JCUKNZ's

Credit for photos in previous post

2011-06-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

So I missed this info out of e-mail I got .. tremendous sequence :-)
Centurion in Pilanesberg game reserve, South Africa

Road Rage -- African style

2011-06-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

SHE ...Madam! .... is still with us

2011-05-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

An update on Smudge who is still eating me out of house and home bless her and spending most of the day sleeping on my bed and only moving over a bit so I can fit down beside her. SHE must always be on the outside, the bed is against a wall, and on only one occasion did she spend more than five seconds on the inside. Animals a strange. Around breakfast time she goes out and sits in the old picnic box made of polystyrene next the the door. She is fairly safe there back away from the gateway to the footpath. Then evening time she seems to like to spend time out there in the box, which is under a flower box on stilts even when it is pouring cats and dogs ... then she comes in once it has got dark.
I do wonder what she can see, if she knows when it is dark, or else tells by the lack of traffic along the stae Highway I live beside.

Some comments

2011-03-04T14:38:00.000-08:00

jcuknz (647) Says:

March 5th, 2011 at 11:10 am
It may be and probably reasonable to abate the superannuation for that 65yo CEO but it is completely inhumane to not pay it to somebody who has worked their body to a shell in manual work and is given maybe just a couple or three years of peace in retirement. In any case Superanuiation is hardly life style rather a subsistence. Since it would be hard with many anomallys to separate the fair from unfair it is worth pointing out that the CEO has most likely saving and private income and the super he gets will be clawed back by taxation. It is just a stupid cry from the petty minded selfish individuals who think only of themselves and the so called injustice by theft of their money instead of accepting willingly their responsibilities as a citizen.

March 5th, 2011 at 11:20 am
I cannot see how anybody cannot be well aware of Christchurch with the media circus getting on its high heels almost to the exclusion of other happenings in the world even if, as I have, cut the power to my TV to save the waste of power from it being on standby and not being turned on this past week and likely the next week or more. Another day of lost production so the stuffed shirts can stand in front of the TV cameras …. Urrgh!

March 5th, 2011 at 11:25 am
The problem with Anthony’s suggestion of having to apply for an ‘old age benefit’ is that it negates any reason for the ordinary person to save if becuase they have deprived themselves today that tommorrow their savings income will abate chances of super which after all is just a subsistence allowance and certainly not a life-style.

March 5th, 2011 at 11:35 am
I don’t know what Somalia shows us BUT I know that with the populkation the world has now there has to be government to keep order and share the limited resorces. So all you individualistic guys … put a peg on it and reduce the worlds’ population back down to the numbers in 16th century and you can go for gold again.. A great inheritance for your great gandchild if not for yourself. But you are too selfish to think beyond your nose … sad really.

When will she go to the nackers yard

2011-01-19T19:05:00.000-08:00

The She is question adopted me back in 1996 when she was a sleek near pure white teenager and got called Smudge for obvious reasons. Though of late she gets called Madam quite often and very occasionally "Bloody Animal". She has been using one of two trays and regularly cleaned for use when she is undoors but of late has been ignoring them for the carpet beside them. She is blind, had a stroke the vet called it, about nine months ago, and seems very scarey. It is a problem for an older person who wondered if he would like to be put down. So last nights problem along with a cooking experiement which receeded it. ....

I went to New World and bought a few things, as well as Warehouse for a dish which cost me $7. I had rather more mince than I should have and not a lot of the little things I should have had but didn't buy. I used about a third of the packet of pasta sheets. Cooked the mince for three minutes and then mixed in some chopped tomato and a can of Tomato Sauce. There was just room for it all in the dish and I then cooked it for 30 minutes on medium.
Seems I have enough for three meals. Last night I scooped out about a third and put a couple of cheeze slices atop and melted in the oven.
It wasn't bad though nothing like what it was supposed to be and the heavy concentration of meat and fat didn't go too well in my stomach ... though that was confused by the two wine/gin/tonics I also drank which put me to bed early to wake up around 11pm to let Smudge in.

She promptly started to wee on the carpet while I did the same in the toilet bowl. Got a slipper up her backside and a growl "Bloody Animal!" and was promised to the knackers yard.

This morning she got a cuddle and is still here.

There are still fifteen new tins of food and the packet of biscuits to be eaten ... unless I donate them to the SPCA.

I'm 63 and I'm tired .. not me but a reprint.

2011-01-13T17:55:00.000-08:00

“I’m 63 and I’m Tired”
By Robert A. Hall

I’m 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I’ve worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven’t called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there’s no retirement in sight, and I’m tired. Very tired.

I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic. I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honor”; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren’t “believers”; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery”; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to.

I’m tired of being told that out of “tolerance for other cultures” we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America and Canada , while no American nor Canadian group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.

I’m tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.

I’m tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off?

I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I’m real tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

Yes, I’m damn tired.. But I’m also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I’m not going to have to see the world these people are making. I’m just sorry for my granddaughter.

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate.

There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!
This is your chance to make a difference.
” I’m 63 and I’m tired.
If we don’t forward this
we are part of the problem.

“Never complain about growing old, far too many people have been denied that privilege”.

I'm 16 years older and also afraid for my gand-daughter. This may be dismissed as right wing nonsense but there is an element of truth/fact in most of his claims .... it really is sad that the world is comprised of such intolerant people ... like in most things the picture could be painted about the non-muslims . such a shame.

A second reason

2011-01-07T01:35:00.000-08:00

A second reason is that I have always had slower cars than the cops :-)
Third reason, for lack of tickets ... I rode a motorcycle to work as soon as I could afford one, years before I could afford a car after I was married. Three of those parking tickets were for parking the bike in the wrong place way back when I worked in Auckland.

Seven days and already one death

2011-01-07T01:25:00.000-08:00

Quite apart from those who killed themselves without being chased by the police I'm refering to the young lad who stole a car and drove into a powerpole.

Of course now we have people, seemingly those on the left of politics, who say the police should not chase. Which of course is giving open slather to anybody who wants to excape from getting a ticket ... just put your foot on the accelerator ... quite stupid of course.

But to add a positive note to this thread I wonder why in over sixty years of driving I have just one ticket for speeding, back in 1964 when I was given a false deadline by my boss, and he didn’t offer to pay my fine either … the [whatever you care to call him :-) ]. I also can count my parking tickets with just using the fingers of one hand … once.

Why is this I wonder?

One reason I like to think is that the driving indoctrination I received as a child from my guardian was of a careful responsible driver who obeyed the rules. so when I learnt to drive at 17 years basically all I had to learn was car handling.

But such is the disrespect for ‘traffic cops’, and the common belief that getting a ticket is bad luck rather than foolish behaviour, that the adults in our society are in many cases teaching their children how not to behave responsibly on the road by simply not doing so themselves …as perhaps tonight’s crash story illustrates ….a witness told us they were not boy racers but older. [Car drove into rubbish truck 110107]

So instead of criticising the police, you guys and gals should buck your ideas up, RWNJ’s AND LWNJ’s.alike, and show a better example to your offspring.

I can also add the comment the judge made to me “Its not the first time you have driven above the limits is it” and of course it wasn’t then or now. When I think about the situation I am glad that my son has survived past those dangerous years despite some bad examples from me.

Happy New Year everybody

2010-12-31T15:41:00.000-08:00

Hi all,
2010 ended with me feeling a little sad because two days ago I at last had a calm morning and was flying my aeroplane. This is a high winged single engine thing, something like a Cessna and made out of polystyrene about a foot long and bit more wingspan. First time I've tried to fly a plane and eventually I got it off the ground after numerous taxi crashes. The secret is to have confidence and give it throttle .. flies well then. Was down on the open space which was a container storage area, long time ago when my son was learning to sail at the nearby sailing club it was Humes' Pipe works. So for probably five seconds, maybe ten it flew great except towards the main road. I panic'd and cut the throttle and it fell into the sycamore trees beside the road. Sadly there is a ditch at the bottom of the bank with soft MUD. I thought I had lost it and went home ... that's $160 down the drain. Though not as bad a the guy on a film I edited for TV who had spent two years building a jet plane and it flew for perhaps twenty seconds before crashing .... all 20" captured on film!

I wondered if the wind and rain we have had the past couple of days might shake the plane down, and sure enough I could see it this morning but there is the MUD. Went home and got my aluminium ladder which was just tall enough to bridge the ditch and amazing myself I clambered across and pulling myself up by roots and branches was able to shake the plane loose ... seemingly undamaged ...and I threw it across the ditch where it landed in the grass and then I gingerly crawled backwards across the ladder.

Then I went for my 'easterly' 3km walk along to Maia from the boatclub.

So 2011 has started with a sucess! and I hope you also have good things happen to you ....

Christmas

2010-12-26T12:19:00.001-08:00

It is not that I am against Christmas and celebrating the birth of Christ 2010 years ago but rather the word 'merry' which to me means getting inhebriated. Spending a lot of money on a drug becuase one is so dissatisfied with ones life one wants to 'loose it' for awhile, often with a painful recovery.

My wife and I spent a happy christmas together sinking two bottles of grape juice with our christmas lunch, sad becuase our son was not with us but his presents had arrived in the nick of time .... thankyou NZ Post for delivering late on Christmas eve ....and we had numerous e-mails back and forth over the period.

Part of my drinking the grape unfermented was of course a wish to drink more than a glass in the warm weather and the danger of being picked up for DIC ...I had been tested four times in previous days.

'merry' is a established coupling with 'christmas' but I much prefer 'happy'

Should you spend on an expensive P&S camera

2010-12-19T10:27:00.000-08:00

It is silly in my opinion to compare and complaim about noise at 400ISO in small ompacts when after all one buys a camera for what it will do and not all cameras do everything. For me there are the other considerations about usefulness as a tool and cost of getting the capabilities. So I don't compare the compacts you choose but rather the long lensed flagships of each brand which are a better deal for the less affluent than a DSLR. To get a reasonable range of focal lengths with the DSLR costs big money and you loose the compactness of a long lens pro-sumer. I rarely shoot at anything other than 100ISO becuase I know I will not be happy with the results, prefering to get the 'emulsion' speed in editing on the rare occasions it is needed for what I do. That is the other consideration, what sort of photography you want the camera to do, probably I don't shoot what you do :-). In your case you are on the slippery slope of the DSLR owner wanting top IQ but not prepared to sacrifice it for compactness ... I carry my 0.5Mb cellphone for compactness but know it doesn't give me the IQ for larger sizes ... my son's phone results in much better IQ but isn't as compact as my phone. As suggested above perhaps you should look at 4/3 which will give you IQ but not the compactness of the P&S. A side issue which my cellphone taught me ... what comes out of the camera is rubbish until it is post processed when it is quite satisfactory. Probably applies to all small sensored cameras.

Child Proverty [ my contribution to a Standard thread]

2010-12-14T20:34:00.000-08:00

The answer to poverty is of course more money .. the question is how do we organize it.
At the same time it seems obvious to me that we have to reduce demand on resources, usually these days imports, without undue affect to our exports. With that we have to find an answer to the downsizing of our retail sector that would bring and looking after in a meaningful way the shop workers made redundant

I remember back just two decades, which was after Rogernomics arrived by a decade, that if you earnt $50,000 pa you were in the top 5%.
But then we had Jennycide and Ruthanasia and our society went to custard. With the poor being pushed down and the rich got richer and continued in that direction despite nine years of Labour government. Can we trust either lot to get it right?. Could well be we need a further to the left party to ginger up Labour as ACT and Maori are doing to National today.

With the problems facing the country and on the horizon we simply must have a socialist government with gumption, absent it seems from today’s Labour, to get things right in a responsible manner. They had nine years to start getting it right and just sat on their hands apart from a few little measures, some of which appeared good but long-term are themselves problems such a WFF. Labour have to bite the bullet and appreciate it is not good for the country that a majority of people are beneficiaries.. There has to be a better way to get the money into the hands of those who need it without government hand-outs. It may get a few votes, the right think that is the case, but it is a strong inhibition of finding different and better ways.

Correction -- addition

2010-12-12T13:42:00.001-08:00

"Over at The Standard there is a thread about a dam fool article by Deborah Coddington suggesting the DPB should be scraped becuase back before we had it, and just had child support being paid to mothers so they were not penniless when hubby spent his wages on booze ... it was still six o'clock closing then." I forgot to finish the sentance :-(

She suggested the DPB be scrapped because back then in the sixties women didn't have the DPB to support them when they had a child and no husband to support them. Marty G came up with a graph which shows the number of of under 20yo unmarried births declining from when the DPB was introduced. So much for the claim that DPB encourages young women to have children. He also points out that abortion became legal around that period to. Others say the there are many more pregnancies but they are terminated these days.

Do you remember the 60's? I do.

2010-12-12T13:13:00.000-08:00

Over at The Standard' there is a thread about a dam fool article by Deborah Coddington suggesting the DPB should be scraped becuase back before we had it, and just had child support being paid to mothers so they were not penniless when hubby spent his wages on booze ... it was still six o'clock closing then.

I remember the sixties as when my live made a giant step forward and I exchanged my nice but rather hum drum job in a government department for that of joining the newish television. Everything was pretty privative and we made do with what we had to produce what we knew, in my case from around twelve years of being an amateur filmer, should be presented on the single channel. Interesting for myself, I was recently offered my personal file covering those days to save it being sent to the tip two decades after I was made redundant, I noted the comments when I was one of two staff to get a double increment in one year, almost unheard of in the public service. the other guy was senior management and I was down near the bottom.

They were happy days for a single person who could devote his entire time apart from sleep to film and TV. Having camera gear of my own I was able to shoot material as well as edit. When I joined, six weeks after President Kennedy was assasinated TVNZ only had one cameraman, Cyril Townsend, and relied upon a collection of 'stringers' around the country to shoot material. The 'stringer' in Wellington was of course the National Film Unit and I was pleased that my work was mistaken for theirs as they were the top outfit in the country in those days. Funny that becuase they rejected me when I applied for a job there some years earlier ... on reflection of my character and capabilities I'm glad I didn't get the job becuase they would have trained me up in their style rather than how I developed as an amateur paying for my own experience, and then what I quickly learnt editing the work of good, average and poor cameramen from around the world who worked for BCINA ... British Commonwealth I[?] Mews Agency.

Cyril Townsend had been out shooting a story about the Waikato river chain of dams ... The Silver Chain ... was to be the title and I was given the job of stringing it together. Not that much real editing involved becuase film was tight and expensive and not to be wasted the way cameramen did in later years when they start with a 400ft [10min 40 second, roll of film. We started with 100ft rolls :-)
But I do remember organising one rather nice cut ... a tree being felled and falling, CUT, to logs on truck going in the same direction [ Thank you Cyril for that :-) ]. After it ws show the Dominion TV critic praised the editing ... good for a youngster starting out in the business :-) I also had the fun of suggesting and shooting an animated sequence to show the chain of dams. Indeed they were great times for this little lad.

More reflections maybe later ... its my 79th birthday today and I must get ready for lunch with my better half.

My new brag-site

2010-12-12T12:57:00.000-08:00

With the demise of Geocities went the free hosting of many webpages if you were happy to put up with [actually your visitors had to] the advertising down the right hand side ... not that intrusive really and I was organised so my photographs etc were clear of the adverts ....I lost my brag page and another extensive photo-tips site. Good things do end of course and it has taken me some time to decide that I am willing to PAY! for my pleasure ... and I hope yours too if you visit.

Anyway it is www.jcuknz-photos.com

Still in the development stage and only the front page with a small collection of linked photos for you to see. I hope you enjoy seeing them when you visit.

Shrubs and Mongeese.

2010-12-12T12:39:00.000-08:00

As I contemplated the water draining out from my shrub this morning I thought that now I have a No.3 haircut 'all over' [ as the barber suggested ] there is less chance of hairs blocking the drainpipe. I have an old toothbrush to clean the chromed trap.
This got me thinking do we have the chrome fitting to stop things going down into the drain or coming out. It was interesting in the States to not see the fitting because the built in 'plug', not nearly as efficent in practice as our common and garden rubber/plastic plugs for holding waterr in the bowl or bath, covered the drain pipe and one couldn't see down it.

Sad to say when I knocked a tooth out of my dentures the american 'plug fitting' didn't stop it dissappearing down the drain ... whatever.

My mind then went on to the Rudyard Kipling story of the lonely european boy in India with no freinds to play with. Only child of the family and over protected by his mother who adopted, or was adopted by, a Mongoose. Definitely not to sort of thing any self respecting Mum would want for her only beloved. Anyway a cobra snake came up the drain as the boy showered, becuase in those days the drain was a simple trough exiting into the garden outside the house and was it 'Nicky'[?] the Mongoose who promptly dealt with it and the boy was saved. Mum discovered the dead snake and from then on Nicky the Mongoose was No.1 after the boy in her regard. Nice story if it has been around a long time.

Maybe some time I will elaborate again on the way water circles over the drain, clockwise and anti-clockwise ... it has had me puzzled for some years now ....WHY!

jcuknz'S WORLD TRIP and new photo website

2010-12-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

It is a long time since I last blogged and have been living with family the the United States with a quick trip to the UK to see more family ... though I was provided with computers to work on it wasn't the same as being on my own old trustworthy machine :-)

Meanwhile I have bitten the bullet and decided to PAY for a website instead of bludging on Geocities as I had for previous years ....www.jcuknz-photos.com

It is in its starting period with just a small selection but in due course it will bloom with both illustration of my visual interests, dare I, yes I do, say talents in this direction and a help/guidance section for those entering the activity of photography. I get considerable pleasure in remembering my observations of the world I live in that were and maybe continue to be recorded by my cameras. I had a huge burst of enthusiasm when I adopted digital ... with the availability of editing programmes I can do things quite undreamed of in my old, now dismantled, wet darkroom.

Back here in New Zealand I am more regularly visiting the main blogs of both left and right. Last night I noted that one of the more rabid right wing bloggers has returned after a period of being banned ... and no doubt for him and his fellow jousters the fun has returned ... but for this reader that blog has returned to the futile squallour of the cat or dog fight with insults rather than sensible comment ... altogether a shame. On the left it is more subdued but still present to a degree with the non-sensical re iteration of past errors as if they are fact.

So life continues as every without much preparation for the problems global warming and the financial mess the world is in. The question is does one hide ones head in the sand ostrich like ... a very tempting solution for an older person ... or try to do something about it, though well aware that it is unusual though not unknown for a single person to have much effect unless they are brilliant, and I know I'm not that :-)

When the knife is in don't forget to twist it ....

2010-06-20T15:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/us/20spill.html?th&emc=th

Restaurent with a movable view

2010-06-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

Visiting the States I lived for a week with food from Subway and it kind of put me off since, that was five years ago. Today I read about one for construction workers on the 'twintowers' replacement building, there are about 1000 of them and for those at the top, currently 27 floors up, it can take more than an hours lenchbreak to ride the 'elevators' down and back up to the job. So to have a restaurent and all mod-cons where you work is great, waterless toilets instead of buckets etc.. No more eating lunch out on the beam, as famous photos record.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/nyregion/17subshop.html?th&emc=th

Stealing water from our rivers ... a warning.

2010-06-13T12:42:00.000-07:00

As farmers try to be more productive, as in Canterbury, and want to take more water, either for free or at an expense [ as I just heard somebody ranting at on Morning Report] there is a warning coming from Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/science/earth/13shatt.html?th&emc=th
Here the reduction in flow of the river is permitting salt water to encrouch up the river from the sea and also the flushing effect is greatly reduced leading to pollution. Perhaps we are just too clever us humans and one eyed in our endeavours.

Save by de-recognise?

2010-06-12T15:21:00.000-07:00

By de-recognising governments that are victimising their populations in Africa and elsewhere for the sole benefit of their rulers it is suggested they will become unstable and fall to the masses who them elect/create a truely democratic government working for the people rather than rulers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/opinion/12englebert.html?th&emc=th

Afghanistan

2010-06-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

A quote from Bob Herbert in the NYT ...
The U.S. doesn’t win wars anymore. We just funnel the stressed and underpaid troops in and out of the combat zones, while all the while showering taxpayer billions on the contractors and giant corporations that view the horrors of war as a heaven-sent bonanza. BP, as we’ve been told repeatedly recently, is one of the largest suppliers of fuel to the wartime U.S. military.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/opinion/12herbert.html?th&emc=th

Which could be titled "The lost war" just like first the British in the 1800's and the Russians in the 1900's, so the combined forces in 2100.

A Rabbi's Quote

2010-06-11T12:48:00.000-07:00

Roger Cohen in the NYT gives us thia quote by the Rabbi at his daughter's Bat Mitzi.

The notion here is that the word of God is fire, redoubled fire if you like, and that if you get too far from it you freeze, but if you draw too near to it you burn. “The word of God can actually destroy you if you get too close,” Bachman suggested.

So evident with the religious hard liners who compose a major part of the Israeli IDF and results is appawling mistakes like the recent killings on board the relief ship. Also how baren life would be without the guidence of religion in our lives. The two extremes Rabbi Bachman talks about.

The speed limit tolerance experiment at QBWE

2010-06-07T13:35:00.000-07:00

I suspect that the ’success’ of this experiment [ Only two deaths instead of in double figures] will lead to a permanent reduction in the maximum ‘over the posted’ limit. That doesn’t unduely bother me because it takes some time for my car to warm up and ‘want’ to go faster than 100K … usually it is happy at 90K on short trips. I watch my mirror to let others risking demerits and their licences get past quickly, particularly when I am towing.

But what I do think is missing from the current police position is tolerance for those overtaking. It makes a lot of sense to permit 110<130 to get the vehicle back into its proper lane quicker. So many times we read the complaint about the slow driver who speeds up at passing lanes and stops the driver obeying the limit from overtaking. A first stage could be to permit a higher limit at passing lanes, then if that doesn't adversely affect the road toll [I'm sure it won't], maybe extend it to the rest of the roads.[On that I'm ambivilant]

The comment about increased police presence suggests to me that the low toll would have been achieved by that and not the reduction of tolerance from 110 to 105. Attention to driving rather than speed being the important factor. Or maybe it was a sense of resignation "Its going to take longer so what the hell. Let's be courtious" I stayed home and only made town trips over the QBWE.

Though I have proved to my own satisfaction when towing a trailer compared to without over a distance of around 200K that being limited to 90k with the trailer made the journey not that much longer, fifteen minutes on maybe three hours or so. One needs to ease off from 90K much less than when doing 100K.

It is experience like that that make me a more relaxed driver, and maybe becuase I'm getting older every day. What does get my goat are these idiots who tailgate [ME!] as if they are at Bathgate or Nascar and the ridiculous amount they use their brakes.

Raindrops

2010-06-06T00:49:00.000-07:00

There is something about rain and raindrops which attracts photographers I'm sure as I have seen quite a few over the years and taken my share. Here I used ny editing ability to combine a close shot of the drops on the car's windscreen and the another of the view through the window when the drops were out of focus.

A Project ... copying past memories

2010-05-30T02:00:00.000-07:00

Family have been on to me to hand over old family photos, not those which have been handed down to me but those illustrating our family's activities. So in due course I got myself a film and slide copier from the Warehouse complete with eding programme which seems to work reasonably well. Although at only $130 plus freight it cannot be compared to one which I saw on TradeMe which apparently cost $1600 new ... though quite a bit of the difference could be tooling up for a short production run and digital things were very expensive only a few years ago.

My simple little 3.3Mp camera cost me over $2000 while the latest camera I got 10Mp was only $900 a year or two back. Simple P&S cameras, less features, smaller only cost a few hundred ... many more pixels than my original Canon s20 which is a very good though simple camera.

Way back around 1980 I was shooting colour negative film and I suspect the dyes have faded with the passage of time and not really keeping the films in 'proper' conditions .. just in glassine bags in a number of houses without controlled temperature.

We had a Golden Labrador, apparently she was not pure but had 1/64th English Sheepdog who featured in the film Chitti Chitti Bang Bang
She was bought to be a companion for our son, his dog, although when he went overseas she became my wife's dog.

Started being called Putty but somehow this became Bub. Endless energy for people to throw stick both on land and onto water.

So here is the beautiful girl waiting for us

She long ago went to Dog's Heaven after about fourteen years and her successor also spent fifteen years with us and she's been gone about five years so it is a real memory from our family's past.

pseudonyms/ZX80

2010-05-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

The trouble with giving people 'names' is that they become "pseudonymous, not anonymous" and some will say that is a bad thing ... if you believe in what you say you should stand up to get your head cut off.
Personally I am quite sure anyone with a modicum of computer skills can find out who I am and after all this time [ compared to common computer usage .. post Sinclairs ZX80, of which I once owned an eighth share] I'm reluctant to change. I think 'Chubby' is quite a nice nickname. A mildly horrifying thought is that the moment you say anything on the web it is likely to be picked up by the search engines and it is usually the comments that on reflection one would wish to be forgotten, like this one probably :-(

Further to the ZX80 the other seven couldn't understand why somebody who was just an 'operator' as opposed to a 'electronic technician' like all them could be interested in a computer. I remember when we gathered to be shown our new purchase and some thing like "a=4, b=2, a+b=6" was displayed on the screen and my comment was "WOW white man's magic!"

A drink age?

2010-05-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

Kiwiblog has a thread on this subject and reading through it am I glad that a single stubbie makes me sleepy thanks to my upbringing .. getting pretty drunk for the first time at 22yo [despite two years in the army and earlier 10yo being supplied with a couple of gin and oranges by best man and groomsman at a wedding. Groom was a army major and they were in the army too] and disliking the hangover and waste of money; though my guardian let me taste her Guiness [horrible!, put me off it for life]and have a shandy when out riding our bikes at around 12yo and virtually not drinking until my fifties when it was wine for medicinal purposes .. red wine good for the heart? But I guess I was also lucky in one sense that I didn't grow up with a bunch of freinds through until adulthood so no peer pressure, though obviously I missed a lot of fellowship becuase of that.

I object to any age limit for parents supplying a drink, suitably watered down maybe, to their own children, but not others without specific permision from their parents. If a drinking age make policing easier I agree with that, it makes better sense than raising the buying age. Agree that prohibition makes it more attractive for the consumer trying to rebel from their upbringers and the slygrog merchant making a buck from selling the stuff. The gangs have enough options without adding alchohol to the list of drugs they would supply.

Trying another way

2010-05-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

My card reader in the computer isn't working and refused to accept the mini card from my cellphone in its adaptor. Wanted to send a snap I had taken to family. It is now some days latter and the blooms have passed their best so it is no good getting out one of my 'proper' cameras. [ been sick for a couple of days]

So I tried an experiment which by all I've read would work. Put the mini-card in its adaptor into my Panasonic FZ50 and connect it by cable to computer USB input. It worked! and I have been able to send the shot to DiL.

Rosebush is about three feet high sitting in a 2'6" raised bed so cellphone was held above my head pointing down at blooms ... cellphone with its little button for a trigger is horrible to use and most times ambient light is too strong to view the screen properly .. plus my eyesight doesn't like LCD screens .. much prefers an Electronic viewfinder.
The bush is several years old and for its first years was planted in the ground, to be transfered into a pot when I though I was going to change the flowerbed into a carpark, then when a raised bed was made it was replanted with plenty of depth for its roots ... so it has rewarded me hansomely for its freedom regained :-)

A visitor on my letterbox

2010-05-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

Been out helping a lady in distress, her microwave has given up after 34 years of use, "Everything works except the light bulb which gave up a few weeks ago and the heating thingie". Yes well I guess the heating thingie is what we have these machines for :-).
For taking the machine from above her fridge, gosh it was heavy, to the repair shop for a diagnosis, I was treated to lunch in town and when I got home I found this fellow on my letterbox. Would have liked to have used a smaller aperture [ taken at f/4 with zoom at 432mm Angle of view] but didn't want to reduce the shutter speed from 1/200 as I was hand holding ... whatever ... here he/she is ....

I could add that I was using my 2 dioptre close-up lens which brings me, the front element of the lens to about 13 inches from the subject with the focusing range of the camera lens ... unfortunately this meant that I couldn't support my hand with the end of the letterbox ... I guess maybe I should get myself a stronger CU lens but the '2' does for most things. Although I would call this a grasshopper I think maybe it should be called a cicada .... maybe they are the same thing? This was a much smaller beastie than others I have photographed which would have been twice as big, the body. Perhaps I should contratulate him for getting me to use one of my better cameras after a long interval, the cellphone is so handy for snaps and with me all the time I have my trousers on.

"Pukeko" A New Zealand native

2010-05-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

I was cruising around after getting up early and looking for shots on Otago Peninsula and saw this bird quite close. Close and far is a relative term depending on the reach of the lens you are using. This morning I had x12 zoom plus my new 2.2 Raynox telephoto adaptor. The amazing thing about this photo, just a average record shot of the little beastie, is that I had forgtten to adjust the shutter speed from previous shots. So can you imagin get such a reasonable result hand holding, though probably leaning in my car seat and on the windosill, using a 950mm equivalent angle of view at 1/20. Obviously a fluke, a lucky fluke, and it has been sharpened in editing.

'Peninsula Clouds'

2010-05-04T14:59:00.000-07:00

Nothing very dramatic and I'm not sure why I should have taken it .. but I did .. so included to show I have my off days. Though really I guess we all have lots of trigger presses that don't really make it for every one that does.

"Pagent Girl"

2010-05-03T00:53:00.000-07:00

Experimenting with combining threshold with normal tonality as a means to isolate the subject material from surrounds.

"Night Shift Returns"

2010-04-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

"Moonlight Express"

2010-04-09T13:18:00.001-07:00

Saw the moon and heard the train ... just had time to rest the camera on my front gate post ... it is concrete block .... and pressed the trigger for a one second exposure .....

"Landing"

2010-04-08T02:08:00.000-07:00

Messing around with the computer and a good editing programme is fun and so SO MUCH easier that it used to be in the 'wet darkroom'

Today's Photo -- "Just a couple of seagulls"

2010-04-02T01:04:00.000-07:00

I slowly walked closer and closer to this pair taking a shot each time in case they flew off until I had the composition I wanted as here. One of a number of shots from a photo-safari on a foggy morning.

Today's Photo -- "Hills above the sea"

2010-03-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

A fascinating effect which only lasted for a minute or two, at least after I saw and photographed it...

Cost effectiveness and the Benefit

2010-03-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

The recent story about a woman who returned to the DPB becuase the job, instead of improving her situation, cost her income suggests to me that the 'minimum wage' needs to be more than the benefit.

One can use this as an argument to reduce the DPB but that is inhumane abuse.

The solution as I see it is to ensure that abatements do not cut in so quickly or severely. So that it is definitely worth the persons getting off the benefit.

The problem with this is the petty mindedness of those who think somebody is on a good lurk ... They well may be from some peoples viewpoint but when one is concerned at the amount of government money going on benefits one should estimate which will cost less, a whole benefit or just part of one subsidising a persons efforts.

Sadly this has been the situation for decades through both left and right-wing governments. From the small mindedness I read in papers and now blogs I doubt if progress will be made ... but one can dream and hope for a good solution.

Whose Country is it?

2010-03-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

The far-right extremists have gone into conniptions.

The bullying, threats, and acts of violence following the passage of health care reform have been shocking, but they’re only the most recent manifestations of an increasing sense of desperation.
read on ... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/opinion/27blow.html?th&emc=th

Personally I think it is all rather sad.

More of it .....

2010-03-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

I thought health care was going to be "Waterloo". Now it's "Armageddon". Can these guys just make up their minds?

If you can't cry it is best to laugh

2010-03-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

Some of the humour .....With a lack of knowledge of American history I miss some of it ... enjoy ....

You might be a Republican if:

you're afraid to buy a cup of coffee without a side arm.

you think there were dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden.

you believe we shouldn't have universal health care because God doesn't want us to.

you think the guy who flew into the IRS building "had a point".

you don't know, or don't want children to know, that Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.

you didn't know why people were laughing at the designation "tea bagging".

you like Michele Bachmann for her fine mind.

you think Sarah Palin is just gosh darn cute enough to be president.

A reply to the assinine right on Lindsay Mitchells blog

2010-03-26T01:36:00.000-07:00

In case it gets moderated out unlike the silly folk who usually inhabit that 'rabbit' blog .....

America screwed the British Empire and bleed her dry in the first years of WWII. Now they are screwing themselves with their extravagent living relying on Asian money to feed their absurd lifestyle.

The foolish scaremongering of the American right and their toadies in NZ is a national disgrace and helps to promote the views of Dirk. Over the years I have spent months in the United States and with a few exceptions found them to be pretty much as I find people in NZ. Except due to the size of the country they are very insular compared to people in small countries like NZ.

The ironical thing is that with the new bill America has not followed the UK, NZ and various other countries into a government run healthcare system ... mores the pity ... but has adopted the Swiss concept which probably is the best the world can expect given the absurd and old worldly concepts of freedom they espouse.

The fearful stories one hears about State Healthcare are mostly hogwash and fabrication by foolish irresponsible people such as KG who scaremonger deliberately ignoring the truth of the subject with ridiculous untruths mixed with enough truth to fool the less knowledgable.

The scream of the American Right

2010-03-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

The wailing and knashing of teeth as the American right attack the new Healthcare legislation of Obama ....This reminds me of the screaming child just out of the womb. Obama seems to have delivered America into the circle of civilised nations who look after their sick.

Though sadly instead of creating a genuine healthcare system he has forced the American people into the hands of the con merchants, the insurance companies. This is maybe the only way the Americas would accept their human responsibilities to their fellow man, and hopefully will work for them. I think it is similar to the Swiss approach to the subject. Though according to DPF {Kiwiblog] it is in direct contrast to some provinces of Canada where private health insurance is illegal.

It would be wonderful if that was the case in New Zealand and those contributions went into the general pool instead of paying for priority treatment with care being provided as required and as facilties were available by both private and public hospitals. So public and doctors had the opportunity, the freedom, to work be helped in the system of choice. Then we would see if the bureaucratic system of the public hospitals was really neccessary.

I am firmly of the opinion that the only satisfactory system is for healthcare to be funded by government, or SOE, supported by contributions on a 'whole of life' basis, though scaled to income, rather than the confidence trick operated by companies of low premiums when you are likely to be well and high when you are likely to be sick.

Frankly while I accept and support some of the right's commonsense views I think that the extremists are utterly sick in their mindset as they attack Obama on the basis of freedom. Being required to contribute to one's own healthcare instead of squandering it on high living and becoming a burden on one's fellow man seems to be the only sensible solution as the world gets crowded beyond the immagination of the original freedom fighters/thinkers of past centuries.

Freedom to polute the world, to go where one wills was a fine sentiment in previous centuries but is completely impracticable with the current world population with emerging nations struggling to match the wasteful extravagences of the 'West' where a small proportion of the world consumes/wastes most of the world resources.

As a child one learns the norms of fitting into one's family, the sensible restrictions our parents put on us for their welfare and that of their neighbours in the home building and elsewhere ... a concept sadly missing in many cases illustrated by the noisy children in supermarkets and aeroplanes ... and in my case yesterday in a Post Shop as I waited to pay my creditcard account

So must adults learn to show consideration for thir fellow man, however revolting they may be, to moderate their behaviour to make room for the current population on earth. There is no meaningful getting off available. One of the important aspects is controlling the results of our desire to propagate so that hopefully before amagedon arrives we reduce world population to something it can support without self-destruction.

So the 'right' are obviously the barbarians of the 21st century and must be restrained from gaining control of our societies here on earth. It is a matter of self preservation and common sense.

Tricking a P&S into getting a shot of the moon

2010-03-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

The thought crossed my mind that apart from the average P&S doesn't have a long enough zoom/reach to get a good shot of the moon just how could it be done.

The main problem is that the moon is a small but bright object, see an earlier thread on moon shots,surrounded by a large expanse of black. The camera metering system is designed to work out an average of the light captured by the whole frame ... so the little bright object gets over exposed ... and HOW!

There is a useful trick that one can use for various reasons with most if not all digital cameras, and some automatic film cameras I guess. This is the 'half-trigger' technique where you show the camera something and press half trigger. The camera sets exposure and focus and if you continue to hold the half trigger you can point the camera elsewhere and then fully press the trigger for the shot. Focus and exposure will be as 'pre-set' and not for the recorded subject. I frequently use this technique to avoid going into manual mode when 'exposing to the right' to avoid burnt out skies.

So for the moon ... if one held a cigarette lighter or lit match close in front of the lens the exposure might correct for the bright object which is the moon but focus would be all to hell. So in addition to the light source you need a close-up lens to make the camera think the light is at infinity. [ a x10 plastic magnifying glass such as I have could do this job ] Holding HT you put the light and CU lens away and point at the moon and get a nicely exposed and sharp shot.

Today's Photo -- "My first IR"

2010-03-20T14:56:00.001-07:00

My first IR taken with my Canon P&S, the s20, a simple but great little camera. Suprisingly sharp considering that the exposure was one second and hand held. I remembering reading Larry Bolch, the Canadian photographer, writing that he could handhold long exposures like 1/5th steadier than faster 1/30th ones. Must be you take more care when you think it is not going to work.

Film Review "The Road" "Girl with Dragon Tat"

2010-03-20T14:31:00.001-07:00

I am a bit deaf and deficient in higher frequency hearing, one of the rewards of getting old. So often it seems people are mumbling in their beards even when they don't have any growth, like femals speakers. So my preference is to go to films with sub-titles and I recently got a clue that when you hire a DVD you can select sub-titles, even english ones. So when I confirm this as a fact I may well buy a DVD player. I have a DVD player in my computer but it doesn't read all DVDs so the only time I tried I was dissappointed. Anyway to the films ....

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a Swedish film with sub-titles by a NZ outfit AAV or something. A bit disturbing that they let the sub-titles run over cuts quite often. But the story was a modern Mrs Peel if you remember her from long long ago.
It is strange that I thought I had missed it a good month or more ago and it is still running admittedly it was a 5.20pm screening. The small cinema was over half full, a rare event these days and largely seemed to be middle aged women ... interesting demographics .. is that the right word?

Well worth seeing with a 'modern woman' dressed in black leather and rings in her nose, more than my grand-daughter has. But the Character was 24 and GD is only 17 so give her time. Both are slim and elegant in an offbeat way. Dragon girl is a computer wizz able to hack and works for a security firm. She has a Guru for computers who reminded me of my Guru who guided me until he left the country.
Won't tell you any more about the film except it has some grusome sequences well handled along with sex scenes which didn't disturb this easilly embarrased old man.
So great twists and I am reminded of Jack Reacher in the Lee Child's books ... talking about an old gun-slinger in the West "He never shot anybody who didn't deserve to die". There is a sequel to Dragon Girl which I'm looking forward to.

"The Road" tells the story, I guess pretty harrowing, of a man and his young son following so unspecified apocolypse event which had destroyed American civilisation. Fortunately I missed most of the mumbling dialog but becuase I was trapped at the wrong end of my row of seats I sat through it ALL. I'm sure if I could have heard the dialog I would have left the cinema in desparation ... that sums it up pretty well :-)

Today's Photo -- "Going Nowhere'

2010-03-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

The horse/cow has bolted

2010-03-17T13:57:00.000-07:00

Reading WEB Griffin's book black op I found the characters talk about 'the cow is out of the shed' rather than horses out of the stable.

Today's Photo -- "Glenwood Canyon"

2010-03-16T23:45:00.001-07:00

Glenwood Canyon to the west of Denver. The Colorado River flows through the canyon on its way south. I also saw an AMTRAK train and had and would travel through the valley by AMTRAK on this and susequent visits to the States.
The blurred people you can see had the camera that I wasn't using for this photo so we had an interesting chat about the good points of the Panasonic FZ 10/20. This was before the FZ30 and then FZ50 came out I was using my Nikon 5700 for infra-red as the Panasonic has too strong an ir cutting filter to be satisfactory.

How lucky we are!

2010-03-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

Reading this morning in the New York Times a story about a doctor having to give away a patient suffering from cancer becuase the Medicaid payments to doctors had been cut in the state of Ohio, and other places too I expect.

It seems that the reduced payments simply do not cover the administration costs of the practice. From my American doctor source I gather that if you have a good balance of insurance covered patients you can afford to deal with a few medicaid patients. But this Ohio doctor cannot have enough full fee paying patients to make ends meet in the practice, so he cannot afford to spend time on medicaid patients.

There is a major cost for any american doctor and that is malpractice insurance which quoted in the article at around $43T is much more than many have to live on, quite a lot I'd guess in Ohio with cutbacks over the years of industry. My informant told me he was paying around what a superanuient gets to live on here in New Zealand.

So we are very lucky that a person by the name of Woodhouse came up with our Accident Compensation scheme, messed around by subsequent politicians but at least still basically a worth while arrangement. Abused by some as they found loopholes but I guess that is to be expected with any scheme. It is a human characteristic to look out for oneself in the short term, be they capitalist or socialist, it just reveals itself in differing opportunities. The boss tries to screw the worker and he returns the compliment.

So for all the problems we have here I think we are lucky to have the system of medical care and accident coverage that we have.

Children in Public

2010-03-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

I remember a popular panel speaker saying that "Children should be seen and not heard ... and preferably not seen either" A bit extreme the punch line but I think the first is a valid attitude.

These days, and for several generations, it has been 'normal' to tend to ignore people other than oneself and if ours disturb others the concept it that it is 'the others' problem. Consideration for others seems to have gone out the door and we have children flying in planes making a racket and somebody who makes a comment about them to a freind, but is overheard ... shades of stage whispers perhaps ... is crucified as being un reasonable.

Then it turns out that the husband/ father was sitting beside the commentor and apparently doing nothing to keep the children happy and quiet ... that's womens' business anyway.

Side issues like one part is Labour and the other ACT add nuencess to story.

But it all boils down to bad parenting and unbringing of children rampant these days when corporal punishment is an offence and children are simply permitted to run wild and un controlled and thereby not taught to have consideration for others when out of the home environment.

An inept solution

2010-03-05T11:12:00.000-08:00

It is a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted this suggestion that those involved in abusing and killing their unwanted offspring should be paid to undergo sterilisation. A parrallel suggestion is that those on the DPB should be required to practice contraception to avoid prolonging their time on the benefit by having more children. Since contraception is the killing of a life form there seems to be a moral conflict there.

For years now, in good times and bad, I have been puzzled and dis-approving of the dole-bludger bashers. Everybody looks out for themselves and we have a society which enables some to choose to stay at home and look after children by providing an income to sustain them in that endeavour ... some suggest it is too generous but I'm not sure it is in most cases. Those who complain about paying tax to support these people are so selfish and I wonder how they would get one if there were no benefits and we had a mass of people scrabbling to make a living and forcing down wages for those fortunate to have a job. The insecurity it would create for everybody.

Living in different universes

2010-03-05T11:07:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman the ecconomist in his weekly NYT Op-Ed column talks about how the left and the right are living in completely different universes, interlectually and morally, with their approach to everything Congress and the Senate are discussing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/opinion/05krugman.html?th&emc=th

It strikes me that something similar is occuring in various blogs I read based here in New Zealand.

Photo for today -- "Ford"

2010-03-04T11:31:00.001-08:00

This is a small stream which flows into the Colorado River just east of Glenwood Canyon[?]. A bit 'cluttered' for a photo but it appealed to me at the time.

Photo for today -- "Footprint"

2010-02-26T11:13:00.001-08:00

Do you find footprints in the sand interesting, particularly when the light shows them off nicely? Perhaps it is a 'photographer's 'thing' .. the effect of light on otherwise quite dull aspects of the world

Photo for Today -- "Double or Quits"

2010-02-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

I can understand why two people needing access to an area would employ a padlock each but a third using wire? Crazy! It was just a waste area where a school had once been and there was free access from a pathway on the opposite side of the ground.

Photo for today -- "Dog's Fun"

2010-02-21T10:58:00.001-08:00

Enough of IR .. now for a multiple image with three snips of time joined to illoustrate a dog having a whale of a time chasing seagulls at the beach.

Photo for Today ---'Canon Trees'

2010-02-19T10:34:00.000-08:00

Still in Canon with this small collection of infra-red studies. I didn't catch the train since it was a private charter and I didn't push myself on the organisers. Later that morning I found an interesting little 15" guage railway which took me to a lookout over the gorge that the big train travels ... I will try and find a photo I took of it for another day. Meanwhile another Canon ....

Californian Death Spiral

2010-02-19T10:20:00.000-08:00

A challenging and gripping heading for an OP-ED by renowned Paul Krugman in the NYT today. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/opinion/19krugman.html?th&emc=th
The health insurance business is facing a crisis in California and I expect elsewhere becuase of the financial crisis. People who think they are healthy and less likely to need insurance coverage are dropping out or moving to to cheaper less coverage options. Naturally the people who know they are sick or likely to be hang on. So the proportion of uncalled on premiums of the healthy which pay for the treatment of the sick falls and the insurance companies increase premiums some as much as 39%. A death spiral for sure.

Caused of course by the natural instinct to look after oneself and to hell with the rest of the world. This is a basic right wing characteristic and promoted as a good thing. It isn't and merely provides the best argument I know for compulsory contributions to preferably a government run or government owned , non-profit making, organisation to handle health care for everybody in the country.

It beats me how a leading country of the world can be so blind to this basic need for its people. How a so called civilisaded people can be so primative in its approach to health care for so many of its people. For somebody living in a sensibly run country it is hard to imagine a situation where 20% or well over 45 million of one's fellow citizens do not have access to health care other than emergency situations. It is a situation really too horrible to contemplate .. yet the right wing think it is good .. how wrong can the right be. Oxymoron ?

Slow Boat to China

2010-02-17T11:13:00.000-08:00

NYT today http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/business/energy-environment/17speed.html?th&emc=th
Mearsk Shipping have discovered that by sailing their ships at 12 knots or 20 Knots instead of the previously standard 24knots they save considerable money, even when longer crew costs are taken into account, and also reduce emmissions.

While American States apparently are raising top speed limits it is suggested that driving at 55mph is better than 65mph. Here in NZ a couple of winteres ago I built myself a camper trailer to sleep in the motor camp close to the ski field I like, Cardrona, a field with plenty of beginners runs suitable for an old mad returning to the sport after an absence of several decade so feeling nervous and cautious.

Anyway because I was towing this light camper [ 4ft by 6ft ] I was supposed to not do more than 90k as opposed to the 100k permitted for the car by itself. I discovered despite this limitation my trip time only increased by about 15 minutes on a three hour trip, hardly worth bothering about. Fuel consumption remained about the same and I was saving on the backpacket bed costs, let alone a hotel cost. The trailer paid for inself with about three trips of four or five days each.

Photo for today --- "The River"

2010-02-16T10:07:00.000-08:00

The River close by Canon Station

Photo for today --- "IR in Canon"

2010-02-14T10:03:00.000-08:00

One of a series of IR shots I took around the Canon Railway station while waiting for the train.

Photo for today --"Beacons" an infra-red study

2010-02-13T10:41:00.001-08:00

Not all cameras can shoot IR satisfactorilly. My Nikon 5700 doesn't supress the IR as much as my Panasonic FZ50 so with a proper IR filter, not just a deep red filter, Wratten 87 equivalent, I get the IR result without any redness. Exposures tend to be long such as one second at f/4 with 100 ISO so movement is blurred but the results are satisfying with some subjects.

Photo of the Moon for a neighbouring blogger

2010-02-12T19:36:00.000-08:00

Acroos the road between my house and the harbour runs a train track and one evening I saw the moon and heard the train and rushed to place the camera on the concrete post which supports my front gate. I selected one second exposure and it has been modified a bit in editing. Camera and editing programme, a good one that is, are equal partners towards the final result.

Photo for Today -- "Back Beach"

2010-02-12T19:08:00.000-08:00

Back Beach is now a snug little anchorage protected from the easterlies by reclaimation and buildings for Port Otago and the log trade, while to the west the bay curves around with a high hill to protect from westerlies over the uppper harbour. This morning it was foggy and little or no wind.

US Army Corp are stupid

2010-02-12T10:03:00.000-08:00

Reading the following story it strikes me that the USMC are somewhat lacking in common sense. They have a reported 10,000 single parents and they don't set up a foster division to free up the soldiers they wish to draft away from bases where parents can both serve and look after their children.
NYT 12.2.2010
Single Mother Is Spared Court-Martial
Stephen Morton for The New York Times
Specialist Alexis Hutchinson's plan for care of her son, Kamani, while she was to be deployed to Afghanistan fell through.

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CloseLinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink By JAMES DAO
Published: February 11, 2010
Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a 21-year-old Army cook and single parent, was days from deploying to Afghanistan last fall when her mother backed out of an agreement to take care of her 10-month-old son for the duration of her one-year tour.

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Mother Refuses Deployment (November 17, 2009)
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Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Angelique Hughes, Specialist Hutchinson's mother, found she was unable to help.
Specialist Hutchinson’s mother, Angelique Hughes, had a child of her own at home and was also caring for a sick sister while running a day care center from her home in Oakland, Calif. Feeling overwhelmed, Ms. Hughes took the boy back to Savannah, Ga., where Specialist Hutchinson was based, and begged her to find someone else.

That is when Specialist Hutchinson did what might seem natural to a parent but to the Army was a serious offense: she stayed home with her child and missed her flight to Afghanistan. She was arrested and later charged with offenses that could have led to a court-martial and jail time.

On Thursday, Specialist Hutchinson received an other-than-honorable discharge, ending an impasse that had surprised many legal experts and spurred lively debate in military circles.

In a news release, the Third Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., said Specialist Hutchinson’s rank had been reduced to private and that she would lose some Army and veterans’ benefits.

The statement asserted that evidence from other soldiers and Specialist Hutchinson herself indicated that she “didn’t intend to deploy to Afghanistan with her unit and deliberately sought ways out of the deployment.”

Rai Sue Sussman, Specialist Hutchinson’s lawyer in San Francisco, said the soldier was prepared to deploy and that they would have rebutted those accusations at trial. “This resolution will give Alexis closure and the ability to move on immediately, without a lengthy trial and possible jail term,” Ms. Sussman said.

Legal experts said it would have been extraordinary if Specialist Hutchinson had been court-martialed over child care issues, saying they could not recall a similar case. However, hundreds and perhaps thousands of soldiers have been administratively discharged for such problems in recent years.

Some legal experts speculated that Specialist Hutchinson’s commanders threatened court-martial to send a message to other single-parent soldiers in the brigade. Last year, more than 10,000 single parents on active military duty deployed overseas.

“It could be that they have a ton of single parents and deploy regularly and can’t afford to have disruptions like this,” said Michelle M. Lindo McCluer, a former Air Force lawyer who is now director of the National Institute of Military Justice, a nonprofit group in Washington.

In its statement, the Third Infantry Division noted that there were many other single parents or dual-military families in Specialist Hutchinson’s unit who deployed to Afghanistan. “They have experienced similar challenges but have been able to overcome them so they could deploy with their units,” the statement said.

Specialist Hutchinson’s case unfolded about the same time as the division’s commander was embroiled in another controversy. In December, the commander, Maj. Gen. Anthony A. Cucolo III, who oversees forces in northern Iraq, issued orders threatening to punish soldiers, married or single, who become pregnant. (Punishment was also threatened for sexual partners.) The general, who has sent home about eight soldiers from Iraq because of pregnancy, later backed off the threat of court-martialing such soldiers.

Raised in Oakland, Specialist Hutchinson was a member of the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps in high school and then enlisted in the Army upon graduation. She wanted, she said in a written response to questions, “to get away from home and try something new.” Her son, Kamani, was born in January 2009.

Specialist Hutchinson declined to say anything about the boy’s father, other than that he had never been involved with Kamani. Ms. Hughes said she believed he was a former soldier.

Single parents are required to file family care plans months before deployment. In her plan, Specialist Hutchinson listed her mother as a long-term caregiver and in October she used a two-week leave to take her son to Oakland.

But it took only a few sleepless nights of caring for the infant for Ms. Hughes, 42, to decide she was in over her head. “I was working a full day and then staying up all night with Kamani,” she said.

Ms. Hughes said that she called Specialist Hutchinson’s company commander to explain the problem and that he said the specialist could delay deployment for 30 days to find alternative care. But apparently the delay was never granted because Specialist Hutchinson was arrested in November when she returned to her post, Hunter Army Airfield, a day after missing her flight to Afghanistan. In January, she was charged with absence without leave, dereliction of duty, insubordinate conduct and missing movement.

Kevin Larson, a spokesman for Fort Stewart, said Specialist Hutchinson had been given a previous extension to work out her family care plan, though he could not say when. Mr. Larson also said that a “notable national veterans organization,” which he declined to name, had offered to care for Kamani during Specialist Hutchinson’s deployment, but that she refused the help.

The legal wrangling over Specialist Hutchinson’s case stirred much discussion on blogs, with sympathizers wondering why the Army would prosecute a parent struggling with child care problems and critics questioning the soldier’s motives.

Ms. Hughes has heard some of that criticism firsthand. “People have said to me: ‘She signed this contract. She’s supposed to go. That’s her first priority,’ ” Ms. Hughes said. “My response is: ‘I don’t think so. This is her child. This is her family. This is her priority. The military is a job.’ ”

Photo for today --- Photo trickery

2010-02-11T10:43:00.000-08:00

I like this shot as an example of how my concept of digital photography works ... that camera and editing programme are equal partners towards the end result ... and a knowledge of what you can do in editing can help in the field.

I was early and picked my spot for the shot but somebody later decided to stand on the stone pillar in front of the railcar. But I also got a shot of the railcar further back on the bridge and used a portion of that to replace the part of the car hidden by the person. It involved a small enlargement to compensate for the car being further back for the first shot. For this I think Paint Shop Pro superior to Adobe Photoshop ... still I started with PSP becuase then I couldn't afford PS and have never really taken to PS .. likely the reverse would be the case for somebody starting with Adobe :-)

It amused me :-)

2010-02-11T10:39:00.000-08:00

As a photographer I am interested in how other togs work and was amused to see somebody using the LCD screen in bright sunlight when the camera has an Electronic Viewfinder, EVF. I guess old habits from film die hard and I almost always use my EVF and only the LCD for occasional low and high angle shots.

Photo for today --- "Freinds and Romans"

2010-02-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

I wonder if the person who stuck this piece of wood in the sand saw the same thing that I did.

The inequality of unemployment

2010-02-09T10:04:00.000-08:00

There is an interesting and disturbing op-ed in the NYT this morning by Bob Herbert where he points out the wide differences in the amount of unemployment in different decile groups.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/opinion/09herbert.html?th&emc=th
It makes me wonder how similar groupings are being affected in New Zealand. I would expect it to be pretty similar which is disturbing for the long term effects of governments doing little or nothing to rectify the problem.

It seems to me that in the Unioted States we have a caring President and supporting party hamstrung by the political system from achieving any progress while in NZ it is the basic 'speak calming words while doing nothing'.

Road Killers

2010-01-26T23:02:00.000-08:00

From Lidsay Mitchell's blog ....
"The state of Victoria has a higher population than NZ but fewer road fatalities. Last year they had a record low in road deaths.

But a terrible accident at the weekend killed five young people. Typical aspects all present. Young, male driver. Limited licence requirements flouted. High speed. Alcohol.

STEVEN Johnstone, the 19-year-old driver in Sunday's horror crash that claimed five young lives in Mill Park, makes a chilling case study on the limits of the law. The apprentice roof tiler had a speeding conviction in the past year and was only allowed to carry one passenger, according to police.

Instead, his car was crammed with six people as it slammed into an oak tree at 140 km/h after hurtling through the intersection of Childs and Plenty roads.
This is followed by a discussion of the limitations of the law, what has been tried so far and what direction the police may go in next."

The problem is peer pressure and the fact that everybody wants to be liked and fit into some group. This applies at all ages and only a very few are strong enough in character to be individuals and say 'this is stupid behaviour'. In childhood I was frequently sitting on my guardian's knee while her husband drove. He was a cautious Scotish Presbitarian :-) and I'm sure I intook his attitudes to the road ... until I got my licence and occasionally pushed the venerable [ 1937 in 1948 ] Morris 8 up to 50 mph when alone. At that age I didn't have a 'peer' group.
So I'm lucky to be alive.

Censoring of posts and bans

2010-01-12T02:21:00.000-08:00

It seems most common on those of the left wing who apparently cannot stand comments against their point of view. Perhaps I can be sympathetic that they are paying to publish their views, taking the trouble to run their blogs, so why should they tolerate discenting views.

I guess we expect everything to be free and easy to abuse each other with impunity, a common problem with some blogs ... a sort of fighting without blood or death ... not many wars in our neighbourhood.

I got refered to one thread on Red Alert and it was very disappointing with so many deletions and bans and hard to follow just what the thread was about. Will not go back there in a hurry.

It does seem rather juvenile all the censoring and banning.

Today's Photo --- The football

2010-01-12T02:13:00.000-08:00

I could see nobody around at the time so how and why the ball came to be sitting on the rocks is a mystery. I did once notice a ball caught in a whirl of rubbish on the side of a river but that had obviously fallen into the river higher up the stream, but on the rocks is a puzzlement :-)

Welfare in Christchurch

2009-12-21T22:18:00.001-08:00

The thought struck me that the Christchurch family which featured extensively in the CHCH Press today needs that $1000 a week to meet their mortgage payments on the collection of properties the are reported to own.

Mealtime in the Shrub

2009-12-21T22:15:00.000-08:00

A few days after my last post HeShe dissappeared and there is something suspiciously like a spider's leg caught in the web .... well that's what the female of the species do, so I guess HeShe was a He.

HESHE alive and spinning

2009-12-09T11:49:00.000-08:00

This morning I looked for the corpse of Heshe when I took my shower and it was gone and a few inches away was this small spider hanging out on its web .... wunderbar!

I know female spiders eat their mates but I hope this is not what happened and it is Heshe alive and spinning :-)

A Spider in my Shrub

2009-12-08T12:58:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I encountered a very small spider crawling around my shrub. Not a 'money' spider, a bit bigger than that but only as big as my little finger nail with legs extended. I don't love spiders but I don't hate them. Generally speaking I pick them up with something and take them outside, the bigger ones anyway. I've had one on me when drying myself ... it had been hiding in the towel on the rack ... I didn't exactly like that.

Anyway this spider a few days ago was crawling around the edge of the shrub and we managed to avoid each other as I showered and heshe was still going well and I left heshe to it. Next morning heshe was part way up the wall in a corner fairly close to the shower rose and seemed to stay there, apart from crawling out of heshe's hammock to hide in the corner an inch or two away.

I was fascinated how it could climb the smooth wall of the shower and complete with safety rope when heshe slipped and fell an inch or two ... really amazing capability ... I thought of my son and DiL who go rock climbing.

Today I was looking for heshe but couldn't see anywhere hanging on the wall so assumed had found somewhere else to hang out. After washing I noticed a small black thing floating in the water and thought "Oh NO!" .... but without my glasses I can't see very well but I put my finger under it and it seemed to cling to it and I raised it to the shrub ledge and gently shook it off. Even with my glasses I still wasn't sure and it wasn't until I got my trusty Nikon 5700 complete with 2 dioptre CU lens out and had blown it up in my editing programme [ PSP] was it clear that it was the corpse of my freindly spider .... I felt rather sad at my carelessness in not seeing heshe on the floor of the shrub and helping heshe to safety .....

Today's Photo ---

2009-11-15T11:09:00.001-08:00

One of two shots I took about the time that 'The Walking Bus' was being proposed and the in thing. I guess all these children belong to Mum and maybe not going to school but to a form of 'home education' :-)

Hasan's PTSD

2009-11-15T11:01:00.000-08:00

Some people are quite sarcastic as to how a guy who hadn't been there could be suffering from PTSD. I'd suggest that it is quite possible for somebody who is a sensitive character to be inclinded to the Medical profession to get the disease second hand from listening to all the terrible stories of those already suffering from PTSD. Add in the fact that he is of the Muslim faith living in a country where quite a few of the hot blooded rightwing consider the situation on a par to the old saying about the American Indian " A good one is a dead one" it is an impossible situation for the man to live under. Shackled to the army becuase it paid for his medical education ...a possible senario my son was considering way back ... I thank everything that is good that he made it without selling his soul in that manner.

I commend a NYT Op-Ed ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/opinion/15rich.html?th&emc=th

An egg at 18 Miles

2009-11-07T11:43:00.000-08:00

NYT 8.11.2009 ....“What have the Americans done in eight years?” asked Abdullah Wasay, 60, a pharmacist in Charikar, a market town about 25 miles north of Kabul, expressing a view typical of many here. “Americans are saying that with their planes they can see an egg 18 kilometers away, so why can’t they see the Taliban?”

Trouble is they can see the egg but not inside to see if it is addled or not.

Another quote ....With less certainty about America’s continued commitment, there is a growing sense that the only sure way to peace is through negotiations with the Taliban. “They are the sons of this country, it is right to negotiate with the Taliban,” said Mohammed Younnis, a shopkeeper in Charikar who sells tea, sugar and grains.

“This government is Afghan, and the Taliban are Afghan; they should build the country together,” he said.

Out of the mouths of the not so young?

Denver's "Main Street"

2009-11-04T10:45:00.000-08:00

There is a suggestion for Wellington to close off Lambton Quay, Manners Street through Counrtney Place to traffic. I guess likely traffic would cross it at various places. I think it is a great idea and is what I found in Denver Colorado where I was able to travel into the city centre using light rail, parking my car next to a railway station in the suburbs and then found buses running up and down the "Main Street" which were free.
The first two at nearby Boulder.

Damm Lies or mis leading statistics

2009-11-01T21:59:00.000-08:00

Currently there is a hell of a beat-up going on about Rodney Hide taking his partner on an overseas trip at the tax payer's expense.

fRANKLY THE WHOLE THING SMELLS OF MISLEADING ASSUMPTIONS AND POLITICAL CRAP.

I could well be wrong since I don't have the imternet skills to be sure of how to find the official info and if I found the whole truth at http://www.dia.govt.nz/ministers_expenses

>>>UPDATE ... I have had a horrible thought that the Parliamentary sites strictly record MP expenses but ignore those of spouses/partners ... so maybe the journalist who wrote the original story is a hell of a lot cleverer than me and deserves my apology.<<<

However there I found simply $26,872 as Cabinet approved overseas travel. I found no confirmation that a similar amount had been spent by the taxpayer for Rodney's partner ... so suggestions of the trip costing $52T is creative accounting/journalism [ of the worst sort].
Rodney has apparently spent $9920 on accomodation in Wellington
$12015 on Domestic air travel
$26233 om surface travel for Minister Spouse [Partner?] staff.
making a total $48865

Disclaimer ... I used to be a vocal member of the Act Party about a decade or so ago but gave that away around the turn of the millenium. I also once had a drink with Rodney though since I don't normally shout drinks Rodney's drink was paid for by another Act member, I paid for mine and my wife.

I also think it quite reasonable that a hard-working minister should have a perk or two to compensate him for the stress of ministerial life without petty bizibodies jumping up and down. So good on you Rodney.

The American Right -- a whacky cult

2009-11-01T12:46:00.000-08:00

I think this quote from a NYT Op-Ed sums up my feelings about the American right and their supporters elsewhere.
>>>The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. The movement’s undisputed leaders, Palin and Beck, neither of whom has what Palin once called the “actual responsibilities” of public office, would gladly see the Republican Party die on the cross of right-wing ideological purity. Over the short term, at least, their wish could come true.<<<

I have been accused of having no principles becuase of my moderate approach to subjects ... but without moderation how can the differences between right and left be resolved. I am happy to be in the middle becuase I can see merit in the NZ context in both the policies of ACT and the Alliance .... the parties which I choose between over a decade ago. Both seemed to be plugging for the 'Responsible Society' I believe in. It was a case of which was more likely to succeed. Time has shown neither making it but the Alliance is history while ACT plugs on and is part of Government ... admittedly a small part which happilly for me means that their more extreme aspects of policy cannot proceed.

'The Respopnsible Society' is an expression I found many decade ago in a book by Dr Bill Sutch, a supposed Communist and Russian spy/agent. What didn't appear in the book I think was the problem for the RS is that for it to work the populace must be also responsible. Society [ the Government structure ] cannot carry the whole burden without help from its members.

I think I do have an underlying principle and that is a utter disgust of the extremist in the mirriad of forms they appear.

Central Otago Railway --- 130 years

2009-11-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

At Labour Weekend the Taieri Gorge Railway celebrated the 130th anniversary of the Central Otago Railways openning. The TGR runs a daily tourist service on the remaining sixty miles it owns of the 240 original miles of the COR. This enables walkers and cyclists to connect with the Central Otago Rail Trail which is the beof the railway and enables one to walk/cycle to Alexandra.

RM57 crosses the Hindon Road/Rail Bridge

The TGR ran special trains over the weekend with the return of Railcar RM57 after a thirty year absence. I remember being part of a group from the Otago Model Engineers who made one of the last trips the railcar made thirty years ago. My wife and son were with me.

Helping RM57 with the runs was the Pacific 4-6-2 'Sharon Lee' making one of her quite frequent trips to Otago although for the first time being able to make the trip on the TGR through to Middlemarch with the restoration of the turntable there.
Here she hauls out of Dunedin Railway Station.

A woman's burden --- PTSD

2009-11-01T12:16:00.000-08:00

As women join men in the 'War on Terrorists' and the nature of the struggle means the 'front line' is where you happen to be, and women experience traumatic scenes which remain with them after demob to upset and disturb their civilian lives. But are not readilly recognised by civilians who stayed at home. I found this story quite disturbing and worth reading for my education on the matter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/us/01trauma.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th

The Omnivore and Global Warming

2009-10-31T12:53:00.000-07:00

It depends on what you eat rather than turning vegetarian that makes you responsible with regard to global warming. An Op-Ed from NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/opinion/31niman.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th

The 'do-gooders' are at it again

2009-10-31T12:17:00.000-07:00

This report tells of a new requirement coming into force in the United States which requires all toys to be tested for harmful content ... a result of the lead scandel of a year or two ago. Consumer Groups are pushing the law despite the harm it will do to backyard producers and stores selling their products who use safe products.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/business/smallbusiness/31toys.html?th&emc=th

Mixed Gender Juries

2009-10-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

From Heather Roy this piece ...

On October 26 1942 the Women Jurors Act came into effect. This meant for the first time, women aged 25-60 could be included on the jury list on the same basis as men if they so desired.

Driven by the demands of war on the country and the fact that so many men were serving overseas, this Act was one of a number of historic milestones achieved for New Zealand woman during the 1940s. It was only a year before - in October 1941 - that New Zealand's first female police officers completed their training.

Despite the passing of the Women Jurors Act, however, very few women actually added their names to the jury pool. This lasted until 1963, when the Act was amended so that the names of all adult women were added by default - however they still had absolute right of refusal.

Over subsequent years the jury responsibilities of men and women have been equalised. Today everyone enrolled on the Electoral Roll, aged 20-65, and residing within a specific distance from a court is required to attend if summoned. If they wish to be excused, they must prove that sitting on the jury would cause them hardship or serious inconvenience.

It's a far cry from the statement of New Zealand's first ever female juror, Miss ER Kingsman, who suggested that one day New Zealand might even have female judges - an idea considered completely outlandish at the time!

Single's Advert .... Atlanta Times

2009-10-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

SINGLE BLACK FEMALE seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I'm a very good girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cozy winter nights lying by the fire Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. I'll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me. Call (404) 875-6420 and ask for Daisy, I'll be waiting....
Please scroll down ....

[[[[[[[ If I could copy it you would see a beautiful black labrador bitch but sadly I can't copy it off the email I got.]]]]]]

Over 150 men found themselves talking to the Atlanta Humane Society.

If you don't pass this along, a dog
Will come out and pee on your computer

[[[Well I did try .. sorry doggies :-) ]]]

Over 150 men found themselves talking to the Atlanta Humane Society.

If you don't pass this along, a dog
Will come out and pee on your computer

Today's Photo -- Dazzle

2009-10-25T12:28:00.000-07:00

RIPA for Big Brither

2009-10-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

I dreadful case of official powers and how it was missused, though of course the authorities say is was perfectly kosher .. they would wouldn't they.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/world/europe/25surveillance.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th

A woman';s activities surveyed covetly for three weeks in connection as to if she and the family were living within the 'school district' for entry by her daughter.

Today's Photo -- Chips Flying

2009-10-17T12:27:00.001-07:00

Festival Week and the centre of town is closed off for demonstrations

Today's Photo --- A bug

2009-10-16T12:03:00.001-07:00

This poor fellow was happilly asleep in the garden until I dug himher up in mid winter and brought himher in to be photographed ... at the time I was dead keen on getting juicey close-ups of the natural world. Himher is a cicada I believe.

Child suspended from school for drawing a gun

2009-10-16T11:54:00.000-07:00

Crusader Rabbit reports a 12yo boy 'doodled' what looked like a gun so the school suspended him.

When I read reports like this I am more and more convinced that we as much as the schools have lost the plot with regard to punishment. A strap or two, the cane once or twice and the school has expressed its disaproval of whatever the child has done ... but suspension interupts the child's schooling, and that is what a child should be getting, discipline not freedom to play the streets.

Schooling is an essential part of growing up and it is immoral to interfere with it.

The teacher with sense and concern for the welfare of the child would encourage the child to improve on the drawing until it was better 'than just a doodle' and the child has learnt a skill.

That teachers are in the main female these days and may not have the ability to physically discipline a child then a solution could be to employ a 'school marshal' to maintain order and administer punishments. The way communities used to have marshals and sheriffs before our modern law enforcement system was established.

Crusader Rabbit of course goes on about the weak and wippish left wing teachers but we should remember the abuse that rightwing teachers inflicted on their charges. Common sense determines that we shoukld aim for a middle path with this as with anything. Extremes are the bain of our civilisation.

Today's Photo -- "Brighton Beach'

2009-10-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

Brighton is down along the southern coast from Dunedin. Used for horse training and walking. Maybe some surf fishing not that I have seen that taking place on my visits. Rather different from the UK Brighton which is stoney gravel beach if I remember from my youth.

Today's Photo -- "Beat the Clock"

2009-10-10T12:27:00.000-07:00

An annual event as part of Festival Week here in Dunedin is a race around the Octagon as the Town Hall clock strike ten of a morning. The idea is to do the circle before the clock finishes the chimes.

An effect of the Israeli blockade

2009-10-10T12:16:00.000-07:00

On the Gaza Strip there is a Zoo which wanted a zebra. However the cost of smuggling one in through the 'tunnels' is prohibitive. So the zoo painted stripe on a couple of donkeys. It is not as far fetched as you might think becuase in the local lingo a zebra is a 'wild donkey'. One can only hope that somehow in the not too distant future sanity will prevail to give the Gaza residents free access in and out of their country so that proper zebras can join the zoo along with lots of other benefits of living in a free country that the rest of us experience. Gaza is Israel's concentration camp. Sad that a race which suffered so much from such things imposes one on others these days.

The cost of drop-outs to the Nation

2009-10-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

A report published and reported by the NYT suggests the cost to the nation of young Americans dropping out is nearly $300,000 each with blacks much more likely than whites or hispanics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/education/09dropout.html?th&emc=th
I wonder what the figures are here in New Zealander and for pacific islander/maori?
The potential for un-skilled workers is drying up. People worry about the situation but surely the answer is to send them back to school, not regular schools where they are likely to be the dummies in class but special schools designed to cater for their needs and potentials. Better than putting them in the crime university ... prison.

Blogged and Sold

2009-10-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

That is the title of an Op-Ed at NYT which reminded me of a period in my past.
The Link ...http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/opinion/08sicha.html?th&emc=th

Back when I joined TVNZ my mentor was Don Montgomery and he used to get quite worked up when the numerous 'stringer' cameramen happilly included a firms name or advertising sign in their shots. TVNZ had but one cameraman in those days and relied upon casual cameramen around the country for coverage. Our job at Head Office News was to re-arrange items from around the country, there was no network in those days, for distribution to the centres that had not already seen it 'last night'. We also received items from around the world for use on NZTV. Now the point to Don's irritation was the fact that in his earlier life when working for Pacific Films his livelihood depended on only showing things in the background which had been paid for in some way. I remember one shot Pacific had in a sequence at Trentham Racecourse in which a Tip Top truck slowly arrived at the main stand, nothing to do with the story of course.