God The Renovator

I heard this (about God the Renovator) on Radio New Zealand National on presenter Jim Mora's panel - a great discussion programme which occurs on weekdays at 4pm, where various panelists and Jim tackle all sorts of topics, both relevant and obscure.

The panelists on Wednesday the 13th October were Finlay MacDonald (columnist and editor) and Gordon MacLaughlin (writer and journalist).

One of Thursday's topics concerned the mistranslation of the opening sentence of Genesis. Jim opened the topic.





It seems that, according to Ellen van Wolde (author, old testament scholar, and member of the Dutch Royal Academy of Scientists), there has been a phenomenal mistranslation in Genesis, the first book of the modern bible. According to van Wolde, the problem lies in the translation. She has based her research on fresh new analysis of the original Hebrew texts. However van Wolde went further, she also studied the opening text - "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" - in relation to the Old Testament as a whole, and in relation to other Mesopotamian creation myths. Ellen van Wolde concludes that the verb “bara” does not mean to create – but means to separate in space. “God schiep niet, hij scheidde” – “God did not create he separated”.

He (according to the original writers of Genesis) brought an order out of a kind of formless chaos, using what was already there, the heavens, the land, the creatures, all of which had already been created. It seems that when you look back at the traditions of the world in which the old testament was originally written that this was a perfectly normal way for high gods to behave - they gained their position by conquering the forces of chaos. Doctor James Harding (a local biblical scholar) who popped onto the radio for a cameo moment, pointed out that "the idea that God created out of "nothing" only gained currency amongst Christians in about the second century AD".

"Bit of a comedown isn't it" said Finlay MacDonald (this guy was a great panelist), "from creator to sort of renovator, don't you think?"

Taking On The Tobacco Industry

Maori Party MP, Hone Harawira announced last week that the Maori Affairs parliamentary select committee would hold an inquiry into the impact of tobacco use on Maori. He wants the tobacco company executives to front up at an inquiry into the industry. "There is a very clear public record of the serious negative effects of tobacco and the companies selling it must front up to the public", he said. The inquiry would require the New Zealand-based chairpeople and chief executives, not spin doctors, to be involved.

Select committees are able to ask the Speaker of the House to summons people to appear. It is very rare for a Speaker to do so. The Speaker must be convinced that all other avenues have been pursued first. If someone is summonsed and does not appear they can be charged with Contempt of the House, punishment ranging from imprisonment to the requirement of an apology. (quite a broad range there really)

Mr Harawira said he wanted to put the tobacco companies under the spotlight "finally". This is a war against people who kill New Zealanders ... I don't particularly give a shit about what they say (in their defence)."For Hone, Tobacco Production and Marketing is a Colonisation issue. In a speech he gave back in 2006 he said:

"Liberals will say though that smoking is about Maori people making choices. But I say no. HELL NO!!! Smoking is a part of colonisation. Tobacco has had its day in America and Europe, and now they are looking for other places to conquer; places like Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and now China. They're colonising places even America can't get into. And smoking ain't a choice; it's a disease. And just like the flu came with colonisation, so did tobacco. In fact, at the launch of the 2001 Maori Quit campaign, even the Prime Minister admitted that smoking came with the coloniser.

Addiction to cigarettes is also part of institutional racism, because tobacco companies use their structures, their policies and their practices to oppress our people in the same way as government agencies have. These companies are owned by white people driven by a lust for profit. They have no conscience about selling a product that kills our people, and in case you don't believe me, here's a quote from a Tobacco Company Executive who said: "We don't smoke this shit - we sell it. We reserve the right to smoke it, to the young, the poor, the black and the stupid".

Hone points out that there is untold money spent on debating and on legislating the health warnings on cigarette packets, and then restrictions on points of sale, and then on smoke-free workplaces, and then smoke-free bars. Hundred and thousands of hours and millions of dollars are being poured into smoking cessation programmes as well. What this has done is to simply create one industry to manage another.

Which is so true. Allen Carr, author of Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking (which I reviewed in my early days on Multiply) would have been right onside with Hone I reckon. He argued that instead of nicotine addiction decreasing through all these programmes, all that was happening was that pharmaceutical corporations were taking over control of the nicotine substance from the tobacco companies. Probably the same rich guys have money in both. An article on his website, Is the Government's Smoking Cessation Strategy Working? states:

"Many of those who championed NRT (Nicotine Replacement Therapy) as an aid to quitting are now backtracking. Nicotine, they argue, should now be administered to addicts, not as a means of quitting the drug, but merely as a “safer alternative” to smoking. So, the objective of nicotine treatment is soon to become a long term (in other words lifelong) maintenance programme with a variety of nicotine products provided for addicts to use for the rest of their lives."

Nicotine is a poison. No matter how you wrap it up, no matter how pretty the package, it is still a poison. All they are talking about here is making a more socially acceptable form of a drug so that non-smokers won't be bothered by cigarette smoke. I cannot see any other benefit.

Allen Carr was so annoyed and frustrated that he wrote a book called The Nicotine Conspiracy: The Scandal The Establishment Don't Want You To Know About.

It is in the interests of the tobacco industry to have us all believe that the current programmes are making any difference at all. As long as we follow that mythology we are merely timewasting at the expense of all of us and our kids too. Basically Hone is looking to have both the Production and Sale of Tobacco to be made illegal for once and for all.

H-ism

I always thought the letter "h" was a perfectly acceptable letter until recently. No better, no worse than any other letter.

I mean, do you folk see a problem with this h?

But in the North Island (otherwise knows as Te Ika A Maui), in Whanganui (sorry, make that Wanganui) it seems some people just don't like h's. Some colonist settler people in 1859 even appeared to think that an h appearing in the name Whanganui looked quite ugly in fact.

Not English enough. Apparently Wanganui (without the h) looked quite English to them Ok. If you say so.
Michael Laws (the Mayor of Wanganui) seems to have developed a bitter hatred of this much maligned letter. He has run local referendums about the potential re-inclusion of the h into Wanganui, fought with school children on the subject (their parents were egging them on, he reckoned), fluttered his mascara'd eyelashes while pouting through untold tv interviews.

But the thing is - its not just about an h really. Names very often have meanings. Whanganui means "the long wait" - the word whanga meaning "to wait". The name originates from the time of Kupe the great navigator, and in fact the extended name for Whanganui is Te-whanga-nui-a-Kupe referring to the extended wait for Kupe to return from his explorations into the interior.

T'ere is no such word as wanga so to read t'e word Wanganui in te reo Maori is as absurd and makes as much sense as reading t'e name Wasington, US. Or Pert', Australia. Obart in Tasmania. 'ow about Orseshoe Falls or 'Amilton County - crikey we s'ould all be cockneys e' Mic'ael.

Picture Says It All

Hard thing for me to say but on his blog our Bomber Bradbury (borrowed the pic from Bomber) has made a call to overseas activists to Boycott New Zealand Goods on the back of John Key and our flash new government's decision to set a greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of only 10 to 20 per cent below 1990 levels at climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany, rather than the forty percent that so many Kiwis have called for. And apparently even this is only conditional. We can only wonder to what new depths they can find plummet.

Bomber Bradbury:
"National are purposely misrepresenting the costs because they are the party of the farmers and big business, they refuse to make those industries pay for the pollution they create and National gutted the agricultural tax rebate for research necessary to create the technology to cut emissions. ACT have polluted National’s climate change because ACT are taking huge sums of cash from climate deniers like Alan Gibbs. The whole thing stinks to high heaven and we are losing our clean green image."

Gareth Renowden:
"It is now transparently obvious that this National-led government simply does not understand the real challenges presented by climate change. They do not appreciate the full seriousness of the situation that confronts the planet, they underestimate the need to act, and they have completely failed to make any coherent assessment of what could be done. That amounts to gross incompetence, and they should be held to account for it, both at the ballot box and in the court of public opinion."

Our flash Government, who seem to inhabit a different world from the rest of us, are claiming this ridiculously low emissions reduction target has gone down well at the UN Climate Change talks in Bonn. Not so, states one Geoff Keey, who is actually there. Instead, "at the beginning of day two of the negotiations, the NGOs at the talks put out their daily bulletin - ECO - with a focus on New Zealand. The newsletter is a daily tradition dating back years. It's a good light-hearted view of a deadly serious topic. The content speaks for itself," writes Geoff.

You can view the newsletter yourself by clicking here. It is a pdf file.

Geoff Keey:
"It’d be fair to say that some developed country delegates were relieved that the target wasn’t as low as they thought it was going to be. Expectations of New Zealand around here aren’t great at present. But overall I think it's seen as nothing more than a low opening offer. I also got the impression that negotiators and observers thought New Zealand’s conditional demands were over the top. One long-standing observer said to me, it seems that what New Zealand is doing with its demands is saying: “if the rest of the world is really nice to us and is willing to work really hard to reduce emissions, we’ll condescend to do something inadequate.” He also noted that “Kevin Rudd got a standing ovation in Bali, New Zealand didn’t get a single clap at Bonn.” Given that Rudd’s no climate hero, that’s not very promising."

Actions people can take

So, to people overseas, the only way to hurt this government and make them listen is to hit them in the purse strings, especially with our agricultural products, beef and lamb and dairy. Because the producers of these products are easily identifiable as the lobbyists behind this low emissions target. These are the people who are petrified that they will be forced to clean up their act in order to cut our greenhouse gas emissions.

Also people (no pressure, just a suggestion) might like to send our Prime Minister John Key a friendly little email telling him how you plan to boycott our goods due to our pathetic greenhouse gas emissions reduction target. Overseas public opinion may well go far to change this government's stance.

This is John Key's email address - john.key@parliament.govt.nz

New Zealand The Way It Was,
before this new lot took over; a country we could be proud of. I'd like to be proud of it again one day.

The Maori Jesus And The Holocaust

"The Maori Jesus came on shore
And picked out his twelve disciples.
One cleaned toilets in the railway station;
His hands were scrubbed red to get the shit out of the pores.
One was a call-girl who turned it up for nothing.
One was a housewife who had forgotten the Pill
And stuck her TV set in the rubbish can.
One was a little office clerk
Who'd tried to set fire to the Government Buldings.
Yes, and there were several others;
One was a sad old quean;
One was an alcoholic priest
Going slowly mad in a respectable parish."

From James Keir Baxter's poem
The Maori Jesus (Dunedin Poems, 1966 -68)

This picture of Jesus wearing a Maori Cloak is from a church window in Rotorua. Intriguingly he even looks as though he is walking on the water of the lake outside.

To me this is not a religious poem, this is an entirely political poem. I realised this as I was typing the poem, (click here for the full version) on New Zealand Poetry Day. Typing means you take in every word, it slows down your thoughts, sometimes you might find meanings you never noticed before.

And I realised that -

Baxter's Maori Jesus is placed firmly into the working class. He wears workingmen's clothing (blue dungarees/overalls), he eats the traditional kai and colonial bread (mussels and paraoa) of working class Maori. And tellingly he chooses his disciples from the lowest rung of the Maori working/non-working? (it's all about perspective) classes - the railway toilet cleaner, the call girl (Mary Magdalene equivalent perhaps?), the mad housewife, the office clerk (resonant of the British Guy Fawkes even?), the alcoholic priest, the sad old quean. All these people are the disenfranchised, the losers in Pakeha society eyes.

The Maori Jesus comes from a land occupied by another race - the English. They brought their religion as a tool of oppression, they brought their laws which remade most Maori into landless peasantry of Aotearoa/ New Zealand. The story is repeated throughout the colonised/occupied world.

If our James K Baxter had been white Australian, his Jesus could have been an Aboriginal Jesus;
If Baxter was American then Baxter could have written his poem about a Native American Jesus -
By way of diversion Jesus could have even been African American;
in the historical British-occupied India, Baxter could have created his Jesus as an Indian Jesus,
Moreover, if Baxter identified as English, his Jesus could have been a Saxon in the Roman-occupied English Isles -
In similar time-frame Baxter's Jesus might have been Jewish in Roman-occupied Jerusalem.

Oh he was ...

These days he could even be written (in complete reversal) as a Palestinian in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

It's all the same story.

But on the 29th of August in the year 2000 when Tariana Turia (then a NZ Labour MP) gave an
address to the New Zealand Psychological Society Conference which took place at the Waikato University, Hamilton, in which she likened the colonisation/occupation/home invasion of Aotearoa/New Zealand (the Land of The Long White Cloud) to a Maori Holocaust Pakeha (white) New Zealanders were outraged! No one wants to be likened to a Nazi after all - many people even insisted Tariana was showing symptoms of grandiosity to liken the effect of colonisation on Maori to the slaughter of the innocent Jewish people by the evil Nazis.

About the grandiosity, we hadn't met Clayton Weatherston back then, the man who has brought home to all Kiwis the true meaning of grandiosity.

The poem goes on to tell us that:

"The first day he was arrested
For having no lawful means of support.
The second day he was beaten up by the cops
For telling a dee his house was not in order.
The third day he was charged with being a Maori
And given a month in Mt Crawford.
The fourth day he was sent to Porirua
For telling a screw the sun would stop rising.
The fifth day lasted seven years
While he worked in the Asylum laundry
Never out of the steam.
The sixth day he told the head doctor,
'I am the Light in the Void;
I am who I am.'
The seventh day he was lobotomised;
The brain of God was cut in half."

Tariana said:

"I seek not personal attention. I just want us to consider our history as a country and consider how this history has affected the indigenous people, how this history has impacted on Maori whanau, hapu and iwi.

I really do believe that mature, intelligent New Zealanders of all races are capable of the analysis of the trauma of one group of people suffering from the behaviour of another.

I can see the connections between 'home invasions' which concern many of us, to the invasion of the 'home lands' of indigenous people by a people from another land.

What I have difficulty in reconciling is how 'home invasions' emits such outpourings of concern for the victims and an intense despising of the invaders while the invasion of the 'home lands' of Maori does not engender the same level of emotion and concern for the Maori victims.

I wonder why that is?" (Turia, 2000)

The Future is Here: Climate Change in the Pacific

This winter has really been quite brutally cold with way more rain than we in Canterbury are used to, coupled with fierce frosts and ice that sits there all day under grey cloudy days. The weather people tell us this has been the coldest winter in a decade and I find that quite believable.

But over the last couple of days (1st and 2nd of August - gosh it is the 4th and I still haven't posted this lol - better do it today) the weather has become suddenly quite springlike. A northwest airflow bringing strongish winds at times but also warmer temperatures has coaxed me outdoors into the garden, hooray, and there is so much heat in the sun that yesterday I even got a touch of sunburn.

At least that's how it is in Canterbury.

All of this is very odd because traditionally August (along with July) are usually the New Zealand winter's coldest months. Spring shouldn't be here until September or even October, however the last few years have found me gardening earlier and earlier. In 2007 I noted I was busy outside around the 15th August and I forgot to pay attention last year but for me to be out there cleaning up gardens (mowing even) at the beginning of August is unheard of.

Gareth Renowden, (local Cantabrian science writer and author) in his book, Hot Topic: Global Warming and the Future of New Zealand (2007) mentioned that spring arriving earlier and earlier (nice as it might be for me), is a sign that Global Climate Change is upon us now. Right now. We are in it.





This month Oxfam has brought out a report pertinent to the Pacific region The Future is here: Climate Change in the Pacific, click here to read.





The report details the effects of Global Climate Change that are already being experienced by many of our island neighbours in the Pacific region. Many of the island nations are already being affected by tidal surges, coastal erosion, and flooding from the heavy rainfall following more and more frequent cyclones. Fresh water wells are threatened by salt water intrusion, vulnerable homes and gardens need to be re-sited further from the eroding coastlines. Salt water intrusion affects the growing of plants, vegetables, trees. Many (probably most) islands have the main road between communities running around the coastlines; therefore any kind of flooding or storm surges can break communications and help between island communities immediately.

Some small islands may have to be abandoned because of rising sea levels in favour of the bigger islands, perhaps very soon. Some island nations have no islands with higher ground, Kiribati for example. President Tong speaks of the need to up-skill the Kiribati population in readiness for the day when all 100,000 of them will have to move elsewhere and participate in labour markets.

Where Will The People All Go?

Do you know how many people live in the Pacific? By about 2050, 75 million people may have been forced to leave their homes in the Asia-Pacific region due to climate change. This is real.

One thing that needs to be done now is for both Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand to reduce our carbon emissions by 40% by the year 2020 and by at least a whopping 95% by the year 2050. And we need to start now, should have started yesterday or last month or something ...

right: Coastal erosion in Saoluafata, Upolu, Samoa, 2005

BUT here in New Zealand our super flash and utterly selfish new government wants to limit our global emissions target (post-Kyoto) to something in the range of only 15%. To help avoid catastrophic climate change New Zealand needs to be signing on to a 40% by 2020 emissions reduction target at the United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen this December.

What you can do ...

Please sign the Feel The Heat Petition here even if you don't live down in Aotearoa/New Zealand or in the Pacific. Our Prime Minister John Key and his coalition buddy Act leader Rodney Hide need to hear what the voters think, but also to know that the eyes of the world are upon them.

Or you can click on the banner below or the similar one on the right rail for more information. Thank you. Arohanui.

Bullies

I do wonder why it is that Right Wing Adherents always seem to find Downright Nastiness and Rudeness to be a fun way to interact. Nothing seems to amuse them more than to bash the vulnerable, especially beneficiaries.


Yes, this is going to be about Paula Bennett, but I need to vent some other stuff too.







That Private Christian School

Because, despite the fact that we are all supposedly in recession mode, our Flash New Government have now awarded further tax cuts to the richest segments in our society. They have also awarded $38million to the private schools.

It was a remarkable thing, therefore, that we were witness to a Principal of a Private Christian School, Rathkeale College in Masterton, hounding a solo mother, to the point of expecting her to mortgage her house, in order to pay to them the Voluntary Donations (note the word voluntary) that she has been unable to pay over the years. (She had paid all the compulsory stuff which was the largest amount by the way). But, beamed onto our Aotearoa/New Zealand telly screens, this unrelenting, white man, dressed in expensive suit and tie, accused this woman of free-loading and bludging on the rest of their school community. Even a partial payment was not good enough (she offered to pay what she could) for this avaricious man and his greedy school board. They wanted all of their potential pounds (NZ dollars even) of flesh to the last cent.

Adult & Special Education

I wrote already about the cuts that have been made to Adult Education throughout New Zealand. I must now report that a further $2.5million has now been cut from Special Education Units in state schools which offer support for kiddies with very severe physical disabilities.

but to get to the point here -

The Training Incentive Allowance & Ms Paula Bennett

The Training Incentive Allowance is now to be cut from sole parents. Enter Paula Bennett, the Minister for Social Development, the Minister who once herself was also a Solo Parent on a Domestic Purpose Benefit (DPB), the Minister who used Training Incentive Allowance (TIA) herself in order to gain qualifications and get herself out of poverty and into our Parliament no less! This Minister had this to say: "We have not cut the training incentive allowance; we have not cut the training level, we have merely changed the level." Gotta love the spin, not. Sole parents would still be helped, she said, "with a foundation course or other certificate", but at university level they would be treated as other students, she said.

In normal English language without the spin, that sole parents means getting a student loan and supporting their families via the student loan route rather than the DPB which the student loan was quite obviously never set up to do.

The Training Incentive Allowance (TIA) exists to enable solo parents to upskill by taking courses relevant to their needs. These might be more basic community-based courses, or polytech courses or university course. The TIA offsets the costs of the courses that solo parents are engaged in, for example, course fees, texts, stationery etc, travel (bus or train fares to an institution or petrol costs) and childcare costs. If the training allowance wasn't there, these costs would need to come out of grocery costs because most benefits have absolutely no room for manoeuvre anywhere else and few mothers would be prepared to take food from their children to enable their own study. There is no extra fat in a DPB, it covers rent, food, electricity - that's about it really. Solo parents must number amongst themselves the world's best economists. Some of them are straight out amazing.

So basically most solo parents are (from next year) going to be shut out of university study and any upskilling which could make a serious difference to their lives (and incomes).

Dissent

Two solo parents, Jennifer Johnston and Natasha Fuller, part way through their university degrees have publicly criticised the TIA cuts because only those sole parents who can find a way to complete their degrees via Student Loans will be able to do so, the rest will be left high and dry. Student loans are set up for young students who don't have parental responsibilities.

For example the student loan only offers an $18pw accommodation subsidy because it is assumed students will share houses (3, 4 or 5 students to a house maybe) to save costs. A solo mother (or sole father for that matter) with kiddies in tow usually needs at least a 3 bedroom house to her/himself and her/his family so that isn't going to work. And the student loan money is only available during semesters which means at the end of each semester there is a week standown (a week with no money at all) as the adult student moves off the loan onto some other income or benefit.

Most solo mums also study on a part time basis rather than full time purely because of their other responsibilities so they would be accruing an awful lot of student loan by the time they were done.

Now It Gets Ugly Because ...

Fighting for themselves and others, Jennifer Johnston and Natasha Fuller (and a heck of a lot of other people) were horrified when Queen of the Bullies, (Minister for Social UnDevelopment) Paula Bennett, released personal financial data about the two women after they publicly criticised cuts to a training incentive allowance.

Ms Bennett had her staff go through personal WINZ (Work & Income NZ) files, then gave the garnered information to the media as a weapon against the dissenters. She has tried to justify this complete abuse of power by saying she made the information public because (she reckons) the women were presenting a skewed picture to the public. Including all the TIA allowances the women received as though it was income (which it is not), Ms Paula Bennett has, in fact, presented an far more skewed picture, (allowances which are paid to providers are not income) and opened the door to the favoured sport of some people - beneficiary bashing.

Right Wing governments adore beneficiary bashing - it takes the heat from their real agendas.

Ms Johnson and Ms Fuller say there has been vicious reaction to them personally from some members of the public. Jennifer Johnston, said Ms Bennett was trying to intimidate her by releasing details of the welfare she receives.

"The ‘Right’," (from Bomber Bradbury's blog over at Tumeke) " – that includes Not PC – the corporate media – even David over at Kiwiblogh (who pretends to be enlightened) are all effectively arguing that the beneficiary is somehow inferior to the rest of us and as such don’t have the same rights to privacy and are open to this of type of abuse because it creates ‘better understanding of the debate’. What a load of absolute bullshit – complaining about a training allowance doesn’t ‘imply consent’ that you can now have all your personal details sent out to the media openly by the Minister you are complaining about! And that so many NZers are blind to this fact in their rush to bash a Bennie is about as ugly as our country gets."

As Paula Bennett is the Minister of Social Development, beneficiaries form a good part of her constituency and, in the view of Sue Bradford (Greens Party), Ms Bennett owes "a duty of care to this constituency." If so, Ms Bennett certainly doesn't see it that way.
Campbell Live Interview with Paula Bennett and Sue Bradford Here

She is also not averse (my opinion) to telling outright lies. On being asked to divulge her own spend on TIA, Ms Bennett says, oh it was so different then. It was much harder she reckons there was no child care subsidy, for example. Well, sorry Ms Bennett but that is just not true. The Child Care subsidy was available back in 1998 at least and I remember a friend using it back around 1990 at least while she was doing a typing course at the Polytech. So even though Ms Bennett might feel as though she is older than she looks (her opinion) she isn't so old that she could never have got a child care allowance. No way.

Meantime Prime Minister John Key (that wolf in sheeps' clothing) told reporters he was "comfortable" with the women's information being released and accepted Ms Bennett's justification.

The Labour Party intends to lay a complaint with the privacy commissioner against Social Development Minister Paula Bennett for releasing income details of two beneficiaries.

We are only about seven months into this political term, at this rate by the time we are done with it we may be believing even Rob Muldoon was benign.