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A collection of John Clarke’s thoughts from Australia has fallen into my hands. I will feed some of his thoughts into the discourse FTTT to bring a smile into our rather torpid discussions which seem to bring slow and poor outcomes, and little joy to the polity.
His helpful summary introducing the ‘Operation Manual’ for Australian enthusiasts.
Congratulations. You are a part-owner of AustraliaTM, a fully serviced time-share resort and manufacturing centre set in the attractive environs of South East Asia. (Still Selling but Hurry)…
A slight fault in the wiring of the Economics display screen has been discovered and it is with regret that we announce the overall position is somewhat less attractive than we may have indicated. Notice the position of the mustering station nearest to your seat…
In the ‘Troubleshooting’ section:
Problem: Bank Profits at Alarming Levels.
Probable Cause: Secrecy screen not working. Truth leaking through code de-scrambler. Check Hawke (previous PM) posturing switch.
What to Do: Increase Home Lending rates. Slap thigh.
and
Problem: The Arts
Probable Cause: Need to keep unemployment confined to lower section of batting order.
What to Do: Spend small fraction of cost of National Tennis Centre. Make speech ‘Vital We Retain Distinctive Cultural Identity’. Give money to Bureaucrats.
A long train coming.
Finally the right decision but the judgement only addresses a tiny fraction of the appalling level of corruption and maleficence that saturated the course of the investigation, prosecution, trial and subsequent appeals.
Ellis died before his name was cleared, his mother lived half of her life under the stigma of this miscarriage of justice. It is hard to feel that Justice has been truly achieved. The list of those in its hall of shame is long.
Supreme Court Quashes Peter Ellis’ Child Sex Offence Convictions.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/476248/supreme-court-quashes-peter-ellis-child-sex-offence-convictions
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/476249/vladimir-putin-s-nuclear-threat-must-be-taken-very-seriously-australian-army-chief-warns
Have itch. Been handed backscratcher. Watch out or I’ll give it a whirl, world.
A long train coming.
Finally the right decision but the judgement only addresses a tiny fraction of the appalling level of corruption and maleficence that saturated the course of the investigation, prosecution, trial and subsequent appeals.
Ellis died before his name was cleared, his mother lived half of her life under the stigma of this miscarriage of justice. It is hard to feel that Justice has been truly achieved. The list of those in its hall of shame is long.
Supreme Court Quashes Peter Ellis’ Child Sex Offence Convictions.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/476248/supreme-court-quashes-peter-ellis-child-sex-offence-convictions
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/476251/child-poverty-report-takes-aim-at-misconceptions-prejudice
Claims New Zealand has “a high rate” of child poverty does not square with international data, but having 130,000 children in material hardship is still too high, a new report says.
The Child Poverty in New Zealand report, was written by Bryan Perry for the Ministry of Social Development.
The report found New Zealand’s rate of material hardship for children in 2020 – 11 percent – was the middle of the range when compared to 25 European countries.
This rate had fallen in the three years from 2017 from 13.5 percent to 10.6 percent, compared to a fall in Europe from 12.3 percent to 10.3 percent….
…statistics typically used for New Zealand tended to measure rates of poverty after household costs were accounted for, and this may have been compared to international measures which did not – kind of like comparing (international) apples with apples that already had a bite taken out….
…it rejected the assumption that child poverty was closely linked to beneficiaries, and [the] claims work was the best way out of poverty.
“Even the more nuanced ‘work is usually the best way out of poverty’ is misleading,” the report said. “For many households, full-time paid employment on its own does not provide enough for the household even at a very basic level, especially where there are children.”…
Hardship rates for children in families where at least half their income was from a benefit was also four to five time higher than families with at least half of income coming from employment.
However, because many more families overall relied primarily on employment, the total number in hardship relying on a benefit was about the same as the total number in hardship relying on employment.
It’s quite complicated to get an understanding of the situation for poor families with different aspects taking top position in the barriers to liveability for different families.
Poverty can be viewed in different ways as Mother Teresa pointed out.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1997-09-12-1997255049-story.html
…But poverty, according to Mother Teresa, doesn’t consist only of physical poverty and doesn’t exist only in the slums. One normally pictures the good sisters in their white saris working among poor who look more like skeletons than people. But Mother Teresa also saw another kind of poverty, one which she tried to cure but did not emulate…
That poverty is a spiritual poverty. Sometimes, Mother Teresa referred to it as a “poverty of the heart.” This is the poverty that is endemic in the West with its vast wealth. Riches can choke, Mother Teresa said. One day you need money, then superfluous luxuries. One feeds the other. Your needs increase. “The result is uncontrollable dissatisfaction and loneliness.”…
Spiritual poverty isn’t limited to the elderly…young people’s souls are dying from lack of love. Parents take care of material needs but are absent from their children’s lives. One can give rice to the hungry man. But it’s harder to rebuild homes and families.
“If today so many young people are misled, it is because grandparents are in some institution; father is absent; mother is so busy that she is not there when the children come from school. If anyone wants to help me,” Mother Teresa advised, “let them begin at home. There is help needed on your doorstep, in your place of work, in your offices and in your factory.”
Mother Teresa believed that the world today is upside down, because there is so little love in the home. Parents pursue material goods and have no time for their children or for each other. Children have no time for their parents. Life in the family is broken from the inside, and broken by our own hands. This is the ultimate poverty.
We in NZ have broken homes with all sorts of poverty. We have politicians who are trained to only respond to material systems, hollow with no feeling tor the people they are supposed to be serving, only to providing the most basics and to the truly vulnerable, they cannot empathise or comprehend the depths young people have been allowed to fall because of lack of help at the right time.
I’d like to know, Martyn, what you think of Bill Mher nd the others whose main thing is ‘woke’? Our planet slips over the cliff while you nd me address the immediate silliness. See Chomsky for compass redirection.
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