Childhood survived

When I was young we went through the childhood diseases one by one. The thing I loved best, it meant time out of school so I could spend time with my mother. The one I remember most was whooping cough, because some of us vomited and some of us didn't.

When our children were young we lived in Golden Bay, in Tui Community. We were 20 children and 20 adults, and we all chose not to vaccinate. They all sailed through without any adverse reactions.

My grandmother died of polio. What my father remembered most was that she smacked him on the day she translated, for misbehaving in school. In later

years we were given a polio drink at school, which was later revealed was contaminated.

Vaccinations have now been given for several generations. In my 55 years of observations, I see immune systems in children getting weaker and weaker. If you choose to vaccinate, give your baby vitamin C for at least two weeks before and two weeks after. This will help strengthen the immune system.

Dr Archie Kalokerinos worked with indigenous Australians and their babies in the 1970s. He could not

understand why every second baby was dying, until he discovered the government had started a vaccination campaign. The good doctor was ridiculed, and met with hostility from his medical colleagues.

Remember, too, to never trust big drug companies, because at the end of the day profit is their motive.

TRISH MONAHAN

Kerikeri

will try to undermine the plan of several local councils to control such dangerous experiments more than is done by the EPA, whose statute (the HaSNO Act) allows little better than expensive rubber stamps.

In the depraved tradition of the Eichelbaum travesty (a fake royal commission), EPA, like its predecessor, ERMA, has permitted almost every genejiggering experiment proposed. We need guarantees which the HaSNO Act does not require,

such as proof of financial resources for compensation in the event of a disaster (no matter how improbable it had been alleged to be), with a major bond up front.

But of course compo after harm is no substitute for the duty of councils to protect their citizens and habitats from uncontrollable, irreversible damage.

The notion that the HSNO Act constitutes an exclusive code preventing local government from doing its duty is a mischievous lie, exposed by several top lawyers' opinions. The Crown Law Office's attempt to perpetuate this lie should be a scandal. Councils have not merely the right, but actually the duty to act protectively.

Citizens should press their councillors unceasingly for assurances that prevention will be their watchword rather than craven complicity in EPA corruption.

ROBERT MANN Tarihunga Point next election, scheming to divide the nation’s voters into rural versus urban, road versus rail, organic versus GE and climate change alarmists versus climate change deniers.

They’re the same pale blue and yellow elfish folk who loudly proclaim we are all ‘one people,’ all New Zealanders, while they accuse Ma¯ ori, lefties, socialists and cultural Marxists of dividing people racially.

The figurehead on the prow of their good ship ‘Endeavour’ is Dr Muriel Newman, brandishing her caustic pen.

In ‘Mother Nature rules our planet’ (September 5) Muriel goes full-blown, rabid climate change denier, summoning every argument in the populist arsenal. “We shall carry on regardless,” trumpets she, “the planet will take care of itself.”

It’s the very same thinking that’s got us here: the irrational notion we can continue pillaging the planet and overreaching the biosphere because Mother Nature, our environment, is not part of the 1950s ‘Catholic’ economic godhead Muriel Newman pays obeisance to, the ‘flow of money’ model, a mechanical, selfcontained system.

No mention of the living world upon which all of this depends.

As 21st Century economist Kate Raworth explains in ‘Doughnut Economics,’ it’s actually a flow of energy, not money, and there’s three other essential, willfully overlooked ingredients: the unpaid care economy or parenthood, neighbourliness and citizenship: the collaborative commons, from swaps through timebanks to Wikipedia; and the coagulation of wealth and power, like a fatberg in money flow’s moral sewerage scheme.

Our wellbeing depends on each one of us having the resources to access our human rights to food, shelter, clothing, health, education, energy, relationship and potential self-actualisation.

And “our wellbeing depends on this lady, our planetary home.”

WALLY HICKS

Kohukohu already have decent infrastructure — not so the BOI.

Not one Mayor over the past 12 years has made planning a top priority, and as a result, we BOI ratepayers are paying through the nose in the form of traffic gridlock, inability to expand because of delays in providing a decent sewerage system, and costly consenting delays.

We need a Mayor who will see to it that the rule book is re-written, so that when councillors speak out they are not threatened with legal action by the

executive.

We are paying dearly for voting for candidates whose names we simply recognise but know nothing about. The least we can do is do our homework before we vote, otherwise we will end up with the same old, same old.

JILL SMITH

Kerikeri generation. He lit a few fires and empires rose and fell, but it wasn't until a few centuries ago his population started to explode.

He nutted out coal-fired machinery, built ships, factories, trains, then discovered oil and started to put into the atmosphere increasing amounts of pollution. He increased his population rapidly, cutting and burning forests, polluting seas and rivers in the quest for more wealth. Don't forget it was a Kiwi scientist who split the atom.

The Earth is surrounded with clappedout satellites. Old people remember how nature was, and note the steep decline of bird and animal life and quality of water in lakes, rivers and at our beaches. Polluted city air. For every action there is a reaction, and climate change is the resulting effect of 7.5 billion humans’ abuse of the finite environment. FLINTSTONE

Kerikeri their status being promoted internationally by the media.

Second, in their historical records they are careful to avoid incidents that may offend Ma¯ ori. Michael King suggested that cannibalism was virtually nonexistent, when in fact it was endemic. The 4000 casualties of the Land Wars are set for an annual commemoration, while the 50,000 slaughtered in the pre-Treaty Musket Wars are not mentioned.

Third, in reportage of conflict between Ma¯ ori and the colonial government, the official publications resort mainly to Ma¯ ori oral accounts, while the colonial government's records are largely ignored or disparaged. No comparative reportage of the benefits of colonisation to Ma¯ ori are stated. Sir Apirana Ngata observed: “But for the sovereignty handed to Her Majesty I doubt there would be a free Ma¯ ori race in New Zealand today.” Mention of this by the historians? Nil.

Fourth, their lack of objectivity gives support to Treaty revisionists to introduce such erroneous terms as Treaty principles and suggested partnership with the Crown, which are accepted by many of the naive and gullible public.

Fifth, they have gained the support of most of the media so that opinions challenging their claims are seldom published.

Sixth, a large number of politically motivated academics and left-leaning members of the judiciary and education, supported by government patronage, have given them unquestioning public acceptance.

Seventh, they seem incapable of presenting full and accurate reportage of history.

Finally, they lack introspection and professional integrity.

Historians should be judged not just for what they say but also for what they choose not to say.

When the recently retired Race Relations Commissioner, Susan Devoy, relying on an historical claim by Vincent O'Malley of an action between colonial militia and Tainui Kingite rebels at Rangioawhia, made a defamatory and false statement on Waitangi Day, her justification was, “Well, history is often contentious and debatable.” Wrong! History is fact. It should be unembellished, unadorned, unromanticised.

O'Malley's version of the Rangioawhia action was fully reported in the ‘Listener,’ but a contrary, historically verified version of the event by historian Bruce Moon was refused publication. Free speech?

BRYAN JOHNSON

Omokoroa