A guest post by Martin Ryan on euthanasia:

Simon, Louise and the kids came to visit today.  Little Katie had her first day at school last week, she was so excited about it and showed me the picture that she drew for me.  I’m running out of room for them!  It’s lovely that she remembers her old grandma.  It’s so wonderful to see them every couple of weeks and share their little milestones.

Simon’s having a hard time at the moment though.  The recession has hit his plumbing business very hard.  He reckons he’s got another three months and then they’ll have to look at selling their home.  He’s worked so hard to get where he is.

I know this place is costing them a lot. $500 a week is a big additional expense at the moment.  Since I lost all my money in Blue Chip finance I’ve had to rely on Simon and Louise and they’ve been great about it.  He never mentions it and bats it away as the least he can do whenever I bring it up.  Tom and I raised a great son.

But it’s not fair on him.  He deserves to have a better life than that.  He needs his house now more than he needs a rattly old mother.  I figure if left to natural means I’ve got another few years in me.  I’d love to see Sarah hit school too, and perhaps even finish the memoirs.  But that’s at least $50k out of Simon and Louise’s pocket.  Out of Sarah and Katie’s university fund.

Such a fall.  I used to make such a difference in this world, teaching, speaking.  Now I’m nothing but a burden on my family.

Yes, they’ll be fine without me – better off in fact.  I’ll speak with the doctors tomorrow.  I’ll play something up, maybe the kidneys.  I hear they don’t ask too many questions if you’ve got all your marbles.  

I remember when they introduced the euthanasia law they talked about all the safeguards they’d put in.  But of course the standards slip.  They have to, there’s too much work to do to check every old lady’s reasons.

I’m always happy to run guest posts. It goes without saying I don’t agree with the perspective in this post as being at all realistic, but I accept some people think that could happen.

Clybourne Park at Circa was a superb night’s entertainment. There were so many things I loved about it, it is hard to know where to start.

Let’s start with the play itself. It’s got two acts (total time 2 hrs 20 minutes with an interval) set 50 years apart – 1959 and 2009. Both acts are set in the same neighbourhood and are about the tensions that arise when a couple buys a house in a Clybourne Park , a neighbourhood exclusively of a different race. In 1959 it is a black couple buying a house in an all-white neighbourhood and in 2009, Clybourne Park  has become all-black, but with gentrification a white couple is moving in.

The play, based loosely on actual historical events, has won four major awards. They are:

• The Laurence Olivier Award by the Society of London Theatre
• The Pulitzer Prize for Drama
• The Theatre World Award
• The Tony Award for Best Play

So with a play of that pedigree, it turns on how well Circa would implement it. Well they have been on a real roll lately, and this was no exception.

The first act focuses on Russ and Bev. They are packing up to move house. Their black maid Francine is there also. Russ is  a mixture of depressed and angry since his son killed himself after serving in Korea. The allegations that he killed civilians were too much for him.

Nikki MacDonnell stands out as Bev. She captures that 1950s domestic wife perfectly. Rather like Bree from Desperate Housewives she is so concerned about appropriate behaviour, and being a the good wife. She absolutely nails the role.

Gavin Rutherford also shows his versatile skills as the brooding Russ. You can see him on the point of exploding several times, and when it finally comes you almost want to applaud.

Paul Waggott and Andrew Foster play the local priest Jim and local Rotarian Karl. Karl’s wife Betsy is played by Danielle Mason. The character is deaf (and pregnant) and Mason is so convincing in the role that P Girl and I debated at the interval if she was deaf in real life. A different character in the second half made it clear she was not. But the fact she was so convincing we thought she might be, speaks volumes to her ability.

The 7th character is the first act is the well meaning husband of Francine, Albert. He just wants to help. Jade Daniels plays Albert, and his 2nd act character is similar. Both smiling nice guys – but we see in Act II that he has another side.

The drama is around when Karl tells Russ and Bev that the land agent has sold their place to a black couple, and try to pressure them to renege on the sale. You almost wince as phrases along the lines of folk being equal but different are used. And it gets really uncomfortable when the black maid is asked by the others if she agrees that black people are happier in their own neighbourhoods.

Russ though responds badly to the pressure, and it gets explosive when Karl threatens to tell the buyers about he suicide in the house – thinking that will scare them off.

The first act was very dramatic, but also had lots of laughs.

In the second act they all play different characters, but with some links to the original characters.  Both Nikki MacDonnell and Gavin Rutherford do quite increedible transformations. MacDonnell goes from being a matronly housewive in her 40s, to a trendy yuppy lawyer in her late 20s. You almost wouldn’t think it is the same actor. Likewise Rutherford becomes a grimy more youthful labourer who unearths a trunk which links the two acts together.

I won’t give away too much of the second act, but it was at times side splittingly hilarious. It starts with no tension at all, but eventually it is all laid bare as first the prospective purchaser is challenged to repeat a (not very funny) joke about blacks. Nancy Brunning’s character then responds with a joke which starts with “How is a white woman like a tampon”. The answer had me almost off my chair convulsed with laughter.  The joke fitted one of the characters perfectly.

One of the actors told me after the show that on their “test” night on Friday, the audience was predominantly elderly (as tickets are cheaper) and the response to the joke was more shocked. They were pleased to see the audience on Saturday night responding far more better to the joke. After the initial shock, almost everyone was laughing.

I have to praise the set also. It was one of the largest I have seen at Circa. The nice thing about Circa One it has so much room, and they used it to make the house very lifelike and real. During the interval some smart changes saw it transform into the modern version.

It really was a great show. A clever plot deals with sensitive issues of race in a very politically incorrect way. The drama and tension is punctuated with heaps of laughs. Clybourne Park has been my favourite show so far this year. Absolutely recommended as great theatre, so long as you are not easily offended.

John Smythe at Theatreview has reviewed the play also. His conclusion was:

Clybourne Park is a brilliant play deliciously done.

If you only go to one play this year, this should be it.

Patrick Gower at 3 News reports:

Labour Party leader David Shearer has long-held beliefs that taniwha must be respected when it comes to Maori and their interests in water. His views can be traced back to his masters thesis, and he stands by them today.

Water has been the big political issue of the year, but when David Shearer was first asked who owned it he didn’t know.

But it turns out Mr Shearer has a degree of expertise on the issue, a masters thesis in fact. It was called “Between Two Worlds, Maori Values and Environmental Decision-Making”.

In his thesis he advocated that “the belief in taniwha or spiritual pollution…while they may appear irrational to many…cannot simply be dismissed as irrelevant”. It’s a belief he still holds today.

“I absolutely stick by that,” says the Labour Party leader. He says we should acknowledge taniwha. “We have been doing that for the last 20-something years when we have made decisions around water.”

Well I don’t think we should acknowledge or give any credence to taniwha. Such spiritual nonsense should play no part in our laws or decisions.

We should give as much regard to belief in taniwha as we do to belief in (Evil) Lord Xenu.

Isaac Davidson at NZ Herald reports:

National MP Tau Henare has put his hand up for the job of Speaker when Lockwood Smith leaves to become High Commissioner in London later in the year.

Mr Henare confirmed he was interested yesterday and said he had raised it with Prime Minister John Key.

He would not say what the response was – and Mr Key has also approached Maurice Williamson and David Carter.

Other names I hear mentioned are Anne Tolley and Peter Dunne. I do not believe Dunne wants the job. I also hear that David Carter’s preference is to remain a Minister, but will serve if needed.

If a Minister becomes Speaker, it is thought likely Nick Smith will be reappointed to the ministry. If Carter or Tolley become Speaker, then the vacancy would be in Cabinet. If Williamson becomes Speaker, then the vacancy would be outside Cabinet – and that might be seen as unsuitable for an MP of Nick’s experience.

Mr Henare is an outside chance – but believed he could do the job, including controlling the “argy bargy” of Parliament. Asked whether he had ever added to that “argy bargy” he admitted he had, but said that was valuable experience.

“I’ve spoken to people who’ve said, ‘That’s like giving the keys of the bank to the robber.’ I laughed at that, and I thought, ‘They might be right, but who better than someone who knows about how people operate in the House and enjoys the cut and thrust of the Debating Chamber.’

“What we are looking at is somebody who can handle the argy bargy, who can bring an amenable style, who enjoys the House and can see the serious side, but also the lighter-hearted side of the House as well.”

Tau is obviously campaigning on the poacher turned gamekeeper theory!

It would be nice if multiple candidates actually stood, so the House has a genuine election. But I suspect the National caucus will have an internal vote on a preferred candidate and all vote for that person.

Whomever does become Speaker will certainly have huge shows to fill. Lockwood had made a massive change in the way Parliament operates – and for the better. He will be missed.

Overall I like the new NZ Herald website. The spacing and font is easier to read. Better use of graphics.

I was going to complain they removed the politics section from their front page, but it has now re-appeared which is good.

Handy social media links at the bottom of the page, and I like the inclusion of their latest tweets in a sidebox. They could get really daring and show the latest tweets from all Herald staff as they tend to be more fruity than the official ones.

Picked up a print edition this morning. Certainly prefer the tabloid format as it is much easier to read on the bus. A good front page lead by Audrey Young on the Bain case.  The magazine insert focus on Lisa Carrington and Sarah Walker was smart – bound to get people reading. Resisted temptation to read the food insert and threw it out. The business liftout was well done with a story speculating the NZ$ will make 90c against the US. Not quire sure why the puzzles and sudoku is in the business liftout though!

In the main paper, I thought the David Fisher article focusing on the Judge whose sentences were so lenient even some of the criminals said they got off too lightly was nice and edgy. They must have gone out and worked quite hard to get those quotes.

So overall looks a good improvement for both print and online. However too early to judge substantively. In the end content is king for me, so maybe at the end of three months will have a look back and review.

What do people think of both the revised website and the new print edition?

Pew has done a further annual survey of faith in news media in the US. The scores for net believability are:

• Local TV news +30
• 60 minutes +29
• ABC News +18
• WSJ +17
• CNN +16
• CBS +14
• Daily newspaper +14
• NBC +11
• NPR +5
• MSNBC +0
• New York Times -1
• Fox News -2
• USA Today -2

Interesting that Fox News is viewed as basically as reliable as the New York Times and USA Today.

All media outlets have declined significantly over time in reliability.

Pew Research has a 12 question quiz on where you fit in the US political spectrum. My results were:

• Overall a moderate republican
• On economic issues, slightly to the right of the Tea Party
• On social issues, slightly to the left of a liberal Democrat

By race, there is little difference on social issues, but a big difference on economic issues.

Feel free to state in comments where you were placed overall, and on economic and social issues.

Consumer Affairs reports:

Scammers claiming to be from Wellington’s Inland Revenue Department are targeting New Zealanders with a new scam.

Victims receive a phone call from an overseas call centre and are told that they have been chosen to receive money from a ‘John Key scheme’.

Victims are asked to fill in a form and send $149, via Western Union, to claim their ’fund’. They are then instructed to go online to download a piece of software. The software launches malicious software onto their computer. This gives scammers remote access to the victim’s computer files.

There is no ‘John Key Scheme’. If you receive this phone call, put the phone down. Do not send any money, or follow any other instructions the caller may give you.

Must the height of success, when even the scammers try to use your name!

Of course the IRD never call people up to offer them money.

The scam sounds a bit like Working for Families. You think you are getting some money for nothing, but in reality you have paid for the money through your taxes!

NewstalkZB reports:

Confidence the report into David Bain’s compensation claim will be well thought out, and thorough.

It’s understood retired Canadian Supreme Court judge, Ian Binnie, who’s reported back to the Government on David Bain’s claim over wrongful imprisonment, has concluded that on all probabilities Mr Bain is innocent of the 1994 murders of his parents, two sisters and brother.

I have long had the view that David Bain did kill his family, based on evidence at all the trials, plus having read both books on the family and the killings.

When he was acquitted at his second trial, I accepted that the jury found reasonable doubt but always maintained that is different to whether or not he probably did it.  Just like the Ewen Macdonald case.

I have to say I was doubtful a claim for compensation would ever be filed as I thought that having a report reach a conclusion on balance of probabilities would not be in David Bain’s interests.

If NewstalkZb is correct, and Justice Binnie has concluded that on balance of probabilities David Bain did not do it, I am staggered.

However Justice Binnie, a former member of Canada’s Supreme Court, has spent months going through all the evidence in this case. I am not so arrogant that I prefer my opinion on some of the evidence to his considered opinion on all the evidence. If he has concluded that it probably was not David Bain, then I for one will respect that.

And while I instinctively do not like the thought of my taxes going to David Bain as compensation, when I have suspicions he was the killer, I do think it is important we have due process. If Justice Binnie has concluded that Bain was innocent on balance of probabilities, and should receive compensation, then that should occur. The upholding of the principle is important.

Also if the report is correct, one has to acknowledge Joe Karam for his tenacity. He managed to get the Privy Council to order a new trial, helped get an acquittal and now has had Bain found innocent on balance of probabilities. An incredible achievement.

Assuming the report is released eventually, I look forward to reading it, and especially Justice Binnie’s conclusions on what evidence he found most persuasive.

David Shearer’s full speech on education yesterday is here.

I previously blogged I was supportive of a focus on reading recovery. Other issues Shearer touched on are:

I want to tell you about a school in my electorate.

It takes in a large number of migrant children every year.

When these kids start school most of them have an English comprehension age at the level of a 3 year old.

By the time they finish Year 6, they leave where they should be for their age. In six years, that school has lifted their reading age by eight years.

That school is doing a great job. They are exceeding expectations for their kids.

Yet that school, its teachers and its kids are stamped as failures because for most of their time at school their children’s results fall below the National Standard.

This is in fact an argument absolutely in favour of national standards. Sure if you look at one year’s static results that school doesn’t compare well. But over time national standards will show that they improve the performance of their kids massively. That is exactly the sort of data we will be able to get from national standards. It is all about progression, not labels.

I want to see a school report card. And, if the school is falling short in any area, I want to know what is being done to remedy that.

Another argument for national standards. Parents love the fact that they finally have report cards that tell them in plain English how their kids are doing. Labour have spent four years fighting against meaningful report cards, yet now say they will insist on them. Yeah, right.

If kids turn up to school not having eaten breakfast, without shoes, or sick because their house is cold and damp, it’s obvious they won’t get the best start.

I hear people argue that this is the responsibility of parents.

We can debate that endlessly but it won’t change this reality: tomorrow morning kids will still turn up to school hungry.

And a hungry kid is a distracted kid who can disrupt an entire classroom.

I’m not prepared to sit on the sidelines and hope this problem goes away.

We need to offer these kids a chance, not an excuse.

Labour will be more hands-on, partnering with communities and voluntary organizations to put free food in all decile 1 to 3 schools that want and need it.

A lot of low decile schools are already having this done. While I do worry about the state stepping in for parents, I am pragmatic enough to say it is important that kids are not hungry at school as it does impact their learning. I don’t have a great problem with this proposal as it is targeted towards low decile schools. I believe in targeting.

So overall a couple of good things in the speech, but a couple of areas where the rhetoric is in conflict with the reality of their political stance. Shearer also spoke about teacher quality but of course they fight against any performance pay for good teachers. Their problem is they are captured by the education unions.

There is an article in The Atlantic about how some in the Democrats in the US are breaking free of the education unions.

In a major shift, education reformers are now influential at the highest levels of the party once dominated by the teachers unions.

Michelle Rhee is accustomed to having to insist she’s a Democrat. “It’s funny,” she tells me, “I’m not just a Democrat — I feel like I’m a pretty lefty Democrat, and it is somewhat disappointing when I hear some people saying, ‘She’s not a real Democrat.'”

Rhee, the controversial former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor known for her hard-charging style, has worked with Republican governors to push her reform ideas in states across the country. Her ongoing pitched battle with the teachers unions has put her at odds with one of the Democratic Party’s most important traditional constituencies.

Yet there are signs that Rhee’s persona non grata status in her party is beginning to wane — starting with the fact that the chairman of the Democratic convention, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, spoke at the movie screening Rhee hosted at the convention earlier this week. Another Democratic star, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, spoke at the cocktails-and-canapes reception afterward. Across the country, Democratic officials from governors like Colorado’s John Hickenlooper to former President Clinton — buoyed by the well-funded encouragement of the hedge-fund bigwigs behind much of the charter-school movement — are shifting the party’s consensus away from the union-dictated terms to which it has long been loyal. Instead, they’re moving the party toward a full-fledged embrace of the twin pillars of the reform movement: performance-based incentives for teachers, and increased options, including charter schools, for parents.

If David Shearer can do the same for Labour, that would be a superb thing. Labour once was the party of reform. But in this area they are too often the party of entrenched interests.  Unions are important stakeholders, but they should not get to dictate policy.

A guest post by David Garrett:

I recently learned that the son of a former colleague had been murdered. It was shocking news, but when I found that Dean Clark was yet another victim of a mentally ill person released to “community care”, and supposedly being monitored in the community rather than  in a secure psychiatric facility, it made me both despairing and furious.

The circumstances of Dean’s death were almost identical to those of Colin Moyle, who was  bludgeoned to death with a spade, and his body set  on fire  in 2007. The killer was a mental patient also under “community care” at the time. Mr Moyle took him in and gave him a home because he had been sleeping rough.

At the time of Moyle’s death there were the usual enquiries, and assurances that “systems” would change so that such a tragedy would not happen again. Here we are five years down the track, and clearly absolutely nothing has changed.

The man charged with Dean Clark’s murder is a 38 year old mental health patient who Dean had known for years. Dean took him in because the man had been sleeping rough and on friends’ couches,and had needed somewhere to live. Dean had a spare room and needed a flatmate. Five days later Dean was dead, stabbed to death in his bed.

A recently retired mental health worker told the media  there are “gaping holes” in the mental health system that needed  to be fixed. Dean’s mother received a visit from some person from the mental health system, which she found “utterly useless”. The mother asked  her visitor the questions you would expect: when was the man last seen by the authorities? What steps were being taken to ensure he was adequately monitored?

As usual, for “legal reasons”, a mother’s anguished questions could not be answered. This is indeed a very difficult legal area. By definition, the criminally insane – as they were once called –  confined in an institution like the Mason Clinic,  are patients and not prisoners. The doctors treating them are in a doctor-patient relationship, and are not their jailers. Such patients have rights of privacy even greater than those of ordinary prisoners.

But the community has rights too. Dean Clark and Colin Moyle had the right to live their lives without unmonitored dangerous psychiatric patients roaming around their neighbourhoods listening to voices in their heads, voices  often urging them to kill someone. Each time such a tragedy happens there is the usual hand wringing, offers of sincere condolences – and ducking for cover. But nothing changes.

The “three strikes” law which I helped to put in place,  and other changes to sentencing and parole laws, came about in large part because enough people got sick enough of violent thugs being continually released from prison to make sufficient  noise for politicians to take notice. Poll driven politicians on both sides of the left-wing divide listened, and the laws gradually changed. Five years on from Colin Moyle’s horrific death  clearly nothing has changed regarding the criminally insane, and Dean Clark paid the penalty for that political torpor.

There is an added tragedy in every such case. Two months on, in a secure forensic environment where he is compulsorily medicated, Dean’s killer is probably  as “sane” as he will ever be, and  now has to live with the horror of what he has done. Living with that will be a burden he must bear for the rest of his life, regardless of what the courts eventually do with him. That alone may make him go off medication in the future –  so he can return to a more comfortable world of the voices and delusions –  unless he is properly monitored when he is again released.

It is time the same level of public pressure that eventually resulted in “three strikes” was brought to bear on the mental health system. It is simply not acceptable for learned pointy heads to nod wisely and say “this is all a very difficult balancing exercise”, or utter similar platitudes every time such a tragedy happens.  The mental health system has a long history of covering its backside, stretching back at least to whistle blower Neil Pugmire, who warned the public in the 1990’s  about the imminent release of a dangerous sex offender, and paid a heavy price for doing so. Eventually though, as a result of public pressure, the Protected Disclosures Act was passed to protect the Neil Pugmires of the future.

Whether  changes  to the way we deal with dangerous psychiatric patients happen  now is, in the first instance, up to the public. The National government changed its plans to mine Schedule 4 of the Conservation Estate because enough people objected to the plan, and the polls reflected that level of objection. People need to wake up to the danger of inadequately monitored, dangerously ill mental patients in their midst under non existent “community care”,  and make just as much noise. Otherwise you or your son’s next flatmate may be a mental patient in the incompetent  hands of those supposed to be monitoring them. And listening to the voices.

Thanks to David for the guest post.

Students for Justice in Palestine has Facebooked:

In July, the AUSA President took a ten day trip to visit illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine. The trip was funded by the Israeli government which targeted two prominent young leaders from both young labour and young Nats and our AUSA president.

Students for Justice in Palestine call for an official apology from the President of our Students’ Association, Arena Williams, for her disregard for human rights, for visiting an apartheid country under an international boycott, for being unfair and bias on such a contentious issue, for not representing or consulting with students, for not adequately addressing student concerns after they had been raised directly with her, for not being direct, transparent or inclusive and for her disregard for New Zealand’s long history of social justice, especially since AUSA stood up against South African apartheid in the 80’s by supporting the international boycott movement.

Say NO to Israeli apartheid and NO to the normalisation of Israeli occupation. Instead of normalising relations with Israel we need to look towards the student unions worldwide who have officially recognised BDS policies as part of their constitutions.

Censure the AUSA President’s trip to apartheid-Israel.

Wednesday 1pm Quad.

Got sent this by e-mail, and verified that it is true.

Delta Flight 15

This is not political, it is about 9-11 and believe me you want to read this.

Here is an amazing story from a flight attendant on Delta Flight 15, written following 9-11:
 
“On the morning of Tuesday,  September 11, we were about 5 hours out of Frankfurt, flying  over the North Atlantic . All of a sudden the curtains parted  and I was told to go to the cockpit, immediately, to see the  captain. As soon as I got there I noticed that the crew had  that “All Business” look on their faces. The captain handed me  a printed message. It was from Delta’s  main office in Atlanta and simply read, “All airways over  the Continental United States are closed to commercial air  traffic. Land ASAP at the nearest airport. Advise your  destination.”
 
“No one said a word about what this could  mean. We knew it was a serious situation and we needed to find  terra firma quickly. The captain determined that the nearest  airport was 400 miles behind us in Gander, Newfoundland. He  requested approval for a route change from the Canadian  traffic controller and approval was granted immediately–no  questions asked. We found out later, of course, why there was  no hesitation in approving our request. 
 
“While  the flight crew prepared the airplane for landing, another  message arrived from Atlanta telling us about some terrorist  activity in the New York area. A few minutes later word came  in about the hijackings.
 
“We decided to LIE  to the passengers while we were still in the air. We told them  the plane had a simple instrument problem and that we needed  to land at the nearest airport in Gander, Newfoundland to  have it checked out. 
 
“We promised to give more  information after landing in Gander . There was much grumbling  among the passengers, but that’s nothing new! Forty minutes  later, we landed in Gander. Local time at Gander was 12:30  PM! …. that’s 11:00 AM EST. 
 
“There were already  about 20 other airplanes on the ground from all over the world  that had taken this detour on their way to the U.S.     After we parked on the ramp, the captain made the  following announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, you must  be wondering if all these airplanes around us have the same  instrument problem as we have. The reality is that we are here  for another reason.” Then he went on to explain the little bit  we knew about the situation in the U.S. There were loud gasps  and stares of disbelief. The captain informed passengers that  Ground control in Gander told us to stay  put. 
 
“The Canadian Government was in charge of  our situation and no one was allowed to get off the aircraft.  No one on the ground was allowed to come near any of the air  crafts. Only airport police would come around periodically,  look us over and go on to the next airplane. In the next hour  or so more planes landed and Gander ended up with 53 airplanes  from all over the world, 27 of which were U.S. commercial  jets. 
 
“Meanwhile, bits of news started to come in  over the aircraft radio and for the first time we learned that  airplanes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York  and into the Pentagon in DC. People were trying to use their  cell phones, but were unable to connect due to a different  cell system in Canada . Some did get through, but were only  able to get to the Canadian operator who would tell them that  the lines to the U.S. were either blocked or  jammed. 
 
“Sometime in the evening the news  filtered to us that the World Trade Center buildings had  collapsed and that a fourth hijacking had resulted in a crash.  By now the passengers were emotionally and  physically exhausted, not to mention frightened, but  everyone stayed amazingly calm. We had only to look out the  window at the 52 other stranded aircraft to realize that we  were not the only ones in this predicament. 
 
“We  had been told earlier that they would be allowing people off  the planes one plane at a time. At 6 PM, Gander airport told  us that our turn to deplane would be 11 am the next morning.  Passengers were not happy, but they simply resigned  themselves to this news without much noise and started to  prepare themselves to spend the night on the  airplane. 
 
” Gander had promised us medical  attention, if needed, water, and lavatory servicing. And they  were true to their word. Fortunately we had no medical  situations to worry about. We did have a young lady  who was 33 weeks into her pregnancy. We took REALLY good  care of her. The night passed without incident despite the  uncomfortable sleeping arrangements. 
 
“About 10:30  on the morning of the 12th a convoy of school buses showed up.  We got off the plane and were taken to the terminal where we  went through Immigration and Customs and then had to register  with the Red Cross. 
 
“After that we (the crew)  were separated from the passengers and were taken in vans to a  small hotel. We had no idea where our passengers were going.  We learned from the Red Cross that the town of Gander has a  population of 10,400 people and they had about 10,500  passengers to take care of from all the airplanes that were  forced into Gander ! We were told to just relax at the hotel  and we would be contacted when the U.S. airports opened again,  but not to expect that call for a while. 
 
“We  found out the total scope of the terror back home only after  getting to our hotel and turning on the TV, 24 hours after it  all started. 
 
“Meanwhile, we had lots of time on  our hands and found that the people of Gander were extremely  friendly. They started calling us the “plane people.” We  enjoyed their hospitality, explored the town of Gander and  ended up having a pretty good time. 
 
“Two days  later, we got that call and were taken back to the Gander  airport. Back on the plane, we were reunited with the  passengers and found out what they had been doing for the past  two days. What we found out was incredible. 
 
”  Gander and all the surrounding communities (within about a 75  Kilometer radius) had closed all high schools, meeting halls,  lodges, and any other large gathering places. They converted  all these facilities to mass lodging areas for all the  stranded travelers. Some had cots set up, some had mats with  sleeping bags and pillows set up.
 
“ALL the high school  students were required to volunteer their time to take care of  the “guests.” Our 218 passengers ended up in a town called  Lewisporte, about 45 kilometers from Gander where they were  put up in a high school. If any women wanted to be in a  women-only facility, that was arranged. Families were kept  together. All the elderly passengers were taken to private  homes. 
 
“Remember that young pregnant lady? She  was put up in a private home right across the street from a  24-hour Urgent Care facility. There was a dentist on call and  both male and female nurses remained with the crowd for the  duration. 
 
“Phone calls and e-mails to the U.S.  and around the world were available to everyone once a day.  During the day, passengers were offered “Excursion” trips.  Some people went on boat cruises of the lakes  and harbors. Some went for hikes in the local forests.  Local bakeries stayed open to make fresh bread for the guests.  Food was prepared by all the residents and brought to the  schools. People were driven to restaurants of their  choice and offered wonderful meals. Everyone was given tokens  for local laundry mats to wash their clothes, since luggage  was still on the aircraft. In other words, every single  need was met for those stranded  travelers.
    “Passengers  were crying while telling us these stories. Finally, when they  were told that U.S. airports had reopened, they were delivered  to the airport right on time and without a single passenger  missing or late. The local Red Cross had all the  information about the whereabouts of each and every passenger  and knew which plane they needed to be on and when all the  planes were leaving. They coordinated everything beautifully.  It was absolutely incredible. 
 
“When passengers  came on board, it was like they had been on a cruise. Everyone  knew each other by name. They were swapping stories of their  stay, impressing each other with who had the better time. Our  flight back to Atlanta looked li ke a chartered party flight.  The crew just stayed out of their way. It was mind-boggling.  Passengers had totally bonded and were calling each other by  their first names, exchanging phone numbers, addresses,  and email addresses. 
 
“And then a very unusual  thing happened. One of our passengers approached me and asked  if he could make an announcement over the PA system. We never,  ever allow that.  But this time was different. I said “of  course” and handed him the mike. He picked up the PA and  reminded everyone about what they had just gone through in the  last few days. He reminded them of the hospitality they had  received at the hands of total strangers. He continued by  saying that he would like to do something in return for the  good folks of Lewisporte. 
 
“He said he was going  to set up a Trust Fund under the name of DELTA 15 (our flight  number). The purpose of the trust fund is to provide college  scholarships for the high school students of Lewisporte.  He asked for donations of any amount from his fellow  travelers. When the paper with donations got back to us with  the amounts, names, phone numbers and addresses, the total was  for more than $14,000! 
 
“The gentleman, a MD from  Virginia , promised to match the donations and to start the  administrative work on the scholarship. He also said that he  would forward this proposal to Delta Corporate and ask them to  donate as well.  As I write this account, the trust fund  is at more than $1.5 million and has assisted 134 students in  college education.

What a great story.

David Shearer has announced:

The Labour Party is committing to roll out Reading Recovery to all schools.

Currently only two out of three schools offer the New Zealand-developed scheme, which has an 80 per cent success rate of lifting kids who fall behind in reading.  Just 59 per cent of low decile schools have Reading Recovery.

“Reading Recovery is the gold-standard intervention to help kids that are struggling to learn to read.  It is a proven success, and should be available to every child who needs it,” says David Shearer.

This is a modest, but worthwhile, policy. Having more kids able to read is an excellent thing.

The Government currently spends $40m on reading recovery, and Labour is proposing to lift it to $60m. Only $20m more funding in an overall budget of $10 billion, but it looks to be well targeted towards something that will make a difference.

I speculated a fortnight ago that the former Bishop of Wellington had not just left the priesthood because he had separated from his wife, but that an affair was likely.

I was right, but it is even more complicated. His affair is with the married chaplain of Samuel Marsden.

The former head of the Anglican Church in Wellington surrendered his priesthood after he ran off with the wife of one of his fellow clergymen.

Sources have revealed Bishop Tom Brown, 69, voluntarily gave up his right to officiate last month after he split with his wife and then began a relationship with the chaplain of Samuel Marsden Collegiate School, the Rev Canon Kate Carey-Smith.

Carey-Smith resigned from her position at the school for “personal reasons” on August 3, Samuel Marsden Collegiate School principal Jenny Williams confirmed last week.

“We were very sad to see her go,” Williams said. She declined to comment further.

Carey-Smith was married to the Rev Chris Carey-Smith, the chaplain at St Mark’s Church School.

I wonder how many sermons on adultery the good Bishop delivered.

Charlie Anderson at Stuff reports:

Her only mistake, she said, was that she cared too much.

As cancer ate away at Yvonne Maine’s skull, the only crime, iridologist Ruth Nelson said, was not giving up on the patient earlier.

But she didn’t. Instead, for 18 months, she treated Maine with alternative therapies after diagnosing her problem by looking into her eyes. Months later, after Maine’s cancer had begun to expose her brain, Nelson continued to warn her client off seeing a doctor. Finally, in 2009, Maine went to hospital. A year later she died.

It takes a special breed of delusion or evil to not just make money from dying desperate patients, but to manipulate them away from actual treatments that could extend their life.

Head of Waipuna Hospice Richard Thurlow said the increasing encroachment of unproven therapy into the care of vulnerable patients was “insidious”.

“When you have terminal diagnosis your hope levels are quite low so anyone who provides the opportunity for that hope increasing will appeal to those individuals.”

Thurlow, who has a background in pharmacology, said one patient was told to move house because it was on a “ley line” that carried a bad spiritual aura.

“At that time a family is so vulnerable it makes you feel quite sick to the stomach to hear that.”

Sick, and angry, is my reaction.

New Zealand Society of Medical Herbalists president Leanne Halliwell said cases like Maine’s threatened to tarnish the reputation of all alternative therapists.

Her organisation had lobbied hard to get members under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act that holds medical professionals legally accountable. Alternative therapists are either self-regulated or not regulated at all.

That’s probably because they are not health practitioners. It would be like Benjamin Easton being registered with the Law Society because he represents himself in court.

In 2003, former GP Ricky Gorringe was struck off the medical register and ordered to pay more than $100,000 in fines and court costs after the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal found him guilty of disgraceful and professional misconduct for his treatment of two Hamilton women.

The tribunal said Gorringe’s methods, which revolved around a scientifically unproven test and asking God to kill bacteria, led to unnecessary pain for one of the women as her illness went untreated.

Gorringe is still operating a health clinic in Hamilton which offers bio-energy diagnosis and homeopathy.

Bio-energy!! Total delusion.

However, Holt said regulation was not the answer as that would legitimise practises he says are “ridiculous”.

Instead, he believed the current law was appropriate.

If, as it seemed with Maine’s case, that someone had contributed to her death, the law was simple.

“There is a clear cut legal case and they should be prosecuted accordingly.”

Absolutely.

Pete George blogs:

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said the overall results showed the Government’s continued focus on performance in the tertiary sector was working well.

Overall:

• course completion had risen from 77% in 2009 to 82% in 2011
• qualification completions had increased from 62% in 2009 to 71% in 2011

“This is exactly the type of improvement we have been working towards. It shows the tertiary sector is responding to our signals to focus on performance and to deliver better value for taxpayers’ money,” he said.

The improvement in course completion and qualification completions is a good thing. It got me interested in the data, and I found TEC has a page where you can see results for each institution.

The university with the top course completion rate is Otago at 89% and the bottom is Massey at 80%.

For qualifications, top is Auckland at 88% and bottom Massey at 49%!

For polytechs the top course completion rate is CPIT at 85% and bottom is SIT at 70%. For qualifications top is Otago at 74% and bottom SIT at 55%.

Only three wananga, but they vary massively. Te Whare Wananga O Awanuiarangi gets a 91% course completion rate while only a 49% qualification completion rate.

The ITOs are even more varied. One has a 100% course completion rate but half of them are below 50% and some below 25%.

A very useful league table.

Flowers from my Mother’s Garden is effectively the prequel to Biography of My Skin, which I saw in October 2009, also at Downstage.

Biography of my skin was basically the biography of Miranda Harcourt, and her relationship with her husband Stuart McKenzie. McKenzie wrote both that play, and Flowers which is the story of not just Miranda’s relationship with her mother (Dame) Kate, but also Kate’s relationship with her mother and family.

The biographical format relies strongly on the quality of the actors to make it happen, and both Harcourts excelled – which is no surprise.

Unusually, Miranda is already on stage as you enter the theatre. She is busy sorting through her slide collection as people take their seats, and the slide projector is a prominent part of the performance.

I thought the play would mainly focus on the Miranda and Kate relationship. There was a hilarious audio clip of Miranda being an annoying five year old, and being told off. But the real highlights were learning more about Kate’s parents and families.

Most of the performance had you smiling or laughing. There were a few very raw moments. You saw a lovely photo of Kate as a four or five year old, with three slightly older (say six years old) boys – one with his arm around her. You smile as she tells you he went on to be in love with her sister. Then when she says all three boys died in WWII, you feel a but numb – despite the fact it all happened 70 years ago. It was just so sad, seeing the photo of  them as kids and realising they never got much past 20. Later on we saw a photo of him in uniform, and heard how Kate happened to come across his name amongst the 10,000 or so inscribed at the Runnymede memorial (which I have visited).

The other raw moment was at the end as the death of Kate’s husband and Miranda’s father occurs. When the play is biographical, not fictional, and the actors are playing themselves, there is something very intimate and real about it. I think this is one of the reasons this genre has become so popular.

Whole both Glee Girl and I enjoyed the show greatly, I did find it not quite as engaging as Biography of My Skin. The stories in Skin were often shaking with laughter funny, and you had less idea of where it was all going (which was good). As a prequel, Flowers was a bit more predictable.

However that is not to say it wasn’t still a greatly enjoyable play. Seeing the two Harcourts perform together was a rare treat, and the direction and props all combined to make it a great experience. There was an excellent blending of audio, pictures and dialogue.

It runs at Downstage until 29 September. A great opportunity to see two of New Zealand’s finest actors tell their story.

Roger Brooking blogs at Pundit:

 The media have told us that Murray Wilson refused to attend a rehabilitation programme while in prison. In fact, the Corrections Department refused to let him attend.

Sounds shocking, but why?

For many years Wilson was held in Rolleston Prison, a low-security prison with a sex offenders unit – just what Wilson needed. But Corrections refused to put him into this programme because he wouldn’t acknowledge his guilt. That’s very strange considering the entry criteria for this programme state that “denial or other cognitive distortions related to offending behaviour” are an indication of suitability for the programme.

There are different degrees of denial. As I understand it, the programme is not designed for someone who has been convicted of five different rapes, and maintains he was not guilty of all of them.

If Wilson had any remorse at all, he would have been allowed on the programme. But he thinks he is the victim. not the women he raped.

Unfortunately, Corrections was not able to establish a rapport with Wilson. He refused to even meet with the psychologist who wrote the final risk assessment on him, so she prepared her report from information on his file. Why would Wilson not want to meet with her? Probably because she had written a number of previous reports which were highly critical of him. Clearly there was not a lot of trust between Wilson and this particular psychologist.

Oh poor little Stewart. The nasty mean psychologist said some stuff he didn’t like. And in the views of Brooking, this is the fault of Corrections and he should be able to demand a new psychologist until he gets one who says what he wants to hear.

The most pathetic part of this farce is that Corrections claims it cannot compel offenders to attend rehabilitation programmes. That makes no sense at all. The police have the power to arrest criminals; the court has the power to send them to prison; but Corrections claims that once in prison they can’t compel anyone do a programme. 

Umm, what is Brooking suggesting. That they enter his cell, subdue him, handcuff him, march him to the programme room, and then restrain him to a chair, so he has to take part? Has he not considered an unwilling Wilson would disrupt it for everyone else?

Unfortunately, Corrections never gave Wilson a chance. They seemed to think he had to have the necessary insight and motivation right from the start. 

No, they said he has to have *some* insight or remorse. He appears to have none. To the contrary he thinks he is the victim, and his sense of victimhood is not doubt fuelled by what Brooking writes.

Victoria University Professor, Tony Ward, a clinical psychologist with expertise in sexual offenders has described Wanganui’s reaction as “moral panic” and said that given Mr Wilson’s age, he was unlikely to reoffend.

”The reoffending rate for very high risk people over 60 is about 6%.”

Is that an offer of a spare room I hear? I mean why worry about a 6% chance of rape or sexual molestation? Never mind that is also a generalised statistic.

This is all so familiar. Graeme Burton committed two murders under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Corrections had him in their custody for 14 years and never put him into a programme to address the core issue – his drug addiction. 

So Corrections is also to blame for Graeme Burton. Not once is his entrie blog post does Brooking even touch on teh concept of any individual responsibility resting with the killers or rapists.

As it happens I think more alcohol and drug rehabilitation is a good thing. And as it happens the Government has increased funding for this very significantly.

But let us not fool ourselves. Some criminals can be rehabilitated. Some will go straight if they kick drugs or alcohol. But many will not. They are quite simply nasty self-centered people who have no empathy for others, and choose to inflict pain and misery on others, so long as they get their jollies.

Blaming Corrections for the evil of Wilson and Burton is distasteful, and as I said I find it appalling that not once did Brooking concede any individual culpability at all.

The Herald reports:

A group of global warming sceptics has lost a bid to have temperatures collected by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa), declared invalid.

A High Court ruling released today by Justice Geoffrey Venning said the New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust had not succeeded in any of its challenges against Niwa.

Justice Venning also ruled the trust had to pay Niwa costs and if they could not agree on the amount, he would make a ruling later.

In July the trust, a branch of the NZ Climate Science Coalition, challenged national temperature records in the High Court in Auckland, saying the method used was unscientific.

Records from Niwa showed a national warming trend of almost 1 degree Celsius in the last century.

The figure, which was almost 50 per cent above the global average for the period, was unreliable, the trust says.

The judgement clearly states that NIWA applied “credible scientific methodology”. The court did not decide which methodology was superior, merely that the methodology used by NIWA was reasonable and tenable.

My view is that the mean temperature is increasing, and that human activity is primarily the cause. However The rate of future warming is unknown.

I think my fastest time for a 10/10. Quiz is here. No guesses either.

Phil Kitchin reports at Stuff:

ACC is spending millions of dollars flying doctors around New Zealand to assess long-term clients who have already been assessed by other doctors.

The policy has been slammed by John Miller – one of the country’s top lawyers specialising in ACC legislation – who said the so-called “independence” of some assessors was a sham.

ACC lawyers, advocates and claimant groups know those doctors as “hatchet men and women”, Mr Miller said.

I’m not to keen on the airfares, but I do think there is a place for independent assessors, and in fact if you ask many GPs, they will say they find it useful to have them also.

The reality is that it can be very difficult to ascertain how genuine some injuries such as back pain is. And the local GP can come under huge pressure from patients whom they see on a regular basis to give them the benefit of the doubt. They will often say they doubt the symptoms but can’t prove it.

The independent assessors don’t have to maintain a long-term relationship with the person, so  don’t get pressured so much into giving the benefit of the doubt so to speak.

Now I am sure there are some independent assessors who are too harsh, and there is a danger they get into a mindset of refusing all claims. But I would be very wary about anyone who advocates with doing away with the entire system of independent assessors.

What I would be interested in is data on each assessor (not named) and how often they disagree with the original assessment. That data would show you if some are being too zealous.