Leaving Monsters behind
As a relatively new species on planet Earth today’s humans (homo sapiens) have come a long way in a very short time. Along that tortuous… Read More »Leaving Monsters behind
As a relatively new species on planet Earth today’s humans (homo sapiens) have come a long way in a very short time. Along that tortuous… Read More »Leaving Monsters behind
While Hamilton City Council and the Taranaki Regional Council appear to be approaching the thorny issue of Maori Wards for local bodies from completely different… Read More »Maori Wards must be decided by ratepayers, not councils alone
In a time of unprecedented uncertainty about our protection from a deadly disease and the future of the planet it can often be helpful to look back at how our parents and grandparents managed in the face of adversity. They fed and clothed often quite large families through the very tough times of the major economic depression of the 1930s and the dreadful uncertainties of two world wars. In addition, they helped others less fortunate than themselves in an age when that was a traditional responsibility.
In spite of more than 200 years of European settlement of, and presence in, New Zealand can we still hear the faint echoes of the… Read More »Te Reo Maori need not be translated
Have we become a little too sensitive about our history? Riding in on the coat tails of an ill-informed public stoush over monuments to New… Read More »Fanciful Tales of History
As many New Zealanders and business owners burst their boilers and bubbles trying to return to some form of normality after Covid-19 we have the opportunity to decide at least some of the elements which will make up that new normal. There seems little doubt that we will have to become more self-reliant than we have been for the past century or more
Last week Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis launched a project in which Government and industry leaders will work together on a plan to restart tourism. They should not forget that we have been priced out of, and crowded out of, our favourite outdoor places for far too long by tourists while the industry ignored pleas to slow down and reduce the harm. Instead, with single minded determination, the industry went courting ever greater numbers each year with the misleading Clean Green propaganda message
In times of adversity we should remember how our parents and grandparents managed in difficult times. Most of us have heard about the impact on society of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Second World War which followed.
Two weeks ago another Catholic clergyman admitted he had sexually abused a little child. He was due to face a jury at the District Court in Auckland last week but pleaded guilty, saving the family the ordeal of a trial.
Just two years ago a Catholic priest was convicted and jailed for 15 months in the District Court at Hamilton for molesting young boys in the 1970s.
The recent case of a foreign tourist, caught out using a beach near Thames for a toilet, may have horrified some people but for many others, particularly in remote rural areas, it is something they see and deal with far too often.