Victoria Avenue . . . shocking footpaths.
IT WAS my misfortune today to walk the Avenue from the AA Office to New World supermarket. What an absolute disgrace, not to mention danger, that footpath is.
I have walked the footpaths in most cities in New Zealand and have never seen anything so disgraceful, especially as at least six motels' clients would need to use this walkway.
What a way to greet visitors. There should be signs at both ends: "Walk at your own peril".
What could be an outstanding street looks like something from the late 19th century.
Also looked at the new cycleway in St Hill St; not a cyclist in sight. Are the councillors bereft of intelligence or is it just the employees having daydreams?
Sight-impaired people need to walk in safety, not worry about tripping on unsafe ground.
P SMITH
Whanganui
Saudi war in Yemen
Gwynne Dyer's article on Tuesday, October 23, brings up the fact that Saudi Arabia has been bombing "Yemeni tribesmen'' for three years.
There seems to be no reporting of this war, and I know very little about it. What I do know does not endear me to Saudi Arabia.
I watched an Arabic documentary, dubbed into English, about war in Yemen, and there was ordnance being used that I had never seen before.
A huge, white-hot ball of fire in the sky some two or three hundred feet up that gradually turned into a black mushroom cloud that rained an incandescent scoria-like shower.
The locals were saying: "Is that a nuje?" (a nuclear device) and, as the camera filmed the detonation, pixelation occurred. Was that radiation from a nuclear device that caused the pixelation?
I called some friends who were veterans — none knew of any weapons that put on the show I described.
Further research suggests the ordnance were neutron bombs — a clean atomic bomb with no harmful lasting radioactive fallout.
If the Saudis are using neutron bombs against the tribesmen, it gives me yet another reason to dislike Saudi Arabia.
I hope Trump will stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia.
Gwynne doubts that Trump will cancel the arms sale to Saudi Arabia — I am not so sure.
WILLIAM PARTRIDGE
Hunterville
Wrong on ruminants
Sandra Kyle says she won't relax her effort to eliminate domestic food animals from the planet until every last slaughterhouse is closed. Good luck with that, but my bet is she will be lying at peace before that ever occurs.
She quotes figures as facts; they don't add up but suit her narrative. She makes statements on what food is healthy, she has got that wrong also.
She says man and animals are changing the climate. These people just keep repeating this mantra without providing facts.
She makes a statement that ruminant animals are depleting our soils. The opposite is the fact; ruminant animals grow soil — look at the pumice country around Rotorua. Sixty years of ruminant animals and now it has soil.
G R SCOWN
Whanganui
Iwi settlement
May I suggest, through your columns, that Potonga Neilson set up a Givealittle page to fund a case to the International Tribunal at The Hague?
He may also take advice from Tuku Morgan and Sir Tipene O'Regan on how to manage Treaty settlement funds.
They have turned their meagre funds into enviable enterprises, whereas his iwi gambled their lavish settlement away.
BOB HARRIS
Whanganui
Different funding model
Thank you for your recent interview with the new Leader of the Social Credit Party, Chris Leitch.
There is growing interest in the idea of public credit without heavy interest demands. For example, eminent New Zealander Bryan Gould has called for using Reserve Bank credit to fund the current government's Provincial Development Fund.
He also attributes the housing crisis in Auckland with the private banks gladly providing the funds with compound interest for the rising cost of houses.
The state of North Dakota has had a public state bank for over a century now, and during the 2008 Great Recession, the state was hardly touched by the financial collapse.
The city of Los Angeles has a charter amendment that could establish a public bank in LA. Putting Los Angeles' finance in public hands with no compounding interest could save as much as $170 million in interest in a year, more money than it spends on road maintenance.
Instead of nurses and teachers going on strike for poor wages and lack of support services, funding for these essential services could come from the publicly owned Reserve Bank with no interest charged, only a small administrative fee.
At present each year $6 billion in taxpayers' money goes to pay compound interest.
With much of public services in debt, it is time to find new ways of funding legitimate services.
DONNA MUMMERY
Whanganui
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