It’s Super City Election Time – My Question is Drinking Water

Driving home from the office last night, I saw a couple of guys waving from behind their placards as they do in the time leading up to the elections. I wondered if they felt stupid. I didn’t want to wave or beep the horn because I’d never heard of them before and really didn’t know what they were about. Just a couple of guys with wide grins that looked just like the photos they were standing next to.

I’ve had a little ‘junk mail’ from some of them which don’t tend to say much unless they are on the fringe with a cause and hats off to them for that. One was promoting a futuristic rapid transit system which looked absolutely amazing, something looking like it came straight out of New Scientist. He was a mayoral candidate, can’t remember his name because I figured he didn’t stand a chance anyway.

I just have one question for the Mayoral and other political candidates and that’s about our Auckland drinking water. As you may have noted if you are a reader of my blogs, water is a subject dear to me. I’m basically made of it and what’s in it therefore, makes me.

In a previous blog about Oceanic Dead Zones, I coincidentally touched on the fact that the Metrowater back room handshake between the Auckland Mayors of the day, that Waitakere would get first use of all fresh water from the Auckland rainforest dams and the rest of us would get a percentage of Waikato River water when required.

The plan about the Waikato Water (which Joel Cayford said was unsafe to drink) was that it would only be used at times when the dam levels were insufficient to meet Auckland’s needs. However I believe that because it cost something like $10,000 on maintenance costs every time the sluice was opened that most of the time it now stays open, despite its purpose being only for emergency use.

Now I’d like you to have a look at a couple of photos which I will link to. The first is of Dr David Sinclair and Dr Virginia Hope, showing their faith in filtration by drinking Waikato River water. Damn, the other photo I wanted to show you doesn’t seem to be available on the net, but it was of the French Defense Minister Michael Debre, swimming in the Mururoa Atoll lagoon after a nuclear test, to show how safe it was. Enough on that.

What I want to know from the new candidates in Auckland is what is their policy on having Aucklanders drink Waikato River water? Will Waitakere continue to get a monopoly on their fresh water from the West Auckland dams? Will the dams be better maintained (i.e. make them deeper by removing the silt mountain on the bottom?

With all the rain we have in Auckland, we should have much better than acceptable water quality (I noted a politician, can’t remember who it was in the media recently called it).

Advertisement

They said it would never happen, a Black President

I find myself feeling deeply moved. I am not an American, I am caucasion born in Holland and a New Zealand citizen. This is a day that noone dared believe could ever happen, definitely not in my life. I am watching people on TV with tears in their eyes talking about their lives. Talking about going to places that had 3 toilets, 1 each for men, women and blacks. Talking about how the White House was built by slaves.

I am seeing people of all races and colors crying tears of pride and joy. This is a great day for America and a great day for the world. Barack Obama is President of the United States of America, possibly the most powerful man on the planet.

John McCain really impressed me with his gracious speech, saying that while he was dissapointed that he lost, that this is a victory for America, a victory and demonstration that in America anyone who aspires to, can be anything they want, even President. In the past when people said that, in their hearts they didn’t really dare to believe it was possible. There were several people amongst his supporters who were angry and frustrated. I hope his speech helps diffuse a situation that in some parts of the US, could lead to a backlash.

What is also amazing is that I am sitting in my living room watching Obama as he walks out with his wife and daughters at Grant Park waving to an adoring emotional crowd. I am seeing history as it happens. “They put their hands on the arc of history and bent it the other way a little.”

The blogs are already up and Twitter has been going nuts with people tweeting of their joy and hope for a better America and a better world.

What comes next. Will the McCain States turn their support to Obama and unite America as the most infleuntial democracy in the world? I sure hope so. This is bigger than man on the moon.

If ever there was an example that anyone, anyone can be anything they want to be, this is it. It is a grand salute to those who protested, marched, sang We Shall Overcome, they now have.

And through today’s technolgy, I saw it happen when it happened.

While this blog is starting to get a good following, I would love to get more readers and encouraging me to keep writing. If you feel that my blog is interesting I would be very grateful if you would vote for me in the category of best blog at the NetGuide Web Awards. Note that the form starts each site with www whereas my blog doesn’t and is of course https://luigicappel.wordpress.com.

Thanks so much for your support:)

Election Promises

It’s full on election time, we have had the first debate. One thing that I thought was very cool was that TVNZ ran the debate in conjunction with YouTube. People were invited to record their questions for the leaders of the Labour and National parties on YouTube. The questions and responses, such as this one on Law and Order are also available to view on YouTube which means everyone has easy access to the parts of the

debate they are interested in. Great use of new technology and kudos to TV One.

And the NZ Herald has regular features talking about the different offerings on a topic, from each party. Today’s topics are law and order. I was telling my wife about the Act policy which I like.

Key things I like are that you serve the sentence you are given and 3 strikes and your out. I think this policy is based on the system that made many of the streets in New York safe. The first time I went to New York and wanted to go to the Cotton Club, I was told that taxi’s would take me there before dark, but they wouldn’t come back to pick me up because it was too dangerous in Harlem and taxi drivers were being murdered. In recent years the Zero Tolerence policy has made the area much safer.

They also said that if you are sentenced to 5 years in jail, you should serve 5 years. This is something that we have been asking for for years. The problem is that parties make all these statements, but they have very little credibility because they never seem to follow through. I am thinking that one possibility is using our political system to vote for a party like Act on the party vote to give them the legs to push through one of these policies.

Law and order is an election issue and in my humble opinion Helen Clark and the Labour Party want everybody’s vote and are saying they are against gangs and organized crime, but sympathizing with the reasons people join them. The National Party doesn’t seem to be much better. John Key is saying that he wants to lock up recidivist criminals and will build a new prison to house them. In my humble opinion young gang members who go to jail will add to their ‘mana’ (in simple terms Maori for honor or power) within the gang and will be heroes when they come out. They will be looked after ‘inside’ by their gang family and life won’t be too bad at all.

My wife said, “It’s all very well them saying these things when they want to vote for you, but after the election all the promises go out the window”, well actually she said something more colorful, but she’s pretty much on the mark. How many times have we been conned by politicians, voting for them on the basis of their election promises and then when they get in they have loads of great reasons why they couldn’t go through with it, usually blaming the outgoing parliament.

The addage is that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, a politician will always get in. It’s funny really that at election time we elect people that mostly we don’t trust to keep their promises and give them a mandate to run the biggest organisation, our whole country!

More on Mugabe

I sit here in the comfort of my living room with a coffee and having read the newspaper and being grateful for the good fortune to have been born in a peaceful country and to be living comfortably in another. I read the morning paper online to the news that Mugabe receives welcomes and hugs at an African Summit after the sham of the latest election.

I have met several people from Zimbabwe who have come to New Zealand having lost pretty much everything, who constantly live in fear for friends and family that didn’t have the wherewithall to leave or refused to leave their homes that they spent their lives building. It is impossible to imagine what it is like in Zim right now. Mugabe has engineered another election and is of course the victor. South Africa which fought for the rights of coloured and black people seems to be torn with the fact that Mugabe kicked out white people and that he is now having people beaten, tortured and killed for trying to use their free will.

President Bush and others including our Prime Minister Helen Clark are calling for sanctions. The problem is that weapons supplied to Mugabe’s regime come from China and other countries such as South Africa and they are unlikely to cease this lucratuive trade, although how he manages to pay for them in a country that is essentially bankrupt, beats me. The people of Zimbabwe are worried that they will now be tomorrow’s news and will be forgotten. China has also refused to deny Zimbabwe’s attendance at the Olympic Games, which is understandable having been the subject of boycotts and ‘political intereference’ themselves in the past and they don’t have a great track record when it comes to human rights.

Many people painted their fingers red or deliberately invalidated their votes to avoid voting for Mugabe. There are stories that the Zanu PF were out in force with a project they called ‘Show Me Your Thumb‘ and beating those who hadn’t voted. There are now rumours that voting lists have been obtained by the Zanu PF thugs which will be used to punish those who did not vote for Mugabe.

So what happens next? In my humble opinion, the result of boycotts and sanctions will simply make the situation in ZImbabwe more desperate. More people will die and the country will be washed in rivers of blood followed by disease and starvation while Mugabe languishes in his oppulence. There won’t be much to save before long.

I’ve asked the question before, why do people rush into Iraq to ‘save the people’ and not into Zimbabwe. I know the answer is oil. Come on world, lets not sit back and watch this continue. I challenge the people of the United States, the most powerful country in the world. You, who managed to leave your countries for a better world, who said, “we must not forget” after World War ll. New Zealand, as always will play our part, but we don’t have the might to do more than condemn and send in a few supporting Peace Keepers. We are after all a country smaller than many of your cities. We played our part to bring down Apartheid but this needs worldwide support. This sort of despot should not continue to play his games with the lives of human beings.

Final question. How does he manage to travel the world with impunity? Why is it that an ‘accident’ doesn’t happen to him? Is there a reason that his presence is tolerated? Am I missing something?