Just say "No"

A "Purely Girls!" Christian camp to be held to promote chastity among young women. I applaud this move and endorse celibacy and monogamy for all single youths, both as a corrective to promiscuity (there's no sound, practical reason to promote sluttiness) and as a preventative health measure: physical, psychological and social.

I've become more conservative as I've aged. The heady promises of the sexual revolution seem empty and false given the disastrous results of abandoning traditional morality. The sexual liberation movement is barely 50 years old. Our mindsets may have progressed but our emotional reactions are mired in a primordial past, our physiology stubbornly entrenched in instinctual urges below the subliminal threshold and beyond conscious control. Nature is obdurate and doesn't defer to liberal well-wishing or social engineering. The casualties are many: diseases, unwanted pregnancies, the ill-effects of single-parenting, etc. We are yet to fully pay the social costs of our sexual experimentation.

Our easy, breezy sexual climate was promulgated by (possibly) well-meaning, but ultimately deluded, adults. Grown ups who at least had some maturity, wisdom and life experiences to deal with the problems and pitfalls of sex. That's partly why I resent many public school teachers with their cavalier expectations that students will engage in responsible, carefree, consequence-free coition. Their recklessness has condemned and endangered younger generations to untold needless hurt. For once I agree with feminists; it is young women who are most vulnerable, for they alone bear the burdens of pregnancy (and abortion). It's imperative to protect them from adult folly. So the chastity movement has my blessing.

You might think the "Purely Girls!" initiative might enjoy the cautious approval of anyone concerned about NZ's alarming rate of teen pregnancies (2nd highest globally). After all, abstinence has 100% success rate in preventing unwanted children, STDs, and all sorts of post-coital 'remorse.' Alas, the Family Planning Association, somewhat predictably, are quick in their condemnation. FPA chief, Jackie Edmonds, claims most (biased?) studies prove abstinence education a failure that does nothing to alleviate teen pregnancy and STDs. Maybe it's the church component that has her spooked. She says:

The abstinence movement in the US had "been dressed up to be a public health message but actually if you dig down it pretty much comes from a religious background."

FPA are also openly hostile to Catholicism's stance on pre-marital sex, although remarkably silent about Islam, which is likewise prohibitive (maybe because Catholics don't riot and kill people who criticise their faith?) Perhaps it's a turf war? Are they threatened by alternate viewpoints despite similar aims? Does FPA want to be the sole authority on sexual advice? Never underestimate the 'territorial jealousy' of specialists and knowledge brokers.

But who cares what the FPA think, anyway? Abstinence can benefit all teenagers, not just the religious: secular girls have unplanned pregnancies, too; atheists also suffer post-abortion trauma; agnostics contract STDs, as well.

My default advice to anyone outside a monogamous relationship is: "Keep your pants on!" I'm not a prude. You can regularly indulge in orgiastic excess; whatever talkes your fancy. I won't recoil with shock. But I fully concur with the libertarian maxim: "Freedom with responsibility." So you're free to shag whomever, wherever, whenever...

BUT... if you feel like trash the morning after.. if you get the clap.. if your reputation's sullied.. if s/he breaks your heart.. if your one-night stand starts stalking you.. if you're haunted by that abortion for years to come.. if your x-rated video gets posted on the internet.. if you're fired for bonking the boss' spouse.. if your partner deserts you because of adultery and your messed-up kids need years of therapy..

...if there are ANY nasty consequences, then: Hey! You didn't listen to my advice, did you? Oh, well...

just awful

No week is complete without a customary jab at the tripe merchants who call themselves journalists. Political writer, Audrey Young, obliges with a featherbrained forecast about Beehive life in the year 2011. Oh, Audrey, this column is just plain silly. Parliamentary prognostication? Have you combined your politics column with the horoscope section? Please return to your usual one-eyed style: recycling Labour Party press releases, blind worship of Helen Clark, and irrelevant nit-picking about National. That's the NZ Herald's warped, dishonest rubbish to which we're accustomed. And leave the humour to Jim Hopkins who at least knows he's a satirist.

Mr Tumeke

Michael Phelps is Superman. Swimming's a really exciting spectator sport, imo (even though all they do is go up & down). I'm frellin' awestruck by this young fullah from Michigan, USA, smashing world records left, right & centre. He could very well end up being the Best Swimmer Ever in History. I can't find words enough to express my gaping astonishment. Beyond praise, he's stupefying and intimidating. So dang good he's frightening! (tumeke). Go, Mikey! You are The Man. And your name is Mr Tumeke!

Support our police! (shoot a journalist!)

Good news for our Police. Research shows they're generally well esteemed by the public. No details about the study's methodology (in this article), but they're given an average 'score' of 68/100. This should be a morale booster on the eve of the release of Dame Bazely's report, which is sure to send TVNZ & the NZ Press Association into dyspeptic do-gooder delirium.

Groups that gave police lower approval ratings comprised 18-25 year olds, younger Pacific Islanders, Maori, new migrants, and Aucklanders.

Their antipathy isn't too surprising.

1. 18-25 yr olds - Rebellious youths? Defiant, disaffected and immature.
2. Maoris - No shock to anyone familiar with crime, conviction & imprisonment statistics.
3. Young PIs - A combination of #1 and a variation of #2 perhaps? Think: "Sth Auckland"
4. New Migrants - In many Asian, African & Middle East countries, cops are rife with bribery, brutality and corruption. Perhaps they've imported their own ethnic prejudices?
5. Aucklanders - Lot's of Maoris, PIs and new migrants in Akld. Bigger cities beget more impersonalised institutions. More crimes means overstretched, under-resourced urban coppers give less attention to non-urgent offences. Thus victims of burglaries, car thefts & petty crimes feel ignored and become disenchanted.

Anyhow, given the broad support for our police, our very left-wing msm should reconsider their own childish, churlish animosity toward cops. Especially as journalists themselves are routinely disliked and mistrusted by the public. They should wonder:

1) Despite a concerted, continued attempt by news media to disparage our cops, they still enjoy public approval. Can news media REALLY alter ingrained civic attitudes? And should they even try? Does the msm have a duty to report news or engage in some weird liberal grudge against a noble profession?

2) Do falling ratings and circulation figures correlate with the increasingly bombastic, negative reporting about our police. Personally, I've vowed NEVER to buy another copy of either the NZHerald or DomPost while editors Murphy & Pankhurst are at the helm. Journalism is a business and like all others the bottom line is profit. But if the journalistic jeremiad continues, surely others will join the boycott.

Hell hath no fury...

Chuckling over a Maori Party delegate in court charged with threatening behaviour after confronting a woman playing hanky-panky with her man.

[Ms] Karu went to [her] home.. after she found out the woman was sleeping with her partner.. knocked on the front door and became "highly aggressive and agitated".. saying 'come out here you f***ing b**ch, come out here, I'm going to kill you'

LOL - 'Marae justice' anyone? I do feel naughty laughing about it, yet Ms Karu has my support: adulterers are pond-scum beneath contempt. I'm also quite partial to the traditional kanohi-a-kanohi (face to face) method of dispute resolution. I can easily relate to her as all my female relatives are feisty, fiery, fighting femmes. Lord help anyone caught cheating with their husbands!

Anyway, wonder what Tariana (unavailable for comment) will make of the 'youth' and 'women's' delegate for her very own electorate? Any form of violence is completely anathema to The Maori Party's principles, yet Mrs Turia is also very loyal to her troops. Moral of the story: be careful who you f**k with!

The truth is out there

Hexagon over Saturn's North Pole

This is pretty cool. A 15,000 mile wide hexagonal cloud pattern photographed by the Saturn orbiter, Cassini. It was first noticed 26 years ago by the Voyager probes. It's unlike any other weather pattern discovered on any planet. NASA scientists are completely baffled by the structure, composition and longevity of this strange formation centered directly over Saturn's North Pole.

[Quicktime Video animation link]

Poor babies/lucky babies

City councils in Germany are urging women to dump their unwanted newborns in Baby-Klappe, (Baby-hatches) due to a recent upsurge in infanticide. Parents can anonymously 'deposit' their babies in special chutes in hospitals, and retrieve them up to 3 months later should they desire. Otherwise, the orphans are put up for adoption.

Wikipedia says, the historic precedents were the 'Foundling wheels,' prevalent in Italy from the Middle Ages until the late 19th Century. Today, such baby-hatches are common in Europe, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Brazil, Philippines and the USA.

This is extremely bittersweet. On the one hand, it's frightening, almost unthinkable (imo) that people can (and do) kill their infants; one despairs at our barbarity. On the other, such baby-hatches are evidence of a civilized society. Poor babies.

An end to blogging?

Pondering the high incidence of dead and dying blogs, The Sunday Times (via The Australian) asks if enthusiasm for blogging has peaked and whether the online phenomenon is in decline, doomed to extinction. It cites 2 interesting stats:

1) An estimated 200 million blogs created have since been forsaken by their authors.
2) The creation of new blogs culminated in October 2006, when 100,000 new blog were established each day.

Garner research analysts estimate 100 million globally still blog regularly, with some tech experts suggesting the figure may fall to around 30 million. The most common reason for quitting? People eventually run out of things to say. Although I reckon lack of time, energy & impetus also take their toll - not to mention trolls, vicious comments & hostile fellow bloggers who can dampen the most ardent spirits. I guess it depends on the personality and motivation of each author. Who blogs?

* Diarists.
* Geeks.
* Literary types whose passion for writing finds easy expression on the net.
* Chatty types forming online relationships/communities.
* Pundits.
* Polemicists.
* 'Missionaries' i.e. people with a specific cause/purpose.
* Exhibitionists & attention-seekers.
* Irascible types (such as moi) who enjoy moaning :-)

Who knows? But I doubt predictions of blogging's complete demise anytime soon. Sure, folks give up one blog, but then easily start another. As long as gossips, blow-hards and know-alls have online access and it remains free, there'll always be a blogosphere.

sleaze: journos & cops

"There’s.. a danger confronting young women that must be faced: deliberately seeking out authority figures for social encounters and eventually consensual sex is playing with fire."

A striking quote from Michael Bassett's stunning column, "The Anti-Police Hysteria," where he makes several excellent points. This anti-cop dementia is largely media driven. Begining with the Dominion Post enabling Louise Nicholas' bizarre fantasies, through numerous overblown scandals, right up to Dame Bazely's soon to be released report on police conduct, which is sure to be accompanied by feverish howls of outraged reporters decrying a 'sick culture' of the NZ police.

Our news media are atrocious sexual hypocrites. Almost weekly the Dom Post's website (stuff.co.nz) publishes salacious, sensational or silly sex stories. The Civil Union & Prostitution Reform bills were passed to the applause of hacks everywhere, congratulating NZ's progressive sexual liberalism. Gay & lesbian ministers, Methodist & Presbyterian, are feted by journalists. Questions hang over the shady sexual proclivities of MPs such as David Benson-Pope, even the Prime Minister herself, but are ignored or dismissed as rumour-mongering. Last year a raft of stories were published about sexual liaisons between school teachers and their students. Not once has the msm described the education sector as a 'sick culture'.

But if we expect higher moral standards from the police, shouldn't we also expect the same ethical propriety from MPs, schoolteachers and clergy? In my opinion every cop is entitled to a horny sex life in private. They are cops, not priests; upholders of law, not chastity. The legal/moral distinction is important and appears lost on many critics. It seems a strange puritanism surrounds the private lives of police officers. Recently retired MP Georgina Beyer was a prostitute in her youth, illegal at the time, with not a peep of protest from the press. Yet a younger Clint Rickards is villified for (legal) group sex with a police groupy.

Perhaps a feminist double standard is at play? When an Auckland policewoman was discovered moonlighting as a prostitute, she escaped the wrath of a censorious press. The average journalist is a young (30 or under) white, woman. A generation raised on feminism's ambivalence about female sexuality. On the one hand, it loudly exalts women's sexual liberation, cheering on bold carnal adventure. On the other, it's uncomfortable or silent about the ugly consquences of licentiousness: rape, date-rape, STDs, teen pregnancy, proliferating pornography, abortion's long-term emotional harm, etc.

To be fair, the sexual confusion is not confined to the media alone, but is symptomatic of society's broader disconnect and confusion about sex where modern liberal attitudes clash with archaic, primal impulses - libertine ideologies vs biological realities. But that's a topic for another post

Moreover, it's true that Shipton & Schollum are convicted rapists, but are they mere isolated incidents? If our police force was truly a 'sick culture' then examples of egregious conduct would be common throughout all policing districts and generations. Where are all these 'ominpresent' rape scandals to support the notion of a sick culture?

Either way, the relentless persecution of our cops by an antagonistic fourth estate is inexcusable. From Joanne Black's incessant self-righteous whinging about being ticketed in her previous Dom Post columns, to major print editors appealing for anti-police anecdotes from Joe Public, through to the frenzied media trials of Rickards & co - such deranged reportage is unseemly and disgusting. I know many individuals bearing anti-police grudges, including relatives. They're either criminals or angry youths rebelling against authority figures. But I'm aghast that the msm - a white, urban, middle-class institution (if you'll excuse my clumsy over-generalisation) - are so hostile to an establishment vital to an orderly functioning society. As NZ's civil life slowly disintegrates, it's the very middle-classes that has the most to lose as crime spirals inexorably out of control.

On a related note...
My (tin-foil hat) theory is that Rickards is a victim of a political witch hunt. Helen Clark wants him gone and her flunkies installed at National Headquarters. There are too many coincidences. First, commissioner Doone 'relieved' of his position. Following his successor's reign, Howard Broad, who helped oversee the Peter Ellis sex debacle -- where innocent women were charged with faux crimes -- was made top cop. Meanwhile, Lyn Provost, a civil servant with NO experience, expertise or prior interest in policing, was reappointed assistant commissioner. During the Robinson/Broad/Provost era, some questionable plans have emerged from the commissioner's office. These include:

1. Plans to share sensitive information with dubious agencies such as Women's Refuge - a increasingly politicised body with a spurious anti-male agenda.
2. Plans to implement computer software to decide whether a reported crime warrants investigation, rather than relying on the judgement of individual officers. (Perhaps to massage crime numbers so as to reassure a nervous public? After all, a crime isn't a 'crime' if it's not recorded as such.
3. Plans to overhaul the Police Act. Most alarmingly, amendments to allow cops suspected of wrongdoing to be fired before proper employment/judicial proceedings have been finalised. This would neatly solve Helen Clark's 'Rickards problem', or any cop deemed 'problematic' by future govt ministers.

I must stress, the above is pure speculation and I could be completely wrong about everything. Yet Labour's track record of restructuring Courts, e.g. establishing the Supreme Court; appointing favoured judges to the lower courts; altering the process of impeaching judges, etc, suggests scheming to facilitate further ministerial meddling with the police/court/justice systems.

We may never know. Our msm are either disinterested, too busy screaming 'rape!' or too scared to inquire. Fran O'Sullivan, assistant editor of NZ's biggest newspaper, was too lax or timid to fully investigate commissioner Doone's shonky dismissal. If a seasoned journalist of her calibre is afraid to probe Clark's machinations, what chance that a young reporter with half her experience will ask hard questions?

Shame on the msm.

The Surge

Good news from Iraq. General Petraeus is quietly optimistic, telling the NY Post about recent improvements in Ramdi. Having convinced locals they won't be 'abandoned' by US troops, commanders are enjoying an 'overload' of information intelligence. He cites al Anbar tribal chiefs, sickened by civilian deaths as al Qaeda continue to incite bloodshed.

"the sheiks up there are businessmen.. They are entrepreneurial and.. the presence of the foreign fighters is hitting them hard in the pocketbook and they are tired of it."

There are similar results in Sadr city where US troops, now living among villagers, are earning their trust with a new priority on safeguarding mosques, marketplaces and public places vulnerable to attack. Consequently there's been a huge flux of young Iraqi men joining the police and army, keen to purge their country of foreign insurgents. Welcome news indeed.

Worth a click

Fed up with the (perceived) left-wing, liberal bias of internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, Andrew Schlafly invents an online alternative "Conservapedia" with an unabashed right-wing focus. It's front page boasts:

[This] is an online resource and meeting place where we give full credit to Christianity and America.. You will much prefer using Conservapedia.. if you want concise, clean answers free of "political correctness"

Amen. Site includes daily Biblical quotations and its 'Today in History' column features prominent religious figures, American politicians, as well as notable historical events.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

poor me syndrome

Kerre Woodham in a good column on the cult of victimhood that has mushroomed in NZ over the last 3 decades. Recounting a childhood encounter with a sleaze-bag paedophile, she shrugged and brushed the whole thing off. Thank goodness she was raised in an era when folks were made of sterner stuff. Today, she'd be smothered with excess mushy solicitude, coerced into feeling bad, and forced to dwell on painful experiences. Modern counseling does more harm than good by exaggerating and prolonging the original grief. In our blame/victim milieu, we're not expected to take responsibility for our actions, nor for our own emotional responses and coping strategies.

Life aint a bowl of cherries and bad stuff happens to all. Yet our sob-story culture encourages listless enfeeblement and endless self-pity. We need to toughen up; to endure hardship and austerity with strength and stoicism; and learn to 'let go' of grief. Get over it!

Kia ora

Tuatahi, ka whakamoemiti atu ki te Runga rawa
nana nei nga mea katoa
Ki nga tini mate, nga rau aitua kua wehe atu
haere, haere, moe mai ra
Ka huri ki te hungaora
tena ano tatou katoa!

He uri au no Paikea, no Porourangi, no Tapuhi

ko Hikurangi te Maunga
ko Waiapu te Awa
ko Ngati Porou te Iwi

ko Piripi tenei, e noho ana ki Te Whanganui-a-Tara
Nau mai ki aku tuhinga!

Let's first give thanks and praise to Almighty God
from whom all creation descends
We remember our many illustrious ancestors
farewell, may you rest in eternal peace
I in turn greet their living progeny
my august salutations to all!

I am a descendant of Paikea, of Porourangi, and Tapuhi

Hikurangi is my ancestral mountain
Waiapu, my ancestral river
I belong to Ngati Porou

My name is Piripi and I live in Wellington
Welcome to my blog!