So the top entrepeneurial minds of New Zealand got together yesterday to generate 5 ideas to get our economy pumping. Bright minds, thinking outside the box get together at a summit to tell poor old, dumb, lazy New Zealanders how to make a buck.
They came up with this:
-Kiwicard Travel: Tourists buy a $10,000 special debit card which can be spent only on goods and services in New Zealand. Their airfare is paid by the Government and included with the card.
Not bad. New Zealand's tourist industry is a big part of our economy. $10,000 would contribute. 20 nights in some pretty good hotels or 50 pretty good meals or 10-15 of the more expensive touristy activities. And that's not the cost of a top end holiday in which tourists pay thousands of dollars to stay in our luxury lodges. In other words $10,000 is a bit less than the expenditure of a holiday in New Zealand by someone who can easily afford the fare anyway.
-Flying Kiwi Fund: A capital fund to attract investors to help fund the growth phase of small to medium-sized businesses.
Good idea. I think we call that sort of fund a "bank".
-Possum Economics: Transfer the funds being used to poison the country's 70 million possums (about $200 million a year) into trapping possums for economic benefit.
Various New Zealanders have been trying to get a decent possum industry off the ground for years. This ain't a new idea. There are certainly a few arguments from coservationists as to why it can't work to control possums. If the government listened to that one I'd understand if the hard working people in the possum industry felt a little miffed that they'd been struggling all these years and it took a bunch of yuppies to get official recognition.
-Research and Development: Reform and collation of intellectual property rights to help bring them more quickly to the market, where they can generate revenue.
Again a good idea. But hardly original.
-Attitude Campaign: Dubbed "Give it a go, bro!", this idea is about encouraging a national positive attitude. It includes a advertising campaign and youth education.
That's it? That's all you've got? These people need to get out more. I think they think that anyone earning less than $100,000 p.a. is sitting around in public bars bitching. That's not the kiwi way, actually. Pop into my local and you'll find the atmosphere lively, jovial and poistive. Most of the people in the Trav on a Friday night have spent the week - and intend to spend the weekend giving it a go. Bro'.
A full day with 100 of our top enterpeneurial minds and that's what they come up with.
We're screwed. Oh - sorry. Give it a go, Bro!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Meeting of the Waters
When I was a kid we had two playgrounds. The river and the hill. More of the hill later. The river was mostly the Waipa which wended it's very circuitous route through peaty, muddy landscapes from the the rangitoto Range and Waipa Valley to meet the Waikato at The Point. The Waikato, of course is the river everybody knows at Ngaruawahia because it's the one you cross on the way to Auckland. It's the one in all the old photos of the Ngaruawahia Regatta. The one in the background of the competitions at Turangawaewae Marae when the waka majestically appear around the bend and your heart stirs in the same way it does when your team performs the haka or you hear the bagpipes.
It's also big. More dangerous. We were raised on stories of kids who'd strayed too far out when swimming at The Point or jumping from the railway bridge. They'd have tried to swim to shore but the sheer power, the deceptive lugubriousness and the sheer weight of current and water would take them too far, too fast. They'd be found (in various states of decomposition depending on the teller of the tale) tangled in branches of fallen riverside willows or even on the bar at Port Waikato - a hundred and fifty miles to the north. I'd never known one of these poor kids, never noticed any of my gang missing. But we knew it had happened. Everybody said so.
The Waipa didn't have this reputation. Near our place on Waipa Ave it was narrow enough to swim across and not so swift that you'd be taken too far. It was wide enough to be a challenge, though and as we kicked and pounded the water and looked into the tannin green, part of the excitement was the thought of not making it, not touching the tangled mat of roots on the other side and being swept down to the junction, past the Point and swallowed by our river's bigger, meaner sister.
So our playground was the bank of the Waipa with its swimming hole and giant willow branches. We built huts, dug tunnels in the muddy dirt, tortured the eels and the occasional unfortunate frog. Gangs of us spent entire summers muddy and wet and happy in the water just a hundred metres from our home.
I remember the water being brown but not muddy. After all it passed through flat, peaty dairy country on its way to us but it wasn't an unpleasant colour. I'd even call it fresh. Although visibility was poor the water was in fact clear for a few feet until the tannin lowered the curtain shielding eels, floating bodies and Marie Thompson's tanned, bikini clad body from view. Clean dirt my mother would have called it. We didn't mind swallowing a mouthful as we fought in the shallows and never felt dirty even when we were covered in the mud that started to surround the swimming hole as the summer progressed and a thousand bare foot steps had broken down the soil of the bank.
We even had a boat a couple of years. Dad's twelve foot tinny. He used it during his brief career as an eel fisherman and we were sometimes allowed to fire up the ancient Seagull motor, take a bunch of inflated inner tubes and pootle up and down by the swimming hole. Well, that was the agreement we had with Mum. In fact we'd head miles up river until home and safety and rules were out of sight. Then we'd shut off the motor , chuck the tubes into the water and float back, yelling insults to each other, telling our latest filthy jokes, slipping in and out of the water and basking on the hot, black tubes like so many hairless, raucous otters. Within sight of home we'd fire up the motor, head upstream and repeat. Grouse fun.
I've been back to that hole many times. It's just down the road from where my mother now lives overlooking The Point. It's not the same, of course. The bank is overgrown, the hole silted up and the water looks dirty. Actually dirty - although I notice people still swim down at The Point. I guess industrial dairy farming and an increased population have degraded the water quality somewhat. But there doesn't seem to be as many kids around either. The grassed area down there and the river bank used to swarm with them. Me and my mates. We would have cleared away the undergrowth, dug some steps down to the water, nailed some bits of wood to the willow - a ladder for the climb to the jumping branch. We would have reattached the old rope swing. Maybe it's just older people living around there now. Maybe these days kids aren't allowed to disappear all day and risk their lives in the river. Maybe the giant eels got them. Maybe my memory of sun soaked, endless, carefree summers is actually a fantasy. I hope not. I hope not because it's part of what makes me a New Zealander - that opportunity to hoon about, safely(?) in the semi wild. That openness and freedom and connection to place. It's part of what makes me Pakeha - having the opportunity to call that paradise my stamping ground, my turangawaewae. I'd hate to think I made it up.
It's also big. More dangerous. We were raised on stories of kids who'd strayed too far out when swimming at The Point or jumping from the railway bridge. They'd have tried to swim to shore but the sheer power, the deceptive lugubriousness and the sheer weight of current and water would take them too far, too fast. They'd be found (in various states of decomposition depending on the teller of the tale) tangled in branches of fallen riverside willows or even on the bar at Port Waikato - a hundred and fifty miles to the north. I'd never known one of these poor kids, never noticed any of my gang missing. But we knew it had happened. Everybody said so.
The Waipa didn't have this reputation. Near our place on Waipa Ave it was narrow enough to swim across and not so swift that you'd be taken too far. It was wide enough to be a challenge, though and as we kicked and pounded the water and looked into the tannin green, part of the excitement was the thought of not making it, not touching the tangled mat of roots on the other side and being swept down to the junction, past the Point and swallowed by our river's bigger, meaner sister.
So our playground was the bank of the Waipa with its swimming hole and giant willow branches. We built huts, dug tunnels in the muddy dirt, tortured the eels and the occasional unfortunate frog. Gangs of us spent entire summers muddy and wet and happy in the water just a hundred metres from our home.
I remember the water being brown but not muddy. After all it passed through flat, peaty dairy country on its way to us but it wasn't an unpleasant colour. I'd even call it fresh. Although visibility was poor the water was in fact clear for a few feet until the tannin lowered the curtain shielding eels, floating bodies and Marie Thompson's tanned, bikini clad body from view. Clean dirt my mother would have called it. We didn't mind swallowing a mouthful as we fought in the shallows and never felt dirty even when we were covered in the mud that started to surround the swimming hole as the summer progressed and a thousand bare foot steps had broken down the soil of the bank.
We even had a boat a couple of years. Dad's twelve foot tinny. He used it during his brief career as an eel fisherman and we were sometimes allowed to fire up the ancient Seagull motor, take a bunch of inflated inner tubes and pootle up and down by the swimming hole. Well, that was the agreement we had with Mum. In fact we'd head miles up river until home and safety and rules were out of sight. Then we'd shut off the motor , chuck the tubes into the water and float back, yelling insults to each other, telling our latest filthy jokes, slipping in and out of the water and basking on the hot, black tubes like so many hairless, raucous otters. Within sight of home we'd fire up the motor, head upstream and repeat. Grouse fun.
I've been back to that hole many times. It's just down the road from where my mother now lives overlooking The Point. It's not the same, of course. The bank is overgrown, the hole silted up and the water looks dirty. Actually dirty - although I notice people still swim down at The Point. I guess industrial dairy farming and an increased population have degraded the water quality somewhat. But there doesn't seem to be as many kids around either. The grassed area down there and the river bank used to swarm with them. Me and my mates. We would have cleared away the undergrowth, dug some steps down to the water, nailed some bits of wood to the willow - a ladder for the climb to the jumping branch. We would have reattached the old rope swing. Maybe it's just older people living around there now. Maybe these days kids aren't allowed to disappear all day and risk their lives in the river. Maybe the giant eels got them. Maybe my memory of sun soaked, endless, carefree summers is actually a fantasy. I hope not. I hope not because it's part of what makes me a New Zealander - that opportunity to hoon about, safely(?) in the semi wild. That openness and freedom and connection to place. It's part of what makes me Pakeha - having the opportunity to call that paradise my stamping ground, my turangawaewae. I'd hate to think I made it up.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Up the Spine of the Fish
My feet sink into the sand. That last wave gently tugs at my heels.
I haven't caught anything - again - but I don't care. I look up at the horizon sweeping west to the out-of-focus ridges of the Abel T National Park and east along the beach to Tahuna and the Boulder Bank, Nelson and the hint in the haze beyond - D'Urville Island and the Sounds. Paradise, really.
I wonder what the view from Ninety Mile Beach must be like. I've looked at the map. There'll be no speech marks framing the view -the beach is too long. All we'll see is that endless strip of blue on blue. A panorama, my Mum would say. You'd be able to see the curve. See where it drops off to the place where monsters be. I can't wait.
I'll be fishing there in about 15 days. After Wellington, New Plymouth, Whangamomona, Piopio, Hamilton, Ngaruawhia, Auckland, Kaiwaka, Kaitaia and Rawene. We'll go to Cape Reinga after. Or maybe Reinga then fishing. I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's a holiday. The only thing we've booked is the ferry and two nights in New Plymouth. The rest is road trip. Well, that's not entirely true. Our mothers are expecting us and you can't go messing around your 70 and 80 year old Mums. They won't stand for it. But other than that we'll make our way up the island as we please. Stopping where we want and just enjoying the time and togetherness. The trip.
We're both North Islanders so planning has been a combination of family obligations, explorations and nostalgic side trips. We've driven State Highway 1 a hundred times and many of the side roads at one time or another. But other explorations are brand new for both of us.
The Forgotten Highway is one. SH43 links Taranaki and the King Country but instead of skirting the coast and easing inland to Te Kuiti it attaches itself to the foot of the mountain and- safety line secured - plunges into the steep bush covered hill country that skirts the top of the Whanganui National Park. You wind through the creases and wrinkles in the belly of the fish until you emerge in Taumarunui.
This is the land where the last of the Maori generals took their people and were basically never defeated. Also the area where the Tainui Maori King, Tukaroto Potatau Matutaera Tawhiao , maintained his land and full control until 1883. Maori call the King Country "Te Rohe Potae" - the Place of the Hat- because the area was opened to settlers only after Tawhiao used Governor George Grey's hat as an analogy for his land.
Grey had offered a deal - a line on the map - whereby the King Country and Taranaki was equally divided between the settlers and Tawhiao's people. Tawhiao took Grey's hat and threatened to cut it in half. When Grey protested Tawhiao said "You were afraid that if we cut your hat in half it would be damaged. But would the land not be damaged if we cut it in half?"
Grey acknowledged his point but reminded him of the continuing bloodshed and said something had to be done. They had to come to some agreement. So Tawhiao took his own hat - a bowler - and placed it on the map. "Huri, huri, huri. Around and around and around the brim of the hat, you can have all that. This is mine'. Grey agreed and the area under the hat became known by the Maori as Te Rohe Potae and to Pakeha as the Maori King Country.
The bi cultural nature of our country is nicely reflected here too. They celebrate Whangaroa Republic Day every January. A little piece of modern history steeped in the dry, laconic humour of our Pakeha heritiage.
The remote ruggedness that made this neck of the woods such a stronghold also makes for fantastic scenery and I'm looking forward to the drive and a beer at Whangamomona.
I'll enjoy lots of other beers at the little independent breweries that dot the route through the island. We don't get to drink these beers down our way because many of the small breweries in New Zealand don't produce enough to export to the Mainland.
Later we'll join the backpackers and English tourists in their camper vans at the tip of the tail but before that Spike will have a moment when we skirt back into the farm country around Te Kuiti - her mother recently moved off the family farm. Although for most it's just boring dairy country, my heart will put in an extra beat as we crest the rise and glimpse the mighty Waikato.
We'll spend a couple of nights in the big smoke. We'll visit our mothers, my sisters and my sister and brother in law. I'll try to distinguish between the tribe of nieces and nephews who are all brown skinned with big brown eyes and all seem to have names that begin with T. We'll see a few old mates. We'll take gravel side roads. We'll eat egg sandwiches in funny little tea rooms. We'll read tourist information signs. Spike will navigate as I drive. We'll take a Thermos. We'll often just stop and look - even at places we've viewed a dozen times before.
I can't wait. My feet are embedded in the sand of a beach in Aotearoa.
I haven't caught anything - again - but I don't care. I look up at the horizon sweeping west to the out-of-focus ridges of the Abel T National Park and east along the beach to Tahuna and the Boulder Bank, Nelson and the hint in the haze beyond - D'Urville Island and the Sounds. Paradise, really.
I wonder what the view from Ninety Mile Beach must be like. I've looked at the map. There'll be no speech marks framing the view -the beach is too long. All we'll see is that endless strip of blue on blue. A panorama, my Mum would say. You'd be able to see the curve. See where it drops off to the place where monsters be. I can't wait.
I'll be fishing there in about 15 days. After Wellington, New Plymouth, Whangamomona, Piopio, Hamilton, Ngaruawhia, Auckland, Kaiwaka, Kaitaia and Rawene. We'll go to Cape Reinga after. Or maybe Reinga then fishing. I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's a holiday. The only thing we've booked is the ferry and two nights in New Plymouth. The rest is road trip. Well, that's not entirely true. Our mothers are expecting us and you can't go messing around your 70 and 80 year old Mums. They won't stand for it. But other than that we'll make our way up the island as we please. Stopping where we want and just enjoying the time and togetherness. The trip.
We're both North Islanders so planning has been a combination of family obligations, explorations and nostalgic side trips. We've driven State Highway 1 a hundred times and many of the side roads at one time or another. But other explorations are brand new for both of us.
The Forgotten Highway is one. SH43 links Taranaki and the King Country but instead of skirting the coast and easing inland to Te Kuiti it attaches itself to the foot of the mountain and- safety line secured - plunges into the steep bush covered hill country that skirts the top of the Whanganui National Park. You wind through the creases and wrinkles in the belly of the fish until you emerge in Taumarunui.
This is the land where the last of the Maori generals took their people and were basically never defeated. Also the area where the Tainui Maori King, Tukaroto Potatau Matutaera Tawhiao , maintained his land and full control until 1883. Maori call the King Country "Te Rohe Potae" - the Place of the Hat- because the area was opened to settlers only after Tawhiao used Governor George Grey's hat as an analogy for his land.
Grey had offered a deal - a line on the map - whereby the King Country and Taranaki was equally divided between the settlers and Tawhiao's people. Tawhiao took Grey's hat and threatened to cut it in half. When Grey protested Tawhiao said "You were afraid that if we cut your hat in half it would be damaged. But would the land not be damaged if we cut it in half?"
Grey acknowledged his point but reminded him of the continuing bloodshed and said something had to be done. They had to come to some agreement. So Tawhiao took his own hat - a bowler - and placed it on the map. "Huri, huri, huri. Around and around and around the brim of the hat, you can have all that. This is mine'. Grey agreed and the area under the hat became known by the Maori as Te Rohe Potae and to Pakeha as the Maori King Country.
The bi cultural nature of our country is nicely reflected here too. They celebrate Whangaroa Republic Day every January. A little piece of modern history steeped in the dry, laconic humour of our Pakeha heritiage.
The remote ruggedness that made this neck of the woods such a stronghold also makes for fantastic scenery and I'm looking forward to the drive and a beer at Whangamomona.
I'll enjoy lots of other beers at the little independent breweries that dot the route through the island. We don't get to drink these beers down our way because many of the small breweries in New Zealand don't produce enough to export to the Mainland.
Later we'll join the backpackers and English tourists in their camper vans at the tip of the tail but before that Spike will have a moment when we skirt back into the farm country around Te Kuiti - her mother recently moved off the family farm. Although for most it's just boring dairy country, my heart will put in an extra beat as we crest the rise and glimpse the mighty Waikato.
We'll spend a couple of nights in the big smoke. We'll visit our mothers, my sisters and my sister and brother in law. I'll try to distinguish between the tribe of nieces and nephews who are all brown skinned with big brown eyes and all seem to have names that begin with T. We'll see a few old mates. We'll take gravel side roads. We'll eat egg sandwiches in funny little tea rooms. We'll read tourist information signs. Spike will navigate as I drive. We'll take a Thermos. We'll often just stop and look - even at places we've viewed a dozen times before.
I can't wait. My feet are embedded in the sand of a beach in Aotearoa.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Filibuster
I was going to talk about their coverage of the Napier tragedy. Then I thought about their coverage of Rankin's appointment or the Melissa Lee fiasco. But the filibuster happened first and this TV3 story got my gander up.
The filibuster has a long history going back to ancient Rome - although it seems the Yanks were the first to use the term. While it's often seen as a form of grandstanding - a way of making a point - it is also a tool to try and force the hand of the majority in the house. The tactic has a long history in New Zealand and National used it in the last parliament to make their point about the Electoral Finance Bill.
It would seem that the Opposition's main purpose in Parliament this weekend is to slow down the bills setting up the new Auckland city council structure. They're also using it to make their points. There is no doubt that we know a lot more about the content of these bills because of Labour's decision to filibuster but there is so much more we could know. We won't find out by watching TV3.
I think this sort of reporting is a bloody insult. New Zealanders are woefully ill informed about their own democratic process. A sort of "bloody politicians" syndrome is endemic. This concerns me because I think this sort of apathy works against constructive and active participation in the democratic process and I can't see the point in a democratic process if not everyone participates. I think it's bred of ignorance and is actively reinforced by commercial media because there's so much entertainment value in reducing the activities of the legislature to some sort of game.
TV3 (and most of the other news outlets, actually) have a wonderful opportunity in this current debate to inform people about the Parliamentary process. About the history of filibustering and it's uses in New Zealand. About the select committee process. About the REASONS for the current situation. Instead they turn it into a sort of jokey, reality TV report.
If TV3 had used even a fraction of the resources on this subject that they did rushing TV stars to be "at the scene" of the Napier tragedy( even though they couldn't add anything more to our knowledge of the situation than the usual 20 year old reporters) we could have had some interesting coverage. But they didn't. Shame, really.
P.S.
Interestingly, one of the most famous and longest running filibusters in history was also over a local body amalgamation and the parallels between that process and ours (and Mike Harris and Rodney Hide) are illuminating.
The filibuster has a long history going back to ancient Rome - although it seems the Yanks were the first to use the term. While it's often seen as a form of grandstanding - a way of making a point - it is also a tool to try and force the hand of the majority in the house. The tactic has a long history in New Zealand and National used it in the last parliament to make their point about the Electoral Finance Bill.
It would seem that the Opposition's main purpose in Parliament this weekend is to slow down the bills setting up the new Auckland city council structure. They're also using it to make their points. There is no doubt that we know a lot more about the content of these bills because of Labour's decision to filibuster but there is so much more we could know. We won't find out by watching TV3.
I think this sort of reporting is a bloody insult. New Zealanders are woefully ill informed about their own democratic process. A sort of "bloody politicians" syndrome is endemic. This concerns me because I think this sort of apathy works against constructive and active participation in the democratic process and I can't see the point in a democratic process if not everyone participates. I think it's bred of ignorance and is actively reinforced by commercial media because there's so much entertainment value in reducing the activities of the legislature to some sort of game.
TV3 (and most of the other news outlets, actually) have a wonderful opportunity in this current debate to inform people about the Parliamentary process. About the history of filibustering and it's uses in New Zealand. About the select committee process. About the REASONS for the current situation. Instead they turn it into a sort of jokey, reality TV report.
If TV3 had used even a fraction of the resources on this subject that they did rushing TV stars to be "at the scene" of the Napier tragedy( even though they couldn't add anything more to our knowledge of the situation than the usual 20 year old reporters) we could have had some interesting coverage. But they didn't. Shame, really.
P.S.
Interestingly, one of the most famous and longest running filibusters in history was also over a local body amalgamation and the parallels between that process and ours (and Mike Harris and Rodney Hide) are illuminating.
Friday, May 15, 2009
So, I'll start with some context. I write this in my lounge in a small cottage in a quiet country road near Richmond. Autumnal fruit trees cut silhouettes from the glare of a low afternoon sun. Fantails gorge themselves on midges in the shade of my porch. Shags and herons circle the paddocks outside as they return from the estuary to their roost in the huge oak trees that line our dead end lane. Marty is interviewing The Dead C on our ancient (but pretty cool) radiogram. A batch of green tomato chutney bubbles on the stove.
And me? If you care - I'm middle aged, under-educated and I work in the non-profit sector. I don't get to hang out on the aforementioned porch as much as I'd like and I work harder than I want to. I grow veges, go fishing on the local beach occassionally and drink at my local on rugby nights. I don't bother with pets. I don't believe in any gods but I am in awe of the universe. I enjoy a bit of sport on the telly, books about stuff (currently and belatedly, Salt), good theatre (not that there's much in this neck of the woods), a bit of alt. country, dumb old seventies and eighties albums, stupid American crime programmes, sci-fi films, playing music with friends and - what's it called? neo-expressionism? Euan McDougall - that sort of thing. I suppose I'm a social democrat.
I "suppose" because I don't really know. Not because I don't know what I believe politically but because I don't know how it fits into the current political milieu.I know what I'm not. I'm not a Torie. I'm not a Socialist. I'm not a neo-conservative.
In a different time I would probably have been a Labour man. But many the decisions of the last couple of Labour governments have infuriated me in the way they pandered to a socially conservative electorate and the current imperialist tendencies of the international community.
So politically I believe in individual freedom. I believe in social justice - not only before the law but also economic and socio-cultural equality. I believe everyone has the right to equal opportunity. I don't believe the "market" delivers all of the freedoms, justice and equality to which all citizens are entitled. I believe governments have a role to play in this process. I also believe that governments (countries - nations) have right to sovereignty over how they deliver these fundamentals to their citizens. So, I believe in paying taxes. I believe in solidarity. I believe all citizens have a role to play and a responsibility to carry a sense of compassion for the victims of injustice and inequality.
So, that's the context. That's the filter through which I will try to view our society. I'll rant a bit. I'll write about stuff I find interesting. I'll try to be entertaining.
A penguin walks into a bar. He says "Have you seen my brother?". The barman says "I don't know. What does he look like?"
And me? If you care - I'm middle aged, under-educated and I work in the non-profit sector. I don't get to hang out on the aforementioned porch as much as I'd like and I work harder than I want to. I grow veges, go fishing on the local beach occassionally and drink at my local on rugby nights. I don't bother with pets. I don't believe in any gods but I am in awe of the universe. I enjoy a bit of sport on the telly, books about stuff (currently and belatedly, Salt), good theatre (not that there's much in this neck of the woods), a bit of alt. country, dumb old seventies and eighties albums, stupid American crime programmes, sci-fi films, playing music with friends and - what's it called? neo-expressionism? Euan McDougall - that sort of thing. I suppose I'm a social democrat.
I "suppose" because I don't really know. Not because I don't know what I believe politically but because I don't know how it fits into the current political milieu.I know what I'm not. I'm not a Torie. I'm not a Socialist. I'm not a neo-conservative.
In a different time I would probably have been a Labour man. But many the decisions of the last couple of Labour governments have infuriated me in the way they pandered to a socially conservative electorate and the current imperialist tendencies of the international community.
So politically I believe in individual freedom. I believe in social justice - not only before the law but also economic and socio-cultural equality. I believe everyone has the right to equal opportunity. I don't believe the "market" delivers all of the freedoms, justice and equality to which all citizens are entitled. I believe governments have a role to play in this process. I also believe that governments (countries - nations) have right to sovereignty over how they deliver these fundamentals to their citizens. So, I believe in paying taxes. I believe in solidarity. I believe all citizens have a role to play and a responsibility to carry a sense of compassion for the victims of injustice and inequality.
So, that's the context. That's the filter through which I will try to view our society. I'll rant a bit. I'll write about stuff I find interesting. I'll try to be entertaining.
A penguin walks into a bar. He says "Have you seen my brother?". The barman says "I don't know. What does he look like?"
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