It's all in the water

I am intrigued by a story coming out of Gisborne. One has to be—by ANY story coming out of Gisborne.
Anyway, it seems police caught and charged a man called Richard Carlson for possession of cannabis while he was fleeing the coast during a tsunami warning. Carlson was found with nearly eight kilograms of the drug in his car. The cannabis was—the police admitted—of poor quality (did they smoke it?), there was no evidence of Carlson selling the stuff, he had no criminal record and he and his wife were in fact pillars of the community. But he done wrong and he got caught. Richard Carlson, 57, was sentenced to 12 months home detention for his crime.
Fair enough.
But what intrigued me about this story was not that, it was this: Carlson was stopped and caught by police because they spotted a broken tail light on his car and pulled him over.
Let’s pause for reflection…
· There is a tsunami warning
· People acting on instructions are moving from the coast
· Police are stopping people for broken taillights?
In sentencing Carlson, Judge Tony Adeane said, "These facts, with respect, could only happen on the East Coast.”
They (the facts) lay "between irony and farce", said the judge.
He is right.

----------------
Now playing: J.J. Cale & Eric Clapton - Danger
via FoxyTunes

Samoan Shoes

Last night I dreamed that my wife left me, my new house fell down, and so did I…down a 600-metre cliff.
Dream interpreters will have a view on what that means. I would be interested in hearing from them. But what I think it means is that I need a holiday. Fortunately, next week I am getting one.
But the remarkable thing about that dream is that it didn’t include anything about my work. Given that work has figured relentlessly and remorseless in previous dreams, except when it’s inducing a sleepless night, I would think it would have figured in this one.
I have had a bad week. But others have had it worse, far worse. I think here most of the people of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga and also the Philippines and Indonesia. Many had little to start with; now they have lost everything, including lives and loved ones.
Now we have the call to help: food, shelter, medicine, people, money.
And shoes.
I heard yesterday that one of the more pressing problems is that there are so few shoes in Samoa and so much glass on the ground. Cut feet are compounding the island’s medical problems. That’s something I didn’t think about and good on those who did—and created a specific charity: Shoes for Samoa. I don’t know how widespread that is, but here in my local town you can donate shoes through the supermarkets.
Today I’ll head down to the supermarket to hand over a few shoes, then I’ll take a break to move into a new home that is still standing with a wife who is still with me.
Life for me, though still not a dream, is not so bad after all.