Thought for today

‘‘Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.’’ Jane Austen

Let’s be practical

An article in the Nelson Mail, June 23, titled ‘‘Fund managers wary of Fletcher board’’ opens up an important discussion. In the article there are references to Fletcher’s board being stacked with bankers, lawyers and accountants who lack construction experience. This example not only applies to Fletchers. The same case can be applied to our local council where very few elected representatives have background experience in the high-risk world of construction. Through a feeling of being out of their depth, the usual response is ‘‘get a lawyer’’ who is then asked to make decisions and, likewise, struggles with the complexities associated with today’s construction world.

The solution to both examples of bad decision making is to ensure that councils and big businesses have balanced boards made up of academic and practical people. To ignore what the fund managers are saying will almost certainly see a repeat of out-of-touch management.

A recent quote from Nelson’s Mayor – ‘‘Buildings are an area where council has less experience’’ – is an honest but mild acceptance of why things must change. The culture of stacking boards simply because of academic qualifications will make for a good discussion over the coffee table.

Kerry Neal

Nelson, June 24

Cyclist U-turn needed

Further to Kate Forbes’ letter (Letters, June 23 regarding the dangers of people doing U-turns over the footpaths in Richmond’s Queen St, we should also be very concerned about the many cyclists who insist on biking along the footpaths as if they were cycleways, even now with all of the fences removed. It’s dangerous, completely unnecessary, not to mention illegal. People stepping out of shop doorways, or around corners onto the footpath shouldn’t be at risk of being bowled over by a cyclist. And, if you remind them to get off the footpath and over onto the road, you get an earful of abuse, and they continue on along the footpath regardless.

Are the local police and council going to help us with these issues? Trevor Gately

Richmond, June 24

Clouded judgment

I read with interest your article ‘‘Classroom chaos gets younger’’ (Nelson Mail, front page, June 25). It strikes me that nowhere is there any doubt shown about the correctness of our present policy of mainstreaming everybody. Dr Emma Woodward, from the Auckland Child Psychology Services, blithely dreams her sweet dreams of how ‘‘we develop wellrounded happy, healthy humans’’. She suggests we need ‘‘greater focus . . . on the wellbeing of both students and teachers’’ and, ‘‘more schools needed to be supported to help children learn how to regulate their behaviour, use their strengths well and build resilience’’. Yeah right. Her mind is clouded with ideological illusions, bordering on delusions. Life simply isn’t like that. We are all created different little individuals, whether we like it or not – and nobody, and certainly not a young child, can do much about it.

Ask any teacher in the land about mainstreaming. I know the answer you will get from almost all of them. We simply must learn to draw a line in the sand somewhere and say to a new pupil (and his/her parents), ‘‘Sorry, my little friend, you do not fit into an ordinary classroom – so this year you will have to go to a special class. God knows, perhaps you will develop and improve – after all you are only 6. We will look at you again next year and decide whether you can join an ordinary class then’’.

Andy Espersen

Nelson, June 25

Illuminating idea

I see that Nelson Cathedral is now able to light the Cross in neon colours (Nelson Mail, June 25). How tacky. I wonder if the Cross might be lit in red next Easter to signify a painful and bloody death?

Janice Gill

Nelson, June 25

Catch up, cuz

Joel Maxwell (Nelson Mail, June 25), newly keen on Ma¯ oriness, sees racists everywhere British.

His criticism of the Oxford New Zealand Dictionary rests on feelings, eagerness to feel slighted, and dubious memory.

I’d rather back scholarship and my longer memory. Oxford bases definitions on numerous examples, not feelings. And I remember well the growth of ‘‘bro’’, at first used solely by young Ma¯ ori, not Pa¯ keha¯ .

Bro paralleled other words among Ma¯ ori, equivalents to te reo terms for generational groups such as cuz, aunty, nanny. We Pa¯ keha¯ kids used ‘‘uncle’’ that way. (‘‘We called him uncle, but he’s not my real uncle’’.)

Maxwell should be delighted that another Ma¯ ori usage has become so widespread, and has almost lost the gang connotations it certainly had 35 years ago.

He should rejoice that an English publication accepts the validity of non-UK English and keeps fairly up to date.

It’s linguistic scholarship, Joel mate. Try it some time.

Maxwell, belatedly, is starting to see how languages reflect cultures. That’s good.

Many Kiwis are well ahead of him.

He might stop shouting until he knows more. It’s called growing up. Chris Blackman Richmond, June 26