Posts by dyan campbell
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You don't have crows here, but you have Tuis, which I believe are just fancy crows.
Apart from anything else, the difference in sound is noticeable.
Well, yes they sound fancier than crows. Tuis have, besides beautiful blue-green iridescent tints in their feathers, a strict adherence to white-tie, and a beautiful melodic song... which is occasionally punctuated by a coarse, crow-like squawk that betrays their true feathers. They are crows alright, but crows with airs. Maybe ornithologists and geneticists would disagree, but I know a crow when I meet one.
On closer inspection the book I got for Christmas and have not yet read is about a rook and a magpie, not a crow.
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One of my favourite pre-Treaty NZ sources is 'Letters from the Bay of Islands: the story of Marianne Williams' edited by Caroline Fitzgerald (Penguin, 2004).
This sounds like something to search out - NZ has one of the best recorded and most interesting histories around.
Last year I read (devoured) Anne Salmond's The Trial of the Cannibal Dog which prompted me to search out her earlier Two Worlds.
Along with several other people in the conversation I read and thoroughly enjoyed Hamish Keith's Native Wit which made me laugh out loud in several places. I loved the parts where he was trying to explain to (city councillors? I forget) that art gallery walls didn't need texture to make them less boring, as art was there to make the wall less boring. His descriptions of meeting Len Lye prompted me to search out Len Lye's biography, only to find it's out of print.
Lately I've been reading Truby King, The Man which I'm am finding fascinating, but I'm probably more interested in public health than most people. Truby King was amazing, and many of the systems for reducing infant mortality and optimising health of infants (as well as mental patients and "dipsomaniacs") in the early 20thC were because of King's tireless work and innovation. Like Pasteur, Lister or the Curies, we owe him a lot we take for granted. It's fascinating to read how much was known and understood back then and how it keeps getting recycled as new information every generation. You NZers should be more proud of the man, he did great things here and all over the world.
Other titles: Kelly Tyler Lewis The Lost Men: The Harrowing Saga of Shackleton's Lost Sea Party which shows up one of my childhood heroes to be a complete fuckwit.
Not yet read: Corvus: a Life With Birds by Esther Woolfson, who writes about a pet crow, relevant to me as I had a pet crow named Barkley when I was a kid. You don't have crows here, but you have Tuis, which I believe are just fancy crows. I'm also looking forward to O.E. Middleton's Beyond the Breakwater. He is a terrific writer in who hits the same notes as Raymond Carver, but Middleton is still with us.
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__You fool! Hasn't Muriel Newman already told us it was the Chinese who got here first?>>
She's also claimed the moriori were here first...
Wrong, you're all wrong, it was the Piltdown Man, then the Spanish Vikings.
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The flavour of freshly picked tomatoes tends to be better than that of those bought from shops
And that goes double for strawberries.
And for blueberries - though I can't vouch for them personally. They grew in beautifully last year and the local tuis and blackbirds seemed to enjoy them a lot.
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Think the use of the Lange speech by a brewery is pretty tacky, both in terms of the constant (mis)appropriation of culture for commercial ends, but also using an acknowledged alcoholic to sell beer.
What Shaun said.
It is revoltingly tacky to use what is probably the finest speech made by a New Zealander - one that resonated around the world, making NZ and its inhabitants seem brilliant and rather heroic by association - to promote something that is the ugliest and most damaging facet of NZ society - the corporate muscle behind the booze culture.
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I recall a friend doing a pharma course being alarmed by the this-is-your-liver, this-is-your-liver-if-you-take-paracetemol-to-deal-with-your-alcohol-poisoning-induced-hangover pictures.
You only have to take a couple years of physiology to become horrified at the prospect of destroying any essential pathway in your body... and acetominophen (Panadol, Excedrin) or booze are both very easy ways to get there...
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Natural viruses, like all living things evolve (if you go in for that sort of thing)... and any virus that kills 100% of its hosts does not have a big future! An artificial or created virus may not suffer from this evolutionary restriction?
The thing is a virus is often just the first thing among many invaders to move into a host - in the case of the flu, the actual virus you catch (1 - 4 day incubation period) will only stay with you for 7 - 10 days, but it very commonly lays you open to secondary bacterial infections. These usually settle on the chest, but can settle elsewhere - throat, sinuses - or if you're really unlucky and push yourself physically at the wrong point during the illness - in the heart muscle. While you have a flu it's very much the wrong time for strenuous exercise.
Many viruses kill their hosts in this manner - first running their course of infection, but in doing so they precipitate a number of secondary bacterial infections.
Every flu and cold you get while you're young, or at least not elderly will protect you from a similar strain later in life. Teachers, young parents and nurses usually spend the first 5 years of duty sick as dogs (children average 6 viruses of some sort a year, often sharing them around). But you want to get a few cold and flu viruses under your belt (and recorded in your immune system) before you're 75 or 85.
Bad news for parents: stomach bugs (rotavirus, norovirus etc) mutate at such a rate you can get them all over again a few weeks later from someone who originally caught it the same place as you, and you never, ever have anything resembling immunity.
I'm not a doctor by the way, just very keen on microbiology and biochemistry.
Rustle Brown, listen up I have a cure for flu, courtesy of all my Chinese and Japanese relatives. Or rather a remedy that tricks you into feeling cured for the 45 minutes or so you need to fall asleep. It works as a topical anesthetic for a sore throat, anti-nausea treatment that is osmotically desirable (like an oral rehydration solution), it is a powerful expectorant (clears bronchi) and also clears the nose. This tea works well but the good effect of a cup wears off in less than an hour. The hydrating effect is better than water though, and important for 1) speeding up the process of the virus and 2) keeping protected against secondary infections.
Ginger Tea
Wash & peell 1 small chunk of ginger (a bit less than 1Tbsp). Grate into a mug and pour over 1 cup boiling water. Let stand for 30 seconds, pour into another mug through a tea strainer & add honey to taste (between .25 & 1 tsp for most people).
While you still have a temperature (usually just the first 2 days of a flu) take panadol, asprin or a non-steroidal antinflammatory or you will feel even more crap, and being able to sleep soundly is essential at this stage of the flu.
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For those people keep trying to define Act
I've been trying to explain Act to some American friends - both their politics and demeanor - best short thing I could come up with was "sort of Ayn Rand meets Dancing with the Stars" - but that really doesn't reflect the scary/ugly side I see in them
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"Roger the Lodger" comes from my parents' book of naughty limericks.
May I suggest my Canadian friends in their (hardcore punk) band Nomeansno and the perfect theme song for Act
Slayde
Slayde is my buddy, my pal, he is my brother
I am one, he is the other
When the sun shines, he is my shadow
And when the moon is high, it's at his feet I lie
But I’ll never listen to what slayde says
I'll never listen to what slayde saysSlayde's always talking, and it's rarely nice
He's always whispering his poisonous advice
He is secretive, ruthless and cold
He mentions just enough and leaves the rest untold
He said "Don't ever risk an open attack
Just smile into their faces and then stab them in the back"
”But Slayde" I said
“What about the weak, the helpless and the small?”
He just sneered and said
"Fuck 'em all
Fuck 'em all"He said “I am a murderer, although I’ve killed no one”
”You talk in puzzles Slayde” I said”What have you really done?”
"I cut the twining cord, I shot the turtle dove
I shut out that precious light that shines from above"
“Slayde, you are a poet” I said ”but what are you truly speaking of?”
He smiled and whispered “I MURDERED LOVE" he smiled and whispered ”I MURDERED LOVE"I guess I hate him - no, that's not really true
He's not completely bad
Sometimes he'll crack a joke or two
I guess I’ve grown accustomed to his funny ways
It's not his fault
That he was made that wayI hear him in my sleep, I see him in my dreams
I see him crouched before those terrible machines
And then I face a mirror and he steps in between
Can you tell me, what does this mean?
Can you tell me, what does this mean?Now I lay me down to sleep and pray to god my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
You'll know I’ve made my escape
But there is one step I’ll never take
I'll never listen to what Slayde says
What? What? ... What? -
Wait! Danielle has wheels???
I'm jealous too, I never even got that pony Russell said everyone was going to get.
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I took a look at Family First. No doubt they are the first to talk about 'nanny state' but Conservatives are the actual control freaks - and I doubt that nanny would have much say in their rule making.
I'm glad somebody besides me has thought this as well. Conservatives do enjoy exercising that control, just look at the Business Roundtable and the influence they exerted over everything from dismantling an excellent health systems to sale of NZ infrastructure such as communications and transport. Their interest has more to do with easy access to resources (ecology and public safety be damned) and nothing to do with the public good. And their reforms invariably wind up costing more for all their cost cutting measures and money making initiatives. Supposedly costs were cut during the era of Rogernomics, but for every dollar that was supposedly saved in health costs, many, many times as much was spent down the line to clean up the problems caused.
All through history this is especially true in the area of epidemics, and for anyone who enjoys reading history, it's fascinating to see in every era the rich conservatives resisting every move towards sanitation in any form until the cholera/typhoid/diphtheria/smallpox/meningitis/rheumatic fever/pertussis reaches their own neighbourhood.