Southern View: August 02, 2016

4
Tuesday August 2 2016
Your Local Views
SOUTHERN VIEW
Keep hope alive
ews
Silvia Purdie
Cashmere
Presbyterian
Church minister
writes about
young people
and hope for the
future
MY 16-YEAR-OLD is at Cashmere
High School. When I told him about
the topic for an upcoming conference,
ashion
here’s what he had to say:
“Lots of teenagers don’t give a rat’s
ass about stuff that doesn’t affect them
personally. Lots of teenagers feel that
they can’t do anything about the world,
and that it is not worth trying. It is
scary to even think about the future,
and it’s not easy to talk about.”
The topic for The Cashmere Conference
is ‘What does the future hold?’
Gardening
I wonder how you might answer
this question. Do you agree with my
16-year-old, that it’s scary to even try to
imagine our future?
What does the future hold . . . for
the world? for us personally? for
our community here in the south of
Christchurch?
Sure, stuff happens (as Christchurch
people well know!) that few could pre-
otoring
dict, but there is much that we do know
about our future.
We know that climate change will
force many species into extinction, and
bring more storms and droughts. We
know that our use of digital media and
images mean that photos are becoming
more important than text, and
that people will relate to each other in
different ways. We know that improvements
in medicine, combined with the
‘baby boom bump’ will mean more
older people in our city.
But we also know that the human
brain and body is much the same as it
was many thousands of years ago; we
still need love, we still react instinctively
in fear and anger, we still need
to belong, we still hunger for truth and
purpose bigger than ourselves.
Cashmere Presbyterian Church
is hosting this public forum on
September 10 to discuss these issues
and many more.
It is my challenge to our teenagers,
and to the rest of you adults, to grapple
with the changes that are affecting
our lives and our world, and to search
together for hope for the future.
Hope is a rare thing these days, but
without it why indeed would anyone
“give a rat’s ass” about anything?
Spreydon resident
Michael J Brathwaite
responds to a recent
column by Graham
Townsend about a lack
of critical thinking on
topics such as climate
change
I find articles like Graham
Townsend’s Critical thinking
shortage (SoapBox, July 19)
intensely irritating.
While we are currently
experiencing global warming,
I have seen nothing
to convince me it is not a
natural process or that we
are causing it.
It has happened before
and will happen again, but I
imagine this is the first time
• By Mark Thomas – Fire Risk
Management Officer
THERE HAVE been a
number of quite serious fires
in the city this week. And
this column is being written,
hurriedly, before I head off
to one of them.
The deliberate fire set
in the empty building on
Hereford St last Friday was
another example of our firefighters
being put in danger
people have used it to make
money – by the imposition
of fines on individuals and
countries, and by scientists
who want to keep the gravy
train of research grants
going.
If scientists are objective,
why does any scientist who
questions the prevailing
“wisdom” get treated as a
by the reckless and criminal
actions of some idiot.
The fire was on an upper
floor and the only way to get
to it was from inside.
This meant climbing stairwells
with charged fire hoses
in a building with structural
safety issues that was already
compromised by earthquake
damage even before the fire
damage occurred.
Last Saturday, we had
an incident where a young
pariah by the rest?
Scientists are as petty and
self-serving as everyone else.
They start with a hypothesis
supporting what the people
awarding their research
grants want to hear, and look
for evidence supporting it.
Twenty years ago it was
global cooling, and now it’s
global warming.
Spate of fires keep firefighters busy
woman was burnt trying to
encourage a fire in a drum
at a property in Hoon Hay
that was dying down by
throwing petrol on to it.
These type of incidents are
actually not all that rare.
Even in winter, petrol
products freed into the air
invisibly vaporise, leaving
a surrounding mixture of
highly-flammable gas that
is many times larger than a
pool or splash of fuel.
Out
asty
Of Hand
Bites
Ben Reid’s primary interest for his printmaking is NZ’s
environment and the impact of humans on our precious land.
His work often depicts tales of loss of habitat, extinction of
species and introduced and exotic predators.
The print work produced in 2016 is a continuation of themes
of NZ’s preservation. Narratives within each work consider
isolation, regret, time passing, acknowledgement of our history,
where we live and what NZ is, and what it means to us, also
about hope and optimism, and accepting and learning from our
mistakes, past and present.
As told by Warren Feeney, “Reid’s delicate, elegantly structured
and at times gently humorous prints are here to remind us of
what is at stake: the unselfconscious grace and beauty of New
Zealand’s indigenous birds and the way they enrich our world”.
oney
Marahau wood carving artist Tim Wraight describes works for
this exhibition come from 2 streams.
“Firstly there are 2 carved cubes of Totara wood in which I
explore the laying of pattern onto a strong form, with a
whimsical approach combining dancing figures and a quite
formal pattern.
The other group of works; old hand tools refashioned for
‘ritual’ purposes, with new carved handles and decorations of
feathers, fibre and found objects, give reference and reverence
to rural traditions and pre mass production industry, and the
people who powered these tools with their physical selves. As
a hand tool user I am aware of the intimate relationship with
the material that the user obtains and indeed needs in order
to succeed in their work. Sound, sight, touch, force and a feel
for the interaction between material and tool all come into play.
I am drawn to the beauty of hand forged steel, and learnt from
my grandfather how to use and maintain these simple but
efficient objects.”
Ben Reid’s ‘Ruffled Feathers’
Tim Wraight’s ‘Carpenter’s Tools’
Style is
forever
style
noun
elegance and sophistication.
synonyms: flair, grace, poise,
polish, suaveness, urbanity,
chic, finesse, taste, class,
comfort, luxury, affluence,
wealth, opulence, lavishness.
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