In 1986 I led a Rotary Group Study Exchange team to the Amazon region of Brazil. Brazil was a fairly modern country then, even more so now, but we were all taken-aback when we saw the surprising number of physically handicapped people among the population. Many of them were begging on the streets.
When we queried our hosts about this they told us that polio was rife in the community. We were shocked of course; the debilitating disease had pretty much been eliminated in the late 1950’s in first-world countries, thanks initially...
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Endeavouring to hold the peace
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Unknown
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Last weekend we celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary with a modest family luncheon which included our four children, their spouses and seven grandchildren. One of our grandsons is old enough and I suspect capable enough of siring his own child so I must take him aside and talk to him about the birds and the bees and hopefully delay that inevitability. I’m not old and doddery enough yet to be a great-grandfather; a personal view that might well be disputed by the other members of the family.
My wife says I’m one...
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Everybody wants to go to heaven
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Unknown
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
What’s with this word Karma? It seems to have suddenly entered our vernacular and is now getting frequent usage. Hekia Parata used it recently, apparently suggesting that the Novapay debacle was “karma” for the teachers daring to challenge her and her ministry whenever they tried to institute change.
According to my trusty Chambers dictionary karma is a Buddhist and/or Hindu based word used to describe a transcendental retribution for something done that perhaps ought not to have been done; the theory of inevitable consequence...
Wednesday, 6 February 2013
If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
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Unknown
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
I have always believed that once you elect people to represent you on whatever political entity, you ought to accept the decisions they make on your behalf. After all, presuming they are diligently acquiring the facts surrounding an issue, they will inevitably know more than you to effect the conclusions they come to, even if it doesn’t necessarily fit your own careful consideration of the topic.
The eighteenth century political theorist and philosopher Edmund Burke put this hypothesis much more succinctly when he wrote:...
