Norman kirk biography
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We Need to Talk About Norman: New Zealand's Lost Leader
Why do we need to talk about Norman? Because although Norman Kirk was prime minister for barely 21 months some 50 years ago, he still speaks to us. His belief in the state as a force for good and his style of leadership could and should be powerful guides for politics in the 21st century. Kirk was not a supporter of the neoliberalist ideology that has given us widening inequality, rising poverty and the virtual obliteration from public debate and policy-making of the workers who create this country’s wealth. His idea of a healthy country was, famously, one whose citizens could realistically expect to find “someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work and something to hope for”. But the social contract central to politics in his day has been broken, and state and society are now run almost exclusively on business lines. This book, bygd veteran journalist and political commentator Denis Welch, is ai
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Former prime minister Norman Kirk. Photo: Peter Bush
On his way to St Peter's College in Palmerston North, prime minister Norman Kirk was so ill that his chauffeur-driven car had to pull over and wait while he relieved himself in bushes nära the road.
At the school, he revealed a plaque to mark its opening.
He then delivered a speech described as pessimistic, decrying a focus on the "superficial benefits of the affluent age" as society turned away from a collective community toward evil.
The school opening on 18 August 1974 was Kirk's last public appearance.
Ten days later, he was famously pictured striding into the Home of Compassion Hospital in Island Bay, Wellington. He died on 31 August, aged 51.
His two years in office were frenetic on the home front and in foreign policy. His government recognised China, protested French nuclear testing in the Pacific, refused to allow a racially selected Springbok rugby team entry, and introduced a retirement savings scheme - although
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Norman T. Kirk
United States Army general
Norman T. Kirk (January 3, 1888 – August 13, 1960) was a surgeon who specialized in bone and joint surgery during World War 1 and was Surgeon General of the Army from 1943 to 1947 during the height of the second World War.
Biography
[edit]Norman Thomas Kirk was born on January 3, 1888, in Rising Sun, Maryland, to Thomas Kirk and Anna Brown.[1][2]
Kirk attended Jacob Tome School and graduated in 1906. He then attended the University of Maryland. While in school he worked as a druggist during school breaks. He received his medical doctorate degree in 1910. He then worked as the resident physician at the University Hospital in Baltimore.
In 1910, Kirk began working as a clinical assistant at the United States Soldiers' Home Hospital, Washington, D.C. Kirk enlisted in the Army Medical Reserve Corp on May 29, 1912, and was commissioned as a first lieutenant. He graduated from the Army Medical school in 1913 and w