Emma Trimble and Mathew Hulbert go head-to-head over phrases British university students are being asked to stop using, such as replacing ‘ethnic minority’ with ‘racialised minority’ or ‘global majority’. pic.twitter.com/LVt0B4eLwB
Universities have decided the phrase “ethnic minority” is now an offence. The approved substitutes are “racialised minority” and “global majority.” The delivery system for this newspeak is a compulsory lecture for students.
GB News hosted a short debate Saturday night over the phrases British university students are being told to drop, with one commentator noting “This ideology constantly cannibalises itself.”
Yesterday’s respectful term is today’s banned one. Messages sent out by some colleges over the topic refused to encourage debate, but rather demanded a “collective and unified response.”
Here we are in the first days of October and only 3 weeks away from Labour Day which is the traditional time to plant out the heat loving plants like cucumbers, capsicums, zucchini, corn and pumpkins etc.
But in most of the country, spring has not happened as normal.
August normally shows signs of spring weather with September coming fully into lovely spring days and gardeners out enjoying the spring sunshine.
The current El Nino weather pattern which is a super El Nino is obviously effecting our normal weather.
The last time there was a Super El Nino was historically, the global “super El Niño” of 1876–1878 whichalso severely impacted New Zealand, causing extreme conditions documented by early government inspectors.
The super El Niño of 1876–1878 world-wide caused an estimated 35 to 50 million deaths from starvation (with some estimates reaching up to 55 million), which was about 3% to 4% of the global population at the time. The most affected countries were China, India, and Brazil.
There were other affected regions: severe droughts and localized food shortages also struck parts of Egypt, Morocco, southern Africa, and Australia. Famine with massive droughts occurred in many countries and flooding in others.
Meteorologists have mapped out a “classic” highly predictable footprint for New Zealand:
Summer:
Strong westerly winds dominate, causing persistent dryness and drought risk in the north and east (Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Canterbury, Otago) alongside heavy rain and flooding along the South Island’s West Coast.
Winter/Spring:
More frequent, cold southerly and south-westerly airflows bring bitter, wintry snaps.
It looks like the weatherman has got it fairly right this time. It is not what one would call good gardening weather, that’s for sure.
Food shortages due to droughts and flooding in food growing countries can cause a world wide famine as happened in the El Niño of 1876 -1878.
Where possible it would be a wise move to get growing as many hardy food crops as possible and stock up with essentials such as flour and rice, both of which are likely to be in short supply and much more expensive. Though the normal spring weather has not occurred the daylight hours have been extending and deciduous plants, fruit trees, roses and grapes are on the move.
I see that my young peach tree leaves are showing early signs of curly leaf disease because of the damp cool conditions. Sprays with Wallys Copper Nutrient can help a bit but does not solve the problem I have found.
On the other hand liquid sunshine of the type you make yourself will put the extra carbs into the stone fruit trees to enable the trees to hold the crop.
It is simple: dissolve a tablespoon of molasses in a litre of hot water and add 10 ml of Wallys Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) to the litre and spray the foliage every 2-3 days during the day when not raining.
Brown Rot in stone fruit is a frustrating disease and in the past I have suggested sprays of a combination of products being, Liquid Copper, Spray able Sulphur, Potassium Permanganate with Raingard.
A two-weekly spray of the fruit (not the tree) from the time fruit has set till harvest has helped a lot.
A reader recently told me about a natural spray made in Dunedin that worked well for him last season:
“I purchased the two products recommended namely BOTRY-Zen 160g Bottle and MIDI-Zen 300ml Bottle cost with shipping was $52.90 so affordable for those gardeners that are frustrated with the disease every season.
The gardener also said there are a number of retail places that stock the smaller amounts for home gardeners but also warned that unless the retail outlets store the products in a fridge the products will diminish their control action which is biological.
Coming up is the time when codlin moths will be active in apple, pear and walnut trees.
For gardeners in the north of the North Island it’s far worse; a moth called the Guava Moth which attacks all fruit, nuts, citrus and as I heard last season tomatoes also.
I have written in the past about several measures to help control and reduce damage.
Here they are again: Both are relatively easy to control so that you can obtain a reasonable amount of your crop as long as you follow my proven advice. Firstly, let us understand how these two pests operate.
Being moths they only fly at night and they find their host tree by the smell of the forming and ripening fruit. So if they cannot smell your tree/fruit they will fly on by to a tree they can smell.
Thus the first step in reducing the damage to your fruit is disguising the smell of the tree/fruit.
To do this you need an overriding smell that negates the smell of the tree.
Scatter Wallys Neem Tree Powder on the ground underneath the tree from the trunk to the drip line. Then by making some little bags out of curtain netting we hang more of Wallys Neem Tree Powder in the tree on the lower branches about head high at the four cardinal points.
Small gauze bags can be found in the likes of ‘$2 shops’ and are ideal for this purpose.
So we use the Wallys Neem Tree Powder/Granules as described after flowering and when the fruit has formed to a reasonable size.
One application is all that is needed for each crop to disguise the fruit as the powder/granules last over 2 months, slowly breaking down.
The next step in control is to prevent any grubs that hatch out near your fruit from eating their way into the fruit.
Once a grub enters the fruit you have lost the battle cause even if you use a poisonous systemic insecticide to kill it? What’s the point? It’s going to die inside the fruit and ruin the fruit.
No, you need a non toxic substance on the outside of the fruit that is going to prevent the grub from eating its way in.
Wallys Super Neem Tree oil with Raingard is the perfect answer.
You spray the fruit, not the tree, so there is a coating of Wallys Neem Tree Oil on the skin of the fruit protected from washing off in rain with Wallys Raingard (lasts for 14 days before reapplying.)
The Neem Oil is an anti-feedent which means when the young grub takes its first bite it will get some Neem Oil in its gut and will never eat again, starving to death fairly quickly been so young.
On your mature fruit you will have a little pin-pricked scar where it took its one and only bite.
So all you do is spray every 14 days the maturing fruit that are relatively easy to reach. Fruit that are more difficult to spray will likely be eaten by birds later on anyway and as long as you are getting a nice amount of fruit to harvest, that is all that really matters.
Then there is another way to control moth problem by which you set up a moth lure to attract them and kill them.
Take one litre of hot water, add 100 grams of sugar, one teaspoon of marmite, half a tablespoon of Cloudy Ammonia and half a tablespoon of Vanilla essence:
Mix well and divide the mix between two plastic milk or soft drink bottles. Punch some holes in the side of the bottles just above the level of the mix.
Place on a stand about a couple of metres away from the tree about waist height like on a small folding table. When a number of moths are caught dispose of them and make up a new solution.
Cloudy Ammonia used to be common once upon a time from a grocery store; if it’s not so easy to find try hardware stores, there are two big chains in NZ and they may have some from Australia.
If you do all three procedures for control or at least the first two then you should be able to once again enjoy your own fruit.
The codlin mMoth traps are useful because if you monitor them they trap the male codlin moths which tells you it is the time to start using the Wally Super Neem Tree Oil spray on your apples etc.
If after a month you find no new male moths in the trap you can stop spraying as it is all over for the season (that is unless you have Guava moths in your region.)
Guava moth pheromone traps are a waste of time because they are all year round so there is no time to start or stop control sprays as with the codlin moth.
As an alternative to using Neem Powder for a deterrent use the stronger smell of Naphthalene which is Wallys Cat Repellent.
But as naphthalene is washed away with rain, you need to use the round bottom of a plastic soft drink bottle as an umbrella with the gauze bag hanging under it in the tree protected from weather.
A lady gardener from up north told me about using naphthalene and as a result had no fruit damaged.
The once esteemed BBC should now be called British Balderdash Concoctions.
by Simon O’Connor
Ladies (and I suppose some men), be aware: choosing not to paint your nails is now considered a sign of white supremacy. Who knew!
According to a BBC article, the beauty journalist argues that the decision to not paint one’s nail is deeply problematic. To quote her, “the trend really promotes blankness and this kind of sameness and erasure of culture and identity that is so important to black and brown communities. They are often called elegant or tasteful, and these are often usually euphemisms that perpetuate white supremacist standards of beauty.”
Many readers will recall New Zealand’s Disinformation Project lead, Kate Hannah, suggesting that braiding children’s hair or baking bread were also signs of white supremacy. Painting – or rather not painting – one’s fingernails is quite the addition.
As I write, and returning to the United Kingdom, we have a Labour MP there saying that enjoying a warm pint in a pub with your dog is a far right concept.
It is all of course madness, and yet a madness which has captured many in the political and mainstream media world, as well as the academy.
The BBC journalist’s basic argument is the usual crude use of intersectionality. She ascribes painting of nails to Black, Asian, and Latino communities. By her logic, choosing not to paint one’s nails becomes an affront to those communities and tradition, and therefore an act of white supremacy.
Historical accuracy aside, the weakness of this argument becomes apparent when you consider what many of these activists would say if you did paint your nails – they would accuse you of cultural appropriation!
The debate over painted nails may seem trivial. Yet it points to a much broader trend; a growing tendency to interpret everyday life through the lens of power, oppression, and cultural conflict.
But what drives this way of thinking? It all boils down to a disdain of one’s own culture, of the West, and what one could broadly call European culture. What some are now referring to as oikophobia – the hatred of one’s own ‘home’ or culture.
Such proponents also seek to turn everything into some sort of fight between competing factions. It is what is often called the Marxist dialectic, a view of the world divided into opposing forces – employee versus employer; men vs. women; old vs. young; Māori vs. Pakeha; and now nail painters vs. no painters.
Living things humanly doesn’t mean every choice needs
to be put under some political microscope
These activists also remove the humanity and simple joy of living from the equation. Not everything is a struggle, nor does every action come with a hidden agenda. Some people simply enjoy painting their nails. Others enjoy a pint at the pub. Others still think baking bread relaxing. Not every human activity requires a political interpretation.
A further illustration of the madness is that the standards applied are never applied consistently. Cultural appropriation, for example, only ever seems to go one way. Obsessive critique is often made of Christian teaching being out of touch with modern New Zealand life, and yet rarely is the same measure applied to other religions and cultures. Or ask yourself, why did gay activists not continue their crusade for equality into the likes of the Muslim Middle East, rather than turning on women’s rights movements in the West by pursuing trans inclusion?
We have weekly protests focused on Israel and the Jewish people, who weirdly the protestors characterise as white and privileged. Yet, there is often far less attention paid to conflicts in places such as Sudan, Myanmar, Nigeria, or the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region where an estimated 160,00-600,000 civilians have been killed.
Apparently, the idea of genocide is highly selective. But these just illustrate the point – the high standards applied to one’s own culture are not applied to others. If something can be said or done to diminish Western culture, it will be embraced. If a failing from another culture or religion is evident, it is to be ignored.
Somewhat related are recent reports that local iwi around National Park want the old Chateau demolished. What links the two is the concept of decolonisation which is in play here. The undoubtable reason to want this piece of heritage removed is because it’s European.
Decolonisation is a misguided belief that there is some romantic utopia that people can return to if only ‘the colonial’ can be replaced. Like the earlier examples, it is all based around division and oppositions. Replace English words with Māori words, cut down non-native trees, remove statues of historical figures, replace science with belief, and bulldoze the Chateau while you are at it.
The latter is a rather striking example of activism over pragmatism. Officials have reported that if the Chateau can be given a new lease of life, it will economically benefit the area. And yet, if reports are correct, local iwi want it gone and a new cultural centre built. Last time I checked, there is no shortage of land in National Park, so why the Chateau needs to be destroyed for any new cultural centre is a mystery. Also, why local iwi haven’t just built and paid for one themselves already is worth asking.
Ultimately, oikophobia and decolonisation are an iconoclasm. A destruction of the things within our wider cultures which give colour, meaning, purpose, and joy.
Yes, critics can rightly point back to the way various European and other colonisers acted across the globe and here in New Zealand, overriding indigenous cultures. And yet, have we not learned from this? What we observe today is just a new form of colonialism in action, but operating in reverse.
Simon O’Connor, the former National MP for Tamaki, graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Political Studies
. Simon blogs at On Point where this article was sourced.
Introductions by Paul Henry and Platform Speech by David Seymour — includes the new policy that taxes will be removed on KiwiSaver returns. He says rather than the cost of living election, this should be the Productivity election.
Berlin was carpet bombed during World Wat II so the present day appearance doesn’t much ressemble what it used to look like. Old postcards and AI help recreate it. It should be mentioned that if the Nazis had stayed in power this would have happened anyway without British and American bombing — they were planning to create a brand new city called Germania and Albert Speer produced architectural models of what it would look like, pictures of which can be searched for.
