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
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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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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
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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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Nipple Lust

Each age brings forth men and women who, from force of action or possibly personality, live on in our memory and mindscape. I exclude here of course all Americans, whose contribution to the hero list has largely been the product of nipple-lust and the need to grab hold of anything to justify their existence and lack of history. But elsewhere we have had genuine colossi such as Alexander, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, St Paul, Williams Blake and Wilberforce and, in our own age, Keith Locke.

Of late I have been reading of Cicero, an impressive Roman orator and successful lawyer from the First Century BC. He is appreciated primarily for his humanism and philosophical and political writings. His voluminous correspondence, much of it addressed to his friend Atticus, has been especially influential, introducing the art of refined letter writing to European culture. Cornelius Nepos, the 1st-century BC biographer of Atticus, remarked that Cicero's letters to Atticus contained such a wealth of detail "concerning the inclinations of leading men, the faults of the generals, and the revolutions in the government" that their reader had little need for a history of the period. Very much like Fryday, now that I come to think of it.

During the chaotic latter half of the first century BC, marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government. However, his career as a statesman was marked by inconsistencies and a tendency to shift his position in response to changes in the political climate. His indecision may be attributed to his sensitive and impressionable personality; he was prone to overreaction in the face of political and private change. Very much like John Key, now that I think of it.

Which is why I am drawn, sadly, to the conclusion that Mr Key and National will not now win the next election.

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Now playing: John Starling - The Other Side Of Life
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Let There Be Daylight

Yesterday I was accused of being part of an assiduous group that this year had allowed summer in Rodney to extend beyond prudent levels. I pleaded guilty. The insidious group is the Rodney District Council and it is true that they/we made the conscious decision after the last election that we extend summer and smiles in Rodney to unprecedented levels. We succeeded in the former; we are still working on the latter, but it will happen. Next week.

English builder and outdoorsman William Willett invented daylight saving in 1905 during one of his pre-breakfast horseback rides, when he observed with dismay how many Londoners slept through the best part of a summer day. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk. His solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. He lobbied unsuccessfully for the proposal until his death in 1915. Germany, its World War I allies, and their occupied zones were the first European nations to use Willett's invention, starting April 30, 1916. Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit; Russia and a few other countries waited until the next year; and the United States adopted it in 1918. Since then, the world has seen many enactments, adjustments, and repeals. There are hold-outs, most prominently and with most effect to us Queensland.

However New Zealand has adopted daylight saving enthusiastically and this year extended it by a further three weeks. Some advocate retention of daylight saving 365 days a year, and there is some merit in that. But we in New Zealand have never been great savers, and when we do against all expectations succeed, as we have with Dr Cullen's current surplus, we are so wracked with indecision about what to do with those savings we eventually lose them all together. Besides where do we save all that daylight? The poet and the lover would say, "In our hearts, we store it in our hearts." We cynical would say, "No good! It would only come up with the vomit from that 'heart' line."

We have indeed had a long and enjoyable summer with even farmers, who incidentally have never advocated for daylight saving, being neither poets nor lovers, getting their long needed rain just at a point when the drought was going into the beyond recovery state. But I am over it. I am happy with my coming winter of content and I take to my heart Benjamin Franklin's famous pronouncement that "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." In this, my 57^th winter, I am hoping that Franklin got at least part of it right.

A Comfortable Existence

I have never fully described or indeed subscribed to the adjective “creative.” I don’t know what it means, but I do know what the trappings mean. They mean that as long as I describe myself as a writer I can get away with most everything. I can be moody, sullen, non-communicative and sexually rampant. That’s what “creative” people are supposed to be (unless you are John Grisham) and it covers in delightful obscurity a multitude of sins…or at least explains them. A comfortable existence. But it’s also a crock of shit. Last night I enjoyed the company of good people, two of whom are professional writers. But…each of whom (in this case) is also a husband, lover and friend to a spouse. And somehow the pretensions, elitism and wankerism just kinda faded away under scrutiny, assessment, and…quiet smiles one of which would be Hemingway’s in a quiet grave.

Blowing my Top

At the moment I am sitting on the periphery of a volcanic eruption.

The volcano first blew its top last night and wiped out most of Mangere. The stench of methamphetamine hangs in the air. Most of the population escaped because seismic warnings allowed Civil Defence and other authorities to evacuate much of the affected area. In fact there are no reported deaths, few injuries and essential services in Mangere such as Kentucky Fried Chicken have already been restored. Burger King has a whole new inject to its Smoky Bacon flavour ASH is thanking everybody for the free publicity. Nevertheless trauma counsellors are over-stretched and the fall-out literally and figuratively will continue for many years to come—most of the evacuees were sent to Hamilton.

Of course this is an exercise—a two-day Civil Defence exercise in which I am involved as Rodney’s Civil Defence communications controller. Remarkably it’s gone extremely well and I am drawn to the conclusion (you’ll be glad to know if you live in Mangere) that it would go equally well for real. At least I hope so; the tourist benefits of being the Pompeii of the Pacific won’t be seen in our lifetime.

But I do have a couple of questions about this exercise. Why choose Mangere? I quite like Mangere and a lot happens there already. Why not choose Mt Roskill or Mt Albert where nothing does? I could also suggest Hamilton but apparently the fault-line, like everybody else, avoids it.

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Now playing: John Fogerty - Bad Moon Rising
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Is there a doctor in the house?

Few would argue against the view that Dr Michael Cullen’s handling of the economy has been masterly if a little miserly. But his pronouncements of late suggest a far less deft hand. For example, to imply that the recently announced deficit is somehow the fault of the National Party’s two-year-old call for tax cuts owes less to logic and accuracy than politicking and desperation. Frankly, Dr Cullen like the government of which he is a key part, looks tired and devoid of ideas. And what of the deficit itself? Where did that come from it? It has come out of the blue, or the black to be more accurate. The operating balance in the seven-month period was in deficit by $394 million, $4.2 billion below forecast. That primarily reflected $2.5 billion lower-than-forecast returns on the financial asset portfolios of the NZ Superannuation Fund, the Accident Compensation Corp. and the Earthquake Commission. The second biggest negative contributor to the accounts apparently was a $1 billion more-than-forecast loss on the re-valuation of the ACC claims liability. Ah, so there we have it. It’s my fault! The fact that I injured my back last year and the complete inability of medical practitioners funded by ACC to fix it are the reasons we have this deficit. Perhaps therefore its time for me, along with the Economy, to change doctors.

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The C Word

It is too easy for us to criticise and we avail ourselves of the facility too often. Nothing is easier, or more receptive to an audience, than railing against Asian drivers, slipping standards of service, central and local government, this year’s Halberg Awards presentation and everything else that sticks in our collective gullets. I am guilty of it; you are guilty of it. To be fair to us both, most of our criticism is justified and formed from anecdotal evidence. There is also nothing wrong with it; criticism can bring change and is second only to humiliation in its faculty to do so. Which is perhaps why, in my recent experience, standards of service are actually rising. Yes, I admit to a gross over-generalisation here, but of late I have had some outstanding service in restaurants and shops. Most surprisingly, most of it has come from young people. My previous experience has been that young people have been surly, uninterested and in some cases outright rude. Many may well still be, but they seem to fewer and the young people I am lauding are bright, attentive, knowledgeable and natural. Why is this? Are they better trained? Is the employment market more competitive? Are we and they more exposed to overseas standards of service? Or is it simply that our collective criticism has at last had an effect? I am certainly not qualified to give an answer, nor am I particularly interested in finding one. I am simply content with the (now) better than average prospect of walking into a New Zealand restaurant or shop and having an enjoyable experience.

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