Road Snails

Transcription

Road Snails

INVESTIGATE
NEW ZEALAND’S BEST NEWS MAGAZINE
Badlands
The new book
blowing open NZ’s
law and order
debate
Beware
China
May 2011, $8.60
China’s military
expansion is
unprecedented
Road Snails
Why don’t police
catch them?
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HISMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 1
HIS/contents
April 2011 Issue 124 www.hismagazine.tv cover
16 BADLANDS
A controversial new book says New
Zealand has become a land of milk
and honey – for criminals. We’re
too soft, says author David Fraser
as he reveals new insights into
what’s really causing our high crime
rates. Ian Wishart has the story
22 CHINA CRISIS
China’s military buildup is unprecedented, and the Aussies are now
feeling very worried. Should we?
26 ROAD SNAILS
They’re the curse of holiday driving,
Road Snails. Roger Marcon has a
few ideas on what the police should
really be targeting on the roads
features
32 MATT MCCONAUGHEY
Talks about his hit new film, The Lincoln
Lawyer
16
HIS/contents
6 opinion
4 /EDITOR Speaks for itself, really
6 /COMMUNIQUES Your say
8 /EYES RIGHT Richard Prosser
10 /STEYNPOST Mark Steyn
35 action
38
38 /DRIVE The new Mini Countryman
40 /SPORT Chris Forster on World Cup
42 /INVEST Peter Hensley's money advice
44 /MONEY Gold is done and dusted
40
45 gadgets
46 The latest HTC phone
47 The Mall
48 Tech: Blu-ray’s blues
50 Online with Chillisoft
53 mindfuel
56 /ONSCREEN Cowell is back
58 /BOOKCASE Michael Morrissey's
autumn picks
60 /CONSIDERTHIS Amy Brooke on memory loss
62 /THEQUESTION Matt Flannagan on
getting stoned
42
00 over in HERS
14 /LABOUR’S LEADERSHIP Who can really replace Phil Goff?
22 /GM FOOD FEARS Have GM crops unleashed a new disease?
8
editor
Why are they investing in improved
airports and deeper, bigger port facilities
on tiny Pacific islands close to New Zealand
and Australia
4 HISMAGAZINE.TV May 2011
Moments of madness
O
ne could be forgiven for
t hinking the world has gone mad.
Those of us who’ve lived a few
years have seen periods of collective insanity
come and go before, but the current planetary mood takes some beating.
On the one hand, we have the Middle East
crisis. Not just the Palestinian issue that’s been
around for decades, but now the spreading
protests enveloping Libya and the rest of the
Arab world. Just as HIS/HERS warned a month
or two back, the driving force behind most of
these protests turns out not to be democracy
but the sly shysters at al Qa’ida and other radical Islamic groups. The more regimes who fall,
the closer their fingers get to a few nuclear buttons, and then won’t the world be an interesting, glow-in-the-dark kind of place?
On the other hand, we have the United
Nations and its climate change minions who,
no matter what the hard evidence is actually telling them, continue to spout the most
egregious rubbish known to mankind. Trying
to debate with climate believers is like trying
to do the rumba with a Haitian zombie – they
just keep repeating the mantra, drinking the
Kool-Aid and taking the blue pill. They try
so hard to convince the public that the sky is
falling that climate change has become the
nihilistic inevitability of a post-apocalypse
future that those of us in the seventies and
eighties believed nuclear war would be.
Speaking of which, that brings us to the third
hand. China. It’s amping up its nuclear missile
arsenal. It’s building up its military might faster
than any other country on the planet. It has just
commissioned ballistic missiles capable, with a
tail wind, of whacking Wellington, New York
or Sydney. Are we to believe this is all for the
benefit of capturing the relatively small island
of Taiwan on their doorstep? If so, the Chinese
have built a fair degree of overshoot capacity
into their missiles.
Why are they investing in improved
airports and deeper, bigger port facilities
on tiny Pacific islands close to New Zealand
and Australia, and why were those talks
between Obama and the Chinese premier
really so unbelievably tense earlier this year?
Is there something the officials know that
they’re not telling the rest of us?
It’s almost as if allowing China to purchase
land and businesses lock stock and barrel is
seen as preferable to being beaten up by them in
a skirmish which, sadly, is the elephant in the
room that diplomats are discussing in hushed
tones behind closed doors away from the public.
If you want to examine the fourth hand,
there are the mad scientists at Monsanto
whose bosses believe they have some kind of
divine right to take over the gene pools of all
edible crops, genetically modify them, patent
them and then prevent you from being allowed
to ever again grow your own food without first
paying Monsanto for the right to eat. Worse,
their madness which is supported by politicians in New Zealand and the US, may have
created a new strain of disease – exactly what
the anti-GM protestors warned us of.
On top of that, of course we’re all still
cleaning up from earthquakes, tsunamis and
the realisation that the planet has become
much more geologically active in the past 40
years. Stay with HIS/HERS, intelligence for
intelligent people. No matter what happens,
you will probably have read it here first.
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A WAGER WITH PROSSER
I enjoy reading your magazine. Most months I
will find a copy somewhere and read in depth
or otherwise glance over the majority of its
contents. Your columnists are particularly
thought-provoking and it is with sadness that I
note the passing of Chris Carter.
Richard Prosser also frequently adds a
refreshing angle on a variety of topics. However, his column a few months ago revealed a
somewhat alarming ignorance and animosity
to that divisive entity called “the free market”.
At the time, I sniffed and nibbled at the worm
contained therein, but then decided that I was
too busy indulging in “malevolent opportunism”
- otherwise known as “selling things”. This
February, sales are down, and I have given in to
temptation and taken the baited hook.
The most obvious failing of his column is that
it is more hypocritical than Al Gore's waterfront
condo. A lengthy rant about the failings of
government from national debt to education and
conservation turns into an exhortation for the
need of government intervention in the market.
Come again? The government is useless and so
we need more government?
The reasoning seems to be this. We have
regulations controlling all aspects of our lives
from driving cars to dog ownership. These
regulations are good because society has willed
them into being. Therefore the market should
also have regulations.
I’ve heard more sense from a horse. In fact,
it’s quite possible that even Russel Norman
could construct a more rational argument than
that. Possible, mind you, although not likely.
For a start, regulations are not intrinsically
good. Nor are they always a reflection of what
society wants. While we’re on the subject of
dog ownership... the dog microchipping law,
for example, was hardly conjured up by society
but probably by a bunch of apparatchiks in
Wellington, most likely during a “strategic multifocus sustainability and community management meeting” complete with sweaty armpits,
terrible power point presentations and stale
arrowroot biscuits. The Labour government
then simply rubber-stamped the most pointless
law in the universe.
And even if these regulations were indeed
the salvation of mankind, it does not automatically mean that they should therefore be applied
to the exchange of goods between private
individuals. The free market is not a slightly
more civilised version of the Wild West where
cowboy boots are replaced by Gucci loafers.
Regulations such as private property rights,
freedom from coercion and prohibition of false
information should apply. In other words, “free”
does not mean that anyone can do as they
please, it means that no-one can be forced to do
anything. Exchange therefore is always voluntary in a free market.
To proclaim that the government should
micro-manage this after maligning its fiscally
irresponsible squandering of our children’s
future is truly laughable. If it can’t be trusted to
keep its own finances in order, why should we
ask it to order our private transactions? Following that reasoning, shouldn’t we also ask DoC
to manage our private gardens? “Terribly sorry
Sir, but this area has a long history of chrysanthemum gardens and you are showing a complete disregard for society’s customs and values
by planting these tulips. They must be removed
immediately and disposed of in our approved
multi-ethnic dolphin-friendly recycling facility”.
“Well, Mr DoC Ranger, why don’t you just get
out of my garden and go jump in a lake”.
And just as I don’t expect the government to
tell me what flowers to plant, I also don’t expect
it to tell me what coffee to drink, what car to
buy or where to invest my hard-earned cash.
Because you can be completely certain that the
coffee will taste like dried cat faeces, the car
will be a carbon-neutral wheelbarrow and my
“investment” will consist of government bonds
where the combined rate of tax and inflation
exceeds the interest rate.
Richard Prosser would be well advised to
study the writings of the French economist,
Frédéric Bastiat, who was quite possibly the
most logical person in the history of the world.
A man with more economic sense in his little
finger than Mr Prosser has in his whole body.
And the fact that said finger has been dead
for over 150 years does not alter this in the
slightest.
I therefore propose a reward (it’s not really
a wager since I’m not asking for anything in
return). If Richard Prosser can even refute one
of Bastiat’s free trade arguments, I’ll personally
give him a crisp, clean NZ$100 bill. Sorry, but
that’s all that I have spare after my latest GST
bill. Not that I’m risking much, mind you. One
– it’s unlikely that he will find one of Bastiat’s
arguments which he can refute. Two – by the
time he does, government-induced inflation
and debt monetisation will mean that $100 can
barely purchase a cup of medium-brewed cat
faeces.
Vince Frank, Christchurch
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Richard Prosser
eyes right
Given our very small population base,
the independent defence of New Zealand’s
undeniably large land, sea, air, and coastal
territory is not realistically possible
without large-scale mobilization,
which conscription would provide
Your country needs you
A
sk not what your country
can do for you – ask what you
can do for your country.” So said
John F Kennedy in his famous 1961 inaugural address. Kennedy’s speech was a call
for strength and sacrifice from his fellow
Americans, rather than a call to arms; but
sometimes, sacrifice requires the strength
of arms, and for a country such as New
Zealand, it is perhaps only that call which
ultimately makes sense.
Compulsory Military Training was last
exercised in this country from 1950 until
1958, and again between 1962 and 1972.
Under its final incarnation as National
Service, young men were required to register
for a ballot based around birth dates, the
lucky winners being rewarded with the
opportunity to train and serve for a period
in the Armed Forces. More than 85,000 New
Zealanders were conscripted under CMT
over the course of its final two decades. It is
surprising how many you bump into even
today, and quite telling in that not one, of
the many I have met over the years, remembers it as being anything other than a positive and beneficial experience.
The enlightened scheme was brought to a
premature end by the spineless peaceniks of
Norman Kirk’s Labour Government, and no
administration since has had the foresight
or testicular fortitude to reinstate it. For this
writer’s money, it is time New Zealand did
just that.
Militarily, socially, and economically,
there are many good solid reasons why our
nation and its people would benefit greatly
from bringing back the draft. I’m not talking
about a ballot, or any other selective form of
National Service; rather, the universal enlistment of every capable New Zealand citizen
for two years, from the age of eighteen (or at
the end of their formal schooling, whichever
comes first), followed by a week or two’s service a year, every year thereafter, until retirement age. A year’s basic training could be followed by a year’s service in the Army, Navy,
or Air Force; or indeed a year in the Police,
the Fire Service, a professional Coast Guard,
or even a full-time Civil Defence Corps.
There are pros and cons with every proposal, of course; but your favourite commentator believes that in this case, the potential
positives outweigh the negatives. Young
people – and their parents – would have
the surety of knowing that, after the end of
high school, there will be two more years of
certainty in life; a guaranteed job, a respectable income, a structured environment
which encourages savings. On top of that,
the Services promote the continuation of
sport and fitness which many find it difficult
to maintain when education finishes and
real life begins. Along with this is the provision of medical and dental care, and perhaps
most importantly, the encouragement of
self-discipline to bridge the gap between the
relatively cloistered and subservient existence of childhood, and the freedom of the
adult world of work or varsity.
Militarily, a return to National Service
would help to rescind New Zealand’s current laughing stock status, and restore us to
the type of credibility enjoyed by the likes
of Switzerland, Singapore, and Israel, and
those other nations with comparably small
populations to our own, whose Armed Forces nonetheless enjoy
genuine international respect; Norway, Denmark, Finland, and
Sweden.
Given our very small population base, the independent
defence of New Zealand’s undeniably large land, sea, air, and
coastal territory is not realistically possible without large-scale
mobilization, which conscription would provide. This is not so
much from the manpower made involuntarily available by it,
as from an expansion of the professional core of the military –
enabled by the increased resourcing of the Armed Forces which
conscription would obviously require, coupled with the increase
in voluntary enlistment which would naturally result from a
greater number of people experiencing a more credible Defence
establishment. Singapore, with a population of five million, has
a professional military numbering around 35,000, roughly three
times the size of New Zealand’s, with an equivalent conscripted
enlistment of about the same at any given time, and a further
350,000 trained reservists. Any potential aggressor would think
twice before considering an attack on Singapore; New Zealand
does not offer anything remotely like
a similar capacity for resistance.
Socially, the nation would gain by
instilling a sense of duty, responsibility, and patriotism in a new and
disciplined generation; a respect for
law, order, and the older citizenry;
the promotion of a work ethic,
self-respect, and the realisation that
dreams and goals can be attainable
through training by those who might
never have managed to achieve them
before. Young people given a taste of
actual success are far less likely to turn
to crime and dereliction, than those
whose experiences serve to constantly
remind them that their place is at the
bottom of the heap.
Economically there are benefits
too. The Forces may serve as a training establishment not only for skills
and practices of warfighting, but
for the trades and disciplines which
support them. The Armed Services
need personnel trained in mechanics, engineering, electrics and
electronics, radio and communications, IT, transport logistics,
and even plumbing and carpentry; as well as, of course, medicine, science, and a raft of other necessary specialties. Utilising the military for this purpose may be likened to putting an
ambulance at the bottom of the cliff; but people, three decades
of failed management in education and social policy has left us
on the edge of that cliff, and right now, we don’t have another
ambulance. Young people properly trained in all the skills
which the military requires for its own purposes, can take those
skills out into the workplace, to the greater benefit of the nation
as a whole.
There will be naysayers, of course. There will be the pacifists,
the weaklings, the other cowards and bludgers who don’t want
to fight, and who will conscientiously object. Well, I say let ‘em.
This isn’t the Soviet Union. If people really don’t want to serve
in the military, they can spend a couple of years picking up
rubbish off the beaches and digging out long-drops for DOC
instead; though naturally, they will forego any benefits offered
to those who do choose to accept their civic duty.
Some will argue that those of a criminal disposition will end
up being trained in the use of weapons – yes they will, but so
will everybody else, including the decent majority who vastly
outnumber them.
There will be those who ask how we are going to pay for all
this, to which I say we pay for it out of the savings we will make
through creating a better society. We will spend less on Police,
Courts, and prisons, because more of our people will eschew
crime and violence, instead thriving in an environment which
offers a sense of purpose and self-worth. We will spend less on
health, because more people will stay fitter and healthier for
longer in life, under a regime which requires and encourages it.
We will spend less on welfare, because people will learn respon-
sibility, resilience and self-reliance, and the pride and satisfaction which this brings.
The experiment with anarchic liberalism foisted on New
Zealand since the 1970s has failed this country dismally, and
we now lack any alternative social regimentation with which to
replace it. We do not have the class structure and traditions of
British society, the Bible and Constitution culture of the Americans, the unionised solidarity of Australia. But we do have the
inherent fighting nature of our peoples, and the proof of its
efficacy in our recent past. Maori, Saxon, Celt, Viking; we, all
of us, once were warriors. I say it is time we took up arms once
again, and put our troubles to the sword.
Have your say on this and any other story in HIS:
[email protected]
Mark Steyn
steynpost
Today the delegitimization of Israel
is all but universal: Indeed, these days
Palestinian leaders pay more lip service
to the “two-state solution”
than Europeans
Those noble Palestinians
O
n Friday night, March 11, twelveyear old Tamar Fogel came home
to find both her parents, Ruth and
Udi Fogel, two brothers Yoav (11) and Elad
(four), and her three-month old sister Hadas
murdered in their beds.1 They had had their
throats cut and been stabbed through the
heart.
That’s not shocking: There is no shortage of young Muslim men who would enjoy
slitting the throat of a three-month old baby,
and then head home dreaming of the town
square or soccer tournament to be named in
their honour.2
Back in Gaza, the citizenry celebrated the
news by cheering and passing out sweets.3
That’s not shocking, either: In the broader
Palestinian death cult, there are untold
legions who, while disinclined to murder
Jews themselves, are content to revel in the
glorious victory of others.
And out in the wider world there was a
marked reluctance to cover the story.
And, if not exactly shocking, that was a
useful reminder of how things have changed
even in a few years. On 9/11, footage of Palestinians dancing in the streets and handing out candy turned up on the world’s TV
screens, and that rancid old queen Arafat
immediately went into damage-control
mode and hastily arranged for himself to be
filmed giving blood. This time round there
was no need for damage-control, because
there was no damage: The western media
simply averted their eyes from their Palestinian house pets’ unfortunate effusions. The
Israeli Government released raw footage
from the murders, but YouTube yanked the
video within two hours. The hip new “social
media” are developing almost as exquisitely
refined a sense of discretion as the old Social
Register.
As Caroline Glick writes in the Jerusalem
Post:4
People are no longer ashamed to parade
negative feelings toward Jews.
Ruth Fogel was in the bathroom when the
Palestinian terrorists pounced on her husband Udi and their three-month-old daughter
Hadas, slitting their throats as they lay in bed
on Friday night in their home in Itamar.
The terrorists stabbed Ruth to death as she
came out of the bathroom. With both parents
and the newborn dead, they moved on to the
other children, going into a bedroom where
Ruth and Udi’s sons Yoav (11) and Elad (four)
were sleeping. They stabbed them through
their hearts and slit their throats.
The murderers apparently missed another
bedroom where the Fogels’ other sons, eightyear-old Ro’i and two-year-old Yishai were
asleep because they left them alive. The boys
were found by their big sister, 12-year-old
Tamar, when she returned home from a
friend’s house two hours after her family was
massacred.
Tamar found Yishai standing over his parents’ bodies screaming for them to wake up.
In his eulogy at the family’s funeral on Sunday, former chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau told
Tamar that her job from now on is to be her
surviving brothers’ mommy.
In a rare move, the Prime Minister’s Office
released photos of the Fogel family’s blooddrenched corpses. They are shown as they
were found by security forces.
There was Hadas, dead on her
parents’ bed, next to her dead
father Udi.
There was Elad, lying on a small
throw rug wearing socks. His
little hands were clenched into
fists. What was a four-year-old to
do against two grown men with
knives? He clenched his fists. So did
his big brother.
A decade ago, the revelation
that French ambassador to Britain
Daniel Bernard referred to Israel
as “that shi**y little country,” was
shocking. Now it is standard fare.
Today the delegitimization of
Israel is all but universal: Indeed,
these days Palestinian leaders pay
more lip service to the “two-state
solution” than Europeans. On
Israel’s national day, prominent Britons of Jewish background
write to The Guardian to deplore the existence of the Jewish
state. And “Israeli Apartheid Week” is multiculti Toronto’s gift
to the world.
Demonstrating his uncanny ability to miss the point, the
head of the Canadian Jewish Congress tweeted today: “Anonymity breeds ugliness online”.
You would think even this sad, irrelevant fool might have
noticed that the striking feature of today’s “ugliness” is how
non-anonymous it is. Year on year, the world is more cheerfully
upfront about its anti-Semitism. Maybe he could ask John Galliano, or Julian Assange.
But sometimes, as when a baby has her throat slashed, what’s
not said is just as telling. Recently I was talking to a Hungarian
Jew who lived in hiding in Budapest during the Second World
War: By 1944, the pro-German government was running short
of ammo, so they were obliged to get a little creative. They’d
handcuff Jews together in a long chain, stand them on a bridge,
put a bullet in the ones at each end, and then push them into the
Danube to let the dead weight drag down the ones in between.
You have to have a strong stomach for such work, perhaps
almost as strong as for killing three-month olds. But, as my
friend told his tale, I thought not of the monsters on the bridge,
nor even those on the banks cheering, but about the far larger
numbers of people scurrying about their business and rationalizing what was going on. That’s what made the difference, then
as now.
Claire Berlinski, who was on the scene in Itamar, writes that
Hadas was, in fact decapitated:5
“Anyone who in any way tries to rationalize or minimize this
or to suggest that this is a fitting punishment for anything needs
to go out and look at a three-month-old baby and ask himself
what it would take to climb over a fence, climb in a window, and
cut off that child’s head.”
A poll taken early April shows fully 32% of Palestinians
supported beheading the baby and stabbing the children in their
beds.6
References
1. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/03/028585.php
2. http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Communication/
Spokesman/2011/03/spokeincitement130311.htm
3. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4041106,00.html
4. http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.
aspx?id=212146#
5. http://ricochet.com/main-feed/
Writing-in-Cold-Blood-About-Itamar
6. http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=215385
Frida Ghitis
Iran remains a threat even without nuclear
weapons. Watching the Libyan experience,
it will now work more relentlessly to
infocus
acquire them
So far, Iran is winning
I
f pro-democracy activists in the
Middle East have someone to thank for
showing them how to challenge their
oppressors, they should look to Iran. Young
Iranians, who took to the streets after a
stolen election in 2009, showed their neighbours how to launch a peaceful democratic
uprising. Unfortunately, the regime that
smashed the Iranian quest for democracy
also had a lesson to teach its neighbours. The
Islamic Republic’s brutality against its own
people is now being replicated in much of the
Arab world.
While the people of Iran have not given
up hope that they will ultimately succeed in
toppling a repressive regime dominated by
the Republican Guard and the Shiite clerical
establishment, the reality so far is quite the
opposite. On balance, the seizures of instability
convulsing Arab countries have strengthened
the Iranian regime. So far, Iran is winning.
Instability in the heart of the oil-producing
region has sent oil prices soaring, bringing
money gushing into Tehran’s coffers. While
the world is distracted, preoccupied with the
unfolding uprisings, figuring out NATO’s
role in the fight for Libya, Iran has redoubled
activities in its banned nuclear program. A
few days ago, Iran confirmed work on a new
generation of centrifuges to enrich uranium,
the key ingredient in nuclear weapons. A
new nuclear reactor is slated to start up next
month. Despite setbacks from the Stuxnet
computer virus, scientists in many countries
believe Tehran is back on track to develop all
the elements needed for “breakout” capability, the power to quickly build a nuclear
weapon the moment it decides to do it.
The West seems to have forgotten about
Iran, at precisely the time when Tehran is in
a position to become even more of a threat.
In the meantime, the anti-Iran coalition woven together by Washington and its
allies is fraying. The now-deposed Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak was one of the key
anti-Iran bulwarks in the Middle East. Stopping Iran’s development of nuclear weapons
and its growing influence in the region is not
a priority in the New Egypt.
Iran remains a threat even without nuclear
weapons. Watching the Libyan experience,
it will now work more relentlessly to acquire
them. Once it acquires nuclear arms, this
state that already funds, trains and arms terrorists will become an unthinkable threat.
At least for now, Iran has emerged stronger from the regional turmoil. Washington,
meanwhile, has lost ground.
It’s not all good news for Tehran. The brutal
crackdown in Syria – which has received shamefully scant attention by the media, the White
House and, for that matter, the entire Western
world – constitutes a real threat to Iran.
Bashar al-Assad has killed hundreds of
peaceful protesters. Reports say elements
of the vast security apparatus are shooting
soldiers who refuse to shoot protesters.
If Syria’s Assad were to fall, Iran would
lose its most important ally.
Rather than war, the answer to the Iranian
threat is a successful democratic uprising.
Let’s hope the Obama administration and its
allies are quietly doing all they can to help
Iran’s beleaguered democrats. Let’s hope this
lack of attention to Iran is just an optical
illusion.
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Arson, car conversion, theft, mugging, rape, murder, fraud – at
some point in our lives all of us have experienced at least one
crime or known someone who has. Now, a new book by a justice
system insider is blowing open the Law ‘n’ Order debate, with
a series of stunning revelations about just how much the public have been misled about our crime rate, its real costs and its
causes. Whatever you think you know about crime, prepare to be
shocked as we examine just some of the new information in
David Fraser’s controversial book, Badlands
CRIME MYTH #1: THE MURDER RATE IS FALLING
Police and the news media made a feast of recent police crime
statistics that showed a drop in the homicide rate. But as former
UK National Criminal Intelligence Service analyst and Probation Service advisor David Fraser points out, year on year fluctuations are nothing to crow about. Once the dust has settled,
New Zealand’s murder rate is still three times higher per capita
than it was in 1960. But even that is not the true figure.
“Whilst the tripling of the murder rate may seem bad enough,”
writes Fraser however, “we now know it could have been far
worse. A report published in the British Medical Journal in 2002
highlighted that doctors are now saving the lives of thousands of
victims of violent, life threatening attacks, who four decades ago
would have died and entered the murder statistics.1
“It was reporting on research from Massachusetts University
and Harvard Medical School that found technological developments had helped to significantly depress today’s murder
rates, converting homicides into violent assaults.”
Think about that for a moment. The suggestion is that – but
for modern medical technology – New Zealand’s homicide
rate would actually be far higher than triple its 1960 figure.
This, says Fraser, is a wake-up call as to what is really going
wrong with our society.
What has happened between 1960 and today to cause such
an explosion in violent crime?
CRIME MYTH #2:
MINOR OFFENDERS SHOULD NOT BE JAILED
In the book, Fraser strongly argues that politicians and justice
officials made a conscious decision back in the 1980s to try and
stop sending people to jail. Perhaps it was the perceived cost of
keeping offenders in prison, or the cost of building prisons, or
the prevailing liberal academic view that “minor” crimes were
part and parcel of everyday life and should be tolerated within
the wider community. Whatever the reason, Fraser says successive governments and their advisors have spun this argument to the max to justify softer and softer court penalties.
The result, he shows in the book, has been a social disaster.
“In its increasing reliance on community penalties for offenders, the State is maintaining the pretence that there are two
kinds of criminal, namely those who are violent and dangerous, and who need on occasions to be imprisoned, and others,
mostly property offenders, who they regard as posing a minimal
risk to the public, and therefore can be dealt with in other ways.
But they know that the evidence found in criminal records
shows that many of those who commit property offences also
commit violent and dangerous offences and vice versa.”
Fraser quotes extensively from the Department of Corrections’ own reports which show, for example, that nearly a third
of convicted murderers go on to re-offend after their release,
or that violent robbers are “highly likely” to have previously
HIS/exclusive
served a light community-based sentence
prior to committing crimes further up
the scale.
“What is more, in a little known Ministry of Justice document, they admit that
“many offenders serving communitybased sentences have offended as seriously as many in prison, or even more
so”,2 says Fraser.
“The implication of this quite extraordinary confession is that all of the justice
system’s sentencing polices are wrong,
based as they are on the erroneous idea
that offenders on community supervision
do not pose a major threat to the public.
The question this provokes is did the
researchers responsible for this analysis
know what they were saying or did they
not realise that their findings undermine the sentencing strategy of the New
Zealand criminal justice system? Or did
they hope to hide their conclusions in the
forest of information contained on the
government web site, because they understood only too well that it undermines
the very sentencing policy they continually promote?”
If the criminals serving time in the
community are as dangerous as the ones
behind bars, says Fraser, then it’s little
wonder New Zealand’s crime rates are
going through the roof, and it’s little
wonder the Government doesn’t want the
public to know.
CRIME MYTH #3: HOME DETENTION IS RESERVED FOR NON-VIOLENT OFFENDERS
Back in 1999 when the National Government introduced electronically-monitored Home Detention, the Corrections
Department told the public they would be
safe. Not only could the electronic ankle
bracelets not be removed without setting
off alarms everywhere, but Home Detention “will be available for people purely at
the lower end of the scale of offending…
no serious or violent offenders,” a Corrections spokeswoman told the New Zealand
Herald.
So what’s the truth?
“In May 2008,” writes Fraser in
Badlands, “figures released by the then
Corrections Minister revealed that over
half of the 1517 criminals placed on Home
Detention in 2007 had convictions for
sex crimes, violence and drug offences.
In other words the public had once again
been deceived and contempt shown for
its safety by those prepared to exploit yet
another opportunity to avoid putting
dangerous offenders in prison. The justice
officials turned deaf ears to the protest
this ignited because eight months later, in
June 2009, the new Corrections Minister
pointed out that nothing had changed
and promised stricter guidelines for
potential home detainees.”3 4
To make matters worse, Fraser cites
research in the book showing a staggering one in four offenders sentenced to
Home Detention sneak off in breach of
their conditions. So much for the efficacy
of electronic monitoring, and the safety
of the community.
CRIME MYTH #4: OFFENDERS ON
BAIL POSE LITTLE RISK TO THE
COMMUNITY
The Labour Government, with the assistance of then Justice Minister Phil Goff,
relaxed the bail laws in 2007 by allowing
bail unless police could prove to the court
there was a “real and substantial risk” of
the bailed offender committing another
crime. Think about that for a moment:
how can anyone prove there is a “real
and substantial” risk of future offending?
Short of a handwritten and signed diary
note from a prisoner listing his future
criminal intentions, the wording of the
bail law made it much harder for judges
to refuse bail.
National’s Simon Power changed it
in 2008 to remove the phrase “real and
substantial” but apparently the message
didn’t get through to the courts.
“A man charged with drugging and
raping a woman while he was out on
bail has been bailed again,” reported the
New Zealand Herald this month, “and
yesterday his conditions of release were
relaxed.”
The man in question is Paulus
Nieuwenhuiysen.
“In 2009 he was charged with possession for supply of Ecstasy, methamphetamine and cocaine,” reported the Herald,
“and granted electronic monitoring bail
to the Waiwera Holiday Park and Thermal Pool. Police say that in February 2010
Niewenhuiysen called a prostitute to the
address, spiked her drink and raped her.
“He was taken back into custody, but
in May last year was again released on
electronically monitored bail,” reported
the paper.
A spokesman for Justice Minister
Simon Power told the newspaper the
government had done all it could: “We
have got tough on this stuff, we’ve made
it harder. We’ve raised the threshold for
bail, and in the end it is up to the judge’s
discretion.”
But under New Zealand’s political
system, that’s not entirely true. Parliament can remove judicial discretion if it
chooses. Parliament chooses not to.
As David Fraser writes in Badlands:
“Even when on remand awaiting trial
or sentence for previous crimes, many
persistent offenders show not the slightest inhibition about committing further
crime. Nothing could make clearer their
contempt for the authority of the courts
and their disdain for any procedural or
legal attempt to curb their criminal and
often violent behaviour. A trawl of just
some of New Zealand newspapers throws
up scores of accounts of property and
violent offences committed by those on
remand.5 Figures released by the Ministry
of Justice show that between 1993 and
2005 approximately 130,000 criminals
offended whilst on bail6 7, which represents, in terms of the number of offences
committed, a truly dramatic figure.
Neither is electronic monitoring proof
against their persistence as examples of
offenders removing their bracelets indicate only too well.8
CRIME MYTH #5: SUPERVISION
REDUCES RE-OFFENDING
If you listen to criminologists, university
academics, social workers and Justice
Department officials, they’ll have you
believe that community sentences of
supervision vastly reduce crime because
young offenders are not behind bars,
learning new tricks in a so-called ‘university of crime’ from other inmates.
Fraser’s book shoots that down.
“Any hope that young persistent
offenders are more able to be influenced
by supervision programmes, than older,
more experienced criminals, is also
undermined by their continued high
reconviction rates. The failure of these
community sentences to have the slightest reformative effect on them was fur-
ther demonstrated by a report published
by the Ministry of Social Development
(Te Manatu Whakahiato) in August
2007.9 The report bent over backwards to
try and present the results in as favourable light as possible, but could not escape
the stark reality that the reconviction rate
for the almost 2,000 young criminals was
close to 80 per cent, which meant that
these supervision orders, made between
2002 and 2007, were a dire failure.
“The futility of this sentencing practice can also be seen from the fact that
breaches of community supervision for
persistent offenders of all ages (these will
be only those for which action is taken)
have almost doubled since 1996. In 2005
they accounted for 11% of all convictions
as opposed to 7% in 1996.”10
CRIME MYTH #6: NEW ZEALAND’S
IMPRISONMENT RATE IS ONE OF
THE HIGHEST IN THE WORLD
It’s a claim you hear often, from politicians, social workers and liberal talkback
hosts: that New Zealand has one of the
highest prison populations in the world,
per capita. Expressed like that, the claim
is true, but as David Fraser reveals in
his book, that’s only half the story and a
misleading half at best.
For a start, NZ’s prison population per
capita is well behind Estonia’s, as Graph
1 shows.
Fraser discovers that while NZ has
one of the highest prison populations
per capita, that’s a direct result of New
Zealand having a massive crime rate.
Other countries, he says, measure their
prison populations against the number of
offences committed, to give a truer reflection of what proportion of offenders are
being jailed each year. But even though
we have a very high crime rate, New Zealand imprisons very few people compared
with other countries where up to 15% of
offenders are jailed, as Graph 2 shows.
“Countries that lock up more offenders
have demonstrably lower crime rates,”
writes Fraser.
“The claim that New Zealand has one
of the highest imprisonment rates in the
western world is highly misleading. Nevertheless many, from different walks of
life, believe it is true, making it one of the
most successful of all false propaganda
messages beloved by the anti-prison
Prisoners per 100.000 population
Prisoners per 100.000 recorded crimes
Estonia
Romania
Latvia
Latvia
Lithuania
Lithuania
Poland
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Estonia
New Zealand
Slovakia
Romania
Poland
Luxembourg
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Hungary
Bulgaria
Portugal
Hungary
Ireland (Eire)
Spain
Spain
England and Wales
Luxembourg
Scotland
Greece
Netherlands
Italy
Portugal
New Zealand
Austria
Switzerland
Germany
Scotland
Belgium
France
France
Austria
Greece
England and Wales
Northern Ireland
Netherlands
Slovenia
Sweden
Northern Ireland
Switzerland
Germany
Ireland(Eire)
Norway
Finland
Finland
Denmark
Belgium
Norway
Denmark
Italy
Sweden
Slovenia
0
100
200
300
400
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
Graph 1
Graph 2
factions both inside and outside of the
government. In 2005 a Corrections report
declared that New Zealand had a higher
imprisonment rate than many other
western countries such as UK, Scotland,
Canada and Australia.11 In 2006 an MP
declared that he was embarrassed that
‘New Zealand locks up 185 inmates per
100,000 of the population, the second
highest only to the United States’.12 Earlier, in 2002 a senior theologian, during a
lecture, said that ‘New Zealand boasts the
second highest rate of imprisonment in
the western world’13, a claim that can also
be found on the government’s web-site.
“Some academics regard it as a truth
written into tablets of stone, and several
papers have been published spreading
this widely held but distorted view.”14 15
ers, and it exceeds $300,000 a year per
offender in insurance premiums and
losses, police callouts and investigative
time, legal work, health costs and lost
wages, uninsured property losses, and
personal impact on victims.
Authorities, he says, have failed to
detail the real costs “of the 2.5 million
crimes committed by those under supervision in the community every year (See
Note 2 Chapter 7). At $4,285 per crime
(See Note 3 Chapter 7) 16, this amounts to a
staggering $10.7 billion, which dwarfs the
$720 million running costs for prisons.
“Far from being poor value for money,
prisons are a bargain that the community
cannot afford to miss. Based on the 2.5
million figure quoted above, each of the
30,000 offenders under supervision in the
community commits at least 83 offences
every year (a wholly believable number
– research from Britain found offenders
entering jail had committed on average
140 offences in the previous year.”17
Fraser estimates that although it does
cost taxpayers a lot to keep 8000 crimi-
CRIME MYTH #7: THE COST OF
KEEPING A PRISONER JAILED IS
$100,000 PER ANNUM
Well, yes it is. In Badlands, however,
David Fraser reveals for the first time the
cost to taxpayers of not jailing offend-
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$4,285 each, or more than $355,000 a year
per offender. Suddenly the $100K cost to
jail a felon for a year looks cheap.
“At a cost of $4,285 per crime,” says
Fraser, “this saves in money terms alone,
$2.8 billion in crime costs every year,
which represents a massive saving compared with prison running costs per year
of just $720 million for this number of
inmates.”
The more offenders we jail, he says, the
more money taxpayers will actually save
– even if our prison population doubles
or triples – because the costs of crime
in the community each year will drop
by around three times more than the
increased cost of incarceration.
“Almost all of the information disseminated to the New Zealand public
about prisons is highly misleading and
frequently incorrect. The media, some
members of parliament, and government
publications, often repeat the propaganda
of the well-organised and vociferous antiprison lobby. This claims that there are too
many people in prison, that New Zealand
has the second highest imprisonment
rate in the western world, that prisons fail
and are colleges of crime, that prisons are
‘human dustbins’ with negative regimes,
and that prisons are more expensive than
the alternative of placing the offender on
some form of community supervision.”
But why would so many people be willing to mislead the public? Like climate
scientists looking for extra funding, Fraser argues keeping alive the crime myths
is all about funding and empire building.
“By persuading many that crime is
complex, the high wizards of criminology
have created for themselves a rationale
bear the brunt of these offences. A senior
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CRIME MYTH #8: EARLY PAROLE
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24
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9 780958 24
In his book, Fraser again shoots this
true extent of its failure becomes known,
myth down:
then it has good reason to be concerned,”
“Despite the favourable spin Corsays Fraser.
rections want to create for them, the
With his book packed full of exploparole reconviction rates, displayed [in
sive information about New Zealand’s
Badlands], of approximately 45 per cent
crime rate, and more than 600 refermeasured over two years illustrate what
ences, author David Fraser has ignited a
a failure the system is. Seen through the
fuse under this year’s election campaign,
eyes of the public, as opposed to those
by putting the law and order problem
of officials, and based on the number of
squarely on the political agenda.
parolees released every year, this is likely
Badlands, by David Fraser, Howling
to represent a deluge of crime, though
At The Moon Publishing, $41.90, on-sale
just how much is a secret the government from April 28
is keen to keep to itself, as this figure is
noticeably absent from this report.
References for this story are
“Other documents also sidestep this
downloadable from
issue, and report the percentage of all
www.investigatemagazine.com/badrefs.pdf
urely at the lower
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582401-8-5
40185
HATM
Publishing
BADLANDS
by David Fras
er
Onsale 28 April
from PaperPlu
s, Take Note,
The Warehouse
, Dymocks, Wh
itcoulls, Border
and all good bo
s
okstores, or or
der direct at
w w w. h o w l i n
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cHISMAGAZINE.TV om
May 2011 21
HIS/analysis
The COMING
STORM
CHINA EMERGING AS MILITARY THREAT IN PACIFIC
F
ormer Prime Minister
Helen Clark once said New
Zealand lived in “a benign
strategic environment”. On
the strength of that claim
she disbanded the strike
arm of the Royal New Zealand Air Force
– a fleet of Skyhawk jets carrying stateof-the-art avionics and weapons – that
last month were consigned to museums.
Ironically, that’s because the Government
couldn’t get US approval to sell them,
as the jets were modern enough to pose
a threat to US forces or for enemies to
make use of their technology.
But now a new defence research study
in Australia raises crucial questions
about the kind of
‘benign environment’ this part of
the world really faces in the next two
decades, and it’s a report raising hairs on
the back of the neck for analysts.
“The security environment is likely to
be markedly different,” warns Australian
defence anaylyst Dr Ross Babbage in the
new report.1 “This will largely be a consequence of the very rapid rise of China’s
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and
China’s more assertive behaviour which
directly challenges United States and
allied forces in the Western Pacific.”
What Babbage is referring to is China’s
massive military spend – effectively the
largest re-armament and expansion taking place anywhere on the planet. Fleets
WORDS BY IAN WISHART
of warships, aircraft carriers, submarines,
fighter jets and new missile systems are
being developed or rolling off the production lines, often in secrecy, thanks to
the industrialisation coming online as a
result of a new power station being built
every couple of weeks.
The sleeping giant of Asia is stirring,
and ironically its Mordor-like furnaces
and factories are being fuelled by uranium and steel out of Australia and coal
from New Zealand.
Where is it all heading? If you listen
to the politicians putting a brave face
on Chinese expansion, it’s about “free
trade” and “access to the world’s largest
emerging market”. Privately, in meetings
that never get brought to the attention of
the news media, there is concern about
China’s growing reach and its apparently
imperial ambitions. US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton has raised the issue with
Prime Minister John Key.
In his strategic analysis, the Kokoda
Foundation’s Babbage warns of “an
urgent need to refocus ADO (Australian
Defence Organisation) development
for the next two decades on the direct
defence of Australia to offset and deter
the rapidly-expanding PLA in Australia’s
approaches.”
With a population of 1.5 billion, China
has the capacity to throw more men into
its armed forces than any other nation
on the planet. And with its “one child”
policy and preference for aborting girl
children, there’s a surplus of military age
single men who may never find a mate
or have a family. Their energies will be
channelled into whatever China wants
them to do.
Even so, despite its huge population,
up until now China has not had the
capacity to throw vast armies into the
field, because it doesn’t have the logistical capacity to extend its military power
offshore. It’s all very well having access to
a hundred million troops, but if you don’t
have enough planes and ships to transport or protect them then your army is
mostly for show. Until now.
“The scale, pattern and speed of the
PLA’s development is altering security
in the Western Pacific,” writes Babbage.
“This rapidly shifting strategic balance
has profound consequences for Australia’s
security priorities and also for those of the
United States and other allies and friends
in this theatre [code for New Zealand].
“It is the contention of this paper that
Australia and its close allies should not
seek to confront China unless forced to
do so by extreme PLA actions. Rather, the
intent should be to offset and balance the
PLA’s more threatening force developments and operations, deter adventurism
and work to restore regional confidence.”
The US Secretary of Defense has made
pretty much the same observations in his
report to Congress last year, noting many
of the Chinese moves appear “designed
to improve the PLA’s ability for extendedrange power projection, although China’s
ability to sustain military power at a
distance, today, remains limited.”
C
hina might have a large army, but
it could not currently successfully invade New Zealand, for
example. The distance from their home
bases makes it impossible for the Chinese air force to hit New Zealand, and at
10000km to 11000km we are currently
on the absolute range limits of Chinese
strategic missiles. China does not have
enough troop ships, or aircraft carriers to
protect them, to strike meaningfully this
far from home. New Zealand’s Skyhawks,
had they been retained, would have been
capable of seeing off any naval invasion
force (the RNZAF Skyhawks were able
to penetrate US and British naval air
defences in joint military exercises and
‘sink’ incoming warships).
But that benign state of affairs is about
to change.
America’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense
Review Report notes, “China is developing and fielding large numbers of
advanced medium-range ballistic and
cruise missiles, new attack submarines
equipped with advanced weapons,
increasingly capable long-range air
defense systems, electronic warfare and
computer network attack capabilities,
advanced fighter aircraft, and counterspace systems.”
But perhaps the Americans were putting it mildly. In the just released Babbage
report, he writes:
“The PLA capabilities of concern to
Australia’s national security planners are:
00 The fielding of highly sophisticated
wide-area surveillance and targeting
systems that are designed to give senior
commanders of the PLA the capacity
to monitor in real-time and, if desired,
strike adversary spacecraft, aircraft,
ships and submarines across large
expanses of the Western Pacific.
00 The deployment of modern cruise and
ballistic missile systems with the capability to attack both fixed and mobile
targets in large parts of the Western
Pacific.
00 New classes of both nuclear and
conventionally-powered submarines
with over 40 new boats being commissioned since 1995.
00 The commissioning of several new
classes of surface combatants armed
with exceptionally capable stealthy,
supersonic cruise missiles and other
advanced weaponry.
00 The modernisation and expansion of
China’s fighter-bomber and airborne
strike capabilities.
00 The substantial modernisation, expansion and hardening of China’s missile
and fighter air defences.
00 Growing capabilities for space warfare,
including those for the interception
and destruction of satellites.
00 Exceptionally strong investments being
made in cyber capabilities.
00 A sophisticated, modern and well protected command and control network.
00 The modernisation, expansion and
protection of strategic nuclear forces.
“The trajectory of these PLA developments suggests that many of the fundamental assumptions on which Australia’s
and our Western allies’ security planning
have been based since the Second World
War are now being challenged,” warns
Babbage.
With American bases in Guam, Japan
and elsewhere now within range of Chinese attack capability, Babbage says there’s
no guarantee that at some point China
won’t stage a Pearl Harbour style strike
that devastates US capacity in the Pacific,
and that has immediate flow-on implications for Australia and New Zealand.
“The assumption that in the event of a
major security crisis in the Pacific Australia could rely on speedy and tailored
military resupply from the United States
is also almost certainly invalid. These
developments have fundamental implications for Australia’s defence strategy,
planning and priorities.”
Babbage’s report lists four options for
Australia, which range from relying on
the status quo (unsafe for the reasons
stated above) through to effectively going
it alone with sufficient military expansion to keep China off Australian soil.
Babbage favours development toward the
latter, because of America’s dwindling
strength and the danger of its Pacific
bases being over-run. To achieve selfdefence capability against a major power,
Babbage says Australia would have to
expand (not scrap) its air combat and air
defence systems, invest in cyber-warfare
strategies capable of hitting Chinese
communication and logistics, and invest
in a fleet of possibly nuclear powered
attack submarines. But he argues the
best of both worlds is to offer the United
States permanent bases on Australian
soil. Not only would that strengthen Australia’s northern defences, he says, but it
would also give the US military capacity
in areas harder for the Chinese to hit and
with more time for advance warning of
any missile attack.
China’s preparations for some kind of
future event appear to be well underway.
The nation has been almost unstoppable
in its diplomatic outreach to tiny Pacific
island states, paying for extended airports
and bigger, deeper port facilities, and setting up satellite stations on some islands.
Ostensibly, such gifts have been packaged as “aid” for tourism and economic
development purposes to tiny states like
Tonga, Niue, Fiji or others, but cynics
have noted the synergies that might flow
from better airport or port facilities on
islands within striking distance of New
Zealand or Australia.
W
ith opinion polls showing growing resentment in New Zealand
at Chinese purchases of New
Zealand businesses, and particularly farmland – especially when New Zealanders do
not have the reciprocal right to set up their
own wholly-owned companies in China or
the right to buy farmland in China (it all
has to be joint venture with a majority Chinese partner or leased) – the Government is
walking a tightrope in how it sells our relationship with that country: will China be
permitted to take economic control of New
Zealand over the next couple of decades in
the hope it avoids military action, or are
New Zealanders happy to pay the price for
a much bigger military budget than we currently allow?
As more than one US media commentator has noted in the past two years,
America is now so indebted to China
that the interest payments from America
are effectively funding the new military
equipment that China may eventually use
against America – the ultimate irony of
the uneasy boundary between freemarket
capitalism and imperialism.
References
1. http://www.kokodafoundation.org/
Resources/Documents/KP15StrategicEdge.pdf
Road
Snails
&
Other
Menaces
Have Police Become Distracted
By Easy Targets?
A former school principal turned education
consultant questions road-policing strategies
I
WORDS BY ROGER MARCON
t’s a funny thing. Despite the pre holiday media hype from the Police about
their increased presence on our roads, I saw only five police cars outside built up
areas on the entire journey – three being driven, and two parked alongside the
road. In addition I passed one strategically parked blue van containing a camera
and operator. It is possible of course, that I missed others. While I appreciate that Police resources are thinly spread at peak holiday times around a range of
additional duties, I found this tiny presence on our roads, which were all busy with
holiday traffic, somewhat remarkable, since I was driving mainly on major highways.
Then there’s the issue of road snails. Despite the annual Police rhetoric about getting tough on slow drivers holding up holiday traffic, I encountered literally dozens
of these drivers doing exactly that. Somewhat surprisingly, they were not the typical
camper van and caravan drivers, who on this trip were, with one notable exception,
mainly courteous and considerate. The slow drivers represented the single most obvious and significant driving hazard I encountered, and my observations and conversations with others confirm that I was not alone in that experience. These are not just
slow drivers; many are clearly incompetent drivers who are incapable of handling a
vehicle at open road speeds. They are inconsiderate drivers who despite the presence
on their vehicles of two exterior rear view mirrors, and an internal one, either do
not use them, or choose to ignore what they see. I imagine that these drivers actually
believe they are driving safely because they are driving slowly. I base this hypothesis
upon the outraged or disapproving looks (or tooted horns) in my direction whenever I
was fortunate enough to overtake them.
HIS/essay
HISMAGAZINE.TV May
Mar 2011 27
Then there’s the issue of speeding.
Problem? Or not?
Over the holiday period, statistics were
published about speed camera infringements and other convictions for speeding. I found the enormous numbers
barely believable. The siting of many
cameras seems designed to trick drivers
in order to gain revenue. I know this is
not a new thought – but just look at the
compelling evidence of these numbers. I
simply do not believe that any more than
a handful of these convicted drivers were
driving dangerously, thoughtlessly or
recklessly. Some of the camera sites are
familiar to me and the revenue gathered
by them seems to be so large as to be
blatant extortion. Some questions pose
themselves here and I wish to see some
credible answers rather than pathetic
mantras paraded constantly to the driving public about speed. In some cases the
camera placement alone, articulates the
intention most clearly.
00 How many of those drivers were
Their behaviour is categorised by the
following:
00 Travelling on the open road at 60-90
km/h with lines of traffic behind them
00 Slowing down or braking for every
corner in the road and more so where
the corner is speed signed
00 Riding the white line, thus preventing
any driver behind them having a clear
view of the road ahead or making a safe
overtaking manoeuvre
00 Often engaged in animated conversation with other passengers as evidenced
by gesticulations
00 Encountering a passing lane, these
drivers feel confident with the extra
width of the road and immediately
attain the speed limit, thus effectively
ensuring that all drivers behind them
remain there or break the speed limit
to overtake
00 Ignoring slow lanes and places to safely
pull off the road to allow traffic to pass
00 At night these behaviours are exaggerated further to include driving with
lights permanently on dipped position to ensure that no following driver
can see beyond the range of offending
driver’s lights
00 A sub-group also exists; the timid drivers who sit behind the slow driver and
are afraid to overtake because of either
a lack of skills or the fear of being
caught for speeding, consequently
making the problem more difficult for
following vehicles by extending the
overtaking hazard
Such drivers are I suspect, only occasional open road users and more comfortable with the under 50 km/h speeds
within city limits. They are without doubt
the least considerate group of drivers on
our roads.
What are the Police really doing about
this group who are the cause of anger,
resentment, frustration, and whose
actions lead at times lead to poor overtaking decisions by other drivers? If
they are doing anything at all there will
be evidence in the form of convictions!
Is it time to consider city limits licence
restrictions for some drivers? Or is it time
such identified drivers were compelled to
undertake open road driver training?
endangering others when snapped by
cameras?
00 Where is the evidence which demonstrates a relationship between minor
speeding infringements such as a
camera infringement and serious or
accident inducing behaviour?
00 Where are the statistics for convicted
slow drivers? How many have been
convicted?
00 And critically, how are driver’s attitudes and respect for the Police affected
by –
1.The placement and operation of
cameras? The ever increasing speed
restrictions, overtaking restrictions
and endless double yellow lines?
2.The lack of any real intention to deal
with the“boy racer” problem at one
end of the spectrum and the inconsiderate slow drivers at the other end?
3.The fact that most drivers caught
speeding by cameras or by Patrol
officers, are in fact endangering noone; they have been giving attention
to the road and momentarily not had
their eyes on the speedometer.
4.The fact that the vast majority of
drivers just wish to complete their
journey safely, have driven with due
regard for the rules of the road and
other road users, and have no significant convictions but are justifiably
angry when caught and convicted by
Police for a minor speeding infringement with its attendant fine and
demerit points.
I would particularly like to see published
evidence of slow driver convictions for
comparative purposes and to see proof
that the Police are as serious about this
problem as they regularly claim to be. I
suspect the comparison would odious in
the extreme, and particularly for anyone
who has experienced lengthy queues of
traffic behind such a driver. I further
suspect that there are no convictions or
a tiny number only. I imagine we would
hear much about warnings given to such
drivers. Warnings however, don’t count,
since warnings are not included in the
speeding statistics, nor do they represent
a serious intent on the part of Police to
address the issue.
What Police are doing is bringing in
stopwatches to time motorists.
I
n a recent newspaper report, the
Police indicated that they are considering introducing average speed
cameras on a number of roads in NZ.
If we needed any further proof that our
Police have no original ideas about road
policing, this must surely be just that.
This idea comes from the UK where
there are more than 7000 fixed speed
cameras making driving an utter misery
for all, and where an overwhelming set
of data shows clearly that cameras have
not impacted on safety, but have raised
billions of pounds in revenue. In recent
years, average speed cameras (a group
of cameras which measure a vehicle’s
speed on entry to the road, record it at
several stages along the route and at the
exit, then compute whether a driver has
exceeded the limit at any point of the
journey) have been introduced. Drivers
who have exceeded the limit are sent an
infringement notice and an instant payment demand. Having regularly driven
on a road in the UK where average speed
cameras are in use, I can say they are
effective in reducing speeds since every
driver is petrified of an infringement
but at the same time, everyone drives
with eyes constantly on the speedometer
instead of the road, and the raised tension for all drivers is palpable. Intriguingly, the accident statistics for these
roads remain the same as before the
installation. In many cases the accidents
at or near fixed speed camera sites have
increased! Is this really something any of
us wants in NZ?
This is yet another one of those “it
sounds like a good idea so it must be”
scenarios which have become common in
the road policing.
There is such an obsession with speed
by our Police that we have already
become speedo-watchers, and thus we
are endangering everyone else on the
road through our lack of attention to the
road and the conditions. We have become
afraid to overtake slow vehicles lest we
nudge our vehicle over 100km/h while
doing so. This situation is utterly absurd
since the safest form of overtaking is to
spend as little time on the other side of
the road as is possible. I was taught as
a young driver to overtake quickly and
return to the left and assume normal
speed. It always was, and it remains, good
safe advice, and I still attempt to do it,
but these days with the hope that I will
not be caught speeding. We have a common situation now where on a long passing lane only one or two vehicles are able
to pass slower traffic. It has never been
stated to my knowledge but I suspect
that the Police are working towards a no
overtaking regime (apart from passing
lanes) in NZ. There is so much yellow
paint on our roads now that overtaking
is simply not possible in many places for
kilometres at a time (example – the first
100 km north of Wellington) and are
often in places where it would be safe for
a competent driver to do so. We are being
treated by enforcement authorities
as incompetent fools who must be
constantly guided or restricted.
I believe New Zealanders
accept this constant emphasis
on speed far too willingly.
Modern vehicles have
much better handling,
have many electronic
safety aides, our
roads are constantly
being improved,
and we have very
modest speed limits
by world standards. The vast majority of
us are not criminally inclined or incompetent in our driving judgements, yet we
suffer interminable pompous harping
from Police about speed and we pay for
and are criminalised by infringements
which endanger no-one. We have all
experienced situations where we waited
patiently behind a slower vehicle until a
passing lane, then had it speed up in front
of us, but passed it anyway to prevent
being held up further along the road,
only to find a Police patrol car further
ahead on the passing lane. In such
instances we were patient, made a safe
decision in a safe place, only to be caught
and fined as a consequence of that safe
decision. The Police do their image and
respect no favours in those situations.
They deserve our contempt rather than
our respect when ordinary law abiding
citizens are treated with such callous disregard. There would be few drivers who
have never experienced or witnessed such
occurrences.
I formed another theory as I drove this
holiday break. I believe the Police focus
so much upon speeding and alcohol as
the causes of accidents – not because they
are the main causes, (a comprehensive analysis of
statistics shows multiple
causes) but because they
are the two aspects which
are easiest to measure.
Measuring speed
is a relatively
simple matter
of calibrated
speed detectors
and GPS devices
make that
truly accurate at last. Measuring alcohol is also a cut and dried affair with
roadside detectors followed up by blood
tests which we all accept as accurate.
I am not arguing here that speed and
alcohol are not important causes, and I
believe strongly that they should receive
due attention, but I am arguing that
other causes may be of at least similar or
perhaps of greater significance, but are
largely ignored because they are less easy
to address.
Aspects such as the following:
00 Driving age. There is huge evidence
to support a driving age of 17 years or
above since brain functions and ability
to make prudent judgements are not
fully formed at younger ages, yet our
government compromised this when
it had the opportunity to change it in
2010. The Gov’t feared that its rural
support base would be unhappy with
the change that was really necessary.
00 Driver education. How much
emphasis is given to open road
instruction and practice, or to driving
etiquette? What screening is done to
ensure those who should never drive,
cannot drive, or those who should not
drive until they mature fully are given
additional tuition and time? Driving
was never a right, but it is now seems to
be regarded as such.
00 Driver competence. How good
are our instructors? Who monitors
them and their pupils? Once driving,
a young person is simply assumed to
become competent over time. Perhaps
the most effective system in ensuring
safer young drivers would be a graduated testing regime. Since many of
our road deaths occur on rural roads
there should be a much greater emphasis upon open road skills for young
drivers.
00 Vehicle power restrictions. We have
had this for many years for motorcyclists. It must be easily possible for car
drivers. Why not restrict the engine
capacity for a beginner driver to less
than 1000cc for the first three years?
00 Car crushing. We have a history in
NZ of our politicians talking tough
about the law, but the experience of
perforated wet bus tickets being the
reality. Car crushing? So how many
cars have you crushed Minister? You
put in place legislation with so many
“buts” that it is unlikely anyone will
lose their car. And how many young
people in high powered cars have died,
or killed others since this legislation
was ushered in with a great deal of
noise? Let us have the statistics please.
It is clear that this was nothing but
a “make the voters feel good” piece
of fluffy nonsense. If we are going to
threaten tough action then we need to
see it and its effects being felt, with the
messages being very clear to all, if the
desired change is to occur.
00 High quality research into the real
and actual causes of accidents.
With current technology it is possible to measure more than just the
old favourites. What about the impact
of fatigue, of drugs, driver competence and experience levels, driving in
inclement weather, road quality issues,
distractions… for a start?
00 Driver lifestyle impact. Driver
profiles. It is known that some driver
profiles (foolhardy risk takers as demonstrated by other lifestyle choices) are
very much over represented in accident
statistics. Let us see some greater effort
to identify these demographics and
even the individuals.
00 Signs. There are so many signs, lights,
signals, advertising hoardings, and
endless paint spayed over the roads
and their environment that it is often
difficult to take so much information in
while driving. European research from
the Netherlands shows that drivers
respect each other, and allow greater
tolerance for all road users where there
are only essential signs and a centre
line on the road. We do not need all
the “nanny state” directions, instructions and exhortations; they constitute
a greater danger than a safeguard.
Let’s have some research instead of the
“it looks/sounds good so it must be”
approach.
00 Variable speeds for different
roads. The blunt instrument of a
single speed limit for all roads is utterly
insulting to a majority of competent
drivers. It would be sensible to set
lower limits for some roads or sections
of road. There are already examples
of this where 80 or 90 km/h limits
are in place. Equally, there are sections of roads where higher limits of
say 120km/h would be safe. Drivers
are perfectly capable of managing
such matters, and particularly if some
of the totally unnecessary signs are
eliminated.
00 The presence of large numbers of
drivers trained (to varying standards) in other countries. We are a
tourism destination, and have hundreds of thousands of recent immigrants. We therefore have significant
numbers of drivers who are unfamiliar
with our roads, our vehicles, our rules,
and our weather conditions. There are
large numbers of drivers who are controlling vehicles travelling on the left
hand side of the road for the first time
in their lives. Where are the statistics
for foreign trained drivers having, or
being the cause of accidents? Who
ensures that training or re-training of
such drivers has taken place?
Finally, I appreciate that the Police have
a difficult and at times dangerous role
in the management of roads in NZ. Like
most others, I wish to respect the Police
in carrying out this role, and I support
many of their initiatives. However Police
leadership has remained stubbornly
focussed upon two major themes in the
past ten years and it is clear to everyone that this approach is not working
very well. There has been some laudable
reduction in fatalities despite the increasing number of vehicles, but that has not
come about with any sense of partnership
from the driving public [and arguably has more to do with soaring petrol
prices, fewer kilometres travelled and
better safety features on newer Japanese
imports – Ed.]. Drivers feel strongly that
they are pawns in a revenue game, or of
punitive petty regimes, or of quota systems and that they are too often treated
as targets by Police enforcement officers.
Evidence in the form of tickets handed
out to the driving public is not evidence
of improvements in driving safety. It is
more likely that such evidence is evidence
of public frustration and anger directed
at the Police. At present Police efforts
are undermined by the narrow focus,
by a failure to understand that some
of their existing strategies alienate the
very people they need to influence, and
seemingly by a failure to understand that
every driver has a genuine desire to reach
a destination safely and drives sensibly to
achieve that.
If we are to make serious inroads
into the fatalities and serious accidents
situation we need a real spirit of cooperation and shared responsibility. Police
must lead this responsibly and develop a
variety of strategies to engage the driving
public. Future strategies need to fundamentally change the relationship from
“cat and mouse” to a more cooperative
model which builds respect and maintains dignity for both sectors.
That will mean some fundamental changes for Police, and
a willingness to be engaged
by the public. It will need
some Government involvement in policy and legislation
to facilitate the process. It will
also need the support of the
judiciary who seem at times to
support the convicted driver’s
right to drive ahead of the
rights of all other road users to
be safe.
Such measures alongside
some really effective screening,
training, and monitoring of emerging drivers, quality research into
the multiple causes of accidents, and a serious targeting of incompetence,
would lead to a lower toll on the roads.
For most New Zealanders driving is a
necessary part of our social and working
lives, and is likely to remain so. I believe
it is time to see some new thinking about
the old challenges, some truly cooperative attitude changes between Police and
the driving public, and some strong measures which address the most dangerous individuals on our roads instead of
criminalising those who drive safely and
to the conditions, using experience and
wisdom to reach our destinations safely.
dancing
between
the raindrops
THE MATT MCCONAUGHEY INTERVIEW
WORDS BY STEVEN ZEITCHIK/LATIMES
M
atthew McConaughey has just cracked
open his second Corona when the man
wearing Mardi Gras beads and a Village
People policeman’s cap approaches his car.
“Do you know Duane?” the inebriatedlooking man asks with suspicion, poking his head inside the
window and gesturing to the house the car happens to be
parked in front of. “Because I’m just giving you a word to the
wise. He’s hypersensitive about security and things like that.
He’ll have his people come and shake you down.”
It’s 9:30 on a Tuesday night, and McConaughey is sitting in
the back of a black SUV with crime novelist Michael Connelly.
They’re high above the lights of Los Angeles on a twisty and
noiseless street in Laurel Canyon, nursing beers and reflecting
on the actor’s role as on-the-make attorney Mickey Haller in
the adaptation of Connelly’s “The Lincoln Lawyer.”
Parked down the street from Connelly’s onetime residence
– which served as inspiration for Haller’s home – they discuss
the building’s remove from the city and how it symbolizes
Haller’s status as a legal-system outsider. Neither of them
know Duane.
“You like Mardi Gras?” Connelly deadpans to the 50-ish
interloper, who has emerged from a home nearby to offer his
unsolicited warning. The man begins an enthusiastic affirmative answer, and Connelly further defuses a fraught situation,
saying he used to live up the street, and downshifts to small
talk about Beverly D’Angelo, who lives here too. Growing
excited, the stranger responds with a semi-coherent story
about how D’Angelo has been engaged in a rivalry with actress
Carrie Fisher over a role. Then he walks away.
“Well, daa-yam,” McConaughey says in his Texas drawl,
laughing as he turns to Connelly. “You could have written a
whole novel right there. The Croatian gangsters come, Mickey
Haller sorts it all out. Beverly D’Angelo is saved.”
It’s a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in McConaughey’s
new legal thriller, where Haller, a small-time lawyer who
instead of an office works from a Lincoln Town Car, offering
backseat banter and attitude to clients and antagonists alike.
Brad Furman’s Los Angeles-shot and -set film examines what
happens when Haller is called upon to defend Louis Roulet
(Ryan Phillippe),
scion of a wealthy
Beverly Hills family
who’s accused of
attempted rape and
attempted murder.
It’s less a victim tale than a chess match;
Roulet is not as innocent as he appears, and Haller soon finds
himself in a legal and moral quagmire.
But if McConaughey’s rakish playfulness is evident as he
talks about the movie, the part – his first dramatic role after
five years of romantic comedies – also has him in a philosophical mood. “With a romantic comedy, the goal is not to hit too
hard. It’s a jab. It’s a spar,” McConaughey says. “This is like a
Frazier-Ali fight. Ali could have his best day and still lose. This
is basic survival.”
It’s also the actor’s first role as a lawyer since his turn as Jake
Brigance in A Time to Kill vaulted him to stardom 15 years
ago, and McConaughey says the onscreen job suits him.
“I always thought I was going to do criminal defense law for
a living,” he says. “It’s actually close to the job of an actor or an
artist. The defense attorney is a storyteller. He has to weave the
web of reasonable doubt, tell the story that could” – he puts
his hands together and snakes them through the air – “have
happened like this, or could have happened like that.”
As McConaughey has his driver take him and Connelly to
the author’s former home, the actor pulling Coronas from a
cooler next to his seat and offering bottles and limes to his
ride mates, he says the experience of shooting across the city
was an education. “We’d go to neighbourhoods I’d never been
to, that many people in L.A. have never seen, areas where you
can feel a sense of desperation. Mothers and kids are walking
in the park in the same square footage as the guys from the
gang,” he says.
Connelly has written more than two dozen crime-fiction
bestsellers, most of them set in Los Angeles. But Lincoln Lawyer, which features his best-known character after Det. Harry
Bosch (not yet seen on screen), marks only his second book
to be filmed. (The Clint Eastwood-directed Blood Work came
out in 2002.) Connelly is poised to win a long legal battle with
Paramount over Bosch rights .
A former Los Angeles Times reporter,
the novelist had little input on “Blood
Work,” which proved to be a critical
and commercial disappointment. But
on this one he met with McConaughey
before production and came to the set
to talk to Furman, who directed from a
script by John Romano. Months before
McConaughey was cast, Connelly recalls
watching the actor in Tropic Thunder and
telling his wife he thought McConaughey
would make a good Mickey Haller.
“Really? I didn’t know that was my
audition tape,” McConaughey says,
chuckling.
“This story requires constant momentum,” Connelly replies. “Things are
always in motion. And Matthew looks
like he’s in motion even when he’s standing still.”
McConaughey nods his head in agreement. “Momentum and hunger are
baseline components of that character.
He’s always running to something ... even
if he’s not sure where he’s going.”
T
he 41-year-old has just flown in
from Toronto and, though he lives
with his girlfriend, Brazilian TV
personality Camila Alves, and their two
young children in Malibu, he’s staying in
LA city this night ahead of promotional
appearances the next morning.
“Movement is something I instinctually really like. Even if you’re standing
still,” he says. “It’s part of what gets me
turned on. I have some sense of movement in every relationship – to my work,
to my life, to my own happiness.” He
turns reflective, his voice taking on a
certain musicality. “Sitting still does not
mean you’re not moving. Sometimes you
go backward. In youth you go and head
butt certain things, and you stop and you
bang ‘em and you bang ‘em and you bang
‘em. As you get older you realize – just
dance on around it. Slide on by. Dance
between the raindrops.”
But when asked what specific hurdles
he’s learned to sidestep, the actor keeps
it abstract. “I love sports, spatial sense,
athleticism,” he answers. “You bob and
you weave, and you dance and you move
and you roll and you come out the other
side dry as a bone.”
Raised in Longview, Texas, McCo-
naughey spent many years as a favourite
of the celebrity media, a poster child for
the bachelor life. That changed when
he got together with Alves. But McConaughey says that it hasn’t been that
dramatic a switch. “For me it was a bit of
a myth where people go ‘You have kids
and your life screeches to a halt,’” he says.
“You just recalibrate certain things.”
McConaughey took two years off for
his family after Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,
and now wants to delve more into dramas
like Lawyer and the movies of his early
career. (Furman thinks the actor here
“gets back to his early signature roles
like Dazed and Confused and Lone Star
where he was like Marlon Brando; he was
roughneck but he was cool.”)
“I’m more inspired by what I get to do
an as actor than I’ve ever been,” McConaughey says. He’s trying to develop
several passion projects, including The
Dallas Buyer’s Club a 1980s drama about
an AIDS patient that several stars have
tried to get off the ground.
As the car wends its way down Laurel
Canyon and across Sunset Boulevard,
the conversation turns to Lincoln Lawyer
themes. “I like promoting it because
there’s something to engage with and talk
about. It’s life and death,” McConaughey
says.
As for his desire for more dramatic
roles, McConaughey takes an Eastern
approach. “I think it comes down to that
Confucius line: Change the things you
can,” he says. “Don’t worry about the
things you can’t.”
justintimberlake.com
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1
HIS
action
/DRIVE 38
The new MINI
Damien O’Carroll
puts the MINI
Countryman
to the test
/SPORT 40
Cup buildup
Chris Forster looks at the
last minute prep
/INVEST 42
Bad deals
There are wide boys
who’ll rob you at the point
of a pen, writes
Peter Hensley
/MONEY 44
Gold is peaking
If you’ve been thinking
about gold investment,
you are probably too late
Highway robbery >>
Be careful which investment
offers you take up – some can
be robbery by another name
42
HIS/INVEST
drive
mini goes MINI
WORDS BY DAMIEN O’CARROLL
M
y first ever Mini experience
was in particularly unpleasant
example owned by a school
mate. It was painted that nasty shade of
brown that British Leyland reserved especially to make the few good-looking cars
they produced look as awful as the rest of
them and it boasted a primitive form of
air conditioning in the form of a massive
hole in the passenger’s side footwell. It
was awful, but Dear Lord it was fun.
Next came one of my own – a slightly
more road-worthy 1974 Mini 1000,
resplendent in a sickly shade of blue.
Apart from a bastard bit of oil line that
would constantly let go, squirting oil
everywhere, and the brakes disappearing one day, necessitating the use of one
of my mother’s favourite trees to stop it,
it would serve me almost faultlessly for a
number of years, despite its age and the
appalling treatment it received…
The abuse that both those cars took,
and the massive amounts of fun they gave
in return, convinced me now and forever
that Minis are awesome.
The relentless march of time would
eventually see the original Mini transform from a cleverly packaged, massively
fun original idea into a tiny, cramped,
massively fun death-trap without any
effort from the car or those who made it.
Attempts were made by various owners
of the brand to replace it, but nothing
worked until BMW came along.
Salvaging only Mini from its disastrous
attempt at running Rover, BMW developed a replacement for the long-running
original, jumping several generations –
and a number of sizes – in one go to give
us the new Mini. Or MINI, as BMW insist
it be written, one would like to think in a
wry nod to the fact that the new Mini was
anything but mini anymore…
And now they have gone one up on
themselves with the new Countryman by
making it even bigger again.
Conceived for the sort of person who
HIS/action
liked the idea of a new Mini, but needed
something with four doors and a usable
boot, the Countryman was born with the
justification of 4WD for its increase in
size. I assume the thinking went a little
like this: we need an even bigger Mini
with four doors. If we make it 4WD then
we can pretend it is a small SUV.
Except it’s not. It’s just a larger Mini
with two extra doors, more rear legroom
and a bigger boot. But needless justification aside, the Countryman does actually
work. And quite well too, it has to be said.
Thrashing a Countryman along a
winding road is not as frenetic an exercise as doing it in a Mini (either upper- or
lower-case), yet is still a lot of fun. The
4WD system – All4 in MINI-speak –
works brilliantly to counter any expected
handling issues potentially created from
making the Mini bigger and taller and yet
retains a nice amount of feel and feedback through the steering wheel. The ride
is firm, yet civilised and while it lacks the
smaller Mini’s tenacious grip, it also lacks
its uncompromising ride. Basically the
Countryman comes across as a bigger,
more relaxed, grown-up Mini, which is
exactly what it is supposed to be.
Visually, the Countryman in dressedup Cooper S guise looks a little too
much like a running shoe for my tastes,
especially in the white of our test car.
The Cooper S-specific droopy mouth
grille doesn’t work quite as well as the
ordinary Countryman more traditionally
Mini-shaped grille, yet adds a touch of
aggression.
Inside is an ergonomic nightmare of
retro-inspired dials and switches, the
locations of which have only a nodding
acquaintance with logic, yet still manages – in a self-consciously over-styled
way – to be cool like its smaller sibling.
However, there is a more extensive use of
plastic and a number of small rattles and
creaks just waiting to get worse, which
you wouldn’t necessarily expect on a car
costing as much as the Countryman…
Which leads us to the biggest sticking
point I have with the Countryman – the
price. With the manual 2WD Cooper
starting at $46,900, the positioning of the
Countryman is playing a lot on the idea
that people will fall in love with the stylish image and be happy to pay a premium
for the badge-cred, as happened with the
smaller BMW Mini and probably will
here too. But go up through the model
range and that love will be sorely tested.
The top-of-the-range 4WD Cooper
S stretches credibility by landing at
$58,900 for the manual ($61,900 for the
auto) – slightly dearer than the entry
level petrol BMW X1 sDrive18i. But start
ticking the options boxes and you can
easily get it close to xDrive23d money.
In fact the model we tested was loaded
with nearly $14,000 worth of options
and consequently weighed in at a truly
horrific $75,000, which seems like you are
paying a heavy premium indeed for all
the badge-cred and stylishness BMW has
built up in the Mini brand…
But it is exactly that badge-cred and
stylishness that will sell the Countryman and luckily, monetary irritations
aside, it is still an extremely likeable and
extraordinarily capable car. If you ignore
the options list and are happy having
a (better looking) Cooper model over
the full-fat Cooper S, then you could
do a lot worse than the little big Mini
Countryman.
sport
chris forster
The problem with predictions in a
World Cup year is that current form is
misleading, and a tad erratic
Calm before the storm
It’s four months until the All Blacks kick-start their bid to
satisfy a national – and international – obsession to lift the
World Cup, on home soil. So how are the key players and
the opposition travelling for rugby’s greatest challenge?
R
ecent form in the rugby world
is a tricky book to read. If you go by
the two biggest indicators – international results and rankings – the World Cup
will be a Tri Nations trifecta. And the All
Blacks will beat the Wallabies in the Eden
Park trophy match on October the 23rd.
The Springboks and Six Nations champions England will be beaten semi-finalists,
and the Boks will win the consolation final.
Ireland, France, Wales, Argentina, Scotland, Samoa and Fiji will be squabbling for
the other places in the quarterfinals, but
won’t advance any further.
But as tournament history and endless
New Zealand heartache have proven – once
the Group formalities are over and done
with, knockout rugby can rattle the greatest
talents and the steadiest nerves.
Sydney-based New Zealand rugby journalist
Spiro Zavos has tried to get ahead of the journo
pack, with an ambitious paperback called How
to Watch the RUGBY World Cup 2011.
For 94 pages the venerable veteran mulls
over past histories, current and recent form,
rivalries and the philosophies of self-belief
and winning.
It’s a surprisingly entertaining read, for
a fact-based, historical book. Zavos inserts
philosophical insights from the likes of Jean
Paul Sartre. Welsh antagonist Stephen Jones,
and Aussie sports satirist Peter Fitzsimons to
bind together his theories and trends.
He questions whether “the enigma” of
coach Graham Henry has learned from the
flawed campaign of four years ago, which
culminated in the quarterfinal calamity in
Cardiff.
Zavos also notes a wind change in attitude,
when it’s alright for this bunch of All Blacks
to talk about the desire to win the Cup.
He veers into the psychological mindset.
“In a sports practice called visualisation,
fear of failure is diminished – rather than
increased – by the acknowledgement that
winning is a distinct possibility”.
It’s a bit like the classic self-help book,
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway – except
these guys have the ability and home ground
advantage.
After a lot informed reasoning, Zavos
reaches the same conclusions the rugby
rankings and recent form suggest – then
for the rest of his book runs through what
happened in the 7 tournaments between 1987
and 2007.
The problem with predictions in a World
Cup year is that current form is misleading, and a tad erratic. The last test rugby
the Tri Nations’ favoured three played was
in the November tests in the Northern
Hemisphere.
HIS/action
England won the 6 Nations in March,
in less than convincing fashion, while
France suffered the ignominy of losing to
Italy. The array of club competitions in
the UK and France are hard to read from
these shores, because of the domination of
imported players from the Southern Hemisphere, many of them former top players in
the twilights of their careers.
The best gauge we’ve got until a few
warm-up tests in July and August, and
the truncated Tri Nations – is the Super
15. It’s a long haul under the new format
and 9 weekends of inter-franchise action
between the 5 teams from New Zealand,
Australia and South Africa is only halfway
through the round robin.
The Highlanders have been the big
improvers under new coach Jamie Joseph,
with 6 wins from their first eight matches.
That’s allowed the likes of livewire flanker Adam Thomson to shine, after falling out of flavour with Henry and his
co-selectors.
The Crusaders have been typically awesome, seemingly
inspired by their loss of quake damaged AMI Stadium, and the
burden of extra travel to satellite home games in Nelson and
Timaru.
Athletic centre Robbie Fruean was the Provincial Player of the
Year in 2010, and his midfield partnership with giant drawcard
Sonny Bill Williams has advanced them past incumbents Conrad Smith and Ma’a Nonu in the All Blacks’ pecking order.
Nonu’s been off well off the pace for the dysfunctional Hurricanes; while Smith’s miserable start to the year was compounded by a nasty facial injury.
The Blues have been building nicely, but leaking plenty of
points.
The much-maligned Luke McAlister and Isaia Toeava have
been standouts and rocketed back into the Cup reckoning.
The Chiefs’ legion of All Blacks, like fullback Mils Muliaina,
are virtually out of the playoff hunt and left hoping for better
form during the second of the competition.
For a hint of the attacking threats across the Tasman, you
only have to look at the Queensland Reds for some of the
options for Wallabies coach Robbie Deans to unleash on New
Zealand soil during the Cup.
Most of them are in the backline, although their forward
pack’s as competitive as any. Quade Cooper’s been awesome at
first five, outside ace halfback Will Genia.
The Waratahs are there or thereabouts at the midway stage
too, with their explosive talents Kurtley Beale and Drew
Mitchell.
South African sides have been less enterprising but typically
pugnacious – led by the methodical Stormers of Cape Town.
The Bulls had mixed fortunes on the road, but Victor Matfield,
Pierre Spies, Fourie du Preez and co – are sure to be key parts of
the Boks’ attempt to become the first side in World Cup history
to defend their title.
There are nine more weeks of bone-crunching action before the Super Rugby playoffs,
and that’s a long time in rugby parlance.
There will be injuries, there will be form
fluctuations.
Stamina is a key for coaches and the
players who are trying to stay on the radar
of the coaches. The two best players in the
world, are both approaching veteran status
and have suffered worrying injury setbacks
for the All Blacks selection panel.
First five Dan Carter’s hamstring problem
flared up during the Crusaders trek to Twickenham. He aggravated it during a training
session and missed another couple of weekends of Super Rugby action. Colin Slade was
sizing-up the vacancy as back-up first five for
Carter – until he broke his jaw for the second
time this year during a Highlanders match.
Richie McCaw eased his way back from a
foot fracture that delayed his start to a long year, with a cameo
appearance in week 9 of the competition.
The absence of either of those gentlemen in September and
October is enough to send heart palpitations through the most
ardent of New Zealand rugby fans – and throw those World
Cup predictions and rankings out of kilter.
There is at least back-up for McCaw as openside flanker, with
fellow Crusader Mat Todd poised for international stardom,
alongside Thomson’s brilliance and versatility.
It is the Australians who loom as the biggest threat to
redemption from the ill-fated campaign of four years ago. Robbie Deans was appointed late in 2007, and seems to have timed
his run with typical precision.
The only All Blacks defeat in 2010, was to an inspired performance from the Wallabies in Hong Kong, who went on to obliterate France 59-16 on their northern tour. There’s been nothing
since then to gauge their collective progress.
The South Africans title defence looks shaky, with an ageing
forward pack – and erratic results including a defeat in Scotland
last November.
France are in the same pool as the All Blacks this time. Les
Tricolores always rise to the big occasions, but their woeful
recent form suggests otherwise.
Ireland would have gained heart from the Six Nations thumping of England, who had been building pretty nicely under
the tutorship of Martin Johnson seem to be the best hope of a
Northern Hemisphere side triumphing Down Under.
The Pacific Nations of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga always have an
upset or three between them. Who will ever forget the Tongan
side who almost toppled the Springboks during their march to
the crown in France.
There are so many gifted players of Island origin making a
rugby living in New Zealand and Australia these days.
The early to mid-term manoeuvres in a 9-month haul to
World Cup glory are looking positive for the All Blacks, if they
can swing fate their way this time.
Uncertainty and the Australians will be their enemies.
invest
peter hensley
The buyer has ten years to pay us and
during that time he retains all the dividends.
He is using the dividends from our shares
to pay us for our own shares
Burglars of a different kind
T
he lonely cry of the sole seagull flying overhead jolted Jim
back to the moment at hand. He was
part way through his daily walk along the
foreshore. He often used the time to think
through the projects he was working on.
Prior to retirement he used to long for the
carefree days of not having to go to work.
Now that he is retired, he doesn’t know how
he used to fit work in, his days are so full.
He was conscious of the time as they were
expecting guests for lunch. He and Moira
entertained most days, the majority of the
visits were social, however they had gathered
a reputation in the neighbourhood of being
very helpful to those in need of a friendly ear
when it came to things financial.
Their long time friends, George and Mildred were due to arrive in two hours time.
Jim especially was keen to catch up with
George as he wanted to swap notes about
their survival kits. The recent natural disasters around the world had prompted
him into action and he had commandeered an old wood-box in the garage
for his latest project.
Jim shivered a little as daylight saving was
a distant memory and autumn was giving
way to winter, the temperature had certainly dropped a couple of degrees. The days
were noticeably shorter and long sleeved
tops were replacing light clothing normally
associated with summer. The change in the
weather was influencing Jim’s decisions
as to what to include in their survival kit.
He thought he would raise that issue with
George over a sandwich.
George and Mildred were punctual and
Jim shuffled them directly to the conservatory that overlooked the sea. Moira quickly
told him not to fuss as their guests knew
perfectly well where to go, as she said they
had been here often enough. Jim had prepared the table earlier and now disappeared
into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
Even before they had settled at the table
Moira commented loudly on how focused
Jim had become over these natural disasters. He had been around the house taking
pictures of everything, even their passports.
Inside, outside, every wall, painting and
Moira’s jewellery, he was driving her mad
and she was looking for support to try and
make him stop.
Mildred surprised her by speaking up on
Jim’s behalf. She had heard from friends
in Christchurch whose house had been
red stickered and they had been told they
were unlikely to regain access. This friend’s
husband had done exactly the same thing
following the first earthquake. “Well” said
Moira refusing to give up, “and I supposed
the camera was inside the house at the time
of the second quake. What use would it be
then?”
“No” Mildred said quietly. “Her friend’s
husband had thought through that issue and
he had uploaded the album of pictures to his
Facebook account which meant they were
available for the insurers to view.”
“Well, then, that would cost money and I
am certainly not letting Jim spend money on
a kid’s Facebook account” Moira said almost
defiantly.
Now George and Mildred had been friends
of Jim and Moira’s since the very beginning
HIS/action
and Mildred maintained her quiet tone,
suggesting to Moira that she should let
this matter go. Facebook was free and provided an excellent although totally unintended platform for this purpose. She had
heard first hand of the physical stress and
mental trauma that the affected people
had gone through and if Jim was willing
to make the effort to potentially offset this
anguish, then she should be supporting
him, not having a go at him.
Mildred was a true friend and knew
that this time Moira was in the wrong. She
had put her straight and now she deftly
changed the topic to the real reason for
their visit.
They had received more than several
unsolicited letters from companies wishing to buy their shares in Vector, Contact
Energy, GPG and Fletcher Building. The
organisations were offering what appeared
to be above market prices and whilst the
offer looked good Mildred thought something was not right.
Why would someone be willing to pay
$11.50 for a Fletcher Building share which
was trading on the open market at $8.75.
Moira’s attitude changed in a nanosecond. She went from a topic that she knew
very little about to one that she was most
knowledgeable. Mildred’s diversion tactic
worked and she quickly flicked a sly smile
to Jim and gave him a wink.
Moira asked Mildred if she had read the
terms and conditions relating to payment.
Mildred replied that of course she had.
The companying buying the shares would
make 10 equal instalments commencing in
14 days.
Moira said that was partly right. And
she went off to the office to find one of the
same letters they had received. When she
returned, she asked Mildred to read the
conditions of payments again.
Mildred was a little miffed in being
asked to do so again, however she thought she had better
humour Moira as she has just put her in her place five minutes
ago.
Mildred read out loud, “The total amount payable to you is
shown on the Acceptance Form. Payment of the offer price will
be made in ten (10) equal annual instalments commencing in 14
days after receipt by “ and her voice trailed off.
“I never saw the word “annual” there before. That means the
buyer has ten years to pay us and during that time he retains all
the dividends. He is using the dividends from our shares to pay
us for our own shares. That is misleading”.
George spoke for the first time that day and said “I told you
so”. Mildred looked at him and said incredulously “you were the
one who wanted to sign, you wait until we get home.”
George thought it was time to change the subject again and
asked Jim how his survival kit was going. With a sigh of relief
Jim spoke about a wonderful bargain he found at Mega Mitre
10, a saw set which would help in cutting firewood. He found
it in the bargain bin when he was out looking at tomahawks.
Despite what Moira said, he was determined to be ready should
they suffer a local natural disaster.
A copy of Peter J Hensley’s disclosure statement is available on
request and is free of charge.
Copyright © Peter J Hensley 2011.
HIS/money
Thinking gold?
TOO LATE
WORDS BY ROBERT POWELL/MARKETWATCH
N
o one is questioning whether investors have made money by investing in gold
over the past decade, but it’s fair to ask whether it’s time to start taking some
profits. And it’s certainly more than fair to question whether gold and silver
are the new currency for retaining wealth, as some have suggested.
Yes, gold is up more than fivefold over the past 10 years, a period in which the stock
market crashed twice and the global economy experienced tremendous instability, but
“investors should not forget that the 10, 20 years before that, gold generated very poor
returns,” says Pauline Shum, an associate professor of finance at York University in
Toronto. “It is unrealistic to expect gold to repeat its performance in the next 10 years.”
That said, gold has traditionally had a low correlation with equities, so it definitely
provides diversification benefits to investors’ portfolios, Shum says. “But given its current level, I think there is significant downside risk, because once the current political
uncertainty is resolved, demand will drop.”
Others agree. There’s some potential upside over the next 12
months, says Steven Cunningham, director of research and
education at the American Institute for Economic Research.
But, he said, we’ve witnessed the biggest part of the run-up in
gold.
“It’s overpriced and overbought,” says Cunningham, who
advises taking profits and reducing to 10 percent one’s overall
exposure to gold, and maintaining that fixed percentage.
His rationale? Gold production is rising mostly because
demand for “investment” gold – not jewellery gold – is rising.
Gold production was up about 3 percent over 2010, he says.
Meanwhile, demand for jewellery gold is falling because of the
rise in the price of gold.
Yes, investors are bidding up the prices of gold because of the
turmoil in the Middle East, the increase in food prices, and the
fact that banks are awash in cash. And all that suggests that
gold will keep on rising. But given the rapid increase in gold
prices, Cunningham doesn’t expect the price of gold will rise
much beyond $1,500 an ounce in the next 12 months.
“Remember, small investors tend to get in too late and hold
on for too long,” Cunningham says. “It’s important to lock in
profits and be conservative at this point. We tend to think that
trading in and out is a dangerous game.”
Not surprisingly, some are bullish on gold. Mark Johnson, the
co-manager of the USAA Precious Metals and Minerals Fund,
is of the opinion that gold might be overpriced a tad because
of the turmoil in the Middle East. However, in an interview,
he says there are plenty of reasons why the price of gold will be
higher a year from now.
For one, interest rates on a real basis are negative. “Gold likes
negative interest rates and steep yield curves, which is what we
have right now,” Johnson says.
Secondly, structural issues, such as the U.S. federal deficit –
now at 11.5 percent of GDP – plus a weak dollar against the euro
and yuan, and sovereign debt problems, are all positive for gold.
“Investors need to protect themselves, and one way to protect
themselves is by investing in gold,” says Johnson. “A small
amount of gold – because of its negative correlation with other
assets – is a great risk-reducing tool.”
For his part, Johnson recommends investing 5 percent of
And should the
day ever come
where national
currencies are no
longer reliable
or accepted as
means of payment
– well, investors
will be better
off with remote
farmland, guns
and canned goods
one’s portfolio into gold, and warns that investing 10 percent
or more would lessen the risk-reducing features of the precious
metal.
Johnson’s fund is largely invested in gold (86 percent) and
specifically gold-mining stocks; platinum (5 percent) and silver
(4 percent). He said the fund has cut its exposure to silver by
half in recent months given what’s happened to the gold-tosilver ratio.
“The real risk (is) that ratio could retrace itself, so we’re more
inclined to emphasize gold than silver right now,” Johnson says.
Meanwhile, about those who suggest that gold and silver are
the new currency? “They are nuts. Gold and silver will never
again be used as currency or to back currencies,” says Michael
Dooley, an economics professor at the University of CaliforniaSanta Cruz and a partner at Cabezon Capital Markets LLC.
Gold and silver “are a way to store wealth but one that, unlike
trees and other forms of capital, (does) not generate any internal rate of return,” he says.
And should the day ever come where national currencies
are no longer reliable or accepted as means of payment – well,
Dooley warns, “investors will be better off with remote farmland, guns and canned goods.”
HIS
gadgets
/GADGETS 48
New Releases
The latest in tech toys,
including HTC’s new
ChaCha
/TECH 50
The blu-ray blues
Is blu-ray viable?
Experts say yes
/ONLINE 52
One password
It might sound like a
good idea, but one
password has big risks
Blu-ray blues >>
Why the new format
is finding it hard
50
HIS/TECH
HIS/gadgets
Epson WorkForce 840
The Epson WorkForce 840 is a fast, versatile and highvolume multifunction printer for busy small offices
where high quality output, reliable performance and
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of large files and fast high quality printing of captured
documents and images.The WorkForce 840 is available
now from consumer electronics retailers at $499 RRP.
www.epson.co.nz
Samsung BD – D7000
Although barely the size of an external DVD drive, the BD-D7000 is big on
performance. With a full HD 3D feature and 1080p upscaling for 2D media, it
delivers an exciting viewing experience. Features such as the Smart Hub and 2D
to 3D video processing will enhance your experience on the player. Along with
an extensive line-up of features, loading times have also improved significantly
from previous models. Arguably one of the smallest in the market, the Samsung
BD-D7000 looks nothing like your conventional blu-ray players. With such a small
footprint it is easily stackable. Samsung is also releasing matching bookshelf
speakers and an amplifier unit, so you can even turn it into a decent mini-system
for audio playback.
www.samsung.com
Arc Touch Mouse
Experience the ArcTouch
Mouse: there is no equal in look,
feel, and performance. With a dramatic
design and easy elegance, this stylish
mouse is a perfect fit for your lifestyle.
Flick to zip down the page. Tap to stay
at your destination. Feel the speed
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The one gentleman
Matt McConaughey’s new movie reminded us that he’s recently been pitching
a fragrance as well. Quite catchy, from Dolce & Gabbana, it describes itself as “a
spirit of dashing masculinity…for the man who is courteous, considered…with an
instinctive feel for chivalry”. It seems to have worked for McConaughey – his new
movie has earned some of his best-ever reviews. Available at leading pharmacies
and department stores.
tech
BLU-RAY’S BLUES B
lu-ray Disc may have established itself as a film medium,
but it has so far failed to emulate
or supersede the success enjoyed by the
DVD format, and is being punished
by many DVD manufacturers offering
HDMI upscaling.
Although it has taken Blu-ray time to
establish itself against DVD in the marketplace, the technology still struggles in
its battle against terabyte hard discs for
PCs. Only a few notebook manufacturers
support the format.
Despite the competition, Ralf Wolf,
marketing director of Sony Optiarc
Europe, believes Blu-ray’s many strengths
will still see it enjoy longevity, especially
when it comes to its use in film archives.
Blu-ray was initially intended to follow in the footsteps of the success of the
DVD, which replaced the CD format
within a short period. But the dynamics
of the market have changed with a universal format for storing data no longer
what people are looking for, feels Wolf.
“The world today can best be described as
hybrid,” he explains.
One of Blu-ray’s greatest advantages is that
it is far more durable than DVD. The format
also differs from a hard disc in that it has no
optical elements, so it won’t wear out.
Recent consumer tests have shown that
Blu-ray discs last a minimum of 15 years
and can even store data for up to 30 years.
However, last year, another consumer
survey indicated that DVD was the more
reliable medium with just three of 11 Bluray discs saving the data satisfactorily.
“Over the years, consumers have been
conditioned to use optical storage,” says
Wolf. Not every technology is immediately
accepted by the general public, even though
Blu-ray offers increased storage capacity
and an ideal method for archiving.
But now many customers are looking to
Blu-ray in the same way that they previously favoured DVD.
The industry possibly has to accept
some responsibility for Blu-ray’s development and market growth. “Although Bluray is better than DVD, it came five years
too late,” says technology writer Hartmut
Gieselmann.
Too much time was spent investigating
the issue of copy protection, which seriously hampered the medium’s development. A multi-year battle against the
HD-DVD format also had its effect.
Blu-ray burners for notebooks were also
too expensive for too long, with prices
only dropping below the 200-dollar mark
recently, Gieselmann says.
Despite the lower prices, the Blu-ray
format still can’t compete with the evercheaper terabyte hard discs. It is still far
cheaper and faster to buy two hard discs.
Meanwhile, Apple boss Steve Jobs has
declared the world is in the post-PC era.
Small, slimline notebooks are increasingly dispensing with optical drives
altogether.
“Large data files are swapped by means
of uploading these days,” says Gieselmann, adding that Blu-ray might not
even survive as an archiving medium.
“Optical media will be as out in 20 years
as diskettes are today,” he believes.
“Nobody can say what the situation
will be like in 15 years,” says
Wolf, in contrast. “We have just arrived
in the era of HD.”
Wolf is certain that there is a place in
the future for Blu-ray. The industry is
currently working hard on developing
the technology further with, for example,
data-rich 3D films in BDXL format,
capable of holding up to 128GB (writeonce) or 100GB (rewriteable).
The film industry is expected to be the
new format’s biggest customer.
“But Blu-ray XL could also enjoy a
breakthrough with users of 3D camcorders,” believes Wolf.
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ne single password for the
whole internet? It’s a dream many
have.
But reality looks quite different. Usually, every new registration requires a
new login and password. Before long, half
the time one spends online is used up
remembering passwords.
But now, systems like OpenID, Google
Friend Connect and Facebook Connect
have been created to provide a little help
and do away with the never-ending registrations. To do so, they’ve presented themselves as kinds of skeleton keys for the web.
But there is good and bad to these systems.
All the systems are based on the same
idea: making sure users no longer have
to register a new account for each online
service.
Instead, these connection services
operate on a single sign-on principle,
with only one logon needed.
“The idea is to bring your own identity along with you,” says Axel Nennker,
member of the directorate of the OpenID Foundation, whose day job is with
Deutsche Telekom.
It’s not just a memory aid, it also boosts
security. If a person only needs to remember one password, it can be made more
complicated, thus enhancing security.
Amongst the various single sign-on
initiatives, OpenID has long been considered the industry standard. Giants like
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Paypal
use the protocol, which was developed in
2005, as do a series of smaller companies.
The true number of users is unknown,
but likely very large.
The system is designed to be decentralized. Users can set up their OpenID
account with a number of sites, whether
Google, Yahoo or specialist sites like
MyOpenID. Indeed, anyone interested can
register on any website that supports the
standard. According to numbers released
by the OpenID Foundation in 2009, that
includes 9 million sites worldwide.
Small users overwhelmingly allow
access via OpenID, while most larger entities limit themselves to distributing IDs.
Members have to look for the OpenID
logo, a gray half-circle with a pointer
at one end. When registering, they are
asked to enter their OpenID URL. Here,
it’s best to enter the web address of the
entity where the OpenID account was
created: yahoo.com, for example.
This opens a window, where access data
is entered, as usual – in this case, that for
the Yahoo account. The server generates
an internet address, or URL and sends it
to the destination website, where registration then occurs automatically.
Some websites ask for some basic data,
like name and mailing address. Some
forums allow anonymous registration.
“Providers like Google only confirm
that ‘An OpenID user is registering
now,’” says Nennker.
Having one identity for multiple
websites may sound great, but the system
still hasn’t made the breakthrough to
mainstream use. One problem is that the
service remains relatively unknown.
“A lot of users don’t even know that
they have an OpenID,” says Nennker.
Google, Yahoo and the others only passively direct users – if they do so at all –
to the option. If you don’t look for it, you
won’t find it.
The OpenID Foundation hopes to
overhaul the standard. OpenID Connect
should be easier to integrate for developers and also provide some improvements
for users – such a logins with basic email
addresses. There are also plans to expand
the service to other technical platforms,
like mobile phone apps.
But the competition is picking up, especially since Facebook Connect is coming
online.
“Everyone knows what Facebook is.
And it’s a lot easier to understand that
Facebook can manage your identity than
it is to believe the same of an unknown
entity named OpenID,” noted US magazine Wired recently.
Superficially, Facebook Connect and
OpenID resemble one another.
Clicking on either’s icon opens a new
window where data is to be entered.
But the US company goes further.
Unlike OpenID, as soon as they register
– in a discussion forum for example –
users can see who else from their social
network is already there. Additionally,
comments about activities elsewhere can
be posted on one’s Facebook page for
friends to see.
That’s one reason why a lot of groups
are leaning toward Facebook Connect:
“They get a piece of the user pie.”
Regardless of Facebook Connect or
OpenID, data privacy experts advise
using caution.
“Services like Facebook Connect that
offer a single sign-on solution can help
users save time. But a successful attack
on a user account makes the potential of
these attacks that much more dangerous
and allows the misuse of all data that the
user has saved with various services,” says
Johannes Caspar, data security commissioner for the German city-state of Hamburg. Just looking at some of that access
data could open the door for identity theft.
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HIS
mindfuel
/ONSCREEN 56
The Grinch is Back
Simon Cowell takes
on his idols
/BOOKCASE 58
Michael Morrissey
Western civilisation
/CONSIDER THIS 60
Amy Brooke
The dangers of
memory loss
/THE QUESTION 62
Matthew Flannagan
Should we stone
adulterers?
He’s back >>
Cowell’s X-factor hits US
screens, expect the fur to fly
56
HIS/ONSCREEN
onscreen
simon cowell | by chuck barney/mct
The Grinch Is Back
S
imon Cowell is on the phone and I can’t believe my ears.
American Idol’s former king of mean is not hissing and
seething and spewing snarky insults. He’s not telling me
that my questions are boring him to tears.
No, just the opposite. He’s polite. Charming. A real
pussycat.
Could it be that he’s more relaxed now that he’s not in the
constant company of Ryan Seacrest? Has the time away from
the Idol judges table mellowed him? Perhaps. But more likely,
he knows he needs to sell a glitzy new show – The X Factor –
and that the stakes are very high.
It’s time to be ultra accommodating. Time to suck up to the
media.
“I missed dealing with you guys,” he says. “Really, I have.”
Say what? I was totally expecting him to mutter, “Your voice
sounds like nails on a chalkboard.”
Simon has been fervently hitting the phones and pounding the
pavement to pump up The X Factor. This month, he even did a
live Twitter chat. The musical talent show doesn’t start until next
quarter on Fox, but auditions are about to get under way across
the US, and he’s doing his best to ensure that interest is high.
“I haven’t got a clue how it will go and that’s somewhat
distressing,” he says. “We could have one person show up or
10,000. And unless you’ve got great contestants, you haven’t
got anything. It’s the one thing out of my control.”
The X Factor, a British import on which Simon is a judge
and executive producer, has already seized some attention
with the news that it will offer television’s biggest prize ever –
a $5 million recording contract – to its winner. And the show
made a high-profile hiring when music mogul Antonio “L.A.”
Reid signed on as a judge.
Asked if Reid will make for better television than the bland
Jimmy Iovine, this season’s “in-house mentor” on American
Idol, Simon replies, “In a word, ‘yes.’ ... He has a great personality, a great sense of humour.”
As of this writing, no other X Factor judges had been
announced, but the names being dropped included George
Michael, Mariah Carey, Nicole Scherzinger and, yes, Simon’s
old sparring partner, Paula Abdul. On this subject, Simon
plays coy, only saying that an announcement would be
forthcoming.
Addressing his role on The X Factor, Simon insists that fans
will see a much more driven judge than the one who essentially phoned it in last season on Idol.
“I admit it, I was bored and that wasn’t fair to the contestants, the show or the audience,” he says. “I had lost Paula and
I was trying to fit in with something that didn’t feel right. I
found it really difficult to hide my feelings.”
As for the new-look Idol, with judges Jennifer Lopez and
Steven Tyler, Simon says television’s most popular show made
the moves it needed to.
“They’ve got judges who are engaged and who want to be
there,” he says. “They’re bringing a new energy that’s good for
the show.”
And Simon made it clear that he’s pleased not to be on the
same show with Idol executive producer Nigel Lythgoe, with
whom he often butted heads over the years. It was Lythgoe
who repeatedly emphasized that Idol would take a kindergentler approach in the post-Simon era.
“It’s definitely a dig at me when he says that kind of stuff,”
he insists. “But I never thought of myself as being mean. I was
just trying to bring an honesty and a sense of humour to the
show. ... As for Nigel, both of us are obviously real happy not
to be working with each other anymore.”
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bookcase
BOOKS EDITOR | michael morrissey
The history of the West
CIVILIZATION: The West and the Rest
By Niall Ferguson
Allen Lane, $60
I am very partial to books that give
us an overview of world history
and culture It saves lazy half-baked
intellectuals like myself from doing
all the reading required to make my
own overview. This is a stupendously
learned well-written book that will
alter your view of history. And this
is what an ambitious history book
should do.
The dazzlingly learned Professor
Ferguson who improbably holds
five academic posts, has previously
published eight books, fronted several documentary series for
Channel Four (this one has just been added to the list) and published numerous articles in newspapers and journals. To top it
all off, Ferguson is only in his forties and good looking.
In contrast to Jared Diamond’s well-circulated view that
European domination was due mainly to gun, germs and steel,
Ferguson has constructed a more complex picture. He identifies six factors, each given a chapter – Competition, Science,
Property, Medicine, Consumption and Work.
Competition, the first chapter is one of the most compelling
and focused. Ferguson compares the vast extent of the Chinese
Grand Canal and its enormous business with the dirty backwater of the Thames in 1420. Nanking had over half a million
inhabitants while London had not much over 40,000. The
Chinese were both inventive and curious – they sent Zheng Ho
on a grand mission of exploration with junks that dwarfed English ships. But the Great Ming civilization under the Emperor
Yongle was to turn inward and weaken whereas European
explorers like the viciously ruthless and competitive Vasco
da Gama began opening up eastern ports. Apart from technological prowess and superior cannon and clocks, Ferguson
attributes much of European aggression to the fact that in the
fourteenth century, Europe had a thousand polities – creating a
situation of intense political competition. Rivalry between the
Portuguese and the Spanish pushed them into world domination. They were followed by the Dutch, French and the English
extending empires over Africa and Asia.
Ferguson loves both lists and statistics and under Science,
he itemises the impressive accomplishments of Europe over
two centuries (1530-1789). He places much importance on the
advance of printing which encouraged rapid promulgation of
learning and therefore stimulated more scientific ideas. The
Turks banned printing and the Chinese reprinted Confucius.
But why tell us about the siege of Vienna by the Turks?
Ferguson therefore sometimes prefers an indirect, even
eccentric, approach. Under Medicine, he starts with Edmond
Burke who was a political philosopher, then moves to war
(artillery and so forth and much praise for Frederick the Great
for embodying the Enlightenment). He is half way through the
chapter before he gets to the hub of the matter and focuses on
medicinal impact on Africa – though not on Europe. Here the
French are seen in a reasonably favourable light and express
attitudes not so different from Kipling – the philosophy of the
White Man’s Burden is impliedly given respect rather than
derision. As the twentieth century arrived, it was Germany who
dominated Nobel prizes for science, particularly chemistry and
biochemistry while the Muslim world fared poorly in science,
in comparison with their dominance in the Middle Ages.
In Property, the South American system of concentrated
ownership is contrasted with the more individualist North
American style bequeathed by the pilgrims. The Work chapter
penetratingly examines the Protestant work ethic. Ferguson
concludes with a stunning chapter on the present. Like so
many commentators, he cannot avoid the topic of the Chinese
meteoric rise, but on a more sober note, lists several reasons
why the Chinese bubble may burst – social unrest due to
poverty, pollution and gender imbalance, a rising middle class
demanding greater political say and the threat of alienated
neighbours forming a coalition with the United States. The next
thirty years will reveal more fully the direction of the present
situation. Professor Ferguson may still be around to analyse,
elucidate and slip in the occasional witty wisecrack.
ZEITOUN
By David Eggers
Penguin Books, $32
The watery ruin that New Orleans
became in the wake Hurricane
Katrina is yet another example of
how humanity or city/government
authorities do not adequately prepare
for nature’s wrath. Like its dark
cousin War, catastrophe may bring
out the worst in some e.g. looters and
over zealous law enforcers but can
bring out the best in others.
Zeitoun is a Syrian property developer and family man who responded
HIS/mindfuel
Disasters often do not initially display
their full power, or conversely, people
have an ostrich-headed approach and
stick their heads in the sand (or water)
failing to fully face the imminent peril. So
it was with Hurricane Katrina. The levees
had held before, so why not this time?
to the hurricane’s devastation in a courageous and humane
way. His story is expertly told by well-known contemporary
novelist David Eggers. The gripping narration can give us all
hope for the better impulses of people in times of stress. This
genre of book belongs to the non-fictional novel, the invention
of which is usually credited to Truman Capote with roots going
back to novelists like Daniel Defoe.
The onset of the deadly hurricane is gradual and suspenseful.
Disasters often do not initially display their full power, or conversely, people have an ostrich-headed approach and stick their
heads in the sand (or water) failing to fully face the imminent
peril. So it was with Hurricane Katrina. The levees had held
before, so why not this time? However, they were only designed
to hold back a force 3 hurricane and Katrina reached force 5.
The flood waters affected 80 per cent of the city and caused over
4000 deaths. While this is a lot, bear in mind the Bhola Cyclone
(same phenomenon as a hurricane) killed over 300,000 in East
Pakistan in 1970.
While Zeitoun stuck with his house and used a canoe to
get around, others put their faith in the Superdome which
proved inadequate. The atmosphere is a bit like an end of
the world movie where one man stays behind to face almost
certain doom. Zeitoun, however, is not alone. Apart from other
intrepid (or stubborn) souls that he rescues or feeds, there
are abandoned dogs, that Zeitoun also nourishes. Just when
he ought to be close to earning a medal for kindly services
rendered, he is arrested as a looter. Worse, he is accused of
belonging to al Qa’ida and denied the right to a phone call.
Competing authority groups – New Orleans police, National
Guard Soldiers and prison guards – are all mixed up together.
Bunches of squashed sandwiches are thrown over a barbed wire
fence for the prisoners to fight over. Pepper spray is liberally
and indiscriminately fired.
Though we know Zeitoun is innocent, the situation looks suspicious. His companions are carrying maps and lots of money
and are in a drowned city when people were asked to evacuate.
And they are all Muslims from the Middle East. Suspicion,
however ill-founded, was understandable. But after much red
tape, they are released and the story ends happily.
Eggers makes a novelist’s use of flashbacks and suspense
techniques to keep us reading and the book is masterful in its
descriptions of havoc and human interaction, both benign and
less so. This is a riveting story, well told.
THE BUSINESS Reviewed by Richard Pachter
The Personal MBA:
Master the Art of Business
By Josh Kaufma
Portfolio/Penguin (416 pages.)
No disrespect intended to any person or institution, but is an MBA
really necessary? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak never
got theirs and many, many other successful business people (and
book reviewers) lack that degree and seem none the worse for it.
In his new book, author and consultant Josh Kaufman not only
explains the reasons he chose not to pursue his MBA, but does a
rather masterful job of eviscerating the program in general and,
more specifically, the reasons people seek it and why they needn’t
and shouldn’t; in his not-so-humble opinion: Money.
Spending around $250,000 or more, says Kaufman, to get an
MBA from a top business school is a lousy investment and completely unnecessary. In fact, the whole biz school deal is essentially a money-making enterprise for educational institutions who
profit mightily from teaching mostly ancient, arcane, academic
approaches to business that track very little with the actual world
and the ways it really operates. Further, says Kaufman, there’s no
assurance that the instructors are qualified beyond possessing
the skills required to teach (if that) and are usually bereft of the
experience and achievements that would confirm the efficacy of
their instruction.
Young Kaufman had an undergrad degree and a great job at
Procter & Gamble when he was urged to continue his education,
which meant going after the inevitable MBA. Instead, he did a
quick cost-benefit analysis and decided to read and study on his
own. He blogged about his decision and posted a preliminary
reading list, which was subsequently picked up by inveterate
anti-MBA advocate and uber-blogger Seth Godin. From there, it
spread. This book continues Kaufman’s mission.
He’s canny enough to know that just reading this book in a
linear fashion – one chapter after another – is not necessarily
the best way to go, so he encourages browsing, skimming and
skipping around. I’d add, in fact, that reading it sequentially is
downright boring, so after about 125 pages, I abandoned the effort
and skipped around, as suggested. Kaufman isn’t a horrible writer,
so that wasn’t the problem. I’d decided that the abrupt shift after
a couple of pages on each subject might have been intended to
accommodate our increasingly short attention spans, but it wasn’t
working for me. True, each little chapter had an online component,
but when I’m reading a book I don’t necessarily want to bounce on
and off the Net to enlarge the experience or whatever the intended
effect was supposed to be. Sometimes, a little concentrated depth
is where it’s at.
In all fairness, I think I’ll hold onto Josh Kaufman’s book and
keep it handy as a reference, since he really covers just about
every aspect of business in an intelligent and no-nonsense way.
consider this
Multiculturalism has been too late
amy brooke
recognized as the Trojan horse inside our
walls allowing the aggressive doctrines of
Islam, fundamentally deeply hostile
to the West, to flood into Europe
Our greatest threat: memory loss
“I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.”
– G.K. Chesterton
O
ne of the last great epic
poems in English, Chesterton’s
The Ballad of the White Horse, tells
a story of King Alfred’s battle against the
Danes in May 878 AD when England was in
deep peril. With Norsemen occupying most
of the country, only Essex remained in English hands. Holding the high ground under
their King Guthrum, the Norsemen – raiders and professional soldiers – were winning.
The English were no soldiers, mainly men of
the land armed with the tools of their trade.
Alfred knew that this final desperate battle
facing them was their very last chance to
save their England.
Chesterton’s great poem immortalizes
how, when everything seemed hopeless, the
intelligence and courage of this one man
(subsequently called Alfred the Great), in
response to a vision of Our Lady (envisaged by Chesterton as speaking the words
above), rallied the inhabitants of their tiny
island to fight the encroaching dark. After
the battle, Chesterton has King Alfred
ordering the scouring of the nearly 400 feet
long White Horse in the chalk hills of the
Berkshire Downs, in order for its whiteness
to show more clearly. High above the valley
below, the Neolithic track called the Ridgeway, from Dorset to Lincolnshire, has been
tramped for 5000 years, centuries before the
birth of Christ, even.
The land endures. It is civilisations that
rise and fall. In this magnificent ballad
Chesterton warns us – as Alfred warned
after that last battle – that the fate of all the
West hangs in the balance -the barbarians
will be back. “Every high civilization decays
by forgetting obvious things.”
This outstanding writer was foreseeing the
collapse of societies and the gradual enslavement of their people when the bottom-up
concept of common law, ratified and agreed
upon by Everyman, would be replaced by the
top-down law-making of political oligarchies changing their form, but essentially
the same – distinguished only by the extent
to which they control or depress the lives
and liberty of ordinary people.
Communism, fascism, Nazism, neoMarxism go hand in hand with the quasidictatorship of the European Union at present hijacking the parliaments of its member
countries by engulfing their constitutions
in its widening maw, constricting peoples’
freedoms by its edicts. The bureaucracy of
Brussels, essentially “the ruling of functionaries who dictate that people in once far
freer countries should be jailed for selling
fruit by pounds and ounces, instead of
kilos”, is an example of the sheer pettiness
and mean-mindedness of those wielding
an unrepresentative power with a federal
Europe in their sights. We are seeing in our
own time the gradual extinguishing of the
light of what are meant to be the representative democracies of the West.
The barbarians are back, only, this time,
no longer at our gates but having tunnelled
under the walls. Their ideological hatred of
HIS/mindfuel
the West has seen to it that, infiltrating
our institutions, especially our universities and schools to propagandize
and capture the minds of the young,
they have undermined our civilization
by ensuring that the great battles for
its survival are no longer taught. Nor
are the lessons each generation must
take on board to ensure this. They have
concentrated their attack on Western culture, its thinking, literature
and learning with their promotion of
ethnocentricity, the quite wrong claim
that no culture is better than any other
and that in fact primitive cultures are
superior – conveniently overlooking
their widely prevalent barbarous treatment of women and children – and,
equally, their mores promoting corruption and oppression.
Multiculturalism has been too late
recognized as the Trojan horse inside
our walls allowing the aggressive
doctrines of Islam, fundamentally
deeply hostile to the West, to flood into Europe. The dubious,
EU-inspired removing of the barriers between countries and
peoples with their own proud and independent histories, guarantees social unrest.
Another great fight for survival, when it was a near thing
indeed for Christian civilization to withstand the sophisticated
barbarism of a powerful Islam, took place at the crucial battle of
Lepanto in 1571. Chesterton’s instinctive understanding of the
times when the very survival of the West was most threatened
has left us with another great poem called simply, Lepanto,
describing a great victory over a superior Ottoman fleet, won by
the Holy League under the military hero, Don Juan of Austria,
the illegitimate half-brother of Queen Elizabeth’s Armada
enemy, Phillip II of Spain. Don Juan’s prevailing over the squabbling Christian factions is immortalized in:
“Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has
stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last night of Europe takes weapons from the wall…”
Lepanto was the last battle at sea between oared, Muslim
ships of the most powerful navy in the world. Between 12,000 to
15,000 of largely captured Christian slaves rowed them.
Chesterton’s Lepanto was described by Hilaire Belloc as not
only Chesterton’s greatest, but the greatest poem of his generation. It is naturally, therefore, never offered to English classes
in our schools, for obvious reasons – for the same reasons that
this fine writer is steered well clear of in our heavily propagandized curricula. Very few of our children will have heard
of him, nor of any of our other great poets, nor have had the
chance to reflect on the importance of what they had to teach us
in beautifully crafted language, its musical cadences of rhythm
and rhyme captivating readers and listeners, and fostering a
love and appreciation of great language. On the contrary, the
poetry offered to our children in recent decades is that which
contributes to the subversive undermining of the West by the
concentration on either the past’s war-weary poets or today’s
technically challenged and supremely unimportant “poets” of
a generation of literary “intelligentsia” with little, if anything,
really worthwhile to say.
Yet there is no doubt that once again the West is at the crossroads, not only because of the threat from an Islam once again
militant; a destabilized Middle East; the overweening ambition
concealed behind the smiling face of tigerish China; and now
the iron-fisted Brussels bureaucracy joining with Germany and
France, the power brokers of Europe, to establish that Europe
federation whose member “states” will be further manipulated
and gradually compelled to surrender even more sovereignty
than they already have. The real crisis worldwide is the perennial one, that those who aspire to and finally win, or even seize,
power, never change their spots.
We have been warned again and again that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We in New Zealand are no more able
to opt out of paying that price than any other country.
Throughout the world today, it is arguably only the recognition and resolve of so-called ordinary people, now beginning to
call their governments to account, which can, at this late hour,
rally our now barely democratic countries to fight perhaps these
greatest and greatest of all challenges to their, and our, very survival. With the crumbling of the West, the sky again is indeed
growing darker.
© Copyright Amy Brooke
www.amybrooke.co.nz
www.100days.co.nz
www.summersounds..co.nz
http://www.livejournal.com/users/brookeonline/
the question
matt flannagan
That most capital sanctions functioned
as a kind of rhetorical denunciation which
expressed, in vivid form, a moral ideal.
Further, in practice, a ransom was paid
and the punishment was not literally carried out
Stoning adulterers?
B
ack in 2005 there was a minor
f urore when Labour MP Ashraf
Choudhary stated he agreed with
the Koran’s teaching that people who
engaged in homosexual conduct or who
committed adultery should be stoned to
death. In the media spiral that followed,
some commentators pointed out that it was
not just Islam that held this view; Christians
are committed to the same conclusion. Consider Deuteronomy 22:22 “If a man is found
sleeping with another man’s wife, both the
man who slept with her and the woman
must die. You must purge the evil from
Israel” or Leviticus 20:10 “If a man commits
adultery with another man’s wife—with the
wife of his neighbour—both the adulterer
and the adulteress are to be put to death.
Often passages like this motivate a rhetorical
question “why don’t Christians today stone
to death women who commit adultery? After
all, this is what the Bible commands isn’t it?”
I’ll make two points in response to this.
First, those who press this line of argument
assume that these commands are addressed
to contemporary Christians. This is a dubious assumption; the laws occur as part of a
covenant or vassal treaty between the tribes
of Israel and God. While some of the laws
expounded in this treaty reflect rules of
justice and equity applicable to all people,
Gentiles were not parties to this treaty nor
were gentile Christians required to be –
something the New Testament spends a lot
of time elaborating on.
Second, and this will be my main focus,
this line of argument assumes that these
apparent laws function like modern statute
law; the assumption is that they are literal and binding commands to kill people
who had committed certain crimes. It is
also assumed that the author of these laws
expected them to be carried out. Interestingly, it is precisely this assumption which
many scholars of these laws have questioned.
Here I will spell out some reasons why they
do so.
Comparisons between Leviticus and Deuteronomy and other ancient Near Eastern
(“ANE”) law codes suggest they are the same
genre. One feature of such codes is seemingly harsh penalties. In old Babylonian law,
the hand that assaults was severed; a man
who kissed another’s wife was to have his
lips cut off; a person who stole bees was to
be stung by bees; a man who raped another’s
wife would be sentenced to having his own
wife or daughter raped; a negligent builder
whose house collapsed and killed another’s
son would be sentenced to having his own
son killed, and so on.
ANE expert Raymond Westbrook notes
that these prescribed punishments are both
inconsistent with the actual legal practice
known to have occurred in these cultures
and are often inconsistent with themselves.
He notes, “some law codes impose physical
punishments and others payments for the
same offenses, while some codes have a mixture of the two.” The contradiction is only
apparent because, “in highlighting one or
the other alternative, the codes are making
a statement as to their view of the gravity of
the offence.” He argues that the laws “reflect
the scribal compilers’ concern for perfect
symmetry and delicious irony rather than
HIS/mindfuel
the pragmatic experience of the law courts.” Westbrook concludes that the method used in ANE legal texts was “to set out
principles by the use of often extreme examples.”
A similar point is made by Old Testament scholar John Goldingay who suggests that many of these laws “were not intended
to be enforced” but rather were “promulgated to indicate the
moral and social priorities of the law giver.” They functioned
to express certain ideals of behaviour, to denounce actions like
adultery as really bad and intolerable rather than to define precise penalties for these actions.
Westbrook points to the practice of “ransoming” an explanation of how this worked in application. In ANE legal practice a
person who committed a serious crime would be considered to
have forfeited their life or limb but this did not mean they were
executed or mutilated. Instead, they could “ransom” their life or
limb by making a monetary payment and/or agreeing to some
lesser penalty usually set by the courts. These texts were written
and read with the background assumption that penalties would
often be ransomed and not literally carried out.
Westbrook is not alone in this view. In a study of ANE laws
JJ Finkelstein notes the absurdity and impossibility of putting many of these laws into practice. One Babylonian law, for
example, stated that a physician whose patient died in surgery
or was blinded by treatment was to have his hand cut off. Finkelstein remarks that “it is inconceivable that any sane person
in ancient Mesopotamia would have been willing to enter the
surgeon’s profession if such a law were literally enforced.” On
the other hand,
“if a system of ransom were assumed where the life of the
builder or his son could be redeemed and the hand of the
physician could be redeemed by pecuniary ransom, these
laws would not only have an admonitory function (for which
the more graphic statement of the penalty–execution or
mutilation–is more effective), but would also be practical as
law.”
He concludes that the laws,
“were not meant to be complied with literally even when they
were first drawn up, [but rather they] serve an admonitory
function. If one would be bold enough to restate Hammurabi’s 230 as a direct admonition it might run to this effect:
“woe to the contractor who undertakes construction and in
his greed cuts corners.”
Right back to early rabbinical times, commentators of The
Torah have noted it appears to operate with the same assumption. For example, Exodus 21: 29-32 deals with a case where if an
ox gored another person to death due to negligence on the part
of the owner “the owner also must be put to death” but the very
next verse states “if payment is demanded of him, he may ransom his life by paying whatever is demanded.” The text literally
demanded a person be put to death but assumed the punishment would be substituted for a fine set by the courts.
This is borne out with other examples. Not only is ransoming
implicitly assumed in many of the Old Testament laws about
homicide but reading the text this way explains many features
of the text which otherwise appear inexplicable.
Gordon Wenham notes that “according to Deut xix19 false
witnesses were punished with the punishment the accused
would have suffered if substantiated”. However, the penalty for
falsely accusing a woman of adultery was not execution but an
unspecified punishment alongside a monetary fine. Wenham
concludes that a monetary substitution must have been envisaged in this text if it was to be read as coherent and consistent.
This conclusion seems to be strengthened by the fact that only
a few chapters later Deuteronomy 24:1-5 deals with a case where
a woman was divorced for committing adultery; the woman
was clearly not executed as she married another man in verse 2.
This makes sense if the capital sanctions for adultery functioned
as admonitory devices and in practice a ransom was made
as a substitute, but it does not make sense if the woman was
required to be executed.
A further example occurs in the book of Kings where a
person had committed a capital crime. The sentence was
announced as “a life for a life”; however, the immediate context
shows what this sentence was: “It will be your life for his life or
you must weigh out a talent of silver.” Old Testament scholar Joe
Sprinkle notes that “‘life for life,’ in the sense of capital punishment, has an explicit alternative of monetary substitution.”
Perhaps the clearest example is in Numbers 35. At least seven
times in close succession the text states, “the murderer shall
be put to death”; however, the text proceeds to state ”‘Do not
accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die.
He must surely be put to death.” Here the text assumes the existence of a practice of substituting capital punishment for a fine
exists that there is a risk it might be applied in this instance and
so it explicitly forbids it in this circumstance. Sprinkle contends
“The availability of ransom seems to have been so prevalent that
when biblical law wants to exclude it, as in the case of intentional murder, it must specifically prohibit it”. Old Testament
scholar Walter Kaiser draws the same conclusion,
“The key text in this discussion is Num 35:31: “Do not accept a
ransom [or substitute] for the life of a murderer, who deserves
to die. He must surely be put to death.” There were some
sixteen crimes that called for the death penalty in the OT.
... Only in the case of premeditated murder did the text say
that the officials in Israel were forbidden to take a “ransom”
or a “substitute”. This has widely been interpreted to imply
that in all the other fifteen cases the judges could commute
the crimes deserving of capital punishment by designating
a “ransom” or “substitute”. In that case the death penalty
served to mark the seriousness of the crime.”
So, it is not at all clear that the Old Testament ever commanded Christians to stone to death women who commit
adultery. As useful a rhetorical club for contemporary secularists as this claim might be, it involves transposing modern
assumptions about law back onto an ancient literary genre and
practice. The genre of the passages, in light of the common ANE
legal practices and customs, suggests that most capital sanctions functioned as a kind of rhetorical denunciation which
expressed, in vivid form, a moral ideal. Further, in practice, a
ransom was paid and the punishment was not literally carried
out; it was not statute law demanding the killing of adulterers.
Dr Matthew Flannagan is an Auckland based philosopher/
theologian who researches and publishes in the area of Philosophy
of Religion, Theology and Ethics. He blogs at www.mandm.org.nz.
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Road Snails

Transcription

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