Monkey see, monkey do

“Using only its brainpower, a monkey can direct a robotic arm to pluck a marshmallow from a skewer and stuff it into its mouth, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.”

This Reuters story from Chicago put me in mind of Dr Cullen’s budget presentation last week. The analogy of the good doctor being the monkey and the Prime Minister being the robotic arm is inescapable. Increasingly, we are finding that the Prime Minister and much of her party are on auto-pilot as their third term in office winds down. Only Dr Cullen, that master Machiavellian manipulator, shows any of the fire that in the past so consistently trounced a permanently frustrated and insular National Party. And it has to be said, in Fryday’s view, the National Party has not changed with the advent of John Key. If anything, it seems to be more confused and conflicted than ever. So, The National Party can take no credit and no complacency from the state of the Labour Party. National could still win the election in October, but that may be because Labour lost it, literally and figuratively. And here is an interesting point—does Labour want to win? Of course they do. And for the most superficial reasons: the perks of power. But with a recession coming on, inherent tiredness (even exhaustion) there already and the prospects of highly-paid jobs in the private sector or international stage already lined-up it could it be suggested that Cullen and Clark want to go and to leave it to Goff, et al. There is no doubt that even at this late stage Cullen in particular can pull something out of (and of) the old fire. The question is whether, with what he sees in prospect, he will do it?

This week we honour the Queen. R.I.P. Freddie.


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Now playing: Queen - Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Lo
via FoxyTunes

The Kahui Code

So Chris Kahui has been found not guilty with, what some will see as, unseemly haste in terms of jury deliberations? That is unsettling. Fifteen minutes? Deliberations deliberately delayed until after the free lunch? Did this jury have something better to do? Did they all decide after the lunch that a quick decision was necessary so that they could all rush away and, instead, deliberate on Dr Cullen’s budget? Or replays of State of Origin?

It is not for me to comment on the jury’s finding. I wasn’t there and didn’t hear what they heard. Nor do I know enough about the case. But the haste in which they arrived at their not guilty question begs some further questions:

• Should the Police/Prosecution have brought it to court in the first place?
• Was there a single point/evidence in the trial that swayed the jury and after that all else was academic?
• And costly?

And mostly…

• If not Chris, who?

The last is what I find most disturbing. That and the fact that the Police have already announced they are not seeking anybody else or intending to lay any further charges in relation to these murders. Let’s recap: two babies died. Chris and Cru Kahui, twins, were fatally injured on June 12, 2006, and were admitted to Middlemore Hospital the next day, dying five days later at Auckland's Starship Children's Hospital.

They had severe brain injuries, broken ribs and Chris had a broken leg.

And nobody is to now be blamed? Yeah, I am pissed. This is SO wrong! Do you remember when Arthur Allan Thomas was “pardoned” for the murders of the Crewes? Police effectively closed that case, also without further investigation.

Therefore…

§ If we don’t get our own way, first up, we give up?

And two children die, and nobody, nobody, is held to account.

It stinks.

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Now playing: John Lennon - Woman
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It's Fun Being Green

Yesterday for reasons that chose not to reveal themselves to me but, sadly, seem to be intrinsic to my current character I chose to look up the official definition of the word malcontent. Webster defines it as “someone who bears a grudge through grievance or thwarted ambition,’ Dictionary.com describes such as a person as “someone who is chronically dissatisfied.” Some of you perhaps thought after reading last Fryday that I too was a malcontent. Believe me, I am not. I know many malcontents—well, three actually—and I am not one. Far from it. I am a realist and, paradoxically, yet understandably for those who know Maggie, a romantic. Still, my ease of mind and equilibrium has been tested of late when I go the website of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance http://www.royalcommission.govt.nz/, look up the public submissions and put my name into the search field. Nowhere I think will you find a more comprehensive or indeed better example of the term malcontent or a life orphaned.

Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat.—Horace.

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Now playing: John Lennon - Woman
via FoxyTunes

They're strange, folk.

The job I am in is to be “disestablished” early next month. Now, I thought I knew most euphemisms as passing acquaintances but disestablished is new to me and, from my research, new to most dictionaries. And therein lies the problem, this rather awkward but nevertheless crucial word is so full of ambiguity that there is no clear definition of what it actually means. In vies with Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch as a trove of synonyms. You remember that sketch, don’t you? How many ways could you say that the parrot was dead? Here’s the relevant part of the script:

CLEESE: 'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!

I am told by the Online Dictionary that disestablish means my job is to suffer something akin to either circumcision (“to alter the status of something established by authority or general acceptance”) or reverse excommunication (“to deprive {a church} of official support). That’s the verb. Even more daunting is the noun. Yes, there is one: Disestablishmentarianism. That’s not so much a word as a journey! Even worse: antidisestablishmentarianism.

But there other words and phrases just as strange and they have taxed my brain of late. Here’s a few to share with you.

1. What does lipstick stick?
2. Can we actually feel like crap?
3. Why do women’s problems start with menopause or men for that matter?
4. What does “I’m stumped” really mean?
5. How do you actually wrap your head around something?
6. How do you “peel” your eyes?
7. Could you really “care less” or simply not at all?
8. Do teeth really have skin?
9. Does toothpaste only handle one tooth?
10. If “at the end of the day” is your final thought aren’t you wasting the night?
11. Bob must have a bloody big family if he is uncle to so many.
12. Does wishing someone “a good weekend” mean you don’t give a shit about the rest of their life?

---------------- Now playing: Tony Joe White - Closing In on the Fire (with Lucinda Williams) - (The Heroines - 2004) via FoxyTunes

Skirting the Issue

There is on the Internet a particularly deviant and devious genre of images called Upskirts. These images, photos taken looking up a woman’s skirt, fall into three categories: those that are clearly posed with the knowledge of the woman, those that are taken deliberately but illicitly without the knowledge of the woman, and those that are a “mistake” such as a shot taken as a skirt-clad woman (usually a celebrity) extricates herself from a car or is on a low seat. In this last category there is a photo of Hilary Clinton taken I think during a TV interview. It is not a particularly pretty picture. And that may well be the reason Mrs Clinton has taken to wearing those dreadful pants suits. Conversely it could be that she is simply demonstrating metaphorically who wears the trousers in the Clinton family. Then again she might simply be trying to replicate the political success of our own Helen Clark who also has a propensity for pants suits. Helen of course also looks dreadful in them, but she at least looks better in them than anything else, short of aluminium. Whatever the reason for Senator Clinton’s pants suit pilgrimage, somebody should tell her that that mode of dress was mercifully put to sleep in the 80s along with “power-dressing”, waterbeds and American artistic integrity. If she persists I despair of her becoming President. Helen AND Hilary? My god! The only thing that may save us is Hilary’s husband Bill. Bill, the next time Hilary asks, as all wives do, “Do I look fat in this?” For God’s sake lie and say “Yes!” You can lie, can’t you? Have a good weekend. Maggie’s home Saturday.

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Now playing: Amazing Rhythm Aces - The Beautiful Lie
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