March 10, 2008
MOVIES: Feb 05
“DOOR” BORES, SEX SELLS
Great acting belies the controversy over “Kinsey”, while Kim Basinger’s latest is just plain creepy.
Door In The Floor
Released: February 3, 2005
Rated: M
2 stars
Sure, Door In The Floor is a sad story. A couple’s two boys are killed in an accident and their parents, children’s writer Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges) and wife Marion (Kim Basinger), are torn apart with grief. So much so they have another child to make up for the loss (as if that’s going to work). Next they decide to separate and sleep around (okay…). Then they invite a 16-year-old intern who looks like one of their dead sons to work for them.
Can anyone else see trouble brewing here?
One could understand this amount of destructive behavior had the accident occurred a month or a year ago, but we meet the characters a full five years after the fact. Somewhere along the five stages of grief these two got stuck on the step known as, “numbingly vacant yet destructive and willing to leave human carnage in their wake”.Yet for such an un-likeable story the cast is top notch.
As the adulterous artist and grieving father Ted, Jeff Bridges’ is superb – but his acting is wasted on such an obnoxious character. He’s supposed to be free and creative but he’s really just selfish and uncaring.
Kim Basinger plays Marion, the sexy yet emotionally numbed mother. And I have to admit, she can pull off a stone carving impression very well. But things get creepy when she decides to take a page out of
Mrs. Robinson’s playbook and pursue their teenage intern, Eddie (Jon Foster), who looks like one of her dead sons.
The director, Tod Williams, has adapted the movie from John Irving’s novel A Widow for One Year. It’s beautifully and artistically filmed – or, to put it another way, pretentious. Without a doubt, Williams wanted to make a “deep” film, and every lingering shot and every line screams not just “look at how deep this is”, but, “but wait this makes it deeper still!”
This film exaggerates the weight of grief without ever bothering to realistically confront the unavoidable process of healing. For me it was as entertaining as watching an open wound. If you want to watch two hours of a marriage falling apart, child neglect and pseudo-incest, be my guest, but Door In The Floor wasn’t my cup of tea.
Kinsey
Released: January 27, 2005
Rated: M
4 stars
For all the controversy surrounding it, Kinsey is not much more than a bio-pic of Alfred Kinsey who, in 1948, published the controversial book Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male. It sold like gangbusters, and shocked society with its detailed scientific evidence about our rude bits and what we do with them.
Originally a zoologist studying wasps, Kinsey was drawn to exploring sex when one of his biology students asked him, “If a husband gives his wife oral sex will that make her infertile?” and “Does masturbating make you lose a pint of blood? ” Kinsey decided to put a stop to this nonsense by finding out the facts, helped by a team of young researchers to help him carry out in-depth sex surveys. Lo and behold, it turned out Americans in the 1940s were having much more sex and in more ways than anyone ever imagined! Who woulda thunk it?
I’m putting my neck out early here but I think Liam Neeson has an Oscar smell about him. He has a captivating take on the nutty, sex-obsessed professor. Laura Linney plays Kinsey’s free-thinking wife with just the right amount of enthusiasm and fragility. Together they pull off one of the most uncomfortable sex scenes ever filmed as they portray two virgins fumbling on their wedding night with embarrassing realism. I was squirming in my seat. Neeson is well supported by Chris O’Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard and Timothy Hutton as his research assistants. They quickly become cult followers of their awe-inspiring boss, shaking off Victorian sexual constraints and exploring everything from same-sex relationships to wife-swapping — all, of course, in the name of science. Such forward thinking wasn’t exactly welcomed in the ‘40s and by the time his book on women arrived in 1953, the sexual revolution was getting underway and Kinsey being blamed for the whole kinky mess.John Lithgow is impressive as Kinsey’s conservative father and Lynn Redgrave shows why she’s an Oscar nominee with her show-stealing and thought-provoking cameo as one of Kinsey’s patients.Writer/Director Bill Condon has created another champion script to follow up on his mesmerizing screenplay for Gods & Monsters, a gentle handling of the story of James Whale (most famous for
directing “Frankenstein”), which won him an Academy Award.
Posted by InvestigateDesign at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
BOOKS: Feb 05
A FONT OF KNOWLEDGE?
PENGUIN ENCYCLOPEDIA
Edited by David Crystal, Penguin, $75
What can you say about an encyclopaedia that gives 12 lines to Alexander the Great and 16 lines to the Beach Boys? Clearly, the pop present is being privileged over the classical past. However, this 1698-page tome is often factually inaccurate when dealing with the present (20th century). Under Mexican Art, David Alfaro Siqueiros has his last name omitted so he becomes David Alfaro; Booker Prize winner Keri Hulme is credited with the 1992 publication of Bait, a novel that she has yet to publish; Postmodernism only deals with architecture, ignoring the fact it is de rigeur in literature and art. Spelling mistakes include the Mexican president’s first name printed as Vincente instead of Vicente and painter Jose Clemente Orozco’s second name spelt as Clementi.
The omissions are a wonder indeed. Mick Jagger is in, Keith Richard is out; Al Capone is in, Lucky Luciano is absent; Keri Hulme is in, Janet Frame is not; Stalingrad is in, Kursk (world’s greatest tank battle) is missing; Michael Jackson is in, Peter Jackson is not; Everest-conqueror Edmund Hillary is necessarily in but Reinhold Messner, the world’s greatest mountaineer is not; Saddam Hussein is in and Osama bin Laden, as always, is invisible. Structuralism is in but astonishingly poststructuralism is not (though it is sneakily mentioned under Deconstruction with which it is mistakenly identified). I was surprised to find Timothy Leary, Peggy Guggenheim, Bryce Courtenay, Pierre Bourdieu (renowned anthropologist) Takla Makan desert and Google absent (though Desktop Publishing is in).
Another anomaly - perhaps common in other encyclopaedias - is contradictory entries. The Aborigines entry has them arriving in Australia 60,000 years ago while the Australian history section has a figure of 40,000. (Some have advanced the figure to 100,000 BC — shouldn’t all three estimates have been discussed?) The entry on Australian literature make no mention of Judith Wright, yet she merits a separate entry under her own name. This inconsistency of analysis is possibly explicable by two different people doing the two entries. But shouldn’t there be a match up? Similarly, William Burroughs is not mentioned under Beat Generation but under his own entry is declared to be a “spokesman of the Beat movement”. Also, stingily, there is no colour in any of the maps and no portraits (though that does allow more text).
Now for some appreciation. There are compendious lists of phobias, popes, highest mountains, deserts and, best of all, Crusades which includes sub headings under Background, Leaders and Outcomes — though
regretfully no Nobel Prize listings. Listings of musicians, artists and scientists are generally good. The quality of the paper and binding is excellent. Some may be wondering - in this Internet age do we still need encyclopaedias? I, for one, would not like to see them become obsolete because they present the opportunity par excellence for browsing by association and the alphabet. Also an encyclopaedia offers greater authority than the crackpot and often wildly inaccurate entries frequently found on the Internet. It cannot be repeated too often that an encyclopaedia, being a book, can never have power failure, a virus, intrusive advertisements or the irritatingly busy format deployed by many website homepages. However, the Penguin Encyclopedia needs a clean up on accuracy, improved expansion and consistency of inclusion and could do with some colour in its bland white pages. Hey, it’s still an encyclopaedia, my favourite kind of book for browsing new arcana and esoterica.
THE LIFE OF GRAHAM GREENE Volume Three: 1955-1991
By Norman Sherry, Jonathan Cape, $79.95
At 906 pages, this is the largest of the three volumes of an ongoing Greene biography that now totals 2251 pages — possibly the largest biography in history. It is a labour beyond love — 27 years in the making — and, to be honest, it is somewhat of a labour to read it.
Sherry’s ultraviolet style contrasts uneasily with Greene’s always clipped, spare prose. In contrast to the trouble-seeking journalist— novelist Greene, Sherry is an academic obsessive — he had already written five books on Conrad — and he surmises it was his dedication to Conrad (a kind of early Graham Greene) that may have helped in his selection as his biographer. Plus his hands-on willingness to go to exotic countries as part of his research. Following the wide-ranging peripatetic trail of Greene and his work has meant Sherry has been to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, Kenya, Panama, Mexico, Barbados, France, Switzerland, Argentina, Paraguay, Ireland and Spain - bravo! (And shouldn’t Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba be added?)
This biography is of the Boswellian type — no detail omitted. No pithy one liners when a paragraph will do the job - Sherry uses large half page (or more) quotes. When he deals with some of Greene’s major novels, such as A Burnt Out Case, he gives us three chapters whereas one would have sufficed. The overall effect is one of sauntering excess and under-editing. While it is arguably in order to refer to Greene as a maverick, loner, provocateur, rebel and anarchist, the description of Green as politically immature, unripe, callow and jejune looks like three adjectives too many.
Sherry works assiduously, and a trifle over-gleefully, in identifying originals for Greene’s characters, marking him as a biographer of the old school and not a text only postmodernist. His actual literary approach to Greene - influence of cinematic techniques or Hemingway (say) — in the light of contemporary trends of biography, is surprisingly limited.
Having detailed — elaborately as always — Greene’s stubborn inability to quite believe in hell, heaven, angels, heaven or Satan (though he does think of God as Christ), Sherry concludes in somewhat exasperated tones, it’s difficult to buttonhole Greene as either Roman Catholic or Christian - yet there is Green’s oxymoronic statement that he is was a “Catholic agnostic”(or worse still “Catholic atheist”) plus the agonised arguing that occurs so powerfully in Greene’s novels about the nature of evil, God, sin etc. For this reviewer (and I suspect for many more than fully admit it), this agonised I-want-to-believe-but-can’t-quite-believe strikes a resonant chord. Certainly, it is clear—and I am at one with Sherry on this — that Greene is pro-victim which can render his ideological stances fluid, rather than consistent.
Two of the most interesting matters dealt with are Greene’s clash with corruption in Nice - his tough dedicated fight on behalf of his daughter-in-law against a local thug and a corrupt mayor which alas, ended in legal failure - and his failure to win the Nobel prize. I am convinced by Sherry’s account that it was a dedicated Greene-opponent on the controversial committee, one Arthur Lundkvist, who vowed never to vote for Greene because his play The Living Room, was Catholic “propaganda of the most vulgar type”. Even if this were so, the large amount of brilliant work that flowed from Greene’s busy pen plus general world literary opinion should have prompted the committee to press for Greene’s strongly merited award. Unsurprisingly, the English literary establishment considered Greene the most deserving of the writers who had never won the world’s most prestigious literary prize.
While it frequently gives off the sanctimonious odour of hagiography, Sherry does reproach Greene from time to time — e.g. for being a supporter of Castro after executions became commonplace. Despite its stylistic infelicities, tortured metaphors, lapses into banality, embarrassing asides to the reader, excessive detail, over extended treatment, and its occasional presumption to read Greene’s mind too dogmatically, this biography is a must read for any Greene fan.
TOLKIEN’S GOWN & Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books
By Rick Gekoski, Constable, $34.95
In general, I have regarded book collectors and first edition freaks as fetishists who are more interested in the wrapping than the present, brassieres instead of breasts. Having enjoyed Mr Gekoski’s lucid prose and accumulation of delightful anecdotes, my previous value judgment has been white-anted somewhat. Despite his eye for the deal, the multi-talented Gekoski also has an ear for the interesting human story, hence this witty and attractively presented book (which I am hoping will one day prove a valuable first edition).
The book kicks off with a chapter on the controversial Lolita, Nabokov’s sordid tale of a middle-aged lecher’s seduction of a barely pubescent girl. Shocking as this relationship might be, Nabokov’s exquisite prose turns it into a tragic love story. In his cheerfully lucid style, Gekoski relates how after he sold a first edition of Lolita for $4900, he received a letter from Graham Greene asking how much he (Greene) could get for a copy inscribed to him by the Russian author.
Apparently, this in an example of what rare book dealers call an “association copy”, one presented by the author to someone of importance. As Greene eminently qualified, Gekoski insisted on paying him $7200 (Greene wanted less!), and sold it for a profit (mysteriously, or tactfully, not revealed). When Gekoski last heard, the on sold book fetched $264,000 which left him “sick with seller’s remorse”. Since reading this revealing anecdote, I have been urging my friends at launches of my books to hurry up and become “persons of importance” so I can buy the book back off them and resell it for a whacking profit. So far, the scheme has yet to take off. And is unlikely to, for almost none of my books have that piece de la resistance, a dustwrapper, which rockets the price for any rare book into the ionosphere.
If over a quarter of million dollars sounds like big money, it has been topped by Gekoski’s estimate for a first edition Lord of the Flies - $450,000. A first edition inscribed Ulysses actually sold for $460,000 - the highest price thus far. Touchingly, Gekoksi admits that Ulysses is a tough read, even though he considers it the greatest book of the twentieth century. This promisingly profitable spiral was recently put in the shade when the original manuscript of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road sold for $2,430,000 which makes me wish cryonic preservation really works and poor old Jack could return and feast off the posthumous profit.
Packed with colourful stories of famous writers, this book is surely one of the more notable of the 110,000 books published in England last year, most of which, Gekoski reminds us, will soon be forgotten. I am hoping the first edition of his book will soar in value — when Gekoski soon visits the Antipodes I must ask him to inscribe it.
THE FACTS BEHIND THE HELSINKI ROCCAMATIOS
By Yann Martel, Canongate, $29.95
The Life of Pi was such a delightful book I vowed I’d read anything else that came from the pen of Yann Martel. As is often the case, the massive success of one book prompts an issue (or reissue) of earlier titles. Helsinki consists of two novellas and two short stories published earlier in the author’s career.
The title short novel is by far the most significant work of the quartet. Of the remaining stories, the formally experimental “Manners of Dying” which presents postmortem letters about an execution as variations on a theme of what the condemned man ate and the manner of his death, is the most interesting. The star of the collection is without question the Helsinki novella.
A well-known literary phenomenon is that a grand (as it were) disease eventually prompts the creation of some grand literary masterpieces. Among these are - The Magic Mountain (tuberculosis), Doctor Faustus (syphilis), A Burnt Out Case (leprosy), Awakenings (sleepy sickness). When AIDS played its dread hand in the early 80s, I was (almost) morbidly waiting for the appropriate literary work to do it justice. Several plays and films have so far appeared but none as powerful or skilful as this novella. It could not be validly claimed that this work is a grand masterpiece but it is a minor one, relentless in its grim clinical detail.
However, Helsinki offers more than just pathological footnotes.
Inspired by the story-telling in the face of the Black Plague in Boccaccio, a nameless narrator puts the proposition to his blood transfusion-infected friend Paul that they should mutually invent stories to, as it were, defeat the doom of the encroaching disease. One event chosen from each year the century thus far — 86 stories in all — would form the narrative backdrop. The stories would centre around a Canadian family in a city neither of the two story tellers had ever been to Helsinki. The combination of factual base combined with an imaginative family in an “imagined” though real city, would form a satisfyingly solid tapestry. It may sound a bit contrived but it makes a compelling counterpoint to the deepening and irreversible manifestations of the disease.
It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find anyone who has not heard of AIDS. Yann Martel’s short powerful novella tells us of the brutal destruction wrought by the disease and of how two friends responded to it with “narrative therapy”.. If art does not work a physical miracle, it can provide the next best thing - a compensatory defeat by the imagination.
HELL OR HIGH WATER: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River
By Peter Heller, Allen & Unwin, $35
Until the arrival of maturity and arthritis, I used to nourish the fantasy, however remote, that I might one day go kayaking, preferably on some previously unkayaked river. This would prove to myself (and to others) that I had at last acquired the warrior manhood that my prior dismal performances at football, fighting, and free climbing had failed to evidence; that I might at last be redeemed by one all out fluke performance on raging white water. A fantasy I can no longer sustain. Instead, I can now recline on my sofa, sip the “white water “off my beer” and read about how real men do it. Among these intrepid dudes are two New Zealanders - Mike Abbott, said to be the best paddler in the world, and Dave Allardice. When Abbott won a big cash prize he shared it with his broke mates.
Like so many exponents of extreme sports, participants peak early 25-30 (say). It’s not an activity for one’s middle years (though there are exceptions). Just to reach the Tsangpo river is a feat in itself. It’s buried at the bottom of a 15,000 foot gorge at the eastern end of the Himalayas and has defeated earlier explorers for more than a century. Heller vividly revisits Victorian times when fearless Indians (who came to be called Pundits) crossed the border into forbidden Tibet as pilgrims and proceeded to map the terrain for the British by walking 2000 measured steps per mile, using modified prayer beads as pedometers, carrying prismatic compasses inside their prayer wheels and thermometers in hollow walking sticks in order to obtain hypsometric altitude readings. James Bond’s 007 antics were just a feeble continuation of this daring nineteenth century espionage ingenuity. These early measurements ascertained just where Lhasa was situated and established that the Tsangpo met the Brahmaputra.
Heller, who is a kayaker himself, describes the phenomenon of white water with a specialist vocabulary - “wave trains”, “mean comber”, “boulder garden”, “center of the tongue”. The prose, like the river, is wild but also like the paddlers, controlled. Almost beyond imagining, is an exhilarating though arguably insane activity called squirt boating where the kayak becomes submerged and then pops out - squirts back into the air. Another exhibitionist variety is freestyle or rodeo kayaking where the kayak “catapults forward in a series of fast end-over-end cartwheels” — I think I’ll take another sip of my beer, thank you. Though some consider freestylers made the best river runners, Scott Lindgren, one of the best paddlers in the world, asserted that the opposite was the case. His view was that “riding holes” would be worthless on the mighty Tsangpo.
The first Victorian explorers hoped to find a cataract as mighty as the Victorian falls but it turned out to be a “mere “ 150 feet high - now shrunk to 112 feet. For kayakers, the glory of the Tsangpo river is its wild white water, gloriously rendered in the controlled tumult of Heller’s expert prose.
Beside the wonder of the world’s most terrifying foam piles, wave trains and rolling haystacks, there is also the ferocious and lyric beauty of the landscape, rebellious porters who want more money and the ominous possibility of being eaten by a Bengal tiger. An intoxicating broth of a book.
Posted by InvestigateDesign at 04:49 PM | Comments (0)
TRAVEL: Feb 05
TO THE EDGE OF THE EARTH
Phil Marty charts America’s less-travelled canyons
Escalante, Utah — We were relaxing in the shade at a table outside the Trailhead Cafe and Grill here while smoke from burgers drifted away from the gas grill into a brilliant blue sky. On the road into Escalante, brilliant blue met reddish orange, compliments of otherworldly red-rock formations.
As if on cue, the radio, set to an oldies station somewhere bigger than Escalante (pop. 900), began to pour out Billy Joe Royal’s lament, Down in the Boondocks.
It’s not hard to consider this southern third (or maybe the whole state) of Utah to be the boondocks. After all, there aren’t many people (only 2.3 million for the whole state - a half million less than Chicago alone). Consequently, there aren’t a lot of fine-dining options.
Or high-brow cultural events.
So, yeah, this probably is the boondocks. But, man, what beautiful boondocks they are.
It was the national parks and their close proximity - five of them, each less than 250 kilometres from the next - that lured my wife, Bonnie, and me here last September. The parks - Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon and Zion - share some of the same geology. In this area “you’re getting 600 million years of Earth history with very few pages missing,” says Kevin Poe, a park ranger/naturalist at Bryce.
Most of these parks have the same buff-colored Navajo sandstone and salmon-colored Entrada sandstone. But each has its own idiosyncratic delights: Arches’ namesake weathered rock arches. Canyonlands’ aptly named Island in the Sky. Capitol Reef’s 100-mile-long rocky wrinkle called Waterpocket Fold. Bryce’s fantastically shaped and wildly colored hoodoos. Zion’s massive and (hate to be repetitive, but...) aptly named Checkerboard Mesa. Now that should be enough for any lover of sensational scenery. But there’s more. How about Kodachrome Basin State Park? It got its name from the color film, and for good reason. And guess where Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park got its name?
Impossible to ignore is Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which, with 1.7 million acres of cliffs, mesas, buttes and canyons, is big enough to swallow the state of Rhode Island and still have a little room left.
Truth be told, after you look at a road atlas and see how many routes here are designated as scenic byways, you begin to wonder why all of southern Utah isn’t one big national park.
And, oh, if that isn’t enough of an enticement, it’s not much of a jog over the border into Arizona to sample the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, then meander back toward Utah through Monument Valley, whose towering buttes and mesas have been the background for many Western movies.
In short, this is one doozy of a road trip that packs a lot into only about 2,100 kilometres.
Fly to Las Vegas and rent a car or SUV. From there, it’s only about 260 km to Zion National Park and the beginning of a circle drive that will leave your jaw dropping. And because it’s a circle drive, you can, after hauling out your road atlas, route it however you like.
This is simplified, to a certain extent, because Utah, like most of the American West, doesn’t have a profusion of paved roads, owing to those pesky mountains and canyons and deserts that we want to see but that can make road-building daunting.
That mammoth Grand Staircase-Escalante, for example, has only two paved roads that skirt just a teeny bit of its edges. So if you want to explore it more in depth, you need to choose from what a brochure describes as “five secondary roads of varying character (that) traverse the monument from north to south.”
What makes the character of those roads vary? Well, the weather for one. All of these roads are dirt and/or gravel. And that means that if they’re wet, you don’t want to be on them - certainly not in a car, but probably not even in a four-wheel-drive SUV, like we were driving. Keep an eye on the weather forecast. One morning after leaving Bryce Canyon, we stopped at the Bureau of Land Management’s new visitor center in Cannonville to inquire about the state of the Cottonwood Canyon Road. It cuts 80 km through the west central part of Grand Staircase from Cannonville to U.S. Highway 89 on the monument’s southern edge, near the Arizona border. July and August are the most likely months for thunderstorms here, but it’s always best to check road conditions with the people in the know. They’re the ones, after all, who put out that aforementioned brochure that also refers to this as “a fierce and dangerous land.”
The beginning and ending sections of Cottonwood Canyon Road might make you glad you’re driving a rental vehicle. Their washboard surface will rattle your fillings whether you drive 10 km/h or 30.
Just before we got on that section of road, though, we made a stop at Kodachrome Basin State Park, which got its name in 1949 when photographers from National Geographic were so impressed by the colors that they named it after the new color slide film they were using. The park, at 4,000 acres, isn’t all that large, but it impresses with a profusion of towering reddish sandstone chimneys that change hue depending on the vagaries of the lighting. A one kilometre nature trail, one of eight in the park, does a good job of explaining the geology of the area and its flora and fauna.
Heading south, we got our fillings rattled before making a turnoff to the towering double arch known as Grosvenor Arch, for the president of the National Geographic Society at the time of that 1949 trip.
Cottonwood Canyon Road smooths out in the middle section and at a couple of locations there are minor fords across streams, but nothing a car couldn’t handle. After one of those fords, at Round Valley Draw, we topped a hill and found a large flock of roadrunners doing what they do best — running across the road.
At other places, dirt tracks meandered off to the left or right for intrepid four-wheelers.
I wish I could say the two-hour drive across Cottonwood Canyon Road was worth it, but the last 10 kms or so seemed to go on forever. I wouldn’t do it again. At least not the whole road. But certainly Kodachrome Basin and Grosvenor Arch are worth the effort.
A few days before, we had some white-knuckle views of another area of Grand Staircase as we drove Utah Highway 12 (another of those roads the atlas marks with dotted lines to show a scenic route) from Torrey, near Capitol Reef National Park, to Bryce. Just south of Boulder, about midway through the 170k drive, we cut through a small piece of Grand Staircase and found ourselves atop what’s called The Hogback. Here, the two-lane paved (thankfully) road perches on a very, very narrow ridge. So narrow, in fact, that there’s just the road ... and then nothingness on either side for at least a hundred metres down. At least that’s what I was able to see as I kept my eyes glued to the road with only a few quick, furtive glances to the side. Exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.
It’s the out-of-the-blue surprises like The Hogback that punctuate a drive and make you say, “Whoa, did you see that?” A few others:
The landscape along Utah Highway 24 south of Interstate Highway 70, through the San Rafael Desert, is one of bluffs and mesas, sand and cactus. Then ... bang ... a sea of green, leafy trees crowds into a large area along a dry creekbed, roots reaching deep to tap into the moisture that feeds this unexpected oasis. Then as quickly as they appeared, they’re gone.
A bit farther on, the relative flatness of the scenery is suddenly interrupted by out-of-this-world red-rock formations that reach probably 30m into the air. There are no other geological oddities here. Just these spires that look like they were discarded by some massive toddler at play in this sandbox.
Along Arizona 12, south of Escalante, mile after mile of otherwise tan-colored landscape glows like gold from the yellow flowers of hundreds of rabbitbrush that blanket the ground.At Capitol Reef, as the sun dips toward the horizon, its rays bounce off orange-red cliffs and paint the waters of a gently flowing stream a lovely copper color.
At the Mossy Cave turnout in Bryce, we make the very pleasant acquaintance of Terry and Pat Norman of Surrey, England. Terry (him) and Pat (her) like the U.S. - a bunch. How much? Well, for the past nine years they’ve been coming here twice a year, two months at a time, to wander in the RV they bought and store in Orlando when they’re back in England. This trip they’d planned to tour the East Coast, but worries about hurricanes canceled that, and they ended up in southern Utah after taking the advice of a woman they met in Indiana. “I guess you have to like a place a lot to keep coming back year after year,” Terry said of our country.
And that could be said of these boondocks called southern Utah. Even a trip of nearly two weeks leaves a yearning: Just one more trail to hike...Just one more glowing sunset ...
Just one more ...
(c) 2004, Chicago Tribune
Posted by InvestigateDesign at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)
Money, Feb 05
DEBT IS A FOUR LETTER WORD
Had your email inbox fill up with Nigerian scams lately?
Well, now there’s a new scam doing the rounds called ‘watch this stock’…
Jim rang his financial adviser to place an order for some shares. He had just received an amazing tip. He had run into his old friend Neville down at the club and found out that he had been making a lot of money on the stock market. This came as a surprise to Jim as he had known Neville for many years and had come to learn that Neville could not be described as the sharpest knife in the drawer. He was one of nature’s plodders, a real battler who never seemed to attract good luck. Well, it seemed that good fortune recently took a liking
to Neville.
It started about seven months ago. He received a personalised letter marked private and confidential. The letter introduced a fail safe system of selecting individual shares that were due to increase in value. It did not ask for money, only privacy. The letter was unsigned and Neville had no idea who sent it. It suggested that Neville watch the share price of ABC Ltd as it was about to go up. On the first of the following month a similar letter arrived, again unsigned, suggesting that the share price of DEF Ltd was about to decrease in value. Now Neville was not a fan of the share market, however he did note the prices of the shares highlighted and sure enough ABC Ltd went up in price and DEF Ltd went down. At the start of the next month he received another letter suggesting that GHI Ltd was due to increase in value. Well this had gone on for eight months and each time the information was correct. The anonymous share tipster had grabbed Neville’s attention and by the end of the fourth month Neville had opened an account at the local broker.
Neville’s problem was that he could never keep a secret and was happy to share his good fortune with anybody prepared to listen. Jim thought that it would be a crime not act on such a sure fire tip and promptly phoned his investment adviser to place an order. He also shared his enthusiasm and source of the information. If someone could get eight tips in a row correct, surely they must have some insider knowledge or superior skill. Jim was tempted to find out more about this mysterious tipster and was seriously thinking about changing permanently to this new adviser.
Jim thought that it was too good to be true and listened patiently while his adviser explained the scam. The scammer would source large mailing lists of like-minded individuals, preferably greater than 20,000 which was typically an industry trade list. The first letter is simply one of introduction, in the second he splits the list in half.
He tells one half that ABC Ltd’s share price is going to go up, the other that it is going to go down. The next month he would only write to the half which received the correct information. He would select a different share and advise half of the (reduced) data base that the share would increase in price, the other half that it would decrease.
Typically by the eighth letter he offers to sell them a share trading system for a grossly inflated price and then leaves the area before they discover that it is a scam. Neville’s only luck was in being part of the surviving group. A cynical person would suggest that Neville’s bad luck streak was continuing as he was likely to pay the $35,000 asking price for the useless software and become the victim yet again.
Jim’s adviser always says that punters should always be wary of schemes that appear too good to be true and be especially alert if secrecy is actively encouraged. He went on to explain to Jim that although scams were important, he should be aware that larger issues were requiring attention. He suggested that personal debt levels for New Zealanders could be the next warning sign that investors need to take heed of.
A study undertaken by the Ministry of Social Development in 2004 titled “When Debt Becomes a Problem” suggests that one in six New Zealand households have negative net worth. It goes on to suggest that 17% of the population believed they could not obtain $1,500 in an emergency (51% for those on income-tested benefits) and 36% could not obtain $5,000 (76% for beneficiaries). This includes sourcing it from credit cards and extended family. The study indicates that the above figures are about average for the rest of the western world.
If one in six households are experiencing trouble meeting their debt obligations, then punters have to question if the recent increase in house prices is sustainable. The average income for most New Zealanders is still between $40 and $50 thousand per year. Where the average debt level for an Aucklander is in excess of $73,000. In the USA the figures are similar. In Denver, Colorado mortgage foreclosures are up 30% on the previous year. Experts indicate that risky loan strategies such as no-money-down loans and a year of low housing appreciation contributed to the rise.
Parents have an obligation to teach their children that the first step to financial security and independence is to spend less than they earn. It is common for the financially unskilled to cross this line during the festive season at Christmas. Recent reports from the USA show that January is peak season for those registering with financial counsellors. Courses supported by churches have attracted unprecedented demand.
Those in debt have turned to religion for support. In New Zealand, Citizens Advice Bureau is filling that gap. They cover a wide range of legal, personal, housing and vehicle topics, however they are more commonly known for their budgeting skills.
When it came to selecting share market winners, Jim wanted to believe that some one else had an inside edge and was disappointed to hear that Neville’s secret adviser was just another scam artist. For Jim and his faithful companion Moira, the figures about those in financial hardship came as a surprise. They had learnt sound financial practices from their parents and were excellent students. They did everything within their power to pass these skills onto their children. They were unaware that almost 20% of the population were close to, or suffering, financial hardship. People should be in a position of telling their money where to go, rather than spend time wondering where it got to.
Posted by InvestigateDesign at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)
Feb 05
MY OLD LAND’S A DUSTBIN
Residents accuse their council of dirt tricks
Four years ago New Plymouth District Council, in a joint venture with private enterprise, closed their six year old, pollution-causing transfer station at the city’s landfill and built a new one, just down the road. Residents nearby called it a cover up, to spread the dump operation either side of them, without consultation. This is the story of the Colson Road Landfill, as NEILL HUNTER reports.
Stories abound about landfills yet here is more to this one than just another ‘dump story’, it is about power-players, manoeuvrings, fairness, and pollution. New Plymouth has had more than its fair share of controversy lately with health scares over dioxin, controversy at nearby Waitara, and recently: a dodgy power company deal. Yet ask anyone living in the region and they will extol the virtues. At New Plymouth journalism school experts lectured students about the area’s uniqueness: the cleanest air in the southern hemisphere, exceptional natural water reservoirs, snow and surf less than an hour apart.
On a nearby snow-caked mountain the multitude of rivers, streams and creeks spread like a never ending cobweb of crystal clear veins, beyond the ring plain. The quality of these waterways, near a landfill on Colson Rd, is Taranaki Regional Council’s (TRC) responsibility. Rate payers next to the landfill, are New Plymouth District Council’s (NPDC) responsibility, which is how this story begins and ends, with neighbours, and water.
Research for the story began in 2001 and ranged from Whangarei to Christchurch. It confirmed that New Plymouth wasn’t alone in ‘bad tip’ history. Councils break rules. A recent investigation for example by Waikato Times journalist Simon O’Rourke exposed multiple compliance breaches by councils in his region.
Originally designated a refuse site in 1974, New Plymouth’s landfill is situated in 8.5 hectares of rural valley, near the suburbs of Fitzroy and Glen Avon, nestled amongst farmland and streams about 4km from the city centre. Access is via the quiet rural lane of Colson Rd, barely one kilometre long and bearing no hint of controversy. Zoned both industrial and rural, Colson Rd has some nine immediate dump neighbours. Among the inhabitants are a small ostrich farm, plant nursery and domestic residences. The notion that there is a landfill here could escape the visitor, were it not for the odd sign. Certainly that was the impression this journalist formed on a first visit, wondering, was this the wrong road to the dump? At the end, before the trees which hide the dump from view, the RSPCA have their sanctuary for the lost, injured and abused. In 2001 the neighbours counted themselves as abused, after a new transfer station got added to their quiet rural sanctuary but, unlike the animals, they could only run to the people both charged with their care, and at the centre of the abuse. And in 2004, abuse of Taranaki’s clean water, got a little bit worse.
But first, a little history. Cut to 1996 and an Environment Court Judge told New Plymouth District Council to be more realistic towards its neighbours and on page eight of the judge’s decision, said “get approval first”. Neighbourly relations, approval, such small things.
The tenacious battler who once led the fight to improve things for the neighbours is small in stature – Kathy Lovell describes herself as ‘five foot nothing,’ then hands over a box. “Here, you can have my whole file. I won’t be needing it.” The teacher was relinquishing everything she had fought for, over a landfill. While ostriches walked nonchalantly about her farm, a warm wintry sun shone on a rustic, timber home built by Kathy and her partner, from timber they milled themselves in this quiet place. No hint of the rumblings of machinery in a landfill next door, or of discontent.
Kathy Lovell is an athlete. The 47 year old winner of countless marathons, national kayaking events, to name a few, when first interviewed was about to leave for Malaysia’s ‘new airport city’ to teach Asians English and sport.
And so began a long investigation, of laborious hours examining documents from a cardboard box, searching mounds of files in council offices, attempts to get more by Official Information Act, and countless interviews, all for the sake of a small story, about the small things, at Colson Rd.
In 1999, the Environment Court moved to protect things small around New Plymouth’s landfill, especially the neighbours, the “sacrificial lambs”. Operations at Colson Rd Landfill, as it is officially titled, should be strictly controlled,the court said. “We accept the landfill is now under the control of the council (previously under control of a contractor) but we are still extremely concerned that after the 1987 hearing the council still appears prepared to operate the tip with financial expenditure considerations to the forefront and the environmental concerns of the neighbours subservient to the economic pressure of ratepayers. We make it clear that if the council wishes to operate a landfill in proximity to neighbours then those neighbours are not to become the sacrificial lamb to the ratepayer population in general.”Records showed the old tip was plagued with problems: “Colson landfill has had a chequered history….operation has from time to time infringed conditions of consent…concern with recent operations of the landfill caused by inexperienced landfill contractors…we record without any hesitation that the City Council cannot expect neighbours to suffer the effects of a learning curve if that results in environmental degradation….affected by slack landfill management…”
To be fair, the council did dispense with a contractor at the tip who was being blamed for problems. But, that did not satisfy the court with its aforementioned warning about putting “financial expenditure considerations to the forefront and the environmental concerns of neighbours subservient to the economic pressure of ratepayers…”
“We are perfectly satisfied from the evidence,” continued the court, “…the number of incidents were greatly in excess of those recorded. …The question of poor historical management and construction practices certainly have put the tribunal on alert …We accept that the council have not been able to control flying rubbish, gases, or dust…
One aspect which appears difficult to control is the question of odour, particularly in the evenings where there may be temperature inversions…”
In March 1999 a frustrated Environment Court stated in key words: “the airing of concerns of the neighbours to the Colson Rd landfill and to ensure that the landfill’s neighbours are kept abreast of the development of the landfill site…” In other words, liaise with your neighbours. Subsequently NPDC took the initiative and established the Landfill Liaison Committee. It was more than a name. It formed an integral part of a much greater process, including a management plan. In 1999 an application by the council to change the landfill operation included conditions relating to community liaison. The committee was required to meet at least every two months.
The management plan emphasised a co-operative approach. Other documents examined on council files also referred to the plan. One said: the ‘Plan forms the bottom line.’ But like the bottom of an old transfer station, best laid plans leak, and the victims here were the little stream called the Puremu, beside the landfill, and the neighbours. But, like the Puremu’s once pristine waters, the council’s track record of keeping its neighbours informed became a little muddy. During an important period when liaison should have worked, the liaison group minutes were not distributed. This at a time of apparent behind the scenes activity over the then secret, proposed new transfer station site. The council blamed the neighbours’ representatives on the committee, who may or may not have heard what council staff were saying, and did not ask the right questions. That was one perspective. To those most affected by the station’s location, not sending out the minutes was like rubbing leachate into the wound. Things became septic. The council apologised and said it was due to staff shortages, the minutes were only sent to those who wanted them. That was contrary to rules. All the neighbours were supposed to receive the minutes.
Then, when no meetings at all were held, or called, like snow on a spring Mt Taranaki, the council’s defence began to melt. During another critical part of the process, there was a huge gap of six months between the normal two-monthly meetings.
Enter the woman unafraid of challenges, or their size, who began to fight. Kathy Lovell fired her first salvo at the frequency of the meetings: “They seem to stretch it out four or five months apart.” She alleged that this was to lay a smoke screen over the issue of the transfer station location. Then in a meeting in February 2001 it “was absolutely glossed over.” She says that by the time the mayor was about to sign the contract for the station it was a done deal and none of the residents knew about it. Colson Road was never discussed or considered as a location. On the last day of February 2001, Lovell wrote to the mayor complaining that the location of the proposed transfer station was never mentioned except as being on the landfill itself. There was no reply. Lovell conceded there was also talk of another site but that was completely remote, at another, remote, industrial zone.
The liaison group’s role was clear. In July 1999 NPDC had circulated the group’s main functions: “Disseminate information concerning the operations and the proposed development of the landfill, to hear concerns of residents and to discuss ways of alleviating those concerns…The subjects discussed by the committee will be those matters that are of interest to local people and interested parties.” Those were good intentions, but when it came to its first real test, the good intentions decomposed under the heat of big business interests and ‘commercial sensitivity,’ over a new transfer station site.
It is one thing keeping your neighbours informed, it is another not to do it on the grounds of “commercial sensitivity”, a one-phrase-fits-all. That was the reason, the council said, they could not tell their neighbours they were going to move a transfer station from inside the landfill, to the other side of the neighbours. Most believed that a new station was going to be built on another part of the landfill. They had good reason. A search of NPDC records showed a consultants plan for a new station well inside the landfill. So when NPDC finalised a deal for a new station beside the neighbours without consulting them, there was pandemonium. Public meetings and protests ensured, with ugly scenes of abuse against council staff. Local media went front page with a lead story and pictures of angry neighbours. But no investigation and when this journalist began enquiring, veiled intimidation followed from council staff, such as: ‘I suggest you get legal opinion before you make any allegations in that area and I’d get a specialist planning lawyer as well…neighbours are complaining about your enquiries…” and this pearl: “he’s a sh** stirrer.”
The council tried to pacify with “commercial sensitivity,” and the successful tenderer’s “need for confidentiality.” The tenderers had selected the site, said the council and if other tenderers had got wind of the strategically important location, next to rail yards and a possible future rubbish transporter (rail), their position could have been compromised.
Tranz Rail owned the land where the site was located.
Lovell: ‘A while back there was talk about railroading the waste to Hamilton. They are in a pretty good position to do that.’ She accused the council of conveniently using ‘commercial sensitivity’. The council said it wasn’t up to them to specify where the station should be built. It was entirely over to the tenderers. Theoretically it could be built anywhere in New Plymouth, the choice was up to the tenderers.
Let’s examine that: For years the old landfill operated without any transfer station. People simply turned up and dumped their rubbish at the tip face. Neil Fagan, New Plymouth District Council’s management services engineer puts it succinctly: “Previously it was dig a hole and put stuff into it and make sure someone shoots the rats.”
Then the council built their first transfer station at the landfill, just inside the gate. As transfer stations went, it was ugly. In fact to those accustomed to places where you pull up and off load into bins, gleefully smash bottles into appropriate receptacles amid self doubts of green or brown glass, throw cardboard onto overfilled containers then move on to other Saturday ventures, it was disappointing. In 2000 this journalist proudly took his first load of rubbish to the New Plymouth dump and had a transfer station experience. Long before any controversy, I broke the dump rules by merrily driving straight past the so called transfer station, followed a dirty dusty road up and over a hill and dumped my refuse at a tip face. Upon returning I noticed a place for recyclables, stopped and off loaded empties. A dump guy approached and said, ‘first time here?’ ‘Yep,’ I replied. Then he politely and patiently explained the rules. I stared blankly, between him, a hole in the ground, and a jumble yard, he called a transfer station.
I watched those who didn’t need polite instruction, deposit their rubbish into the trench in the ground and throw their empties into an assortment of messy cages, bins, and old containers. I was expertly told that at the end of the day, the refuse in the hole would be scooped out and taken to the tip face. All this, for a city’s refuse.
The point however, was not the quality of the six year old transfer station, but the fact that it formed an integral part of the dump operation, as ordered by the environment court, and that it was within the dump boundary. The council’s own plans, as well as Resource Management Act (RMA) application documentation showed the location: inside the landfill. The council defence to this apparent sleight of hand: The documents were like any other permit, anybody applying to build something was not compelled to proceed. If the council decided to build it on railways land, near the neighbours, where no permit was required, that was council’s choice. The suggestion here: the permit issue related not to building standards, but environment issues, including nuisance. Enter Taranaki Regional Council (TRC).
In March 2001 TRC wrote to Kathy Lovell, saying no permit was needed provided there was no dust, noxious or toxic levels of airborne contaminants. Was that the same as saying, ‘you don’t need a permit to build a house unless it might fall over?’ Choice was a privilege the council seemed to enjoy, and the neighbours lacked.
Enter Manawatu Waste. They operated a transfer station in Palmerston North, were experienced players in waste management, and they knew how to tickle the taste buds of the council. As tenderers they selected a proposed site, part of railways land on the other side of the neighbours. When NPDC heard of the idea, they were ecstatic. Neil Fagan said he wished that he had been able to grab the railway site for council’s own purposes. So they did. They bought the site lease.
The deal became one where Manawatu Waste leased the whole operation off the council. The wheels of big business went into top gear, all to the ignorance of the neighbours. Lovell believed the railways deal may have even been signed a lot earlier, “the guy from the railways was overseas,’ she said.
The defence of commercial sensitivity appeared to crumble further when the council entered the arena of literally buying up the whole proposal, lock stock and barrel, leasing the railways land, paying for and owning the station then leasing it all back to private enterprise. Further more it smacked of back room deals at the expense of court imposed neighbourly relations.
Questions also arose over whether or not the council appeared to be calling tenders for the construction of a business (transfer station) then helping the successful tenderer set up that business by becoming the leaseholder. Kathy Lovell claims the council effectively subsidised Manawatu Waste to set up business. Another source, already involved in transfer stations, said the council didn’t pay them to set up their business. “The council paid for it (new transfer station) before it was set up,” The source said of Manawatu Waste’s proposal. “If you want to start a business, is the council going to pay for the land and the buildings and set it all up for you?” NPDC deny any wrong doing. They say they did everything they could to inform the neighbours, once commercial sensitivity was over. A town planner also said New Plymouth District Council did not need permission legally for the transfer station, but chose to include the public anyway. Well, seemed someone forgot to explain the term inclusion, to the neighbours.
Lovell points to the arrogance of the council whom she says tried to claim credit for setting up a public meeting once the location was divulged. “I phoned around all the residents to see if they had heard anything (about the location). I rang up Neil Fagan and he said ‘sounds like I need to do some damage control here, perhaps I should call a meeting.’ ” She says if she hadn’t “called around the residents there would never have been a meeting.”
The council says it was a balancing act between being good neighbours and trying to keep everyone happy. That seemed to ring hollow when one council staffer said: ‘why should the rest of New Plymouth suffer because of a few?’ An environment court had earlier disagreed, referring to the need to prevent the neighbours from becoming scapegoats. “Sacrificial lamb” was another term used. Sacrifice: often a small burnt offering. The ancient Hebrews sometimes did it after a victory. Once, someone small won a battle, a shepherd boy named David. When he felled Goliath with a single stone to the head, the giant stayed down, and out. Then again David had it easy. One fight, done. Kathy Lovell’s giant went down but her battle was far from over, the giant kept getting back up.
She points to the fact the council were heavily criticised by the courts over their handling of previous landfill cases. “They got their hands well and truly smacked over their dealings with us, by the Environment Court the last time. We were not to be made a scapegoat.” She quotes the courts again: “Judge Treadwell says, ‘the question of whether an extension to the destination is contrary to actual assurances given to residents when the landfill was originally established is of concern to this tribunal.’ ”Given this track record of scathing court commentary, small wonder the neighbours cried foul, at the explanation of “commercial sensitivity.”
Allegations of a cover up by council to get their new transfer station with as little fuss as possible seemed to take on substance in the face of a statement from anonymous sources. They saw contract documents early in the process and alleged the contract for the new transfer station was virtually a done deal, before the council were forced to tell its neighbours. “I rang the council and they said no plans had been submitted to anybody, yet that same morning there were plans out for pricing for the transfer station.” They spoke to council staff and asked if any plans had been submitted and were told, “ ‘oh no, no.’ So I said why are their plans at my place of work for pricing?” He said ‘who are they for?’ I said X, and there was silence on the end of the phone. Obviously I had tripped him up.”
They thought it was deception by NPDC “because in the original draft for Colson Rd Landfill the transfer station was going to go up at the landfill. Instead of car traffic we are going to get truck traffic. Just imagine the price of our property, will be worth nothing.” The council denied any intent to deceive.
Time to examine more closely the time line leading to the station’s site selection. The history as far as the liaison group is concerned is this: In June 2000, the contractor for the new station was selected. There was no mention of a site to the liaison group; no further details were given to the group, which begs the question: why was it still commercially sensitive if the contractor had already been
selected? The lease for the new transfer station deal had not been signed. Contractor selected, but no site. In September 2000 the liaison group met and there was mention of difficulties about signing a lease arrangement. The significance of this was lost on the neighbour’s delegates. Three months after selecting the contractor, the location surely was no longer commercially sensitive. Still details were withheld. Why? The people at railways, required to sign the lease, were unavailable. And of course once the lease is signed it is a done deal. The council wanted the site secured before they alerted their neighbours to the location.
At the September 2000 meeting, there was no mention of which lease or where. Nothing to alert the very people that the council is charged to liaise with. Certainly there was nothing to suggest a new transfer station being built ‘next door’ or splitting the dump operation into straddling the neighbours.
NPDC seemed to adopt an inclusion policy only when convenient. For example, April 1999, they wrote to the neighbours: “Dear neighbour, Transfer Station Near Main Gate. …it is possible to vary the resource consent without formal hearings if the written consent given by …” Here they were happy to include the neighbours in an operational matter (for the previous transfer station), but not in 2000.
On 22 February 2001 “commercial sensitivity” ended. The council, at a liaison group meeting, announced that the tenderer for the new transfer station had identified the site, explaining that the tenderer did not want to tell anyone about the location until agreement was reached on the site land. The land, that is, leased by the council.
Were the neighbours lulled into apathy? They seemed to drift into accepting that the dump operation was going to change by virtue of the transfer station possibly being built in another area, outside the landfill, or so some thought. But, it wasn’t until it was ‘next door’ that reality hit. So what? If some had accepted that a new transfer station was going to be built outside the landfill anyway, did it matter where it was going to be built? Therein lies another story about noise, traffic, litter, dust and other nuisances, too much for one story. Perhaps it depended upon definition. Were landfills and transfer stations both dumps? Not so on both counts said NPDC. Dumps once came under Health authorities but now those authorities are only involved in waste if it is collected and disposed. Transfer stations do not need to be licensed under the Health Act because they do not “collect and dispose.” You read correctly. A transfer station is not an offensive trade under the Health Act, because it does not collect and dispose waste. Certainly the station receives waste but that is different from collecting it. Certainly it then transfers it to a landfill, but that is different from disposing of it.
And permits? Well, NPDC are police, judge and jury. The new transfer station was outside the landfill, no permit required. Why? Because it is all a question of town planning zones, two– rural and industrial, and the twain shall meet, at Colson Rd. In planning jargon the place is called: interface. Here, the mystery for the neighbours both deepens, yet sheds light. The new transfer station is in the industrial zone and transfers refuse to the landfill - in the rural zone. Between the two, for a half km, are the neighbours, at the interface. And it is a case of what comes out must not go in. NPDC’s engineer Neil Fagan saw no problem over planning rules. The new station is in the industrial zone, with fewer rules than where it was previously, at the landfill which is rural and falls under the Resource Management Act. For example there was no rule regarding traffic. In rural zone, things like management plans and all manner of rules, including: consultation, abound. A transfer station outside the landfill and beyond the rural zone was not so shackled. Or so it would seem.
When we spoke, Fagan agreed that where something was built on a boundary between two zones, “the rules are slightly changed.” He said that the effect outside the boundary could only be the effect that it was allowed in the zone outside. For example, “the noise in an industrial zone must be reduced by the time it reaches the next zone.”
Ralph Broad, senior planner for NPDC, with 30 years experience, says the issues between the two zones are not simple. But he agrees on one thing, the link between the transfer station and the landfill was like an umbilical cord. And nobody could deny that in its embryo stage, the station would belong to the landfill, owed its birth to the landfill, and the baby could not survive without it, without being breast fed by a mother of a landfill. Unlike the newborn, this baby needed to keep its cord, the only cut would be to an opening ceremony ribbon. To suggest it was not bound to the landfill rules was perhaps suggesting the newborn infant was not linked to its mother, or parental rules. Without the rules, would the other kids on the block (the residents) get hurt?
At the beginning of this story, there was a reference to water and during the investigation, among the vast array of documentation, were found technical reports by TRC. And “technical” they were. Reading them was torture but the pain was nothing compared to the damage done to the small stream, by an old transfer station, called the Puremu,. Many years ago a biologist for the Taranaki Regional Council carrying out a routine examination of the Puremu discovered zinc and ammoniac traces. Mystified he went searching. The source was found: leachate.
Consequently the council essentially were ordered to build a new transfer station on the existing site of the landfill, within 18 months. This was the previous transfer station, completed in 1994. It had to be a full transfer station operation. It wasn’t, it was a pit, dug into the ground, near the landfill gate as described earlier. Only the ground was not what it seemed. The ground was old refuse. And old refuse was where the monster they call leachate lived and every time refuse was dug out of the pit, leachate was disturbed. And leachate has only one way to go: down, into the Puremu again.
TRC hierarchy denied during interviewing that the Puremu was poisoned. A slightly agitated senior TRC engineer emphatically refuted the suggestion. You decide. Here is the exact wording: “…the most notable of which was the continuing contamination of the Puremu Stream by leachate contaminated ground water flow.”
In 1994, an application by the NPDC under the RMA, for changes and discharges at the landfill said the Puremu would not be affected. A 1997-98 report said the stream was fine. A 98-99 report said it wasn’t and in 2000, it was contaminated by leachate.
And near the end of the TRC report “executive summary,” it said: “…source of the contamination is to be removed with the closure of the on site refuse tipping pit” — the old (1994) transfer station. There was no proof that both councils were in collusion. No proof, that the reason for the new transfer station to be built outside the landfill boundary was because, having poisoned the Puremu with the old transfer station, NPDC were breaking the law. Like a child caught raiding the cookie jar, quietly putting the lid back on, they ran out the gate and built a new one, beside the neighbours. Water can be synonymous with peace, which is all one neighbour wanted. Poignant words were found on one of many forms filled in by the neighbours: “The only quiet days of the year,” …they were words written in upper case by a Mr ‘R Philp,’ with a solid writing hand. His words were in reply to NPDC intentions (before the transfer station issue) of extending the landfill operating hours on holidays and weekends. Compared to comments written by other neighbours, Philp wrote in a short, simple style. Others wrote long, with explanations, of facts and reason. But not Russell Philp. His took up one line. Perhaps it was written on one of his only quiet days, taking time to fill in a yet another form. His words somehow resonated. Russell Philp said all he needed to say. Then he died a short time later, casualty of a work accident.
It is no accident that the tip face at Colson Rd keeps growing and expanding. Like lava spewing from a Taranaki mountain in a bygone era, consuming and cutting deeply everything in its path, forging a
new landscape. But like a passing volcanic era where life forms, flora and fauna replacing red rock and hissing sulphur, perhaps the land now enveloped by waste at Colson Rd will become scenic. How much fire, brimstone and the gnashing of teeth will continue, is anyone’s guess.I called at the brand new transfer station back in 2001, just before leaving town. There was much fanfare over its opening. All was shiny and new, new machines, new staff, people taking an interest. There were even staff showing visitors around and explaining how to use a new transfer station. The staff were vibrant, animated and enthusiastic. Someone almost ran up to me, to help unload my rubbish. This was service, with a smile.
I wandered around and was almost embraced again, by someone who seemed to be in charge this time, who led me around and explained things, eagerly.
Then he moved off, to operate one of the new machines, a natty little digger scampering around, the new dumping bay, a long shallow concrete affair. At the end was a huge concrete pit where a truck waited, below ground level. The natty wee digger was racing around again scooping up refuse and shovelling it off the edge of the bay, into the truck below. Men cheerfully smiled at me again and soon they were all off in the truck to take a load to the landfill.
I looked down into the concrete pit, below ground level, from where the truck had emerged. The clean, new concrete surfaces were already filling with remnants of litter, spilling from the bay above, some dropping between the lip and the top of the truck before it departed. And it was also finding its way into a large drain hole, at the bottom of the truck pit. Through the hole I could see the clear running water, of a stream.
Since leaving New Plymouth I have returned a number of times and usually I highlight it with a trip to the now, not so new, transfer station. Things have changed, since those mad heady, public relations filled days. The staff no longer beam happily at the visitor and nobody helps me unload. Things are looking more untidy with each visit, this is a place getting used, a lot. It is after all, a large city refuse transfer station. And it has been operating now, for more than four years.
The truck pit has become a very dirty, grimy, littered affair. The drain hole at the bottom is cluttered now, with rubbish. It’s hard to see the little stream, at the bottom of the pit with its long angulated, concrete ramp running down from the work area above, like a giant sluice, for the truck to climb out, with each new full load of rubbish.
I wonder if the council will fit a little fish emblem, at the bottom of the pit, at the end of the ramp, beside the drain hole, over the little stream, at a city refuse transfer station.
Posted by InvestigateDesign at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)
Feb 05
DATELINE PHUKET, TSUNAMI +48hrs
Our coverage of the new millennium’s worst disaster begins in the words of volunteer aid worker Hatairat Estrella Montien:
I was in Bangkok when the tsunami struck. An announcement was made on television requesting translators to assist with foreign tsunami victims. I can speak Thai, English and Spanish, so I sent a request to Phuket Air for myself, (I am a 27-year-old Thai woman), and my Dutch friend, Daniel Van Geijlswijk, who speaks several European languages, saying that we would like to help out at the disaster area. Phuket Air gave us free tickets.
We arrived in Phuket last Tuesday evening and were taken by the Tourist Police to work in their local station. We did not want to stay in the accommodations provided at the Tourist Police as it was inconvenient to get to the Town Hall, so we stayed in Phuket Town, paying our own way.
On Wednesday, we went to the Town Hall and were told that they needed help in Khao Lak, Phang Nga, the primary disaster area. We went there in a car with journalists and another two men who volunteered to help in the rescue effort. Anyone who had a car came to transport victims and volunteers. Many people also supplied food and drinking water.
It took us about two hours to arrive in Khao Lak. It was devastated. Almost nothing was left. The tsunami had carried a large military ship from the ocean, one mile inland. It had torn houses apart and overturned cars. Thousands of coconut trees had been uprooted.
At Khao Lak station, I went with the international diving team to look for bodies. There were five scuba divers, and six or seven helpers. They came from Phuket, most working as teachers at Dulwich International School. Two of them had been diving in Ocean Plaza in Phuket the day before to recover bodies from the basement supermarket. I accompanied them to translate English to Thai since they were working with a Thai rescue team to recover bodies.
We arrived at the Sofitel Magic Lagoon Hotel around 2 p.m. This hotel was once the most beautiful I had ever seen in. They had one of the biggest swimming pools in Asia, with a large ship moored in the swimming pool serving as a bar. It was totally destroyed.
Everything on the first floor was damaged, ruined and broken. It was impossible to imagine how a person could have survived if he or she were caught inside.
There were a few underground rooms that divers needed to clear. We started with a small room next to the beach which used to be a storage room where chemical tanks and pumps were operated by technicians.
Our divers Peter Denton and Hugo Jones went in, after we checked with an engineer the exact location of the equipment in that room for safety reasons. They found one foreigner’s body blocking the entrance. We did not have water pumps so we used buckets until the water reached a level that would allow the divers to enter. It took one hour of manual work, bucket by bucket.Some rooms were too unsafe to enter as the chemical tanks had exploded.
The water level in the smaller room was lower, allowing the divers to remove bodies. Since the corpses had been submerged in water for several days, they had doubled in size, making it harder to take
them out.
I did not want to see the bodies, but I had to be there to translate. When I first saw the dead, apart from the smell, I was OK, not having had enough time to think about it.
The first body we removed was a foreign lady who must have been swept in by the tsunami. We finally took the body out but our diver could not go in again to search as the water had risen to the original level. We checked other rooms, and called it quits for the day at 6 p.m.
On the way to the car we had to walk by corpses that the rescue team had retrieved from hotel rooms. Even though they were wrapped in white cloths, the unforgettable smell was mind-numbing. As soon as I got in the car I could no longer speak. I had pretty much handled it when I was working without time to reflect on the circumstances.
We picked up our friends, Dan and Jaroen at the Khao Lak Information station. They had been helping there while I was working with the diving crew. It took a long time to get back to Phuket as the traffic was very bad. There were a lot of rescue cars, tractors and ambulances. Many volunteers had been there to help the victims who by now had virtually nothing left.
We arrived in Phuket around 8 p.m. and I said goodbye to the dive crew. Debbie, a coordinator, gave me a big hug and asked me if I were prepared to help again the next day. At first I did not answer, but smiled, and finally said I would go back.
At that moment I had mixed feelings; I wanted to be there as much as I hated it. Yet I was willing to give my time and energy since I knew that my assistance would make their job much easier. Yet it was so hard to think about returning.
The next day, Peter Hamilton picked us up at 7 a.m. from our hotel. We collected water pumps and other equipment. At first I thought they would give us only equipment, but when we arrived, they had a full team of 12 local workers ready to go with us. They questioned me about the situation. I did not tell them much, only saying that they needed to put on masks and gloves when they arrived.
The previous day’s diving crew was told by doctors not to return to the water because of potential infection and disease. So we used a different strategy. Instead of having divers, we pumped all the water out and used a rescue team to recover the bodies.
We went back to the small, submerged room. A Thai man in his late 40s told me that he had been looking for his missing brother who normally worked in this room as a technician. He told me his brother wore a dark blue t-shirt and pants. That was exactly the same outfit worn by a dead body that was stuck inside.
The Blue Canyon staff got two water pumps running. The rescue team arrived and helped us look for the body in the water. They tried to use their camera to search in the room. After 20 minutes, the water was at a level where we could see clearly. As I served as the intermediary for the diving team, the rescue team showed me the image of another body in the room. Maybe they forgot that, I was, after all was not a professional, just a girl, as they showed me the most terrifying image I have ever seen: the rotten foot of a dead body.
I wanted to cry.
We finally moved the body out. The victim was the Thai technician that his brother had been looking for. It was finally over. They wrapped up the body and took it away.
I had a little accident. While they were pumping the water out, I was trying to help dig the place for water to run in to the sea. I fell down when carrying my equipment and twisted my left ankle. The crew went to get the water out from the sailing boat in the swimming pool (the pool bar); there were no bodies there. There were a few other spots where we pumped out water, but I did not see much as I could not really walk by then. I waited for the crew upstairs. There were a few people from the hotel management team, engineers, military crews from government and the families of missing people.
I talked to a woman named Prapaipan, who was looking for her young daughter, Thanyamath, who worked as the front desk manager at the hotel. She sat and cried constantly. She held a poster bearing her daughter’s photo and told me that she wanted to stay until she found her. She asked me what the crew would do next. She was still hoping to find her daughter somewhere.
I was deeply troubled. My mother would have done the same if she lost me. She would have hoped until the last minute that I would still be alive if she could not find my body.
Later a relative came and tried to persuade Prapaipan to go home since there was nothing much she could do there. First she refused to leave, but when the family member explained to her that she was stressing us out because she was crying all the time, she finally agreed to wait at her house.
I hope that this short account tells more about the situation. If you have not made any donation, please do not hesitate. They all need your help.
As much as I want to tell more about what I have been doing for these five days, I cannot bear to. One thing I have learned is that life is too short and good deeds matter. At the end, we all die.
(With Daniel Van Geijlswijk and Simon Osborne)
DATELINE SRI LANKA, TSUNAMI +SEVEN DAYS
By RAVI R. PRASAD
Nishanthan is barely two years old. He cannot walk because of a deformity in his waist. The child sits on the uneven sand under one of the thousands of makeshift shelters provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In spite of his handicap, Nishanthan survived. It was a miracle. His able-bodied parents and siblings were swept away by the killer wave that claimed lives of some 38,000 people in the island nation of Sri Lanka.
“All he does throughout the day is cry,” said 60-year-old Jayaratnam, a neighbor who is now taking care of Nishanthan in the welfare camp. “He keeps saying, ‘Amma, Amma,’ crying out for his mother. He doesn’t know that his mother will never come back.”
When the giant ocean wave hit, Nishanthan was seated in a plastic tub and his mother was bathing him. His fisherman father had gone to see his boat tied at the pier. The family lived along the coast at Kucchuvely village in the eastern Trincomalee district.
Jayaratnam’s wife, Sellamma, had gone to fetch some curd from Nishanthan’s mother and had seen the child. A few minutes after Sellamma returned home, the tsunami hit the coast.
Jayaratnam and Sellamma hugged a coconut tree and survived, but their two children were washed away. In the neighborhood, Nishanthan’s family was not so lucky. They perished.
When the water cleared out after half an hour, Jayaratnam heard the child crying. He spotted the basin perched on a coconut tree. The waves had thrown the plastic basin up, and it landed on the tree between the leaves. Jayaratnam climbed the tree and brought Nishanthan down. The boy did not even have a scratch.
When Jayaratnam moved with his wife to the welfare camp, he brought Nishanthan along. There was nobody to look after the disabled child, and the couple thought it was their responsibility to take care of him.
Living under a tent, sleeping on mats with a couple of bed sheets and pillows, the family of three now depends on handouts given by district officials and aid agencies. The only toy that Nishanthan has is a bucket with a lid, provided by Oxfam.
Now couple is finding it difficult to take care of the two-year-old. They are too old to bring up the child. So they have decided to send him to an orphanage. “I don’t have any income, and the needs of a growing child are far too much for me to meet,” said Jayaratnam. “My wife is suffering from arthritis, so she cannot take care of the baby.”
On Saturday Jayaratnam went to an orphanage in Trincomalee town to leave the child there. It was a harrowing experience both for him and the child. The two traveled for hours, half the time Jayaratnam carrying the child and walking because the roads are bad and no public transport is available.
Several aid agency vehicles whizzed past and Jayaratnam tried to hitch a ride, but none of them stopped. Some of them did not even have anyone other than the driver. As Jayaratnam came closer to the town, an aid agency vehicle gave him a ride in a pickup truck.
Almost two hours after he had left the camp, the man and the child reached the orphanage.
“Good that you have brought the child here,” said the matron of the orphanage, as she asked Jayaratnam to wait for a senior official. “I cannot admit the child, it has to be decided by the warden and some procedures have to be followed.”
After an hour-long wait, the warden-cum-manager of the home turned up. He complained about how he had to wait for the local government official to get food stamps for children in the orphanage.
“We cannot take the child,” said the manager, handing over a printed form to Jayaratnam. “Please fill this up, get the signatures of the Gram Sewaka (village officer), Divisional Secretary, officer of the child probation department and a relative.”
The officer told Jayaratnam that unless he got these signatures — and, most important, the death certificate of Nishanthan’s parents — the orphanage cannot accept the child.
“Where will I get the death certificates?” asked Jayaratnam. “Everyone in his family is dead. Who will inform the registrar?”
Determined to get Nishanthan a place in the orphanage, the man walked another mile to the office of registrar of birth, deaths and marriages. The office was closed for the weekend. “To get the death certificates, I need to contact the Gram Sewaka,” he said. “God knows if he survived or was killed.”
The government has banned adoption of tsunami orphans. If someone complains that Jayaratnam has kept the child, the government could take action against him.
With fear of police arresting him for sheltering Nishanthan, the old man returned to the camp walking all the way.
“Ever since the government has banned adoption, we have been flooded with requests to admit more and more orphans,” said Vyasa Kalyansundaram, a trustee of Sivananda Tapovanam children’s home. “How can the government expect an orphan child to run around and get signatures and death certificates of parents?”
Orphanages are willing to expand and take in more children, but the government rules need to be changed. “The government banned adoption without thinking about the plight of orphans. They need to change the rules for admitting children to orphanages. Many of these rules need to be scrapped,” Kalyansundaram said.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International
DATELINE MECCA, TSUNAMI +SEVEN DAYS
By ARNAUD de BORCHGRAVE
The killer wave that swallowed tens of thousands of Muslims was an act of Allah designed to punish the Christians. So went the convoluted logic of some Muslim imams in recent sermons from Saudi Arabia to the Palestinian territories.
If it weren’t for the diligent monitoring of Muslim clerics by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Americans would be in the dark about the outpourings of dangerous drivel fed to devout Muslims gathered in mosques for Friday prayers. Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Munajiid explained God’s tsunami punishment of Christians stemmed from “the Christian holidays [that] are accompanied by forbidden things, by immorality, abomination, adultery, alcohol, drunken dancing and revelry. A belly dancer costs 2,500 pounds a minute and a singer costs 50,000 pounds an hour, and they hop from one hotel to another from night to dawn.
“Then they spend the entire night defying Allah. ... At the height of immorality, Allah took revenge on these criminals. ... Allah struck them with an earthquake. He finished off the Richter scale. All nine levels gone.”
In the same vein, Sheikh Mudeiris, at a Palestinian Friday sermon in Gaza, said, “When oppression and corruption increase, the law of equilibrium applies. I can see in your eyes you are wondering what is the ‘universal law of equilibrium.’ This law is a divine law. If people are remiss in implementing God’s law and in being zealous and vengeful for His sake, Allah unleashes his soldiers in action to
take revenge.”
In Saudi Arabia, one of last year’s measures to counter mosque-generated violence was a ban on imam’s using the word “jihad,” or holy warrior. But the content hadn’t changed much without the banned word. Saudi cleric ‘Aed Al-Qarni told the worshippers, “Throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered. This is the path to victory.” He was reacting to the death of a brother “killed by the brothers of apes and pigs, the murderers of the prophets.” In case there was any doubt, he was referring to the Jews of Israel.
He then deplored lamented the lack of Muslim backbone: “One billion two hundred million nobodies. We are incapable of taking action, of being useful, of harming the Jews. The most people do today is to verbally protest over the TV channels or to demonstrate. What is the use of this? ... We must sacrifice people like Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rantisi, and Ahmad Yassin, and thousands of others. Houses and young men must be sacrificed. Throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered. This is the path to victory, to shahada and to sacrifice.”
Imam Al-Qani went to explain the “idolatrous” people of Vietnam, Cambodia and South Africa, “nations with no calling or divine law make sacrifices ... in people, blood and souls. All the more reason we should too, the nation of Islam.”
Saudi clerics have also urged Iraqis to resist “the American occupation of Iraq.” They can urge jihad without the proscribed word for holy war. Saudi Sheikh Fawzan Fawzan said God’s unlisted number informed him the tsunami was punishment for homosexual behavior and fornication over Christmas, even if the victims are Muslims. “All that’s left for us to do,” he said, “is to ask for forgiveness. We must atone for our sins, and for the acts of the stupid people among us. ... We must fight fornication, homosexuality, usury, fight the corruption on the face of the Earth, and the disregard of the lives of protected people.”
Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor at large of The Washington Times and of United Press International.
DATELINE WASHINGTON, TSUNAMI +TEN DAYS
By ROLAND FLAMINI, Chief International Correspondent
WASHINGTON, (UPI) — The Asian relief effort for the tsunami disaster mobilized quickly and massively and, led by Japan, generated a major share of the global aid. The Arab world, by contrast, has lagged behind, even though the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, was the hardest hit, suffering some
100,000 deaths.
Middle East media commentators have been scathing in their criticism of Arab lack of generosity and public concern. They point out that the combined pledges from the Middle East and the Gulf of around $100 million amount to a fifth of Japan’s single pledge of $500 million. Asian nations — partly because of their proximity to the disaster zone — were the first to provide logistical and emergency help. Immediate aid on the ground from Arab nations, such as doctors, nurses, and engineers has been largely and conspicuously absent.
South Korea and Taiwan have each committed $50 million in tsunami relief. As the major power in the region China has been criticized for holding back because its aid commitment to date is $64 million. But observers say that pledge probably represents about half its foreign aid budget. On Tuesday, King Fahd of the oil rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia ordered the country’s aid commitment tripled to $30 million, “in light of the size of the tragedy and the losses.” Among the other Gulf States, Kuwait’s pledge stands at $10 million, Bahrain at $2 million, and Qatar — said to be one of the wealthiest country in the world — at $25 million. Libya’s contribution is $2 million. But no other non-Gulf Middle Eastern country has so far made an appearance on published lists of leading contributors.
Saudi Arabia plans to raise money from the public with a telethon. But Arab media have expressed anger at the apparent indifference of their governments to the tragedy. One Saudi television talk show host remarked, “Many Arab viewers have become racist. Unfortunately, the tragedy that befell Asians has no effect on many of them.”
In Kuwait, the newspaper Al Qabas created controversy by calling on Kuwait’s leadership to live up to its obligations. The special link between Kuwait and the stricken area is that Southern Asia supplies the super rich Gulf state with much of its domestic and manual labor force, and this — Al Qabas argued — was a good reason why Kuwait and its Gulf neighbors needed to be doing much more. “We have to give them more; we are rich,” the paper’s editor-in-chief, Waleed al-Nusif was quoted as saying in the New York Times Wednesday. “The price of oil doubled, so we have no excuse...They built Kuwait, and they raised our children.”
Several experts are harshly critical of Arab governments, and particularly of the Gulf states, for not being more forthcoming. “Where’s the brotherly Islamic love?” observes Middle East specialist Judith Kipper at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s the usual story of not being able to separate rich Arabs from their money. They give what Islam says they’re supposed to give, and that’s it.” One problem, Kipper says, is that “there’s no concept of civil society.”
But within the Gulf states some private donors argue that the closure of several major charitable organizations as part of the war on terror has undermined the spirit of giving, or has made it harder to find institutions to accept donations.
It is also true that while other religions have mobilized to collect relief contributions, Islamist preachers have cast the tsunami as a manifestation of divine wrath at the decadence, nudity, and immorality of now devastated tourist resorts as Phuket Island and Sumatra. This approach, preached in the mosques Friday, is said to have introduced a certain ambivalence into helping the victims.
There are also political differences. Many analysts believe tsunami aid could have a deep influence on the pattern of international relationships in Asia. The Bush administration is hoping that lavish U.S. generosity will improve America’s image in the region, and even beyond it. Japan, China, and Australia ($764 million in long term aid) are also using tsunami relief as a political tool to increase regional clout. Arab countries were not as drawn to the influence game in Asia. As a result, Arab sources point out, their pledges are not calculated to have political impact.
DATELINE PARIS, TSUNAMI +14 DAYS
By UWE SIEMON-NETTO,UPI Religious Affairs Editor
How can postmodern man — a doctrinally indifferent species, as Cardinal Paul Poupard defines him — react adequately to the deadliest natural calamity in recorded history? Almost mindlessly, television anchormen in Europe speak of the tsunami disaster’s “apocalyptical proportions,” although they seem to know little of the Book of Revelation or the Old and New Testaments’ “little apocalypses,” such as the one in the Gospel of Luke:
“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (Luke 21:25-26),Only Pope John Paul II, so close to the grave himself, seems to have found the appropriate words when he commended the victims — at least 120,000 as we speak — and their next of kin to the love of God.
What else is there to say, unless of course the brightest lights in Protestant theology knocked at the doors of the world’s television studios demanding to be allowed to explain to the perplexed what should be Protestantism’s greatest asset?
Words like these might be fitting: What you have been witnessing in the last days circumscribes the chasm between a grotesque contortion of God’s face and the “Deus revelatus” — the true God revealed in Christ.
The ex-Christian “homo indifferens,” of whom Cardinal Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, spoke recently in Belorussia, is in reality a religious ignoramus. He knows nothing of the faith of his ancestors, a faith that made them build cathedrals and write stirring oratorios.
He is therefore unequipped to dialogue with other faiths at a time when this has become indispensable due to the massive influx of Muslims into Europe. For as Michael Weninger, a senior Austrian diplomat and religious affairs adviser to the European Commission, insists: “Between religious illiterates no dialogue is possible.”
The same applies even more urgently to the task of explaining God’s presence in the light of the tsunami tragedy. Theodicy, the defense of God against the charge that he either wills evil in this world or is powerless against it, has always been one of the most difficult undertakings for people of faith.
But unless theologians return to the very core of Christian doctrine — that precisely by being weak and nailed to a tree God prevails in his cosmic struggle against evil — they will never succeed in this endeavor.
That this cosmic struggle is well underway seems evident to most lay people observing current events, though not to modernist theologians denying the existence of Satan. And of those, there are plenty especially in Germany where batch after batch of new theologians keeps crawling out of the Black Forest, as the saying goes.
Klaus Berger, Heidelberg University’s primary New Testament scholar, estimates that a mere 2 percent of his colleagues consider biblical texts true. Why does Berger belong to that tiny minority? Because, he says, the Gospel writers were willing to be martyred for their stories. “You don’t accept martyrdom for something you yourself have invented.”
The cross — or rather, the crucifix — is the most powerful antidote against evil, natural or otherwise, which supports the position of the defenders of icons in the perennial iconoclast controversies throughout church history.
The Rev. Rolf Sauerzapf, until recently dean of chaplains of Germany’s paramilitary border guards, used to take his troopers in the formerly communist East, to Catholic or Lutheran churches featuring the crucified Christ, in contrast to the starker sanctuaries of other denominations, which only display the empty cross.
“What is this?” the soldiers raised in an atheist environment asked. “This is our God,” Sauerzapf answered. “Instinctively, they understood that this was the Immanuel, the God with us — suffering with us,” he later related.
A special breed of pastors is needed at a time when Europeans have been deprived of any knowledge of God for two or even three generations and when, at the same time, “people are filled with longing (for God),” according to the European Commission’s Weninger.
The destruction of the family, where 90 percent of all education takes place, has led to the prevailing ignorance of and indifference to religious matters, writes Peter Hahne, Germany’s most popular television anchorman.
“This is why faithful clergymen have become so eminently necessary,” says the Rev. Michael Stollwerk, senior Lutheran pastor of the Protestant and Catholic cathedral of Wetzlar near Frankfurt, whose Christmas services were better attended this year than any in his memory: “On Christmas Eve there were 1,800. On Christmas Day there were another 1,800, and on the following day there were still 600. I have never seen this before.”
An astounding number of these worshipers were young. “Many were kids to whom I had become a substitute father or grandfather in confirmation class. Then they joined — or will join — our youth groups,” Stollwerk says. “And then we’ll have them hooked; then they will no longer be indifferent to God. ”Then they will also grasp the Biblical answer to the God question raised by horrific events such as the tsunami catastrophe: “And he (God) will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4).
DATELINE ASIA, TSUNAMI +21 DAYS
By MARTIN SIEFF
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 (UPI) — The horrendous tsunami catastrophe in South Asia has led to a rallying of human solidarity and compassion at its very best this week. But after the dead are buried and the period of immediate grieving is passed, the fallout from the tragedy is likely to weaken major governments in the region and possibly exacerbate some bitter, long-running conflicts there.
The still young Congress government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in India is likely to reel for months if not years from the tragedy. Singh had only been in power for nine months when the catastrophe occurred and whatever culpability his government faces for the fatal lack of disaster preparedness along Indian’s coastlines should in justice be shared with the previous Hindu nationalist-led government of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Nevertheless, the catastrophe struck on Singh’s watch. And already hard questions are being asked in the Indian press about the two and a half fatal hours during which the government knew, or should have known, that huge tidal waves were racing westward across the Indian Ocean following the unprecedented earthquake of 9.0 on the Richter scale early Sunday morning below the ocean.
Almost as bad, there will now be the sense of an ill-starred fate hanging over Singh and his policies that marked a radical break from those of the previous Bharatiya Janata Party-led government of Vajpayee.
A similar sense of ill-starred omens is likely to overshadow strongly pro-American President Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono across the ocean in Indonesia, where the death toll from the disaster was highest.
At least 80,000 people are now known to have died on the island of Sumatra alone. The eventual death toll could soar far above 100,000 on it. And the worst hit part of the giant island was the energy rich province of Aceh at its northern tip where guerrilla secessionist forces have been waging a fierce struggle for independence for years.
In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, all thoughts of human conflict have been swamped by the colossal horrors inflicted by an uncaring Nature. But antennae of the people of Aceh have been honed to alertness by decades of what they regard as shameless exploitation of their riches by the old 32-year military dictatorship of President Suharto from 1966 to 1998. It would not take much to revive suspicions that aid was being given to other, more favored regions first or that the government was simply uncaring and incompetent in dealing with the huge scale of the catastrophe to stir up new resentments.
There is plenty of precedent in South Asia for natural catastrophes being the harbinger of wars and revolutions. The great Bengal famine of 1943 cost the lives of two to four million people. Historians agree the main cause of the huge death toll was a combination of complacency, incompetence and lack of compassion by British wartime officials who were criminally negligent in waking up to the scale of the disaster. But the immediate political result was to destroy Hindu-Muslim community relations in Bengal with many people in each community convinced the other one was hoarding food and deliberately increasing their suffering.
Within four years, Bengal was torn apart by ferocious Hindu-Muslim clashes at independence in 1947 that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The province remains divided between India and the independent Muslim nation of Bangladesh to this day.
Natural disaster triggered war and revolution again in the same area only a quarter of a century later. The inhabitants of the region, then known as East Pakistan, were convinced that the Pakistani government a thousand miles away made no effort to relieve their sufferings after between 300,000 to a million people were killed in a huge tidal surge caused by unprecedented cyclones in the Bay of Bengal in November 1970. Again, mass resentment quickly turned violent and led to a national liberation struggle that cost hundreds of thousands more lives against Pakistan until India intervened the following year and ensured the independence of the nation of Bangladesh.
Sri Lanka, a third nation heavy hit by last Sunday’s tsunamis, has long been rent apart by a bitter ferocious guerrilla-terror war waged by the Tamil Tigers. There too, the wrath of nature has temporarily drowned mere human hatreds. But whether the traumatic experience leads to a new era of moderation, compromise and goodwill or a renewal of old, bitter feuds has yet to be seen.
There is more recent precedent too for a terrible natural disaster catalyzing long festering resentment at an entrenched and incompetent government that was soon after swept out of office.
The great swathe of urban squalor and misery that sweeps crescent-like north of Istanbul and then eastward for 80 miles across the southern shore of the Black Sea is home to 10 million people. This usually forgotten region of Turkey briefly hit the international headlines in 1999 when the terrible Izmit earthquake killed 23,000 people.
The death toll was so horrendous because, as we noted in UPI Analysis at the time, developers had run up hundreds of shoddily built apartment blocks in defiance of building codes.
On Aug. 20, 1999, we warned in these columns, “The disaster may boost the appeal of Turkey’s Islamic fundamentalists at the expense of the government, ultimately threatening Turkey’s strong ties to the West. Turkey is a NATO member — the only Muslim nation.”
And sure enough, the anger and despair fostered by this event funneled a new wave of support to the Islamist Justice and Development Party, or AKP, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan that propelled it to its landslide election victory in November 2002.
Singh in India and Yudhoyono in Indonesia will soon be made aware of how closely the survivors and relatives of the dead will be scrutinizing the record of their actions both before and after the unprecedented events of last Sunday.
However long they stay in power and whatever achievements they complete or attempt, from now on everything they do will be under the shadow of that judgment.
Posted by InvestigateDesign at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)
Feb 05
DESPERATE FINDS DATELESS
Behind closed doors at a singles convention
You could ask the question, who’d be seen dead at a singles convention? As NEILL HUNTER discovered, nearly 2000 people were willing to pay $20 a head to hear the guru of good one-liners work the crowd…
On picturesque Takapuna Beach on Auckland’s North Shore, the grassy knoll above the sand is dotted with islands of people, from families to teenagers, enjoying Friday afternoon after-work in the sun. Six girls are sitting in a circle, talking. Their ages are early twenties and one of them says they have been playing a game called match-making. “I got a cuddle,” she laughs. That seems too coincidental so I want to ask them if they’re going to the “singles event of the New Year”, but stop. It could be flirting.
He wanted to be a Catholic priest, had a Christian upbringing but doesn’t do that anymore, runs singles conventions called parties in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and sponsors them on six continents too, for all groups - even Jews and Christians - appeared on Oprah Winfrey and ran for California Governor on a platform of lobbying for singles who he says are discriminated against. His favourite recreation is hiking and last month he found his favourite, between Paihia and Haruru Falls, Bay of Islands, New Zealand. His name? Richard Gosse, call him Rich, and Gosse is French, a word he thinks means “little boy” of which there is one, or girl, in each of us, who needs to have fun, so he does conventions for them and to get single adults listening he makes half his routine stand-up comedy. It must work because some 1500 Kiwis came to party with Rich on a fine warm Saturday evening in Takapuna NZ and they say about 200 were turned away, from the biggest show in town.
“You’d better come in, she’s getting close to the Pearly Gates now,” said a night shift nurse calling at 5.45 to say it was nearly over, a 37 year old wife and mother’s pending death from terminal cancer was about to happen and in hindsight they were strange words. More strange, amongst the whirlwind of events later that week, was the brief realisation of being single again after 11 years. Two years later this journalist gained an understanding of the similarities between being made single by death, and by divorce, at a retreat called The Beginning Experience run by Catholics in an old Friary in Auckland where the widowed, divorced and the youth of both, would spend three days understanding how to close the door a little, on a past life, and accept a new one, in my case one of being single.
Such a crude, sympathy-vote-grabbing introduction of Catholic retreats and Friaries has absolutely nothing to do with a singles convention run by the self proclaimed guru of the unattached, Rich Gosse, but understanding and accepting the state of singleness does. Whether the serenity of leafy, expansive Friary gardens or the razzmatazz luxury of the Spencer on Byron Hotel, Takapuna, participants at either retreat or convention would probably leave with the same sense of satisfaction; having stepped out, had a laugh, and done something different. For years, the Gosse singles convention road-show has come down under to NZ and Australia, because being single is, well, huge. A glance in the classifieds will tell you that, so too will a trawl though the “net” and socially it is far more acceptable to be single today than it was say 30 years ago when foot-loose-and-fancy-free was viewed by some as strange, at age oh…23, not hitched by age 24 – outrageous!
Rich Gosse, Chairman of American Singles Education Inc (or ASE for short), looks at his watch, gets the crowd ready for the NZ Flirt Champion contest and they’re off! On a speed mission to “goodbye-single-days”, of getting the most phone numbers in five minutes, from members-of-the-opposite, here in the ball room of the towering Spencer Hotel. Five minutes later: count down, “30, seconds…20 seconds…and stop” shouts Gosse and then its official, New Zealand “has a new FLIRTING CHAMPION!” Steven, with a staggering 16.
Gosse tells him that all his flirting champions become famous so Steven should go down stairs to Mrs Gosse and get interviewed by the Herald. Not likely. As he threads his way through wall-to-wall singleites I grab him first and with chaperoning skills the envy of any sheep dog, usher him down to Debby Gosse, photo-snap them together and elicit a career first, interview of a flirt. Steven McIntyre is 31, previously married, completing a diploma in computer games software, been in the IT industry 10 years, saw the advertisement for the convention and just thought he’d come for the fun of it. “A friend of mine was coming along as well and said ‘heh why don’t you come along’.” And what’s his secret-swooper-weapon? “I just say Hi and touch them lightly on the upper arm.” Huh.
So who are the best? “The Italians are the best flirts because they pinch you,” says Gosse, who calls the British, Australians and New Zealanders “very reserved, very shy,” as flirts go. If there is a flirting crisis in New Zealand as Gosse likes to remind us because so many NZ women have told him, how about America? Not the same, says Gosse, quoting his kiwi female sources: “NZ men are too shy. They (woman) wish the NZ men were more outgoing like American men. That’s what I hear all the time. They’re (kiwi women) hoping I will train the kiwi men to be more outgoing. We’re going to teach all the kiwi men how to be a good flirt.” Well I’ve got news for him and like a gun slinger defending this down-under- last-bastion-of-good-silent-kiwi-blokes, hit him! With research. Afterwards he blinks and makes complimentary remarks about journalistic research, which is: In a Fox News item, 7 October 2004, it is revealed that flirts compete at singles conventions to see who can score the most telephone numbers from members of the “opposite” in five minutes, the prize: …a lot of phone numbers. Says Gosse to Fox, “the most difficult thing at a giant singles event is you have all these people, who want to meet someone but they are scared to death”, it was all about overcoming fear of rejection, taking a chance and meeting people.
Not surprisingly female flirters consistently score highest, research shows. Well, why wouldn’t any single bloke worth his salt give away his number to any pleading woman, but no, says Gosse: “most guys don’t have the strength to ask for a phone number?”
At American conventions most woman are reluctant to give away their number and Gosse, the research continues, tells them to make the men work for it. Even in Wisconsin. According to the Flirting Champion of Wisconsin (true!) getting men to give up their…information, isn’t easy. “Most of the men won’t even look at you,” says Nancy McDermott, 54. “One guy said ‘I don’t give out my number until I know I’m going to date someone.’ ” Staunch doesn’t describe it as a visual flash of an American square-lantern-jawed-teeth-gritter make his own Custer’s Last Stand. Says McDermott seriously: “how do you know if you’re going to date someone if you don’t give your number away,” How true indeed, and she’s no slouch because that’s the sort of razor sharp incisiveness which enabled her to claim the biggest flirt title by scoring a whopping 19 phone numbers under five minutes! (Loud American cheering). However, seems she was only in it for the glory because the big tease didn’t even bother calling any of her adoring beaus afterwards, explaining that although appearing gimmicky, the contest gave her increased confidence in daily life. The big flirter further explains that finding interesting single men doesn’t seem any easier now than it did before she was named champ’; she does however feel more prepared to talk to men and not worry about the outcome. “The real benefit comes when people walk out into the world and give themselves permission to be a little more flirtatious than they were the day before. “The world’s a better place for all the flirting that goes on. (That’s it! I quit!)…I use to be really shy, I’ve been to a number of workshops, you learn to open up, and you’re going to get rejected (darn right with that sort of reputation) but so what.”It seems McDermott’s are a big name in flirting because Trish McDermott (we are not told if any relation to Nancy) vice president (give me break)…of Romance at match.com told Marla Lehner at Fox News (that’s Fox, as in the media group, not some sleazy little break-away militant singles faction) that Americans are flirt deficient (Investigate’s description). Vice president McDermott said there was a flirting crisis (Fox New’s…) in America. “I have concerns that we as a society have become less flirtatious (get those pills ready people!). Men and women say it is harder to make that initial connection in our day-to-day lives.”
There you go. We down under can hold our heads high. Not so says Gosse because if the research is correct then NZ men are even worse…you just can’t keep a good American down.
Is flirting promiscuous? No it’s fun he says because it is in us from infancy to be expert flirts. “Every one falls in love with babies” who are experts at it he says but as we grow older, get hurt, get rejected, “we start putting up walls,” so the educator see his role as restoring the skill. Understanding our inner selves…perhaps that’s what all this is about.
Desperately seeking… we asked Kerry Frances who is not a singles convention junkie, doesn’t flirt and hasn’t co-founded anything but is no slouch when it comes to understanding people, and she has the singleness to prove it. The stunningly attractive brunette was a lawyer before turning to analysing people and as well as having a law degree she has a BA and a Masters in Counselling, knows the stigmatisms surrounding singleness and says she has copped pressure in that area herself, from family, friends and church but gets on with life anyway. So why do people go to these things in such large numbers? Says Frances, “singles are working a lot longer and harder. Think back to when there was glide time. People finished work at four or five, they socialised at tennis clubs, churches and halls.” So an event like a singles convention solves the dilemma. “It’s all about time and opportunity,” she says.
Is that the answer for those agonising over marital status? Just go out and get on with life, get a haircut and a real job? Is it fair to put singles under the magnifying glass? Of course singles don’t self consciously scurry from corner to corner in little swarms of festering self consciousness but social discourses as such, means there are expectations and presumptions. Take Christian singles for example. Far from portraying themselves as a bunch of cheesy, halo-crowned-virgins, that nasty stereo typical image adopted by some in main stream media, your modern Christian single isn’t afraid to join a group, have fun …and work too hard? In America there is the Singles Channel Newsletter an internet site sponsored by Harmony Ministries for singles and in their August 2004 edition Camerin Courtney, makes an ugly little confession: “having an affair with Jean-Luc,” then before we dive for our big-bashy-bibles, the journo explains: “no not some cheese loving, beret-wearing French guy (I wish),” she ’fesses, “No I’m talking about Jean-Luc my lap top…” In a wonderful blend of good column writing and humour the single Christian free lancer ’fesses-up to being too preoccupied with work: “there is nothing new in our overworked, prove-your-worth-by-how-busy-you-are culture but when I recently recognised the relationship between my singleness and my workaholism, I knew something needed to change. I walked out of work at 7 pm and realised the only two cars left in the parking lot belonged to fellow single people.” Then Camerin, who has no affiliation with ACIE, writes about stumbling upon a quote from none other, Mr Gosse: “ ‘workaholism is a frequent problem amongst single people. Work enables you to escape the fear, loneliness and boredom that often plagues singles’. Ouch!” She exclaims.
Painful as it may seem, some fork out their hard earned dollars for singles conventions but author-of-eight-books Gosse puts his money where his mouth is by charging cash strapped kiwis only $20. Cash. For that you get advice on the best place to meet single people and if people at his workshops don’t find love in six months – it’s money back. Sometimes. The, “have-I-got-the-deal-for-you” attitude also means he isn’t afraid to make a buck or two from singles so in case you think it’s all only about flirts, fellas floosies and flowers, or if you’re a little conventioned-out, or just need to find a real summer this summer, take a tour, with Rich. Gosse runs his own travel business for singles, with their promo’: “…those looking for a normal vacation filled with single people (eh…normal?)…this is a large organisation…around the world…really good deal…the owner Rich Gosse…even spoke recently at a packed convention in the lavish ball room of the Spencer on Byron Hotel in Takapuna (heeeee’s back)” The advertisement continues: “ ‘As you know the number one goal for singles in respect of travel, is to avoid paying the singles supplement (yea right) which sometimes can double their costs,’ said Mr Gosse, ‘that’s one of the main reasons that singles go on our trips. We guarantee them a room mate (mate…not a typo, not rate)…so they don’t have to pay double…especially woman like the security of travelling with a group. Plus the social opportunities are obvious (now we’re getting to it) who wants to travel to a romantic spot and not have anyone with whom to share’ ”.
Yes well. Just when you thought it safe to swoon with Gosse, singles should check the season and the location, before catching the love boat to one of his conventions, especially an Alaskan one. He admits he hasn’t always got it right, like the time he thought Alaska a good place for a singles showdown. He humbly told writer Janelle Brown of Salon.com that “unfortunately the convention happened to fall on the first day of the hunting season”. There is a dearth of good women, to men ratio at the best of times in the land of moose and oil but “All those sporty Alaskan hunks whom Gosse had promised to the female attendees” writes Brown “were out with their guns instead” doing what men gotta do, hunt and gather, in the state which Brown says has the largest surplus of single men in the nation. Woo-hoo for the guys who didn’t hunt that weekend when the Gosse show came to town. Gosse told Brown: “there were three women to every man…it was a disaster”. Says who?
On the rebound, he tried to make amends and play the money card, by holding the next convention in Silicon Valley because he figured the odds for a woman to find a rich computer nerdy guy much higher there than a man from Alaska in hunt. He told Brown that Silicon Valley had the highest percentage of unmarried men in America. Of rich single internet millionaires, he said there were “thousands of them.” He knew this from his match-making Webb site which “would balance out the hordes of woman usually in attendance.” Touted Gosse: “these guys are shell shocked. Where ever they go they only see men. Apparently it was all true and a thousand people showed up, …and 30 requested their money back, which was good news, assured Gosse who fiercely defends that he does it out of a passion not lost after 27 years. Besides, he wears a $20 watch and drives a 1996 Toyota Camry in the US because he says he is practicality, not money driven: “The money is in websites. That’s where I made my money”. He sold his website to another giant dating agency.
He did offer a money back guarantee at one of his previous six visits to NZ and nobody took it. There are no dollar signs in the eyes of those here in the Spencer tonight, only Cupid’s reflection and with an average age of around 30 to 40, they are all a mixed bunch.
Investigate interviewed over 10 budding dators and datees ranging in age between 31 and 55 and only one is here just for the fun. His name is Andy. Aren’t coincidences great? Andy, it transpires, is staying with the same friends. “What are you coming to Auckland for?” Enquires Stuart, of a journalist needing North Shore lodgings for the big assignment. “We’ve got a friend, Andy, from Napier going to that too and he’s staying with us.” Excellent.
Andy has never married, has had countless dates, friendships and one engagement and is an electrical design draughtsman by profession, manager for 10 years by occupation, at Napier’s The Hot Chick.
No, sickoes.
A health food takeaway outlet.
Specialising in chicken roasted over volcanic rock, salads and roasted vege’s Andy agreed to be journalistically stalked and insisted he was not really after the elusive knot-to-tie especially as he’d left his friend of 26 years, girlfriend of five, behind, to tour north in his sports car, visit friends and do the convention. “You can quote me on everything and use my name if you like” he obliges. It’s half an hour before convention registration but he doesn’t mind being made late by the “before-interview”. Tanned, medium build and height, fit with a full non- receding (lucky…) head of grey he is dressed in blues and black – shoes to match leather jacket. A Christian, he laughs “it would be one of God’s great miracles if I got married” and lists amongst his many accomplishments, of being “in Hollywood when Marylyn Munro died.” Explaining the left-behind-girlfriend-thing, “you can quote me, I’m a great believer in honesty” before explaining how they talked about it before he left, “Im very independent” and “I have come up for a fun night.”
We will return to Andy later because honesty raises another question. Does Gosse have that attribute?
Investigate has researched Gosse before meeting he-who-runs-flirting-contests and wants to assure you it’s okay to be single, in case that little gem had escaped you of such disposition, and the first question that must be asked: who is Rodney Dangerfield (RD)? This is important because so much research on Gosse refers to RD in a throw away line hauled out by American media commentators on Gosse who likens singles to Dangerfield. RD was an American comedian, did some movies and had a catch-phrase, snapped up by Gosse: “aah caint geet no respect.” Which begs the question then, just “who is Gosse’s favourite comedian?” He hesitates, mentions Rodney Dangerfield again, struggles, so needs help. “I’ve heard of John Cleese but he’s not one of my favourites.” Hah. Tasteless American. Seriously however Gosse became so passionate about singles, he stood for Governor, in 2004, and will do it again he says in 2006 when he will take on again the muscle-bound-one, Arnie the terminating sand-kicker.
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