How To Get There 15/12/19

33 comments on “How To Get There 15/12/19 ”

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1. gsays 1

   15 December 2019 at 9:04 am

   Gardening is a highly political activity.

   Following my fleeing the hospitality industry, and looking to get kitchen life out of my veins, I have found refuge in a retirement village.

   My role is gardener/lawn mower, maintenance etc.

   I am aware of how contentious mowing lawns can be for some especially on this thread.

   So in the context of politics and gardening, politics is the art of compromise.

   Most of the residents I have had exchanges with like the grass tidy, and 'weeds' not to be seen.

   I met a resident who has different views to the mainstream. Her tiny backyard is a gorgeous cacophony of life, complimentary plants, food scraps in differing states of decomposition, pots, barrels and tables groaning with burgeoning life.

   As she is in a newish villa, her garden soil is not much more than a clay pit littered with some building supply remnants, a thin layer of topsoil and the aforementioned 'compost'.

   In my ventures to make charcoal (another yarn of success and many mistakes learnings), I have a good amount of tiny charcoal bits that I would like to give as bio-char.

   I am aware of needing to charge/inoculate the charcoal so it doesn't lock up existing soil nutrients.

   I am curious as to what is the best to use from: worm castings, a weed tea (dock and comfrey) and chook poo. These are the resources I have available at home.

   How long do these things need before it is introduced to the soil, should I mix them all together?

   Bigger picture, I would like to get composting/wormfarm happening on site, as we create 4 cubic metres of green waste a week, which we pay to get picked up.

   I understand compost was tried in the past but was stopped because…rats.

   Is there a unit/system that looks clean and tidy and is able to handle a good amount of biomass.

   I would like to present this idea in the new year to management and need not to startle/upset the middle class in their backyards.
   • Robert Guyton 1.1

     15 December 2019 at 12:23 pm

     "Only dead fish go with the flow", I read.

     Go the " resident who has different views to the mainstream"!

     I suggest mixing it all together and getting it out there, gsays! I suspect the administrators will favour a commercial, rotating bin, so let them buy some and get going. It doesn't really matter much; once the compost is sufficiently degraded and no longer of interest to rats, you'll be able to spread it everywhere and the resulting healthy plants will win you favour, giving you a platform on which you can build the next phase!
     • gsays 1.1.1

       15 December 2019 at 1:06 pm

       Cheers for the enthusiastic nudge Robert.

       Wonderful energy.
       • greywarshark 1.1.1.1

         15 December 2019 at 1:32 pm

         There is something for me to pick up from reading about your garden activities gsays. It would be good to know how you get on.
         • gsays 1.1.1.1.1

           15 December 2019 at 9:15 pm

           Roger, will do.
   • WeTheBleeple 1.2

     15 December 2019 at 4:33 pm

     With the charcoal: you could mix it with all your ingredients (chook poo, plant matter including aforementioned 'weeds'), and compost it – the char being the 'brown' component of compost and the rest the green. Let it get hot then cool down and it should be good to go. In future adding it to any dedicated composting process will improve the compost, reduce losses of biomass while composting, and improve worm activity when it hits the soil. In that manner the char goes where the gardener goes, sequestering carbon and improving soil long term.

     You could make a static compost bin (not turned). It doesn't get hot and kill weed seeds but it makes compost. Basically a two bin set up side by side when one is full start on the next by the time it's full the first should be good to go. You add the days food scraps then twigs leaves paper card straw and grass clippings on top. Continue in that manner. The rats might be kept out with mesh but remember you want to be able to get the front off to remove the compost. You wan't one of these bins to take a years worth, then it sits a year. When calculating size remember there will be significant losses of biomass as it processes, especially if you let black soldier flies get in.

     Hot compost turns over much faster (a couple of months in warm weather) so can take much more volume/time for a similar sized system. But it requires a three bin set up to go smoothly, and consistent turning (every few days). You build the entire pile at once, then turn it from one bin to the other (while the third bin is for finishing). Always finish a pile at each end in this system, the centre is required for turning the next lot haha.

     These are very different animals. If your aim is the best compost it requires the three bin method: it's more work, but will process/yield a lot more volume too. If you want volume processed in a relatively small space – the three bin method. If your volume is not so large but you just want to redirect a waste stream to useful product, two bins lazy method works in a pinch.
     • gsays 1.2.1

       15 December 2019 at 9:20 pm

       Thanks WTB for yr response.

       The inoculated bio char makes great sense as the brown/carbon layer in compost, obvious when someone points it out.

       The solution may be to contribute to an existing composting scheme off site. I will try the local council and see what they know.
   • weka 1.3

     15 December 2019 at 9:13 pm

     Good work gsays!
2. Dennis Frank 2

   15 December 2019 at 9:14 am

   I'm not a sailor, but often see contemporary politics in terms of navigation. Our shifting global context, resurgent nationalism, ethnic divides & culture wars, seem equivalent to a mesh of cross-currents in which only the weak go which way the wind blows.

   Survival requires a deeper gnosis than the education system provides, and the story of the Hawaiian navigator told by the editor of the Harvard Review, Christina Thompson, shows us how it works. She's married to a Maori "Seven, whose real name is Tauwhitu – whitu, or some cognate thereof (fitu, hitu, itu, hiku, being the universal word for seven in Polynesia…)," and lives with her family just outside of Boston.

   Her book Sea Peoples was published earlier this year and I've just read the copy in our local library. Real good! The publisher describes it as "the quest to understand who first settled the islands of the remote Pacific, where they came from, how they got there, and how we know". Each chapter provides a lucid comprehensive overview of each stage, spanning many centuries, weaving trends in interpretation with historical accounts. Crucial is when dispassionate research in acadaemia converged with indigenous experience in the formation of the Polynesian Voyaging Society (Hawaii, early 1970s).

   Originated by this Californian anthropologist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Finney the collaboration built the Hokulea, a working model of the type of ocean-going canoe required to reproduce the inter-island voyages, and recruited a Micronesian who still possessed inherited expertise to navigate. Nainoa Thompson was the young student of the Micronesian who set out to integrate the western & traditional methods. His maiden voyage as navigator in 1980 provides this account:

   “The canoe was in the doldrums, the sky was pitch black, it was pouring, and a twenty-five-knot wind was coming first from one direction and then another. The crew were looking to him for direction, but Nainoa was exhausted and had lost any clear sense of which way to go. Then, “I suddenly felt this warmth come over me,” he writes. “The sky was so black I couldn’t see the moon, but I could feel where it was… I directed the canoe on a new course and then, just for a moment, there was a hole in the clouds and the light of the moon shone through – just where I expected it to be.”

   “Nainoa describes this as the moment when he realized he could tap into something “beyond the analytical, beyond seeing with my eyes,” something he could not explain “from a scientific point of view”… intuition – but for Nainoa it was more like knowing in a different way. He cites the Hawaiian term na’au, which means, literally “entrails” or “gut” and refers to the part of the body that, in some Polynesian traditions, is viewed as the “immediate organ of sensation” and the place “where all impressions are first received”. This visceral form of gnosis has been reported amply from various historical sources and countries, enough to be identified as an attribute of humanity, even if more latent than manifest.

   “For Nainoa… that he was thinking not just with his conscious mind but with his body, in some sense feeling his way across the ocean – was a sign that he was coming closer to navigating in “the ancient way”.” Neuroscientists have been discovering this non-local nature of the human mind, and sufficient reports from the frontier have emerged in the past couple of decades to invalidate the old idea that the mind is produced solely by the brain. The lesson, for us, is that gnosis around politics must be based on feelings about where we are going collectively. How to get there is contingent upon incorporating this gnosis.
   • Robert Guyton 2.1

     15 December 2019 at 12:25 pm

     That's an excellent post, Dennis, thanks!
     • Dennis Frank 2.1.1

       15 December 2019 at 12:35 pm

       Glad you enjoyed it, Robert. I may get a chance to add another relevant message from the same source later on…
       • greywarshark 2.1.1.1

         15 December 2019 at 1:29 pm

         I am fascinated by the navigation maps the Polynesians/Micronesians constructed.

         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation#Navigational_techniques

         Micronesian navigation device showing directions of winds, waves and islands, c. 1904

         https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a22061/polynesian-stick-chart/
     • Dennis Frank 2.1.2

       15 December 2019 at 9:08 pm

       "It was a stunning achievement. Without maps or charts or instruments or recording devices, without even paper and pen, an apprentice navigator – the first from Hawaii in at least half a century – had piloted a canoe more than 2,500 miles, spanning more than 35 degrees of latitude, and made landfall". He'd been trained by the Micronesian expert, who sailed with them but intervened only once to change a decision by the apprentice.

       That was right at the very end before landfall, when the apprentice directed the canoe to turn around due to failing to read an environmental clue – one not taught in his training. The expert had to reverse the decision or the voyage would have failed to reach the intended destination. The evening before, they "had seen birds flying south, heading home for the night, which meant the canoe was still north of where they wanted to be".

       Next morning they saw a bird flying south. Nainoa thought that meant they had sailed past the island during the night – birds fly away from land to go fishing in the morning. The Micronesian had seen a little fish in the beak of the bird, which meant it was returning to land to feed it's young. He told the apprentice to sail that way for an hour. They did, and saw the island in front of them.

       So the lesson for politics is that navigation through challenging cultural trends must be accompanied by the ability to read environmental clues correctly. Since it is human nature to misinterpret cultural signals, reading our social environment accurately in dire times is an essential survival skill.
3. Heather Grimwood 3

   15 December 2019 at 1:26 pm

   could residents be provided with bokashi buckets to deal with kitchen waste ( the rat- encouraging stuff) as guess most goes into waste water system via insink grinders presently. which I have always thought should be banned.
   • gsays 3.1

     15 December 2019 at 3:15 pm

     Bokashi came up in the conversation and could be part of an improvement.
     • WeTheBleeple 3.1.1

       16 December 2019 at 6:51 am

       My experience with bokashi is largely favorable. Just incorporate the finished product into the soil, no root crops till the second year. It's quick and painless once you start making your own and have a system worked out.
4. WeTheBleeple 4

   16 December 2019 at 7:01 am

   Some amazing climate innovation here:

   https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/ice-stupa-sonam-wangchuk/index.html

   A man making wee glaciers to keep land in water through summer. Right out of the box and into the record books.
5. Jenny How to get there 5

   18 December 2019 at 7:02 am

   The role of leadership

   You could plan not to drive. But of course if everyone else is driving….

   Plan not to drive

   As a Vision Zero region, Auckland Transport wants to make sure everyone gets home safely. According to Police, the Friday before Christmas is one of the worst days of the year for drink-driving.

   Throughout the year, AT works with Police to reduce drink-driving and one key initiative is to provide free public transport before Christmas so that people across Auckland can have a drink after work.

   It’s part of the wider ‘Plan not to drive’ campaign being rolled out across the city this summer.

   Auckland Mayor Phil Goff says the initiative is a great way to ensure Aucklanders are able to enjoy the festive period safely.

   “We know from Police that the Friday before Christmas is one of the worst days of the year for drink-driving. We're working with Police to reduce that and one key initiative is to provide free public transport on Friday 20 December so that people all across Auckland can get home safe for Christmas.”

   https://ourauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/articles/news/2019/12/get-home-for-free-on-20-december/?fbclid=IwAR0tM7bt747ZC1YDvqQXUhUqtp-29kZV7vuFc2SwjDOMXpIP7qHDwxFa0CE

   The planet needs to get home safely too.

   Come on Phil, how about it?

   It's Christmas in Kansas

   Kansas City becomes first major American city with universal fare-free public transit

   December 5, 2019

   Martin Cizmar

   https://www.435mag.com/kansas-city-becomes-first-major-american-city-with-universal-fare-free-public-transit/?fbclid=IwAR2JX52N1mTj0EW_1rcUbgg7Sa4KMZBinzG0K7XJTHZKdtr10kmevAzlxZ0
6. Jenny How to get there 6

   18 December 2019 at 7:04 am

   Individual actions are good, but what we really need is leadership from the top.

   You could plan not to drive. But of course if everyone else is driving….

   Plan not to drive

   As a Vision Zero region, Auckland Transport wants to make sure everyone gets home safely. According to Police, the Friday before Christmas is one of the worst days of the year for drink-driving.

   Throughout the year, AT works with Police to reduce drink-driving and one key initiative is to provide free public transport before Christmas so that people across Auckland can have a drink after work.

   It’s part of the wider ‘Plan not to drive’ campaign being rolled out across the city this summer.

   Auckland Mayor Phil Goff says the initiative is a great way to ensure Aucklanders are able to enjoy the festive period safely.

   “We know from Police that the Friday before Christmas is one of the worst days of the year for drink-driving. We're working with Police to reduce that and one key initiative is to provide free public transport on Friday 20 December so that people all across Auckland can get home safe for Christmas.”

   https://ourauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/articles/news/2019/12/get-home-for-free-on-20-december/?fbclid=IwAR0tM7bt747ZC1YDvqQXUhUqtp-29kZV7vuFc2SwjDOMXpIP7qHDwxFa0CE

   It's Christmas in Kansas

   Kansas City becomes first major American city with universal fare-free public transit

   December 5, 2019

   Martin Cizmar

   https://www.435mag.com/kansas-city-becomes-first-major-american-city-with-universal-fare-free-public-transit/?fbclid=IwAR2JX52N1mTj0EW_1rcUbgg7Sa4KMZBinzG0K7XJTHZKdtr10kmevAzlxZ0

   The planet needs to get home safely too.

   Come on Phil, how about it?

   Fare Free Auckland all year round
7. Jenny How to get there 7

   18 December 2019 at 7:24 am

   How to get there (literally)

   Free transit is just the beginning

   by James Wilt Nov 29, 2019

   ……Last week, bus riders in Vancouver were refusing to pay fares until TransLink offered a fair contract to transit workers, while activists in Montreal marched for a transit-focused Green New Deal. Others in Toronto plastered the city with beautiful posters calling for free transit and proper funding of the TTC. Fare strikes and rallies for free transit are scheduled in several cities for November 29 – the same day as the global climate strike. Transit workers are striking against their private employer in Washington, D.C. while Vancouver SkyTrain workers voted 96.8 per cent in favour of job action……

   https://briarpatchmagazine.com/blog/view/free-transit-is-just-the-beginning

   (Apart from a pathetic one day public relations exercise). How does our Mayoral Christmas grinch react to such struggles?

   Dispute escalates: Tense scenes as striking drivers try to block bus
   11:02 am on 11 December 2019

   …..Services on some of Auckland's main routes have been cancelled until Christmas after NZ Bus locked out its drivers for refusing to take fares.

   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/405261/dispute-escalates-tense-scenes-as-striking-drivers-try-to-block-bus

   Genuine city leaders would instead be taking the side of the drivers and refusing to let their contractor lock out drivers for refusing to take fares. And not hire strike breakers to replace them.
8. Jenny How to get there 8

   18 December 2019 at 7:52 am

   Auckland buses go into reverse.

   The fight over the fare box.

   Auckland goes backwards.

   Auckland bus, train and ferry prices hiked by up to 7 per cent

   21 Jan, 2019 12:48pm

   ……North Shore ward councillor Richard Hills said Auckland Transport's fare increases are excessive and unsustainable for many people struggling with the cost of living….

   …….Hills said despite public patronage growing steadily, year-on-year increases to fares will discourage the use of public transport, and make it harder to reduce congestion.

   Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) organiser Jon Reeves said they also strongly oppose the fare increases.

   "They aren't justified. We have had this big fuel tax which was given to all Aucklanders last year on the premise that it would be funding better public transport, and actually all we are getting is another lemon to bite on," he said…..

   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12193733
   • Incognito 8.1

     18 December 2019 at 8:03 am

     People love getting worked up by and about headlines. They know it but still fall for it.

     The average fare increase is 2 per cent, though some travellers will pay more.
     • Jenny How to get there 8.1.1

       18 December 2019 at 8:10 am

       I don't write the headlines. But the point is made, Auckland is going backwards on Public transport.
       • Incognito 8.1.1.1

         18 December 2019 at 10:13 pm

         I don't write the headlines.

         What a strange thing to say when you parrot the headline in an unthinking way.

         If you had done a bit of balanced and critical analysis you would have realised that an average increase of 2% means that some increases are, in fact, less than 2%.

         Indeed, clicking on the handy link provided in the NZH article shows that many fares won’t change at all and some will even drop.

         https://at.govt.nz/about-us/news-events/changes-to-public-transport-fares-from-sunday-10-february/

         So, here are a few alternative headlines for you to ponder:

         Auckland bus, train and ferry prices hiked by an average of 2 per cent

         Many Auckland bus, train and ferry prices remain unchanged

         Auckland bus, train and ferry prices plummet by up to 1 per cent
         • Jenny How to get there 8.1.1.1.1

           19 December 2019 at 10:44 pm

           What gets me is that our city locks out bus drivers from their jobs for refusing to collect fares. And at Christmas .When this is what the city should be doing.

           Then the city does what the bus drivers are doing but only on one evening, Christmas Eve,.

           The hypocrisy is astounding
           • Incognito 8.1.1.1.1.1

             20 December 2019 at 9:58 am

             Please provide a link because I think you’ve got it wrong about Christmas Eve.
           • veutoviper 8.1.1.1.1.2

             20 December 2019 at 11:46 am

             Hi Jenny

             Re free fares, not sure about Christmas Eve but the RNZ National News Bulletn at 9am today, Friday 20 Dec, included a short item at about 3 minutes in that Auckland buses would be free from 4/4.30 pm today in the hopes that people would use PT rather than cars after celebrating the end of their work year tonight.

             Here is the link for you and hope it helps;but it will probably be shortlived as they usually don't save hourly news bulletins for long

             <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/news-bulletin/story/2018727815/radio-new-zealand-news&quot; rel="nofollow ugc">https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/news-bulletin/story/2018727815/radio-new-zealand-news</a&gt;

             Re Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day, I had a quick Google look for you but could not find anything re this or anything more about today's free buses in Auckland.

             However, I am a Wellingtonian and know that for many years we have had free buses etc here on Christmas Day; but there is nothing on the Metlink website about this. So maybe it is the same for Auckland – a tradition rather than a formal thing where they don't formally advise the free fares on certain days on the AT website. There is lots on the AT website about the recently introduced free travel for children at weekends so kudos to them for that move.

             Best wishes – I don't bother reading or commenting here much these days but saw the 'request' to you shortly after hearing the 9am news bulletin. This site reminds me of "school" these days and I left school, college/high school and University (Grad and Post Grad) behind many decades ago.
           • Incognito 8.1.1.1.1.3

             21 December 2019 at 7:43 pm

             What gets me is that you call out hypocrisy but cannot get your facts right.

             Assuming you were referring to free PT in Auckland on Friday night, you could have provided this link: https://at.govt.nz/homefree

             The reasons for providing free PT have absolutely nothing to do with the employment dispute. In other words, not only you were making up shit but you also believed your own shit.

             Is this how we get there?
             • Sacha …

               21 December 2019 at 7:58 pm

               Unless deed poll was involved, it seems an unwise handle. 🙂
               • Sacha …

                 21 December 2019 at 7:58 pm

                 yours, Gerald Open Mike
9. Jenny How to get there 9

   18 December 2019 at 7:58 am

   Christmas in Kansas

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86b3GW0Ovk8
10. Jenny How to get there 10

    18 December 2019 at 8:03 am

    Xmas in Auckland

    …..Auckland bus hell with mass cancellation till Christmas

    What’s going on?

    Yesterday saw the cancellation of thousands of bus trips and a lot of people standing around at Auckland bus stops looking puzzled after services operated by NZ Bus – Auckland’s biggest bus operator, covering about a third of all routes – were cancelled following industrial action. Routes are focused in central Auckland, the north and west, and include routes along along Dominion Road, Sandringham Road, Mt Eden Road and Manukau Road, as well as the Outer and Inner Link services, aka the orange and green buses.

    But they’re running again now?

    No. They’ve been cancelled indefinitely. The morning commute tomorrow could be bedlam.

    Which services have been cancelled?

    A lot. An estimated 70,000 passenger trips are kaput.

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/auckland/08-12-2019/cheat-sheet-auckland-bus-chaos-as-services-cancelled-en-masse/

    What is our city leaders response?

    One day free bus rides on Christmas Eve. (that is if there are any buses running)
    • Dennis Frank 10.1

      18 December 2019 at 9:00 am

      Postmodernism. Under modernism, society was meant to be organised, so order prevailed. People have moved on. That's why the authorities have carefully created a system in which order is balanced by chaos. People like variety.

      That's why you get signs like this nowadays: Sausage's. Copywriters now illiterate? Maybe – they've been through the education system, so it's hard to blame them. Blame the teachers instead. But more likely they know that in postmodernism language is a movable feast, and folks now prefer to make it up as they go along…

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