Shaken and stirred, but never broken

This kind of thing just does not happen in New Zealand.
Earthquakes that flatten cities and claim hundreds of lives often strike in some far off African country – and maybe even in Russia or China – but it is not suppose to happen in good old Christchurch!
It has been almost unreal watching the TV footage and reading the news reports in the aftermath of the quake. It is like I won’t let myself believe that this disaster has happened and the newsfeeds from another country – not Christchurch.
However, despite my disbelief, the images of the collapsed iconic Cathedral and other buildings I am familiar with in the city, confirm that it is indeed Christchurch that has been hit by this earthquake. It is beyond my comprehension that a death toll of over 300 could yet be reached.
I am also struck by a feeling of uselessness and helplessness. There is nothing I can do to help. While my thoughts and sympathies are with all those Cantabrians who have been affected by Tuesday's earthquake, especially those who have lost loved ones, it doesn’t seem enough.
There is no doubt this disaster that has touched all New Zealanders in some way. It has a similar feeling to that of the Erebus crash, where it seems everyone in the country knew or knew of someone filled on that fatal flight.
They say that out of tragedy comes good. And that is definitely the case in this instance. I am amazed at the response and efforts of both ordinary people and the professionals in the immediate aftermath of the quake.
The site of office workers, risking their own safety, to carry out broken colleagues out from shattered buildings. Or people using their own vehicles as makeshift ambulances, when the city’s fleet became overwhelmed, to ferry the injured to hospital. Then there was the enduring spirit of human kindness, with strangers checking on strangers to ensure they were ok.
The quake struck at 1 pm, by 6 pm tent cities and relief centres had been established to feed and house affected people. At the same time; civil defence, search and rescue, police, fire and medical staff were all flat out rescuing people and tending to their needs.
Government and council had both swung into action ensuring the necessary emergency measures were in place.
While Christchurch city may be shaken and its people stirred, both have not being broken. Though the lost lives can never be replaced, and the city may never look the same, with help Cantabrians will again rebuild their lives and their city of Christchurch.

The prosecution rests its case!

Prime Minister John Key outraged all the usual suspects – lefties, bludgers, bleeding hearts and the minor political following known as the Labour Party – by saying beneficiaries who resort to food banks do so out of their own "poor choices" rather than because they cannot afford food.
Responding to a question in Parliament about poverty levels, Key said the benefit was enough to live on, saying: "if one budgets properly, one can pay one's bills."
Key's comments horrified the likes of failed ex-Green MP Sue Bradford who heads the Alternative Welfare Working Group and of course left-wing newspaper the Sunday-Star Times. True to form the SST dedicated a whole feature on the tough life of beneficiaries in this weekend’s paper.
However, despite the SST’s best efforts to portray the PM as an evil ogre – picking on hardworking, down-on-their luck beneficiaries – it got hoisted by its own petard by recounting one of their examples. A real poster boy for prudent and judicious use of a benefit – not!
"Jack" (not his real name) outlines his weekly expenses. From the $240 he receives in benefits, he pays $120 in rent, $50 for cigarettes and $20 on beer. Power is automatically deducted at $25 a week. "By the time I have a bit of fun, that's dole day gone."
Jack, 45, has weet-bix for breakfast and a $2 soup kitchen meal for tea. He sleeps most of Monday through Wednesday. Payday is Thursday.
"I haven't had a decent meal or a proper diet for a long time, probably for the past five years.
"I just don't think you function properly. Your head always feels a bit funny because you haven't got proper nutrients ... you get into this cycle where you get depression, and it doesn't help if you can't get up and look after yourself."
"My first cigarette was at intermediate school. Don't blame me, blame society. I just started because it was one of those things that was cool and I just got hooked."
He worked for the Railways for 15 years. "Nobody told me there was a big drinking culture in that workplace." His crew would go to the pub during work hours, returning when the bosses phoned. "The government folded it up and we all got redundancy ... when the Railway money ran out, that's when everything fell apart."
I don’t know about you, but my sympathy for a beneficiary ‘struggling to make ends meet’ evaporates rather quickly when I learn that he is blowing almost one-third of his weekly handout from the taxpayer on booze and fags – hardly the necessities of life!
But just is bad was “Jack’s” justification for his pissing and smoking up $70 each week. Claiming it was everybody else’s fault, but his. It was either his school mates fault for making smoking cool and getting him hooked, or his former colleagues at Railways for forcing him to go down to the pub each night after work and get hammered.
Get a grip “Jack”. And, by the way, Railways was sold in 1993 – some 18 years ago, meaning that Jack - aged 45 - has been living on a benefit since he was 27!
After reading this I have to say: John Key 1 – the SST, “Jack” and the whinging lefties zero. Perhaps “Jack” should – in the words of the George Thorogood song – “Get a haircut and get a real job!”

It’s just not cricket!

It is fair to say that New Zealand’s chances at the upcoming Cricket World Cup are about as likely as Tim Southee’s alleged scoring on the plane flight to the competition.
Much like Southee’s misreported on-flight antics – where there was very little substance to the rumour – the Black Caps chances of performing well at the World Cup are very much in the same league. Not even the most tragic of New Zealand cricket fans rates this team much of chance. And the miserable form of the Black Caps leading into the tournament backs this pessimistic outlook.
In October last year, New Zealand was beaten 4-0 in a one day series against those giants of the international game – Bangladesh. Just two months later, they took another pants-down pasting in a five match series against India – five to zip!
Most recently the New Zealanders have come out the losers 2 games to 3 in a five match one day series against a Pakistan team that has been embroiled in a match-fixing scandal and has not won an away one-day series since 1998!
One also has to question if our two wins in this series were actually genuine – or courtesy of the Pakistanis’ favourite bookies in London!
Our bowling attack has all the venom of a dying bumble bee and the batting line-up is flakier than Auckland’s new super mayor Len Brown on a good day! We only have two real world-class players in the team – in Daniel Vetorri and Brendan McCullum – with the rest made up of numerous also rans and never weres.
On the batting front, Brendan McCullum is a genuine talent. However, he is just too inconsistent. McCullum’s matching-winning innings are too few and too far between for New Zealand to rely on him to bring home the bacon.
The rest of the batting line-up is rather fragile – much like vice captain Ross Taylor’s current form. Taylor – like McCullum – has the ability to take any bowling attack apart. But does this far too infrequently. Jesse Ryder also has talent, but is too fat and fond of the giggle-juice to be taken seriously.
Meanwhile, the likes of Guptil, Styris and Williamson are fair-to-middling domestic batsmen, but this does not make them of international standard.
Our bowling attack is held together by the barely, held-together Daniel Vetorri. Dan the Man is a great player and good captain, but is says something about the state of New Zealand pace bowling that our leading attack weapon is a leg spinner! Both Tim Southee and Kyle Mills can be useful on their day, but they are hardly world-beaters. Meantime, Jacob Oram is so injury-prone these days, that he is likely to get hurt climbing on the team bus.
To win the World Cup you need more than two world-class players in your line-up – more like six or seven. Australia, South Africa, India and England all do.
New Zealand doesn’t, therefore we need to be realistic about our chances and rely on good-old fashioned luck!

Keeping the tent-wetters out!

Former US President Lyndon Johnson is credited with the political maxim about keeping annoying people inside the tent rather than outside of it.
Apparently the saying came from the time Johnson was seeking to remove J. Edgar Hoover from his post as the head of the FBI. However, when the problems involved in doing so proved insurmountable, LBJ philosophically accepted Hoover's presence with his infamous quote: "It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out," he reasoned, "than outside pissing in."
He was just putting a more rudimentary spin on the old saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies even closer.
However, LBJ’s political lore has been turned on its head by the decision of PM John Key to rule out any post-election deal with Winston Peters – 10 months before the election. Yet, while it’s a somewhat gutsy and risky call of Key potentially losing power rather than forming a government with the Victor Muldrow (grumpy old man) of New Zealand politics, it is a good one – except for Peters and Labour who are now inextricably linked to each other.
Key has basically given the electorate a choice – either me or him and admitting his political tent is Winston urine-intolerant. Because if anyone ever in New Zealand politics epitomised being a serial tent urinator –it would have to be Winston Raymond Peters. The guy is the equivalent to electoral Roundup – in other words: every government he has ever been involved with dies!
Firstly, he was sacked by Jim Bolger as a Minister back in 1991. He spent the whole time urinating all over his National Party colleagues – despite being in the executive tent and supposedly bound by Cabinet collectively. This gave him political martyrdom – which he still claims today – and the opportunity to set up his NZ First Party. The political home of this country’s old, grumpy, bigots and rednecks ever since.
Peters’ two other stints in Government since then – in 1996-98 and 2005-2008 – both also ended in tears. It saw him metaphorically urinating all over his coalition partners and destroying their chances of re-election. First with National in 1999 and again with Labour in 2008.
The man and his politics are pure toxic waste. He is a wrecker, not a builder. His only aim is self-preservation and feeding his huge ego. In fact, Peters is much more like maverick political colleague, rebel Maori Party MP, Hone Hawawira (even down to the same over-active, facial twitch when under pressure), than he cares to admit.
Both are far-better suited to opposition and protest politics, than the actual constructive, hard-work, and less-glorified role of being in government. Peters and Hawawira both have limp political prostate glands, which means they can’t help themselves from leaking all over their friends just to make themselves look better.
The Maori Party hierarchy should do themselves a favour and emulate John Key’s stance with Peters and ban Hone from their tent as well.
The New Zealand political scene would be far better off if both of these tent-wetters are sent packing!