Ill advised

In claiming ‘‘Stoke’s ready and waiting’’ (Nelson Mail, August 19), mayor Reese misrepresents the many residents of Stoke who, like myself, attended a so-called public consultation on the proposed Stoke Centre, and are strongly opposed to her development proposal.

I say ‘‘so-called’’ public consultation because we learned later in the media the decision had already been made by the council and drawings prepared, before that particular public meeting was held.

The mad rush now to proceed at whatever cost to the ratepayers, I view as a ‘‘let’s get this started while we’re still in office" strategy.

Other residents of Nelson should be aware many Stoke residents see the proposal as illadvised in a location which is not appropriate.

Whose agenda is driving this project which has already spent an excessive amount of ratepayer money before any building has commenced? Du Fresne actually think the War on Drugs is working? Well, obviously, changing the once legal drug, cannabis, into an illegal substance is ineffective, as we are known to be the highest consumers of cannabis in the OECD.

So why carry on dealing with cannabis users as a criminal offence instead of a health issue?

The recent NZ Drug Foundation survey [Nelson Mail, August 16 ] showed a clear majority want to see cannabis law reform, especially for medicinal cannabis.

Recent information from Treasury reveals that over $400,000,000 could be saved if we did not spend this amount policing and incarcerating cannabis users. It is curious that New Zealand was pushed into the War on Drugs by the Americans, and now the Americans have legalised cannabis in many states with positive results.

Do we have to wait for the Americans to invite us to relegalise cannabis?

It would be best if we could be a real democracy and our government meet the needs and desires of the people, who clearly want a more compassionate and logical approach to cannabis. I’m about to bite the media hand that feeds me by admitting that I don’t read newspapers. Nor do I watch TV or listen to radio. I do read the occasional magazine but almost never a New Zealandpublished one. The result is that I live within a self-imposed news ghetto. For example, my sports news blackout is so complete that the Olympics were almost over before I accidentally discovered – through an overheard conversation – that the games were happening this year, and taking place in Rio de Janeiro.

Even I was a little shocked at this. There’s an argument to be made about how an informed citizenry is necessary for a true democracy, and the importance of the press and its impartiality in keeping that citizenry informed, even if it’s only about a sporting fixture. I never have been much of a news junkie, but there was a time when I watched the TV news, and settling down with the New Zealand Herald was a muchanticipated Saturday morning ritual. I’m not sure exactly when the mainstream media and I parted company. But I do know why. It was an act of selfpreservation. I wouldn’t go quite so far as Oscar Wilde who in comparing the press to the rack, declared it ‘‘an improvement certainly. But still … very bad, and wrong, and demoralising.’’ However, I gradually came to feel that all the news that’s fit to print isn’t necessarily good for the soul.

I found it impossible to pick up a newspaper, or to watch TV without feeling maddened by the unending torrent of data divorced from explanation and context, and infuriated by how seamlessly PR and advertising was woven into it. Particularly when I knew that intelligent, informed and capable journalists in shrinking newsrooms would have written more considered, betterresearched news stories if only they had been resourced to do so. Magazines infuriated me too as they increasing looked, and read like sales catalogues full of ‘‘Top Buys’’ or ‘‘The latest pieces in fashion, furniture and products to covet’’, and ‘‘fabulous selections of new, natural, local and ecofriendly goodies to buy!’’

Eventually I felt very much like the wispy, big-nosed character in one of Leunig’s tragi-comic cartoons sitting limply in front of his TV set. In quick succession the TV exhorts him to ‘‘Laugh’’, ‘‘Be Angry’’, ‘‘Feel Good’’ and finally to ‘‘Be Horrified and Anxious.’’ Then it commends him for his obedience, ‘‘Well done’’ the TV croons ominously, ‘‘This is all part of the new fascism. You’re in it up to your neck’’ before soothingly assuring him that it has only been a joke after all, ‘‘You’re a free man. Everything is OK. Stay tuned.’’ I chose to tune out, from a kind of despair and a hunger for something better, on subjects I was actually interested in.

But I didn’t simply stick my head ostrich-like into the sand.

Thanks to the Internet, I have, like many others the world over, simply found a different, more conducive stretch of sand to play in: cyberspace.

The problem is of course that although I may have enlarged my world, I also risk carving out an idiosyncratic little groove for myself which feels very comfortable because it only includes what I’m interested in and feel comfortable with.

Over time, if I wear that groove deeper and deeper, I might begin to believe that the whole world is just like me, becoming in the process less anchored in the real world around me, and more anchored in a virtual world created in my own image.

My little groove is pretty harmless place. But racists, Jihadists, and school yard shooters have created dark and airless grooves where other world views never penetrate.

In some respects, the magazine industry is like the internet these days, publishing titles appealing to tiny niche readerships.

Even a shop as modest in size as our own Page and Blackmore stocks a staggering 2670 magazine titles over a twelve-month period, including magazines targeted at fans of submarines, fairies, and model railway gardens. I’ve got an idea for a new magazine called ‘‘The Bluffer’’.

It will be a witty and entertaining little rag designed for people like me who don’t give a damn about sport, but who need to make the occasional devastatingly brilliant remark about the latest All Black game, or the next Olympiad.