Speaking of Simon Upton, I see the Government has
appointed him as a special envoy to promote the idea of
what John Key calls a ‘Global Alliance’ on research into
ways of mitigating agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
The idea of the alliance, announced by Key during his New
York visit, is an astute political move, as it gives the
impression that this government really cares about such
matters as agricultural emissions, when in fact it has done
nothing but back away from decisive action on the matter.
The choice of Upton makes it doubly astute, because he
has some ecological cred, and, as my last post indicated,
he's capable of thinking outside the usual narrow limits of
political discourse, even if he did belong to a government
(the National one of the 1990s) that allowed little scope for
such unorthodox behaviour. He may well wind up, again,
being the poster boy for National government greenwash;
if they really cared about agricultural emissions they would
have put serious funding (not the piddly few millions
currently allocated) into research as soon as they took
office—as indeed should the previous Labour government.
For at least 15 years now it has been clear that agricultural
emissions would be the achilles heel of any international
commitment New Zealand made to reducing its carbon
footprint. Yet for 15 years we fiddled while cows belched.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Threshold
In his latest Dominion Post column former National
government environment minister Simon Upton
comments on French President Sarkozy’s initiative,
which I've blogged about twice recently. He writes:
Environmentalists have long (and rightly) despaired
of the way politicians have regarded GDP as the pre-
eminent measure of policy success. When I joined a
political party, I did so because I shared some broad
values with the party of my choice. But time and
again, I found political argument reduced to a banal
exchange over who could generate a higher quarterly
GDP number.
No self-respecting economist or statistician would
make the claims for GDP that politicians do. We all
know that cleaning up toxic waste dumps or having
to build more prisons shouldn’t figure in calculations
of ‘progress.’ But the sheer simplicity of GDP has
swamped more nuanced measures.
The Stiglitz/Sen report presented to Sarkozy makes a
powerful case, says Upton, for ‘dislodging the fetish of
celebrating a form of growth which ignores the
destruction of natural capital.'
Do I sense a shift in the wind? The global economic crisis
has, I think, opened the door to different ways of thinking
that haven't had a look-in for a long time, if ever. Whether
more enlightened ideas will even get over the threshold of
the door is another matter: judging by the pussyfooting that
has just taken place at Pittsburgh, they might wait around
on the doormat unattended unless given some independent
momentum. Sarkozy has at least made a start.
government environment minister Simon Upton
comments on French President Sarkozy’s initiative,
which I've blogged about twice recently. He writes:
Environmentalists have long (and rightly) despaired
of the way politicians have regarded GDP as the pre-
eminent measure of policy success. When I joined a
political party, I did so because I shared some broad
values with the party of my choice. But time and
again, I found political argument reduced to a banal
exchange over who could generate a higher quarterly
GDP number.
No self-respecting economist or statistician would
make the claims for GDP that politicians do. We all
know that cleaning up toxic waste dumps or having
to build more prisons shouldn’t figure in calculations
of ‘progress.’ But the sheer simplicity of GDP has
swamped more nuanced measures.
The Stiglitz/Sen report presented to Sarkozy makes a
powerful case, says Upton, for ‘dislodging the fetish of
celebrating a form of growth which ignores the
destruction of natural capital.'
Do I sense a shift in the wind? The global economic crisis
has, I think, opened the door to different ways of thinking
that haven't had a look-in for a long time, if ever. Whether
more enlightened ideas will even get over the threshold of
the door is another matter: judging by the pussyfooting that
has just taken place at Pittsburgh, they might wait around
on the doormat unattended unless given some independent
momentum. Sarkozy has at least made a start.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Just not -me
Though resistant to many forms of American cultural
imperialism I've long thought that other English-speaking
countries besides Australia should adopt American
spellings like program, color and traveler. (Come to think
of it, why did Australia and not New Zealand go that way?)
I already can’t be bothered with ‘programme,’ which is not
only inconsistent with similar words (we have ‘telegram’
and ‘angiogram,’ after all—imagine writing ‘angiogramme’)
but looks ugly into the bargain. It seems we’re stuck with
‘labour,’ though, unless the party of that name drops it.
On the other hand, the Americans opt for the double-l in
words like 'fulfillment' and 'willful,' which is plain perverse.
imperialism I've long thought that other English-speaking
countries besides Australia should adopt American
spellings like program, color and traveler. (Come to think
of it, why did Australia and not New Zealand go that way?)
I already can’t be bothered with ‘programme,’ which is not
only inconsistent with similar words (we have ‘telegram’
and ‘angiogram,’ after all—imagine writing ‘angiogramme’)
but looks ugly into the bargain. It seems we’re stuck with
‘labour,’ though, unless the party of that name drops it.
On the other hand, the Americans opt for the double-l in
words like 'fulfillment' and 'willful,' which is plain perverse.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Late lunch
For New Zealanders anyway, 'tea' still means 'dinner,' as
in the evening meal. Less common these days—in fact,
completely gone, as far as I can tell—is 'dinner' to mean
what we always now call lunch. In the early 1960s I'd
often bike home from school at the end of morning
classes for dinner at about 12.3opm—and it was dinner,
too, hot meat and vegetables as often as not, laid daily on
the table for three kids and husband by my hard-working
mother—before racing back by 1 o’clock. But I'm reading
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, and Drouet takes
Carrie out for the evening, to see The Mikado. This is
Chicago, 1889. The next sentence made me blink: ‘They
stopped in at a restaurant for a little after-theatre lunch.’
Consulting my faithful Chambers, however, I find that in
America anyway lunch once meant a snack at any time of
day. I never knew that.
in the evening meal. Less common these days—in fact,
completely gone, as far as I can tell—is 'dinner' to mean
what we always now call lunch. In the early 1960s I'd
often bike home from school at the end of morning
classes for dinner at about 12.3opm—and it was dinner,
too, hot meat and vegetables as often as not, laid daily on
the table for three kids and husband by my hard-working
mother—before racing back by 1 o’clock. But I'm reading
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, and Drouet takes
Carrie out for the evening, to see The Mikado. This is
Chicago, 1889. The next sentence made me blink: ‘They
stopped in at a restaurant for a little after-theatre lunch.’
Consulting my faithful Chambers, however, I find that in
America anyway lunch once meant a snack at any time of
day. I never knew that.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Sun and stars
Further to my blog about better ways of measuring a
society’s health and wealth than simply by gdp, I see
Robert Skidelsky, in an essay in the British magazine
Prospect, saying that, in the light of the global financial
crisis, and with the gloss coming off globalization,
national politicians are likely to reach for ideas and
influences that until recently would have seemed
exotic. The idea, for example, that economic growth
does not, beyond a certain point, make people
happier. David Cameron, a market-friendly
Conservative, has talked about the importance of
general wellbeing as an alternative to the mania for
economic growth.
Southernrata, commenting on my blog, points us to a
set of useful comments here on the French plan, with
a pointer to the original report by Joseph Stiglitz and
Amartya Sen. To their voices can be added that of J M
Keynes, whom Skidelsky quotes as saying that
we destroy the beauty of the countryside because the
unappropriated splendours of nature have no
economic value. We are capable of shutting off the
sun and the stars because they do not pay a dividend.
Keynes must have written that at least 75 years ago. No
wonder Skidelsky says it's time to take a lead from him
again. Skidelsky's whole essay, well worth reading, is here.
society’s health and wealth than simply by gdp, I see
Robert Skidelsky, in an essay in the British magazine
Prospect, saying that, in the light of the global financial
crisis, and with the gloss coming off globalization,
national politicians are likely to reach for ideas and
influences that until recently would have seemed
exotic. The idea, for example, that economic growth
does not, beyond a certain point, make people
happier. David Cameron, a market-friendly
Conservative, has talked about the importance of
general wellbeing as an alternative to the mania for
economic growth.
Southernrata, commenting on my blog, points us to a
set of useful comments here on the French plan, with
a pointer to the original report by Joseph Stiglitz and
Amartya Sen. To their voices can be added that of J M
Keynes, whom Skidelsky quotes as saying that
we destroy the beauty of the countryside because the
unappropriated splendours of nature have no
economic value. We are capable of shutting off the
sun and the stars because they do not pay a dividend.
Keynes must have written that at least 75 years ago. No
wonder Skidelsky says it's time to take a lead from him
again. Skidelsky's whole essay, well worth reading, is here.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Dial one-one-one
Slightly disturbed to hear Rodney Hide say in the House
today, as the legislation creating the Auckland 'super-city'
was being railroaded through, that what he wanted was
'one council, one mayor and one plan.' Now where have
we heard that kind of talk before?
today, as the legislation creating the Auckland 'super-city'
was being railroaded through, that what he wanted was
'one council, one mayor and one plan.' Now where have
we heard that kind of talk before?
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Sarkozy speaks
Sarkozy-baiting seems to have become a popular sport in
Western media; the French President is often portrayed
as vain, impulsive, wacky and an embarrassment to his
countrypeople. He may well be all those things but he
consistently challenges received thinking in refreshing
ways—for instance, with his proposal for France’s
economy to be measured not just by the single narrow
yardstick of gross domestic product (gdp) but by other
indicators, such as happiness, well-being and
environmental sustainability. Sarkozy asked Joseph
Stiglitz and Amartya Sen to come up with something more
enlightened than gdp, which as the measure of a society’s
health and wealth should have been ridiculed out of
existence long ago. The two economists have now
delivered a report that recommends measuring ‘progress’
by a much wider range of indicators than purely financial
or income-earning ones. Housework, for instance; access
to education and health services; sporting, cultural and
recreational activities; the cost of environmental damage
and not just the money made from fixing it. (The classic
illustration of gdp’s failings is that, with a major oil tanker
spill, the money spent on cleaning up the mess is counted
as a plus towards economic growth.) But let Sarkozy speak:
A great revolution is waiting for us. For years, people
said that finance was a formidable creator of wealth,
only to discover one day that it accumulated so many
risks that the world almost plunged into chaos...
The crisis doesn't only make us free to imagine other
models, another future, another world. It obliges us to
do so...
If leisure has no accounting value because it's essentially
full of non-market activities like sport or culture, we put
productivity below human fulfilment.
Cripes. Some of us have been waiting all our lives to hear a
national leader speak like that. And what's more, it seems
as though what's being proposed for France will be actually
be put into practice. These are not mere words.
Western media; the French President is often portrayed
as vain, impulsive, wacky and an embarrassment to his
countrypeople. He may well be all those things but he
consistently challenges received thinking in refreshing
ways—for instance, with his proposal for France’s
economy to be measured not just by the single narrow
yardstick of gross domestic product (gdp) but by other
indicators, such as happiness, well-being and
environmental sustainability. Sarkozy asked Joseph
Stiglitz and Amartya Sen to come up with something more
enlightened than gdp, which as the measure of a society’s
health and wealth should have been ridiculed out of
existence long ago. The two economists have now
delivered a report that recommends measuring ‘progress’
by a much wider range of indicators than purely financial
or income-earning ones. Housework, for instance; access
to education and health services; sporting, cultural and
recreational activities; the cost of environmental damage
and not just the money made from fixing it. (The classic
illustration of gdp’s failings is that, with a major oil tanker
spill, the money spent on cleaning up the mess is counted
as a plus towards economic growth.) But let Sarkozy speak:
A great revolution is waiting for us. For years, people
said that finance was a formidable creator of wealth,
only to discover one day that it accumulated so many
risks that the world almost plunged into chaos...
The crisis doesn't only make us free to imagine other
models, another future, another world. It obliges us to
do so...
If leisure has no accounting value because it's essentially
full of non-market activities like sport or culture, we put
productivity below human fulfilment.
Cripes. Some of us have been waiting all our lives to hear a
national leader speak like that. And what's more, it seems
as though what's being proposed for France will be actually
be put into practice. These are not mere words.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Inconstancy
It seems that we must aggrandize ourselves in order to
survive. Only by projecting a larger sense of self can we
hope to prosper as social beings. From among many
potential selves we choose the one that works best with
other people, the one that gets the business done, the one
that gets results. Eventually, by this quotidian alchemy,
we all seem bigger than we are. Hence the revelation at
the end of The Wizard of Oz: in the final analysis, each
one of us is crouching behind a curtain cranking up the
volume and furiously pumping the smoke machine in
order to impress and even scare others.
The fear of inconstancy has become the terrorism of the
soul. For the sake of conveying a consistent and
presentable image of ourselves, we fight this daily war on
terror at enormous expense of emotional resource. Yet
when, with some trepidation, Isabel Allende published a
memoir, instead of feeling exposed (she writes), 'I felt
stronger. I realized that what makes people feel weak is
all the secrets, the things we hide, the things we think are
embarrassing and shameful. And when you just talk about
it, you realize that everybody else probably has the same
secrets.’
I remind myself that it was one of the aims of the people
who came together at Little Gidding, the 17th-century
English religious community, ‘not to think of human
nature above that which it is, a sea of flowings and
ebbings, and of all manner of inconstancy.’
survive. Only by projecting a larger sense of self can we
hope to prosper as social beings. From among many
potential selves we choose the one that works best with
other people, the one that gets the business done, the one
that gets results. Eventually, by this quotidian alchemy,
we all seem bigger than we are. Hence the revelation at
the end of The Wizard of Oz: in the final analysis, each
one of us is crouching behind a curtain cranking up the
volume and furiously pumping the smoke machine in
order to impress and even scare others.
The fear of inconstancy has become the terrorism of the
soul. For the sake of conveying a consistent and
presentable image of ourselves, we fight this daily war on
terror at enormous expense of emotional resource. Yet
when, with some trepidation, Isabel Allende published a
memoir, instead of feeling exposed (she writes), 'I felt
stronger. I realized that what makes people feel weak is
all the secrets, the things we hide, the things we think are
embarrassing and shameful. And when you just talk about
it, you realize that everybody else probably has the same
secrets.’
I remind myself that it was one of the aims of the people
who came together at Little Gidding, the 17th-century
English religious community, ‘not to think of human
nature above that which it is, a sea of flowings and
ebbings, and of all manner of inconstancy.’
Monday, September 14, 2009
4,000 years on
NEWS ITEM: BEIJING, 14 SEPTEMBER 2410
Archaeologists excavating a remote South Pacific site
believe they have found evidence of a primitive culture
that apparently flourished four millennia ago.
After sifting painstakingly down through several layers
of fossils and ruined artefacts they have found what they
believe to be parts of a burnt couch.
‘This is very exciting,’ said chief archaeologist José Maria
Putin. ‘There are legends of an ancient couch-burning
culture in this part of the world and our discovery
appears to confirm that it really existed.’
Professor Putin explained that 4,000 years ago a city
occupied the site, which is now part of a wilderness park,
and the couch-burner people possibly ruled the city for a
brief period of time before being overthrown. Though
not very intellectually advanced, they exerted a major
influence on neighbouring tribes by means of their
seasonal rituals, which usually took place after dark to
the accompaniment of strange wolfish cries.
'From what we can tell,' reasoned Professor Putin, 'they
burnt couches—of which they had an inexhaustible
supply—to appease the gods and to reassert their
territorial claims.
‘We have also found a number of tiny rectangular objects
with keypads,’ he added. ‘This may have been their way
of communicating with each other, apart of course from
grunts and howls.’
The archaeological dig will continue for a further six
months in the hope of finding traces of higher life forms.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Stand up for MMP
It’s good to see John Armstrong taking a clear firm stand
on MMP. In fact, his New Zealand Herald column
yesterday, headlined DITCHING MMP WOULD BE TRAGIC,
is the clearest, firmest column he’s written in quite a
while. It should be required reading for anyone inclined
to dally with going back to FPP or switching to SM, which
is basically FPP-lite. Armstrong tackles all the arguments
for dumping MMP and sends them packing. He’s
particularly robust on how reverting to FPP would leave
the country exposed again to the absolute power of a
small unrestrained executive:
Losing MMP would be a giant leap backwards;
a constitutional tragedy of disempowerment
given the gaping absence of limits on Cabinet
power in a unicameral Parliament.
Couldn’t have put it better myself. By contrast, fellow
Herald columnist Fran O'Sullivan sides feebly with the
'We need governments with hair on their chests' camp
by writing: ‘Fighting the next election on an electoral
system—even first-past-the-post—which gave more
power to the major party to implement sensible policies
would do more to even the gap with Australia than
endless horsetrading.’
(To which Marty G at The Standard has retorted: ‘That
"endless horsetrading" is called democracy.’)
O'Sullivan is an astute analyst of business and politics
whose opinions I often respect, even when I disagree
with them. In this case, however, she is backing the view
that the best kind of government is the one with
unlimited power to do what it wants (aka 'implementing
sensible policies'). Governments, according to this view,
have to be able to be swift and decisive in their governing,
unimpeded by having to consult or negotiate with other
parties—otherwise they'll be outmanoeuvred by other
governments in the global marketplace. Governments
like that of China, say, that don't have to worry about
internal opposition, coalition deals, parliamentary debate
and other time-wasting stuff. In my view it's a dangerous
road to go down, and New Zealand's in danger of drifting
down it, unless more voices like Armstrong's are raised.
We're still waiting for a ringing, unequivocal commitment
to MMP from the Labour Party, for instance. Lord knows
MMP puts little enough restraint on parties that lead
governments, but a little's a lot better than none at all.
on MMP. In fact, his New Zealand Herald column
yesterday, headlined DITCHING MMP WOULD BE TRAGIC,
is the clearest, firmest column he’s written in quite a
while. It should be required reading for anyone inclined
to dally with going back to FPP or switching to SM, which
is basically FPP-lite. Armstrong tackles all the arguments
for dumping MMP and sends them packing. He’s
particularly robust on how reverting to FPP would leave
the country exposed again to the absolute power of a
small unrestrained executive:
Losing MMP would be a giant leap backwards;
a constitutional tragedy of disempowerment
given the gaping absence of limits on Cabinet
power in a unicameral Parliament.
Couldn’t have put it better myself. By contrast, fellow
Herald columnist Fran O'Sullivan sides feebly with the
'We need governments with hair on their chests' camp
by writing: ‘Fighting the next election on an electoral
system—even first-past-the-post—which gave more
power to the major party to implement sensible policies
would do more to even the gap with Australia than
endless horsetrading.’
(To which Marty G at The Standard has retorted: ‘That
"endless horsetrading" is called democracy.’)
O'Sullivan is an astute analyst of business and politics
whose opinions I often respect, even when I disagree
with them. In this case, however, she is backing the view
that the best kind of government is the one with
unlimited power to do what it wants (aka 'implementing
sensible policies'). Governments, according to this view,
have to be able to be swift and decisive in their governing,
unimpeded by having to consult or negotiate with other
parties—otherwise they'll be outmanoeuvred by other
governments in the global marketplace. Governments
like that of China, say, that don't have to worry about
internal opposition, coalition deals, parliamentary debate
and other time-wasting stuff. In my view it's a dangerous
road to go down, and New Zealand's in danger of drifting
down it, unless more voices like Armstrong's are raised.
We're still waiting for a ringing, unequivocal commitment
to MMP from the Labour Party, for instance. Lord knows
MMP puts little enough restraint on parties that lead
governments, but a little's a lot better than none at all.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Repackaging Phil
The repackaging of Phil Goff has to be one of the more
grisly public-relations jobs undertaken in New Zealand
politics. It’s as if someone were trying to convince us
that Keith Holyoake was a closet Grateful Dead fan, or
that Jenny Shipley studied Barthesian semiotics.
Attempted image makeovers on this scale usually signify
desperation on the part of the party concerned, so this
does not bode well for Labour. As I wrote in my Helen
Clark biography, ‘Successful leadership is finding the
right level of projection—a level at which you feel
comfortable about yourself and at the same strike the
public as credible, if not convincing.’ Somewhat
gratuitously, I added that ‘It ain’t as easy as it sounds.'
Most politicians who fail this test tend to fall down on
the credibility issue. Goff's an odd one: he's credible as
all get out, but never seems comfortable with himself in
the public arena. He always strikes one as acting a part.
We all do, of course—politicians more than most. The
trick is hiding it; a trick that Goff, I fear, has never
mastered. And no amount of motorcycle-riding, rolled
up-shirtsleeves masquerading is going to change that.
Fundamentally the guy's a machine politician, and
although the fall of the cards sometimes favours such
types, who really wants to vote for a machine?
grisly public-relations jobs undertaken in New Zealand
politics. It’s as if someone were trying to convince us
that Keith Holyoake was a closet Grateful Dead fan, or
that Jenny Shipley studied Barthesian semiotics.
Attempted image makeovers on this scale usually signify
desperation on the part of the party concerned, so this
does not bode well for Labour. As I wrote in my Helen
Clark biography, ‘Successful leadership is finding the
right level of projection—a level at which you feel
comfortable about yourself and at the same strike the
public as credible, if not convincing.’ Somewhat
gratuitously, I added that ‘It ain’t as easy as it sounds.'
Most politicians who fail this test tend to fall down on
the credibility issue. Goff's an odd one: he's credible as
all get out, but never seems comfortable with himself in
the public arena. He always strikes one as acting a part.
We all do, of course—politicians more than most. The
trick is hiding it; a trick that Goff, I fear, has never
mastered. And no amount of motorcycle-riding, rolled
up-shirtsleeves masquerading is going to change that.
Fundamentally the guy's a machine politician, and
although the fall of the cards sometimes favours such
types, who really wants to vote for a machine?
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thematic streets
Well, I knew that town planners from time immemorial
have, when all other inspiration has dried up, indulged in
the slightly licentious practice of thematic street-naming.
Straight off, I can think of a couple of Wellington examples:
the cluster of Brooklyn streets named after early American
presidents (Lincoln, Jefferson, Garfield, Washington), and
those in Island Bay owing their provenance to British rivers
(Tamar, Severn, Mersey, Clyde). First prize for imaginative
overreach still has to go to Auckland’s Pakuranga for its
Dickensian splurge (Oliver Twist Ave, Pickwick Parade,
Copperfield Tce and—my favourite—Bleakhouse Rd), but I
have only just learned that virtually every street in the
western Waikato town of Pirongia bears the name of a
19th-century European explorer who sought the Northwest
Passage across Canada: Beechey, Belcher, Bellot, Crozier,
McClure, Ross—with pride of place, the main street,
Franklin Rd, sacred to the memory of the massively
incompetent Sir John Franklin, who not only failed to find
the way through but got stuck in the ice and vanished with
all his crew, never to be seen again until three frozen
corpses turned up 30 years ago. Can any New Zealand town
save perhaps, Martinborough, with its world city theme
(Dublin, Venice, Cologne, New York etc) match this?
have, when all other inspiration has dried up, indulged in
the slightly licentious practice of thematic street-naming.
Straight off, I can think of a couple of Wellington examples:
the cluster of Brooklyn streets named after early American
presidents (Lincoln, Jefferson, Garfield, Washington), and
those in Island Bay owing their provenance to British rivers
(Tamar, Severn, Mersey, Clyde). First prize for imaginative
overreach still has to go to Auckland’s Pakuranga for its
Dickensian splurge (Oliver Twist Ave, Pickwick Parade,
Copperfield Tce and—my favourite—Bleakhouse Rd), but I
have only just learned that virtually every street in the
western Waikato town of Pirongia bears the name of a
19th-century European explorer who sought the Northwest
Passage across Canada: Beechey, Belcher, Bellot, Crozier,
McClure, Ross—with pride of place, the main street,
Franklin Rd, sacred to the memory of the massively
incompetent Sir John Franklin, who not only failed to find
the way through but got stuck in the ice and vanished with
all his crew, never to be seen again until three frozen
corpses turned up 30 years ago. Can any New Zealand town
save perhaps, Martinborough, with its world city theme
(Dublin, Venice, Cologne, New York etc) match this?
Knock it off
Sanctuary comments on my blog about the Waikato
Expressway by saying: ‘I commute a lot between Auckland
and Napier. I welcome with open arms the idea of
bypassing Smallville, Waikato on my way down to
Hawkes Bay. I reckon this expressway already has
knocked 20-30 minutes off the journey, and completing
as advertised will knock 30-40 minutes off the trip.’
Thanks for the comment, mate, but it invites the response:
So? When you’ve knocked another 20 minutes off, what
then? Another 20 minutes off that? And another? As
corners and curves and dips and bends are one by one
straightened out, the logical conclusion is a road running
in a perfectly straight line from Auckland to Napier. With
four lanes; four lanes good, two lanes bad. But why stop at
four? Six sounds good. Let’s have six lanes. Und so weiter.
Sanctuary should have a look at a report in Wednesday's
New Zealand Herald and see there comments by a former
oil industry executive who says, among many other things,
that quite apart from running out of fuel for vehicles, in 20
years’ time New Zealand will have no more bitumen for
maintaining roads.
See also an excellent post by Hamilton-based Labour MP
Sue Moroney on the party’s Red Alert blog, in which she
calls the huge weighting of funding towards the expressway
a 'great leap backwards.' Funding for public transport in the
region, says Moroney,
will only increase by 3% next year and then will be frozen
for the next two years. With 9% growth in the use of buses
in Hamilton, this means that either services will have to be
cut and/or passenger fares will have to increase significantly.
Both options will force people off buses and back into their
cars. Smart, eh? It also makes it virtually impossible for the
Hamilton to Auckland passenger train service to be
established even if the proposed trial is successful.
Mind you, if, as the current government believes, there is no
tomorrow, then we may not have a problem. So that could
be all right then.
Expressway by saying: ‘I commute a lot between Auckland
and Napier. I welcome with open arms the idea of
bypassing Smallville, Waikato on my way down to
Hawkes Bay. I reckon this expressway already has
knocked 20-30 minutes off the journey, and completing
as advertised will knock 30-40 minutes off the trip.’
Thanks for the comment, mate, but it invites the response:
So? When you’ve knocked another 20 minutes off, what
then? Another 20 minutes off that? And another? As
corners and curves and dips and bends are one by one
straightened out, the logical conclusion is a road running
in a perfectly straight line from Auckland to Napier. With
four lanes; four lanes good, two lanes bad. But why stop at
four? Six sounds good. Let’s have six lanes. Und so weiter.
Sanctuary should have a look at a report in Wednesday's
New Zealand Herald and see there comments by a former
oil industry executive who says, among many other things,
that quite apart from running out of fuel for vehicles, in 20
years’ time New Zealand will have no more bitumen for
maintaining roads.
See also an excellent post by Hamilton-based Labour MP
Sue Moroney on the party’s Red Alert blog, in which she
calls the huge weighting of funding towards the expressway
a 'great leap backwards.' Funding for public transport in the
region, says Moroney,
will only increase by 3% next year and then will be frozen
for the next two years. With 9% growth in the use of buses
in Hamilton, this means that either services will have to be
cut and/or passenger fares will have to increase significantly.
Both options will force people off buses and back into their
cars. Smart, eh? It also makes it virtually impossible for the
Hamilton to Auckland passenger train service to be
established even if the proposed trial is successful.
Mind you, if, as the current government believes, there is no
tomorrow, then we may not have a problem. So that could
be all right then.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Hold that stone
A couple of blogs ago I cited Bill McKibben’s book Deep
Economy. Actually, I never read it in the end, not least
because I was put off right at the start by his use of one
of the ugliest metaphors ever to gain currency. On the
first page he writes:
For most of human history, the two birds More and Better
roosted on the same branch. You could toss one stone and
hope to hit them both…
But the distinguishing feature of our moment is this: Better
has flown a few trees over to make her nest. That changes
everything. Now, if you’ve got the stone of your own life, or
your own society, gripped in your hand, you have to choose
between them. It’s More or Better.
It’s a great point McKibben’s making, but what a crass
way of putting it. The ‘kill two birds with one stone’
metaphor has no place in civilized discourse. Just think
about the image you’re creating when you use it and
you’ll see what I mean. For years I've been campaigning
for phrases to replace it. When she was about 12 or 13
my daughter suggested ‘hang two socks with one peg,’
which totally does the business without generating an
unpleasant image; I also like ‘sew two buttons with one
thread.’ Further suggestions are welcome, and while
we’re at it, ‘no room to swing a cat’ has got to go too.
Economy. Actually, I never read it in the end, not least
because I was put off right at the start by his use of one
of the ugliest metaphors ever to gain currency. On the
first page he writes:
For most of human history, the two birds More and Better
roosted on the same branch. You could toss one stone and
hope to hit them both…
But the distinguishing feature of our moment is this: Better
has flown a few trees over to make her nest. That changes
everything. Now, if you’ve got the stone of your own life, or
your own society, gripped in your hand, you have to choose
between them. It’s More or Better.
It’s a great point McKibben’s making, but what a crass
way of putting it. The ‘kill two birds with one stone’
metaphor has no place in civilized discourse. Just think
about the image you’re creating when you use it and
you’ll see what I mean. For years I've been campaigning
for phrases to replace it. When she was about 12 or 13
my daughter suggested ‘hang two socks with one peg,’
which totally does the business without generating an
unpleasant image; I also like ‘sew two buttons with one
thread.’ Further suggestions are welcome, and while
we’re at it, ‘no room to swing a cat’ has got to go too.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Sutch speaks
They do not design, spin and weave fine textiles
in cotton and wool just because they have textile
institutes or industrial design schools. They are
eminent in these things because they also stress
their essential concomitants—fine architecture,
sculpture, ballet, fine printing, film production,
ceramics, operas, music, drama, research, higher
learning, anthropology, science, philosophy,
literature, respect for and knowledge of man’s
achievements.
It is impossible to imagine these words—uttered in 1963
by public servant W B Sutch when he was secretary-
general of the Export Development Conference—by
anyone remotely connected with the levers of political
power today. He was referring to the desirability of
New Zealand's emulating the way that the Scandinavian
countries, especially Denmark, added value to their
exports. The phrase 'essential concomitants' is, to me,
like a shaft of light from a time when it was still possible
—and perhaps, even then, only by a few individuals like
Sutch—to grasp the connections between all parts of
an economy, to see how the whole is formed by them,
and, above all, to take political action accordingly. For all
its drawbacks the concept of the state by which Western
nations functioned through the middle of the 20th
century tended to foster such thinking; the market
model by which we have lived since the 1980s rewards
the opposite kind of thinking: that all is fragmented,
discrete, competing rather than complementary, and of
worth only insofar as it can be quantified, categorized
and monetarized. Margaret Thatcher summed up this
view most infamously when she said, 'There is no such
thing as society.' Give me Sutch's philosophy any day.
in cotton and wool just because they have textile
institutes or industrial design schools. They are
eminent in these things because they also stress
their essential concomitants—fine architecture,
sculpture, ballet, fine printing, film production,
ceramics, operas, music, drama, research, higher
learning, anthropology, science, philosophy,
literature, respect for and knowledge of man’s
achievements.
It is impossible to imagine these words—uttered in 1963
by public servant W B Sutch when he was secretary-
general of the Export Development Conference—by
anyone remotely connected with the levers of political
power today. He was referring to the desirability of
New Zealand's emulating the way that the Scandinavian
countries, especially Denmark, added value to their
exports. The phrase 'essential concomitants' is, to me,
like a shaft of light from a time when it was still possible
—and perhaps, even then, only by a few individuals like
Sutch—to grasp the connections between all parts of
an economy, to see how the whole is formed by them,
and, above all, to take political action accordingly. For all
its drawbacks the concept of the state by which Western
nations functioned through the middle of the 20th
century tended to foster such thinking; the market
model by which we have lived since the 1980s rewards
the opposite kind of thinking: that all is fragmented,
discrete, competing rather than complementary, and of
worth only insofar as it can be quantified, categorized
and monetarized. Margaret Thatcher summed up this
view most infamously when she said, 'There is no such
thing as society.' Give me Sutch's philosophy any day.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
At some stage
$1 BILLION EXPRESS DELIVERY blared the front-page
headline of the Waikato Times on 27 August, above
a story that began:
Waikato roads are about to get a near $1 billion boost
with a third devoted to finishing the long-awaited
Waikato Expressway.
The Government today announced details of a $938m
package, $300m of which is earmarked for fast-tracking
the Waikato Expressway from Auckland to Cambridge,
including bypasses for Te Rapa, Cambridge,
Ngaruawahia and Rangiriri…
[New Zealand Transport Agency regional director Harry]
Wilson said the announcement this morning sealed a 32
per cent increase in roading funding for the region on the
previous three years' spending.
'This is tremendous news for the region and New Zealand,'
Mr Wilson said, adding it would likely contribute major
economic growth to the wider Waikato region…
Hamilton East MP David Bennett, who described the
announcement as 'a big win for the Waikato'…also said it
would be a catalyst for economic growth.
What we see here, pure and undiluted, is a mindset so
entrenched that it goes, literally, without saying. The
newspaper itself has totally signed up to it. The equation
runs something like: roads=development=growth=jobs
=more money flowing into the region=higher living
standards for the people of Waikato—and the bigger the
roads, the better for everyone. And why not? In most
people’s minds, this apparently simple arithmetic has
served New Zealand well so far. For most of us, it's
virtually automatic to think that way. To not think that
way is to somehow feel that you're going backwards into
a darker, dirtier past. Horse-drawn traffic. Poo on the
streets. People wearing sandals. That sort of thing.
Hovering over the whole equation like a golden halo is
the spirit of Progress, which, as Bill McKibben says at
the start of his book Deep Economy, has for most of
human history been predicated on the idea that we can
have More and Better at the same time. Objectively, the
double whammy of peak oil and global warming has put
paid to that idea, but the realization that from now on it
has to be More or Better is taking time to get through to
our comfortable, cushioned minds. It has barely disturbed,
for instance, the collective mentality of the current New
Zealand government, which is cheerfully pouring money
into highway development as if there were no tomorrow—
which, in their minds, on this evidence, there clearly isn't.
Of the $938 million allocated to Waikato by the Transport
Agency with the government's blessing, $25.6 million will
be spent on public transport and $4.4 million on cycle and
pedestrian projects. Weep if you may. The story is being
repeated in other regions around the country.
Four days after publishing the above, the Waikato Times—
a paper, by the way, that I generally admire—editorialized
excitedly about the roading spend-up: ‘The handbrake has
come off… a spectacular result for the region… Bulldozers
could be on the Te Rapa bypass next year.'
It would be interesting to know, reading this, what planet
the Waikato Times imagines its readers belong to. The
editorial goes on to ponder, briefly, the merits of a train
service between Hamilton and Auckland but dismisses the
immediate need for that by briskly concluding that a train
service is a 'want' but a completed expressway is a 'must.'
The real kicker, however, comes in the last paragraph,
when the writer loftily declares (my italics): 'At some stage,
Waikato and the country in general are going to have to
address public transport issues.'
Ah yes. At some stage. That's the day after tomorrow, isn't
it? Or is it the day after that? Your guess is as good as mine.
But it's no guess that the world's oil is running out fast, and
that alternative technologies for petrol replacement haven't
a bolter's show of fuelling the volume of traffic that's
supposedly going to be zapping up and down the Waikato
Expressway within the next few years.
'Surprisingly,' noted the Times, to its own apparent
bemusement, 'there has been muted reaction to the [big
roading spend-up] moves. Hamilton Mayor Bob Simcock,
a former National MP himself, while acknowledging the
impetus it would provide, lamented the lack of commitment
to public transport.'
Perhaps the paper could now produce another front-page
story, only this time one that tries to find out just why there
has been 'muted reaction.' Could be there's a change in the
air out there that the Waikato Times—which normally
strives hard to reflect what its readers want—hasn't picked
up on yet, and that the mayor has. The Romans loved
building more and better highways too. Most of them are
walking tracks now.
headline of the Waikato Times on 27 August, above
a story that began:
Waikato roads are about to get a near $1 billion boost
with a third devoted to finishing the long-awaited
Waikato Expressway.
The Government today announced details of a $938m
package, $300m of which is earmarked for fast-tracking
the Waikato Expressway from Auckland to Cambridge,
including bypasses for Te Rapa, Cambridge,
Ngaruawahia and Rangiriri…
[New Zealand Transport Agency regional director Harry]
Wilson said the announcement this morning sealed a 32
per cent increase in roading funding for the region on the
previous three years' spending.
'This is tremendous news for the region and New Zealand,'
Mr Wilson said, adding it would likely contribute major
economic growth to the wider Waikato region…
Hamilton East MP David Bennett, who described the
announcement as 'a big win for the Waikato'…also said it
would be a catalyst for economic growth.
What we see here, pure and undiluted, is a mindset so
entrenched that it goes, literally, without saying. The
newspaper itself has totally signed up to it. The equation
runs something like: roads=development=growth=jobs
=more money flowing into the region=higher living
standards for the people of Waikato—and the bigger the
roads, the better for everyone. And why not? In most
people’s minds, this apparently simple arithmetic has
served New Zealand well so far. For most of us, it's
virtually automatic to think that way. To not think that
way is to somehow feel that you're going backwards into
a darker, dirtier past. Horse-drawn traffic. Poo on the
streets. People wearing sandals. That sort of thing.
Hovering over the whole equation like a golden halo is
the spirit of Progress, which, as Bill McKibben says at
the start of his book Deep Economy, has for most of
human history been predicated on the idea that we can
have More and Better at the same time. Objectively, the
double whammy of peak oil and global warming has put
paid to that idea, but the realization that from now on it
has to be More or Better is taking time to get through to
our comfortable, cushioned minds. It has barely disturbed,
for instance, the collective mentality of the current New
Zealand government, which is cheerfully pouring money
into highway development as if there were no tomorrow—
which, in their minds, on this evidence, there clearly isn't.
Of the $938 million allocated to Waikato by the Transport
Agency with the government's blessing, $25.6 million will
be spent on public transport and $4.4 million on cycle and
pedestrian projects. Weep if you may. The story is being
repeated in other regions around the country.
Four days after publishing the above, the Waikato Times—
a paper, by the way, that I generally admire—editorialized
excitedly about the roading spend-up: ‘The handbrake has
come off… a spectacular result for the region… Bulldozers
could be on the Te Rapa bypass next year.'
It would be interesting to know, reading this, what planet
the Waikato Times imagines its readers belong to. The
editorial goes on to ponder, briefly, the merits of a train
service between Hamilton and Auckland but dismisses the
immediate need for that by briskly concluding that a train
service is a 'want' but a completed expressway is a 'must.'
The real kicker, however, comes in the last paragraph,
when the writer loftily declares (my italics): 'At some stage,
Waikato and the country in general are going to have to
address public transport issues.'
Ah yes. At some stage. That's the day after tomorrow, isn't
it? Or is it the day after that? Your guess is as good as mine.
But it's no guess that the world's oil is running out fast, and
that alternative technologies for petrol replacement haven't
a bolter's show of fuelling the volume of traffic that's
supposedly going to be zapping up and down the Waikato
Expressway within the next few years.
'Surprisingly,' noted the Times, to its own apparent
bemusement, 'there has been muted reaction to the [big
roading spend-up] moves. Hamilton Mayor Bob Simcock,
a former National MP himself, while acknowledging the
impetus it would provide, lamented the lack of commitment
to public transport.'
Perhaps the paper could now produce another front-page
story, only this time one that tries to find out just why there
has been 'muted reaction.' Could be there's a change in the
air out there that the Waikato Times—which normally
strives hard to reflect what its readers want—hasn't picked
up on yet, and that the mayor has. The Romans loved
building more and better highways too. Most of them are
walking tracks now.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Sure to rise
I see Philip Pullman has written a book arguing that the
whole idea of the risen Christ was cooked up by the
apostle Paul, who saw in the life of Jesus—a relatively
obscure Jewish rabbi—the basis on which he might
build a whole new religion. It doesn't invalidate the
religion in question to say that this is how it began, but
already the bishops are huffing and puffing, saying that
there is no scriptural authority for Pullman's argument.
I look forward to the book, The Good Jesus and the
Scoundrel Christ, because I'm one of those who were
captivated by Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, but
he's by no means the first to advance the idea that Paul
was basically a brilliant PR man for Christianity. As I
remember it, in Nikos Kazantzakis's novel The Last
Temptation of Christ (memorably filmed by Scorsese)
Jesus doesn't die on the cross but marries and has a
family, discovering to his great relief that he doesn't
have to bear the sins of all humanity and can just get on
with being an ordinary joe. One day he comes across
Paul in the marketplace preaching the resurrected Christ
to the people, like a huckster selling patent medicine.
Hang on, says Jesus, you can't go around telling people
I died on the cross and rose again—look at me, I'm here,
I'm married with kids, I'm not the Messiah! To which
Paul, indicating the number of converts he's already
making, says, sure, but that's not what they want to hear
...they want something big to believe in, and I'm giving it
to them. Yes, it's a lie, but just look at their faces—they
love it! Now get out of my way and let me get on with it.
Thus the birth of Christianity—and modern marketing.
whole idea of the risen Christ was cooked up by the
apostle Paul, who saw in the life of Jesus—a relatively
obscure Jewish rabbi—the basis on which he might
build a whole new religion. It doesn't invalidate the
religion in question to say that this is how it began, but
already the bishops are huffing and puffing, saying that
there is no scriptural authority for Pullman's argument.
I look forward to the book, The Good Jesus and the
Scoundrel Christ, because I'm one of those who were
captivated by Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, but
he's by no means the first to advance the idea that Paul
was basically a brilliant PR man for Christianity. As I
remember it, in Nikos Kazantzakis's novel The Last
Temptation of Christ (memorably filmed by Scorsese)
Jesus doesn't die on the cross but marries and has a
family, discovering to his great relief that he doesn't
have to bear the sins of all humanity and can just get on
with being an ordinary joe. One day he comes across
Paul in the marketplace preaching the resurrected Christ
to the people, like a huckster selling patent medicine.
Hang on, says Jesus, you can't go around telling people
I died on the cross and rose again—look at me, I'm here,
I'm married with kids, I'm not the Messiah! To which
Paul, indicating the number of converts he's already
making, says, sure, but that's not what they want to hear
...they want something big to believe in, and I'm giving it
to them. Yes, it's a lie, but just look at their faces—they
love it! Now get out of my way and let me get on with it.
Thus the birth of Christianity—and modern marketing.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Gainsay the AA
Here’s the AA promoting the Waterview motorway link
that will rip through the Auckland suburbs of Mt Albert and
Avondale, requiring the demolition of hundreds of houses
and the concreting-over of at least five hectares of parkland.
Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they. The Automobile
Association exists to promote driving and the use of private
vehicles, and naturally it will lobby for anything that aids
and abets those activities. Since its formation in 1903 it has
grown to be a powerful, well-funded organization regarded
—as its website correctly claims—as the ‘leading advocate
for New Zealand motorists and their interests.’ Fair enough.
What I want to know is: where is the leading advocate for
New Zealand public-transport users and their interests?
Where is the powerful, well-funded organization that exists
to promote the use of buses and trains? There is none.
There are many small groups throughout the country
dedicated to improving public transport but no overarching
nationwide lobby group. If we had one that spoke out as
frequently and as forcefully as the AA does, with the kind of
research resources the AA has, the debates over such issues
as roading, peak oil and public health and safety would be
greatly enriched and far less one-sided, especially at a time
when the government of the day believes that the transport
budget is best spent on more and bigger roads. We need the
public-transport groups to coalesce and fight as one.
Look at the Waterview debate, for instance—such as it is.
The campaign against the overground motorway is being led
by a local group called Tunnel or Nothing. Good on them,
but it's like trying to fight bushfires. You might damp down
one but another flares up. And these are volunteers doing
what they can in their own time and at their own expense.
The case for public transport in this country needs to be
made in a nationally coordinated, professionally resourced
way, because the National-led government, supported by
bodies like the AA, is scorching the earth everywhere with
its motorway firestorm.
Footnote: in the link above, the New Zealand Herald reports:
Auckland University senior economics lecturer and former
Treasury employee Rhema Vaithianathan, a Mt Albert
resident, has meanwhile calculated that keeping the $1.4
billion earmarked for the [Waterview] project in the bank
for 10 years would earn enough interest to halve bus-fares
throughout the region.
Ain't that the truth? On ya, Rhema.
that will rip through the Auckland suburbs of Mt Albert and
Avondale, requiring the demolition of hundreds of houses
and the concreting-over of at least five hectares of parkland.
Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they. The Automobile
Association exists to promote driving and the use of private
vehicles, and naturally it will lobby for anything that aids
and abets those activities. Since its formation in 1903 it has
grown to be a powerful, well-funded organization regarded
—as its website correctly claims—as the ‘leading advocate
for New Zealand motorists and their interests.’ Fair enough.
What I want to know is: where is the leading advocate for
New Zealand public-transport users and their interests?
Where is the powerful, well-funded organization that exists
to promote the use of buses and trains? There is none.
There are many small groups throughout the country
dedicated to improving public transport but no overarching
nationwide lobby group. If we had one that spoke out as
frequently and as forcefully as the AA does, with the kind of
research resources the AA has, the debates over such issues
as roading, peak oil and public health and safety would be
greatly enriched and far less one-sided, especially at a time
when the government of the day believes that the transport
budget is best spent on more and bigger roads. We need the
public-transport groups to coalesce and fight as one.
Look at the Waterview debate, for instance—such as it is.
The campaign against the overground motorway is being led
by a local group called Tunnel or Nothing. Good on them,
but it's like trying to fight bushfires. You might damp down
one but another flares up. And these are volunteers doing
what they can in their own time and at their own expense.
The case for public transport in this country needs to be
made in a nationally coordinated, professionally resourced
way, because the National-led government, supported by
bodies like the AA, is scorching the earth everywhere with
its motorway firestorm.
Footnote: in the link above, the New Zealand Herald reports:
Auckland University senior economics lecturer and former
Treasury employee Rhema Vaithianathan, a Mt Albert
resident, has meanwhile calculated that keeping the $1.4
billion earmarked for the [Waterview] project in the bank
for 10 years would earn enough interest to halve bus-fares
throughout the region.
Ain't that the truth? On ya, Rhema.
Heady stuff
Who is he, this Yukio Hatoyama, the new prime minister
of Japan? Barely elected to office he has, according to a
report in the London Times, ‘made no secret of his
distrust of market fundamentalism.’ Apparently, too, he
has ‘strongly condemned’ global capitalism. Did we ever
hear newly elected John Key express such sentiments? I
don't think so. ‘We are not denying all market principles,’
says Hatoyama. ‘We just don’t think market principles are
a fundamental necessity.’ Be still, my beating heart! Of
course, it remains to be seen whether Hatoyama and his
Democratic Party really will ‘sever ties with vested
interests [and] abandon the pork barrel,’ let alone maintain
such an heretical attitude towards the great god market, but
what a start. First Obama, now Hatoyama. They even
rhyme. It already begins to seem New Zealand’s misfortune
that, just as other nations are electing, well, not exactly
radical lefties but progressive liberal leaders, we elect a
conservative government that lacks the imagination to
think outside the tired old paradigm of 'market-led' growth.
of Japan? Barely elected to office he has, according to a
report in the London Times, ‘made no secret of his
distrust of market fundamentalism.’ Apparently, too, he
has ‘strongly condemned’ global capitalism. Did we ever
hear newly elected John Key express such sentiments? I
don't think so. ‘We are not denying all market principles,’
says Hatoyama. ‘We just don’t think market principles are
a fundamental necessity.’ Be still, my beating heart! Of
course, it remains to be seen whether Hatoyama and his
Democratic Party really will ‘sever ties with vested
interests [and] abandon the pork barrel,’ let alone maintain
such an heretical attitude towards the great god market, but
what a start. First Obama, now Hatoyama. They even
rhyme. It already begins to seem New Zealand’s misfortune
that, just as other nations are electing, well, not exactly
radical lefties but progressive liberal leaders, we elect a
conservative government that lacks the imagination to
think outside the tired old paradigm of 'market-led' growth.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Gould to Garth
Speaking of the Herald, its op-ed page generally
maintains a high standard of opinion-writing from all
sides. Thursday 3 September was a good example.
There were three pieces on the page, each of them worth
reading in their own way. Outstanding was Bryan
Gould’s take on executive bonus culture, in which he
exposed the puerility of the argument in favour of
bloated salaries and bonus payments for business
executives (‘If we are to attract the talent we need,’
droned a spokesperson for the Institute of Directors,
‘we have to pay salaries to match those paid in the rest
of the world.’) Yeah right. Writes Gould:
It’s a wonderful thing, the global economy. It requires
us to push up New Zealand’s top salaries to match
world levels, but at the same time requires wages for
ordinary employees to be driven down to the
benchmarks set by the lowest-wage economies.
The supposed need to pay a top executive 100 times
the income of his skilled employees is a self-serving
nonsense produced by a small charmed circle who claim
the right to set their own (and their mates’) pay rates.
Well said, that man. Then there’s a typically discursive
opinion piece from Mike Moore, who, whatever his
political shortcomings, has a sharp original mind and a
gift for putting things in a memorable way, eg,
I coughed my coffee through my nose when I heard the
Law Commission release the stunning revelation that
young people ingest alcohol late at night. All this time I
had thought they drank booze.
(Subtext: get a life, Geoffrey Palmer.) Moore comes down
from his solo flight over referendum territory after only a
couple of speed wobbles (what exactly is 'light, corrective
patting'?) and taxis back into the hangar with this:
Most people behave well, they are just sick of a political
culture where you expect, at any moment, someone to
intrude on your television set and tell you to sit up
straight and not to eat too much meat.
Much of this is worthy and possibly even good. Esperanto
and vegetarianism are probably good ideas, too.
And to cap off this page of wonders, we even have Garth
George sticking up for the idea of dedicated Maori seats
on the Auckland super-city council. Writes George:
It seems to me that those who espouse the ‘one
nation, one people’ concept are invariably white,
and stand to the right of the political spectrum.
That, in itself, is a cause for suspicion.
Cripes. I also remember George, whose neck generally
gives the impression of being bright vermilion, writing
a column earlier this year in which he said he was quite
impressed by the Green Party. Just how red is that neck?
maintains a high standard of opinion-writing from all
sides. Thursday 3 September was a good example.
There were three pieces on the page, each of them worth
reading in their own way. Outstanding was Bryan
Gould’s take on executive bonus culture, in which he
exposed the puerility of the argument in favour of
bloated salaries and bonus payments for business
executives (‘If we are to attract the talent we need,’
droned a spokesperson for the Institute of Directors,
‘we have to pay salaries to match those paid in the rest
of the world.’) Yeah right. Writes Gould:
It’s a wonderful thing, the global economy. It requires
us to push up New Zealand’s top salaries to match
world levels, but at the same time requires wages for
ordinary employees to be driven down to the
benchmarks set by the lowest-wage economies.
The supposed need to pay a top executive 100 times
the income of his skilled employees is a self-serving
nonsense produced by a small charmed circle who claim
the right to set their own (and their mates’) pay rates.
Well said, that man. Then there’s a typically discursive
opinion piece from Mike Moore, who, whatever his
political shortcomings, has a sharp original mind and a
gift for putting things in a memorable way, eg,
I coughed my coffee through my nose when I heard the
Law Commission release the stunning revelation that
young people ingest alcohol late at night. All this time I
had thought they drank booze.
(Subtext: get a life, Geoffrey Palmer.) Moore comes down
from his solo flight over referendum territory after only a
couple of speed wobbles (what exactly is 'light, corrective
patting'?) and taxis back into the hangar with this:
Most people behave well, they are just sick of a political
culture where you expect, at any moment, someone to
intrude on your television set and tell you to sit up
straight and not to eat too much meat.
Much of this is worthy and possibly even good. Esperanto
and vegetarianism are probably good ideas, too.
And to cap off this page of wonders, we even have Garth
George sticking up for the idea of dedicated Maori seats
on the Auckland super-city council. Writes George:
It seems to me that those who espouse the ‘one
nation, one people’ concept are invariably white,
and stand to the right of the political spectrum.
That, in itself, is a cause for suspicion.
Cripes. I also remember George, whose neck generally
gives the impression of being bright vermilion, writing
a column earlier this year in which he said he was quite
impressed by the Green Party. Just how red is that neck?
Friday, September 4, 2009
Compartmental
And in breaking news, I’m starting to wonder about the
distinction between ‘the economy’ and ‘the environment.’
As acting Director of Information Resources and Lists of
Stuff at Thumbcorp, I find myself more and more
inclined to file all matters relating to both topics under
the one heading—Economy. Ever since it came into
vogue in the 1970s the use of the word ‘environment’ has
irritated me; like many words with a once-specific and
limited meaning it has come to cover a multitude of sins.
The worst consequence of using it is the mental
compartmentalization thereby abetted, especially in the
minds of people who wish to maintain and indeed glorify
the capitalist status quo. So long as ‘the environment’ can
be contained as something discrete and negotiable, like
the balance of payments or a departmental budget, it
cannot disturb orthodox thinking; nature may be red in
tooth and claw but, this way, it’s declawed.
In fact, the economy is the environment is the economy.
I may have said this before. Whenever you see the word
‘environmental’ try replacing it with ‘economic’ and see
what happens. You might be surprised how little difference
there is between the two. For instance, the New Zealand
Herald’s editorial of 3 September on the emissions trading
scheme concludes: ‘New Zealand should be in the vanguard
of environmental improvement.’ See what I mean?
distinction between ‘the economy’ and ‘the environment.’
As acting Director of Information Resources and Lists of
Stuff at Thumbcorp, I find myself more and more
inclined to file all matters relating to both topics under
the one heading—Economy. Ever since it came into
vogue in the 1970s the use of the word ‘environment’ has
irritated me; like many words with a once-specific and
limited meaning it has come to cover a multitude of sins.
The worst consequence of using it is the mental
compartmentalization thereby abetted, especially in the
minds of people who wish to maintain and indeed glorify
the capitalist status quo. So long as ‘the environment’ can
be contained as something discrete and negotiable, like
the balance of payments or a departmental budget, it
cannot disturb orthodox thinking; nature may be red in
tooth and claw but, this way, it’s declawed.
In fact, the economy is the environment is the economy.
I may have said this before. Whenever you see the word
‘environmental’ try replacing it with ‘economic’ and see
what happens. You might be surprised how little difference
there is between the two. For instance, the New Zealand
Herald’s editorial of 3 September on the emissions trading
scheme concludes: ‘New Zealand should be in the vanguard
of environmental improvement.’ See what I mean?
Ejaculated William
Steve Braunias had some fun watching the 1947 Hollywood
film Green Dolphin Street on a Sky movie channel recently,
and wrote about it for Sunday magazine. I haven’t seen the
film but I happen to have on loan from the public library a
copy of the Elizabeth Goudge novel on which it was based,
and it’s a shocker—as overripe as a rotten peach. Published
in 1944, a daunting 500 pages of romantic fiction in small
type, it revels in the variations on he said/she said so loved
of novelists in the first half of the 2oth century. For
instance, opening the book at random I find (my italics):
‘Let’s leave it for tonight and decide tomorrow,’ hedged William.
‘I am a great sinner,’ stated Samuel with grief.
‘South Island?’ ejaculated William.
Much of it is set in New Zealand during the land wars,
though Goudge cheerfully admits in a note at the start
that ‘To all lovers of New Zealand it will be immediately
obvious that the writer has never been there, and she
most humbly asks their pardon for the many mistakes she
must have made.’ The film-makers never came near these
shores either: as Steve says, Mexicans, Hawaiians and
American Indians do duty for the Maori characters, star
Lana Turner is nearly burned at the stake by Maori, and the
key role of the New Zealand bush is played by redwood
forests in Oregon.
The Listener’s film critic at the time, John Maconie, was
distinctly unimpressed. His review, headlined THAT WILL BE
ALL, HINEMOA! (a line delivered by Turner to her maid),
found the film ‘phony from beginning to end.’ The ludicrous
depiction of an earthquake (Braunias: 'Geysers bubble and
spurt, kauri topple like redwood') apparently got the
loudest laughs from the Wellington audience Maconie saw
it with. However, he wrote,
the money will have been well spent so far as the
New Zealand filmgoer is concerned if it helps him
to realize that when the critics damn Hollywood
for the insincerity of its productions, for its
sacrifice of truth to spectacle...and in general for
its refusal to face up to the facts of life, they have
some justification for their criticisms.
Ah, Hollywood. Even today, the IMDb website billing for
Green Dolphin Street begins ‘A Fiery Girl Who Dares The
Dangers Of The Sea And A Savage Land.’ Readers will also
recall the equally implausible 1961 movie Two Loves,
based on Sylvia Ashton-Warner's novel Spinster, filmed
entirely in a Hollywood studio and starring Shirley
Maclaine and, yes, Juan Fernandez as 'Chief Rauhuia.'
Bring on the enchiladas and puha.
Trivia note: Sebastian Faulks's novel On Green Dolphin
Street was inspired by music written for the 1947 film but
otherwise there is, mercifully, no connection.
film Green Dolphin Street on a Sky movie channel recently,
and wrote about it for Sunday magazine. I haven’t seen the
film but I happen to have on loan from the public library a
copy of the Elizabeth Goudge novel on which it was based,
and it’s a shocker—as overripe as a rotten peach. Published
in 1944, a daunting 500 pages of romantic fiction in small
type, it revels in the variations on he said/she said so loved
of novelists in the first half of the 2oth century. For
instance, opening the book at random I find (my italics):
‘Let’s leave it for tonight and decide tomorrow,’ hedged William.
‘I am a great sinner,’ stated Samuel with grief.
‘South Island?’ ejaculated William.
Much of it is set in New Zealand during the land wars,
though Goudge cheerfully admits in a note at the start
that ‘To all lovers of New Zealand it will be immediately
obvious that the writer has never been there, and she
most humbly asks their pardon for the many mistakes she
must have made.’ The film-makers never came near these
shores either: as Steve says, Mexicans, Hawaiians and
American Indians do duty for the Maori characters, star
Lana Turner is nearly burned at the stake by Maori, and the
key role of the New Zealand bush is played by redwood
forests in Oregon.
The Listener’s film critic at the time, John Maconie, was
distinctly unimpressed. His review, headlined THAT WILL BE
ALL, HINEMOA! (a line delivered by Turner to her maid),
found the film ‘phony from beginning to end.’ The ludicrous
depiction of an earthquake (Braunias: 'Geysers bubble and
spurt, kauri topple like redwood') apparently got the
loudest laughs from the Wellington audience Maconie saw
it with. However, he wrote,
the money will have been well spent so far as the
New Zealand filmgoer is concerned if it helps him
to realize that when the critics damn Hollywood
for the insincerity of its productions, for its
sacrifice of truth to spectacle...and in general for
its refusal to face up to the facts of life, they have
some justification for their criticisms.
Ah, Hollywood. Even today, the IMDb website billing for
Green Dolphin Street begins ‘A Fiery Girl Who Dares The
Dangers Of The Sea And A Savage Land.’ Readers will also
recall the equally implausible 1961 movie Two Loves,
based on Sylvia Ashton-Warner's novel Spinster, filmed
entirely in a Hollywood studio and starring Shirley
Maclaine and, yes, Juan Fernandez as 'Chief Rauhuia.'
Bring on the enchiladas and puha.
Trivia note: Sebastian Faulks's novel On Green Dolphin
Street was inspired by music written for the 1947 film but
otherwise there is, mercifully, no connection.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Name and claim
Over at Tumeke! the redoubtable Tim Selwyn has taken
issue with my theory about the colonial use of ‘the’ to
prefix Maori placenames. From his observations, he says,
the prefix usually denotes a significant geographical
feature after which an area is named. He cites the Gambia,
the Congo and the Waikato as names representing areas
along a river and also its basin/catchment. Perhaps, Tim
selwynizes, ‘a unique, singular, geographical identifying
feature is what is being said of a place needing a "the".’
Unlike the catchments referred to, this argument doesn’t
hold water. Since independence from Euro-imperialism,
both ‘the’ Gambia and ‘the’ Congo have become, simply,
Gambia and Congo, just as we here in New Zealand are
now more likely to say ‘Manawatu’ and ‘Waikato’ without
the prefix. Sure, there are English exceptions, as I
acknowledged ('the' Coromandel) and as another
commentator on my blog points out, but Tim himself
admits to some uncertainty about the way it works and I
have yet to hear a convincing case against the idea that
even grammar can be a colonizing force. Next question:
who put the colon in colonialism?
issue with my theory about the colonial use of ‘the’ to
prefix Maori placenames. From his observations, he says,
the prefix usually denotes a significant geographical
feature after which an area is named. He cites the Gambia,
the Congo and the Waikato as names representing areas
along a river and also its basin/catchment. Perhaps, Tim
selwynizes, ‘a unique, singular, geographical identifying
feature is what is being said of a place needing a "the".’
Unlike the catchments referred to, this argument doesn’t
hold water. Since independence from Euro-imperialism,
both ‘the’ Gambia and ‘the’ Congo have become, simply,
Gambia and Congo, just as we here in New Zealand are
now more likely to say ‘Manawatu’ and ‘Waikato’ without
the prefix. Sure, there are English exceptions, as I
acknowledged ('the' Coromandel) and as another
commentator on my blog points out, but Tim himself
admits to some uncertainty about the way it works and I
have yet to hear a convincing case against the idea that
even grammar can be a colonizing force. Next question:
who put the colon in colonialism?
Trying on
How much we need to work through, how many forms of
living we try on, like suits of clothes, before finding the
right one, or at least the one that is least uncomfortable.
And death, no doubt, follows shortly afterwards. In this
sense, all life is indeed a preparing for death: the flesh
must be burned through, layer by layer, in order to purify
the soul for the next stage of its journey. With what relief
it must, at last, lose that weight, rising in wonderful
lightness, like an astronaut on the moon.
Life as a surgical boot on the leg of the soul.
‘I’ve never got my act together,’ said Anthony Hopkins,
wonderfully, in an interview once. ‘There is no act to get
together. My life is none of my business.’ This calls to
mind the character in The Bell by Iris Murdoch who says
that the chief requirement of the good life is to live
without any image of oneself. Impossible, of course; but it
should be possible to be less preoccupied with how one
appears to other people.
living we try on, like suits of clothes, before finding the
right one, or at least the one that is least uncomfortable.
And death, no doubt, follows shortly afterwards. In this
sense, all life is indeed a preparing for death: the flesh
must be burned through, layer by layer, in order to purify
the soul for the next stage of its journey. With what relief
it must, at last, lose that weight, rising in wonderful
lightness, like an astronaut on the moon.
Life as a surgical boot on the leg of the soul.
‘I’ve never got my act together,’ said Anthony Hopkins,
wonderfully, in an interview once. ‘There is no act to get
together. My life is none of my business.’ This calls to
mind the character in The Bell by Iris Murdoch who says
that the chief requirement of the good life is to live
without any image of oneself. Impossible, of course; but it
should be possible to be less preoccupied with how one
appears to other people.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Undercut
We know that the current Chinese regime has been making
strenuous, even shrill efforts around the world to stop the
pro-Uighur documentary The 10 Conditions of Love from
being shown, apparently on the grounds that any officially
unsanctioned view of the political situation in Xinjiang—or
East Turkestan, as the Uighur people know it—is by
definition not fair and accurate. Watching the doco on
Maori Television last night I had the feeling it was probably
neither, but as an attempt to put the Uighur side of the
argument it was entirely valid and well worth screening. So
big ups to Maori Television for that. A great shame, then,
that the channel felt it had to follow the doco with an
official Chinese government one purporting to show the
'truth' about the riots in Xinjiang, which, like Tibet, has
been colonized and exploited by Han Chinese in recent
years. The 10 Conditions might have been biased but at
least it held together as the work of people with hearts and
minds capable of independent thinking; the government
film was so patently a piece of state propaganda that I
turned it off after a few minutes. Whether Maori Television
thought it was striking that mysterious thing called
'balance' I don’t know, but whatever the reason, it didn’t
work. The channel undercut its original brave decision with
what seems to have been a craven one, bowing to pressure
from Beijing.
strenuous, even shrill efforts around the world to stop the
pro-Uighur documentary The 10 Conditions of Love from
being shown, apparently on the grounds that any officially
unsanctioned view of the political situation in Xinjiang—or
East Turkestan, as the Uighur people know it—is by
definition not fair and accurate. Watching the doco on
Maori Television last night I had the feeling it was probably
neither, but as an attempt to put the Uighur side of the
argument it was entirely valid and well worth screening. So
big ups to Maori Television for that. A great shame, then,
that the channel felt it had to follow the doco with an
official Chinese government one purporting to show the
'truth' about the riots in Xinjiang, which, like Tibet, has
been colonized and exploited by Han Chinese in recent
years. The 10 Conditions might have been biased but at
least it held together as the work of people with hearts and
minds capable of independent thinking; the government
film was so patently a piece of state propaganda that I
turned it off after a few minutes. Whether Maori Television
thought it was striking that mysterious thing called
'balance' I don’t know, but whatever the reason, it didn’t
work. The channel undercut its original brave decision with
what seems to have been a craven one, bowing to pressure
from Beijing.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Crime time
Last night, 31 August, both major television channels in
New Zealand led their flagship 6pm news bulletins with
a fatal shooting in Hawke’s Bay. Tonight, 1 September,
they both led with reaction to the banning of gang
insignia in Wanganui. And this is not uncommon: any
homicide, anything crime-related, anything calculated to
promote fear and loathing, can always be assured of high
placement in the news. For myself, I am trying to imagine
what goes through the heads of news chiefs and bulletin
editors when they make the decision not only to cover
these stories—with all the associated expense, in these
supposedly cash-strapped times, of sending out reporters
and camera crews—but to assign them the greatest
prominence. Whichever way I turn it, I invariably come
up with the same conclusion: that whatever it is that’s
going on here, it’s not news; it’s a form of entertainment
packaged no less formulaically and titillatingly than, say,
CSI or Criminal Minds. In which case I respectfully ask
TV1 and TV3 to stop calling these programs news bulletins.
By all means broadcast what you will, but drop the false
labelling and the pompous pretence that endlessly
covering crime and misbehaviour is real gritty journalism.
The really sad part is that some genuine journalistic work
of merit is done for these bulletins but it usually gets
shunted down the list. Tonight, for instance, 3 News picked
up on a blog by John Minto in which he raised the idea of a
a maximum income cap of $250,000. There was actually
no reason in the world why that story couldn't have led the
bulletin—no reason except, apparently, the sheer terror of
addressing serious issues seriously. Sure, I get it: 'serious'
doesn't cut it for advertisers and ratings; but, in the case of
the past two nights anyway, it's depressing to see news
chiefs settling for the predictable, the prejudice-feeding and
the formulaic as the six o'clock fanfares rise and fall.
New Zealand led their flagship 6pm news bulletins with
a fatal shooting in Hawke’s Bay. Tonight, 1 September,
they both led with reaction to the banning of gang
insignia in Wanganui. And this is not uncommon: any
homicide, anything crime-related, anything calculated to
promote fear and loathing, can always be assured of high
placement in the news. For myself, I am trying to imagine
what goes through the heads of news chiefs and bulletin
editors when they make the decision not only to cover
these stories—with all the associated expense, in these
supposedly cash-strapped times, of sending out reporters
and camera crews—but to assign them the greatest
prominence. Whichever way I turn it, I invariably come
up with the same conclusion: that whatever it is that’s
going on here, it’s not news; it’s a form of entertainment
packaged no less formulaically and titillatingly than, say,
CSI or Criminal Minds. In which case I respectfully ask
TV1 and TV3 to stop calling these programs news bulletins.
By all means broadcast what you will, but drop the false
labelling and the pompous pretence that endlessly
covering crime and misbehaviour is real gritty journalism.
The really sad part is that some genuine journalistic work
of merit is done for these bulletins but it usually gets
shunted down the list. Tonight, for instance, 3 News picked
up on a blog by John Minto in which he raised the idea of a
a maximum income cap of $250,000. There was actually
no reason in the world why that story couldn't have led the
bulletin—no reason except, apparently, the sheer terror of
addressing serious issues seriously. Sure, I get it: 'serious'
doesn't cut it for advertisers and ratings; but, in the case of
the past two nights anyway, it's depressing to see news
chiefs settling for the predictable, the prejudice-feeding and
the formulaic as the six o'clock fanfares rise and fall.
The new ETS
Prime Minister John Key expressed optimism today that
with hard work and co-operation by all concerned parties,
an Evasions Trading Scheme could be in place by the end
of the year.
Though much remains to be negotiated, the Government
is promising that under the proposed scheme, all major
sectors of industry and agriculture will be able to evade
their responsibilities in a responsible fashion.
The long-term aim is to keep New Zealand not only a few
steps behind its trading partners but backing away at the
same time.
‘This government didn’t get where it is today by facing up
to things,’ Mr Key told a media conference. ‘I don’t think
we could look ourselves in the eye if we, um, did.’
Evasions will be allowed up to a cap, beyond which even
bigger evasions can be traded for credits, according to the
evader-evades principle by means of which evaders can
evade in proportion to their evasion-generating capacity.
‘It’s our job as parliamentarianians to uphold the core
principle of evadability,” said Mr Key. ‘New Zealanderses
would expect no less.’
with hard work and co-operation by all concerned parties,
an Evasions Trading Scheme could be in place by the end
of the year.
Though much remains to be negotiated, the Government
is promising that under the proposed scheme, all major
sectors of industry and agriculture will be able to evade
their responsibilities in a responsible fashion.
The long-term aim is to keep New Zealand not only a few
steps behind its trading partners but backing away at the
same time.
‘This government didn’t get where it is today by facing up
to things,’ Mr Key told a media conference. ‘I don’t think
we could look ourselves in the eye if we, um, did.’
Evasions will be allowed up to a cap, beyond which even
bigger evasions can be traded for credits, according to the
evader-evades principle by means of which evaders can
evade in proportion to their evasion-generating capacity.
‘It’s our job as parliamentarianians to uphold the core
principle of evadability,” said Mr Key. ‘New Zealanderses
would expect no less.’
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