The Government has conceded that New Zealand has ‘one shot’ at eradicating Mycoplasma bovis.

Across the world eradication of this cattle-borne bacterial illness has never been achieved, making New Zealand’s attempt to do it potentially groundbreaking…

I find this scenario oddly reminiscent of the Government’s past (albeit feeble) attempts at pest and predator ‘eradication’ from New Zealand’s native forests; seems those situations were never deemed sufficiently dire to unveil the ‘one shot’ policy.

…Mycoplasma bovis, which threatens a cow’s milk production along with the health of the animal itself, is not actually detrimental to humans; neither milk nor meat from an infected beast will harm people…

For as long as I can recall DOC have been ‘attempting’ to ‘eradicate’ pests and predators from New Zealand’s native forests to no avail; hiring a few rustic trappers with their ‘humane killing systems’ or attempting a half-hearted poison drop to succeed in merely hampering the existence of wildlife – that is before the eco-warriors find out what’s going on and put a stop to proceedings – seems to be all that ever happens around New Zealand’s native bush-sites meaning the pests and predators continue to thrive, ultimately unchallenged.

…Over the next few years 126,000 cattle are expected to be culled from Kiwi farms, with the Government providing affected farmers with a compensation package of $886 million; still this will leave farmers out of pocket by around $278 million, but with the alternative of an estimated $1.2 billion for disease ‘management’ looking no more auspicious…

Over the years the cost to the New Zealand Government of effectively ‘managing’ its unwanted species has been astronomical; if they had settled on the decision all those years ago that the issue of introduced species ravaging our wildlife could be rectified with a ‘one shot’ attack, they could have executed the sweep with precision and dedication, it would have done its thing, then we could have spent the last decade ‘managing’ our native wildlife, rather than the pests therein.

…The likelihood of eradicating a disease such as M Bovis, given nowhere else in the world has managed to do so, is slim; however if the Government use all their resources and over the next two years take every follow-up precaution necessary, it assuredly can be done…

A ‘one shot’ approach to New Zealand’s pest and predator problem, years ago, would have meant that forests had been temporarily devastated and sure, many varieties of wildlife might have perished throughout the process – but so too would have the pests – and surely the wildlife could have been replaced..?

…Imagine a world with no infection, no disease, no pests, no inimical entities of any kind; New Zealand could have (had) just that.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Mai Coh Plazma

Photography by E Raddy/K Shinn

 

 

Air New Zealand are pleased to announce that a portion of its travellers are volunteering to pay a supplementary fee intended to ‘offset the impact’ of carbon emissions.

Given modern peoples’ assumed understanding of ecology, Global Warming and, by implication, most everything environmental, they are of course aware of the massive volume of exhaust discharge emitted by an aeroplane also the detriment to which this is assuredly subjecting New Zealand’s environment; Air New Zealand has perceived the willingness of their customers to pay them this additional guilt-tax as ‘a step in the right direction’…

Quote from the Air New Zealand website: ‘Air New Zealand is committed to helping customers minimise the impact of their air travel on the environment’; thus in their attempt to achieve this claim Air New Zealand is – net of taxes but reportedly taking no administrative fees at all – using every bit of those customers’ extra funding to purchase ‘carbon offsets’, which are presumably intended to offset the Greenhouse Effect.

…A step in the right direction indeed, as Air New Zealand now has its customers paying more flight-tax than ever before; according to the airline though all funds raised are going towards the ongoing establishment and maintenance of New Zealand’s nature reserves, where thousands of square kilometres of native bush will work to neutralise airborne pollution across the nation and potentially, around the world…

Going back a few years, people who propagated large stands of forestry could apply for something known as ‘carbon credits’, as these vast plantations were seen to be ‘capturers of pollution’ and were therefore working towards mitigating/negating the onset of the Greenhouse Effect.

…Also thinking a few years back, the New Zealand Government made a pledge to ‘significantly reduce its carbon footprint by 2020’ and started planting trees in earnest, in order to meet this target while in the meantime, of course, earning carbon credits for its efforts; then only to discover that it was in fact far quicker and much easier to simply purchase carbon credits from other, already heavily forested nations such as Ukraine and Russia, rendering the Government’s ‘carbon credit scheme’ something of a farce…

Ultimately Air New Zealand customers have no guarantee how their money, the taxation being used to fund their so called carbon offsets, is being used; they have only our eponymous airline’s word that it’s being used for good not evil and ultimately Air New Zealand has no guarantee either that its money, the revenue from the taxation which it is allegedly passing over to New Zealand’s nature reserves, is being properly appropriated by those reserves or more importantly, is having any tangible effect on the state of our environment of which the reserves are a part and which they are supposedly protecting.

…Air New Zealand, the largely New Zealand Government-owned airline, has started encouraging its customers to pay a voluntary tax to cover the cost of the environmental impact caused by the emissions of its aeroplanes…

This is an undoubtedly superb thing that, around the nation, our Government is committed to the propagation of nature reserves for the benefit of nurturing and supporting New Zealand natives, but realistically, do we actually believe that this new concept of ‘carbon offsetting’ is truly advantageous to our environment and that it’s not just another way for our Government to squeeze more tax from hard working Kiwis while improving its own image in the face of World Climate Change?

…Air New Zealand is committed to helping customers minimise the impact of their air travel on the environment; yet it is unwilling to absorb any of, thus appears to have zero compunction in passing on, the environmental cost from the effects of its planes’ pollution.

Still I’m undecided whether the above script ought to be categorised as Political, Ecological, or Financial.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Flynn Haer

Photography by N Vie Ron-Cost

 

 

 

 

There is an intrinsic element within the human psyche which often prevents someone from perceiving another’s success with anything but resentment.

This natural form of competitiveness can be traced back to Man’s beginnings; in that time if someone was deemed inferior to somebody else, that someone might just struggle for survival…

It would be hopeful to find that people have evolved since the petty squabbling and territorial pissings of Prehistoric Man; our frontal lobes are now prominent, they’re more active, and are therefore, supposedly, more rational than ever, after all.

…Thus inspired Primitive Man’s quest to be the best, to be the strongest and by implication – also as time has gone on – to be begrudging of all other attempts at success…

Seemingly, in 21^st century New Zealand we have so little going on in our own worlds that, for many of us, our primary source of enjoyment is the belittling, the undermining of other people’s worlds; today when somebody steps forward to offer their opinion/insight, irrespective how well thought out and worded or even accurate that statement may be, another will stand up to invariably mock/ridicule the suggestion.

…The ‘Alpha Male’, while originally a term given to the dominant lion among a pride of lionesses, is a premise which today is still very much in effect; take a group of young men, mingle in half that number of women, add just enough alcohol to inflame and befuddle the senses while maintaining reasonable cognition then watch as, with their underdeveloped frontal lobes overcome with testosterone thus primal instinct, they discover among themselves which is the Alpha…

In this time of online commentary it has become so very easy for someone to shoot down someone else’s idea; then also given how this can be done anonymously, meaning that the gutless derider behind the insult need never actually reveal his/her identity, it has opened up a new world for the kinds of pathetic human who thrive on the elevation channelled through the act of bringing down another – cretins who target someone vulnerable, someone who is having a genuine go at something different then, from the comfort, anonymity and risk-free safety of their home they disparage, they denigrate, they demean to their cruel heart’s content.

…Whether it’s a controlling/dominating sibling/relative, an assertive/opressive partner/spouse, or just that bumptious pillock who believes he is the most important person in the world and plays an indispensable role because he affects the outcome of everything in everybody’s life as well as that of his own, but who really just suffers Narcissistic Personality Disorder…

I used to do a ‘Caption This’ section on The Rock FM website, where you’d take a look at a humorous photo before leaving an appropriate caption, to potentially be ‘ranked’ (in the form of a ‘Thumbs Up’ or ‘Thumbs Down’) by other Rock website-goers; many of the entries were silly, some were clever, and a few were brilliant (of course I never bothered to ‘say’ as much, as my own attempt usually fell somewhere in between), yet each week after the first few captions had gone up, along with a few sensible rankings, somebody, for some reason, would run through and administer a spate of ‘Thumbs Down’ feedback.

…Although we’re only small, New Zealand comprises a populous of ambitious, tenacious, and generally driven people, with many Kiwis constantly aspiring to be superior to one another; although in order to be better, somebody must therefore be worse and in order to be elevated, the belief is thus one must be downtrodden…

After more captions had been posted on The Rock website, suddenly another wave of ‘Thumbs Down’ comments were given, and this was when I began to notice a pattern; each time a wave of ‘Thumbs Down’ comments went through, there was always just one who was given a ‘Thumbs Up’ suggesting that for each new caption submitted, the aforementioned author was giving himself (yeah, ‘himself’, obviously, because this is such a bloody male thing to do) a ‘Thumbs Up’, while giving every other person a ‘Thumbs Down’ which, am I alone in finding that utterly juvenile?

…In a perfect world (of which this most certainly is not) somebody could experience personal elevation without feeling the need to bring down someone else; as stated though, this world is far from perfect as it seems the best we can do is perhaps a 50/50 Ecstatic/Dejected ratio, which is a really daft plan of existence to maintain…

A major problem is that (and I have had recent experience with an example of just this scenario) most Narcissistic Personalities, much as they are striving to elevate, become so invested in themselves they are actually unaware that their impending grandeur (which these guys do actually need to survive so perhaps try to cut them a break) is often coming at the expense of the happiness of others; although given that Narcissistic Personalities tend not to accept or believe that anything they do could ever be wrong, it’s likely that even if they did realise they were harming others they would soon find a way to justify their actions to themselves until they felt at ease, because that’s what narcissists do.

…An equally daft way to be is just plain nasty, but this is the way for a portion of younger people; for whatever reason – upbringing, lifestyle, personal hardship, health (incidentally digestive/bowel health plays a significant part in youthful mood and I would be delighted to elaborate on this #wearekillingourkidswithantibiotics alas, #homemadehashtag that’s a story for another time) or other negative situation a child may face – the ability to look upon a new face with an empathetic approach is simply beyond these creatures’ abilities, hence their often debilitating, ‘pull down, leg up’ strategy…

Haters, generally, are created, they’re not born; while haters will always do what they can to bring us down, it’s up to us to stand fast and be the bigger person.

…Haters are naturally Negative looking to become Positive; so you just have to use your naturally sourced Positive to overcome their bought of terminal Negative.

‘Terminal’ because too much negativity will kill a person.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Haytuss R Wurthles

Photography by B Kim Postiff

 

There has been a recent increase in the prevalence of oxymoronic Kiwis who choose to practice their operations outside the bounds of established society/government/law.

In fact it’s far from an exclusively New Zealand-based issue; idiots around the world have been exploiting this grotesque human paradox for a long while…

Oxymoronic because, as much as they might consider themselves ‘outcasts’, ‘rebels’, ‘free-thinkers’ (or in other cases, ‘budding entrepreneurs who do what we want when we want without no control from no Po-lice no how’) who go to serious lengths to avoid the constriction of official influence, of course when things go bad for them they are only too keen to come running back to the comparative shelter and safety of our Government-controlled society.

…In many places in the US gangs believe they control the streets; walking proudly among their cohort, disrespecting authority, pervading intimidation, demanding respect – until they encounter a situation they cannot handle alone…

A few years’ ago in New Zealand ‘car surfing’ – where a car’s passenger positions themselves  on the roof as the car is being driven at speed (and of course captures the entire ordeal on camera for a surfer’s shot at fame, glory and instant popularity), often while yelling profanity or hurling disdain at authority – made it’s official entry on our streets. The punishment for such an act of recklessness is loss of licence, demerit points, possible impounding of vehicle and/or a fine of up to $3000 yet, “Why can’t we do it?” comes the indignant query from one such apprehended surfer, “’snot like we’re hurting anyone … Yeah, and we’re only gonna hurt ourselves, anyway..?”

…For example, in an eruption of gang warfare Police will likely become involved, if only to ensure minimal fatalities, and much as this might not be welcomed by those engaged in the violence, assuredly welcome will be the paramedic and ensuing hospital care that the injured gang members will receive, as well as the (also Government funded) rehabilitation process they might then require…

In the event that a car surfer does become injured, despite only moments earlier shirking the need for authority thereby effectively relinquishing their dependence on the Government, they will undoubtedly have no issue limping to their nearest ACC office to capitalise on New Zealand’s First World Nation goodwill.

…Or other groups who make their living through illicit practises, who do what they can to avoid paying Government-imposed income tax, thus realistically ought not to be entitled to any of societies benefits which are ultimately paid for by taxes, yet who, for example, despite spending a lifetime avoiding authority, when they step out of their Government-allocated State House to pick up their children from the bus stop, to later find that one such child has been improperly treated by a teacher – thus obviously requiring the Police (Government) to be called upon to come and inspect that school (Government) and to ensure the child is indeed receiving a proper education (Government) yet when the parents (Liabilities) push their complaints further – ensure that, through that public school’s own code of conduct and the proper channels of law enforcement, the teacher in question is promptly dismissed…

People riding bikes without helmets, going out in boats without lifejackets, riding in a car without a seatbelt, or texting while driving; it’s all the same thing – the Government tells you not to do it, of course you ignore the Government’s pleas, until you are injured doing the exact thing the Government told you not to do because you might get injured – now you run crying to the Government for support.

…Whatever the country the theme appears the same: idiots who make a point of avoiding authority figures, who think they can manage on their own – dismissing regulations, spurning society, flouting laws, condemning the Government and such – until they need help and still believe that they are entitled to receive it…

Everybody needs help at some stage and whether it’s Police, Education, Health or Injury related, it’s all ultimately the Government and they will always come to the rescue.

…Therefore, save yourself some embarrassment, stop being a dick, grow up, pull your head in and realise that the reason you’re being told to not do it, much as it is probably intended to prevent unnecessary Government expenditure through employing the gamut of government services to save your arse, is generally for your own benefit.

Work with them and they’ll work with you.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Ida Yacht

Photography by Ian Jury