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The Islanders, a proud team that won the Stanley Cup four times from 1980 to 1983, find themselves in a sports opera bouffe, a landlord-tenant dispute gone wacky. Last month, the team abandoned Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, declaring it unsafe for fans, beer men or goalies, but returned by court order after National Hockey League inspectors had declared that conditions at the arena posed no danger.

Life has turned absurd at the Uniondale arena, where 24 banners representing long-ago glories hang from exposed rafters. The team is fighting legal issues with Nassau County and S.M.G, the company that manages the arena, a credibility gap with fans who say the safety argument is a ploy for a new arena and dubious news media coverage.

While 15 arenas have opened in the N.H.L. since 1993, the 26-year-old Coliseum remains a shabby presence on Hempstead Turnpike.

''We have to make sure this franchise can be healthy for the long term,'' Gary Bettman, the N.H.L. commissioner, said yesterday. He stepped into talks with the county on financing a new arena when the team's owners withdrew.

''It's very difficult for a team to be stable in an antiquated building with a difficult lease,'' he added. ''We can't guarantee success, but we guarantee we'll work at it.''

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Few franchises in major sports long for stability more than the Islanders. In late 1996, John Spano appeared from Dallas, promising $165 million and a free-spending, hands-on style. But he never had the money and pleaded guilty to Federal bank and wire fraud charges, and handed the franchise back to John O. Pickett.

The new owners -- Howard Milstein, a billionaire real estate magnate, and Steven Gluckstern, an insurance executive -- are angry but resolute, believing they were stonewalled on safety by S.M.G., certain that the Coliseum was unsafe when lawyers advised the team to leave, and positive the building attained habitability only after they filed the Federal lawsuit against S.M.G.

And is it safe now?

''I don't really know,'' said David Seldin, the president of New York Sports Ventures, which owns the team. ''Our owners are not willing to make short-term decisions to be popular when an unpopular decision may be better for the long term.''

Yet, on Saturday night, during the season opener against the Pittsburgh Penguins, fans were not too willing to believe the owners. They wanted the team to sign Ziggy Palffy, its star player, and stifle its rhetoric.

When Pittsburgh jumped in front by 4-0 in the first period, Bill Cox and his buddies in Section 311 began a derisive chant, ''We want Spano!''

''Heck,'' said his friend Tim Brown, ''we want Roy Boe!''

Such is the strangeness of life in Uniondale, where fans chant the name of a disgraced owner, and the founding owner, who sold the team to Pickett, whom fans disliked for his parsimony, who sold it to Spano. ''Welcome to the twilight zone,'' said Cox, who lives in Valley Stream.

Said Matt Pilla, of Ozone Park, Queens: ''There's nothing wrong with the arena. It's the lease.''

Court Decision Ends Team's Power Play

The court's mandate to play in the Coliseum forestalled the Islanders' playing home games at Madison Square Garden or Continental Arena in East Rutherford, N.J.; at arenas in Hartford, New Haven or Philadelphia, or at an ice rink near you.

Despite the court order, Gluckstern and Milstein withdrew from talks about building an arena after Thomas S. Gulotta, the Nassau County Executive, called the team a ''pig at the trough'' and left Bettman to negotiate the team's future.

Bill Torrey can hardly fathom his former team's predicament. ''I spent 20 years there when it was as good as it could get,'' said Torrey, the general manager from the team's inception through 1993, when he moved to the Florida Panthers. ''I hate to see this happen.''

Ed Westfall, an original Islander, shook his head dolefully. ''What's important is to get a competitive team, have the building bulge and fall apart from the noise, then ask for a new arena,'' he said.

New woes arose Saturday night, when Fox Sports New York refused to televise the opener for lack of advertising. During the game, Seldin complained that the scoreboard had no video replays but sprouted a steady drip of water and that the ticket windows were so understaffed, some fans missed the game's first half-hour.

The team's lawsuit against S.M.G. alleges that the landlord breached the lease by ignoring safety hazards. If the team wins, it could forge a new lease with the county, or move within the region, to Suffolk County, or to Queens, where the team would like to relocate to the retractable-dome stadium being planned by the Mets beside Shea Stadium. An executive involved in the discussions said the Islanders approached the Mets about moving to the new stadium.

''It's like they set themselves on fire,'' said Wes Westley, the S.M.G. president. ''I've never seen anything like this in sports where right before the season starts, a team evicts itself.'' Westley denied the team's core allegation: that the hoists supporting the scoreboard and sound system were unsafe.

Nonetheless, S.M.G. has replaced the hoists and removed the sound system; the team said that would not have happened without the lawsuit and stunning move from the arena.

If the team loses the case, bankruptcy or relocation could loom, but leaving the market would mean losing $13 million a year from Fox Sports New York.

''The best solution is a new arena,'' Seldin said. ''If we win, the objective is to have the team on Long Island, but Long Island is bigger than one town.''

Bettman and the county are discussing the framework for financing a new arena in Uniondale, adjacent to the Coliseum, and are not discussing any other site, or commercial development on the 70-acre location.

''Hopefully, the owners will participate on the terms we negotiate,'' said Bill Daly, the N.H.L.'s senior vice president for legal affairs. ''That'll be their decision. It could be that a deal we negotiate may be good for another owner.''

Westley said he had not considered whether S.M.G. would buy the team to protect its investment under the lease, in which it shares revenues.

League and county officials are to meet for a second time on Thursday.

''This has to work from the owners' and the county's standpoint, or it won't get built,'' Bettman said. ''That's a situation I don't want to contemplate.''

Teams, landlords and municipalities often clash, especially in an era when franchises threaten to skip to cities that promise arenas or stadiums with increased revenues. But although the Islanders have one of the N.H.L.'s worst leases -- they get no money from parking and concessions -- they did not have the leverage of another city in the wings.

Three years ago, the Devils alleged that the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority had breached its Continental Arena lease, but they had a sweetheart deal -- a new Nashville arena.

''To say you're terminating your lease days before the season with nowhere else to play is as strange as it gets,'' said Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp, a consulting firm. ''Safety seemed to be the hook to get out of their lease.''

The clash of egos and issues pitting the the Islanders against the county and S.M.G. has been gaudy. At different times, Gulotta has accused S.M.G. and the Islanders of holding a gun to the county's head. ''I was not overly pleased with the way S.M.G. functioned in the past,'' Gulotta said, ''but their level of performance did not justify the Islanders' action.''

The team and the league raged when S.M.G. briefly barred their inspectors from the arena.

''This is hardball negotiating,'' said Gulotta, who is happy to negotiate with Bettman rather than with the owners he mistrusts. ''Team owners will come and go, but the league will remain in place.''

The Islanders threw off their gloves by creating a Web site -- -- to explain the alleged breaches and the reasons that ''constructive eviction'' occurred at the arena. Visitors to the Web site can access letters, reports and the Federal lawsuit, under headings like ''Political Smoke and Coliseum Mirrors.''

Said Seldin: ''There's been a lot of skepticism. It's an accurate description of what's going on.''

Bettman described it as ''an intriguing function of the new media.''

The team and S.M.G. also dueled in competing full-page advertisements.

''The Real Idea Is Not to Hurt the One You Love,'' was the headline on an Oct. 2 Islanders' advertisement in Newsday. A few pages away was an ad from S.M.G, vowing that the arena ''remains the safe, secure place that holds many great memories for us all.''

The Islanders' situation is an odd wrinkle in the league's portfolio of franchise problems. ''From early on, the sense was clear that the building situation on Long Island was going to be an issue,'' Bettman said.

Gluckstern and Milstein had two major advantages: they were rich -- their wealth was well known -- and neither was John Spano. ''We thought they were white knights,'' said Steve Ellers, head of the Save the Islanders Coalition.

The owners are not only the richest in Islanders history, but also the most aggressive. ''It's probably a shock to S.M.G. and the county to be up against such tough businessmen,'' said Pickett, adding that he never asked to renegotiate his lease and paid $15 million to improve the Coliseum. ''Maybe I shouldn't have been so passive and butted heads.''

Team President Hired To Get Things Moving

In hiring Seldin, Gluckstern and Milstein brought in the president of Jacksonville's efforts for a National Football League expansion team. In 1993, when stadium talks broke down with the City Council about a stadium lease, Seldin and the partners shuttered the expansion plans.

''David's a hard-driving guy, a tough operator,'' said Carl Cannon, publisher of The Florida Times-Union, who helped resurrect the expansion group, which won its bid and became the Jacksonville Jaguars. ''His tactics aren't always popular. But he's very straightforward and doesn't shy away from work.''

Seldin became the Jaguars' president and still owns a piece of the team. Earlier, he served on S.M.G.'s board for six years when he worked for the co-owner, the Pritzker Organization.

From the start of the relationship between the Islanders' new owners and S.M.G., there was strife. Before the owners completed the deal with Pickett in February, S.M.G. demanded a document requiring them to declare what they felt was wrong with the arena. The owners refused, Bettman intervened and the demand was dropped.

S.M.G.'s demand surprised the owners, but Seldin said: ''We didn't think there were safety issues. There were 12,000 seats in disarray. But was it a moment of 'uh-oh'? Yes.''

''We weren't trying to absolve ourselves of responsibility,'' Westley said. ''We said, 'If there's something wrong, tell us now and flush it out.' ''

The relationship deteriorated from there, culminating with the team leaving the arena. What now? The team lost by 3-0 to Boston yesterday, and travels to Tampa Bay and St. Louis before returning to its beleaguered home next Wednesday. But hockey seems like the least important activity at the Coliseum.

A sign at the arena Saturday night -- ''Wrestling Monday''-- heralded what may continue to be the most riveting sport on Nassau County.

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For the first time, the election of a Mississippi governor was decided by the Legislature today as Ronnie Musgrove, a Democrat, was selected, ending eight years of Republican control.

Mr. Musgrove had won 8,300 more votes than his Republican opponent, Mike Parker, in a four-way election in November, but fell a fraction of a percentage point short of receiving a majority, as required by the state Constitution.

That left the contest to be decided by the Mississippi House of Representatives, which is dominated by Democrats. Mr. Musgrove received 86 House votes to 36 for Mr. Parker.

Mr. Musgrove, 43, moves up from lieutenant governor to replace Gov. Kirk Fordice, a Republican who, because of term limits, cannot run again. Mr. Fordice was elected in 1991, becoming the first Republican governor of Mississippi since 1874, and was re-elected in 1995.

Mr. Musgrove was presiding over the Senate when the vote was announced. Senators and guests stood and gave him a standing ovation for several minutes.

''I have to say that in all my time in the Senate, that was the best point of personal privilege I have ever heard,'' Mr. Musgrove said.

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Mr. Musgrove, a small-town lawyer, declared himself the winner after the Nov. 2 election and called on Mr. Parker to concede the race. But Mr. Parker, 50, who was a Congressman from 1989 to 1998, refused.

As a result, Mr. Musgrove has not put together a cabinet or chosen people to head various state agencies, let alone planned an inauguration or an agenda for the legislative session.

The state Capitol was packed with spectators for today's vote. Most people watched the roll call of the House's 86 Democrats, 33 Republicans and 3 independents in rooms set up with television sets.

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LOS ANGELES, Jan. 30 — Those who know Sarah Silverman only from her much discussed star turn in the 2005 comedy film “The Aristocrats” and from her one-woman concert movie, “Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic,” might bristle at the notion that another overnight wonder has been granted that holy grail of comedy, the self-titled sitcom.

But “The Sarah Silverman Program,” a six-installment Comedy Central series that has its premiere on Thursday night at 10:30 (9:30 Central time), is far from the work of an overnight success.

Ms. Silverman, 36, has worked the comedy circuit for nearly two decades, been fired abruptly from some of the most coveted jobs in the field and been forced to endure the indignity of spending two years preparing scripts for series that not only were never broadcast but also were never taped.

In that time Ms. Silverman has earned a reputation as a sharply honed assessor of self-importance and political correctness, a persona that, in mocking the pretensions of people who believe they have none, is in vogue in the vein of “Borat,” Jon Stewart and others.

She also has been refining her jokes about flatulence.

To those who might scoff that scatological humor should be beneath someone who aspires to poke holes in the convictions of the politically correct, she has an answer. “It’s the sign language of comedy,” she said during an interview over a lunch of poached eggs and toast at a downscale-hipster diner in Hollywood. “It’s universal.”

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And particularly for comedians, who compete aggressively to make one another laugh. “It’s such a universal release in the comedy world,” she continued, scooping up some hash browns with her fingers, “that no matter how hoity-toity you are onstage,” a joke about passing gas “or someone putting his penis on the table is going to be funny.”

Ms. Silverman makes no apologies for the bountiful sophomoric humor in her new show, for which she is one of several writers. “I appreciate the aggressively stupid,” she said. “I like silliness. I don’t giggle from purely heady comedy. I can go, ‘Wow, that’s really smart and funny.’ But, sadly, it’s going to take something really stupid to make me laugh.”

Sarah Silverman’s sitcom begins tomorrow on Comedy Central. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

There are plenty of silly moments in “The Sarah Silverman Program,” as when her character’s overindulgence with cough syrup takes her on a tangerine-trees-and-marmalade-skies trip to an animated wonderland.

Those moments are, in their way, an antidote to the self-serious sitcoms that broadcast networks continue to churn out, the ones that mix a young, idealistic married couple and an older, bitter married couple and wait for the hijinks to ensue.

“The Sarah Silverman Program” has its couples, of course: there are Brian and Steve, Sarah’s “big and orange and gay” neighbors, played by Brian Posehn and Steve Agee, who both appeared in “Jesus Is Magic”; and Laura and Officer Jay, the budding romantics played by Sarah’s real-life sister Laura and Jay Johnston.

The show does not have much action; instead, it is about the types of people who lounge around in Los Angeles coffee shops, never seeming to work or having much of anywhere to go.

When Comedy Central approached Ms. Silverman with the idea of a series built around her, she submitted the opening sketch of “Jesus Is Magic,” which shows her, her sister and Mr. Posehn “just sitting and talking,” she said.

“It feels very real and small,” she continued, “and then it goes into a song.”

The singing is the other unusual part of Ms. Silverman’s show — her witty lyrics provide yet another showcase in which to expose the unusual selfishness of Sarah Silverman, the character — a narcissistic, gleefully un-self-aware ditz.

“There’s this interesting difference between how she perceives herself and how the audience perceives her,” Ms. Silverman said of her character. “Her intentions are good.”

Rob Schrab, an executive producer of the series, said recently that one joy of the show was that “it’s fun to be self-centered.”

Sarah Silverman and Brian Posehn of “The Sarah Silverman Program.” Credit Steve Agee/Comedy Central

“What’s great about Sarah’s character is that you can live through her,” Mr. Schrab said. “She gets to kind of be a jerk, but she doesn’t mean to be a jerk.”

The question of whether she means it is one that Ms. Silverman has faced before. While most actors are reluctant to discuss critics’ opinions of them, Ms. Silverman addresses them head on, particularly a 2005 review of “Jesus Is Magic” by A. O. Scott, a film critic for The New York Times.

“It totally hurt my feelings and was like a kick in the stomach,” but, she said, she found it fascinating.

In the review Mr. Scott said her act was “the latest evidence that mocking political correctness has become a form of political correctness in its own right.”

“She depends on the assumption that only someone secure in his or her own lack of racism would dare to make, or to laugh at, a racist joke, the telling of which thus becomes a way of making fun simultaneously of racism and of racial hypersensitivity,” he wrote. In short, he added, “naughty as she may seem, she’s playing it safe.”

Ms. Silverman said the review articulated a point that she had felt, but had been struggling to express. “That was something that always festered in the back of my mind that I never talked about,” she said. Her crowds are usually liberal ones, “and we know we’re not racist,” she said. “But the whiter the crowd, the more that kind of voice in the back of my head comes toward the front, and I feel grosser doing that kind of stuff.”

“At the very least, it’s made me assess the choir,” she continued. “Context is everything, and I don’t think he would be pondering all that stuff if I was doing the material in front of an all-black crowd or a very mixed crowd,” which, she said, she regularly does.

Still, she added, she is reassessing at least part of her work.

“It was rebellious to be politically incorrect now and in the past couple of years,” she said. “But I don’t know how rebellious it will be when everybody has that point of view. It becomes hackneyed and it becomes irrelevant and it turns into something else.”

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Other Agencies Clamor for Data N.S.A. Compiles

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency’s dominant role as the nation’s spy warehouse has spurred frequent tensions and turf fights with other federal intelligence agencies that want to use its surveillance tools for their own investigations, officials say.

Agencies working to curb drug trafficking, cyberattacks, money laundering, counterfeiting and even copyright infringement complain that their attempts to exploit the security agency’s vast resources have often been turned down because their own investigations are not considered a high enough priority, current and former government officials say.

Intelligence officials say they have been careful to limit the use of the security agency’s troves of data and eavesdropping spyware for fear they could be misused in ways that violate Americans’ privacy rights.

The recent disclosures of agency activities by its former contractor Edward J. Snowden have led to widespread criticism that its surveillance operations go too far and have prompted lawmakers in Washington to talk of reining them in. But out of public view, the intelligence community has been agitated in recent years for the opposite reason: frustrated officials outside the security agency say the spy tools are not used widely enough.

“It’s a very common complaint about N.S.A.,” said Timothy H. Edgar, a former senior intelligence official at the White House and at the office of the director of national intelligence. “They collect all this information, but it’s difficult for the other agencies to get access to what they want.”

“The other agencies feel they should be bigger players,” said Mr. Edgar, who heard many of the disputes before leaving government this year to become a visiting fellow at Brown University. “They view the N.S.A. — incorrectly, I think — as this big pot of data that they could go get if they were just able to pry it out of them.”

Smaller intelligence units within the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security have sometimes been given access to the security agency’s surveillance tools for particular cases, intelligence officials say.

But more often, their requests have been rejected because the links to terrorism or foreign intelligence, usually required by law or policy, are considered tenuous. Officials at some agencies see another motive — protecting the security agency’s turf — and have grown resentful over what they see as a second-tier status that has undermined their own investigations into security matters.

At the drug agency, for example, officials complained that they were blocked from using the security agency’s surveillance tools for several drug-trafficking cases in Latin America, which they said might be connected to financing terrorist groups in the Middle East and elsewhere.

At the Homeland Security Department, officials have repeatedly sought to use the security agency’s Internet and telephone databases and other resources to trace cyberattacks on American targets that are believed to have stemmed from China, Russia and Eastern Europe, according to officials. They have often been rebuffed.

Officials at the other agencies, speaking only on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the tensions, say the National Security Agency’s reluctance to allow access to data has been particularly frustrating because of post-Sept. 11 measures that were intended to encourage information-sharing among federal agencies.

In fact, a change made in 2008 in the executive order governing intelligence was intended to make it easier for the security agency to share surveillance information with other agencies if it was considered “relevant” to their own investigations. It has often been left to the national intelligence director’s office to referee the frequent disputes over how and when the security agency’s spy tools can be used. The director’s office declined to comment for this article.

Typically, the agencies request that the N.S.A. target individuals or groups for surveillance, search its databases for information about them, or share raw intelligence, rather than edited summaries, with them. If those under scrutiny are Americans, approval from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is required.

The security agency, whose mission is to spy overseas, and the F.B.I., its main partner in surveillance operations, dominate the process as the Justice Department’s main “customers” in seeking warrants from the intelligence court, with nearly 1,800 approved by the court last year.

In a statement, the security agency said that it “works closely with all intelligence community partners, and embeds liaison officers and other personnel at those agencies for the express purpose of ensuring N.S.A. is meeting their requirements and providing support to their missions.”

The security agency’s spy tools are attractive to other agencies for many reasons. Unlike traditional, narrowly tailored search warrants, those granted by the intelligence court often allow searches through records and data that are vast in scope. The standard of evidence needed to acquire them may be lower than in other courts, and the government may not be required to disclose for years, if ever, that someone was the focus of secret surveillance operations.

Decisions on using the security agency’s powers rest on many complicated variables, including a link to terrorism or “foreign intelligence,” the type of surveillance or data collection that is being conducted, the involvement of American targets, and the priority of the issue.

“Every agency wants to think that their mission has to be the highest priority,” said a former senior White House intelligence official involved in recent turf issues.

Other intelligence shops usually have quick access to N.S.A. tools and data on pressing matters of national security, like investigating a terrorism threat, planning battlefield operations or providing security for a presidential trip, officials say. But the conflicts arise during longer-term investigations with unclear foreign connections.

In pressing for greater access, a number of smaller agencies maintain that their cases involve legitimate national security threats and could be helped significantly by the N.S.A.’s ability to trace e-mails and Internet activity or other tools.

Drug agency officials, for instance, have sought a higher place for global drug trafficking on the intelligence community’s classified list of surveillance priorities, according to two officials.

Dawn Dearden, a drug agency spokeswoman, said it was comfortable allowing the N.S.A. and the F.B.I. to take the lead in seeking surveillance warrants. “We don’t have the authority, and we don’t want it, and that comes from the top down,” she said.

But privately, intelligence officials at the drug agency and elsewhere have complained that they feel shut out of the process by the N.S.A. and the F.B.I. from start to finish, with little input on what groups are targeted with surveillance and only sporadic access to the classified material that is ultimately collected.

Sometimes, security agency and bureau officials accuse the smaller agencies of exaggerating links to national security threats in their own cases when pushing for access to the security agency’s surveillance capabilities. Officials from the other agencies say that if a link to national security is considered legitimate, the F.B.I. will at times simply take over the case itself and work it with the N.S.A.

In one such case, the bureau took control of a Secret Service investigation after a hacker was linked to a foreign government, one law enforcement official said. Similarly, the bureau became more interested in investigating smuggled cigarettes as a means of financing terrorist groups after the case was developed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Mr. Edgar said officials in the national intelligence director’s office occasionally allow other agencies a role in identifying surveillance targets and seeing the results when it is relevant to their own inquiries. But more often, he acknowledged, the office has come down on the side of keeping the process held to an “exclusive club” at the N.S.A., the F.B.I. and the Justice Department, with help from the Central Intelligence Agency on foreign issues.

Officials in the national intelligence director’s office worry about opening the surveillance too widely beyond the security agency and the F.B.I. for fear of abuse, Mr. Edgar said. The two intelligence giants have been “burned” by past wiretapping controversies and know the political consequences if they venture too far afield, he added.

“I would have been very uncomfortable if we had let these other agencies get access to the raw N.S.A. data,” he said.

As furious as the public criticism of the security agency’s programs has been in the two months since Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, “it could have been much, much worse, if we had let these other agencies loose and we had real abuses,” Mr. Edgar said. “That was the nightmare scenario we were worried about, and that hasn’t happened.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Other Agencies Clamor for Data N.S.A. Compiles. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe


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How El Chapo Was Finally Captured, Again

An image from a video of the raid on Jan. 8 to recapture Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo.CreditCreditAgence France-Presse — Getty Images

MEXICO CITY — Stripped to his undershirt and covered in filth, the world’s most notorious drug lord dragged himself out of the sewers and into the middle of traffic.

Disoriented from his long trudge underground, with gun-toting marines on his heels, he found himself standing across the street from a Walmart. Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the kingpin known across the globe as El Chapo, would have to improvise. His cavalry was not coming.

He and his top lieutenant commandeered a white Volkswagen from a passing motorist, but only a few blocks later, the car became engulfed in smoke, witnesses said. Desperate for another vehicle, the two men spotted a red Ford Focus at a traffic light, driven by a woman with her daughter and 5-year-old grandson.

“Get out of the car now,” said the lieutenant, his weapon trained on the woman as he lifted the door handle, witnesses said. She complied, prying the child from the back seat and leaving her belongings in the car. Politely, the lieutenant handed over her purse before speeding off.

The Mexican marines had been on Mr. Guzmán’s trail for more than six months, ever since he humiliated the nation by escaping its most secure prison through a tunnel that led into the shower floor of his cell.

The chase had led them into the remote wilds of the Golden Triangle, on the border of Durango and Sinaloa states, an area where Mr. Guzmán is revered. He evaded multiple raids by the Mexican authorities, including a close brush after he sat for an interview with the American actor Sean Penn.

But it had come at a cost. The authorities had swept through 18 of his homes and properties in his native lands. Days on end in the inhospitable mountains, where even a billionaire like Mr. Guzmán was forced to rough it, left him yearning for a bit of comfort.

A piñata of the drug lord.CreditDaniel Becerril/Reuters

In early January, he arrived in the coastal city of Los Mochis, in Sinaloa, at a home where the authorities had trailed one of the chief tunnel diggers from his escape. Construction crews had been hard at work on the house for weeks. Telephone intercepts indicated that someone big was about to arrive.

The final bit of evidence was a food order, Mexican officials said.

Just two blocks away, a big order of tacos was picked up after midnight on Jan. 8 by a man driving a white van, like the one believed to be driven by Mr. Guzmán’s associates, witnesses said.

Hours later, at 4:30 a.m., the marines stormed the compound, meeting a knot of doors and fierce resistance from gunmen. Like many of Mr. Guzmán’s homes, this one was equipped with elaborate escape hatches: a decoy beneath the refrigerator, and another behind a closet mirror, which he used to flee as the battle raged.

Hours later, on a highway heading out of town, the authorities finally got Mr. Guzmán, arguably the most powerful drug dealer in the history of the trade, for the third time since 1993.

A Potent Symbol

Mr. Guzmán’s capture — described using information from interviews with witnesses and government officials, police reports, military video and Mexican news reports confirmed by officials — brings to a close, for now, one of the most exhaustive manhunts the Mexican government has conducted, an endeavor that drew in more than 2,500 people across the nation.

That all that effort was committed to the pursuit of a single man — whose arrest, despite his wealth and influence, will do little to alter the dynamics of the drug trade or the war against it — reflects just how potent a symbol Mr. Guzmán has become in Mexico and beyond.

As the head of the Sinaloa cartel, Mr. Guzmán is the embodiment of an identity the country has fought to shed for decades. To some, the uneducated farm boy turned cartel magnate is a Robin Hood figure for modern times, revered for his fight against the government and generosity to the poor. For others, he is a heartless criminal who floods America’s streets with narcotics and leaves Mexico’s streets strewn with bodies.

Either way, Mr. Guzmán represents a deep crisis for Mexico’s leaders as they struggle to define the country’s image.

His daring escape from prison last July, in view of the video camera in his cell, cast a lurid spotlight on the incompetence and corruption that has long dogged the Mexican state, driving many to view the government on a par with criminals.

Now, the recapture of Mr. Guzmán, who has escaped prison twice, is about Mexico repairing its security relationship with America; its image globally; and perhaps most important, its leaders’ relationship with their own people.

El Chapo’s image, by contrast, seemed only to grow after his escapes. Perhaps more than the infamy he gained as a cartel chief — responsible for shipping tons of drugs to more than 50 countries around the world, with a wider reach than even Pablo Escobar in his heyday — Mr. Guzmán has earned a reputation as the world’s pre-eminent escape artist.

After breaking out of prison in 2001 (by some accounts, he sneaked out in a laundry cart), Mr. Guzmán dodged the Mexican and American authorities for more than a decade. At a network of homes he owned, his team of engineers and diggers had expertly constructed tunnels enabling him to slip away, time and again, often just minutes before raids.

In February 2014, the authorities arrived at a house in Culiacán only to find a signature Chapo trick — a tunnel entrance beneath a bathtub — through which the kingpin had just fled.

He was, after all, a creator of the border tunnel, underground passages equipped with lighting, ventilation and mechanical carts to smuggle drugs into the United States without having to bother with the headache of evading customs agents. In total, Mr. Guzmán’s organization is estimated to have burrowed more than 90 such passages between Mexico and the United States.

But those tunnels could hardly compare to the one crafted for his escape last summer from the most secure wing of the country’s most secure prison. During the 17 months Mr. Guzmán was locked up, he met often with associates, not only to plan his legal defense, but also to plot his escape, Mexican officials said. His men purchased land within sight of the prison, constructing an outer wall and an unfinished building on the site. From there, a mile away, the digging began.

They eventually reached the exact spot beneath Mr. Guzmán’s cell, tunneling up beneath the shower floor, into a narrow space behind a waist-high wall that gave prisoners some modicum of privacy from the 24-hour surveillance camera. At 8:52 p.m. on July 11, 2015, Mr. Guzmán walked into his shower, bent over and disappeared into legend for the second time.

Mexican troops in the raid that led to the capture of Mr. Guzmán.CreditMexican Secretariat of the Navy

Two Cessna jets later whisked him back to the mountains of his childhood, where the pursuit would begin, again.

Lure of Silver Screen

Even before Mr. Guzmán vanished from custody, though, he was making plans for a vanity project that ultimately helped the authorities pinpoint his whereabouts. By most accounts, Mr. Guzmán was not short on ego. His lawyers had filed papers to copyright his name for a big venture he was working on: a movie about his life. He reached out to several famous Mexican actresses, including Yolanda Andrade, hoping to lure them into his web of influence.

To that end, Kate del Castillo, another Mexican actress known for her portrayal of a drug boss in the series “La Reina Del Sur,” or “The Queen of the South,” had caught his attention. She had been sympathetic to him on social media and Mr. Guzmán instructed a close associate to contact her.

Before Mr. Guzmán’s escape, Ms. del Castillo met with a lawyer in Mexico City to discuss communications with Mr. Guzmán about a potential film. The meetings and communication continued while he was ensconced in the ragged mountains of the Sierra Madre.

The Mexican authorities were monitoring the phones of Mr. Guzmán and his accomplices, reading the odd and unexpectedly tender exchanges between him and the actress. Mr. Guzmán promised to protect Ms. del Castillo as he would his own eyes, an affectionate phrase Mexican parents often say of their children.

Even when Ms. del Castillo suggested bringing along Mr. Penn for an interview, the drug lord did not flinch. That was, perhaps in part, because he seemed to have no idea who Mr. Penn is.

Piggybacking on the communications, the authorities tracked down Mr. Guzmán and planned an operation to grab him in early October. But the mission was delayed; they could not risk taking action while Mr. Penn and Ms. del Castillo were in the vicinity.

On Oct. 2, the parties met for the first time, in the remote reaches of the Golden Triangle, near the city of Cosalá in Sinaloa. Mr. Guzmán left afterward for Durango, where he had a ranch.

Blood stains on the floor of the raided home, where five of Mr. Guzmán’s men were killed in the raid.CreditEdgard Garrido/Reuters

The circle had already been drawing tighter around Mr. Guzmán, with the authorities pressing into the villages and homes of his associates and upending life for many in the areas where he was believed to be hiding. But his meeting with the actors gave them the break they needed: actionable intelligence of his specific location.

Six days later, a detachment of marines swept in to capture Mr. Guzmán on his ranch, acting with information from American authorities. During the raid, Mr. Guzmán, who always took his two cooks with him wherever he went, darted into a gully as he fled, injuring his face and leg.

A Black Hawk helicopter circling the scene spotted him as he darted away, accompanied by his two female cooks and holding one of their children in his arms. A Mexican marine Special Forces sniper trained his rifle on the fugitive drug lord, but was told to stand down. Mr. Guzmán, upon seeing the Black Hawk, leaned back with the child in his arms, Mexican officials said, obscuring himself as a target. The likelihood of hitting one of the women or the child while firing on Mr. Guzmán was too high, they said.

In the following weeks, operations continued in and around areas under Mr. Guzmán’s control. The brutal weather of an approaching winter also concerned the cartel leader — Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa, where life could be more comfortable, was under constant surveillance. He needed to go somewhere outside his traditional zone of influence.

Los Mochis fit the bill. In 2013, power in the city had begun to shift. The splintering Beltran-Levya cartel, long the dominant force, was pushed out, leaving control to Mr. Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel.

The government, aware that Mr. Guzmán was planning a trip to an urban center, followed one of his associates to a house in Los Mochis, on a busy road with a movie theater, restaurants and shopping nearby.

Construction soon started. Neighbors periodically dropped by to take a look. A worker even promised one of them any extra concrete left after the renovation was completed.

“You’re welcome to whatever we don’t use,” he told the neighbor. “We’re just doing some repairs.”

A Bloody Gun Battle

The tunnel he used to escape the house.CreditEdgard Garrido/Reuters

Toward the beginning of January, there was unusual activity at the house, with the residents inside breaking from their routines of the previous month, the authorities said. They intercepted phone conversations discussing the imminent arrival of someone known by the aliases of “Grandma” and “Aunt.”

Then, at dawn on Jan. 7, a car pulled up to the house. The authorities’ certainty that Mr. Guzmán had arrived increased. That night, after the taco order, they were nearly sure of it.

Before sunrise the next morning, 17 Special Forces marines from the Mexican Navy stormed the house, supported by 50 soldiers charged with surveillance and keeping an eye on the drain system in and around the home.

Upon breaking through the metal door, they entered what appeared to be a tiny foyer, surrounded by a maze of doors. Shortly after, gunfire erupted.

“We’ve got one injured,” a marine yelled, referring to one of his own soldiers, according to video of the raid taken by a soldier’s helmet camera.

Gunfire continued in the narrow corridors. A commander ordered one of the marines to toss a grenade in front of one of the many doors blocking their advance. As the mission continued, two marines advanced down another hallway, pressing cautiously toward a staircase used by the surviving gunmen to escape to the roof, drawing fire away from the interior of the house.

By 6:30 a.m., the house was secure. Five of Mr. Guzmán’s men were killed in the raid, while four others were arrested. Two women discovered inside, cooks for Mr. Guzmán and his men, were also placed under arrest. Just the one marine was wounded.

A sweep of the house revealed two tunnels: one beneath the refrigerator, a false tunnel meant to confuse the advancing troops. The other was in a bedroom closet. A switch by the light bulb activated a trap door behind the mirror, leading to the route Mr. Guzmán used to flee.

The entrance to a tunnel found in a room of the house in Los Mochis, Mexico, that was raided in search of Mr. Guzmán.CreditGilberto Meza/European Pressphoto Agency

On the road, Mr. Guzmán and his associate headed out of town along Highway 15. But the federal police were on alert, and they spotted the two men in the Ford Focus and arrested them.

Holding two of the deadliest men in all of Mexico made the police nervous. While they waited for the marines, they took the pair out of sight, afraid that cartel forces might try to stage a rescue. And with good reason: The police had been tipped that 40 assassins were on their way to free their leader, Mexican police officials said.

They selected the Hotel Doux, an hourly-rate place off the highway. They booked rooms and took pictures of Mr. Guzmán in a filthy vest. The drug lord urged the men to free him. He promised them jobs as business leaders. When they refused, he tried threats.

“You are all going to die,” he warned them, the police officials said.

After the marines arrived, Mr. Guzmán was taken to Mexico City in a helicopter, the capture finally over. Soon everyone was gone, leaving behind just one thing: an unpaid bill, according to an employee of the hotel.

After being paraded before a field of news cameras at the Mexico City airport that night, Mr. Guzmán was ushered onto another helicopter, headed for the same prison he had escaped from six months earlier.

To keep him locked up this time, the authorities said they would rotate his cells, never allowing him to stay anywhere long enough to burrow his way out again. Vigilance would be enhanced, with more officers and round-the-clock surveillance from extra cameras.

But to many, the longer the drug lord remains in prison in Mexico, the higher the risk of flight. His imprisonment could drag on for a year, perhaps longer, given the numerous — and creative — injunctions filed by his team of lawyers to fight his extradition to the United States, where he faces federal indictments on charges that include narcotics trafficking and murder.

One of them, filed in August while Mr. Guzmán was still at large, stated that it would be impossible for Mr. Guzmán to receive a fair trial in the United States, given the hostile environment there toward Mexicans.

They cited, as evidence, the language of a top Republican presidential candidate: Donald J. Trump.

Paulina Villegas and Elisabeth Malkin contributed reporting from Mexico City, and Frances Robles from Miami.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: How El Chapo Was Finally Captured, Again . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe


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Donald Trump in Triage Mode After Shocking Conservatives With Health Care Comments

Donald Trump addressing a rally on Friday at the Pawleys Plantation Golf and Country Club in Pawleys Island, S.C. In comments televised on Thursday, Mr. Trump expressed support for the main tenet of the Affordable Care Act. Less than 24 hours later, he distanced himself from the remark.CreditCreditJim Wilson/The New York Times

He has broken with many Republicans on taxing the rich, threatening trade wars and keeping Planned Parenthood alive. On Friday, Donald J. Trump faced criticism for an even bolder act of conservative heresy: embracing the core tenet of the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Trump has to date offered only bits and pieces of his health agenda, generally presenting a vow to repeal “Obamacare” and replace it with “something great.”

In a town-hall meeting hosted by CNN on Thursday night, he shared some more expansive views on the subject, and unlike most Republicans he did not call for removing the individual mandate that requires Americans to have health insurance.

Asked how people with pre-existing medical conditions would purchase insurance if the health law and the mandate were eliminated, Mr. Trump said, “I like the mandate.”

“So here’s where I’m a little bit different,” he continued. “I don’t want people dying on the streets.”

Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Trump backed away from his remarks, proclaiming himself to be the fiercest opponent of the health law. It was the latest example of a candidate who has been impervious to inconsistencies again emerging unscathed from a misstep that would probably be damaging to anyone else.

The Affordable Care Act has sometimes put Republicans in an awkward position on the campaign trail. While the popularity of the law remains mixed nationally, many Americans have benefited from the aspects of the legislation that would be lost if it is repealed.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas faced an uncomfortable silence in Iowa last month when a supporter of Hillary Clinton explained to him how a relative who was riddled with tumors had not had insurance before the law. While Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, like his Republican opponents, wants to repeal the law, he has also been criticized by conservatives for using it to expand Medicaid in his state.

For years, President Obama’s health care overhaul, and the individual mandate specifically, have been anathema to Republicans who cite it as a vivid example of government overreach.

Without providing many details, Mr. Trump said this week that he would promote health savings accounts and spur interstate competition among insurance companies to reduce prices. As for patients who could still not afford insurance, Mr. Trump said, “We’re going to take care of them through maybe concepts of Medicare,” suggesting an expansion of that government program.

Conservatives were taken aback. Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska who opposes Mr. Trump, said in a series of posts on Twitter that the billionaire businessman appeared to embrace most of the health law and wondered what kind of Supreme Court justices he would appoint if elected. The legality of the mandate, and the government’s power to impose fines on people who ignore it, was central to the Supreme Court decision that upheld the law in 2012.

Many Republicans have called Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., a George W. Bush appointee, a turncoat for having written that decision. Mr. Trump has been one of the loudest.

“Would you nominate a Supreme Court justice who agrees with you that federal government can mandate purchasing specific products?” Mr. Sasse asked Mr. Trump on Twitter.

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host who has been a defender of Mr. Trump in many instances, was also incensed. And he took issue with Mr. Trump’s suggestion that other Republicans are not disturbed by the idea of people dying in the street.

“You can’t talk about repealing Obamacare and like the mandate,” Mr. Limbaugh said during his show on Friday.

In the face of that backlash, Mr. Trump fired back on Twitter that he had been misunderstood. He said he only liked the provision in the law that requires insurers to provide coverage for people who are already ill. He then promised that he intended to repeal the entire piece of legislation, including the mandate.

The mandate underpins the law by spreading insurers’ risk between the young and healthy and the older part of the population that needs costlier medical care. Without that requirement, insurers have said, the market could collapse.

Mr. Trump’s expression of support for the mandate was not the first time that he has struck a left-leaning tone on health care. In an interview with CBS last year he said, “Everybody’s got to be covered” and said he would cut deals with hospitals to care for people who could not afford treatment. Asked how it would be paid for, Mr. Trump responded, “The government’s going to pay for it.”

He also recently began talking about allowing the government to negotiate with drug companies to cut prices.

“If we negotiated the price of drugs,” he said in a town hall-style debate on MSNBC this week, “we’d save $300 billion a year.”

Both Mrs. Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders have called for allowing Medicare to negotiate the cost of medicines with drug companies. President Obama has also sought the authority to negotiate prices for some expensive drugs through the Medicare Part D program. But he has faced fierce opposition from Republicans in Congress and pharmaceutical lobbying groups.

Health care analysts have said that allowing the government to have more influence in the market this way could have unintended consequences, like suppressing drug company revenues so much that they would cut back on research. In any event, hearing the idea come from a Republican raised eyebrows.

“It’s a proposal that’s normally associated with Democrats, so for a Republican, in fact the leading Republican candidate, to say that was a surprise,” said John Rother, executive director of the Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing, an advocacy group working to cut drug prices.

On Friday, Mr. Trump said that his independence on the issue was more evidence that he was not beholden to “special interests” and lobbyists.

Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump in Triage Mode After Shocking Conservatives With Health Care Comments. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe


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Syracuse Fraternity Suspended for ‘Extremely Racist’ Video

A frame from a video obtained by The Daily Orange, Syracuse’s student newspaper, in which members of the Theta Tau fraternity mime oral sex and use racial slurs.

Syracuse University suspended an engineering fraternity on Wednesday after footage surfaced of members speaking and acting in ways “that are extremely racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist and hostile to people with disabilities,” the university’s chancellor said.

The video — which The Daily Orange, Syracuse’s independent student newspaper, obtained and published after the university declined to release it, citing its continuing investigation — includes a pledge “to always have hatred in my heart” for African-Americans, Hispanics and Jews, all of whom are referred to with slurs. One member of the fraternity, Theta Tau, tells Jews to get in the shower, an allusion to the Nazis’ gas chambers. The video, about six minutes long, also shows members of the fraternity laughing while pretending to masturbate each other and perform oral sex.

The video was posted to a secret Facebook group called “Tau of Theta Tau.” Asked how administrators had become aware of it, a spokeswoman for Syracuse said it had been “sent to university officials.”

“There is absolutely no place at Syracuse University for behavior or language that degrades any individual or group’s race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, disability or religious beliefs,” the university’s chancellor, Kent Syverud, wrote in an email to students and faculty on Wednesday morning. “Upon confirming Theta Tau’s involvement, the university’s Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities immediately suspended the fraternity, effectively halting all activities.”

Mr. Syverud added that Syracuse’s Department of Public Safety was working “to identify individuals involved and to take additional legal and disciplinary action.”

By midafternoon Wednesday, the chapter’s website and Facebook page were no longer accessible. Three student leaders listed on a cached version of the website did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Michael Abraham, executive director of the national Theta Tau organization, said that he had not yet seen the video, but that the organization was “investigating the allegations and will decide on the best course of action when it is more complete.”

“The behaviors described are not representative of our very diverse organization, locally or nationally, nor rational or comprehensible for the multiethnic Syracuse chapter itself,” Mr. Abraham said. “While the language that has been described is troubling and inconsistent with our values, we tend to distinguish between words and deeds as well as between individuals and groups when determining appropriate remedies and penalties.”

Theta Tau is not the first fraternity, nor Syracuse the first university, to be involved in a scandal involving racism or sexism. In 2015, Sigma Alpha Epsilon closed its University of Oklahoma chapter — and two students were expelled — after members were filmed chanting that African-Americans would never be allowed to join. Last year, Cornell University’s Psi Upsilon chapter was shuttered after people believed to be involved in it attacked a black student. And just last week, California Polytechnic State University suspended Lambda Chi Alpha after a member was pictured in blackface.

Students note that these problems, though perhaps more prominent in Greek organizations, are not confined to them.

“This is not the first incident like this on campus,” said Liam McMonagle, 19, a sophomore at Syracuse who helped organize a protest and discussion Wednesday evening. “It’s the same response every time. It’s, ‘Here’s counseling, we’re here if you need us, there’s resource centers, and we promise we’ll punish them.’ But there’s no mechanisms for change.”

These issues have “nothing to do with politics or partisanship,” he said. “It’s about larger systemic issues.”

At a university-organized forum Wednesday afternoon, students shared their own experiences with bigotry and called on the administration to take action not just against Theta Tau, but against what they described as a broader culture of intolerance. And on Wednesday evening, student protesters gathered outside the chancellor’s house, then marched to the campus chapel for a second forum. Along the way, they chanted “Release the video” and “We’re tired of being sick and tired.”

By the time the march began, Mr. McMonagle said, there were 300 people in the group chat being used to organize it. The forum extended late into the evening, and on Thursday morning, organizers reconvened to put the finishing touches on a campaign that Mr. McMonagle said was meant “to be much larger than just Greek life and hopefully much larger than Syracuse.”

Charity Luster, vice president of the Syracuse chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, told the crowd in the chapel, according to a Daily Orange reporter who was there, “I hope this event does not just spark a conversation on one video, but that it sparks a conversation around how people of color and underrepresented people are treated on this campus.”

That treatment routinely includes slurs, Mr. McMonagle said in an interview.

“Now today there’s a video, and today it’s on social media, and today it’s proven,” he said, and he and his fellow organizers want to “use this opportunity to say: ‘Look, here it is. It’s real. We’re not making it up. It’s happening, and it’s really time for us to do something about it.’”

Follow Maggie Astor on Twitter: @MaggieAstor.


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About the Author

Dr Muriel Newman

Dr Muriel Newman

Speaking Freely

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Dear NZCPR Reader,

On behalf of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research I would like to take this opportunity to thank you most sincerely for your support and encouragement throughout the year and to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!

When we launched the NZCPR as a public policy think tank in 2005 we trailblazed the concept of providing a free weekly electronic newsletter in return for a donation.

In order to retain our independence we knew we could not seek any form of Government assistance, nor run ads, but instead would have to rely on the support of our readers to help maintain our website, produce our newsletter and run our campaigns. We felt that a year’s worth of quality research and commentary on public policy, Parliament, and democracy, in return for an annual donation, was a fair exchange.

So, for us, this Christmas fundraiser is crucial. If everyone reading this newsletter contributes right now – big or small, whatever you can afford – our future will be assured.

With free speech under increasing threat in New Zealand, if you want the NZCPR to continue speaking out strongly on the issues that matter to you, please support us by clicking HERE.

And if you don’t like using website forms, here are the direct donation details – BUT please include your name and email address so we can send a receipt.

– Internet Banking: please credit NZCPR ASB Bank: 12-3099-0833814-00
– Credit Card: please call 09 434 3836 to make a phone donation
– Cheques: please post donation form HERE to NZCPR, PO Box 984, Whangarei
– Regular donation: please post bank authority HERE to NZCPR, PO Box 984, Whangarei.

Thanks again for your interest during the year and for the contribution you have made through sharing ideas, participating in polls, and assisting with campaigns – together we are helping to shape the future direction of New Zealand.

Warmest regards,

Dr Muriel Newman
NZCPR Founding Director

“The freedom to criticise or ridicule ideas – even if they are sincerely held beliefs – is a fundamental freedom of society. In my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended… because one represents openness – and the other represents oppression.” – British comedian Rowan Atkinson, 2012.

The ability to challenge ideas in a free and unfettered manner – even at the risk of offending others – is the foundation of liberty. Yet these days, the pressure within New Zealand society not to offend others, is increasing. For those who call a spade a spade, their fundamental right to free speech is now under real threat.

Late last month, Sir William Gallagher addressed an audience under Chatham House rules, which means what was said ‘in house’ should have stayed ‘in house’. Amongst other things, he spoke frankly about the Treaty industry and the fact that multiple reparations are being made to tribal groups under the settlement process. Not only was the information about his speech leaked to the press, but instead of it resulting in a proper debate about the issues he had raised, it quickly degenerated into vicious personal abuse.

The fact that some tribal groups like Ngai Tahu have had five full and final Treaty settlements – as outlined by Treaty researcher Mike Butler – was not acknowledged by the critics. They were not interested in the facts, only in isolating and silencing someone whose opinion they did not agree with. Their attack on the freedom of speech was aimed at warning off others of a like mind.

On that same day, Dave Witherow, a long time columnist with the Otago Daily Times, unleashed a storm of protest and accusations of racism over an opinion piece he had written for the paper. His crime was to criticise the fact that during Maori Language Week, the Maori language was increasingly being forced upon non-Maori speakers.

In his opinion piece “Haere mai? Everything is far from ka pai!”, he wrote, “Maori Language Week, now a permanent annual fixture, is one of those occasions when our determination to give no offence blossoms into the urge to grovel. This year was the best yet, with media apologists the length and breadth of the land prostrating themselves before the holy altar of te reo. Radio New Zealand took the prize, in a seven-day fiesta of cringing servility that, were Billy T. James still with us, would have provided him with material forever…

“Radio New Zealand – the New Zealand equivalent of the BBC – is supposed to be free of political meddling. Yet now it has been hijacked, and its hapless staff obliged to dispense their daily dose of te reo. There were just a few words to begin with. Then longer sentences which have kept on growing until the keener young grovellers now begin and end their spiels with expansive swatches of a lingo understood by only a minuscule proportion of their audience.”

The controversy the article created was so extensive that the Otago Daily Times felt the need to defend their decision to print it by publishing the following statement: “An opinion page article published in this newspaper on Friday has whipped up outrage. Expressions of horror and disgust have followed Dave Witherow’s piece criticising the increasing use of te reo on national radio, RNZ, and in mainstream media.

“This newspaper has also been lambasted for printing ‘racist’ rubbish and giving sustenance to such outlooks. The article, however, was published on the ‘opinion’ page, where we allow for the expression of a wide range of views. We want ourselves and our readers to be exposed to viewpoints that contradict ours and theirs; that might even offend them as this article did for many.

“While we are sorry when this occurs, it is important we all are not ignorant of where others come from. Tolerance and freedom of expression are precious foundations of democracy and civil society. While, inevitably, these must have limits, hurt feelings, offence and even social justice rights are insufficient grounds to stamp out the expression of opposing views.”

Well done the ODT. The problem we now face is that social justice advocates pushing their particular world-view have gained significant control of public discourse in New Zealand. With a focus is on the so-called ‘oppressed’ groups in society centred on gender, race, and sexuality, they are attempting to force new norms of politically correct thought and behaviour onto society.

Anyone who dares to criticise the increase in rights and privileges being awarded to these groups is labelled as a “racist”, “xenophobe”, “sexist”, or “bigot”, and viciously marginalised and discredited in order to silence any opposition to their agenda.

As a result, people are increasingly reluctant to speak out on controversial matters for fear of being targeted and persecuted. The extremists intent on forcing their views onto others are winning the war.

Dave Witherow, who is this week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator, believes New Zealand has become a racist society thanks to politicians who have introduced different rights for different races of people:

“The extent of the rot that now afflicts us was brought home to me following the publication of a brief article of mine, prompted by what I considered the excessive intrusion of Maori speech on RNZ’s National broadcasting. It was inappropriate and disrespectful, I argued, that an audience of potentially millions should be subjected to ever-increasing quantum of an incomprehensible language, and my objection would have been exactly the same if the language been Urdu, Inuit, or Uzbek. This gross bad manners, I believe, is made even more inexcusable by the fact that everyone concerned is quite capable of speaking English.

“There was considerable uproar in response to this opinion-piece – most of it from people who completely failed to comprehend the simple point I was making. I was anti-Maori, claimed my critics. I was anti te reo. And of course I was a racist. Criticism of individuals – but only if they are Maori – is now impermissible in New Zealand, and this racist censorship is fully endorsed by the Race Relations commissar, as well as most of the media.”

In fact, the agenda of those pushing the Maori language is far more sinister than many realise.

Marama Fox, the former co-leader of the Maori Party, which used to represent the tribal elite in Parliament, outlined their plan for the Maori language in an interview in the Listener before the election. It involved replacing our Westminster model of Parliamentary democracy in New Zealand with a “unique form of governance that would favour Maori customs, principles and values.”

She explained it was all ‘plotted out’: “It would take 36 years – 12 election cycles – for a Maori sovereignty party to share government… it’s a radical vision… but if we believe in it, then we need to march towards it.”

She explained that the “critical step” in shifting the thinking of New Zealanders to make it all possible was “to make the Maori language a core subject in the country’s schools”.

Marama Fox argued that “people look at things differently once they’ve acquired te reo. It’s a world view. The Maori world view is different and that’s expressed in the language. The language unlocks our history and our thinking.”

In other words, the compulsory teaching of the Maori language is key to enable the Maori sovereignty movement to impose their self-serving agenda onto New Zealand.

That’s why Maori sovereignty advocates like Marama Fox are determined to have Maori taught in schools as a compulsory subject. It’s a tool for political control and is fundamental to the successful indoctrination of the next generation, which is a pre-requisite to gaining political governance.

It’s also why the attacks on anyone who speaks out against the Maori sovereignty agenda – particularly their plan to make the Maori language compulsory in schools – are so vicious.

It takes real courage to stand up to these sorts of personal attacks, which is why those who call a spade a spade need to be not only supported, but applauded for doing so. We congratulate Sir William Gallagher and Dave Witherow and the others who know that the right to speak freely is the cornerstone of democracy.

The reality is that collectively we need to take a stand against the bullies. We need to tell newspaper editors what we think because activists have the mainstream media and social media covered. If editors get bombarded with angry letters of complaint against those opposing the Maori sovereignty agenda – with few in support – it’s not difficult to see why they cave in.

They say there’s power in truth. And the truth is that New Zealand is an egalitarian society. While Maori supremacists are driven by their belief that the Treaty has given them superior rights, it’s up to the rest of us who believe in equality, freedom and democracy to speak out against their dangerous agenda.

It’s the same with the foreshore and seabed claims that now cover every square inch of New Zealand’s coastline. Unless the public stands up and says that the claims being made by tribal groups that they have used our coast “exclusively” since 1840 are rubbish, they may just get away with it. The Maori elite will then be a giant step closer to dictating to ordinary New Zealanders where and how we can use our beaches and the marine environment.

The changes they would introduce, would not be immediate, but over time they would become obvious. Tribal groups would seek to exclude the public from the coast, citing so-called environmental or sustainability concerns. Wardens would then be appointed to police the area and keep the public out, while retaining free access for themselves.

They would charge anyone they could for using their beach and marine area, especially those with commercial interests – because it’s about money not mana.

It is indeed ironic, but not unexpected, that most of the claims that have been made have included unfettered rights to extract minerals from the foreshore and seabed, when so many iwi have publicly opposed mining on the coast. The opportunity of earning a perpetual income stream from mining royalties has a funny habit of changing views.

As the former Minister Chris Finlayson explained at the time the Marine and Coastal Area Act was being passed into law, there is nothing in the Act to stop tribal groups setting up 100-year leases with overseas interests to mine the foreshore and seabed for rare earths and other minerals found in our resource-rich coastal area.

With our research showing that indifference is being interpreted by claimants as acceptance, the more people that oppose the claims, the better chance there is of defeating them.

To address this, the NZCPR is considering the possibility of running a public information newspaper advertising campaign early next year to raise awareness in coastal communities about the threat that exists from the 200 claims lodged in the High Court. We would use the ads to encourage concerned property owners to engage in the claims process before the February 26th cut-off date.

In any society, there will always be groups pressuring the Government to advance their own self interest. But the Maori language and coastal claims issues are very good examples of why free speech is vital to the healthy functioning of a democratic society. In both of these cases, the stakes are high, but it’s only when the underlying agendas of the vested interest groups are exposed that the public becomes aware of the real danger.

So, as you head off for the summer break, I would like to make a final plea. If you believe the NZCPR is making a positive contribution to public affairs and if you would like to see us continue to defend free speech, protect our coast from tribal claims, and fight all of the other important battles that lie ahead, then please help us to do so by clicking HERE.


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Huawei won't bid for Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees' "core" 5G mobile network upgrade business, the company's NZ deputy chief executive Andrew Bowater tells the Herald.

LATEST: Aussie espionage report puts Huawei under more pressure

The stance will make life a lot easier for the government as it mulls whether to block the Chinese technology company from mobile network upgrades - as has already happened across the Tasman, with security concerns cited.

In broad terms, the core is the "brain" of a mobile network. Bowater says because it is "aware of sensitivities" and "frankly, it's not worth the hassle", Huawei will restrict itself to bidding for RAN (radio access network) elements of Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees' respective mobile upgrades - that is, transmitting and receiving gear on cellphone towers.

With Huawei not pushing to be part of the 5G core, it will be harder for its foes to push a security threat argument.

Bowater strongly denies his company poses any security threat. He says there are no examples of Huawei compromising national security, despite the company being under more scrutiny than any other.

He notes that under the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act 2013, the GCSB has to approve technology used by network operators for telecommunications network upgrades. Huawei faced similar scrutiny by the GCHQ in the UK, which shared results with New Zealand. It has passed.

If the government were to block Huawei from bidding for 5G contracts, consumers would ultimately pay the price, Bowater said.

"If there are only three players in the market, it will naturally reduce competition."

Our three main telcos all want to upgrade their mobile networks from 4G (fourth-generation) to faster 5G technology.

But two things have to happen first. A spectrum auction has to take place, and Communications Minister Kris Faafoi and GCSB Minister Andrew Little have to make a final decision on whether any technology suppliers will be banned from making bids. Both say the jury is still out.

Both will be mindful of that fact that any Huawei ban would be a lot more costly here than across the Tasman.

In Australia, Huawei was also blocked from the National Broadband Network (NBN), the equivalent to our public-private Ultrafast Broadband (UFB) rollout and international cable projects.

Here, former Prime Minister John Key actively promoted Huawei as a cost-competitive option for our telcos back in 2010 as the UFB build was about to kick off.

Banning Huawei from 5G builds would imply the company was also a security threat for all of our telco network infrastructure. Ripping out its gear would cost hundreds of millions.

Bowater says Huawei has around 150 staff in NZ.

The company supplies landline and mobile network technology to 2degrees, landline technology to Vodafone and mobile technology to Spark.

Huawei was also a key technology partner for Chorus on the Rural Broadband Initiative, and supplied Ultrafast Broadband (UFF) and Enable Networks for their legs of the UFB.

All up, Huawei's gear is in around one-third of New Zealand's telecommunications infrastructure, Bowater says.

The Huawei executive says he appreciates Kiwi politicians have been "pragmatic", following a process-based approach and the GCSB's formal review under TCSA.

Some Australian politicians had taken a more "sensationalist" approach, Bowater said, basing decisions on more political factors. In the US, there have been suspicions that some of the anti-Chinese "snooping" sentiment is driven by protectionism.

He also notes that a two other "Five Eyes" countries, the UK and Canada, have vetted and approved Huawei gear.

Spark MD Simon Moutter says Huawei should allowed to bid for 5G business unless the government provides
Spark MD Simon Moutter says Huawei should allowed to bid for 5G business unless the government provides "incontrovertable proof" the Chinese company poses a security threat. Photo / Dean Purcell

At his company's annual meeting this morning, Spark managing director Simon Moutter went in to bat for Huawei, telling shareholders he expected the Chinese company to be able to bid for his business unless the government provided "incontrovertible proof" it posed a security threat.

IDC senior research manager Shane Minogue says it's "difficult to say" whether our government should follow Australia in banning Huawei.

"The NZ government has to do its own due diligence to determine if there is a security risk in allowing Huawei to build 5G," Minogue says.

"Australia and the US have decided to exclude Huawei from supplying 5G equipment so NZ needs to investigate and determine if there is a risk. When you look internationally there are countries and telcos that are investing strongly with Huawei - for example, South Koreas SK Telecom and Spain's Telefonica - and those that aren't. So NZ needs to conduct its own investigation to determine the best course of action."

IDC senior research manager Shane Minogue says it's
IDC senior research manager Shane Minogue says it's "difficult to say" whether our government should follow Australia in banning Huawei. Photo / Supplied.

Minogue adds, "Huawei has already invested large sums in NZ and is a competitive provider [in terms of pricing] with excellent technology so any decision to ban them will have ramifications on competition in New Zealand network pricing and have follow-on impacts on the NZ consumer. With that in mind, any decision should not be taken lightly or without proper reason."

Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Craig Young says, "I can't see why we would follow Aussie on any technology decisions. The removal of one of the competitive vendors from the market may lead to increased costs by the providers and thereby increased costs for users."

He adds, "Given that two of our UFB built networks are using Huawei technology, it would be a huge disruption to the UFB project, as well as a significant cost."


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Super Trouper

Headless Chickens, Music Video, 1995

In 1995 Flying Nun released compilation CD Abbasalutely, made up of ABBA covers from their stable of artists. Headless Chickens contributed with this decidedly heavy cover of 'Super Trouper', ABBA’s ninth and final UK chart topper. The monochrome music video for the remake takes place at the RNZAF Base at Whenuapai, with the Chickens adopting many precarious positions on top of aircraft. It was directed by Jonathan Ogilvie, who helmed numerous Flying Nun music videos. The song's title was inspired by a popular concert spotlight.

Memories of Service 4 - Errol Schroder

Web, 2017 (Full Length)

Using plenty of his own photographs to illustrate his story, Errol Schroder takes us back to the 50s, 60s and 70s to provide his memories of being a photographer with the New Zealand Air Force (Schroder also spent three years in the navy). His Air Force career saw him posted through the Pacific and South East Asia. In Vietnam, there are tales of nervous times on American bases, and a hair-raising patrol in an OV-10 Bronco aircraft. Even in retirement, action came Errol’s way — his home was wrecked in the September 2010 Christchurch earthquake.

Jim's Car Show - First Episode

Television, 2000 (Full Length Episode)

By the mid 90s, popular TVNZ weatherman Jim Hickey had begun presenting things other than fronts and precipitation (e.g. Country Calendar, Shaky Beginnings). In 2000 he got his own series. This first episode of his TV One motoring show sees Marie Azcona report on the controversy surrounding the Model T Ford winning Car of the Century; Mark Leishman gives the lowdown on buying a car at an auction; guest Jim Mora vacuums his Audi; and host Hickey test drives the new Volkswagen with music journo and “old Beetle fan” Dylan Taite.

Weekly Review No. 310 - Mail Run

Short Film, 1947 (Full Length)

This post-war Weekly Review boards a RNZAF Dakota flying “the longest air route in the world”: a weekly 17,000 mile ‘hop’ taking mail to Jayforce, the Kiwi occupation force in Japan. Auckland to Iwakuni via Norfolk Island, Australia (including a pub pit-stop in the outback), Indonesia, the slums of Singapore, Saigon, Hong Kong; then Okinawa, Manilla and home. Director Cecil Holmes’ pithy comments on postcolonial friction and rich and poor avoided censorship, but won a warning not to rock the boat. The next year he was controversially sacked from the National Film Unit.

Memories of Service 4 - Keith Boles

Web, 2017 (Full Length Episode)

Keith Boles was certain he wanted to join the air force when the Second World War broke out, and it wasn’t long before he was a flying instructor. Evacuated from Singapore when the Japanese invaded, Boles eventually found himself in the United Kingdom, with an Advanced Flying Unit. A transfer to operations with Bomber Command saw him piloting de Havilland Mosquito bombers and being trained in the use of the top secret Oboe targeting system. Being part of a pathfinder unit was, he says, the safest job in Bomber Command and he came through his service unscathed.


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About Face - Danny and Raewyn Television (Full Length) – 1985 Drama

About Face - Danny and Raewyn

Television (Full Length) – 1985 Drama

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Showcasing some new faces

Directors often find themselves caught in a waiting room between their early short films, and their first full-length feature. How do you go about building up filmmaking experience, and ensure potential talent is not being lost to the screen industry?

In the days before film courses, 48 hour film contests and cheap digital moviemaking, these could be tricky questions indeed. 1985's About Face was an attempt at an answer: seven contemporary dramas for television. Seven dramas which allowed a new wave of writers and directors to stretch out and tell a story that was longer than a short, shorter than Utu, and different from the television norm.

Peter Wells— who directed the Jewel's Darl episode — put it like this: "It was low-budget, fast turn-around, yet high quality, quite individualized drama. Each one was completely different, and it was like making seven mini-features very quickly."

Film-wise, not a lot was going on in 1984. The Government had just closed off tax loopholes, sending private investment scurrying. Frustrated by a lack of funding, Wells, Gregor Nicholas and other independent filmmakers formed the New Film Group. Among other ideas, they proposed a package of short dramas for television, knowing TV programmers prefer regularity over individual short films.

The NFG took their anthology idea to producers Bridget Ikin and John Maynard (working under the banner of Ikin's company Hibiscus Films). The NZ Film Commission, keen to support new filmmakers, agreed to invest, alongside a finance company.

Networks in England and New York bought the results, and five of About Face's directors would go on to direct feature films — with a sixth working extensively in television.

But first Ikin had to whittle roughly 150 script ideas down to seven; keeping her eye out for non-racist, non-sexist ideas that suited a half hour running time.

Each director was given a relatively generous two weeks to shoot, while the producers frantically juggled seven balls. The creative team often swapped jobs between episodes, as with previous anthology series Winners and Losers.

The episodes screened in the following order (with directors in brackets):

1) Danny and Raewyn (Gregor Nicholas) - a portrait of a decaying relationship in suburbia

2) The Lamb of God (Costa Botes) - a horror-comedy about sheep staging a revolution

3) A Fitting Tribute (Greg Stitt) - a tale of a mythmaking Kiwi legend

4) Jewel's Darl (Peter Wells) - life for a transsexual and transvestite in love

5) Return Journey (Shereen Maloney) - a mother and daughter recall past differences

6) Universal Drive (Martyn Sanderson) - conflicts between a car loving brother and sister

7) My First Suit (Stewart Main) - a gay teen's coming of age

Although not officially part of About FaceRud's Wife (Alison Maclean) screened at the tail end of the series.

The scripts chosen reflected a desire to move beyond familiar staples of the Kiwi screen — the rural, the macho, the romanticised — and mine drama from tales of ordinary people. Six of the seven stories were set in the city. Three episodes had women on the writing team, and five put women actors into key roles. Roughly half of the writers and directors had never made a drama before.

Completed in 1985, About Face debuted in August 1986, at 10pm. The late time-slot was a compromise; television executives originally wanted to drop the Jewel's Darl episode entirely, arguing it violated public standards (starring future MP Georgina Beyer, it also featured strongly in the show's generally impressive reviews).

The signs About Face was on the right track began to appear even before it went on air. In-house TVNZ productions themselves begun looking in different directions — drama series Roche (1985) and Open House (premiering two months before About Face) also shared working class characters, urban settings, and meatier female roles.

Producer Bridget Ikin remarked in 1986: "we took a lot of risks, working with directors and writers who hadn't been involved with narrative drama before. The series vindicates our belief that it is necessary to take risks like that."

The Return Journey episode received a Merit Award at the 1985 Chicago Film Festival. In 1987 About Face was nominated for five Gofta awards. It was a finalist in Best Drama Series. Jewel's Darl was nominated for Best Writing for a Drama: (Anne Kennedy and Peter Wells), Director (Peter Wells) and Single Drama Programme.

Three of the five nominations for Best Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Role (including Danny and Raewyn winner Jennifer Ward-Lealand) were from About Face episodes. The other actress nominations came from a show whose title perhaps best encapsulated the About Face mission: Open House.

- Ian Pryor is Editor of NZ On Screen.

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Our Rustic Pine range is handmade in North Yorkshire and built to your specifications. All units are solid pine throughout, include dovetail drawers, solid black handles and are completed with a wax finish. With this range, the only limitation is your imagination. You can build your kitchen from scratch, with your own bespoke measurements, or you can use our ‘standard’ sizings from the website. The choice is yours, but either way you will end up with a stunning, unique, ‘farmhouse style’ kitchen.

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Our transition program focuses on meeting the individual needs of each child. Our team of Developmental Therapists focuses on building a strong relationship with each child to help support their ability to enhance the child's strengths, while challenging them to meet their goals. Within this program, students will enhance their capacity for self-regulation, relating and engaging with others, communication, ideation, as well as gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and foundation academic skills.

Students in the transition program receive 1:1 instruction and have an individual program plan based on their Functional Emotional Developmental Capacities (FEDCs). Throughout their day, students will work towards communication, social, play, and academic goals that are appropriate for their development. Students will also integrate into group programs and participate in the classroom routine with the support of a Developmental Therapist.

Intro to The Transition Program

Who is the Transition Program for? Children between 3 and 18 years of age who would benefit from an individual program plan and a specialized learning environment to help them master social, emotional, physical, and cognitive skills. The Transition Program maintains a multi-sensory approach to learning, where each child will engage in experiences to help them develop and master skills that go beyond the classroom and generalize into the social world.

The Curriculum


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Blue Charcoal Exfoliating Oars Bar Soap $14

Blue charcoal soap designed for exfoliation and deep cleaning, purges your skin of dead skin cells, sweat and bacteria.

Size: 6 oz.

Ship every 3 months

How to use

Use every other day.

  1. Wet soap.
  2. Massage into wet skin to remove dead skin cells.
  3. Wash off with water.

Avoid face and open cuts.

The nitty gritty

  1. Blue Charcoal Oars Bar is for guys looking for a deeper clean. This bar is best suited for guys who are looking to exfoliate away dead skin cells and bacteria that lead to pimples and acne on the body. Good-bye backne.
  2. Exfoliating and deep cleaning soap with Blue-Green Algae Extract and Volcanic Sand helps purge your skin of dead skin cells, sweat and bacteria, helping to keep pimples at bay.
  3. Witch Hazel Extract, a natural astringent, reduces excess oil on your skin. Organic, Fair Trade, handcrafted Shea Butter provides intense moisture for dry and dehydrated skin.
  4. Blue Charcoal binds to dirt and sweat to keep your pores free of acne.

Made with Natural Ingredients

Paraben-Free, Phthalate-Free, Sulfate-Free, Gluten-Free

Made in U.S.A.

Sodium Palmate (Derived From Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM Palm Oil), Sodium Cocoate (Or) Sodium Palm Kernelate, Water (Aqua), Glycerin (Plant Derived), Butyrospermum Parkii Butter (Organic, Fair-trade, Hand-crafted Shea Butter), Fragrance (Parfum), Pumice, Active Charcoal, Hamamelis Virginiana (Witch Hazel) Leaf Extract, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Gluconate, Galactoarabinan (Larch Tree Extract), Tetrasodium Glutamate Diacetate, Ultramarines Ci 77007 (Mineral Derived Blue Pigment), Spirulina Maxima Extract (Blue-green Algae Extract), Cladonia Stellaris Extract (Alpine Caribou Moss), Iron Oxides Ci 77499 (Mineral Derived Pigment), Volcanic Sand.

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Good causes urged to apply for funding

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Local charities and good causes can now apply for a share of more than £3 million of funding that has been raised by the players of People’s Postcode Lottery.

Applications are open until February 20 and good causes, from social enterprises to voluntary groups and registered charities, are eligible to apply for grants of between £500 and £20,000.

The financial support is available through three different trusts funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, with the purpose of supporting people and their communities. These trusts are People’s Postcode Trust, Postcode Community Trust and the Postcode Local Trust.

Sports groups for military veterans, counselling support services for young carers and accessible play parks are just a few examples of the more than 1,600 projects that were successful and received funding in 2018.

Argyll and Bute MP Brendan O’Hara said: ‘Funding from People’s Postcode Lottery’s players makes a huge difference to thousands of good causes across the country

‘I know that there are many good causes in my constituency that would love a cash boost for a specific project and I would encourage any local charities or good causes who are looking for funding to apply as soon as possible.’

A minimum of 32 per cent from every People’s Postcode Lottery ticket goes to good causes.

For more information visit


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• Board members of the Orange County Department of Education, John Bedell, left, Robert Hammond, center, and Linda Lindholm during a meeting in Costa Mesa on Wednesday.

  • A visitor to the Orange County Department of Education board meeting videotapes Robert Hammond in Costa Mesa on Wednesday.

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    The gallery will resume inseconds
  • Laura Kanter, Director of Policy, Advocacy and Youth Programs at LGBT Center OC, addresses board members of the Orange County Department of Education in Costa Mesa on Wednesday. Kanter was arguing in favor of an anonymous school survey that, among other things, asks students if they have been bullied because of their sexual orientation.

  • Pastor Jim Domen, of the California Family Council, addresses board members of the Orange County Department of Education in Costa Mesa on Wednesday.

  • Chris Tebbutt, of Laguna Beach, addresses board members of the Orange County Department of Education in Costa Mesa on Wednesday. Tebbutt said he and his husband have four children, two of them in the Laguna Beach Unified School District.

  • John Bedell, left, and Robert Hammond, members of the Orange County Department of Education board, listen during a session Wednesday in Costa Mesa.

  • Robert Hammond, board president of the Orange County Department of Education, during a recess at a meeting in Costa Mesa on Wednesday.

It took but a moment for the Orange County Board of Education to adopt a resolution Wednesday recognizing Memorial Day.

But a proposed resolution honoring the late San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California, failed after heated public comments.

The board didn’t directly vote on the Milk resolution. Members delayed it to a future meeting, with some requesting a resolution that doesn’t focus on Milk, but instead is inclusive and welcoming to all students regardless of race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Board member John Bedell said he wanted “less Harvey Milk” and a “more generic resolution honoring human dignity.”

Fellow board member David Boyd, who had asked for the Milk resolution, said, “If you vote it down, whether it’s true or not, the perception … will be this is a very anti-gay board.” After the meeting, Boyd said he was “bitterly disappointed.”

The Milk resolution was part of a controversy-filled session.

“I thought we needed a popcorn machine. It was crazy,” said Laura Kanter, policy, advocacy and youth programs director at the LGBT Center OC. Kanter said she would like to see a future resolution include the LGBT community.

Kanter and many others in the audience attended the session not to address the resolution but to comment on a news release Boyd put out last month, saying he would ask for an investigation into the conduct of Board President Robert Hammond as well as a briefing from the county’s legal counsel as to what constitutes a hostile work environment.

Boyd’s concern stems from comments Hammond made in two emails. In one, he referred to gays as “sodomites.” In the other, he told an employee, “I hope you don’t mind but I plan on asking you about your sexual orientation publicly during our next board meeting.”

Boyd never got a chance to ask for an investigation. The matter was agendized for the afternoon but was moved to the morning session. Boyd arrived late and missed his chance to move the item forward. No one else took it up, so the issue died.

After the session, Hammond declined to address his sodomite comment except to say there are those who think it’s an inappropriate term and others, particularly on the religious right, who feel it is acceptable.

Hammond defended the second email saying he would ask an employee about his sexual orientation. The question has been taken out of context and was rhetorical, he said, a reference to the California Healthy Kids Survey. Among other things, the survey asks students if they have been bullied because they are gay or someone thought they were.

“It is very inappropriate to ask an adult employee about their sexual orientation. It’s beyond the pale. It’s inappropriate for our schools to be asking students about their sexual orientation,” Hammond said.

Sherine Smith, the Laguna Beach Unified School District superintendent, asked the board members to resolve their conflicts and work toward helping all students, including gay students who are at greater risk for depression and suicidal thoughts. The California survey, she said afterwards, is given to students anonymously and helps school districts identify numerous issues, including school climates and the extent of bullying.

Chris Tebbutt, a Laguna Beach father, said Hammond’s email to the employee constituted a threat and his comment about sodomites was derogatory.

“We’re a world-class county with narrow-minded leadership,” Tebbutt said after the session.

Others were pleased that neither issue advanced Wednesday. Some speakers condemned homosexuality – to some rounds of “amen” from the audience. Others criticized the survey used in schools.

“Political beliefs have no place in my child’s classroom,” said Ryan Ortega, of Santa Ana. “If anyone is going to push an agenda on my child it is going to be me.”

Still others voiced strong opinions about Milk, calling him a promiscuous sexual predator who preyed on young people.

The questions about Hammond come as he is running for re-election. Asked about emails from 2014 surfacing so close to an election, Boyd said the public should know about them.

Asked whether the controversy could affect his election race, Hammond said, “With some people, it will hurt; with some people, it will help.”

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