Apart from people, letterboxes are the most pedestrian sights on any street. Without a second glance we walk past every one except our own, which is perhaps the way things should be. But like everything else post-digital, letter boxes are no longer the proud receptacles of mail – handwritten letters, invitations, birthday cards and their more sombre messages of condolence.
Winter lingered like an unwelcome visitor, but finally Spring arrived – one little step after another.
Jasmine scented the air on crisp mornings in the lull between seasons; daffodils thrust dreary winter aside, lambs gambolled in Auckland’s Cornwall Park and in the burbs, pink cherry blossom brightened the streets – on days when it wasn’t raining!
Pressure, according to Sonny Bill Williams, told The Listener, is not about being an All Black. Pressure is starving children, a single mother raising three kids, atrocities faced by refugees, and racism. The sneering response from three media worthies, Mark Richardson, Duncan Garner and an unnamed Herald columnist, was telling. Richardson and Garner are famous for making rational people change their minds if they find themselves agreeing with anything they say. But pressure was evident in the week between the Bledisloe Cup games between the Wallabies and the All Blacks.
To say he had a beard would be an understatement- his whole face bristled with pepper and salt whiskers so thick they looked like an uncut hedge. In one of Auckland’s coldest winter spells, he wore a coat which had seen too many winters and was at least two sizes too big for him. And then there were his shoes, or perhaps one of them. It remained staunchly unflappable while the other had clearly given up the pretense of being a shoe, and its uppers flopped open with every step he took.
Last year Freedom House, the much respected freedom watchdog issued one of its most compelling reports: Democracy in Crisis. The global report warned that democracy faced its most serious crisis in decades.
So what was its call to arms this year? Democracy in Retreat.
It’s there.
It’s always been there.
And I, like so many other Aucklanders looked on it as an iconic sight, simultaneously everyday – and spectacular. Like Mt Eden where we could climb any time for 360 degree views of Auckland. Or humble Mt Roskill where as kids we hurtled over sheep ruts in wooden sledges. Or gracious Cornwall Park and One Tree Hill, (now better known as None Tree Hill).
Sign on the Cook Strait ferry Arahura prohibiting the display of gang patches.
We have within our society groups of people who prefer to live in a primitive tribal community framework. Primitive in that they have their own laws and anyone not in their tribe is either not to be trusted or an enemy. They call themselves clubs, motor cycle clubs mainly. They are commonly known as gangs. The police use more accurate terminology; criminal organisations.
Part one of John’s adolescent dilemma
Despite the progress women have made in the last generation and a half , some things are and have always been easier for girls. At 13 years old they are blessed with greater confidence, greater maturity, greater common sense and most importantly are not faced at every turn by the constant threat of embarrassment. True! Here’s a story I kept to myself until my children found out about it when they were in their teens.
I don’t believe the love of money is the root of all evil but it has a lot to answer for. Love of money, and its inevitable bed-fellow, corruption, is rife among the leaders of nations. It seems incredible that people who have literally sacks full of money, billions more than they can ever spend, steal still more, often from the world’s poorest people.
Greed has always been with us. Is it increasing or are we simply better informed by all manner of media?