Apparently enough is NOT enough...

Hi all,
Generally this blog is about an American couple's idylls in our adopted home of New Zealand, but recent news around the world has compelled me to talk a bit about the current state of affairs regarding US foreign policy especially as we are now seeing it through the eyes of those whom we live amidst.

Are we as Americans so busy trying to keep our heads above the financial waves that we have no time for activism against this increasingly disheartening and futile war without end in Iraq? Can you "support" the troops and not support the war? To those who look askance and question your patriotism if you're not fully behind the troops, I say "wake up," those men and women volunteered to be there and have no one to blame but themselves. You can't have it both ways, you can't tout an all volunteer army and then bemoan the fate of those whose choice ultimately may put them in harm's way, besides the fact that their own choice put them in a position to take the life of another. Any loss of life is lamentable but can one be honest and admit that the troops chose their path and must accept the consequences of their choice?

And what of the fate of Iraqis? Being a history teacher is both a blessing but mainly, a curse. From time immemorial Mesopotamia has been awash in blood, mostly of the innocent, who have neither the means or inclination to escape those on the warpath for whatever moronic or fallacious reason. Sumerian priests exhorted their captive and captivated followers to smite those "others" deemed dangerous to the city-state. "Deus Vult" has an excruciatingly sad and gory past and present, from Sargon and his ilk, to the Crusades, to G.W. bush who apparently hallucinates that god is blessing his effort to bring US style democracy to biblical eden. One of my favorite headlines from the parody news source "Onion" was "Dead Iraqi Would Have Loved Democracy."

I'm so glad that now in the 21st century we can see through those charlatans who claim to represent god on earth yet advocate violence against those made in his image...
oh wait...
I just checked my bible again and somewhere in the back I found these old chestnuts, "turn the other cheek," "forgive," and "love thine enemies (not exterminate them)." Was Jesus misquoted? Apparently so...

By now I would hope that only the dimmest dittoheads could still be clinging to the WMD fabrication, 9/11 connection, or whatever
perverse lie/rationalization is used to justify the bloodletting that continues. How obscene must the level of war profiteering be to finally compel those millions of kind and decent Americans to rise up in collective angst and rage and say "No More in Our Name." I guess enough is not quite enough...

I know, I'm a slacker...

Hello All,

Sorry I haven't written in a while but, ok, there is really no excuse. As some of you may know I was hired by the George Parkyn Centre for Gifted Education to teach at the first ever Nelson One Day School. Kids who are identified as gifted are excused from their regular school one day a week and meet with others of their ilk in a classroom in Nelson to explore various topics more in depth than they would in their regular school. There is no curriculum except what we decide to study. I had eight 7-9 year olds in this initial class and despite them being very intelligent and articulate they were more than a handful, socially speaking. All my high blown plans went out the window after 10 minutes of the first day and I soon realized that this was not quite what I had envisioned. Along with a lot of "he hit me!" "he pushed me first!" and "Billy is being mean!" and so forth it became clear that these were just little children and I was in no way cut out for the job. Try and imagine herding cats and that was just the tip of the iceberg. I lasted 4 weeks and then resigned. Maybe I'm just burned out after 20 years of teaching but let's just say it was more than I wanted to handle. The people who hired me were more than gracious in letting me out of the contract and were completely understanding, especially when the head teacher came down from Auckland to teach the class and agreed that it was just not working due to the huge disparity in maturity levels, lack of resources and general social skills of some of the more disruptive boys. They will keep me in mind for a possible non-teaching role as I still have much admiration and respect for what they do. Live and learn, I guess...
On a more positive note I hooked up with a German drummer and a Kiwi bass player and have put together a jazz trio playing mostly standards and some more contemporary jazz tunes. We had our first gig at the Prince Albert hotel here in town and by all accounts it went well, at least no one threw anything at us and no one shouted "play something you know!"
so we have that going for us, which is nice. We have another gig lined up so maybe this will be something to keep me out of trouble and put some food on the table. They're both competent musicians who can actually read music and nice fellers so I'll keep you posted on our progress. Most people here in Nelson seem to be fairly discerning jazz aficionados and are appreciative when the music is done right. There's a possibility of playing the Tuesday Jazz Night at the Victorian Rose and Pub, THE place for live jazz in Nelson so that would be good... I was a little worried that my amplifier and effect pedals wouldn't work here given the differences in electrical current, amps and such but I bought a step-down transformer and everything seems to work fine, now if I could only figure out how to play better without practicing I'll be all set.
I successfully gained a NZ driver's license recently and only got one question wrong on the test. The question was how many sheep can you legally put in the front seat, I answered 6 when apparently the answer is 8, oh well... I managed to get the question about which directional signal to use when plunging off a cliff, but to be honest I just guessed... I am now a big fan of round-a-bouts because they make much more sense than having cars lined up polluting the atmosphere waiting to go. As long as there is no one on your right to yield to you can merrily just advance through any intersection, WooHoo! I did get a ticket for going 52kph in a 50kph zone and was caught on camera but it only cost $30 which is like 85 cents US, so that was another valuable lesson learned.
Susan and I continue to enjoy our life here and she will be looking for work as soon as our residence comes through. I'll also be looking for work but hopefully nothing too taxing as I would really prefer something mindless. We are coming into the tail end of summer and love going down to the beach for swimming although one day the tidal current was so strong that despite swimming like mad against the current we could make absolutely no progress, in fact it was almost impossible to stand still upright and we had to make sure we weren't washed out to sea, I thought it was huge fun but you really do have to be careful.
We did take a trip to the North Island and you can check out that story on Susan's 360 Blog page but suffice it to say we both much prefer the South Island as it seems much less crowded, hectic and way more scenic. Auckland is just a big stinky city but we did see some interesting sites along the way including a place called "Craters on the Moon" which was a place with geothermal activity, hot mud bubbling up from the ground and such which was pretty cool and also huge windmills creating electricity.
That's it for now and I'll try and keep up with this blog. Hope you are all well and please leave a comment if you're so inclined, it's always nice to hear from our friends and family back home and those of you with webcams can find us at Skype if you visit jbgsz7010. See you soon...