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.

The Chocolate Wars

The last time when I wrote about chocolate, my focus was on slavery and the exploitation of children in particular. This time the focus is on palm oil plantations and specifically on the Cadbury Corporation.


The palm oil industry (as most of us know) is knocking down rainforests and burning peat across Indonesia and Malaysia to expand production to meet the increased demand. This is resulting in the release of massive amounts of greenhouse gases and the destruction of the habitat of endangered animals such as the orang-utan. Deforestation contributes about twenty percent of global carbon emissions; a figure widely accepted and commonly used at United Nations climate change conferences. Most of this country's palm kernel imports come from Indonesia, with the remainder from Malaysia. Both countries are currently experiencing large-scale clearance of rainforest for palm oil plantations.

Below is the latest Whittakers commercial comparative advertising their chocolate product to Cadbury's amongst the recent controversy about (1) Palm Oil being used in the Cadbury's Chocolate bars, (2) Cadbury moving production to Australia resulting in unemployment here in New Zealand and (3) the packaging size changes.



http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/19582/ 13th July

Auckland Zoo, located in New Zealand's largest city, has decided to banish the iconic chocolate brand, Cadbury, from its shelves. because the chocolate maker, one of the country's largest and most popular chocolate manufacturers, has substituted some of the cocoa solids in its products with palm oil, from plantations in South Asia.

“We are advocates for wildlife,” said Auckland Zoo's conservation officer, Peter Fraser. “The biggest threat for animals is encroaching palm oil plantations. The plantations lie in a biodiverse hotspot. Orangutans are critically endangered,” he said. But so are the Sumatran Tiger and Rhino, the small clawed Asian Otter, [and] reptile, and plant species.


Palm oil is derived from mainly from plantations in Indonesia, Borneo, Malaysia and South America. Currently only four percent of palm oil comes from sustainable sources. “We had to look at our shelves and see if there were any Cadbury products,” Mr. Fraser said.

The zoo has been selling Cadbury chocolates in it's shops and restaurant, and palm oil products also form part of the zoo's animal feed.

“If we talk the talk, we have to walk the walk.”

Mr. Fraser said it was not currently possible to remove all palm oil products from the zoo as, in the case of some animals' feed, there is no replacement right now.

Cadbury's Response

Cadbury spokesman, Daniel Ellis, told the Sunday Star Times that Cadbury was a member of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a body tasked with ensuring responsible and sustainable palm oil crops.

Greenpeace Response

Vanessa Atkinson, Greenpeace New Zealand climate campaigner said that, [being] “RSPO certified doesn't mean that the palm oil you buy is sustainable or that it hasn't caused rainforest clearing or climate impact. There is no segregation of suppliers in the supply chain."

Greenpeace warns that the carbon dioxide released by the draining and burning of peatlands for palm oil plantations in the South Asian region is responsible for four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Chocolate Eaters Respond too

Many Cadbury's customers are also dismayed and outraged. The outrage is such that bloggers are criticizing the altered product and promising to switch to competitors' products. A petition asking Parliament to put out warnings about palm oil is also in progress. Some consumers are disillusioned with the taste of the new product and are urging Cadbury to bring back the old recipe while others are angry over the effect of palm oil plantations on rainforests.

Apparently Cadbury Australia has been adding palm oil to its products for some time but New Zealanders have only recently been surprised with downsized bars of chocolate which have a different taste and texture to how they tasted before.

Mārire

This seems to have somehow wound up being two blogs in one.

Anyhow, my sister and my mother came for lunch yesterday (we went to Seagers for lunch - really nice) and during the conversation we found ourselves remembering our grandmother (my father's mother) and her motel in Picton which she had named the Marire Motels.

Picton Harbour.

By the time ... my mother first met my father in Wellington in the 'fifties and he took her across the Cook Strait to Picton, my grandmother was a widow (my grandfather had died at age 52 from a blood clot following an operation) and she was running the Sunwick Bed & Breakfast on High Street. My father was one of five children and his two older brothers were already married. I think his sister was helping my grandmother at the time and the youngest brother was still living at home (just).

Actually it was just recently that this youngest brother (as he was driving us quickly to the Wellington airport to catch our plane home back in May) told my mother that he had been present at the dance when my father first met her. He had been with a group of blokes and she hadn't realised at the time that one of them was his brother on a visit to Wellington. It was a nice thing for him to tell her the story from his perspective.

Creating Families and/or Motels

A recent Picture of High Street, Picton

My parents married, and first me (1957), and then my sister (1959) were born in Wellington, then we moved to Taumarunui where my little brother was born (1961). Meantime my grandmother had decided that running a bed and breakfast place was getting too full-on and she wasn't getting any younger so she decided to build motels instead. She wanted to build them on the High Street, handy to the local shops and the beach which would take good advantage of the emerging tourist industry in Picton and had to push her case quite hard through the local council as no motels had been built on the High Street before.

She must have been around sixty at this time.

My first actual memory of my grandmother (I must have seen her before this but been too young to remember) was when our family left Taumarunui, which is in the middle of the North Island, more or less, to live in Blackball way down on the West Coast of the South Island. This was in October of 1962 and we had a really rough crossing over the Cook Strait (between the two islands). My mother had dolled up my wee brother to look really cute for his first introduction to his grandmother in Picton but he was fearfully sick on the ferry and arrived looking white and miserable - a very poor specimen of a grandson right then.

The Cook Strait rail and vehicle ferry Aramoana which was in service in 1962.

My grandmother (a very practical woman) had built her motels as single story units which surrounded three sides of the section of land and were open to the street. They were built of concrete block (I think that is cinder block in the US?), and painted in fashionable 'fifties pastels, each unit a different pastel colour, pink, lemon, pale blue or green. Between each unit was a single garage (the only motels with garages I have ever seen in New Zealand) and the forecourt was laid with small coloured shingle so that if any of the visitors cars dropped oil it could be easily got rid of. Each unit had two bedrooms, a kitchenette, shower and toilet, and a small lounge with dining table and chairs. A shared laundry (agitator washing machine) and several rotary washing lines were to be found in a group around the back of the units.

A corner unit had become my grandmother's home and office. She didn't get out a lot because she always had to be available to answer the phone for bookings but a large window provided her with a view onto the street so she could watch all the comings and goings as they unfolded on the street, and she was very handily placed for her friends to visit her each day. Her unit contained a couch in the lounge which folded out to become a bed, and also, us kids were fascinated by a large cupboard in her lounge from which a bed was pulled down when the cupboard doors were opened. There were also two bedrooms, my grandmother's room had two single beds and the other room had another two single beds and a large canvas cot for the youngest grandchildren like my wee brother, so she was all set up for when family came to stay.

Mārire - the motels, the word, and the meaning ...

My grandmother always had a strong respect and liking for the Maori people and wanted a NZ/Maori name for her motels, which meant something, rather than some irrelevant name dragged here from overseas. As children we never paid much attention to the name, Marire Motels but I remember my grandmother telling me that a local Maori woman had told her that the word meant peace. My grandmother was very pleased that the locals approved her choice of name for her motels.

So yesterday we checked my Reed Dictionary (my better Williams Dictionary is down in Christchurch at my sister's house) and it listed, mārire : quiet, gentle, discreet, placid.

The word mārire was also associated with a movement in the 1860's.

Pai Mārire (Good and Peaceful)

Pai Mārire followers around the Niu Pole

Te Ua Haumēne had been influenced by Christian missionaries after being captured by Waikato Maori back in 1826. It was these influences which shaped aspects of Pai Mārire. He had also learnt to read and write in Maori and became very familiar with the New Testament, especially the Book of Revelation.

Professor Ranginui Walker (Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou/ Struggle Without End, 1990; p 130) tells us that:

"The first overtly anti-Pakeha religious cult, founded by the prophet Te Ua Haumēne, arose in Taranaki, where the Land Wars began. Te Ua had fought beside Wiremu Kingi in the war and realised that something more than military prowess was needed to counter a standing army with superior numbers and weapons. Te Ua gained a reputation as a man of mana when the wreck of the Lord Worsley was attributed to his mystical powers of makatu. He communed with his god, Te Atua Pai Mārire, the Lord Good and Peaceful, and claimed visitation from the Angel Gabriel, who revealed a vision of Te Ua surrounded by all the tribes. The vision symbolised Te Ua's mission of unification, and his cult known as Pai Mārire (Good and Peaceful), signified the new relationship between tribes. converts worshipped around a Niu pole, rigged up like the mast of a ship, and expected to be endowed with the gift of tongues and a knowledge of science. Followers of the cult were promised that when every tribe was converted and unification achieved, the Pakeha would be conquered. They were also promised immunity to the Pakeha bullets if they went into battle crying 'Hapa Pai Mārire Hau! Hau!' It was from this battle cry that the Hauhau cult derived its common name. The cult initiated a new kind of guerilla warfare, which the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs had warned would be the consequences of confiscation."

Clearly the peace alluded to is between the tribes, and not between Maori and the colonists.

The flag at the top of this picture was Te Ua Haumēne's personal flag. The word ‘kenana’ (Canaan) shows his identification with the Jewish people, a people driven from their homeland. The bottom two flags belonged to Tītokowaru and Pēhi Tūroa, who were Pai Mārire followers.

Tourist Court Motels

A long time later my grandmother sold her motels and finally retired. They were renamed as the Tourist Court Motels and upgraded/modernised. They were repainted white and the single garages became studio units. Shops were built (one each side) at the front where there used to be taps and hoses for the visitors to wash their cars.

Our Children Are Not Our Punchbags

First the Background

A few years back people in our country was transfixed when a judge ruled that a woman who had beaten her kid with a horsewhip was only using "reasonable force" for the purpose of correction, a defence which was then allowed under Section 59 of The Crimes Act. I hate to think what that judge's home life was like.

It came out that many parents who might otherwise have been found guilty of child abuse (whacking their kids with blocks of wood and all sorts of other implements) were using Section 59 as a defence and winning their cases.

Sue Bradford of the Greens Party responded by bringing to Parliament (back in 2003 this was) a private members bill to Repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act to address this situation. "Parents", said Ms Bradford, "are supposed supposed to be protectors, not attackers, and children should feel totally safe at home."

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"You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable."

Kahlil Gibran.

```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Finally The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 amended the principal Act, to make better provision for our children to live in a safe and secure environment which should be free from violence by abolishing the use of parental force for the purpose of correction. This bill was passed by an overwhelming majority of 113 to 8 votes.

Some of you who were reading my Yahoo!360 blog may remember me writing on this topic before. We basically got up to about here. All was good.

But ...

The far-right-wing Act Party (Act is anti-regulation of any kind even to protect our kids, it seems) and disgruntled MP Taito Phillip Field voted the minority eight votes. This bill, I could point out, was not actually increasing regulation, it was merely amending the existing regulation to improve it. That point seem to have escaped the ACT party.

The Referendum

Since then, a campaign of misinformation led by much of our media, some extreme fundamentalist christians, Act supporters and sympathisers, and brainless celebrities like Simon Barnett to name a few, has culminated in a Citizens Initiated Referendum. We get to have a referendum if someone circulates a petition and enough of the Kiwi adult population sign it, (I think they need to get about 10%).

The former United Future MP Larry Baldock designed this confusing and heavily loaded referendum question, “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” He was collecting signatures on this months before the new law was even finally passed.

The first point which I think needs to be made is that The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 doesn't actually make smacking a criminal offence. The new law has not led to mass criminalisation of good parents.Indeed, a review of police reports have indicated that the number complaints even made have been very small. There has appeared to have been some increase in complaints about the use of more heavy handed force (not just smacking) and some prosecutions (as in the well publicised James Mason case). Other cases have been resolved in a range of other ways including referral to Child, Youth & Family (CYF), case conferencing and advice to parents.

Secondly there are many parents (like me) who do not think that smacking/hitting whatever your kids is part of any good parenting strategy. Quite often stressed parents smack their kids purely because they, the parents are stressed, but as the title of this post notes, our children are not our punch bags. We throw our hands up in horror nowadays when men belt into women (I was just feeling stressed honey) because men are so much bigger and more physically powerful than the women they hit, but surely, we parents are also bigger and more powerful than our kids.

What we find, in fact, is that many young parents don't really want to hit their kids at all but when they themselves have been brought up with smacking as punitive discipline, many times they simply do not know what to do instead. A child advocate came to our town a few weeks back to talk to parents on just this subject and was surprised (and very pleased) that none of the young mums she met had any problem with the law, none of them wanted to smack their kids, what they wanted was ideas and advice and helpful alternatives to smacking.

We all want our children to grow up to be well behaved, responsible people, able to have peaceful and happy relationships with their partners and children. Children need positive, safe and secure childhoods if they are to grow up to be successful, non-violent and happy people.

A recent survey showed that at least 3 out of 4 Kiwis believe this referendum to be a waste of money.

A referendum isn't a cheap thing. This one is expected to cost us $9million. In a recession. Great.

Voting in the referendum runs from Friday 31st July until Friday 21st August, 2009. Kiwis will get our voting paper in the mail between Friday 31st July and Friday 7th August, 2009.

Taken from an interview
on National Radio's Morning Report (June 17, 2009)

Larry Baldock: It is absolutely clear that if a parent uses any reasonable force right now to correct their child right now they are breaking the law…

Sean Plunket: Can you give us an example of that having happened?

Larry Baldock: There are examples that we’ll have available…

Sean Plunket: Can you give us a single example of that having happened, please?

Larry Baldock: There was a grandfather for example, who tipped his grandson out of a chair because the grandson refused to obey his grandfather to turn down the television and so on.

Sean Plunket: Was he convicted and was that a smack?

Larry Baldock: He plead guilty …

Sean Plunket: Was that a smack?

Larry Baldock: No, he tipped him out of a chair….

But wait, there's more...

Sean Plunket: Can you point to anyone who has been criminalised for smacking a child?

Larry Baldock: Yes we can.

Sean Plunket: Please, could you give me an example?

Larry Baldock: Well, I’ll have to go to my list of examples.

Sean Plunket: Can you give me a single example off the top of your head?

Larry Baldock: No, not off the top of my head, I can’t...

Wouldn’t it be nice to send Baldock a bill for $9million?

Provocation? No Way!

We in Aotearoa/New Zealand have been following this case on our news for some days now and I am growing more and more appalled, and I am sure I am not the only one.

It is completely bizarre, that a man who drove to his girlfriends' home, and took with him a nice sharp knife, on arriving, exchanged greetings with her mother, then walked upstairs to the young woman's room, and stabbed her (not once but two hundred and sixteen times, including slicing off her ears and hacking her nose even), claims provocation PROVOCATION if you please - as a defence.




He, Clayton Weatherston, even has a woman lawyer. I'm shocked that he can stand there bare-faced and have that woman lawyer argue provocation as his defence and that this woman lawyer (who really should know better) would agree to bring such a defence to our courts of law.


Imagine if he is found Not Guilty because of this so-called provocation. Could every NZ male now decide to stab a woman 216 times (that's two hundred and sixteen times and don't forget the ears) and plead provocation? Will provocation now become a defence again, for men who beat up their partners? Could violent parents (having lost the ability to plead reasonable force when they belt up their kids with horsewhips and the like) now insist on provocation as a defence instead?

It seems to me we have another piece of law which requires repealing. Where is Sue Bradford when we need her.

Spinners - Anthony McCarten (a review)

"It was some time on Saturday night after work but before closing time down at the pub that Delia Chapman saw a spaceman. Well, that wasn't quite true. She saw ten of them. They stayed for about half an hour. And they took her on their 'vessel'. They had silver suits and stainless-steel boots. The vessel was ultra-modern and entirely impressive."

Delia is next found on the middle of the road into Opunake by the new librarian (nephew of the mayor). In fact he nearly runs her over. So he gives her a ride into town where she tells her story to the understandably disbelieving local policeman (who is also the netball coach).

Everyone in Opunake finds it funny when quiet factory worker and netballer (goal shoot), Delia Chapman, makes the absurdly "American" claim that she was invited on board a spacecraft and 'interviewed' by aliens. It's Yanks that see spacemen.

"They imagined close encounters at the drop of a hat, especially when they were depressed, or had insomnia, or were on some kind of pills.[Delia] had read this. New Zealanders were different. They saw ghosts, not UFOs, poltergeists, the odd devil and the ever improbable witch."

But the jokes all turn to dismay when tests reveal that the sixteen year old virgin is pregnant! And things can only get worse when two of her young workmates and fellow netballers announce their pregnancies too and cite fathers with intergalactic addresses. Delia begins to believe that the new children will arrive with instructions to save the world.

Next there are crop circles and a flattened cow (a spaceship landing on the cow?)

And the media arrives in town bringing disrepute onto the town.

A humorous satire with several twists.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The author, Anthony McCarten, was born in 1961 and grew up in New Plymouth (NZ), and spent two years as a reporter on the Taranaki Herald. He has previously written ten plays and made five films, one of which "Show Of Hands" (about a competition to win a car by being the last person with their hands still touching the car) was coincidentally shown on the telly just over a week ago . He has also published a collection of short stories (A Modest Apocalypse). Spinners is his first novel.

Funding Cuts To Adult Education

Our flash new government has recently made an 80% funding cut to adult education spending. This is likely to have a major effect on the future of many adult education classes and on the jobs of around 15,000 tutors across the country.

The cuts start in 2010 and will see funding of $152 million over four years limited to $19.4m in the first half of 2010, $40.4m in 2010-2011, $44.7m in 2011-2012 and $48.4m in 2012-2013.

In rather arrogant and snobbish attitude, both Bill English (Finance Minister) and John Key (Prime Minister) have denigrated the adult classes, (many of which take place in local high schools thereby utilising those buildings in the evenings and probably paying the school a bit of rent too) saying that teaching useless subjects to old people is not a good use of our taxpayer money.

Which is somewhat ironic when, according to Labour MP Maryan Street, Bill English has spent years while in opposition, extolling the virtues of adult education. Maryan Street is spearheading a nationwide petition calling on the Government to reverse funding cuts to Adult Community Education (ACE) programmes.

Speaking while launching the petition, Maryan Street also commented that Education Minister Anne Tolley's responses to concerns about the cuts were "distressingly facile" and sought to ridicule all kinds of courses which are run in our communities.

Ms Tolley had stated that she was reprioritising funding from courses like "twilight golf, pet homeopathy and Moroccan cooking" to numeracy and literacy courses.

Waimea College Principal Larry Ching said he found Ms Tolley's comments insulting, "not just as a principal but for as a person who for many years has attended adult education classes. These courses affect ordinary Kiwi people and they build resilience in our communities." Mr Ching also said it was hard to justify for the government to justify the spending of $35m in funding to Private Education when ACE funding was being cut.

According to a 2008 report, more than 400,000 adults enrolled annually in courses including literacy, numeracy, foreign languages and computer training. "And giving people the chance to upskill is particularly vital during a recession," Ms Street said. "Community based education employs thousands of full and part time tutors and has an estimated economic benefit of between $4.8 billion and $6.3b annually."

And here's the thing. One of the "classes" affected will be our own Tai Chi class here in Oxford, which is run from our Community Office. There is a wide age range attending and quite a few are elderly and retired people on fixed incomes who may quite simply no be able to afford a higher fee so they may wind up simply staying home. They can all read and write quite well already, thank you very much Ms Tolley and Messrs English and Key.

Tai Chi helps people of all ages and abilities. It keeps people (especially important for older or disabled people) fit, active and mobile.

The petition will be circulated throughout our country until the 30th September, which said Ms Street, would give the Government time to rethink its decision. If you are a Kiwi and the petition turns up somewhere near you, please sign it.

My Bike

Sometimes you need to laugh
at the absurdities...

Like this morning,
I rode my bike down to the office
and I prepared all the food parcels.

Everyone drove down
to pick up their parcels in their cars,

and one bloke even came down
driving his 4WD,
which he drove around to the back door
so that nobody on the main street
would see.

I think women are more
used to picking up food parcels.

Iri

The Most Peaceful Country

This was a nice read for Kiwis today. Aotearoa/New Zealand is the most peaceful country on the planet according to the 2009 Global Peace Index (GPI).

The index defines peace as "the absence of violence," and checks out twenty-three qualitative and quantitative indicators of external and internal measures of peacefulness. Internally, these include homicides, percentage of the population in jail, availability of guns, and level of organized crime. External indicators include the size of the military, exports and imports of arms, battlefield deaths, UN peacekeeping contributions, and relations with neighbouring states.

Apparently last year (2008) we came in fourth, and the year before (2007) we were second.

You can check out how well your country scored here.