Sickening Developments Down in New Zealand

Is there nothing at all who can appease your greed,

Could you please leave the air we breath
Why is it something we've done
You all seem to forget
About nuclear fallout and the long term effects

... Let me be more specific, get out of the pacific
Ki te la pacific, get out of the pacific
Ki te la pacific

French Letter lyrics, by the Herbs.  A protest song telling the French government to take their nuclear testing out of the Pacific back in 1982. 

I have embedded a link to their song, a memory of a time when New Zealanders and the government came together to fight for a nuclear-free Pacific.  At the time the French government was testing nuclear bombs in the Pacific and wouldn't stop.  |The French government decided to get very serious with the kiwis and sent some of their crack troops to Auckland where they blew up a Greenpeace vessel in our second-largest city, killing one person. 

These days evolution seems to be spinning backwards and the New Zealand goverment, in a moment of insanity has given a Texan oil giant, with a poor safety record, the right to carry out deep-sea drilling just off the coast of New Zealand.  The risk of an accident is small, they say ... the consequences of just one accident, are huge in a place like New Zealand. 

Anadarko started drilling in the wee hours last night, surrounded by a small flotilla of protests boats ... it's truly a David versus Goliath battle.  Of course, with our very 'special' prime minister at the helm we see the New Zealand government threatening to send the NZ navy out to stop the protestors.  New Zealand has changed and not for the better.

In the last few hours the New Zealand protestors were warned by the Texans that being closer than 500m to their oil drilling rig in New Zealand waters is ... illegal, because the NZ government also changed some rules for them, making it illegal to protest out there. 

So not only has the NZ government broken trust with the people who hired them, as in the public who voted them in, they have lied and changed laws so that the NZ navy can now be used againt the NZ protestors in order to protect the big oil giant.

And they'll probably give Anadarko ships safe passage too, should the unthinkable oil spill happen.

It makes me heartsick because if and when the oil accident happens ... well, what do you with the worst-case scenario?  The documents shows that up to 90 per cent of the wells have a worst-case discharge rate of 100,000 barrels, about 16,000 tonnes a day, but some could discharge up to 350,000 barrels.

"And a couple of months' worth of major spill - unlikely though that may be - would be a significant disaster for wildlife, for the health of our oceans, for our fisheries and for our tourism brand at a cost of billions of dollars to New Zealand.''

Congratulations to Mr Keys and a very shortsighted New Zealand government.  I'm just going to be praying that your greed for immediate returns and thirst for oil doesn't leave New Zealanders with a mess that takes decades to clean up.

Source, The New Zealand Herald.

Ordinary Love, U2

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Nelson Mandela, from Long Walk to Freedom

'Ordinary Love' is a song by U2 written for the film Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom.

It's the first new U2 song since 2010. The lyric video was directed by Irish illustrator Oliver Jeffers and American artist Mac Premo. The video was primarily filmed at The Invisible Dog Art Centre (theinvisibledog.org).

The video features images of various mundane items: brick walls, fences, a blackboard, a globe, a painting. The lyrics are presented first in script scribbled by a moving ink pen over paper, and later over the many earlier images shown in the clip.

Ordinary Love from Joe Ahorro on Vimeo.

A Quietly Extraordinary Weekend ...

This weekend was a weekend where I experienced the extraordinary privilege of spending time with some remarkable people here in Antwerp.  It was made possible by Sarah Neirinckx, the personal and third culture coach, owner of Bloom.

But I don't want to write of it yet because I need time to work out how to tell the story true, so that you get a sense of it ... without photographs.  I need time.

It wasn't just about the workshop but I had offered the lovely Lynette a bed at our place while she attended the workshop.  This was also an extraordinarily delightful experience.  Having her to stay felt a little bit like some delightful Christmas fairy had climbed down from the tree and sparkled her way through our family. We all enjoyed her company.

Last night, I could barely form two sentences when I tried writing here.  Today re-entry into the life of the extended family has been so much simpler despite the fact it was another inspiring, challenging, intense day. 

But this woman ... Dr Brenda Davies led us all on an exquisite journey through these last few days.  I'll write more as soon as I find the words. 

Keys seem like an entirely appropriate image to end this short blog with.  Normal service will surely return tomorrow.

An Unusual Weekend So far ...

I wouldn't be exaggerating if I wrote that I am spending time with the most remarkable people this weekend.  I'm on a two-day workshop that has both filled me with a new kind of energy and left me an exhausted shell of a woman tonight.

The intensity is quite something.  (And I've deleted words and sentences here so many times already...)  I need to get through the workshop and then give it a couple of days to brew some before writing of it.

The bonus is spending time with Lynette.  She is a New Zealander living over in Brussels ... a woman who has fitted so beautifully into our household that we might just keep her.  She's been a great companion on the journey and after about 24 hours together I feel like we've known one another a very long time.

Meanwhile, I'm proud of the New Zealanders out there putting up a fight against the deep sea oil drilling off the coast of our beautiful little islands  And while I know a few grumpy old blokes read my blog and will surely mutter into their long grey beards, I'm going to proudly post a clip from those people who see the huge risks in the drilling.

There Are Days ...

What makes me so homesick at this time of year?

I think it's the realisation that we're on the big plunge into winter where Christmas will be turned into something white and freezing and flat and kind of boring.  Meanwhile, back home in New Zealand, Christmas means summer holidays that go on forever ... strawberries, cherries, new potatoes just out of the ground.  It means white wine in the sun ... actually this song really gives a good sense of it.

My song of choice when I want to go on a melancholic bender ... oh yes.

I have a lovely guest arriving tonight.  There's a dinner in the city and an introductory workshop session.  I'm curious to see how it all goes but just can't concentrate at the moment.

Mmmmm, that could have something to do with the photograph below.  The contents of Christine and Peter's parcel.  It may be that I'm actually in the midst of a sugar rush caused by the Mint Treat Bites and the Chocolate Fish, eaten while I was writing today.

But the Tui bird pictured below.  You cannot imagine how much pleasure I get from pressing the small button that makes it chime ... just like a real one.  I'm still bemused about how easily I've regressed to 'small delighted child'.

I'll get back to you ...

Today ...

So I'm down to the final 90 minutes of today when it comes to meeting my daily commitment to writing a blog post for NaBloPoMo.

It's as close to the wire as I've gone so far but it was one of those days.  I began with the best of intentions and was distracted, just after 8.30am,  by the delivery of an exquisite birthday parcel from New Zealand.  Christine and Peter had sent me a Weetbix tin full of New Zealand chocolate goods.  It was full of childhood and memories.  And there was a soft toy Tui, loaded with the call of a Tui.  I melted. 

But today was going to be about writing ... just writing.  I wasn't planning to leave the house before 11.30am however the Belgian bloke picked up an emergency dental appointment, for the gaping hole in his tooth, and I promised to deliver his money card to him before 10.30am.

I roared out of the house in time but he phoned me, having realised his credit card could be used... the emergency over.  However I was out of the house and wandering.  No point in going home just for an hour  and so I decided to vist my favourite secondhand bookshop here in the city. 

I thoroughly explored their truly superb English selection before settling on one 6.50euro book.  Leaving, I met up with Andy at the cash register and voila, we were out for a quick catch-up before I found a city bike and headed off across the city on the school pick-up run.  I arrived just in time.

The school is an interesting one and I find myself having conversations with quietly extraordinary people sometimes.  That happened today.  Then Miss 9 and I wandered home via the bakery that sells the best chocolade eclairs in the city.  They know us now.  We call by once a week, we chat some.

The final leg of the journey is via a tram and we played the Animal Game all the way to our stop.  It's a spelling game that moves between English and Nederlands.  If Miss 9 says 'tiger' I have to find an animal beginning with 'r' and if I say 'olifant' she has to find one beginning with t.  And so it goes on the long journey home ... we need to google more animals though.

But, oh dear, in searching for how to spell the only X animal I thought I knew, I discovered that it actually begins with an A.  Back to the drawing board on 'Axolotl'.  That is so not how I was spelling it. 

We came home via Puerta del Sol where I called in to buy a red wine but ended up chatting with Frank.  And the delightful surprise being the fact that I was gifted a divine red wine from the woman I was so privileged to interview over the weekend ... which reminds me that I must get all of the interviews outstanding up and out next week.  The Italy ones too, now that I have them.  The story of those Genovainterviews, traveling all over the world, is a story to tell on another day.

Miss 9 and I lunched at 3pm and the day continued on in much the same way.  We're onto 'The Silver Chair' in The Chronicles of Narnia.  And although we only finished Harry Potter this year, I'm wondering if we can read it again after Narnia ...  

I ended the day with a much-loved friend.  Mary Lou is that friend who twice flew to New Zealand and traveled with me.  Once over to Istanbul and then later, we met twice in Europe.  It had been too long since our last conversation and it was grand to catch up.

It's 23.18 as I finish this.  Sliding in with 42 minutes to spare ...leaving you with my favourite Mary Lou and Al photograph, taken when visiting them in Ohio.  Tomorrow, a whole new set of adventures are set to begin ... news to follow.