For they shall inherit

A few weeks ago I had the occasion to write of the new-found pleasure of nieces, nephews and goddaughters. I revisit that today for two reasons—light and dark. The light is that it is soon to be my goddaughter’s birthday and, through that, I have found another pleasure—buying gifts. Happy birthday Lilia. Love you. Also on the light side of delight is the accumulation of pseudo-relatives: L in Whangaparaoa who has so much to share and G in Queenstown, whom I have met only once, but of whom I am taking a paternalistic view. And if my niece in Christchurch, Jessica, who shares my love of snail-mail, has not yet replied to my letter, I blame not her, but her mother. Get your act together sister. The dark side is this It is time for us all to put an end to the torture and liking of our children. It is time for us to state the obvious: there is no greater crime on earth than to torture and then kill a child. For those who are found guilty of doing so, of ending such a young life, there should be no life. If I am not advocating the death penalty for this crime, I am at least saying there should be no life of freedom, there should be no 12 years and then release, there should be only prison and death. This awful crime deserves nothing less. And for those who blame me—society—for these horrendous crimes: FO. If you were less PC about these things, and if you were to Google child torture and killings in New Zealand and then Google Maori child torture and killings in New Zealand and find a striking similarity of the two lists then we may start getting somewhere. Recognition of a problem is always a good start to solving a problem. Get real, get hard. Rest in peace JJ. I hope your sad, sad death will come to mean something for us all, specially our children.

A Little Schoolin’

In a speech yesterday Dr Sharples, who is Maori Party co-leader, said Maori should be able to go to university without any qualifications.
NZ Herald: Thursday 18 June 2009.

The call came. I knew it would. He was there.

HE: Bro.
ME: Whetu.
HE: Howse it goin’?
ME: Fine. You?
HE: Good. Just want to say bye.
ME: Bye? Where youse..where are you going?
HE: Uni?
ME: University?
HE: Yup.
ME: Which one?
HE: All of them.
ME: All of them?
HE: Big whanau, bro. Got to spread meself around. Thought I would do a couple of weeks at Auckland, do a bit more with the cuzzies at Rotorua, then down to Wellington and then…
ME: What are you taking?
HE: Anything that’s not nailed down, bro. You know me.
ME: No, what course are you taking?
HE: Course?
ME: What are you…learning?
HE: Learning?
ME: Isn’t that why you are going to university? To learn? A profession?...A trade?…A skill?…Something?
HE: Oh, I’m going to learn something!
ME: What?
HE: How to get a student loan.


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