Letters to the Editor

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Stories untold
The Government has set aside $4 million dollars to celebrate the land wars over the next four years, starting this year. Another day for weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth!

Bill English said at Turangawaewae Marae that “it is on this day we start the process, the recognition and the retelling of histories that we have not heard before. There is an obligation to tell the full story.”

I agree. Let’s have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help all of us! A date and name has yet to be set.

Cherry Grove is a beautiful, quiet spot in Taumarunui, on the confluence of the Wanganui and Ongarue Rivers. Some 600 Patupaiarehe people lived there in peace and harmony until 1832, when 1000 Maori attacked, killed and ate some of them, took most of the rest as slaves, leaving few to escape.

Let us hear about the atrocities that the warlike Maori committed against peaceful Maori, Moriori, Turehu, Patupaiarehe, and Waitaha.

Why did DOC cut down some 12 oak trees in the Bay of Islands, almost 2 metres thick, and reputed to be over 800 years old? These, and many other stories, will need to be told!

If we are going to have a remembrance day of the land wars, let us not have it in sepia and white duotone, but have it in full colour!

Kevan G. Marks
Kaipara

 

Thanks Worzel 
I always look forward to the Mangawhai Focus and in particular to the questioning mind and deeply considered musings of Worzel, aka Chris Sellars. His last column was of mankind's pointless power struggle in the few short years in which we are blessed to be upon this wondrous planet, and all for the sake really of transient baubles.

Several times a week I go for a stiff walk on the estuary, generally first up to what I call boulder point, where a strata of small boulders in layers of sedimentary sandstone go from cliff to sea. From reference, it seems to be of the Eocene period and if so is some 40 million years old. I never fail to be blown away by that and the fact that I think, in my seventies, I'm old. Wow!

Chris wrote last (between the lines) of mankind's futile attempts of power and greed. That Good Book, of which I'm familiar, shows that man has not changed in thousands of years and here today in New Zealand, we see the same. Parrot chanting politicians call it economic growth and urge for more. It is success they

believe. No. Capitalism, as we know it, must cease if mankind is going to survive by not despoiling this wondrous planet. What replaces it? I don't know, but we must find answers quickly. There cannot continue to be infinite growth on a finite planet.

Shakespeare had us summed up a long time ago when, in Measure for Measure, he wrote: "But man, proud man, dress'd in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he's most assured, his glassy essence like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before High Heaven as makes the angels weep."

Thanks Worzel. You're a gem.

Terry Harris
Mangawhai
 

Water crisis
Up here in Pebblebrooke the Hakaru Stream comes through our property. Before us in the North it has joined two streams – one from east, Maranui, and one from a source in the Bryderwyns. This stream always runs well and since ownership in 1997 has never dried up.

Lately residents here see possible water collection, as in long thick hoses, on the western side of eastern Tara. Tara joins Browns Road east of Pebblebrook. Our road has had severe corrugated damage for at least three weeks. Residents here complain and are told wait for rain. On my offer of a water truck coming down our shared access lot to pump water to facilitate the repair of road: "You need a resource consent from Northern Regional council.” I'm not repairing road, idiot woman.

My point – my neighbours and I believe the water is being illegally sourced but I do not have the energy to pursue the matter. A phone call to a local farmer whose land the stream then crosses is not concerned! Laissez faire. He says trucks come up frequently for roading, and years ago council should have built a dam. He's ok he says, he has water pipes everywhere.

The stream that comes through our place visits him later than us. It eventually empties into the Kaipara at Topuni.

I do care about my fellow Mangawhai resident’s water supply. Who, I wonder, is trying to address the problem rainfall in February? Do I bother with council? Is the dog chasing his tail?

Vicki Cox
Mangawhai
 

Global cooling
Antarctica is in danger of a devastating ice meltdown – or so we are informed by our global warming experts.

Last week the US Coastguard cutter Polar Star reached McMurdo Sound after cutting a re-supply channel through more than 60 miles of Antarctic ice in the Ross Sea. The Coast Guard says that in previous years Polar Star typically worked through approximately 12 to 13 miles of ice to reach the McMurdo Station, but this year there was more than 60 miles of ice to break with thickness ranging from 2 feet to more than 10 feet.

Commanding Officer Captain Michael Davanzo stated, “We experienced a significantly larger ice field this year compared to the last several years. In several areas the ice was under considerable pressure and covered with several inches of snow.”

Now who should we believe – boffins playing with computer programmes, or an experienced US Coastguard officer who is in a position to make a real comparison between this year’s ice cover and that of previous years?

The demise of El Nino’s warm ocean currents and subsequent arrival of the cooler La Nina, combined with almost zero sunspot activity presaging a recurrence of the Maunder Minimum phenomenon, all point to the likelihood of an approaching mini ice age.

Computer results depend upon the data fed in by climate change scientists, often aimed at ‘proving’ a desired outcome by the use of selective statistics. Nature has it’s own programme and pays no heed to the theories of man-made global warming alarmists.

Mitch Morgan
Kaipara