Socks with sandals

Thanks RH for those public service announcements. I make a point of only reading the sports section of the SST (likewise the Saturday editon of the Herald) and so have missed Trotters's bit, but your quote suggests I could write it down now without having seing it. I've mentioned before the power of the handling (or mishandling) of information over the swathes of time. Same still pertains but it is now less controllable with the rise of(amongst other things) the internet. Look at the enormous lengths China goes to in the largely vain attempt to stop the populace gaining access to the web - and they aren't doing that to stop people getting free downloads of smilies to add to their emails. The chilling inferences surrounding the headmistresses quote on corruptoin is just that - chilling. Hooten quite rightly points out in his rider to the piece that her ideas are filtering into policy with all the proposed changes into the laws surrounding dissent. I keep harping on about history (and this from one who happily gave it up in the fourth form - misguided youth that I was) and I am not the first to warn that we ignore the lessons of history at out peril. There is very little new in the world - it has all happened before if we would only look. Stifling public dissent is a very common prodromal sign of a very serious illness some way down the track.

Orewa. the town as opposed to the speech. A few of the denizens are very worried that development might be coming their way. They don't want high rise buildings (I think 'high' here is seven stories), they don't want expansion etc. etc. It would appear that after getting a motorway to deliver unlimited traffic to their doorsteps (and the huge economic benifit this would garner for the town) they want the conurbation to remain timewarped in the sixties with the streets being populated by A35s, Ford Anglias and men wearing socks with their sandals. This refusal by some people to believe we live in a wider world brings us on nicely to a piece in the Editorial column about New Zealand's internatonal credit rating. The mob who dishes these out (they live in New York, I think) warns that NZ's insistence on having a policy dictated economy largely insulated from the realities of world economics is a very dangerous road to tread. It could lead to our downrating from A++ to something less spiffy. This in turn would lead to us 'having to' rely more on a policy led economy and so on and so on as we spiral downwards towards the Zimbabwes of the world. There are none so blind as those who will not see are there, Dr Cullen?

Don Brash puts pen to paper this morning - at least he can do writing as well as hard sums. He defends himself against those who would take him to task over his latest 'one law for all' stance and the perceived racial overtones. He shouldn't have to bother defending this as it patently obvious to all that he is right. In amongst the usual politician-speak he gives two very good examples as to where the hand wringers have got it so wrong. Maori are over represented in the lung cancer death statistics. There are those who would have you believe this is because of a government failing and in particular their failing to honour the Treaty of Waitangi. Quite what mind altering substance you would have to be on to think this is beyond me, but there you are. This is stupid. Maori are over represnted in this part of the health statistics because more of them choose to smoke. Moari are under represented in Law School (this despite positive discrimination to get more enrolled, as there is in medicine). This has nothing to do with governmental failings but everything to do with personal choice. Obviously more Maori want to spend their lives designing cathedrals as opposed to defending the stupid in court.

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