Dan Coxon

My son, Jacob Coxon, is currently 10 days old. He already has a room full of toys, memorabilia, and more gadgets than 007: a jungle bouncer, a lavender scented hippo, a miniature sock monkey, teething rings, books, cloth books, Pooh, Eeyore, a sheep that makes womb noises... and a tiki. This particular tiki traveled with us all the way from New Zealand. It was born in Rotorua, to be exact, and was carved at the traditional Maori carving school there. It now hangs on the side of Jacob's bookcase, a reminder of our travels, and the place of our own little man in the bigger scheme of things. When he screams the resemblance is uncanny. All this preamble is bringing me slowly to my point. From now until March 4th we're running a number of discounts and promotions on my book Ka Mate: Travels in New Zealand , to celebrate Jacob's arrival in the world. Think of it as a baby sale. If you haven't already read the book, it follows my adventures across New Zealand's North a

If you're not in New Zealand right now, you'd be forgiven for letting Waitangi Day pass you by. It's not a fixture on the international calendar, and even some Kiwis allow it to slip past unnoticed. If you're into historic celebrations, however, then Waitangi Day is one to pay attention to - the Kiwi version of Independence Day. The Treaty of Waitangi was signed on February 6th in 1840, at James Busby's house in the Bay of Islands, and it marked the founding of New Zealand as a modern nation. The Treaty is still controversial to this day. If you want to know more about it (and where it was signed) then I suggest you check out my book Ka Mate: Travels in New Zealand . As a taster, and to celebrate Waitangi Day, here's a short passage from the book on the history of the treaty: There are many books devoted to the wording of the Treaty and its various points of mistranslation or open interpretation, so I will keep this summary brief. Essentially the first a

It's been a surprising side effect of the Occupy Movement that everyone has suddenly started paying attention to social equality, or perceived inequalities. If Hoover were still around (and no, Leonardo's make-up artists are fooling no one) he'd have locked us all up for exhibiting Communist tendencies. It occurred to me a few weeks ago that the 99%-versus-1% argument doesn't work everywhere, however. Specifically, I began to wonder about our superheroes. Batman and Iron Man may be the modern equivalent of the heroes of Greek legend, but they have conspicuously deeper pockets. Bearing in mind that these guys are the biggest box office successes of the past ten years, could it possibly be true that we're still idolizing the rich, even after all the lessons we (should have) learned from Wall Street? Well, one thing led to another... and no, I didn't start the Occupy Gotham movement. But I did write a brief memoir of my time spent playing Golden Heroes , a r