While not a criminal trial, the court judged him responsible for the deaths of four Afghans while deployed during 2009-2012. 

Investigative journalist Nick McKenzie brought the allegations to the public eye and has spent five years working on the story. Next week he is releasing a book called Crossing the Line. 

Roberts-Smith continues to profess his innocence. 
 

9.05 Naomi Oreskes: how Big Business taught us to love the free market

In their new book The Big Myth, Professor Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway document the rise of “market fundamentalism” over the 20th century, outlining Big Business’s push to equate the free market with freedom and instil fear of government intervention.

It’s been described as a sequel and prequel to their bestselling book Merchants of Doubt which chronicled the origins of denialism of issues including climate-change and tobacco harm.

Naomi Oreskes is a professor of the history of science at Harvard.

9.35 Musician Jordyn with a Why: prioritising who gets to learn te reo Māori

As te reo becomes widespread, does Māori learning for Māori need to be prioritised? That’s one of many pesky questions posed in the first episode of new Spinoff web series 2 Cents 2 Much.  

Answering them is Tāmaki Makaurau kaiako and musician Jordyn Rapana aka Jordyn with a Why. She teaches full immersion at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa in Mangere. And while she has whakapapa through her dad to Tainui Āwhiro in Whāingaroa/ Raglan, she grew up immersed in her Samoan culture on her mum’s side.

Last year Jordyn with a Why’s song ‘Brown Melodies’ was nominated for Best Waiata/Single at the Waiata Māori Music Awards. She’s about to drop a new single for Matariki, and performs as part of TVNZ Matariki extravaganza: Purapura Whetū - Stars of Matariki, live-streamed 14 July. 

10.05 Pamela Clark: don't make the tip truck cake

Featuring a chip-lipped duck, a structurally unsound tip truck, and the iconic train cake on the cover, a book of 108 themed cakes has been sparking sugary fantasies for three generations of kids. In the 1980’s the cakes were as vital to Kiwi kid's birthday parties as fairy bread and pass the parcel.

First published in 1980, the Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book has sold over a million copies, and has large Facebook groups dedicated to making the cakes.

For parents attempting to recreate the cakes the experience is often a labour of love and engineering. Former PM Jacinda Ardern shared her struggle making the piano cake and admitted to having to prop it up with a jar of lentils. 

Long-time AWW food editor and test kitchen head Pamela Clark authored the book.

 

10.35 Painters Euan Macleod and Geoff Dixon create over Facetime

Since the 2020 lockdown the way we view each other from afar has changed dramatically thanks to technology. 

FacingTime: Portraits of Geoff by Euan Macleod at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery is a series of 346 portrait paintings recording Macleod and Geoff Dixon’s daily catch-ups on FaceTime. Euan painted while Geoff sat - at the other end of a smartphone.

Friends since the '70s, the Australian-based New Zealand artists have been collaborating for decades, with Dixon often a model for Macleod’s paintings.

While Dixon is in Northern Queensland, Macleod has lived in Sydney since 1981. He’s held more than fifty solo shows in New Zealand and Australia, and won the celebrated Australian portraiture prize the Archibald in 1999.

Meanwhille Clare O’Leary and Glenis Gile’s film Geoff Dixon: Portraits of Us is currently screening at the Light House Petone, Wellington and then at the Lumiere Cinema Christchurch from June 29. Details here.

11.05 Judy Blume forever

Known for her books about adolescence, 85-year-old Judy Blume remains beloved by those who grew up with her books.

In the 1970s and '80s Blume wrote freely about subjects then taboo for young readers, such as menstruation, masturbation, and teen sex. After facing censorship herself, she became an activist against the banning of books.

Blume’s huge impact is evident in a new documentary on her life currently screening on Prime Video. Judy Blume Forever revisits the thousands of letters she received from appreciative young women. 

Her work is being introduced to a new generation, with a film adaptation of her breakthrough 1970 novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret which premieres at the New Zealand International Film Festival in July.

 

Books featured on this show:

 

Crossing the Line
By Nick McKenzie
Published by Hachette
ISBN: 9780733650437 

The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
By Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway
Published by Bloomsbury
ISBN: 9781635573572

The Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cakes
Published by Are Media
ISBN: 9781925865622

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
By Judy Blume
Published by Bradbury Press
ISBN: 978-1481409933

 

 

Music played in this show

Raumati
Jordyn with a Why
Played 9.40am

Pick
Fenne Lily
Played at 10.30am

12,000 Lines
Big Thief
Played at  11.10pm

Judy Blume
Amanda Palmer
Played at 11.50pm