Blowin’ in the wind
Universities have produced many great scholars, as well as the genius brains that have brought our education system to its knees. Many of the world’s large cities are choking because of Henry Ford and the internal combustion engine. I don’t light my incinerator unless the wind is right to take smoke away from my neighbour.
I did some scientific reading 50 years ago, and gave up smoking. Cannabis, I believe, can benefit people in great pain and when near death, so doctors should be able to order it for them. However I don’t care what Harvard University or Mary Joint says. Any form of smoke going into the lungs and blood system isn’t what our bodies were designed for.
Teachers all know of very bright and keen pupils who have fallen way below their potential in life because they developed the habit of smoking pot. There will be teachers who attended the funeral of pupils who mentally were given the push by the drug to take their own lives.
You don’t drive the car better after a joint. You aren’t funny or witty, as you think, but pathetic, especially mixed with booze.
If you just have an evening joint while relaxing watching the news at the end of a hard working day you are not doing your lungs any good. Cannabis is often a step taken towards worse drugs and lost lives, prison and death. You can be a smart Member of Parliament, pushing for cannabis to be legal, or saying,” I smoke it and look at me, I’m OK.” I wouldn’t bet on that.
So the gangs are pushing the stuff. We need more law enforcement to deal with that once and for all. So many are abusing booze and drugs in our society, which is costing us billions of dollars as well as the heart break and tears. Could it be that our whole political system has out-lived its use? Lack of real moral education and Trump dinosaurs, overpopulation, environmental crisis! Brains and revised education schemes are needed, not sucking a joint.
For stress, try sitting on the beach or in a patch of peaceful forest. A comfortable garden
chair with a book of oldfashioned poems that rhyme. All better than drugs. I prefer normal date scones with my cuppa. How dull!
OK, then try leaning against a SW gale on Waiwhatawhata Beach and make some shoes for the kids out of bull kelp. Thundering surf and seagulls going backwards. Great air for the lungs. Wonderful and refreshing. To top off the day, read Christ’s words.
SAM McHarg
Kerikeri
less than three months ago, when you featured the last spilled load of logs on the road.
These log spills are becoming more frequent, and shall continue into the future.
As I explained in my last letter, as having experience with many combinations of trucks, trailers, articulators, goose-neck trailers etc., and travelled New Zealand roads in the 1950s/60s, it is not the roads or the vehicles that are at fault, but the driver.
As mentioned in my last letter to you, which was not printed, which I wonder why, as it involved public safety, I therefore state that at no time, either as a result of an accident or not, should the local depart from the vehicle carrying the goods. If they do then it is an insecure load, endangering other road users.
Will it take the life of an innocent road user before these loads of logs are secured with stronger chains or wire ropes?
As an experienced truck and machinery operator, I know that chins always have a weak link, so should never be relied upon for safety, as are wire ropes, having a working rating to size which is well within their breaking strain.
I do believe I have the experience holding licence classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, F, R, T and W having transported many permitted loads over weight, height and width.
There is a photograph of the 152-wheeled unit in the 1960s in