Public Address - Club Politique (Home)

You gotta wonder | May 15, 2006 20:44

The announcement that a bunch of New Zealanders are a bit on the cuddly side should hardly be surprising. As reader Tony mentioned to me a wee while back, the application of the label 'obesity epidemic' is just using a fancy medical term to justify 'letting yourself go'.

Ok, so Tony actually had a little rant. But I laughed because it is very true. His main suggestion for not getting too broad in the beam was to sidle up to a really large person in the supermarket, and glance in their trolley. Whatever they have in there, don't buy it.

Now that is a very simple suggestion for those of us who are worried about the puku turning into a small mountain of lard.

The far more complex suggestion, and the one I alluded to in this post, and which I heard suggested by some wowser on the telly, is to get the gubbermint to sort it out.

People... for christssakes... Aunty Helen cannot hold your hand forever. Sooner or later you're going to have to get that great fat arse of the couch and... dare I say it... get the fuck out of the house... and go for a walk. It's not difficult. Really. If two year olds can do it, so can you. Usually it involves just kind of putting one gigantic chubby foot down on the ground. Then, you lift the other hoof and put it down out in front of the first one. Repeat with the first. Before you know it you'll we wedging that spacious tookus through the front door and into the fresh air.

Next, walk to the nearest greengrocer and buy an apple. Just one. Then walk home. Do not, repeat, do not stop at the Dairy for a Trumpet, a bag of Eskimos or a Toppa. Tomorrow, do the same thing again.

Because I'm a man who doesn't just do the talking I can reveal that my solution to the need to get out and about, wandering into stores and pricing electronics I can't actually afford, has the people at the local Harvey Norman thinking I'm a well(ish)-dressed bum. One day I'll buy that damn speaker set. In the meantime though, the all-too-frequent visits are stopping all that duck I ingest from making me waddle.

But seriously, 'The State' cannot regulate to prevent people getting tubby. While I agree that there is some mighty exploitative advertising out there, and that kids do eat too much fat and sugar for their own good, having regulations in place to do the thinking for people is just too much. When it boils down to it, no one is tying you to the couch and stuffing crap in your mouth. If they are... seek help.

Another alternative is to become a journalist. Especially when you attend a gala event, which apparently has a "wonderful three course meal", you are likely to only be fed cheese and crackers. Sure-fire way to lose weight there I reckon. Strangely enough though, I don't actually remember any media coverage of said gala event. Did I miss something?

Journo's aeh? Who needs those nosey parkers who take all those self-aggrandising things you say and you know, publicise them, for free?

Finally, if like me you've never really trusted mobile phones then you'll be even more worried by this story. I heard one of those 'way-out' and 'disproven' theories a few years back that mobiles phones will cause cancer if used heavily, but I've never heard any evidence that convinced me either way. But it seems that people continue to seriously consider the issue.

It's one of those stories that seem to produce different outcomes dependent on who you're talking to. But, it's not as crazy as this theory I uncovered while Googling the subject.

The Melbourne Age story linked to above has seven staff members developing brain tumours, the apparent link between them being exposure to mobile phone towers on the roof of their building. Phones themselves don't put out as much juice as a tower, but it will be interesting to see if the link between the mobile frequencies and the illness is established anything like conclusively. Especially when the conspiracy theorists have been claiming for years that phones are a danger.

As they say, ma te wā.

PS. How could I forget! To all those people leaving Godzone for the fair shores of Australia. Bloody good on you. Seriously. The whole situation sounds a lot like the unhappy days of Muldoon, but I'm guessing that today there's probably a lot more South Africans and Britons splitting now they've got their New Zealand citizenship.

For those of you who've forgotten, during the First ACT Government (1987-1990), we installed this miraculous thing called 'the Market'. What this thing 'does' is ensure that things are paid for at their 'current going [read: 'Market'] rate', without state intervention. Now, theoretically, 'the Market' causes salaries to rise when 'demand' is high.

So to all you skilled workers pissing off to Australia, I thank you, and my credit card thanks you.

And to all those kicking up a big fuss, I guess you've already made your money. Please be quiet then and let the rest of us get rich. I'm sure actual Kiwis will come home again when salaries, and especially wages, rise to something worth enduring the shitty weather.

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Pit Bull Terriers | May 09, 2006 20:29

Let's get one thing straight here. No disrespect to the members of the Māori Party, but they are not the representatives of Māori. Without question they are Māori representatives, but they are no more the Māori representatives than Don Brash or Helen Clark are the representatives of mainstream New Zealand.

This is a small distinction that seems to be constantly lost in Treaty debate, here in Aotearoa. A question I've been pondering for awhile now is, why is there an onus placed on Māori to produce a single voice? And further to this question, why do white rednecks always think that there is only "one Māori culture"?

By definition a 'culture' does not present a unified face. Any culture is a mixture of all kinds of overlaid ideas, values, mores and issues. Furthermore, no culture is 'static'. Again this is impossible. Not only do cultures constantly change within themselves, but as soon as you expose them to almost any other culture, they change in response.

This isn't rocket science. Your culture, whatever it is, is constantly under change at variable speeds. Sometimes that change is very slow, for instance when the leadership within the culture is both entrenched and very conservative or 'traditional' (and discourages change or enforces conformity). Sometimes that change is very fast, for instance in the case of Māori post-1800.

Here's an example. In my te reo class (I'm walking the walk) I learnt last week that Māori is a bit like the Romance languages. Then you're addressing someone, or talking about something, the 'o' or 'a' used in particular part of a sentence will change. I've embarrassingly left my notes behind, but as I remember it the words 'tōku' and 'tāku' both indicate belonging, as in "Ko Che tōku ingoa' (My name is Che).

The difference between the two is in their usage. In French for example, 'La' denotes a feminine noun, 'Le' a masculine. In Māori though, 'tōku' can indicate a superior relationship, 'tāku' an inferior. The kicker, the one that would put the spin in the tail of our stronger sisters, is normally I'd use 'tāku' when referring to a woman, so "Ko Marian tāku wahine" could be translated as "Marian is my woman".

That usage of 'tāku' when referring to women is common to most iwi. Except Ngāti Porou that is. There, everyone uses 'tōku'. And why? Because no one pushes Ngāti Porou women around, and they're proud of it.

Refering to 'sexism in Māori culture' in shorthand is a bit like saying that the Māori Party represents all of Māori society. It is both right and wrong. And therein lies the problem. I think I'll be having a little trouble expressing things as well as Phil here, who really takes the condescending white women to task. I particularly like the bit where he points out that to stand and respond to the challenge laid down is exactly the right thing to do, not to run off bleating to the media with a monocultural axe to grind.

And it's a bit of a line I've heard run in different forums this week. It usually goes, "why are white women the only ones bitching about this?" I'd add, how about spending a little more time insisting that white menfolk spend more time doing their own cooking, or cleaning their own toilets, and less time complaining about things you don't really 'get'?

You'd think that people would learn that bashing a culture you don't really understand is really just preaching to the converted?

There are at least a couple of well-known stories I've heard about Ngāti Porou women being asked to sit down in. And they refused. They stood up to the men and explained to them in no uncertain terms, and in a language they understand, that they had the right to stand.

What we have there is an instance of cultural change. Māori are not partaking of a 'stone age' culture, as Dr. Bassett seems to state, but are part of an evolving culture still assimilating globalised mores. When you start talking about feminism, you're referring to a concept only grudgingly made mainstream as few as thirty years ago. Using it as a stick to justify petulance and a lack of understanding is petty, churlish, and childish.

Once again, you can't assume that all of Māori society and social protocol is sexist just because the women sit in the back. As Phil points out, women play key roles in traditional ceremonies, and I'd add to that that anyone whose total exposure to Māori society is likely to be watching 'Once Were Warriors' is not the right person to be commenting on how a diverse Māori society and culture advances.

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