The last of the Kennedy brothers

Where were you when you heard the news about Kennedy?

This is the question people a little older than me can answer easily. I have only vague memories of the announcement. My best friend and I were giggling when her father hushed us. He was listening to the news broadcast which said President John F. Kennedy had been shot.

That was 1963. The family suffered a second assassination five years later when John’s younger brother Robert was killed.

The third brother, Edward (Teddy) died today.

The blogs they are a changing

Keeping Stock is going to work.

Barnsley Bill is going private.

Cactus Kate and Whale Oil are going together at Gotcha.

Down the back of the sofa

Down the Back of the Chair is one of Margaret Mahy’s picture book gems.

In it Dad finds all sorts of weird and wonderful things, including a will which brings them a fortune.

My farmer didn’t find a fortune down the back of the sofa. But when he up-ended it last night, out fell $58.60 in New Zealand coins, an Australian 5 cent piece, a pencil, a peanut and some other detritus which suggest that someone ought to tip it up more often – and have a vacuum cleaner handy when s/he does so.

Mid-Week Music

Andre Rieu performing Conquest of Paradise, written by Vangelis ( familiar to Crusader fans as the music of their rugby team):

Getting the measure of metrics

Britain’s move to metrics upset some people so much they formed the Imperial Measures Preservation Society. They still drive in miles but seem to have adjsuted to other metric measures. The USA, however, still refuses to make the change.

 

I can’t understand why a country which has had decimal currency for centuries can’t contemplate ditching the complicated system of imperial measurements in favour of the relative simplicity of metrics.

 

July 10 1967, the day on which decimal currency was introduced is a date still fixed in my mind. This was partly due to the success of the advertising campaign which preceded it but mostly a reflection on the great relief with which I was able to close the door on old money.

 

I was 10 at the time and had already spent too long struggling over arithmetic lessons (we didn’t do maths back then) in which we were called on to do convoluted sums with pounds, shillings and pence to have any regrets about the change.

 

I can’t recall when weights and measures went metric but I shed no tears when grams, metres and litres replaced ounces, yards and pints.

 

I was never sure if it was 16 ounces in a pound and 14 pounds to the stone or the other way round and I was even more uncertain about the number of pints in a gallon. I generally got the figures relating to inches in feet and feet in yards right but struggled with conversions to miles or acres and computations concerning any of them were a nightmare.

 

When even one as mathematically challenged as I am can understand the logic of a system based on 10, those wishing to retain imperial measures haven’t a leg to stand on numerically speaking. However, I have some sympathy with them on linguistic grounds because even though we’ve been metric for years a miss is still as good as a mile but it will never be as good as a kilometre.

   

If I look after the cents the dollars may look after themselves but I still like to have my tuppence worth and while I might be in for a penny in for a pound, the decimal equivalent doesn’t trip off my tongue so lightly.

 

It’s not only expressions like these which don’t convert easily to modern measures. It is generally simple to calculate with metrics but it isn’t so easy to converse in them. I can follow recipes in metric or imperial measures but I still refer to a pound of butter rather than 500 grams and if I could still get a bottle of milk I’d call it a pint not 600 mls.

 

If you told me the day’s temperature in Fahrenheit I wouldn’t be sure whether to reach for my long johns or the sunscreen. If you asked me how to bake biscuits I’d probably suggest 350 degrees although I can bake with imperial and metric recipes.

 

Too many sorry mornings on the bathroom scales have enabled me to recognise my own weight in both stones and kilos but I’m not sure how big babies are unless they are weighed in pounds.  

 

I can understand the area of a farm in hectares but still talk about a thousand acre voice or stride. Similarly, while I might not be able to do anything worthwhile with a piece of four by two and a length of number eight wire they are still a lot more useful figuratively speaking than their metric equivalents.

 

So when I gauge myself against a linguistic yardstick I’m only slightly ahead of the imperial luddites. I might have the measure of metrics but I’m not prepared to go the extra kilometre by conversing in them.

If it weren’t for my gumboots . . .

Getting a new product on the news is advertising money can’t buy.

It doesn’t happen very often and when it does it is usually for something a lot more glamorous than gumboots.

But Skellerup has made the news with its new five-star Quatrro.

Gumboots haven’t changed much since they were first made in rubber in the 1850s. Improvement has been a long time coming but Jamie McKay has been singing the praises of the Quatrros on the Farming Show where he’s been giving them away.

Woollen felt lining and moulded inner soles inside, tapered cleats to release mud and anti skid zones on the soles are a big improvement on what’s been keeping feet free from muck for generations. No doubt those who wear them every day, especially the people who spend hours standing round dairy sheds, will appreciate the added comfort. They will be able to justify paying $165 for them too.

But I only use gumboots for the rare emergency appearance in the dairy shed, an occasional stint as junior in the sheep yards and gardening which means I’ll be sticking to the old faithfuls.

They still, as John Clarke, aka Fred Dagg sang, keep out the water and keep in the smell; and for the amount of use mine get, that’s all I really need from them.

Is the headline just a wee bit slanted?

It says Telecom defends outrageous executive salaries.

Cactus Kate has another view.

The NBR looks at  how Paul Reyonold’s pay stacks up against the competition.

Editorials on Maori seats

The ODT says:

That Maori believe they are entitled to separate representation because of the treaty is a claim not tested in law, though it may yet be; that seats should be provided for them piecemeal, council by council, as a “gesture” is patronising and scarcely credible.

What next? That each tribe should have a seat? The Cabinet decision may appear to have effectively pre-empted change, but the issue will doubtless return when Parliament debates the legislation. The Government should not retreat from its position.

The Manawatu Standard  says Maori deserve better than this:

The Government’s decision to exclude Maori seats from the new Auckland super city council was the wrong one.

It is a victory for populism over courage, and political expediency over the much more arduous pursuit of justice. What is it that makes acknowledging that Maori hold a special status in this country as its indigenous people so utterly distasteful to so many? Why can we not see any further back than the myopia of Brash-era thinking and view the issue of Maori representation through a broader historical context?

If that were to happen, people like ACT leader Rodney Hide might cease his “one man, one vote” yammering and see an indigenous people whose sense of identity is inextricably linked to the land, and who were systematically marginalised as it was taken from them, divided up and sold for profit particularly in Auckland.

Is it such anathema to ensure they have input into how that land is governed now?

Just two editorials this morning on the issue and they have opposing views.

I’m with the ODT.

UPDATE:

The Nelson Mail says:

Maori are perfectly capable of being elected on their merits when they put themselves forward alongside people of other races. Special consultation is a good thing and already required of all councils by the local government legislation. Guaranteeing seats based on race is something else.

The Taranaki Daily News writes on giving up seats so they can stand:

Are they really so disparaging of their own political prowess that they feel they need a leg-up to compete with others in the political arena? . . . 

 . . . Prime Minister John Key’s announcement that Cabinet will not support separate Maori seats for the Auckland super city is a tip of the hat to the mature political force and nous within Maoridom, rather than a denigration of its status.

It is a recognition that a great deal has happened in the 140 years since Maori seats were established in Parliament in 1868, that much progress has been made to advance the Maori voice, and that they no longer need to stand on the shoulders of others to get noticed.

In fact, we would go so far as to say the idea that Maori need some kind of false apparatus or rigged game to secure their place at the table is patronising and potentially racist in its intentions, a colonial sop that gives the pretence of power while keeping the reins in the hands of the few.

That might have been appropriate 140 years ago, when Maori were a nascent political force still finding their way and learning the ropes.

Forget the trophies, solve the problems

Maori parliamentary seats were established in 1867. That was the result of more than a decade of pressure for political representation from Maori who were granted the same rights and protections as other New Zealanders under the Treaty of Waitangi.

At that time there were three special seats for Otago and Westland gold miners and one for an Auckland Pensioners’ Settlement. Those seats went when the need for them ended, Maori seats continued, not for their benefit but from discrimination.

All Maori men aged 21 or more were granted the right to vote 12 years earlier than European men who, until 1879, had to own or lease property of a certain value before they could vote.

However, one of the reasons for establishing separate seats was a fear that Maori would swamp the Pakeha vote in some areas and their size meant second class representation from the start.

This was not the only discriminatory aspect of Maori franchise. Secret ballots had been introduced for general electorate in 1870 but Maori were required to vote by show of hands. This continued until 1910 when voting by show of hands was no longer compulsory however, it was not until 1937 that the requirement for secret ballot became law in Maori electorates.

From 1919 until 1951 Maori had to vote on a different day from the general election. They were not permitted to stand in European electorates until 1967, and they were then only able to register to vote in them if they identified themselves as “half-castes”.

The Royal Commission on MMP recommended that Maori seats be discontinued when the new voting system was introduced. That was disregarded and the number of seats has grown as more people choose to go on the Maori roll.

 There hasn’t been a corresponding improvement in statistics for Maori people. In too many social and economic measures they are still over represented in the negative ones and under represented in the positive ones

That isn’t because they are Maori. It’s because they are poorly educated, in poor health and have lower incomes.

If the Maori Party put their energy into addressing the root causes of those problems instead of worrying about trophies like Maori seats on a council, their people and our country would all be better for it.

August 26 in history

On August 26:

1894 the second Maori King, Tukaroto Matutaera Potatau Te Wherowhero Tawhiao, died.

1898 US art collector Betty Guggenheim was born.

1910 Mother Teresa was born.

 

Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu

 

 1970 Betty Friedan led a women’s strike for equality.

Top 10 Beatles songs

Rolling Stone asked readers to vote for their favourtie Beatles song to celebrate the group’s 33rd appearance on the magazine cover.

The top 10 were:

1.  ’A Day in the Life’      2.  ’In My Life’

 3.  ’While My Guitar Gently Weeps’    4.  ’Hey Jude’

 5.  ’Helter Skelter’     6.  ’Here Come the Sun’

 7.  ’I Saw Her Standing There’    8.  ’Strawberry Fields Forever’

 9.  ’Across the Universe’       10. ‘I Am the Walrus’

My top 10 would be:

1. All My Loving     2. Hey Jude Let It Be

3 Yesterday.  Hey Jude   4 - 10 Ummm? Yesterday

5-10 Ummm?

Going, going . . .

Running out of fuel is rarely convenient for the people in the vehicle and any others they hold up. This gives me some sympathy for the plan to fine people who get caught short on motorways.

However, while in the past I might have thought running out of petrol was carelessness I’m now wondering if at least some of the time the fuel gauge might be partially responsible.

Petrol gauges in most cars I’ve driven regularly have had a half circle with a hand which moved from full to empty pretty evenly.

My current vehicle, a Toyota Corolla, has ten blocks stacked on top of each other.

The first block lasts 150 – 180 kilometres, the next couple take me around 90 kilometres each, and so it continues with the lower ones taking lesser distances to drop.

The second last one lasts around 40 kilometres and the last one lets me travel about half that distance before the warning beep tells me the car’s out of fuel.

It’s not, but even if I didn’t live 20 kilometres from the nearest petrol station I wouldn’t be keen to find out when empty really means empty.

I’ve worked out that when the gauge shows the car has half a tank of fuel it really has only about a third, but unless I notice when it drops to half I can’t be sure if it has that much or less.

The mechanic who services the car said that was the way the gauges work  and the one in his car, of the same make but different model, also dropped faster as the tank emptied.

It might be the way they do work but it’s not the way they should work.

There’s a visual design fault to start with. Gauges like clock faces have a block of red near empty which reinforces the message you are running short of fuel. Two solid blocks don’t portray the same level of urgency.

Then there’s the lack of connection between what it shows and how much fuel there really is. It’s not so much a gauge as an indicator, and an unreliable one at that. Unless I’m very careful about keeping an eye on it I’m in danger of finding the distance I need to travel isn’t quite up to the fuel available for travelling it.

Tuesday’s Answers

Monday’s questions were:

1. Who adopted Anne Shirley?

2. Who said, “People who life in New Zealand by choice as distinct from an accident of birth, and who are committed to this land and its people and steeped in their knowledge of both, are no less ‘indigenous’ than Maori.”?

3. Where is Colonia del Sacramento, (if there’s more than one, I’m looking for the World Heritage site).

4. What is a haugh?

5. How many teeth does a hogget have?

Paul Tremewan retains the winner’s crown, although loses a half point for getting the surname in 1 wrong (she married Gilbert). He gets a bonus for an alternative answer to 4.

Kismet gets a bonus for being first to answer anything.

Ray gets a bonus for his answer to 4 and for the full answer for 5.

Tuesday’s answers follow the break.

Blogger on blogs on radio

Denis Welch devoted his weekly media spot on Nine to Noon to blogs and the Tumeke! blogospehre rankings.

He discussed how blogs break stories and influence the media.

His conclusion was that there haven’t yet been many stories breaking out from the blogosphere to the mainstream media but politicians have been breaking-in to the blogosphere.

The discussion is online here.

He didn’t mention his own blog Opposable Thumb.

Editorials on referendum

The Southland Times says Let’s reassure parents:

It’s one thing to accept that police have been very careful about the way the law is being interpreted, right now. But there’s no getting around it that a great many parents remain worried about a wider anti-smacking agenda and that the sands may shift underneath parents in future, and a much harder line be taken by the law as it now stands.

Underscoring that view is the widespread public recognition of the distaste from many in the so-called PC corridors of power, notably the law’s original drafter Sue Bradford, for any sort of smacking. It’s a distaste this newspaper shares . . .

The explicit intention of the law’s final form was that nobody could commit the sort of assault against a child that would previously have landed them in court and rightly so in the eyes of mainstream New Zealanders but then raise the arcane previous defence that they were within the rights of parental correction. That defence was removed under the Bradford legislation, and so it should have been.

But, okay. Maybe the existing law does need to be refined to give greater assurance that normal parental guardianship and discipline will still be the preserve of the parents.

It’s got the bit about reasonable force wrong – that’s still allowed for prevention.

The Press says the vote was a fiasco:

The question posed was flawed, the participation of voters low, the campaign unengaging, the cost of the exercise prohibitive and the results inconsequential. In short, the referendum was a fiasco.

The question was flawed, though its intent was clear it has enabled the governmetn to address the result without changing the law. But the turnout wasn’t low and the cost was the fault of the previous Prime Minsiter who decreed the referendum couldn’t take place with last year’s election.

The Nelson Mail says politicians need to resist mob pressure:

Nelson MP Nick Smith was on the money in suggesting the anti-smacking referendum result reflected a strong reaction against the “nanny state”.

The overwhelming “no” vote nearly 90 per cent, with a turnout of more than half of this country’s registered voters is also a slap in the face for children’s rights and anti-violence advocates. It delivers an unfortunate message about New Zealand’s underlying conservatism and represents an important challenge to the country’s politicians as they consider how to respond to it.

The Dominon Post editorialises  In the Dominion Post Richard Long says: on making an ass of our laws:

Even a 100 per cent vote against the anti-smacking law would not have made it possible to revoke.

It  might be frightening the  daylights out of decent, law- abiding middle class parents, but  now it is on the statute books we  are stuck with it. To do otherwise  would be signalling open slather  on kids. It would be saying  whacking is fine.

David Cohen asks is an editorial smack part of good part of good media discipline?:

With the votes now counted and an emphatic result in, the biggest loser in the recently concluded child-discipline referendum appears to be the news media.

 

Almost 90 percent of people who participated in the citizens-initiated referendum asking New Zealanders whether smacking should be illegal voted No. An entirely unsurprising result, that. . .

 

 

A significant aspect in much of the media coverage in the lead-up to the referendum was the almost uniformly negative press accorded to potential No voters.

 

He says almsot everything in the NZ Herald was desisgned to put No voters in the worst possible light, but the Herald editorial is the only post-vote one which wants a change in the law.

 

It says parliament should act to define force:

 

The people have spoken and the Government is obliged to act. The vote against the criminalisation of parental “correction” is too decisive to be ignored. The referendum question may have been biased by its reference to “good” parental correction but it is doubtful that anyone who wanted to outlaw smacking was misled by it. . .

 

This whole debate has disguised a high level of consensus about the place of violence in child discipline. Before the referendum the Herald commissioned a DigiPoll survey of parents . . .  It found the number who smack their children at least once a week has dropped drastically in the past decade to just 8.5 per cent. The number who never smack – just 10 per cent in the previous decade – has risen to 36 per cent.

Yet 85.4 per cent of that same sample intended to vote against the criminalisation of smacking. Plainly today’s parents have found better ways to bring up children but overwhelmingly they do not want the law to forbid their resort to force if they need it.

The law does not forbid it, and never has.

 

It too is wrong on this last point. The ammendment to Section 59 permits reasonable force for prevention but makes it illegal to smack a child for the purposes of correction.

 

Another point several editorials made is that there are much more important things to worry about. They are right, but that won’t make this issue go away.

 

UPDATE:

The Marlborough Express says Costly referendum a waste of money:

 

The law was brought in as there was a clear problem defining what reasonable force was. In a climate of despair over repeated child abuse in this country the law made it clear that it was not okay to hit children.

 

But it didn’t. It still allows reasonable force for prevention.

 

The Dominion Post says Smacking vote carries clout:

 

The question is loaded and ambiguous. It presupposes that smacking is part of good parenting -  a debatable point – and ignores the fact that the existing law specifically permits the use of reasonable force, including smacking, in certain circumstances.

Those circumstances are fairly comprehensive. They include: to prevent harm to children or others, to stop offensive or disruptive behaviour and to stop criminal behaviour.

At least one paper understands the current law still allows the reasonable force which the Act’s proponents – and a lot of its opponents – wanted to get rid of.

 

 

 

Stadium gets tick, opponents get bill

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against the Dunedin City Council’s funding of the Forsyth Barr Stadium. Stop the Stadium which brought the action will have to pay up to $17,000 for costs.

That’s how it should be.

Ratepayers will have spent a lot more on the council’s defence of the action and if the opponents didn’t pay court costs the taxpayer would have to.

Growing up as a parent

He’s the father of young children.

He said he had smacked them – lightly – in the past. At least some of the time, it was more a reflection of how he was feeling than on what the children had done.

He hadn’t smacked them recently and didn’t think he would again.

“That might have something to do with the anti-smacking legislation, because obviously I don’t want to break the law. But even more than that, I think it’s because I’ve grown up as a parent.”

Smacking was a lot more common when I was a child than it was when I had my children. That’s now more than 20 years ago and smacking is less common now than it was then.

There has been a cultural evolution and a bit of a nudge might have sped that up.

Last year’s law change wasn’t a nudge it was a shove with a steamroller. Parents, grandparents and a whole lot of people who don’t want to smack their children didn’t like being steamrolled. I’m not sure what level of comfort they’ll get from being told the people driving the steamroller are being directed to steer round them.

However, the wording of the referendum question is partly to blame for that. It didn’t ask for a law change.

August 25 in history

On August 25:

1609 Galileo Gallei demonstrated his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.

Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Giusto Sustermans

 

1724 English painter George Stubbs was born.

A self portrait by George Stubbs

1768 Captain James Cook began his first voyage.

James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

 

1825 Uruguay  declared its independence from Brazil.

 

1949 English writer Martin Amis was born.

1958 a tornado killed three people and injured more than 80 when it struck Frankton.

1961 US singer and actor Billy Ray Cyrus was born.

1991 Belarus declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

Sourced from NZ History Online and Wikipedia.

PM’s office minds its manners

John Key shares a birthday with my mother (same day, different year) which makes it easy for me to remember; and, having remembered it, I sent him a card in my role as Southern regional chair of the National Party.

I signed it from the region and deliberately didn’t put my name on it because I didn’t want anyone to worry about a response.

However, I must have stamped the envelope, as I do with most correspondence, with my farmer’s and my initials and surname because last week we got a letter addressed to X.Y. and X.X. Homepaddock, thanking us for the card.

His office must follow the same good manners in acknowledging correspondence as Lindsay Mitchell told us the Queen’s does.

Do Maori vote for non-Maori?

I’m listening to a discussion on Afternoon’s panel and have just been told that only about 1% of Auckland local body representatives have been Maori; that means the system doesn’t work and that Maori aren’t properly represented.

But does it?

That presupposes that none of the people Maori vote for win seats – regardless of whether or not they’re Maori and/or that Maori people vote only for Maori candidates.

I’d be very surprised if that was the case, but regardless of who votes for whom, once people are elected they’re bound to represent every one of their constituents.