Redneck Wonderland ( with apologies to Australian band, Midnight Oil)

"Prejudice saves a lot of time, because you can form an opinion without the facts." - Anonymous

In my general quote-encountering life, I came across this quote recently. It is a pity that the author is not attributed because it is a very astute observation.

I had to stop myself just yesterday "saving time". I was driving across a street near where I live and I nearly had an accident which would have been my fault. But there were complicating factors. The street is a wide avenue-type street and town planners in their wisdom have planted the central strip with a large variety of native plants and shrubs. Some of these, like cabbage trees, have grown considerably and have, to an extent, become visual obstructions to the driver's view .

Our neighbourhood is badly earthquake affected and so we are driving slowly by and large to avoid big holes in the road plus there are lots of road construction sites all over the place.

For this particular avenue, you have to be particularly cautious and see that one way is clear, proceed to the centre of the road and try to establish, from among the obscuring foliage, that the other half of the road is clear. I was doing just this when I failed to see a large 4-WD vehicle travelling at speed roaring along the second half. I braked suddenly as the vehicle loomed into my view and, hence, avoided a collision.

This was not good enough for the driver of the 4-WD, however. She made this horrible, aggressive face at me as though I had purposely chosen to point my car into the path of her hurtling chariot.

At that moment, I could have cheerfully pushed her face in. I thought, hang on, I'm supposedly a civilised, polite citizen who abhors violence. Why has she made me so angry that I would like to visit violence on her?

I reasoned that it was her reaction or, as I saw it, over-reaction. If I could have said to her: "Look, the cabbage tree fronds were blocking my view, you were hurtling along over the speed limit and it was just human error. There was nothing intentional and I reacted so quickly that any collision or potential injury scenario was avoided. So why the aggro from you?"

But who knows what she would have said. Probably would have called me "a f..ken idiot."

So this clearly illustrates the quote above. Her prejudice and my prejudice both ignored the facts and a completely unpleasant incident was created where none needed to exist.

Tuesday Poem: "Old Friends"

are like bookmarks

in the narratives of our lives,

we pick up from anywhere

and read on,

the plot twists of their loves,

their triumphs and their sufferings

we follow with avid engagement,

their character flaws and strengths

mirror our own

and the emotional colour wrought

by our shared histories,

suspensefully fractured by our many absences.

Moving inexorably towards denouement,

leaving our children as the sequel.

I got so excited by the Communal Poem coming to fruition that I forgot to post a Tuesday Poem yesterday. So here it is. I thought Old Friends was sort of appropriate because the community of Tuesday Poem poets aren't my old friends, but I think this Blog Community is a very wonderful and supportive one and I'm hoping it will endure for years and years so all the Tuesday Poets can become old friends.

Light in the Loafers (in the nicest possible way)

"We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as other creatures do." - 1972 Only One Earth Conference

I like to have a good title. Titles are important...they might attract or they might detract. I made this title from a hybrid of things said by two famous, international comedians: Robin Williams and Dame Edna Everage (aka Barry Humphries). Robin Williams refers to any gay man as "light in the loafers" and Dame Edna hands out backhanded compliments with the added proviso of "I mean that in the nicest possible way, darling."

I have been coming across quotes a fair bit lately and I found this one above. As far as I can tell, it seems to be a pithy summation of the discussions that must have gone on at this international conference.

Apparently "Only One Earth" was a report prepared for the United Nations and this report provided a conceptual basis for the United Nations Conference on Human Environment, 1972, held in Stockholm.

These were the early days of the environmental movement and indeed environmental concern in general about the effects humans were having on Planet Earth. So nearly 40 years later, how are we doing?

Not all that well, I would hazard to venture. If there was some extraterrestial teacher marking our report card, that teacher would probably write that age-old comment: "Could try harder."

Our world population has shot up, in just over two hundred years, from about a billion people around 1804  to about 6.91 billion in 2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Growth

You don't need to be a maths whiz to see that is exponential growth. We are too successful as a species and our longer lives and overpopulation of our environment are decreasing the habitats of all the other creatures we share the planet with. I seriously worry that even creatures I knew as a child will be extinct to my children and creatures they know will be unknown to their children.

The so-called "free world" likes to trumpet that Communism failed, but I would argue that true communism never got off the ground or is only found in isolated cases. The closest humans come to the true ideals of Marx and Engels are probably the tribal peoples still living traditional lives in remote pockets of the world. In China and Russia, they only have or had totalitarianism. Yes, folks, George Orwell was right. Human nature seems to crave superiority and status so you always get some "animals are more equal than others".

And capitalism may be in its last throes too. The myth we are sold of constant economic growth is just that: a myth. Nature has cycles, growth and decay. So does capitalism, boom and bust. But it looks increasingly like we have boomed our last booms. It is plain to see for most sensible people that constant economic growth is unsustainable.

We face a simple choice: embrace a much simpler lifestyle and plump for experience and interaction and creativity over material acquisition OR choke in our own filth and environmental degradation.

When all the rivers are poisoned, then WILL we eat our money?

The Communal Tuesday Poem is finished!

I'm impressed and we came in under time.

Can we enter into any Guinness World Record category for this?

Kudos to my fellow Tuesday Poets, those who contributed lines and those who couldn't, but were with us in spirit.

Treat Your Children Well ( I feel a Crosby,Stills, Nash and Young song coming on)

"I praise loudly; I blame softly." - Catherine II

I came across this quote recently by Catherine II. I'm not sure where she was queen of as there were a lot of Catherines floating about European courts in Elizabethan times. But I thought it was extremely modern in its sensibilities.

I don't wish to keep banging on about the Christchurch earthquake, but I recently read a poem in The Press written by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman about lessons learnt from the earthquake. And it's true that as human beings, if we don't learn, it seems we stagnate.

The first earthquake adjusted my perspective somewhat, but the second really dealt to our part of the city and so it has subsequently been more illuminating.

FIRST LESSON: Don't sweat the small stuff. We get waylaid by so many trifles in life that we often lose sight of the big picture. I witnessed a guy really spewing anger at a truck driver that accidentally rear-ended him. The damage was minor, the driver contrite and the man's reaction out of all proportion. A woman nearby said, "Oh, please, get over yourself." and I totally agreed.

If we survived, if we were not injured badly, if our loved ones can still hug and kiss us at night and in the morning, give a smile and say, "Thank you, God/Allah/Buddha (substitute your own deity or atheist superhero a la Richard Dawkins here) for letting me live another day and love and marvel at a sunset or a baby's smile. Anything from here on in is a bonus!"

SECOND LESSON: Try to be kinder to everyone in your life.

I realised that sometimes I was overly critical of my wife or my children and so I have set out to follow Catherine's advice and praise them loudly and maybe not blame them at all if I can help it. I even try to cuddle our cat, Simba, more.

Basically, it is a corny old cliche, but you really don't know if today will be your last. A couple of hundred people got up on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 in Christchurch and never dreamed in their wildest dreams that they would be dead before that day was out. I sincerely hope that they kissed their partners and children that morning and thought how blessed they were to have them in their lives. May they all rest in peace.

Tuesday Poem: "Box Brownie Memories" (for my Aunt Gladys)

This is not you that lies before us,

beloved Aunt, for you live on

in our hearts, our souls, our minds

as the raven-haired beauty

with racquet and a ready smile,

as the doting older sister

with eyes shining like a proud spotlight

on two little girls on a crowded stage,

singled out and made special by your love.

You do not lie here cold and lifeless,

beloved Aunt, for you live on

in the warmth of your laughter

and your bright shining lively dancing eyes

and your girlish peaches-and-cream complexion

and in the memories

of two small nephews

in the endless summer of childhood

conquering the diving tower at Jellicoe Baths

or frolicking at Mission Bay

and you capturing all our shared and happy memories

with your trusty Box Brownie.

I wrote this poem as my eulogy to be read at the funeral of my Aunt Gladys who died on Christmas Eve, 1997, aged 90. My mother's two older sisters never married and lived in their original home built from kauri in Epsom, Auckland with my grandmother until, one by one, they died. Gladys was the eldest of four children and was aged 16 when my mother was born. The other sister, Gwendolene, was only two years my mother's senior. My Mum was the baby of the family.

Gwen was working when we would visit Grandma's as children, but Glad had retired and she would give Mum a break by taking us on all sorts of outings. My parents never owned a camera when we were growing up, but, thanks to Glad, many of our growing moments were captured in black and white on her trusty Kodak Box Brownie. My brothers and I loved our Aunty Glad with all our hearts and she loved us very much too.

REMEMBER TO CHECK OUR THE EVER-EXPANDING BIRTHDAY POEM on

www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com

Tuesday Poem turns One

I know only three people follow my blog and one of them knows already, but I feel compelled to tell you that you can witness the unfolding of a communal poem from tomorrow on Tuesday Poem.

Many of the regular Tuesday Poets will be writing a line or two in a sequential order of poets to create a communal poem to celebrate the first birthday of Tuesday Poem. The poem will unfold like a beautiful bloom from tomorrow, April 5, 2011.

We've even got a Birthday Badge designed by renowned artist and poet, Claire Beynon.

Be There or Be Square.