CoveragePost
April 20, 2026
Essay by Keith Rankin, 20 April 2026 It’s commonplace, especially in The West, to think of wars in binary terms. In those terms, wars are either won or lost, like a sports match. And the symbol of victory is a trophy. In a match-up, the symbol of defeat is the loss of a trophy. In ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – War Trophies: Considering USA, Iran, and Japan" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2026/04/20/keith-rankin-essay-war-trophies-considering-usa-iran-and-japan/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – War Trophies: Considering USA, Iran, and Japan">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
April 20, 2026
Essay by Keith Rankin, 16 April 2026. On 14 April, TV3 News ran an item (15 minutes in, not in the sports section) about how the Crusaders rugby team will, with the new Christchurch stadium, no longer be able to parade its horses and knights circuiting the sportsfield. Many of the fans, despite now having ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Crusaders; the Crass, the Past, and the Present" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2026/04/20/keith-rankin-essay-crusaders-the-crass-the-past-and-the-present/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Crusaders; the Crass, the Past, and the Present">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
February 28, 2026
Essay by Keith Rankin, 20 February 2026. Imagine if the Olympic Games were currently being held in Wuhan, China. There would be widespread mentionings of it having been the starting place of the Covid19 pandemic, in December 2019. But pandemics (not ‘global pandemics’; pandemics are global by definition, as are world wars) have two places ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Milano-Cortina, Pandemic Central" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/28/keith-rankin-essay-milano-cortina-pandemic-central/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Milano-Cortina, Pandemic Central">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
February 5, 2026
Essay by Keith Rankin. A great academic campus? But note the roof of the Concentrix building. A Green Way? Or was it the 1990s’-built Languages Building? Whoops, there goes Concentrix! Hard Yakka. Auckland’s answer to the Christchurch Cathedral Two days before present The Martians have landed: One Day before present: going, going, … Unitec ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Carrington precinct, aka Unitec" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/05/keith-rankin-essay-carrington-precinct-aka-unitec/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Carrington precinct, aka Unitec">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
February 3, 2026
Analysis by Keith Rankin. It’s great that there is a new season (Season 9) of William Ray’s podcast series Black Sheep, which looks at contributors to New Zealander history, many little known, who were of dubious or ambiguous character. Here I draw attention to a black sheep who I think trumps them all, Edward Arthur ... <a title="Keith Rankin Analysis – A Black Sheep to Rule them All" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2026/02/03/keith-rankin-analysis-a-black-sheep-to-rule-them-all/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Analysis – A Black Sheep to Rule them All">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
November 14, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Labour Party Policies Last month the New Zealand Labour Party announced two policies: a second sovereign wealth fund, and a capital gains tax on non-owner-occupier real estate. For me, both are worrying, representing further steps in the financialisation of an already over-financialised economy. Then yesterday, I heard a story (Report highlights ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – The Mansion as a Metaphor for Neoliberal Finance Capitalism" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/11/14/keith-rankin-essay-the-mansion-as-a-metaphor-for-neoliberal-finance-capitalism/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – The Mansion as a Metaphor for Neoliberal Finance Capitalism">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
September 16, 2025
Essay by Keith Rankin. Today’s geopolitics is already coming very close to a war (mainly of words, so far) between Asia and Europe (both entities broadly and loosely defined). For geopolitical purposes we may call this a war of hubris and cant between East and West. Conveniently for the West, the words East and Evil ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Geopolitical rugby: Bad plays Evil, for the final World Cup" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/09/16/keith-rankin-essay-geopolitical-rugby-bad-plays-evil-for-the-final-world-cup/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Geopolitical rugby: Bad plays Evil, for the final World Cup">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
September 14, 2025
Analysis by Keith Rankin Keith Rankin – One of our least-discussed discriminatory ‘isms’ is what I call ‘lookism’. Discrimination on the basis of a person’s or a group’s appearance, noting in particular features of ancestry, age, and culture. Discrimination based on how individuals and peoples look to other people. Discrimination on the basis of the presence ... <a title="Keith Rankin on Lookism" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/09/14/keith-rankin-on-lookism/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin on Lookism">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
September 5, 2025
Essay by Keith Rankin. The failing nation-states of Western Europe are not peacemakers. They are warmongers, the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ – the Coalition of Sanctimony and Hypocrisy. They are trying to frame the current geopolitical struggle between a unipolar versus a multipolar world order as a struggle of the ‘Democratic’ Axis of Good against ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – The Coalition of Sanctimony and Hypocrisy" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/09/05/keith-rankin-essay-the-coalition-of-sanctimony-and-hypocrisy/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – The Coalition of Sanctimony and Hypocrisy">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
April 17, 2025
Essay by Keith Rankin. Operation Gomorrah may have been the most cynical event of World War Two (WW2). Not only did the name fully convey the intent of the war crimes about to be committed, it, also represented the single biggest 24-hour murder toll for the European war that I have come across. On the ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Barbecued Hamburgers and Churchill’s Bestie" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/04/17/keith-rankin-essay-barbecued-hamburgers-and-churchills-bestie/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Barbecued Hamburgers and Churchill’s Bestie">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
April 10, 2025
Essay by Keith Rankin. ‘Rational Expectations’ is a problematic theory in economics. Here I want to focus more away from economics; and more on the meanings of ‘rationality’ in decision-making, than on the problematic ambiguity of the word ‘expect’ (and its derivatives such as ‘expectations’). ‘Expectation’ here means what we believe ‘will’ happen, not ‘should’ ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Rational Expectations, Intelligence, and War" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2025/04/10/keith-rankin-essay-rational-expectations-intelligence-and-war/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Rational Expectations, Intelligence, and War">Read more</a>
CoveragePost
December 19, 2024
Analysis by Keith Rankin. To understand antisemitism, we need a meaning for ‘semitism’, and another -ism to contextualise semitism. Literally, semitism means the promotion of the Semitic people, whoever they might be. The most appropriate comparator for ‘semitism’ is ‘hamitism’, relating to the ‘hamites’ or ‘Hamitic people’; analogous to the ‘Semitic people’. These are archaic ... <a title="Keith Rankin Essay – Judaism, Antisemitism, and Israel" class="read-more" href="https://eveningreport.nz/2024/12/19/keith-rankin-essay-judaism-antisemitism-and-israel/" aria-label="Read more about Keith Rankin Essay – Judaism, Antisemitism, and Israel">Read more</a>
