The Daily Blog Open Mic – Monday – 2nd March 2020

1. a good segment with q&a and jarod Gilbert on gangs which are much more than the broad stroke they have been labelled with , some are highly organized crime syndicates. Electioneering over issue does very little on dealing with the problems.
   https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/q-and-a/episodes/s2020-e3

2. I sometimes have the obsessed feeling that Nature is punishing us for being such bad kaitiaki to the gifts that Nature provides and which we depend on.

   The virus in China – punishing them for being so profligate and ‘insensitive’ to animal suffering and eating unique species off the planet. Are we about to be punished too, with our pretty slack animal (and human) ethics:
   “We’ve pretty much tracked down where this thing came from. It looks very very, similar to a virus which is found in pangolins, and they’re traded en masse in Chinese markets, that’s why they’re now an endangered species.”
   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/410721/coronavirus-numbers-could-be-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-says-uk-expert

3. Oh by the way, for a country that is supposed to be running far more efficiently under business ruling, do I see that the tourism department has got together with business and is looking at producing a package to give to anyone here on a visit and having to self-isolate. It would show an interest in serving our customers, who tourism are bringing in excessive numbers for our comfort zone. However we are stuck with that at present and should be sweetening the pill with video presentations, especially of the area they were due to visit, a basket of goodies might be a sweetener too. Protecting our nation’s brand is not something that tourism is really good at and after the Whakaari Island fiasco, I think our government needs to stop treating business like sweet little primary school kids who need to be encouraged. They are assuming custody of our brand and should be caring for it properly, ensuring it gets enhanced, not get demerits.

   • Yeah well the average rural wage is about $22k per annum and the average hospitality employee earns about $20k per annum adjusted for causal working hours. So the more tourism NZ does the poorer the economy gets because we’re chasing the dragon below minimum requirements.

     Just to maintain average wages we’ll have to expand construction and manufacturing business. And that means the government has to borrow a ridiculous amounts to maintain production because business and households are already way over leveraged.

     • But international interest rates are low, this is the time for government to borrow and put people into apprenticeships. The tender for the job would be in bite sized pieces and include a large number of locals who would have gone through some pre-work experience, so they could be ready for the work experience so they could find out whether they could handle an apprenticeship. Young men and women have been neglected for so long that this would have to be done. And bite the training bullet, not just take the easy way out and import people. Money is plasticene, and if it can be put into infrastructure, and taken out of welfare, it will make the books look REALLY good.
       Then encourage them to get extra training, have trainee perks like weekend camps for the whole family, carefully managed the problems will be manageable – there will be some. You seem to be using the common-sense approach, the household idea of a nation’s economy. That has been fed to us to keep us in austerity because the world’s financiers want to cow us, and in NZ that’s a default position! Haha.

4. Earth Day April 22nd. What can women do for the environment – stop buying clothes. I suggest advising by post various big marketers of women’s clothing that the writer is going to limit purchases from now on. They will have been warned! And so that less forward ordering is put in. Reduce purchasing gradually I suggest, as it is women who are likely to be the main employees affected both in manufacturing and retailing.

   Here is one designer and bespoke sewer looking at her carefully made copy of a medieval dress which has been copied by a fast-fashion seller, and which has used her own image in the dress as an advertisement for their product! The bare-faced chicanery of it all.
   (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=948&v=J80J4oaGVnY&feature=emb_title

   This woman in the UK is not buying much at all now, after a year of withdrawal from the addiction – mainly op-shop, clothing exchange for the new additions.
   Cowdery is one of a growing number of people who love clothes but try their hardest to resist buying them for reasons of sustainability. According to the charity Wrap, which promotes sustainable waste management, the average lifetime for a garment in the UK is just 2.2 years. An estimated £30bn of unused clothing hangs in UK wardrobes, and yet still we shop for more.

   “Each week we buy 38m items and 11m items go to landfill,” says Maria Chenoweth, chief executive of Traid, a charity working to stop clothes being thrown away. “We don’t have enough resources to keep feeding this monster.”
   https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/feb/19/dont-feed-monster-the-people-who-have-stopped-buying-new-clothes

5. Good news which will apply steps to prevent this winter us seeing the sad state of cows and others stuck in mud standing like those tin statues in winter. They were a blot not only on our landscape but on what would be our escutcheon if we had any honour left to aspire to.
   In its report, the Taskforce, established by Minister O’Connor in August last year, made 11 recommendations to help ensure that animal welfare became a key part of all winter grazing decisions in the pastoral supply chain.
   “The new Winter Grazing Action Group met for the first time last week and is eager to progress the work begun by the Taskforce. I will continue to take a strong interest in the progress and they will continue to report to me as that work takes shape,” Minister O’Connor said.
   https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2003/S00014/winter-grazing-action-group-announced.htm

6. I love this headline from The Telegraph:
   The battle for free speech has become catnip for thugs
   https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/penalties-speaking-ones-mind-freely-have-become-far-great/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

7. assange – we do care don’t we? I think he is very brave, and steadfast. He has been as careful as he could to manage his safety – not like the poor journalist who is no more, going to the Saudi Arabian precinct. But Assanage has tried to expose the USA’s dirty laundry, and is now being put through the wringer himself.

   This Caitlin Johnstone from Oz, tells it like it is; her choice of words and emphasis is just right. And this warning about us keeping applying pressure and succour for the man in contention if we don’t, is direct:

   We might as well all stop caring what happens to the world and sit on our hands while the oligarchs drive us to ecological disaster, nuclear annihilation or authoritarian dystopia.
   https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2003/S00003/humanity-is-making-a-very-important-choice-when-it-comes-to-assange.htm

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