Children of Meh

Currently failing to give two rat fucks about:

Sports in general, but the Black Caps, Phoenix and Lance Armstrong in particular. I'd rather be listening to Kraftwerk. There's some overseas evidence that cable TV rip off their wider customers to cross-subsidise the sports junkies. I wouldn't be surprised if Sky TV does the same thing here; something Soho subscribers might care about more than I. The sky is my television.

Garth McVicar and his Sentencing Sensible Trust, or Garth McMullah and the Rational Sentencing Institute as they are known on this blog. How this loud boorish cow cockie gets into print, I don't know. They seem to print any old shit these days.

Speaking of old shit, Bob McCroskrie. Don't care. This McHuntly can foam and rage and try to get Go The Fuck to Sleep rated R by the Censor's Office:

The applicant, on behalf of Family First, states as part of their Notice of Submission, "We believe the publication should be age restricted under s3A of the FVPC Act as it contains highly offensive language likely to cause harm to young people and children."

Fat lot of good it'll do him and his zealots. Please fuck off.

Coke Pimp Leaves NZ with Case of Sour Grapes

For offshore readers, the other big item of what passes for news around here (apart from the dead whale) is the departing words of Coca-Cola Amatil's Man in NZ for the last nine years:

The outgoing boss of one of our largest firms has taken a parting shot at New Zealand's attitude towards big business, saying an ingrained anti-corporate mentality is stifling the growth of companies...

He said that while entrepreneurs were admired in New Zealand, big businesses were seen as "nasty and untrustworthy".

Everyone from union leaders, business leaders, business commentators, Plebber and Plebook have been putting the boot into this whining lolly water pusher. If there's one thing that brings this country together in solidarity, it's a little rich suit facing a white man's burden.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Coke admits its adverts for its new range of "Vitamin Water" are nasty and untrustworthy.

Deconstructing a Dead Whale

There is no clean and tidy way to dispose of a dead whale. Everyone from Greenpeace to Norway knows that. The old man of the sea that washed up at the Pram Boat Club was always going to be a mission to inter.

I'm glad my hunter/gatherer mate went for a rubberneck so I didn't have to. The crowds of gawpers, the tang of cordite and intestines fugging the air that does nasty things to my memory. Ta but na. Even he was stunned by the amateurism and gore that went into digging out the jawbone. He reckoned they should have used a chainsaw and be done with it.

A funny fact about whaling; the Law Commission's Alcohol in Our Lives Report never mentioned it, but the Maori who worked on the whaling stations didn't drink with their European workmates. They socialised, they smoked tobacco, but kept away from the demon drink.

It was only in the 1860's, when converted Christian Maori started preaching to their own, that alcohol became an accepted part of Maori habit. Even then, places like Parihaka sprang up as oasis of socialisation without inebriation. Later on, the same quantum effect of culture occurred in the 1950's with the urbanisation of Maori. The generational fallout from that continues today.

Anyways, the remains of the whale passed by my rented whenua sometime yesterday and is now interred somewhere in Raumati South. The jawbone is getting picked clean by sea leeches or whatever. And I'm finally going to sit down and read Moby Dick for the first time.

With Malice Toward Some; Julius Vogel Edition

The next time I'm in Wellington, I must remember to go and piss on Julius Vogel's grave. That's the conclusion after a night's research into How Things Change.

Tonight's aspect involved uncovering the roots of New Zealand's first Deaf policy, and how the progressive Vogel got it so horribly wrong. I'm still incandescent with rage, so I'll leave analysis for another time. Except for the paragraphing, occasional bracketed barracking and the bold font emphasis, the following is a verbatim transcript from The Press, October 15th 1879:

Proposed Deaf and Dumb Institution
[By Telegraph]

Sir J. Vogel, on the 18th June, informed the Colonial Secretary that in accordance with instructions he has engaged the services of Mr Gerrit Van Asch, to proceed to New Zealand as teacher of deaf and dumb mutes, 20 pounds being paid as honorarium to Dr. Abbott for assiting in making the selection. Mr. Asch to embark for New Zealand at the latter end of October.

In an enclosure Sir Julius Vogel, Messrs Edwin A. Abbott (presumably, this Abbott, Head Master of the City of London School, keen Francis Bacon fan and fellow sci-fi writer to Vogel), and Walter Kennaway (Secretary for Public Works), report at length to the Premier, under date June 10th, that seventeen applications to the appointment was read, twelve being persons who professed to teach on the combined system, three from persons who had no special knowledge of teaching of deaf mutes, and one a professor of the German system, which teaches pupils to converse by means of articulate sound (sound they can't hear), and understand by lip reading, interpreting the movement of the lips of the speakers to the exclusion of all signs except natural ones.

The introduction of this system has been comparatively recent. Mr Van Asch came over from Holland expressly to teach the system, but its general introduction is, perhaps due to Mr St John Ackers, who travelled with his wife all over the Empire, and part of America in order to find the best system for teaching their child, a little girl who lost her hearing in infancy.

They adopted the German system taught by an American lady, and were so delighted with progress made that they threw themselves enthusiastically into the cause of promoting the system, establishing a college, with a number of influential coadjutors (Curiously enough, no trace of an Ackers Deaf college exists online. The first US college for the Deaf started in 1857, with sign language used from the beginning. Also, no-one ever thought to consider a Deaf adult's opinion on the matter).

Mr Asch had a private school on this system. The German plan discards the system of arbitrary signals as opposed to natural ones to express words, letters, or short sentences, by which deaf mutes are enabled to compensate themselves for loss of hearing and speech. They read and write with facility and read from the lips with astonishing facility, varying with their intellectual ability. It is applicable to all children not idiots.

Others advocate systemised symbols, as the French or Dactyl system, and declare that the percentage of children capable of acquiring the German sytem is so small, and that only the French system is capable of imparting the requisite instruction. The professors of the combined systems attempt to combine the teaching of articulation and lip reading with teaching of dactyology.

The opinions of Messrs. Vogel, Abbott, and Kennaway lies between the two extremes. They think the German system the most beneficent in its result. Under the French system there is danger that deaf mutes should shun the society of those who are not deaf, and by congregating together increase the natural disadvantages of their affliction (Oh, so that's why they didn't ask a Deaf adult. We can't have deaf people forming social groups, can we?).

They are, however, not quite confident that the German system is applicable to all children not idiots, some intelligences being too low to acquire that system. Children under the German system think in words, while under the French or combined system they think in signs (lip-reading is incredibly strenuous and not entirely accurate. It's a bit like teaching a colour-blind person to paint realistic sunsets).

They selected the only applicant under the German system. The general salary paid to teachers under the German system is about a hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds a year. With the exception of one gentleman, none under the French system receive a salary of over two hundreds pounds a year. The exception was a clergyman receiving five hundred. Assuming that the German system may not prove all sufficient for New Zealand, a teacher of the French system could be secured for a hundred and fifty pounds a year.

Mr Van Asch has a thorough knowledge of the German system, and the results of his teaching are astonishing in the extreme. He is accustomed to take entire charge of his pupils, including their board and lodging. He speaks English with perfect accuracy and entire freedom from foreign accent or idiom. By his means the German system will take full root in New Zealand, and the French system, if hereafter required, can be super-added (Sign language would soon be banned entirely. It would finally be allowed to be taught in the curriculum again in 1979).

Choice, Minister

Everyone's favourite Public Choice Theory sitcom is returning to the screen. Yes Minister returns with the original writers Jay and Lynn. Let's hope the reboot survives the test of time in a way that Reggie Perrin didn't.

Drugs? You're soaking in them, NZ

Contrary to what this article implies, NZ has had a long history of women hooked on prescription stims and tranqs. Here's the Law Commission on the Blake-Palmer Commission from around 1971 (pg. 43):

The [Blake-Palmer ] Committee was particularly concerned at the growing reliance on a range of new hypnotics and tranquillisers marketed as Mogadon, Valium and Librium. A detailed analysis of the prescribing of hypnotics and stimulants by New Zealand doctors between 1958 and 1971, revealed that the use of these drugs doubled over this 13 year period. The analysis also revealed that “married women” (a category which included women who had been divorced or widowed) were by far the largest consumers of hypnotics and stimulants. As highlighted earlier, the researchers estimated that on a typical day in New Zealand in 1971, 8.3 per cent of “married women” took a tranquilliser and 11.6 per cent took a hypnotic, a tranquilliser, or both.

But its main conclusion was that in many instances doctors were resorting to prescribing these drugs because they did not have the time or resources to deal with the underlying patient issues:

Hypnotics being used at double the level of 13 years ago; tranquilisers disappearing down our throats to the tune of $2.3 million a year; what excuse can there be for such a situation in a country like New Zealand? – except shortage of doctors and lack of time to spend on sorting out psychological troubles.

One thing seems to be clear. For many women in New Zealand marriage is a stressful occupation, which is getting worse instead of better. Hypnotics and tranquillisers are not the answer.

The risk of addiction associated with the prolonged use of benzodiazepines such as Valium and Librium was not well understood at the time of the Blake-Palmer review, but the Committee was concerned about both the cost to the health budget and the potential for doctors to be influenced by the “overzealous promotion” of new prescription drugs by competing pharmacological companies. 

The more I research drug use in NZ, the more the laws seem moulded solely due to drug snobbery. Harms, real and imagined, have absolutely no bearing on legal status.

UPDATE: It was a high old time for the generations of Kiwis before that too. From the Law Commission Discussion Document Controlling and Regulating Drugs (pp. 47-8):

It should be noted here also that many of the drugs regulated under the Dangerous Drugs Act had medical uses and, despite the restrictions, were readily available on prescription. Health records from this period suggest that various drugs covered by the Act were liberally prescribed, particularly once prescriptions were publicly funded after 1941. Heroin was, for example, readily available on prescription in an oral dose form and was used widely in linctuses until the mid-1950s in New Zealand. Regulations made under the Dangerous Drugs Act during the 1940s permitted doctors to prescribe up to 16 oral doses of heroin in one prescription. By the end of the 1940s New Zealand was one of the highest users of heroin per capita in the world.

Square pegs and elliptical boxes

I've just been checking out the upcoming Census 2013 details. That old chestnut "What is your religion?" has popped up on the forms again, and I'm pondering my truthful response.

No religion doesn't fit. Everyone has a code. Jedi isn't recognised by the taxonomists to be valid like the more orthodox cults, no matter how many more people ticked that box back in 2001. Neither does Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster seem appetising. Those Pastafarians are too strident and earnest anyway.

I've decided on "It's Complicated." It's a more universally understandable term than the more concise "Tao of the Quantum Holistic Gargleblaster."

UPDATE: I just remembered I've already had this discussion. I'm a Heretic, after being converted by the apostle Freeman Dyson. I can't imagine how being a heretic at home can be worse than what the bible says happens to prophets.

Who's defending whom?

I've got mates trying to squeeze Official Information Act requests out of the Ministry of Defence to no avail. National security, national security, blah, blah, sez the Blue Pencil.  At least one of my mates has written to the Ombudsman for help.

What will the MoD release in the way of information, at least without a waterboarding by the watchdog? Who got a dodgeball to the nuts. This is clearly more newsworthy than how much the Defence Force spends on dubious civilian operations or how much the military is used for domestic police actions.

We are all mutants

I don't have hemochromatosis. My father had me tested. Unfortunately, he did. Such is the dice roll of mutation. My Scanda-Belgian genetics has flared up in other ways; Viking Disease, for example.

But my worries are naught compared with what follows with the Young Ones. Wait until Playstation Claw or iFrequency Earing Loss gain momentum. All those First Person Shooter gamers might just be damaging their DNA as badly as the Instant Whitening of Hair Power that politics bestows on its players, splurging their fight or flight adrenaline supplies for the instant hit.

The same could be said for the stress levels of those caught between the electronic disruptions and the squeeze for higher productivity to feed the corporate grinder. There is a very good chance many of us are all getting older younger.

I'm no fancy big city geneticist, but I would advise a similar strategy to gene pool lineage as to financial investment. Keep as broad a portfolio as you can, because you never know what tomorrow will need.

The High Cost of Cannabis Prohibition

Regardless of your opinion of cannabis per se, have a look at these (referenced) statistics and admit that cannabis prohibition is counter-productive at best, futile and destructive at worst.

* 50,800, 147,800, 204,500 and 385,000 - The estimated number of daily, weekly, monthly and yearly cannabis users in New Zealand, respectively. As a proportion of the population aged 16-64, this represents 1.9, 5.6, 7.8 and 14.6 percent respectively. Source: Ministry of Health Drug Use in New Zealand v.2 Jan 2010, pg. 47.

* $183-235 million - Estimated annual retail market of cannabis (in 2005) Source: Law Commission Controlling and Regulating Drugs Report Part I, pg. 101.

* 453,746 - Kilograms of cannabis seized by police and customs between 2000 and 2006. Source: Law Commission Controlling and Regulating Drugs Discussion Document, pg. 40. This is a daily average of over 207 kg. Assuming all this seized cannabis was sold at $300/ounce, the estimated annual retail market for this cannabis alone would be worth $810 million.

* $116.2 million - Estimated costs to Police of enforced cannabis prohibition in 2005/6 year. Source: Ibid., pg. 29. Vote Police for that year was $1,002 million, making cannabis prohibition enforcement 11.6 percent of the total police budget. Source: Vote Police 2005/6 Treasury document, pg. 1070.

* 333,684 - Police hours spent on cannabis prohibition in the same year. Source:  Law Commission Controlling and Regulating Drugs Discussion Document, pg. 40.

* 20% - Proportion of regular drug users who have bought cannabis off a gang member or associate in the last 12 months. 74 percent had got their fix from a friend, 45 percent from a dealer, and 18 percent from a family member or their partner. Source: SHORE Illicit Drug Monitoring System 2011, pg. 174.

* 23.9% - Proportion of cannabis users who abstain from alcohol when partaking. Source: Ministry of Health Drug Use in New Zealand v.2 Jan 2010, pg. 56.

* 41% - Proportion of regular drug users who can buy cannabis in less than 20 minutes. Source : SHORE Illicit Drug Monitoring System 2011, pg. 172.

* 41% - Proportion of police detainees who admitted drinking prior to arrest. Source: SHORE New Zealand Arrestee Drug Use Monitoring Survey 2011, pg. 43.

* 16 - Mean number of standard drinks before arrest. Source: Ibid., pg. 44.

* 35% - Proportion of arrestees who used alcohol and reported that doing so was "more likely" or "much more likely" to make them angry. Source: Ibid., pp. 51-52.

* 3% - Proportion of arrestees who used cannabis and reported that doing so was "more likely" or "much more likely" to make them angry. Source: Ibid., pg. 94.

* Less than 1% - Proportion of cannabis users in 2006 who were arrested. Source: Law Commission Controlling and Regulating Drugs Report Part I, pg. 65.

* 96.8% - Resolution rate for police in cannabis possession and/or use offences. In comparison the resolution rates for murder, sexual assault, robbery, theft and motor vehicle theft are 82.1%, 55.9%, 42.3%, 30.7% and 11.8% respectively. Source: Police National Statistics 2011, pp. 2-3.

* $20 - The mean price for a tinnie (1.5 grams cannabis). The price has proven inflation-resistant for over a decade. The mean price of an ounce has risen slowly to around $330, although the Wellington mean remains around $300 an ounce. The price for a pound of cannabis remains stable at $3000. Source: SHORE Illicit Drug Monitoring System 2011, pp. 161-2.

* Twice, thrice - Maori are twice as likely to use cannabis than non-Maori, yet have arrest and conviction rates three times higher than non-Maori. Source: Law Commission Controlling and Regulating Drugs Report Part I, pp. 73, 106.

* 0 - Statistical significance of cannabis users' deprivation index. That is, cannabis use is fairly evenly distributed among all income groups. Source: Ministry of Health Drug Use in New Zealand v.2 Jan 2010, pp. 41, 45, 48, 51, 53.

Hammerheads and Gunbags

Jon Stewart squeezes laughter out of despair with a look at the arguments against gun control in the US. The Hicksville Cliff remains, and the only question is how long before iPredict takes bets on when and where the next Future Shock Gunbagger goes off. That's Futsie, in Dredd-speak.

Banned Books in NZ

The How Things Change research is coming along well. After tripping over a dead link over at Steven Price legal blog looking for a list of banned books, the Office of Film and Literature Classification promptly returned my query with a banned book dump (I wish all Government Departments were so prompt).

There are two lists available as spreadsheets.

1215 books banned between 1963 and 1993 under the Indecent Publications Tribunal listed here.
89 books banned from 1993 to Jan 2013 under the Office of Film and Literature Classification here.

Among the sea of porn (ranging from the hilariously archaic to the disturbingly violent) is also a handful of gardening books and two cookbooks. The IPT banned 18 marijuana-themed books in 30 years:

• How to Grow Marijuana Hydroponically
• How to Grow Marijuana Indoors Under Lights
• The Advanced Growers Guide to Marijuana Cultivation
• The Australian Indoor Marijuana Growers Guide
• Marijuana Growers Handbook Indoor/Greenhouse Edition
• Australian Handbook for Indoor Growing of Marijuana
• The Closet Cultivator
• Marijuana Growers Guide De Luxe Edition
• The Connoisseurs Handbook on Marijuana
• High Time Encyclopaedia of Recreational Drugs
• The Complete Guide to Growing Marijuana - The Culture and Management of Hemp
• Indoor Marijuana Cultivation
• The Primo Plant Growing Sinsemilla Marijuana
• Caretaking the Wild Sinsemilla
• Ancient and Modern Methods of Growing Extraordinary Marijuana
• Cooking with Marijuanga
• Marijuana Growers Guide
• The Cultivators Handbook of Marijuana

In the twenty years since the OFLC has been around, only 89 further books have been banned. Ten of them were about cannabis:

• Indoor Marijuana Horticulture
• Marijuana Botany
• A Guide to Growing Marijuana in Cool Climates
• Cannabis Alchemy
• The Great Books of Cannabis Volume l: Book ll
• Marijuana Grower's Insider's Guide
• The Marijuana Chef Cookbook
• Cannabis Cultivator
• Marijuana New School Indoor Cultivation
• The Big Book Of Buds

The allegedly 'injurious to the public good' The Marijuana Chef Cookbook is on sale at Amazon.com. I'm pretty sure the other titles can be found elsewhere online, as well as hundreds of similar quality publications.

Suffice it to say NZ's antiquated censorship laws are as useless as a dick in a dyke. And don't get me started on the OFLC DVD ratings system, or Spoiler Stickers as I call 'em.

Quotes from a drug war

Stuff points out one example of a gross injustice in today's drug war:

Justice Ministry figures show a significant amount of court time is taken up by minor drug cases, with nearly as many people imprisoned for possessing a small quantity of cannabis as for dealing...

In the past six years, possession of small amounts of cannabis or smoking utensils, such as a pipe, made up about half of all drug charges laid by police.

Justice Minister Judith Collins is quoted as saying that all drug matters, no matter how trivial, must be processed by the criminal justice system. By saying this, Collins merely follows a long line of ignorant but powerful voices who have rallied against the obvious love affair NZers have with drugs.

Part of my How Things Change study involved re-reading historian Redmer Yska's excellent story of Aotearoa Marijuana, New Zealand Green. I'm saving the stats for another fight, but here's a selection of choice quotes from NZ's drug war:

• "It is impossible to insert any appreciable quantity of drug into chocolates."

 - Police Commissioner W.B. McIlveney in 1926, responding to a story from the Salvation Army's Brigadier Burton. Burton had heard a tale of a woman found in an Auckland public toilet, insensible after eating chocolates at a garden dance.

• "Marijuana is the thin edge of the wedge into the vice underworld, a trade that festers deep in the social flesh but leaves little mark on the surface."

- Assistant Police Commissioner R.J. Walton in 1965, fresh from a five-week guided tour of American drug locations.

• '[Walton] was brainwashed in America and came home determined to enforce excessive concern about cannabis on the rest of us."

 - Dr Erich Geiringer, arguing that the cannabis menace had appeared at a convenient time when police needed an issue to prop up their dwindling status.

• "Don't be afraid of or awed by the police. They are public utilities like the drains or the telephone."

 - Cock magazine in 1971.

• "The only drug permissible in the healthy home should be one small bottle of the aspirin for use in an emergency."

 - Lady Porritt, Governor-General's wife, to the Country Women's Institute, 1968.

•  "Recently a young girl at a sex instruction lecture by a private psychiatrist asked the speaker whether sex with the aid of LSD was a superior experience to ordinary sexual relations without it! In the face of this sort of thinking, a firm and continued deglamourising campaign against drug abuse is necessary to save many young people from a way of life which adds nothing to the community and costs it a lot."

 - Oakley Hospital superintendent and Blake-Palmer Commission member Dr P.P.E. Savage.

• "Existing legislation made it possible to keep cannabis from becoming generally available."

 - Professor Fred Fastier in 1968, Dunedin pharmacologist and Blake-Palmer Commission member.

They have taken away Maori Johnny,
The horsebreaker from Taumarunui.
A keen pot smoker.
He plucked for us the leaves
Of the tree of life.

  - James K. Baxter, The Ballad of the Junkies and the Fuzz.

• "It is a dangerous article to print as it is, without laying to rest some of its misconceptions."

 - Dr Blake-Palmer, commenting on a draft article for Moment, a Parnell Christian magazine. The story in question featured Geoff, a high functioning drug user. It is unclear whether the article was published. Media, police and health officials were warned to keep out of the public eye on drug matters while the commission convened.

• "There was so much nonsense with officials making statements that were clearly untrue. The effect was to discredit those who tried to produce real information. New Zealand is a model of how to mismanage health information over several decades."

 - Christchurch psychologist Dr John Dobson, a vocal critic of the Blake-Palmer Commission, 1969.

• "A sufficient dose of THC in marijuana is capable of producing all the effects of the more concentrated hashish and even LSD which is conceded one of the most powerful drugs known to man."

 - Hutt MP Trevor Young, 1970.

• "Much of the senseless crime attributed to teenagers - the smashing of windows, the destruction of park benches, the breaking up of public property, even to some of the gang wars - is caused by the smoking of marijuana."

 - Salvation Army booklet.

• "These people, often sick, will not volunteer for medical treatment and it is necessary for the police to seek them out for their own good."

 - Police Commissioner W.H.A Sharp, twenty years before the Bill of Rights 1990 made this illegal.

Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

In my summertime study of How Things Change, this podcast featuring Cory Doctorow and the Titanium Physicists has proved invaluable. Titled Death and Heat Death, this long-form happy mutant conversation includes Goblin Milk, multiverses, infinity, mortality and identity, and how to explain to a child that their father is dying.

UPDATE: Forgot to note that there's also an explanation that tidying one's room actually increases entropy in the universe.

The Rebirth of Punk

A thought bubble has persisted over the last couple of weeks that just won't budge. The guts seem to be disagreeing with the brains over the Balls to 2013 post, nagging like a double-breasted lobbyist: Rebirth of Punk. Rebirth of Punk.

Of course, no sane paid stooge would ever call for that. And there's no voice in my puku, that's just the brain's best translation of gut dialect.

The rebirth of punk is not about the gobbing, or even the Pistols. It's about DIYing, pitching in, and not having to get permission from government every bloody time you want to do something reasonable and straight forward.

That attitude has been helping kill the hospitality sector, leaving the supermarket barons with clean hands and fat wallets. It has killed the live entertainment circuit, from One Love to Big Day Out to... well, we'll see. Only the high NZ dollar is keeping an Indian summer for some. Once that wave collapses, let's see what's left.

Where protections were most needed (in the mines, in the housing sector), these government approvals have shown to be benign and toothless at best, recklessly fatal at worst. The foundations of the CTV building were built with authorised ambitions and ignorant schemers, and was an unqualified failure in every respect.

Maybe, just maybe, people with knowledge gained from passion not privilege can do a better job.