Columnist on the mark

Congratulations on featuring columns by James Nokise, who is pungent, entertaining, and wonderfully sane. His Anti-vaccine protesters ignore lessons of history (Nov 12) was perfect, commenting as it did on the total inappropriateness of the Samoan flag being flown there.

His commentary on Black Friday is equally perfect (Nov 26). There is no sane reason for it to be a feature of the shopping scene in AotearoaNew Zealand. It was originally called ‘‘Black’’ by Philadelphia because of the traffic gridlock caused by the biggest shopping day of the year – the day following Thanksgiving.

Do we really want something that memorialised traffic jams?

Thanksgiving is equally inappropriate. It is an American holiday that romanticises the 1621 encounter between Native Americans and foreign settlers, and erases the deadly conflicts that followed.

Joan Druett, Wellington