Posts by ChrisW
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Busytown: What was lost, in reply to Ross Mason,
Dubya - but mainly his henchmen - lost the plot when he announced "you are either for us or against us".
Bush may have said this later, but in the first instance he put it in more profoundly extreme binary form - "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." This on 20 September 2001 in a speech (to the world) in Congress - highlighted here from an impeccable contemporary source.
In this form, it's easy to see that Bush's proposition will have been a specific encouragement to many on the other side of his forced dichotomy to take him seriously and decide to be active terrorists.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Sacha,
But the “one law for all” argument also ignores a rather obvious problem: that the one law Dr Brash and others refer to was largely an alien law imposed by the British on the locals
I agree with you and ScottY that Brash's exclusive focus on Article 3 of the Treaty is a major flaw. But the more obvious and fundamental problem with his repetitive quoting thereof as definitive proof there is no "special" place for the Tangata Whenua in NZ is that he misreads it.
That the Maori people of NZ were given the "same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England" or "all the rights and privileges of British citizenship" in no way precludes Maori from also having the specific rights they might hold under Article 2. Nor any other legal or property rights arising elsewhere or subsequently. As for Brash himself, who derives no legal or property rights from Article 3 of the Treaty, but has plenty from many other sources.
I wonder whether this is an honest failure of his binary brain, or disingenuous bullshit? (To put it in unfortunately binary form.)
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Those given to hyperbole, and those that stick to the facts?
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Hard News: A welcome return - and pirates!, in reply to Adzze,
But surely there are three sorts of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't?
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There seems to be much carelessness in commentaries on the context of OBL's compound in Pakistan. The NY Times has maps of the location and diagram detail - and interesting to compare with the current GoogleEarth image which dates from June 2005. It is 1.4 km as the crow flies from the entrance to the Pakistan Military Academy, twice that by vehicle given the irregularity of access well off the main roads. It's on a flat essentially rural area of intensively cultivated small plots, a peri-urban area of scattered houses and trees taller than the buildings. The main buildings apparently show only minor changes since 2005.
That is, it was not a conspicuous new construction perched on a hilltop in full view of the Pakistani military elite who turned a suspiciously blind eye as suggested eg. by so-called expert speaking with Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon this morning. Seems like a pretty good spot to have hidden really.
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Up Front: Where You From?, in reply to Jackie Clark,
So westie sailors both, eh?
Dad's ambition was to own a yacht with a deck he could walk on, first achieved with a trailer sailer then 20ft cruising catamaran moored in the Mangemangeroa Creek close to home in Cockle Bay - so we became Eastie sailers. Yeah - I know it will never catch on, and Cockle Bay better than the much denigrated Howick?
"Home" - yes it was a fine home for a time, wonderful the visual and physical access to the Hauraki Gulf - all those uniquely individual islands and the gaps between them. One distinct memory from the early 70s - near enough becalmed off Motukorea/ Browns Island in the catamaran one day when "Buccaneer" swept close by on a broad reach seemingly sailing at several times the wind speed - magnificent. I wonder if your Westie sailer was aboard that day?
And Sofie - thanks again, some day I may go further enquiring, currently seems not a major focus, I'm preoccupied by another bundle of diverse books to delve into ...
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And thanks Islander, the moral support from PAS women is uplifting, and not to a fault. I have a library of as-yet-unread books to while away the recuperative hours, and a reliable book-fair to go to in the morning! I have one of the many varieties of non-Hodgkins lymphoma too, the standard chemo for it is one of the best targeted so not too bad at all. I extend to tested active manuka honey, flaxseed oil and acidophilous yoghurt as part of the follow-up, but otherwise sticking with the straightfoorward medical model, and all the indications so far very good.
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Up Front: Where You From?, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Good vibrations coming to you from up here.
Thanks Jackie - expressed in a form befitting an Aucklander of many generations after many generations of non-earthquakes :-)
Clark - Crown Lynn - New Lynn - my Dad most definitely from there rooted in that same clay, his father improved the garden soil with a family generation's contents of the bucket under the dunny seat. The banks of the Rewarewa Creek at the foot of that garden, for boy-Dad to launch self-made canoes then 10 ft yacht, down to the Whau Creek out to the harbour and beyond.
Was his interest in rewarewa the tree and its remarkable decorative non-burning timber later in life coincidental? Many stories passed on to me, and now I have a 10-metre rewarewa beside my house to bring his home and presence to my home, its lovely split seedpod follicles making perfect miniature waka-canoes after the spectacular flowering and winged seed dispersal instruct and dramatise the cycle of life.
All positive those vibrations between homes we are from.
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Up Front: Where You From?, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Thanks Sofie - another dose yesterday at day-ward locally, brief tiredness to follow but all is going well, good prospects.
A Mangonui story from the early 1950s around the time of my birth - major floods and slips had taken out the Mangamuka Gorge road and the alternatives, Kaitaia was to be isolated for a week. The Advocate ran a story that "vital supplies" for the Far North were being sent by scow to Mangonui, recalling the old days of the "Roadless North". My Dad sees the educational value of this event and organised transport for the entire Peria school down to Mangonui to experience this first hand. They arrived to see the scow at the wharf unloading, but found its entire cargo of vital supplies consisted of beer! Indeed educational.
Perhaps there was another scow-load of cans of baked beans on the way.
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Up Front: Where You From?, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Gidday Sofie and Steve! - I can say I's from Peria - born there. Well, strictly speaking born in the Kaitaia maternity hospital, but if Dad had broken the back axle of the Morris 8 half a mile from home on the way to the hospital rather than in the middle of a dark and stormy night on the way back, then would have been Peria. But he was an itinerant teacher - I left Peria the day after I could walk, so my sense of connection there is tenuous.
We migrated around the northern half of the North Island - rural and small town places, started high school in Opotiki (gidday Recordari!) ended up in (east) Auckland, early university years too, thence Dunedin which feels more like home than Auckland. Wellington for long enough to feel fond of it, now 21 years in Gisborne.
Definitely Gisborne is home. Yes Islander, having my grandfather and two earlier generations buried here contributes strongly to that sense of rootedness, my mother born here too. And close familiarity (!) through work and play with the wrinkles of the coast and hills of the hinterland, the many stories in the bush and the non-bush.
By way of illustrating what this means in practice - I've been in hospital much of the last three months, critical periods in Palmerston North because that's where we have specialist oncology services, and despite plenty of visitors making it there for me I could only feel unsettled, isolated and alienated there and pined for return to the comfort of a hospital ward home in Gisborne for preference. And back in Gisborne I thrived and soon returned to home itself. Definitely I'm from Gisborne.