Quote of the day

‘‘There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.’’

Edith Wharton

Multilingual NZ

Joel Maxwell’s claim that New Zealanders are monolingual (Letters, June 11) is wrong and racist, because it devalues the many other languages used. It was the same in Germany, when people gushed about my 3-year-old’s command of English and German but disparaged kids who spoke Turkish.

Korean is the second language in Takapuna. Kids in my son’s classes have talked Chinese, Korean, Hindi, German, SwissGerman, Japanese and many other languages. Another son talks Norwegian and Italian. Friends talk Finnish, Estonian, Danish.

My schoolmates 60 years ago talked Polish, Samoan, SerboCroat. Do Niuean, Fijian, Tongan, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Cambodian not count? There are many out there at ease in three or four languages. Friends speak Russian, German and English, Afrikaans and Dutch, Indonesian and Malay.

In the flag debate, commentators had no idea of the insult their clinging to a Royal Navy ensign with a few stars is to those whose forebears suffered under British rule – Irish speakers, for example.

Similarly insulting is the view that Kiwis speak only English (and a few te reo.) Nothing else counts. Maxwell’s ignorance belittles very many of his fellows.

Chris Blackman Richmond, June 14

Begging in Nelson

I have lived in many developing countries, and have had no problem giving money to the poor people begging on the street. I am not sure why I was so shocked when a young man came up to me while I was sitting on one of the benches in Trafalgar St, saying: ‘‘Hello, old lady. You’ve got lots of jewellery (which I don’t – silver earrings, and a few silver bracelets). Hey, I have run out of money. Can you help me?’’

I said no, I couldn’t. I am not sure why I reacted this way, but it was maybe because I felt he had much more financial support available to him than those to whom I had given in other countries – or maybe it was just the way he approached me.

I moved to get up, but he said, ‘‘It’s OK, I’m going now’’.

It is still haunting me. I feel I should have responded the same way as I had in Iran, Indonesia, Tanzania and wherever else I have been.

Funnily enough, later on I remembered that I had no change because I had just given it to the guy busking outside Farmers. Diane Ward

Nelson, June 15

Queen St U-turns

I read with interest the story in Stuff about the near-completion of the Queen St upgrade in Richmond. I had a good chuckle reading Jeff Robinson saying: ‘‘Once the street is open, people shouldn’t be doing U-turns.’’ Of course they shouldn’t – the street is not wide enough for people to turn without going over the non-existent kerb on to the footpath.

I stood in horror and watched a lady U-turn near the new fish and chip shop in lower Queen Street, and the only part of the car on the road was the boot. She quite happily sat there as children got out of the car before she left. She gave me a smile and a wave, as if it was OK to do what she had done.

People are firstly, creatures of habit. If they could fairly comfortably U-turn before the road was narrowed to one lane, they will continue to do so.

Secondly, we are lazy. No-one can be bothered going all the way around the block to face the other way to go in the opposite direction.

Nothing will be done until someone is killed or injured from a person U-turning and hitting someone on the footpath.

No-one is going to take any notice of the narrow road and not U-turn. The cheapest and only way to rectify this problem is to put a ‘‘No U-turn’’ sign up. Such a simple solution that won’t happen until there is a disaster.

Kate Forbes

Richmond, June 19

Peters as acting PM

Little did voters know that when they elected to select the system of MMP, there would come a day when a politician who lost his seat in a recent election and was from a party that had barely 7 per cent support would end up being acting prime minister.

Looking back now, if voters who supported the introduction of MMP could have seen past the ‘‘antiMuldoon’’ climate that prevailed, which got many thinking ‘‘We have to change the way we vote’’, and had gone for one of the other, more stable voting options, then this ludicrous situation would never have happened.

Winston Peters has been in Parliament for 39 years and is well past his use-by date, and he is now pretty much in cruise mode. Up until now, he has spent most of the year out of the country, keeping well below the radar and the flak back home. He, for the next six weeks, leads a Government that is struggling in many areas.

Will we all be very happy to see Jacinda Ardern back in office? I’m picking so. Watch this space. Neville Male

Stoke, June 20

Fiery celebration

With Matariki here again and the Victory Community Centre offering another great show, I got to thinking about the first time we built a bonfire in the Brook Valley and I conducted a ceremony to celebrate the winter solstice.

Back then, we called it the Festival of Fire, for lack of any Maori tradition. I ran the show 11 midwinters in succession, and later it was taken over by others. The idea spread all over the country in various forms, spawning Festivals of Light, of Fire etc.

I was pleased about 20 years later when someone came up with the name Matariki. Most appropriate.

I would like to hear from anyone who was at that first midwinter event in the Brook Valley in 1977 or who joined in the conversation during the summer of 1976 in the Chez Eelco Cafe, where the idea was generated. Any photos or stories of events would help me to compile my history of Matariki. James Chappell Richmond, June 20

Forestry slash

Looking at a Nelson Mail photo of Rabbit Island’s beach covered with ‘‘a small mountain of driftwood’’, I am stunned that residents of Nelson, Motueka and Tasman don’t scream from the rooftops protesting the environmentally destructive forestry practice of clear-fell logging. This image must be mirrored at other beaches in the region.

In addition to this ‘‘coastal pollution’’, the residue of clearfelled forestry barrels unhindered in rainstorms down from desolated hillsides into rivers and to the sea, thundering into bridge supports en route and posing a clear threat to boats on reaching the ocean.

Massive soil runoff into rivers from clear-felled hillsides have, according to a previous Nelson Mail report, resulted in the famous Tasman Bay scallop beds being smothered in ‘‘thick, black anoxic sludge’’ – which also suffocates aquatic life in gravel river beds and buries redds (eggs) laid by spawning trout and other fish.

According to a Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment report, New Zealand loses 200 million to 300 million tonnes of soil to the oceans every year – 10 times faster than the rest of the world.

Yet it appears the new LabourGreens Government has no policy to end clear-fell logging but rather, has announced plans to increase forestry output.

Colin Tayloy

Auckland, June 20

Anti-establishment

It is great to see President Trump insulting the political correctness of the EU and G7, and then establishing a new relationship with North Korea that may bury the threat of a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.

His detractors continue to poke fun at him, not realising that the American people elected this man because they are fed up with the establishment that has benefited only the elites working for the government.

It is a great pity that New Zealand is behind the times, so tolerant of those who run our local councils and central government with only their own interests at heart.

Dan McGuire

Nelson, June 13