Nudist fundamentalism

At Cap d'Agde on the Languedoc coast of France, there's a war brewing.

The Village Naturiste was established in the small town 40 years ago and now the 'ordinary' nudists have had enough and they want the hedonist bunch run out of town. They've been complaining for years that Cap d'Agde's once-sedate nudist quarter has been disfigured by the influx of 'libertine' partner-swapping clubs and raunchy hotels.

A flurry of arson attacks on sex clubs two years ago was blamed on low-level terrorism by nudist fundamentalists.

At this week's Cap d'Agde council meeting, the protests took a more peaceful form. Old-fashioned naturists complained that they, and their children, were being confronted with "voyeurist" and "exhibitionist" behaviour, including sexual acts in public. Worse, they suggested, the "deviant" newcomers sometimes walked about in their clothes and mocked the "real" nudists.

The town mayor said "I refuse to make value judgments on the sexual habits of other people. I can't put a policeman behind all 40,000 nudists." He also pointed out that by-laws had been passed recently to ban minors from the raunchier establishments.

Full story here.

I don't think I've ever heard the legislative process to ban minors from sex establishments sound like going above and beyond the call of duty.

The land of the setting sun

Government records show that Japan is one of the world's fastest-ageing societies. One in five Japanese (28 million people) is aged 65 or more. According to local body registers more than 270,000 Japanese are aged 100 years and over. Of these 77,000 are over 120 years old and a grand total of 884 are at least 150 years old.

Amazing. I wonder if there really is something to eating whale meat.

The Ministry of Justice has recently completed a survey and has been unable to locate the whereabouts of 230,000 of these most senior citizens. The figures have fuelled fears that families might be deliberately hiding the deaths of elderly relatives in order to claim their pensions.

In August the police discovered the mummified corpse of Sogen Kato, who at 111 was listed as Tokyo's oldest man, in his family home 32 years after his death. This finding prompted the nationwide survey to check the validity of local records and the survey revealed that antiquated methods of record-keeping are still in use in smaller towns and villages across the country.

Wikipedia records Japanese women as having the longest life expectancy of anyone on earth, an incredible 86.1 years and an overall life expectancy for all Japanese of an impressive 82.6 years. Now perhaps we know why.

The full story can be found here.

Bone chilling

This is one of the scariest pictures I’ve ever seen.

Teenage Chechen Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova and her late husband Umalat Magomedov.

See the story at guardian.co.uk

Knocked down at half time

The young Australian sailor Jessica Watson is 100 days and 11,000 nautical miles into her attempt to be the youngest person ever to circumnavigate the globe non-stop, solo and unassisted.

In the last 24 hours she has experienced her first severe weather of the journey in the southern Atlantic. During the night Jessica and her yacht, Ella’s Pink Lady, weathered four knockdowns during an eight hour storm after being hit by a series of rogue waves up to ten metres high whipped up by hurricane force winds. A knockdown is where the mast goes below horizontal and into the sea.

Here’s the story on her website and here’s her blog if you’re interested in learning more about Jessica and her amazing adventure. Whether or not you agree that a 16 year old should be undertaking such a dangerous voyage, it certainly does make for a fascinating tale. Jessica is a young woman of extraordinary competence and mettle. She writes well and her blog updates are enjoyable and informative. Cool photos too.

Rory and I wish her the very, very best of luck for the second half of her journey. We hope the winds are fair from now on and the sun is warm and that her little boat stays safe and sound. 

Click to view and enlarge Jessica’s GPS tracking in a new window.

Our place

Our national museum Te Papa (translates as ‘Our place’) is a fantastic place to hang out if you’re ever in Wellington. Rory and I spent another day there just before Christmas as we were keen on seeing the latest Pompeii exhibition. It was a great day as usual, we’re inevitably inspired and excited by what we see there.

Click on logo to open website in new window

I see today in the news that a new boss of Te Papa has been appointed to replace Dr Seddon Bennington who died a few months ago of hypothermia while hiking in the Tararua ranges. The new chap is a Welshman, Michael Houlihan who is currently the head of Amgueddfa Cymru, a seven-museum group in Wales. He’s due here around mid year to take up the job. I hope he’s not a hiker. 

An ever popular fixture at Te Papa is the colossal squid which was inadvertently caught in a trawlers net in the Ross Sea in 2008. The fishermen had the foresight to freeze the dead squid so they could bring it back in one piece. Apparently a  colossal squid is way bigger than a giant squid – this one weighs 495 kilograms (1100 lbs). This photo shows the squid being defrosted for the first time a year ago. The marine biologist and squid expert on the right is a guy I went to school with, Steve O’Shea.

Count your blessings

I just finished reading the story of American Roey Rosenblith who was a passenger on the almost ill fated Northwest Airlines flight 253 to Detroit. It’s a chilling recount of confusion, lack of information and eventual realisation. It’s well worth the longish read if you haven’t done so already.

Huffington Post 27 Dec 2009

The most dangerous place on earth?

Earlier today in Lakki Marwat city in northwest Pakistan a suicide bomber drove an explosives-packed vehicle into a crowd of people watching a sports game, killing at least 75 people and wounding hundreds of others.

According to the news report I just watched, residents of the city have recently formed a militia force to try and drive the militants out of their city and I understand that the Pakistani army also continues to wage an ongoing offensive against the Taleban in the same area. Looks like these efforts may have provoked the numerous reprisals that have already killed more than 500 people in the last 2 months.

I’m obviously no expert on the Pakistan situation and I certainly don’t wish to minimise the terrible loss of life happening there already but don’t this lot have a nuclear arsenal? I worry about the ability of the fragile Pakistani government to keep their nukes secure in the face of an advancing Taliban. It’s scary stuff.

Don’t panic

This situation has to be close to one of my most worst nightmares; trapped inside a train, inside a tunnel, all night, UNDER the freezing English channel. See guardian.co.uk for the full story.

Yesterday nearly 2000 travellers were stranded for up to 15 hours after four Eurostar trains broke down between France and England. Many suffered panic attacks or fainted as they waited for help.

Eurostar management said the problem was caused by the contrast between extremely cold temperatures on the railways and a comparatively warm tunnel. A Eurostar train. Photograph: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images

This situation just couldn’t arise here in New Zealand. For a start there’s nowhere to get to via tunnel; Australia is more than 2,200 kilometres away and secondly; even if there was another country close, all our trains are so old and crappy that no-one in their right mind would actually try and travel that far.

Noooooooooo

An Australian tourist accidentally smuggled a poisonous cane toad into Queenstown inside the hiking boots in her bag last week.

New Zealand Herald article here.

The disgusting critter was discovered after hopping out of the Cairns woman's bag when she stopped by Ultimate Hikes shop ahead of the walk on the Milford Track.

Somehow our Ministry of Ag & Fish officers at Auckland airport missed it. WTF? Please TRY HARDER people. Yuck!

 

Photo from news.mongabay.com and courtesy of FrogWatch, an Australian environmental group that wants to kill all cane toads. Click on the picture for the full July 2008 story.

625 comments

I mentioned in a post the other day about young Australian Jessica Watson and the website and blog chronicling her attempt to become the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the globe. She’s 16 and the voyage is 38,000 kilometres (23,000 nautical miles) in some of the most ferocious seas on the globe.

Photo by Jessica Watson

It’s a hugely popular blog and she gets around 250 – 300 comments each day as people wish her the best. Well, Jessica crossed the equator the other day and she posted an update on her blog to let everyone know – she got 625 comments on the post. That’s right, 625 comments. That is mind blowing, apparently it’s the most read blog in Australia right now, and for good reason. She’s seems like a lovely kid who’s doing something incredibly brave and plus she’s a great writer. Her updates are a pleasure to read.

The website is http://www.jessicawatson.com.au/

Her blog http://youngestround.blogspot.com/

Her course and current location is recorded here http://www.jessicawatson.com.au/the-voyage

I understand she’s now passed Kiribati and will soon be turning around and heading back under the equator to round Cape Horn (southern tip of South America). Although she’s circumnavigating the globe in the southern oceans, in order to break the record she must cross the equator at least once so that’s what she has been doing since she left Sydney in October.

Check it out. It’s a fascinating read.

Football fever

Rory Fallon (in white) headers the winning goal

For the first time since Spain in 1982 the New Zealand football team has qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals by beating Bahrain last night in Wellington. The final score was 1-0.

Football doesn’t have a high profile here in NZ where it’s all about rugby, so it’s great that the sport will benefit from the increased exposure. Lots more kiwi kids play football over the last few years but when they reach a certain age the boys tend to swap to rugby  so comparatively few players reach the top levels unfortunately.

26 countries have qualified in 6 zones for the 2010 finals so far, while another 5 places are still to be finalised.

• Europe: England, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Slovakia, Switzerland, Italy, Serbia and Spain
• Africa: South Africa, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria
• North America, Central America and Caribbean: United States, Honduras and Mexico
• South America: Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Paraguay
• Asia: Australia, Japan, Korea (North), Korea (South)
• Oceania: New Zealand

The first games kick off in Johannesburg, South Africa in June 2010. Realistically we understand we’re minnows especially against the Euro teams and the big South American teams so we’ll no doubt be out after the first round but it’s just fun even getting there for us - who knows though what could happen?

Photographs by Getty Images

*EDIT* I just had a browse though a BBC forum regarding the New Zealand qualification. Some commenters there don’t share our joy.

Bon Voyage

I’m enjoying watching the progress and reading the daily posts of young Australian adventurer Jessica Watson who is attempting to become the youngest person to sail solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world. She’s 16.

Check out her website here http://www.jessicawatson.com.au/ and her blog here http://www.youngestround.blogspot.com/

There was considerable controversy about whether the voyage was a good idea but that’s now moot so I just hope she stays safe and doesn’t encounter anything she can’t cope with. She’s gotten as far as Tonga to date and is making reasonable time.

I wish her the very best of luck. She’s very brave.

 Self Portrait taken 29 October at sea.

Still on the run

You may recall my post of 6 months ago about the young couple who did a runner after the bank inadvertently credited their bank account with too much money. See the original post here called On the Run.  Well 6 months have passed and they’re still at large.

Leo Gao, Kara Hurring and their young daughter Leena fled to Hong Kong in early May after Westpac, an Australian owned bank, credited Mr Gao's account with a NZ$10 million overdraft when he had asked for just $100,000. The bank immediately recovered most of the money but $3.8m is still outstanding.

The NZ Herald reports;

Two months ago Detective Senior Sergeant Tony Colby, of Rotorua police, said a "mutual-assistance" request to the Chinese government was being worked through. Mr Colby denied the delay was frustrating or embarrassing for NZ police.

Co-operation between China and NZ is obviously a slow process over such matters.

Good vibes

Two of my colleagues are sitting at home with their families right now waiting to hear that missing loved ones on the south coast of Upolu and in a northern Tongan island are okay. Or not okay as the case may be. It’s been a horrible day. Though New Zealand has been unaffected geographically, many Samoan and Tongan kiwis have friends or family back in the islands who’ve experienced property damage and worse.

Sending good vibes to all the Samoan, Tongan and Cook islands.

Clearing Kibera

Photos uplifted from website of the Affordable Housing Institute:US. Click to enlarge.  

Most of us would have heard of Kibera, Africa’s largest slum. It’s a massive squatter city of over 600 acres with more than a million inhabitants. It’s possibly the most densely populated place on the planet and it sits right in the centre of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. See the link following for the highly informative Oneworld.net television doco about Kibera.

Most of Kibera is built on piles of rubbish which subside and lead to regular building collapses. The whole place is prone to flooding and is heavily polluted by soot, dust, and other wastes. Open sewage routes also contribute to contamination. The combination of poor nutrition and lack of sanitation accounts for many illnesses. It is estimated that nearly a quarter of the 2.2 million Kenyans living with HIV live in Kibera. It’s a way of life so completely desperate it’s beyond the comprehension of most of us.

The BBC reported earlier this week (see here) that the Kenyan government has begun a long-term movement scheme which will rehouse all of the slums inhabitants. The clearance of Kibera is expected to take up to five years to complete - all residents are to be rehoused in brand new affordable housing around the city. The project has the backing of the United Nations and is expected to cost $1.2 billion. The new communities are currently being built and will include schools, markets, playgrounds and other facilities.

The first group of 1,500 people to leave Kibera were moved out on 16 September and were rehoused in 300 newly constructed apartments with a heavily subsidised monthly rental.

The removal process has now been challenged though and the Kenyan High Court has now ruled that the government cannot begin proper demolition works until the case is heard in October. The 80 plaintiffs that have filed the case are mainly middle-class landlords who lease the slum dwellings to the impoverished.

The rehousing effort is a fascinating and dramatic exercise in socialised housing on what must be the biggest scale ever attempted. There is significant risk that rehoused residents may have to share apartments with other families in order to afford the rent or that they might even move back to Kibera and rent their new homes to middle-class families so as to have money for food. Let's all hope that the Kenyan government, with the help of the UN and contributing nations, can find a way to mitigate these risks and make this work. 600,000 children deserve better.

Sharing the love

New Zealand and Australia have a reciprocal open immigration agreement between our citizens though it must be said that the traffic is mostly one way, Kiwis seeking adventure and opportunity and the bright lights of Sydney and Melbourne and in more recent years, Brisbane. We’re a reasonably well behaved and hard working bunch generally so it mostly works out pretty well for all concerned.

There’s a recent high profile exception to that rule.

In 1977 at the tender age of 12 months old, Patricia Carol Toia moved to Australia from New Zealand with her family.

In the 30 years since that time the delightful Ms Toia, who is a heroin addict, has racked up a truly impressive rap sheet  - she’s been convicted of hundreds of crimes and has done an impressive 30 stints in Australian jails. In fact 56 of her convictions relate to crimes she committed while in jail. Toia has never held a driver licence but has so many driving convictions that she’s been banned from driving until 2060.

Anyway, the game is now up and the Australian government wants rid of her.

Toia appealed deportation to New Zealand on the grounds that she has no family nor friends here, in fact no connections of any kind. She’s never been back to NZ in 30 years. Too bad says the Administrative Appeals Tribunal which recently voted to uphold the original 2004 deportation decision and return Ms Toia to the land of the long white cloud.  

"She is a threat to the Australian community and Australia deserves protection against her given that the risk of recidivism is, as must be obvious, very substantial indeed.”

Last week Toia was flown ‘home’ to her country of birth on a charter jet. She was accompanied by three New South Wales security officers and two departmental officials.

Welcome home honey.

I understand that when we’re visitors anywhere we should behave nicely and obey the rules but surely it can be said that Toia is an Australian for all intents and purposes. She lived there all her life and despite the fact her parents never applied for citizenship for her, as they were entitled to do on her behalf at anytime through her childhood, she is certainly more Australian than Kiwi.

Bad call Immigration Minister Mr Chris Evans.

MIA

Singer-and-actress Jessica Simpson has posted a heartfelt plea for information on her dog Daisy's whereabouts on social networking website Twitter after the pooch was swiped by a dingo coyote last weekend.

Jessica wrote "My heart is broken because a coyote took my precious baby right in front of my eyes…”

I’m not completely heartless, I do feel bad for Ms Simpson (and the cute wee pooch) but I just can’t avoid the sinister parallels between this and the events at Ayers Rock, 1980.

I wonder will a little doggie jacket turn up in the desert after a native American tracker is called in to help find clues?

You think?

The recent theory (with over a million and a half YouTube views at last count) around MJ allegedly faking his own death has made me think about some of the more outlandish and incomprehensible conspiracy theories of my life time.

As I see it conspiracy theorists seem to come in two flavours - there are those apparently intelligent people who are extremely passionate about what they see as massive cover-ups and then there are the fringe-dwelling nutters who wear tinfoil hats to keep the satellites from spying on them and vacation whenever possible in New Mexico.

Here are a couple of theories that baffle me. I read about them and can’t help asking but why? What would anybody hope to achieve?

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Microsoft Wingdings font

When Windows 3.1 was released in 1992, some genius discovered that the bundled Wingdings font was harbouring hidden anti-Semitic messages. What a crock!The conspiracy reappeared after September 11, when another genius discovered hidden messages in the similarly comic Webdings font that supposedly implicated Microsoft in the attacks. Watch a video about it here. It just makes no sense at all.

Speaking of 11 September…

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Part a) The Pentagon attack was faked

A story in PRLog (see full story here) on 27 August 2009 says;

“A three year independent investigation into the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon has yielded new eyewitness evidence which…conclusively…establishes…that the violence which took place in Arlington that day was not the result of a surprise attack by suicide hijackers, but rather a military black operation..."

Part b) The Trade Centre collapse

The main Trade Centre theories seem to have focussed on that there was pre-existing knowledge of the pending terrorist attacks, and that the towers were taken down by controlled demolition rather than as a result of the planes hitting the building.

Why? Who knows.

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Princess Diana’s death

When Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed were killed in a Paris car crash while being pursued by 'paparazzi', theories did the rounds that the royal family were behind it all.

Claims included one that Diana was pregnant to her boyfriend and they were planning on getting married, which supposedly royally ticked off Lizzy et al.

A good round-up of Diana theories can be found on london.net.co.uk

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Can anyone offer any insight into any of the above or are there any other particular conspiracy theories that capture your imagination?

The results are in…

…and unfortunately they don’t make for comfortable reading.

My post of July 7, Vote YES New Zealand, talked about the then upcoming citizens initiated referendum on child discipline.

The current (2007) law allows parents to use force to prevent harmful, criminal, offensive or disruptive behaviour and to perform "the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting". In the highly successful Scandinavian style*, the use of force for corrective purposes was outlawed.

This law was in response to New Zealand’s shameful record with looking after our children. In a country of only 4,000,000 we lose up to 12 kids every year to beatings which are defended as discipline gone wrong. Another 443 preschool children were hospitalised with injuries from assaults in the years between 1995 - 2004.

In the last fortnight in New Zealand 3 pre-schoolers have died from non-accidental injuries.

Who cares?

The ‘Family First’ lobby forced this referendum in an effort to have the government rethink the law and the results show that 88% of respondents believe that the law should give them the right to discipline their children how they see fit including the use of corporal punishment.

I get that the abusers aren’t the ordinary mum and dad kiwis who love their kids and would never want to hurt them. I also get that any law isn’t going to stop those who seriously hurt their children intentionally but we have to start somewhere and if that means criminalising smacking to remove the acceptability and normalcy of adult on child assault then I’m all for it. We’ve managed to achieve this with spousal violence in only a couple of generations – it’s not gone but it sure isn’t acceptable anymore like it was.

Unfortunately it seems I am one of only 12% of New Zealanders who feel this way. Actually only 54% of eligible New Zealanders believed this was an important enough issue to bother voting on at all.

Even if we do give the odd smack, shouldn't we all aspire, at the very least, to raise our children without violence?

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*It’s been illegal to smack your child in Sweden since 1975 and despite their population being triple ours, they lose an average of only 4 pre-schoolers to child abuse most years.  Still too many I know but a tiny proportion per capita of our shameful result here in NZ.

If you can stomach some details around how these kiwi kids are dying read here. An NZ Herald article by Dita de Boni yesterday.

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**EDIT**

It’s 7:45pm on Saturday night and as usual I’m wasting a few last minutes online before dressing for what should hopefully be a fun night. A friend is turning 44 this week coming (a couple of weeks after my own 44th) and we’ve opted for a shared party this year. It’s at her place as she has a lovely home with a big party room basement. A few of us have been over there this afternoon getting the place party ready and decorating etc. Must go now and finish the beauty routine, I had my hair done this morning so at least I don’t need to worry about that but I’ve still got to throw on my party dress and apply the war paint and the bling.

I’ve got Linkin Park blaring from the stereo to help me get in the mood. Fun fun fun.

One last chance

Back in April I posted about Troy Davis. See the post here.

Well it’s great news, the US Supreme Court has now ordered an evidentiary hearing for Davis.

Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail was murdered in 1991 and Davis was convicted of the crime though the authorities failed to produce any physical evidence or a murder weapon. Seven of the nine witnesses have now changed their initial testimonies and one of the remaining witnesses might even be the actual murderer.

See the full story here on the Amnesty International website. Thanks to everyone who voiced their concern that justice may not have been done and that Davis is owed at least the chance to be heard.

  Photo: Amnesty International solidarity for Troy Davis