Rebuilding volcanoes?

Why does a so called advanced society waste food on someone like Rudman? I am astonished that eighteen months or so ago I actually used to read him. I gave the Herald just the cursory glance it merits on a Monday and my eye was drawn to his column courtesy of a 1870's lithograph or drawing or something. It was used to illustrate Rudman's current waffle and showed the Three Kings (not the gamefishing ones) as they were. The picture is a straightforward explanation as to why that area of Auckland is thus called - three volcanic cones in close proximity.

There is now only one left as man over the last one hundred and fifty years or so has quarried away two of them. He did this to advance his lot; construct buildings, use as infill prior to building roads - that sort of thing. The kind of stuff that people do as they become civilised and no longer live under fallen logs and live by eating wetas and earthworms. Looney boy Rudman is now all for rebuilding them. Got that? He wants to rebuild not one volcano but two. Have you ever seen any thing so daft in all your life? I think it might have been done in Las Vegas to turn a profit but to have someone actually suggest that it might be a good idea for 'heritage' reasons is barking even for this asylum.

The scary thing is that there are other people apart from Rudman who might think this is a good idea. Winstone Aggregates apparently are looking at something similar. Now presumably they haven't moved on from one bloke with a shovel and a wheelbarrow to nice big yellow earthmovers by playing the goat in a business sense and I can only assume some of Rudman's mates have got in their ears and shamed them into such weird thinking. Or they can see that by appearing 'environmentally sound and heritage responsible' they can increase their profits.

Can this country please be crop-dusted with a large dose of pragmatism. Where does all this stupid looking back wistfully over the mists of time come from? People wishing they were still hoisting flags on Tiri to tell Auckland what sort of ship was imminently arriving in the port - from under which stone did they crawl?. You can't turn the clocks back. Kings number two and three are now part of the pavement somewhere and that's just the way it is. Move on.

But this lust for the good old days is always selective and it never ceases to amaze me. These clowns never say 'I wish I was living in the 1870s' they just want the warm fuzzy bits. In general the past wasn't as rosy as the Rudman's view of the world would have you believe. It was a lot simpler, sure, but who would willingly go back the life expectancy that was prevelant when there were still Three Kings? Who would give up his V8 for a horse or his iPod for a pianola? Which of them would welcome endemic rheumatic fever with open arms, wax his moustaches every morning, wear spats or bathe in a tin bath in front of the fire?

Rebuild a volcanic cone, give me a break. Besides all of the above, a real builder of volcanic cones showed us how it was done and how futile our farting around with it would be last Tuesday night.

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