Allah Needs a New Publicist

Before writing this, and before anyone issues a fatwah on me (if they haven't already), let me restate my religous beliefs. I believe in God, Allah and Buddha and suspect they may all be one entity. I also believe in the Maori pantheon of Gods and demi-gods and think that the parties in Valhalla sound pretty good so I'll vote for Odin and his battle buddies too. I don't believe in Santa or the Easter Bunny (tho I've played the latter) but would fight for anyone else's right to believe in them or anything else.

What I do not believe in is the use of any religion or belief as a means of power and control and the monotheistic flavors seem to have this in common. I have friends of all faiths and respect their choices and value our discussions of the similarities and differences. But my basic ethos is probably closest to the Hippocratic oath (basically, "First do no harm")
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=20909 or Isaac Asimov's First Law of Robotics in human terms ("A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm").

Christians who follow Christ's teaching ("Love one another") are wondrous and deserve to sit at God's right hand. Those whom I term "Sunday Christians," who attend church religiously or teach Sunday School while lying and cheating the remainder of the week, deserve their own special limbo.

I don't know Islam so well but have lived in many Islamic countries, have many Muslim friends and know enough about the Koran to understand that it is misused by fundamentalists in the same way the Bible has been misused throughout history. I also know, from my time in Jakarta, Indonesia, that the majority of Muslims are rational, reasonable beings BUT they are sometimes (often?) afraid to publicly denounce the idiocy of fundamentalism in the fear of being thought "not Muslim enough."

Apologies to my Jewish friends that I know so little of your faith. I was 17 before I even realized there were any Jews in Aotearoa. Josh, can you and I sit down over a good bottle of wine someday soon (I recommend a Central Otago Pinot Noir, I'll put a bottle of 8 Ranges in my travel case) and you can school me in all things Jewlike (and why Timo thinks Jews aren't cool).

That being said, this article makes me think that Allah definitely needs a new publicist: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/world/151143/tv-exec-jailed-beheading-wife

Particularly note this passage:

"Hassan, who killed his wife inside the offices of the Muslim-oriented television station the Pakistan-born couple started to dispel negative cultural stereotypes . . ."

Hmmm, that might count as a failed mission, methinks.

The Road Has No Name

Review of Allen Hall Lunchtime Theatre
"The Road Has No Name"
Written and directed by Feather Shaw
March 11, 2011

Wow! The first Allen Hall Lunchtime Theatre has set the bar high for the year.

(For those not in the know, Allen Hall is the theatre at my alma mater, the University of Otago, in Dunedin, Aotearoa. Each Thursday and Friday from 1 p.m., plays written, directed and teched by students are presented at a minimal cost. Actors are usually students but sometimes a stranger will be brought in. They often end up staying. I have many fond memories of that theatre, most of which were spent rigging and operating lights and sound.)

I was fortunate to be in Dunedin and in the city on Friday so made my way to Allen Hall, and was blown away. I remember some exceptional plays during my time with Theatre Studies. I also, while typing this, remember the first show of my own first Allen Hall year, which also took people’s breaths away (the play, not my year). I suspect the inaugural plays are chosen to lead the pack for that very reason.

“The Road Has No Name,” written and directed by Emma “Feather” Shaw, was simply brilliant. The tale of two young female hitch-hikers picked up by an opinionated farmer had the audience roaring with laughter while they cringed at his rants. Shaw’s farmer, played by Luke Agnew, is anything but PC. But his brash character, fluctuating between caring good guy and angry everyman (tho perhaps more foul-mouthed than most), was strangely loveable. Everything seemed equal in his eyes, from “fucking Maoris” through “fucking bitches” and “fucking queer cunts” to the “fucking cheesecake” he needed to pick up for his brother’s wife (“a fucking ugly bitch”). Well done, Luke!

Rachel Foerg and Alex Ross played the hitchers wonderfully, their separate reactions as cars passed them by our introduction to the action. They join the farmer’s ute, after the quick removal of his life’s detritus from the seats to the floor, Ross having to straddle an anatomically inconveniently placed gearstick and both having to hold their backpacks. For those of us who hitch, it’s an instantly recognizable situation (In fact, I may have been in that particular ute along my travels). The mismatched trio continue along their way, their trip beginning with the long awkward silence of strangers thrown together (interrupted, comically, by stomach rumblings from audience members who’d chosen theatre over more physical sustenance that lunchtime).

For an actor, conveying meaning without speech is a delicate balance. It’s tempting to overplay, but too subtle a portrayal may be lost on the audience. All three leads hit perfect notes the day I attended, providing identifiable comic moments as the hitchers nudged each other to begin a conversation and the farmer changed gears between Ross’s thighs as if unaware of anyone else in the cab with him.

Once the women did initiate conversation, they quickly regretted it, as the farmer gave his opinions on life, the universe and everything. Drugs, dairy-farming, music, personal struggle, relationships and indigenous affairs – this farmer had an opinion on all, well peppered with Tourette’s-like language. (If Shaw ever decides to make a short film of this and Agnew isn’t available, Charlie Sheen would be a great second choice!) The farmer was mercurial, changing from frothing abuse at the world to gentle musings and kind offers, as he explained to the hitchers that his recently-completed anger management course had helped him a lot.

The set was also impressive, a tattered ute seat strewn with its owner’s droppings in what was essentially a modern rural midden, the aforementioned gearstick and a steering wheel that, like its owner, has a tendency to become unhinged. Simple, yet effective, as was the lighting and sound design. Technicians are the unsung heroes of naturalistic plays as their effectiveness is best judged by their invisibility. Kudos to stage manager Maya Turei, sound operator Aimee Wilson and lighting operator Liam Baird - the fact that you were easily overlooked proves you did well.

My only quibble with the performance is a minor scripting one, and only a niggle to me because everything else in the script was so on-point. The ending needs a little work, I feel. The farmer’s sudden rudeness seemed out of keeping with his essential nature, which I saw as always gruff, blunt and abrupt, but not consciously rude. And tho a hitcher calling, “Don’t forget the fucking cheesecake!” as he drove away provided an easy laugh for all, at this level of writing perhaps the easy laugh and convenient ending are unnecessary. Just one opinion, of course.

Ultimately tho, I wish I had attended on the Thursday rather than the Friday so I could recommend others go see it the next day. All involved are young theatre practitioners well worth keeping an eye out for.

Ring of Fire

My thoughts are with all those in Japan as they begin to pick themselves up after the quake and subsequent tsunami - Japan was one of many countries to send help to Christchurch after the Feb. 22 earthquake, I trust that they will receive help also from near and far

Lust for Life

Wow, it’s been a busy few weeks!

It doesn’t look like slowing down any soon. Deciding to change my blog from an online portfolio to an active blog took place alongside a much more violent upheaval in Christchurch, and aftershocks continue to rock that city. Political and economic aftershocks for the entire country are just beginning, and it seems from watching the Middle East that the world is in upheaval. In case anyone in power is listening, this isn’t a job for Team America or any other outsider, but be prepared that neither outsiders nor insiders may like the results these rebellions bring.

Increased oil prices from damage to infrastructure, as is taking place in Libya, may lead some of us in the Western world to question our own ruler’s spending priorities (if we don’t already) and their willingness to keep increasing our debt. The Arab world has oil to fund its spending (while holding us hostage) but none of the West’s governing powers seem truly willing to commit to alternative fuel research. In tandem with the amazing medical advances that are part of any war, a push for alternative fuel sources and energy saving may be the good to come out of America’s prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (with enemies they helped to place in power, yet another reason to keep Team America, or any other nation-builders, out of Libya). See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/opinion/13anderson.html

 and http://domesticfuel.com/2010/10/06/us-fuel-convoys-under-attack-ampliefies-call-for-renewable-energy/

In my opinion, Americans don’t really “do” irony, especially Alanis, but the superb irony may be that a war begun to “stabilize the oil region” (told me by a White House energy consultant at an after-show party I crashed after a course I didn’t attend at the War College in Carlisle, PA), results in some real pressure for the US to get out of bed with big oil and try to find an alternative. Let’s pray they look for a clean and sustainable one.

So, I spent a busy few days in Christchurch, plus hitched both ways to talk with people about how they were doing and what mattered to them in life. Then returned to my friends’ organic farm, where those are the normal conversations. And here there is always honest work to be done, which connects one to the real world. I’ve also been living much of my life online or on the phone, as I post and manage this blog, respond to friends (and follow Doctrine Man! – what a hero) on Facebook and try to arrange funding for a project I plan to undertake in the US in May. While trying to rake in enough cash for the airfare at least because, for the past four years, I’ve had an annual date with friends and my U.S. whanau (family) at Myrtle Beach Bike Week. I’ve enlisted the aid of one of those whanau, a retired Navy Seal (and the under-achiever in his family – both sisters made Navy Captain and his big brother flew choppers and retired as an Air Force Colonel). He’s putting some figures together for me so I can work out logistics for the project.

It’s a great life balance, in the extreme way in which I do balance (i.e. if I’m on the edge equally on both sides, I must be balanced, right?). I weed the garden, make notes on the project, check e-mails and Facebook, collect cow shit, type and upload a blog post, gather food and start the fire and dinner, and read guidelines for a possible funding source. I’ve also downloaded an academic treatise a friend wrote about Twitter (not on Twitter, you understand, academic treatises don’t fit well into 140-character tweets).

As I wrote, I do an extreme version of balance, as I tend to do an extreme version of life. I understand patience and have practiced it often. I endured six months flat on my back with a fractured spine after a horse-riding accident (I stick to motorcycles now) and, believe me, having to stay immobile while not feeling ill teaches patience. I’ve also crewed small yachts between Thailand and Kenya and being becalmed for days at sea, a full week’s sail from anywhere, is not for impatient souls. Dealing with bureaucracy, in whatever country I happen to be in, requires a special patience of its own (or masochism, perhaps?).

And on my friends’ farm, I’ve learned that to cook the food we must first provide energy to heat the fire, so we plant and nurture trees for firewood and building. And to grow the food we must nurture the soil, so we prepare compost layer upon layer, gathering ingredients as we go.

The contrast to that grounding peace of honest work is the instant gratification of the blogosphere and social media. I’ve read so many writers complain of the shortened attention span they’ve experienced with increased Internet usage and how they find it hard to relax with a book any more. (Not a problem for me, and I’m catching up with many of my unread books while home. Feel free to ask for recommendations.) I’ve also seen first-hand how Korean students, living in the most-wired country in the world, have lost their ability to focus in line with their constant computer game-playing. So I cringe when I have the urge to check my e-mail, Facebook and blog stats constantly (I’m resisting Twitter) and make myself alternate each online foray with some hard labor.

Today’s task is grubbing hore-hound from the Chicken Ranch, and it’s time I got back to it. But first I need to check my e-mail to check plans with friends for the weekend. Coffee dates, a theater production and a trip to a vineyard in Alexandra, Central Otago, are in order, where I’ll write two stories for local publications while doing final interviews by Skype for an international publication. Then back to the Otago Peninsula for a jazz house concert at an amazing home in Pukehiki.

Life is grand!

Talking Dirty

We’ve been talking some serious shit around the dinner/breakfast table recently.

At the weekend, herself cleaned out under the chookhouse and added it to the compost heap, I cut comfrey (oh, for a scythe) for the next layer. One of my tasks today is to gather cowpats from the top paddock to be added. Everything is a cycle, and good gardens require great compost. It’s all about putting food on the table, and shit from chickens and cows is a boon there.

Whanau members visited for a few days with a health scare that required coming to the big city hospital for a colonoscopy. The daughter, a fae  sprite, was phobic about the bucket toilet out back. She elected to stay and entertain the pups and I yesterday while her parents went to the city and toileting would be needed. We walked the dogs, talked about how dogs  needed to be exercised and toileted, and discussed why she was afraid of the outhouse. She was afraid she would fall in, which is a horrible thought, I tell you. I asked if she had ever fallen in her flush toilet at home (“Of course not, silly!”), explained that the seat here is smaller than on a flush toilet and all was well again with her world. When she needed to go, I offered a peg for her nose if needed and she came back proudly to tell me she didn’t even need to block her nose.

The health scare appears to be just an irritable bowel problem, (blessedly) and the person concerned asked the IB nurse what foods she should avoid or eat. The nurse told her that what she ate was irrelevant. Excuse me?!? A quick Google gave patient reams of information that the medical profession here seems to view as irrelevant. Not a very holistic view of health, and certainly not a promising one for the nurse’s patients. 

Aforementioned bucket toilet is precisely that, a bucket that gets emptied into a hole and covered with dirt. It’s not a pleasant task and one I’ve managed to avoid every time but one, but when I had to do it, I ladied up and did so. It means you deal with the fact that human animals, if they’re fortunate, consume food and liquid and it gets expelled. Most people in the world don’t have flush toilets and how they deal with their waste is, in my mind, a better indicator of civilization than the size of their cities. In Jakarta, many thousands of people live on the edge of reservoirs and waterways and use the water to bathe, toilet and wash clothes. (Check out http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/waterworries ) A new house is being built where I am that has to have a flush toilet included, but I'm confident the bucket will be here to greet me when I next visit.

There’s a conversation that’s been going on in Aotearoa of late about “freedom” camping and the fact that many campers defecate wherever they are and leave it. There’s a carpark at the bottom of the hill for a beautiful track and often, when himself takes the dogs for a walk, there is human excrement and toilet tissue strewn there. It incenses me that anyone would come all the way here to one of the most beautiful spots in the world and treat it as their toilet. The mindset to do that must view it as not their home, as I doubt they shit in their own front yards, but isn’t Papatuanuku, the earth mother, the only home we have?

In Christchurch at present, there is a severe toilet problem and it’s not being handled well. Thousands of chemical toilets have arrived from as far away as the U.S. but no provisions have been made for emptying them and people are trying to empty them into Portaloos. Thanks for sending them folks, and thank you everyone else who has come to the aid of Christchurch BUT many people are simply using chemical toilets, which add chemicals but leave waste PLUS chemicals to be disposed of, which creates its own health issues..

The Otago Daily Times yesterday had this quote: 

“I live near a woman in her 70s who broke down crying, too embarrassed to go to the toilet in a bucket.”

I’m sorry lady, toughen up. (And while we're talking dirty, ladies, find a pleasant place to squat, the bucket is for solid matter - my favorite here has a view worth millions and an inquisitive pup to hold away, Take your tissues away with you, or use mallow leaves which are soft and silky.) 

I understand that the toilet problem is just one more straw added to the many that Christchurch has suffered since September and I don’t deny or attempt to belittle the magnitude of the trauma that all are experiencing. And, aware as I am of NOT being part of the immediate community, I'll quote Joe Bennett, a brilliant Lyttleton writer who experienced the quake and the recovery first-hand. In his most recent column, he wrote about how whanau and tribe responded. The entire column is worth reading (can't find a link sorry), but two sentences summed it up for me:

“On the second day power was restored. We were then better off than most people in the world.”

To paraphrase  him (kia ora Joe, great party you guys and the Navy put on last week), if we have a bucket and a spade, we’re better off than most people in the world.

For inspiration, http://www.showusyourlongdrop.co.nz/

Maori Gods

Unfortunately for me, I was not raised in tikanga Maori (the culture) or Te Reo Maori (the language). Fortunately for me, I have wonderful friends and whanaungatanga (extended family) who were, and who gift me the taonga (treasure) of their knowledge.

One such is my sis, Mars, who I first heard of when I returned to Jeju Island and another beautiful wahine, Marama, asked if I lived near her. "I don't know Mars," I answered. An hour or so later, my phone rang.

"Kia ora, this is Mars," I heard, "I hear you need a motorcycle."

It turned out Mars lived a few blocks from where I was camping (thanks Sherrin, your heart has always been in the right place) and had a bike she didn't know how to ride. I looked after it for the year I was back on the Island, and Mars and I recognized each other as sisters.

When I arrived in Christchurch the day after the quake, P told me he had been unable to sleep the previous night because of the violent aftershocks. I asked Mars for a karakia (prayer) to soothe Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother. This was her response:

Kia Ora Sis

Ruaumoko is the atua of earthquakes. Here is a karakia for you.

E te atua Ruaumoko, kua oho koe i te koopuu whenua o to matou whaea Papatuanuku, kua ruu te whenua. Hoki atu ki te moe, e moe, e moe kia pai ai te ao hurihuri.

E Rauamoko, you have awakened in the womb of our mother Papatuanuku and have shaken the land, return to rest, rest, rest so the changing world above can be well.

Hope that suits, just made it up for you. Thinking of you and your friends in Chch and hope you are all managing okay.

Big Maori hugs from Jeju
Mars

I googled Rauamoko, learned a lot, and posted the karakia as my facebook status. Rauamoko rested that night, as did we.

How do I best say thank you in te reo, e kare? (my treasured friend)

Notes on an Earthquake

I pondered a lot before uploading my quake posts, as there's more than a little venting going on in them. They are what I wrote while there and part of the process, so I decided to post them regardless but will add some notes with the benefit of hindsight.

• ALL of the people I dealt with, at Civil Defence and elsewhere, were doing their best in a bad situation. My frustration was not with any of them personally. However, having worked as a volunteer American Red Cross Emergency Services Caseworker and having been involved with the US military monster in other capacities, I understand what it means to be prepared for any eventuality. CD, at least what I saw of it in Diamond Harbor, was not. I created templates for information simply because none existed in the CD master book. 

• I have also been harsh on the ivb and want to state that she seems a lovely woman but was unwilling to delegate and unable to make a decision and stick with it. In my view, once that became obvious, as it did, she should have been replaced by someone perhaps not as nice but more efficient. The help I saw offered was wonderful and many people came offering whatever they had - water, hot showers, food, accommodation, labor and equipment. Enabling them to help others is a large part of the recovery process and those people I enlisted to help me were grateful to have a job to do. Giving people a sense of control in a natural disaster, where there is such a sense of no control, is part of the healing process.

• The NZ Navy was amazing. Lyttelton, the epicenter of the quake, was fortunate that the HMNZS Canterbury was docked there when the quake happened and the soldiers and sailors onboard helped  immediately. The navy (Canterbury was replaced by HMNZS Otago while she went to Wellington for supplies) also provided meals for residents of Lyttelton and Diamond Harbour. A community meal is a chance for the community to come together, talk about their experiences and connect with each other. It seemed to me, a trained observer, that some at the Diamond Harbour Civil Defence Sector Post were discouraging people from attending these meals. Proof, if that sounds harsh: I was asked to create and print a sign advising "Community Dinner Provided by NZ Navy at Church Hall 6 p.m." I watched it get taped to the hall door and it was removed within five minutes. I do not know who removed it. I also heard CD volunteers telling people who asked about the dinners that they were primarily for the elderly, ill or disadvantaged. The family next door to where I stayed, new arrivals to the community after the September quake damaged their Lyttelton home, were never informed by CD of the meals. 

• The Diamond Harbour CD response had the feel, and this is a comment from a community member, but one I agree with, of a church hall meeting. If you were part of the group, you got the information. Examples:

1. Shortly after I arrived on Wednesday evening, a lady who had just been at the sector post came to tell P (my friend and host) that the water reservoir was empty. I later went next door for other reasons and mentioned it to them. They did not know. The next morning, while at CD myself, I told the shift supervisor that people in the community were unaware the reservoir was empty. Her response: "They'll work it out." I explained that all the older houses had header tanks, as was required when they were built, so residents would not be aware of the urgency of water conservation. The supervisor was distracted by another matter she apparently thought more urgent than water conservation. 
2. I offered to print fliers with contact information (physical address, phone, e-mail and website) and urgent advice (water, toileting, food, petrol, sewage) for distribution and asked who had the phone tree/neighborhood support information. Unfortunately, NS was in the process of an upgrade, which was merely bad timing. People offered to distribute fliers in their immediate community but offers were mostly rebuffed as it needed to go through proper channels. All good IF proper channels exist but they did not. Some people took it upon themselves to distribute information anyway, well done!
3. Information was consciously withdrawn (i.e. toileting info) "just in case" it was wrong. In emergency response situations, decisions are needed. They may provide less than the optimum result but 95%, or even 80%, is better than zero.
4. Well-established members of the community were well looked after, as I witnessed with the stream of calls and visits to my host, who has lived there for 57 years. Newer members (the neighbors) and visitors were overlooked. A neighborhood watch man did visit the neighbors on Friday afternoon, three days after the quake, he did not tell them a meal was available that night provided by the Navy, he did not visit the store (the owner said), an obvious communication point.

• Last point. I can be forceful in trying to get things done and that is not the "Kiwi way." I know that upset some of those I abraded with while in DH and Lyttelton and am sorry, most of all, that they assumed ("accused" was the term the ferry driver used) I was a "loud American." I offer no apology for upsetting them and it was probably a great thing that they had someone physical to be angry at - anger is therapeutic. I do apologize to my American friends for (unintentionally) adding to the "ugly American" stereotype (but at least I didn't give Maori a bad name, hehe).