Sickening Developments Down in New Zealand

Is there nothing at all who can appease your greed,

Could you please leave the air we breath
Why is it something we've done
You all seem to forget
About nuclear fallout and the long term effects

... Let me be more specific, get out of the pacific
Ki te la pacific, get out of the pacific
Ki te la pacific

French Letter lyrics, by the Herbs.  A protest song telling the French government to take their nuclear testing out of the Pacific back in 1982. 

I have embedded a link to their song, a memory of a time when New Zealanders and the government came together to fight for a nuclear-free Pacific.  At the time the French government was testing nuclear bombs in the Pacific and wouldn't stop.  |The French government decided to get very serious with the kiwis and sent some of their crack troops to Auckland where they blew up a Greenpeace vessel in our second-largest city, killing one person. 

These days evolution seems to be spinning backwards and the New Zealand goverment, in a moment of insanity has given a Texan oil giant, with a poor safety record, the right to carry out deep-sea drilling just off the coast of New Zealand.  The risk of an accident is small, they say ... the consequences of just one accident, are huge in a place like New Zealand. 

Anadarko started drilling in the wee hours last night, surrounded by a small flotilla of protests boats ... it's truly a David versus Goliath battle.  Of course, with our very 'special' prime minister at the helm we see the New Zealand government threatening to send the NZ navy out to stop the protestors.  New Zealand has changed and not for the better.

In the last few hours the New Zealand protestors were warned by the Texans that being closer than 500m to their oil drilling rig in New Zealand waters is ... illegal, because the NZ government also changed some rules for them, making it illegal to protest out there. 

So not only has the NZ government broken trust with the people who hired them, as in the public who voted them in, they have lied and changed laws so that the NZ navy can now be used againt the NZ protestors in order to protect the big oil giant.

And they'll probably give Anadarko ships safe passage too, should the unthinkable oil spill happen.

It makes me heartsick because if and when the oil accident happens ... well, what do you with the worst-case scenario?  The documents shows that up to 90 per cent of the wells have a worst-case discharge rate of 100,000 barrels, about 16,000 tonnes a day, but some could discharge up to 350,000 barrels.

"And a couple of months' worth of major spill - unlikely though that may be - would be a significant disaster for wildlife, for the health of our oceans, for our fisheries and for our tourism brand at a cost of billions of dollars to New Zealand.''

Congratulations to Mr Keys and a very shortsighted New Zealand government.  I'm just going to be praying that your greed for immediate returns and thirst for oil doesn't leave New Zealanders with a mess that takes decades to clean up.

Source, The New Zealand Herald.

An Unusual Weekend So far ...

I wouldn't be exaggerating if I wrote that I am spending time with the most remarkable people this weekend.  I'm on a two-day workshop that has both filled me with a new kind of energy and left me an exhausted shell of a woman tonight.

The intensity is quite something.  (And I've deleted words and sentences here so many times already...)  I need to get through the workshop and then give it a couple of days to brew some before writing of it.

The bonus is spending time with Lynette.  She is a New Zealander living over in Brussels ... a woman who has fitted so beautifully into our household that we might just keep her.  She's been a great companion on the journey and after about 24 hours together I feel like we've known one another a very long time.

Meanwhile, I'm proud of the New Zealanders out there putting up a fight against the deep sea oil drilling off the coast of our beautiful little islands  And while I know a few grumpy old blokes read my blog and will surely mutter into their long grey beards, I'm going to proudly post a clip from those people who see the huge risks in the drilling.

On Missing Home ...

It's been an odd day here.  Some blog posts were deleted today and I decided to step away from Facebook for a bit.  I'm learning the limits of 'what else I can do while writing' and having FB available just doesn't work for me.

I've been homesick for New Zealand.  Dad's brother had a fall last week and so I spent a few evenings talking with Dad via skype.  It was sad knowing he was spending his days at the hospital, watching Uncle Brian slip away.  They couldn't save him.  The funeral was last Friday.

Uncle Brian was a butcher by trade but when I think back to my most vivid memories of him they seem to involve those backyard games of cricket played by families, and their neighbours, all over New Zealand during summer.

I think Brian might have been a Speights man back then too.  Like Dad.  I think all of them were, and I don't think he would mind the link.  That series of adverts usually makes kiwis smile some.

You will be missed, Brian Mackey.

Eleanor Catton talks with Kim Hill

I must share ... my favourite New Zealand radio personality, Kim Hill from NZ National Radio, interviewed the Man Booker Prize winner, Eleanor Catton.

I knew Kim would have done this thing ... a 41 minute interview, that really explores Eleanor's life and work.  Thank goodness for Radio New Zealand's archives.  So many treasures found there - Sam Hunt is another special NZ love of mine.

Radio New Zealand wrote: Catton, 28, is only the second New Zealander, and the youngest author ever, to

win the presitigious literary award. She is also the youngest short-listed writer in the competition's 45-year history.

The prize, announced at a ceremony in London, carries a cheque for £50,000. The Luminaries is a murder mystery set on the West Coast during the 1860s gold rush that relies on an astrological narrative. It follows in the footsteps of Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones, which was shortlisted in 2007, and The Bone People by Keri Hulme, which won in 1985.

Here's a collection of Radio New Zealand's interviews with Eleanor Catton from recent years.

Making The Days Quiet ...

Piano piano, in Italian.  Langzaam in Nederlands.  Yavaş yavaş in Turkish - I know these words in every language I've played with.  

Slowly slowly ... and so I am moving like that, playing with photographs, reading a superb book by a New Zealand author and spending time with my cousin, Julie, as she wanders the world, transitioning from her old job in the Cayman Islands to a new job in New Zealand.

It's like that ...

That Fern Photograph ...

Ferns were the object of my photographic desire when I reached home.  No explanation, I just found myself falling in love with them ...

This photograph, there was so much wrong with it but I love it.  I'm tempted to get it printed Huge. 

There's been a wee bit of blogging done by my self tonight.  I'm trying to turn my curious gaze away from all that is wrong in the world and find some kind of peace of mind. 

But wait ... there was something I almost forgot.  This article was out there this morning and I loved it.  It opens with, and yes, I added (or girl) ...

Date a boy (or girl) who travels. Date a boy who treasures experience over toys, a hand-woven bracelet over a Rolex. Date the boy who scoffs when he hears the words, "vacation," "all-inclusive" or "resort." Date a boy who travels because he's not blinded by a single goal but enlivened by many.

Lena Desmond, extract from Date a Boy Who Travels