Apple envy

The feature which is set to make ENZA’s  new apple variety a star was a lucky accident.

The new variety survives for many hours longer than other apples without turning brown when cut.

The super-apple is called “Envy” – and that’s likely to be the reaction from growers around the world.

Envy is proving extremely popular on the international market for a unique reason – cut or bite it open and it will take between four and eight hours before it turns brown.

“It’s just a combination of the acid sugar level,” says Brian D’Ath of ENZA. “The balance must be exactly right ‘cos you know, to stop apples browning you put lemon juice on it.”

Envy is a cross-pollination between Braeburn and Royal Gala – developed to be sweet and crisp. The fact that it doesn’t brown quickly wasn’t planned, just an added bonus.

 Envy is one of the seven deadly sins and orchardists from other countries will be guilty of that because Envy’s ability to withstand discolouration when cut will be a virtue they’ll wish their apples had too.

Drought

Today’s contribution to poetry month comes with the people of the East Coast, where drought has been declared, in mind.

 

The poet, Francis Hutchinson farmed in Hawkes Bay so had first hand knowledge of how debilitating drought can be.

 

Drought, comes from New Zealand Farm and Station Verse, published by Whitcombe & Toombs.

 

Drought

 

The hand of the Sun

Lies heavy on this land.

The solemn drought steals on

the grasses wilt and wither, faint and fade.

 

First on the high dry terrace-lands

On grey cliff edges, naked spurs,

The green grows brown and fades to grey.

Parched are the high land water holds,

And far below the creeks shrink fast.

We look to westward, longingly,

But rain so wished-for does not come.

 

Only the daily portent-

Clouds that, hurrying up, seem full of promise,

Thinning too soon to harsh grey blue

    And boisterous gales.

 

Is it prophetic impulse that the plants

       Are pushing onward suddenly –

              The great and small alike –

To quick fruition?

The wind bows a myriad bents,

The sward’s ablaze with flowers.

 

       - Francis Hutchinson –

East Coast drought official

The Gisborne/Wairoa Drought Committee has declared their region a drought area.

Agriculture Minsiter David Carter is meeting the committee today and says the declaration has triggered government drought measures including tax assistance, funding for farm mangement advice and funding for Rural Support Trusts.

Drought is like a chronic disease which creeps up on paddocks as each day’s dawn brings blue sky and sunshine, dashing hopes that today will bring rain.

North Otago has had more than its fair share of droughts and those who’ve farmed through them have learned  it is important to have a plan with dates for action, to destock early and ensure that animal welfare is paramount.

Meat & Wool NZ’s website  includes advice for planning and management during droughts.

Money

Today’s contribution to poetry months comes from the ODT’s weekly poetry column which solicits contributions from readers.

It’s Money by Anthonie Tonnon.

Money

 

Imagine a world where laughter was currency. If you wanted

an expensive TV or lounge suite, you would laugh at the salesman

until you had bought it. Every Thursday you’d ask for your wages and

watch the boss roar at you like he’d never heard anything so funny.

We’d all make hundreds of transactions each week that involved giggling,

sniggering, chuckling and chortling, and walk around with big lines

of our faces, shaking our heads. It wouldn’t be easy though; some people

would get exhausted and fall into unfunny cycles. People with big mortgages

would spend all their time on the phone to the bank, practising like feeble

sheep while they listened to the hold music. Others would waste the laughs

they had on DVDs by motivational comedians. The wealthiest people

would be the ones who put aside plenyt of time to spend with their families,

wrestling on the bed and making up silly jokes about poos and wees.

 

- Anthonie Tonnon –

Keeping abreast of pillow trends

Strange but true, The New Zealand Week reports that Japan has come up with the bossum pillow.

Soft, rounded and oh, so touchable … the billowy, bosomy Oppai (‘breasts’ in Japanese) Pillow is the stuff young boys might dream of. 

If you follow the link  above you’ll see a picture of it.

I’m not sure whether to be amused or affronted, but women who find this offensive might have the last laugh because TNZW also highlights a story on Amazonian ants:

Like the warrior women of legend, one breed of Amazonian ant has rid itself entirely of males and is now a completely female species.  . . These ants are the first to be shown to reproduce entirely without sex and the females’ sexual organs have degraded to the point they are physically incapable of mating.

If ants can do it will people be far behind? 

TNZW is a web-based news digest, published every Friday which covers serious issues as well as the froth I’ve mentioned.

Dansey’s Pass Pub for sale

The ODT reports  that the Dansey’s Pass hotel is on the market.

The hotel is a few kilometres from Naseby. It was built in 1862, and is one of the few old coach inns which remain.

We celebrated a 50th birthday there last year and can recommend the comfort of the bed and the standard of the food.

The pass is the border between North and Central Otago. It’s a scenic drive through tussock covered hills but the road is unsealed, narrow with lots of twists and turns so not recommended for inexperienced drivers or passengers who get car sick.

Whitestone Cheese named a farmhouse style cheese  after it.

It’s also the subject of an Owen Marshall poem, from Occasional, published by Hazard Press.

                           - Dansey’s Pass -

Walk the wind arch of this burnished place.

Leave the gravel road behind like childhood.

Tussock flayed by austere Waitaki winds

is harsh, archaic and blown quite clean.

Here nature still defies all subjugation

and I rejoice in blissful arrogance

standing solitary upon the lion’s back.

 

- Owen Marshall –

Cycle network linked over time

The original idea of a cycleway the length of New Zealand sounded good but there were lots of questions about if it would be practical and affordable.

Te Araroa , the walkway from Cape Reinga to Bluff,  was suggested as a model but only a relatively few keen and fit trampers are ever going to use much or any of it. A cycleway using parts of the walkway or based on that concept would have had a similarly limited appeal and provided limited opportunities for spin-off businesses.

The current proposal  to be discussed by cabinet today is more practical, less expensive, more accessible for more people, will provide more opportunities for smaller communities to be involved and be based on local initiatives.

Plans for one of these, a cycleway from Queenstown to Bluff , are already well advanced.

Planning consultant Mike Barnett, who researched the Lake Wakatipu-Bluff route on behalf of Venture Southland, said the Ministry of Tourism had found “the practical thing was a network of excellent cycle opportunities in New Zealand which may lead to bigger things later.”

Mr Barnett said the network could be totally inter-linked “in 10 or 20 years’ time”.

Mr Barnett said the Lake Wakatipu-Bluff route could be ready in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, as research had been under way for three years.

Building cycelways will provide employement, but the long term jobs which come in its wake will be even more beneficial.

One of the reasons the Central Otago Rail Trail  has been so successful is that it was a local initiative and locals have been able to use the opportunities it provides for business initiatives.

It has been particularly good at opening doors for women who followed husbands or partners on to farms or into small coutnry towns where employment opportunities were limited. Thanks to the rail trail they’ve been able to create or work in businesses providing food, accomodation, retail  and other activities and have found new outlets for art and crafts.

The cycleway the length of the country sounded good, but a network of cycleways is a much better idea.

Fonterra must apply NZ stds in China

Prime Minister John Key sees opportunities for New Zealand to help China with its food safety standards.

He’s right but with the opportunities come risks, one of which is an association with New Zealand or New Zealand companies and their products if standards aren’t up to scratch.

Another is the difficulty of  transferring our standards to a country with a very differenct culture, customs and ethics.

The significance of Fonterra chairman Henry Van der Heyden accompanying Key hasn’t been missed. The company was badly bitten by its involvement with Sanlu but is looking for fresh opportunities in China.

They will have learnt from the Sanlu disaster, but I’m not yet convinced they have learnt all the lessons and realise all the risks.

One of these is the danger of selling infant milk powder in a country where companies don’t abide by the International Code of Marketing Breast Milk Substitutes.

The code was developed by the World Health Organisation in 1981 and prohibits almost all advertising of breast milk substitutes to the public.

If Fonterra is associated in any way with companies which disregard the code it risks an international backlash.

Baby Milk Action is an organisation  which monitors the baby food industry. Its website shows Sanlu advertisements which contravene the international code and it has a campaign to boycott Nestle because it breaches the code.

 If Fonterra wants to invest and operate in China it must not only ensure that the animal welfare and food health and safety standards which it requires in New Zealand are adhered to there, it must also ensure none of its produce is advertised in breach of the ICMBMS.

Aust govt to ban mortgage break fees?

The Australian government is considering a ban on mortgage break fees  which ought to be regarded with concern.

Mortgages are contracts and a government that gets between parties in a contract is treading in very dangerous waters.

Banks are being criticised for charging break fees for customers who want to get out of fixed term deals. If the charges were well above the cost there might be grounds for that criticism, but breaking a mortgage incurs expenses for the banks and they are justified in expecting customers to pay reasonable costs associated with backing out of a deal.

Banks have also received criticism for not passing interest rate falls on to people with fixed mortgages, but I have yet to hear anyone suggest that these customers pay more when interest rates rise.

If you agree to a fixed interest loan you gain if interest rates rise and lose if they fall. If you choose to use the floating rate you’ll be able to take advantage of falling rates but have to pay more if they rise.

There is no certainty. People who borrow have to accept the risks which come with it and governments should be very wary about trying to protect them from those risks.

A Bush Christening

JC left John O’Brien’s poem Tangamalangmaloo in response  to yesterday’s poem.

That prompted today’s contribution to poetry month. It’s Banjo Paterson’s Bush Christening which comes from The Man From Snowy River & Other Verses, published by Angus & Robertson.

                      A  Bush Christening

On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
And men of religion are scanty,
On a road never cross’d ‘cept by folk that are lost,
One Michael Magee had a shanty.
Now this Mike was the dad of a ten year old lad,
Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned;
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had no rest
For the youngster had never been christened.

And his wife used to cry, `If the darlin’ should die
Saint Peter would not recognise him.’
But by luck he survived till a preacher arrived,
Who agreed straightaway to baptise him.

Now the artful young rogue, while they held their collogue,
With his ear to the keyhole was listenin’,
And he muttered in fright, while his features turned white,
`What the divil and all is this christenin’?’

He was none of your dolts, he had seen them brand colts,
And it seemed to his small understanding,
If the man in the frock made him one of the flock,
It must mean something very like branding.

So away with a rush he set off for the bush,
While the tears in his eyelids they glistened —
`’Tis outrageous,’ says he, `to brand youngsters like me,
I’ll be dashed if I’ll stop to be christened!’

Like a young native dog he ran into a log,
And his father with language uncivil,
Never heeding the `praste’ cried aloud in his haste,
`Come out and be christened, you divil!’

But he lay there as snug as a bug in a rug,
And his parents in vain might reprove him,
Till his reverence spoke (he was fond of a joke)
`I’ve a notion,’ says he, `that’ll move him.’

`Poke a stick up the log, give the spalpeen a prog;
Poke him aisy — don’t hurt him or maim him,
‘Tis not long that he’ll stand, I’ve the water at hand,
As he rushes out this end I’ll name him.

`Here he comes, and for shame! ye’ve forgotten the name —
Is it Patsy or Michael or Dinnis?’
Here the youngster ran out, and the priest gave a shout —
`Take your chance, anyhow, wid `Maginnis’!’

As the howling young cub ran away to the scrub
Where he knew that pursuit would be risky,
The priest, as he fled, flung a flask at his head
That was labelled `MAGINNIS’S WHISKY’!

And Maginnis Magee has been made a J.P.,
And the one thing he hates more than sin is
To be asked by the folk, who have heard of the joke,
How he came to be christened `Maginnis’!

 

        – Banjo Paterson –

P.J. O’Rourke on capitalism and free trade

The Business Herald interviewed USA satirist P.J. O’Rourke who said on capitalism:

The free market is simply a measurement. It’s a yardstick; a bathroom scale. You may hate what you see when you step on a bathroom scale, but you can’t pass a law making yourself thin. And I feel there are a lot of politicians out there who think that you can, or want to tell the public that the public can.

On China:

Two years ago, I spent quite a long time there. And I was there a year ago too, although that was more Hong Kong. But it’s an amazing place. The changes are great. People who say the Chinese economic boom has not come with greater freedoms are only talking about a limited range of freedoms. When people are able to feed themselves, as opposed to unable to feed themselves, that makes them a lot freer. Economic freedoms are a big part of the freedom we use every day. They’re easy to mock, but the freedom we use most often, and to the greatest extent, is economic freedom. And so the Chinese all of a sudden have that, and it’s extraordinary to see. But it also is an important lesson that economic freedom is a necessary, but not sufficient, part of complete freedom.

And On free trade:

People will lie about this. Even if they don’t always understand the free market is to their advantage, they do understand that free trade is to their advantage, in a macro sense over a long period of time. But nobody seems to understand yet that when you restrict your imports you are restricting the actions of your own people and you are hampering the freedoms of other people around the world to indulge in the harmless exchange of goods. People say free trade causes dislocation. In actual fact, it’s the lowering of trade barriers that causes the dislocation. It’s not the natural state of things that causes dislocation, so much as it is the changing from the previously unnatural state of things.

The full interview is here. 

He doesn’t know how to use a computer and writes with a typewriter. As a specialist in work avoidance I concur with his view on the danger of distraction with computers, but there is no way I’d choose a typewriter over a word processor and not just because it’s easier to make corrections when I type faster than I spell.

There’s a link at the bottom of the interview for information on O’Rourk’s John Bonython lecture in Auckland on April 30th. It didn’t work but I found if on the Centre for Independent Studies’ website.

Hat Tip: goNZo Freakpower

Dear Andrew Williams #2

Dear Andrew Willliams,

You’ve emailed me again and given I wasn’t impressed with your first two missives I was going to ignore these two, too.

But I was at a National Party regional meeting in Dunedin on Friday and one of the electorate chairs mentioned that she’d got a couple of emails from you and wasn’t impressed either.

She was even less impressed after her polite response requesting you stop sending her unsolicited emails was met by a return message saying something like great to hear from you, we’ve had so much repsonse we’ll deal with yours when we have time.

We’ve worked out you must have got our addresses from the National Party website.

It’s public so any of us whose addresses are there might expect the odd unsolicited email. But our contact details are there because we’re volunteer office holders who members and supporters might wish to contact, not as an invitation for lobby groups to bombarb us with unwanted propaganda.

If you’re going to send us spam the least you can do is include an unsubscribe option so our requests to be removed from your mailing list aren’t met with another unwanted message.

Yours sincerely

Ele

Q&A numbers disputed

Screening Q&A at 9am on Sunday isn’t the best plan if you’re aiming to attract viewers but a media release from TVNZ reckons that Tom Frewan got his numbers wrong.

His column in the print edition of the NBR said that numbers watching Q&A were only about half that which watched Agenda. TVNZ says the opposite is true with Q&A attracting more than twice as many viewers in March as Agenda did in the same month last year.

If they were serious about ratings they’d screen it at a more convenient time and they  might also have a better set than the one they’ve got which, as Brian Edwards points out, makes it easier to watch with closed eyes.

I’ve only managed to catch the show once, but  Murray McCully and Don Brash will be interviewed today so in spite of the inconvenient timing, I’ll try to watch.

What’s happend to the gatekeepers?

The media used to have gatekeepers.

They were the experienced people who used their intelligence and judgement to decide what was news and what wasn’t.

They knew the difference between what was in the public interest and what the public was interested in.

They knew the fact someone wanted to speak didn’t mean that others had to hear.

They saved people from themselves when a mistaken belief that telling their story would help might have done more harm than good.

It wasn’t censorship, it was discretion and events over the last few days have shown it’s a quality sadly lacking in our media.

What would a visitor to New Zealand have thought had they turned on television for the news on Thursday?

One of our neighbours is having a constitutional crisis, the OECD released a report on our economy, the Prime Minister was in China . . . and the lead item on both channels was a tabloid item about someone who used to work on television who’d admitted assaulting a woman.

 

Trying to find something to listen to while driving to Dunedin yesterday morning I found the issue leading Nine to Noon, and being discussed on NewsTalk ZB & Radio Live.

 

It’s also been given prominent coverage in newspapers and their websites.

 

We’ve got past the mistaken view that some violence can be dismissed as “only” a domestic and is best ignored, but turning the aftermath into a circus is almost as bad.

 

A report on the plea and sentence might have been news, saturation coverage of he-said-she-said isn’t. It’s merely prurience.

George In Charge

Saturday’s contribution to poetry month is George in Charge by D.J. Donald, from New Zealand Farm & Station Verse, collected by A.E. Woodhouse and published by Whitcombe & Toombs.

 

George In Charge

 

The farmer swung to the saddle

“Mid the dogs’ unholy row,

‘Now Son you’ll attend to the buyer,

When he comes to see that cow.

Remember that price I’ve told you –

Do you hear? Or I’ll skin you alive!

It’s seven pounds ten you’ll ask for,

 But we’ll come as low as five!’

 

Now George was a simple fellow

But for once his course was clear,

And his permanent grin got wider

As the scheduled hour drew near.

His memory George was stirring

Just to see that it kept alive:

‘It’s seven pound ten we’re asking,

But we’ll come as low as five.’

 

The buyer looked her over,

While his mind resolved a sum;

Then at last he popped the question

And the fateful time was come,

Quoth George in a glow of triumph,

At the bargain he meant to drive,

‘It’s seven pound ten we’re asking,

But we’ll come as low as five!’

 

          - D.J. Donald –

Do you want a sermon with that?

A travel company’s blurb on a walking tour of Italy says:

Whilst at your discretion [the company] recommends arriving/departing by train where possible within Europe due to this method of transport’s minimal carbon emissions.

Is that the end of the sermon, or are they going to recommend that we don’t drop rubbish, eat too much, drink immoderately or do any of the other things which might impact on the health of the planet or ourselves?

While one company’s preaching at us, another is making us pay for their penance.

I don’t have a problem with supermarkets, or other businesses, charging customers for plastic bags – there’s a cost to them, someone has to pay, it might as well be the users and if that encourages more people to use reusable bags which in turn reduces rubbish that might be a good thing.

I say might because I don’t know if the total impact of manufacturing and eventually recycling or disposing of reusable bags is actually better for the environment than that of making and recycling or disposing of plastic bags.

But that’s an argument for another time, it’s paying the penance  about which I’m quibbling now.

 Foodstuffs (New Zealand) managing director Tony Carter will only say that it will be making “substantial contributions” to environmental causes, with the majority of the money charged for bags earmarked for this use.

* I’m a little confused by this because it appears customers are being charged extra for something that will be better for the environment and then the company is using the extra money to contribute to “environmental causes”. *

If this is a good policy for bags, why not give the majority of the profits from everything to environmental causes because everything they sell will impact on the environment?

Or, if resusable bags really are so much better for the environment, why not just charge the cost price and let customers choose what to do with the money they save by not having to pay the supermarket extra so they can give it away?

If , however, charging more so supermarkets can donate more is a good thing, why stop there? Why not donate some of the profit from pet food to the SPCA and from anything which doesn’t meet the low fat, low sugar, high fibre prescription for healthy eating to the Cancer Society or Heart Foundation?

Is that any sillier than donating most of the profit from reusable plastic bags to “environemntal causes”?

I don’t have anything against businesses making profits or choosing to give some of those profits to worthy causes, but the idea of charging more than they need to then giving the excess away is a bit too much like a government taking more tax and redistributing it for my liking.

I use reusable bags, at least I do when I remember to take them, and being charged for the plastic ones will almost certainly help me remember them more often.

I don’t have a problem with the user-pays-save-the-planet policy, it’s turning it into a mission I question.

Businesses should do what’s best for them and, like all of us, minimise their negative impact on the environment while they’re doing it.

But they can keep the sermons and if they choose to pay a penance, they need to understand they’re not doing us any favours by charging us more to let them do it.

Lou Taylor at No Minister  reckons retailing is a bloodsport and:

The retailers who survive are the ones who can evolve with the times, control their overheads and are prepared to accept lower profits from time to time.

They might also be the ones that forget the sermons and don’t expect us to pay their penance.

P.S. Apropos of reusable bags, Liberty Scott shows the Greens don’t get the idea of choice.

* I was confused, this policy applies to plastic bags not resuable ones.

UPDATE: The Visible Hand in Economics posts on industry based solution vs regulation

UPDATE 2: Poneke has made a welcome return and posts on a related matter: indulgences we can do without.

Britain’s got manipulation – Updated

Britain’s Got Talent introduced Paul Potts to the world and it’s done the same for Susan Boyle.

Who’s Susan Boyle? Straight Furrow (and we’ll pass over why a farming paper is covering this at all) described her as a frumpy middle-aged woman who astonished judges on a television talent quest.

But did she astonish them?

There’s no doubt that their faces went from unimpressed to wowed as they got over her appearance and were captivated by her voice. But did they really not know how well she could sing before the show was filmed?

After all she had to audition to get that far so isn’t it possible the judges might have heard a wee whisper that her voice was stunning and maybe even have been encouraged to appear especially underwhelmed by her initial appearance to contrast with their excitement once she started singing?

Even if the judges hadn’t been prepared, putting her on the show without any grooming or wardrobe preparation suggests the producers wanted her to look that way so the contrast between her appearance and her voice would have maximum impact.

And it did.

Not only was she a hit on the show, YouTube has taken her to the world where it’s been watched by tens of millions of people. Boyle’s now the favourite to win the show with its 1000,000 pound prize and she’s already in discussion with a recording company.

Doors are opening to a new life so much better than the old one which has been anything but charmed.

Boyle is 47, unemployed, perpetually single and lives alone with her cat, Pebbles, in Bathgate, West Lothian – a town apparently dubbed “a dump” by Britain’s Got Talent judge Piers Morgan. Boyle’s sunny (if gauche) demeanour masks a sad life: the youngest of nine, she was deprived of oxygen at birth, which led to learning difficulties and, as a result, a childhood marred by bullying. Forty years later, it was her mother – whom she lived with and cared for – who wanted her to audition for the ITV talent show. But she died in 2007, leaving Boyle suffering from depression and anxiety.

Then she got the audition:

Simon Cowell was at his sneering best. . .  Girls in the audience sniggered and there was a snort of barely concealed derision from Morgan.

Everyone concluded that this podgy woman with a frumpy frock, a wiry hairdo and heavy brows fell into the comedy-audition category. They settled into their seats for a good laugh, knowing she would massacre the song from, as she put it, “Les Miserabs”. But then Susan Boyle started to sing.

And . . . there followed one of those transcendent moments that make TV history. Boyle’s voice rose pure and clear over the huge Glasgow theatre. Before even the first refrain, the sniggers had turned to applause.

It’s like a real-life Cinderella story with every chance she will live happily ever after and I hope she does.

But I do have some reservations about the way the whole thing was manipulated. I watched the YouTube clip with a grin and listened with tears in my eyes. Then I watched again and I wondered, what would have happened if she hadn’t had an extraordinary voice?

The sniggers turned to cheers when she started singing but if she hadn’t sung so beautifully would they have turned to boos and instead of the outpouring of warmth would there have been scorn because the woman with ordinary looks also had an ordinary voice?

Even now, her appearance is part of the story because appearances count – and not just for women because Paul Potts straightened his teeth after he won an earlier competition.

But there is something about the way it was done with Susan, the feeling that there was a deliberate attempt to encourage the sneers at her appearance that leaves me feeling that we’ve all been manipulated.

It was very good television but it wasn’t good behaviour.

UPDATE: Whaleoil has a similar view

UPDATE 2: Julie posts on the Susan Boyle phenomenon at  The Hand Mirror with a link to what if Susan Boyle couldn’t sing? by Dennis Palumbo at The Huffinton Post.

Also at THP Andy Borowitz  posts on the issue.

Just a Minute

Once upon a time before there was a television in almost every home people listened to the radio which offered several comedy gems from Britain, including Just A Minute.

The object was for one of the four panelists to speak for sixty seconds on a given topic without repetition, hesitation or deviation and withstand challenges from the other three if they repeated, hesitated or deviated.

It’s a lot harder than it sounds but the clever meanderings of the speakers and witty interjections from the challengers made for very amusing listening.

One of the regular panelists was Sir Clement Freud who died this week.

Hat Tip: Liberty Scott who posts a tribute  with links to obituaries.

First mouse of autumn

Something moved beneath the desk then there was a muffled clunk.

The first mouse of autumn had been caught but unfortunately not killed.

I’ve already confessed I’m not keen on mice and like Busted Blonde I take no prisoners so I dropped the trap and its victim into a bucket of water.

Ingratitude

Owen Marshall is the master of the short story. His gift for economy of word and phrase works well in poems too.

Today’s contribution to poetry month is Marsha’lls Ingratitude  one of 50 poems in his book Occasional, published by Hazard Press, 2004.

                   Ingratitude

 

I hesitate to look the gift horse of existence in

the mouth, aware of all who have sack shuffled

into perpetual darkness, paid the ferryman his

coin, and those ova and spermatozoa impatiently

queuing on the chancy waiting list for the golden

 

interlude of life: that great oncer. Yet now I’m

old enough to have been around the traps, seen

the unheroic flipsides of this world’s flats, I

hear an inner voice, Oliver’s sad twin, which asks

not is there any more, but is there something else?

 

                 - Owen Marshall -