LOOK OUT BELOW: Airborne bees are fouling windows and washing at suburban Whanganui homes.
Property values
As a ratepayer in this lovely town with a wonderful council that charges excessive rates, don't you think that this council would get off their backsides and do something about the values of our properties?
As a council, wouldn't you argue the point with QV that their valuations are wrong? That the town, as many people say, is actually going ahead and that in turn has lifted house prices? Is that not why our rates keep going up so much, to adjust for QV's undervaluations and the losses in rate demands?
As a homeowner, I bought my property to increase the value and set myself up for the future.
I didn't buy my house to lose money every three years when the valuation comes in.
I have been told by so many people, "Oh, just don't challenge it, as your rates will go up". Hello, people, the rates keep going up anyway, and this council doesn't help.
We all want higher values for our properties, but in turn a fairer rating system for our properties.
To the council, I say help the people of this town -- the people that pay your wages, the people that put you in your positions -- and do something about QV and their system for valuations and sort out this mess.
In future, I say look at an alternative company to use, as QV seem like they can't do the job properly.
C BRIGHT and M PRICE
Whanganui
Mess from bees
We agree entirely with M Palmer (Letters, January 9) regarding bee problems. We, too, live in Springvale area and have this problem every year.
Unfortunately, the beekeeper or council don't have to clean and reclean windows, cars, outside sheds, garage doors and rewash washing due to the yellow stains.
It is most annoying and something that we should not have to put up with in a residential area.
Keep beehives in the country, or please come and wash all the above, including clothes.
There must be some regulations about the boundaries where bees should be kept, as other people must have the same annoying problem.
I CUTHBERTSON
Whanganui
Leap of faith
I've flushed out another faith-based atheist. Russ Hay (Letters, January 10) both ignores and inadvertently affirms the accuracy of my observation that atheism is a faith position. As such it determines how the facts, and in Russ' case, the Bible, are interpreted.
Is it "despotic" for God to state the truth about himself? Both Russ and Paul portray vengeance as negative. Is it negative for lawful authority to deny the "right" to indiscriminate vengeance? In fact, justice demands an element of vengeance, that the punishment fits the crime, that has a positive, not a negative purpose. Not allowing that in the discussion of God shows bias.
And, if it is legitimate for humans to delegate authority, why would it be wrong for God to do so?
No need for me to apologise for God, or for stating that the New Testament account regarding the Lord Jesus Christ is accurate. More fair-minded atheists than Russ have scrutinised them and admitted the consistency of the accounts.
At what point does presupposition become bias, or bias bigotry?
The most a supposedly neutral empiricist could say would be, "I have not seen any gods in matter"; atheism takes a "leap of faith" and asserts as dogma that there is no God. It's a religious assertion with no authority greater than that of an individual.
Who is it really who prefers ignorance to knowledge? If I can't see my hand in front of my face, should I conclude it's not there or that my eyes are shut?
JOHN HAAKMA
Whanganui
Thank you
I recently spent three weeks in Whanganui Hospital undergoing a hernia operation and a bowel procedure.
I would like to thank Dr Aiono for his excellent, professional care.
Special thanks also to the nurses for their lovely tender care after my operation.
The meals were excellent, with a good variety.
And special thanks to my wife, Venus, who walked to the hospital every day to visit me.
Thank you -- you all made this a lot easier and I'm sure your care has helped with my recovery.
HUGO GADSBY
Whanganui
English only
I must reply to just one part of the letter by Potonga Neilson in which he states that his father and cousins were told they were not allowed to speak Maori at school. It was the Maori parents themselves who wished their children to learn to speak the English language to set them up for the future.
After the Native Schools system had been established in the 1870s, a number of prominent Maori sought through Parliament to place greater emphasis on the teaching of English in the schools.
Takamoana, a newly elected Maori MP, sought legislation to ensure that Maori children were taught only in English. A number of petitions in a similar vein were also taken to Parliament by Maori. One such petition in 1877 by Wi Te Hakiro and 336 others called for an amendment to the 1867 Native Schools Act which would require the teachers of a Native School to forbid the Maori language to be spoken at the school.
Further from this petition: "There should also be a general playground for the European and Maori children together. There should not be a word of Maori allowed to be spoken in the school, and the master, his wife and children should be persons altogether ignorant of the Maori language."
This clarifies why the father and cousins of Potonga were not allowed to speak Maori in school -- their teacher was not "porangi", he was simply obeying the law which was at the request of the Maori people.
ROBIN BISHOP
Tauranga
Maori numbers
Historian James Rutherford (University of Auckland library) has written that between 1801 and 1840 about 42,000 Maori lost their lives in the musket wars (Maori against Maori), and in that same period only 13,000 died from diseases and other causes.
Therefore, disease was hardly the "the biggest impact on Maori numbers" as H Norton claims (Letters, January 10).
Dr John Robinson's research establishes that if Maori had not practised female infanticide, their numbers would have been in a far better state to withstand the effects of disease and tribal warfare. Maori could not stay isolated in an exploring world, therefore exposure to disease that they had little or no resistance to was inevitable.
Norton and his fellow anti-colonisation travellers seem to forget that colonisation also brought medicines, medical knowledge, surgery, blankets, clothing, housing and through agriculture a more reliable source of nutrition.
GEOFFREY T PARKER
Whangarei
Wild claims
Most of your readers will have long since dismissed the wild claims of H Norton and P Neilson as rubbish. Here are some of the latest (Chronicle, January 10):
Example 1: Neilson: In early February 1840, the vast majority of the "natives" of Taranaki were living on, and gaining sustenance from, their ancestral lands.
The facts: South Taranaki was virtually deserted. A couple of families were living in the bush near Opunake and a few more near the islands off New Plymouth to which they were ready to flee at the least sign of Waikato marauders.
Example 2: Norton: "The actual confiscations covered the whole [of Taranaki] (even unto the mountain top)."
The facts: Most land was bought from chiefs who were willing sellers, some three times over. Confiscations, to pay in small part for the cost of quelling rebellions, were a small part of the total.
Example 3: Norton: "The biggest impact on Maori numbers was from European-introduced diseases."
The facts: The biggest impact was the wholesale slaughter in the inter-Maori musket wars.
Read John Robinson. He may be relied on.
BRUCE MOON
Nelson
Obama legacy
The duty of an outgoing president is to make the transitional changeover to the incoming president-elect as smooth as possible, but what are we witnessing with Barack Obama?
In his last few weeks in office, Mr Obama refused to veto a UN condemnation of Israel that has caused a major rift between the US and one of its major allies.
He has accused Russia of hacking the infamous Hillary Clinton emails on a "probability of guilt" without any hard evidence, imposing sanctions upon Russian diplomats because of consensus among his security departments that it was probably them.
These same departments were 90 per cent sure that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Again, those agencies are now trying to label the alleged hacking as "an act of war", amid reports of US military forces being deployed along Russia's borders.
These actions appear to be deliberately provocative, with the aim of disrupting US/Russian/Israeli relations before Donald Trump assumes control.
Fortunately, both Russia and Israel have shown restraint by not retaliating, waiting to see what the Trump regime has to offer.
Terrorist suspects are being released from Guantanamo Bay, despite a 30 per cent likelihood of rejoining terrorist groups.
Last week Mr Obama signed a Defence Bill that included the formation of a new organisation with the right to censor internet, press and other news media outlets allegedly providing "fake news", and to replace this "fake news" with the official government version.
The US -- and internet users -- will now have their own version of Orwell's Ministry of Truth. Alternative news sources may vanish from our computer searches and news media releases censored -- a blatant attack upon the freedom of speech and unrestricted information access.
President Obama seems to have lost the plot after his party's shock defeat in the American elections.
MITCH MORGAN
Kaipara
The participant's death was unrelated to the pilot, according to Oranga Tamariki.