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Sinking Waka

We all have heard about the financial strife the Ngati Tama iwi is in and how their "Treaty settlement" money has all but evaporated.

The now ex Ngati Tama Chief Executive, Greg White has accepted responsibility, as I suppose he must.

He is apparently currently "overseas" - whereabouts undisclosed.

"Our waka has hit some bad weather and ended up on the rocks

He said in a written statement read on TV One's Marae Investigate program last night.

Maori commentator Willie Jackson said

it was good that Greg White admitted he made mistakes but the tribe now had to recover and set a new course.

He said the tribe's main mistake was taking a "pitiful settlement" and in doing so undermining the future of most of Taranaki iwi.

He said Government support should ensure a high-level iwi plan was in place.

Eh? The tribes mistake wasn't in their choice of Chief executive, nor in their exercise of oversight in what he was doing but that they didn't get more money from the long suffering taxpayer for him to loose?

An extremely odd way of looking at things.

Source: 'Waka on the rocks' - Iwi head

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Gecko's Fine Photos

This is an example of one of Gecko's pictures. 

If you you appreciate great photographs and you haven't been to her site yet - you really  should.

Did you notice a similarity between her blog and this one?

If you did - er well that is probably not a  co-incidence.

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Kick off

This blog is now underway.

This isn't the first post, but it is the first to be posted after "kick off". It would have looked a little lonely on the homepage all by itself, so there are some "pre match" older siblings to keep it company until it is joined by  younger brethren and soon enough it will be relegated to a page far down the "Older Posts" chain.

I have been blogging for many years now, can't tell you how many for sure because I have forgotten. But this is blog number five whereat I have posted.

And I have used all major blogging software in that time , with the exception of "Wordpress".

I investigated "Wordpress" many moons ago now and rapidly determined that "Wordpress" and I were not a good fit, and would never likely be. I forgot all about it until a couple of months back when suddenly "Wordpress" demanded I sign on to my "Wordpress" account before I could comment on Wordpress hosted blogs. He hadn't forgotten me, even though I had put him aside.

"Phooey" I thought - it is time to seek independence from blogging platforms who are correlating your every move and who think they know better than you what you want to do besides.

So here is this little blog with minimal hooks into me or anybody else who chooses to come here.

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Airborne Church

This is a Church

It is designed to be transported by air to where ever the infantry happens to be. It can be dropped by parachute if necessary, or so I was told. 

It is the first of its kind, though more are planned.

There are already many  airbourne, parachuting priests available to serve at the altar.

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Borte

This is Borte. Well it is not really Borte of course, rather it is Mongolian actress Khulan Chuluun,  now  resident in Kazakhstan and who who played Borte in the movie Mongol.

Mongol is a great movie.  If you don't understand the Mongolian language and subtitled movies are not your thing  you might want to give it a miss but then that would be to your loss - it is a rip roaring yarn.

The original Borte was the wife of Ghengis Khan, she lived many years ago and became the mother of many nations.

Borte's blood flows in the veins of people all over the world, from Beijing to New York. Not too bad for a girl who started her life on the remote Asian Steppes.

Of course the modern miss, for whom a career is everything will not have a legacy such as hers.

Those who murder their children before they are born to advance their personal temporal ambitions leave nothing when they die - Nothing at all!!! Which is very vey sad.

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Come Receive the Light

A picture that  I have used elsewhere.

It was taken around midnight Saturday during Easter - not the Easter of Western Christians but that of Eastern ones, which fell a week later this year.

This little girl has received the light during the  mid-night service on Easter Saturday, and her candle is alight. 

Easter is the most important feast for Christians of the East, we usually call it Pascha.

The rabid anti Christian types seize upon the fact that "Easter" is named after an obscure Anglo Saxon  Goddess to scoff and claim the Church has hijacked pagan festivals.

I just smile at their ignorance, in English and perhaps some other Germanic languages Easter may have taken Eostre's name but in most it takes a form similar to Pascha - derived from the Greek word for Passover - an ancient and biblical Jewish feast.