La La Land

During the last 2000 years the world population growth was slow or stationary, until the 18th century, where science improved living conditions and people started to live longer. If you are in your 80s the world population has more than trebled since you were born.

From one billion to over seven and a half billion in 200 years approximately, and rapidly heading for eight billion.

Victorian age politics are long gone, but some still cling to a Right Wing conservative past, while others try to hang on to the ultra Left Wing unions rule comrade failed systems.

The mighty United States, with all its wealth, is developing huge financial and environmental problems. Some nations are unable to feed their populations, or to care for them. Armament manufacturing is the big earner in some nations. It is obvious that democracy is on the slide in many parts of the world.

A much blessed little New Zealand plies its exports of mainly healthy food to increasingly disturbed fluctuating markets. Tourists come to enjoy breathing our air in peaceful, secure surroundings.

I fear many of our youth and others live in the La La world of television, drugs and ignorance thanks to successive governments taking education out of the hands of qualified, successful classroom teachers. Politicians toe the party line while the present world requires them to all sit down and cooperate using present day facts and conditions impartially for the benefit of the infrastructure and services people need. Childish political point-scoring belongs to the past. Listening to question time in the House of Parliament, I’m not optimistic about an improvement.

SAM McHarg

Kerikeri

the sand in the rubbish bag. Better landfill than what they use.

Or we can use the sand to build an island where the Westminster system is not allowed. The Westminster system is all about kleptocracy, continued theft by servants, all trying to get above their station in life.

Anything old becomes antique or junk. The Westminster system belongs in the junk pile. It’s all about the erosion of human rights, human values, human dignity.

Society is only as good as its worst. We didn’t stand a chance from the beginning, they need criminals. It’s part of their makeup. One of the first things they did in Auckland was build Mt Eden prison.

The Treaty is a gravy train because the Westminster System takes all the meat and

veges. Plastic bags, send them back to the manufacturer. It is their problem.

If sand was worth one cent a grain we would all be zillionaires, with no erosion, just rock. Funny isn’t it? Money, money, money, it’s a sick man’s world.

A sense of humour is a necessity in this world. If you believe everything you read and hear, you are an idiot. If the cap fits, wear it, which means if you think you are an idiot, you are an idiot. Doesn’t matter what I say. We think what we think. I think it’s all hypocrisy.

KTJ HOWEATH

Kaitaia cricket cheats, comes another strange story. A review commissioned by the previous prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, looked at whether faith-based schools could expel gay students and sack gay staff.

One of the ideas was that they couldn’t be expelled unless they were sexually active — in a gay relationship, although when I went through a Catholic school last century students weren’t meant to be sexually active at all. This thinking belongs back in the last century.

This review has been roundly condemned by most sensible people, including religious leaders, but is still being discussed in the media.

There was a time when our morality and what was right could be summed up in 10 sentences, or ‘Commands’, but