Night descends on the Whanganui River ... who knows what's out there?
Following the current media fashion for opening a story by "opening up", I intend to open up on Tel's new mission to Make Whanganui Great Again.
It was great before but this will make it more extra bigly great. This means bringing back the 1950s but with better coffee, restaurants, clothes, shops, life expectancy, medical care and so on.
Okay, I admit that's not bringing back everything from the 50s, but the music was great.
Yes, Whanganui is pretty great already but it could be even greater.
Look at Auckland - it reached for greatness but now it is on a downward spiral, clinging desperately to the side of a yacht race in the hope it will save them from being stuck in hubris harbour.
Speaking of which, Whanganui has three great aspiring politicians standing in the upcoming election. Will they bow down to party politics?
We have seen how Chester Borrows, until recently a mediocre representative in Parliament, has now cast off the shackles of party politics and is saying what he really thinks before he retires.
In a radio interview with a candidate on a party list, a person with history as a refugee and human rights advocate was hedging madly when questioned on the party's immigration policy.
It was greatly cringeworthy to hear the feeble attempts to not say what they actually believed when it was obvious it would not fit with party policy and probably end a potential career in politics.
This illustrates how party politics lean towards the yes men/women, which is not a good way to identify those best equipped to stand for public office.
Another indicator of the failure in the current parliamentary system is the occasional use of a conscience vote.
On some matters, MPs are "allowed" to vote with their conscience. This begs the question of what moral, legal and ethical stance is being applied to parliamentary voting the rest of the time?
The answers is party politics, where you vote for something, even if you do not agree with it. That sounds bizarre because it actually is. Every MP's vote should be a conscience vote, informed by feedback from those they represent, along with a personal moral and ethical perspective.
This leads nicely into my great plans to Make Whanganui Great Again. I am going to call on an old political trick used most recently as a vote-catcher by visiting politicians to the region - fear.
Generating fear is great for making people feel afraid of the future. Then they look for a great leader (that is me) to save them.
This may illuminate a tendency towards being narcissistic and needy at the same time, but many of those who yearn for greatness and power share these attributes with my great, but humble, self.
It is the dark we should be afraid of. There is too much of it right now - especially between the hours of 7pm and 7am.
It creeps up on us; it comes from across the ocean and definitely has foreign origins; it has no visible means of support; it is different, mysterious and strange.
We all know that anything might be in the dark, and we cannot see the future in the dark and this is preventing us from being great again.
As part of the path to our new greatness, I promise to confront this encroaching darkness by building a wall across the sky to keep out the dark alien force.
By early spring, the dark of night will have retreated, no longer threatening the people of Whanganui and the daffodils will have responded to my orders to start flowering.
It'll be great.
Tel (aka Terry Sarten), your Great Leader, writer, musician and humble satirist - feedback will be condoned: tgs@inspire.net.nz