Kiwi On The Loose

Well the election is over for FOUR whole years. I think I will keep my opinions to myself on politics as it seems even New Zealand has been wooed by Obama Madness, my own family and friends. And sharing my humble thoughts and insights has created energetic debate.

The funny thing is though, New Zealand literally voted Obama out by voting in John Keys. America went left and NZ went right!

So for those who don’t know……….Obama = Democrat = Labour Party = Helen Clark.

So in being wooed by Obama you have just wished on America another 4 years of Helen Clarke and liberal (extremely) government.

So there’s a dichotomy for me there with peoples feelings in New Zealand.

In NZ I have never been aware of media bias re partisan politics as I have been here whether its newspaper or the ‘idiot box’.

This election has shown the power of the media. Unprecedented things have happened, and been documented. The media decided who they wanted……….and then the people.

It has been disturbing and I few in NZ will completely understand that. I have been here thru it.

It disturbs me that reporting of the election seems to have had a bias in NZ too.

It also shows me the anti America sentiment that exists out there because of the Bush administration.

Scary as well. I like George Bush and have always thought history might vindicate him. He’s not perfect, and neither will Obama be.

Bush’s policies helped keep America safe for the last 7 years.

George Bush is the guy everyone loves to hate. I don’t. I’d love to know why and how the world is being gripped by such liberalism, squeeze someone enough and they all bleat out the same blah blah blah without really looking into it or HAVING and informed opinion of their own instead of a popularist view.

I would also like to point out, the last four years has been a Democrat controlled Congress and Senate and much of the present financial woes of America, though they are laid at Bush’s feet can squarely be laid at the feet of the Democratic party. And that is no BS.

It all a game, who ever speaks loudest, looks best, has the most allure…………..gets believed.

So I want to leave this phase now.

Obama will have to come up with the goods. We will see what happens top America, and who the media will feed on after the honeymoon is over.

And we will all re adjust hopefully our perspectives in the light of truth. Or will blindness continue.

There is something serious happening in the world. I think we are on the edge of massive changes, liberal government and destabilisation in USA.

Why do I say this?

It has just been so apparent the entrancement of people this election with rhetoric and personalities. Its like everyone shoots the same bullets in discussion or more like one sided debate.

Its not cool to be conservative or have absolute values or any kind of moral values that are anything like biblical.

This video by a liberal satirical publication kinda sums it up.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_win_causes_obsessive?utm_source=EMTF_Onion

Its funny BUT its kinda true too.

Its been an amazing thing to have lived thru this time. Back in 1977 I did a paper on American Politics @ Auckland Uni, with Professor Barry Gustafson. SoI knew a bit, a smidgee. Now I have learned masses, being here. Friends say there has never been an election like this for unprecedented happeniong above and beyond the historic aspect of who won.

I doubt I can leave it alone forever but I have observed graciousness and humility in defeat over here, and the reality of democracy in getting behind the person of the president and wanting him to succeed even if ideologically you are poles apart.

I respect that.

I am seeing some of the deeper things here of late and I am glad that I haven’t been a day tripper and have spent so much time in one place……..looked, listened, learned and debated.

As well as huge weaknesses America has deep down some huge strengths.

Well the Democrats are dancing.

An historic but very eye opening election.

A friend alerted me to the term ‘dag’ being great for this blog category. AND to be honest it was my next term to add. I don’t use it much BUT its such a ‘kiwi’ term, it evokes so many things ‘kiwi’.

What is a DAG?

In is most down to earth sense and rawest use, a DAG is the poohs of a sheep that colects on the wool around a sheeps backside as it exits and falls to the ground. It builds up and collects on the wool around that area of the sheeps anatomy.NOW remember sheep like humans have poohs that arrives in the outer world in differing consistencies. Sometimes it get VERY runny and this is termed as the sheep having ’scours” (please dad help me here with the spelling)

SO the collective build up of sheep droppings collect on the wool and it dries in hot weather or stays moist, BUT a build up it is nonetheless.

That is a DAG, and such terms as ‘rattle your dags’ comes from them looking like rattles hanging around the sheeps bum.

Before the sheep is shorn FARMERS remove the dags for the shearers. This process is called ‘crutching’.

Heres what ‘wiki’ says about dags.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAG

I will try and find a photo soon.

One of the reasons sheep are ‘crutched’ is to stop flies doing annoying things at that end of the sheep because of the attractive morsels there..

There are offshots to this term ‘DAG’, which I will explore in other posts. PERHAPS others could add to it.

They include such terms as ‘a bit of a dag!’, FRED DAG himself, rattle your dags etc.

The term kiwi in America to most means a small hairy fruit, known as a kiwi.

You find it in fruit stands, on signs..etc reinforcing this veiw of kiwi being a fruit.

Personally I don’t want to be a fruit, like I am on Queer Nation or something.

A KIWI is a person from the country known as New Zealand/Aotearoa.

Some Americans are aware of this country and often comment on its beauty.

In New Zealand what Americans call a kiwi we call a ‘Kiwifruit’.

This writer remembers a time when the ‘kiwifruit’ was called a ‘Chinese Gooseberry’.

Just to add to the confusion. ………..

BUt Sir Edmund Hillary the first man to climb the highest mountain in the world (Mt Everest) was a ‘kiwi’. He was certainly no fruit.

Hi, I thought it would be fun to start a glossary for Americans on kiwi speak, to promote understanding. Yes sometimes the response to a brilliant cross cultural statement might be, "I beg your pardon?" This is accompanied by a blank look, eyes kind of glazed……the non comprehende, non stoned glaze. So here we go………I think if we stick to one word per post it might catalogue better. Maybe a plugin will collate it all.

Well here I am trying to be funny on a gorgeous sunny fall day in Denver that still feels like summer . Its been great to be out and about, having my weekly cup of coffee x 3 with some really lovely people. I was reading last night about coffee inhibiting some kind of beta type brain waves BUT today life seemed better, the future manageable and the mountains a little less obstacle like. OF COURSE  this all could have been due to the fact that I had been wearing my orange biking sun glasses and thinking I was BONO walking thru K Mart with a beautiful women.

ORANGE could just do that to my brain waves and maybe my thinking it was coffee is not right @ all.

I have come to love copy opps! I mean coffee, BUt I don’t drink it daily, only on special occasions. TWAS funny though, last week Susan and I went to have coffee @ Starbucks, we ordered a couple of HazelNut lattes. Well part way thru sitting outside in the sun discussing sugar and the ills it has added to society WE realised we weren’t drinking HAZELNUT lattes @ all but iced lattes. Being a couple of onto it Da Vinci’s that kind of oblivious may seem hard to believe. After a brief discussion, me wussing out not to bother BUT Susan being the up front consumer she is , inside she went in to the guy and  pointed this out. We hadn’t ordered iced coffee. They laughed together as you do around Susan, (otherwise known as The ‘Q’. Q for qwerky, Qute (very), Qwackers and Qwarazy and very to all those too). Afer laughing the guy gave us 2 MORE coffees PLUS our old ones BACK for good PR saying they only cost the company 6 cents. I thought MATE !! you shouldn’t tell us that kind of info. This was before the 700 billion dollar package of course!. So now we are FOUR coffees (and 24 cents real cost) but wait there’s MORE.

See what ORANGE has done to me today. Here’s a photo to prove it.

AND NOW back to the story.

We are outside in the sun again, listening to Russian being spoken at a table next to us WHEN sipping away and still thinking about sugar and Susan says “HazelNut lattes are sweet enough anyway”. I think or taste and go hmmmmmmm……………we realise THESE R NOT hazelnut lattes either. WELL Susan can’t resist and off she goes again to take on daddy Starbucks.

Again she returns with two more real HazelNut lattes PLUS our old ones. SO now we are SIX. We have them in a nice tray holding 4 cups. So off we go. We had paid around 7 buks for the TWO coffees, we cost the company, 36cents and we walked away with SIX cups of coffee, two of which we had drunk of course.

Not bad, especially since we drunk them all that day and managed to sleep that night.

So that’s the coffee story.

MY THINKING I WAS FUNNY in my blog title today had nothing to do with coffee BUT was becoz I am using Adobe Contribute to update my blog now…..which while its a learning curve, I am finding it is quite a bit easier………

Hence Contributing School…………….ha ha hee hhe…..Does anyone else get my word plays or am I in a class of my own???? Not the top class either.  I am sure it is healthy to find yourself funny…..but some people when they find out you think you are funny suddenly become serious and you aren’t FUNNY@ALL. TODAY I am funny……I can laugh at myself………and may it continue. The DOWs falling, I am 7,000 miles from my family and home…..I am ON TOUR In AMERICA, which could be depressing if you listened to the news all day, BUT I can laugh today………..that’s gotta be good.

So I think this Contributing School is great. Makes updating my blog and schpeeling easier. I need to schpeel, there’s so much to think about here. THANKS Adobe, I am glad I am in your class.

Hey thanks for reading this. Please leave a comment or register. Feeling like you are talking to yourself may be practice for my solitary confinement one day but don’t be shy…………. why am I the only loudmouth in the world.

Hi and Kia Ora and Gidday.

Gosh  Its such lovely weather in Denver Colorado at the moment. When I am out riding around Denver on my bike my heart is singing so much I almost forget that death is only a car or bus away.

You hear all these stories about people being hit, but I have found nothing but consideration in Denver drivers. I can only think of a coouple of instances where a bus or a car or a human obviously wasn’t aware that I was taking my life into my hands being on the road in the first place.

Denver is neat to ride around becoz the central city and most of it is FLAT. I like flat on my bike!

It makes me realise how hilly Whangarei is, tho nothing compared to WELLINGTON!

So there I am riding in the morning and afternoon sunshine happy as a clam and just loving the soft fall light and the warmth of the sun.

I’d love it if the weather was like this all year round.

In these happy moments out, you forget about the election, dirty politics and the card game being played with America @ the moment.

You kinda look thru all the homes with political propaganda on their lawns as you breeze by, or when you see cars covered in political stickers, usually the ‘other sides’.

An interesting time to be in America…..in fact possibly a historic time.

Riding my bike out exploring and taking photos, I know America will get the government it deserves, or if I really stretch my faith, the one God knows it needs for this time.

Which I struggle with……….because no one deserved Hitler or the Kymer Rouge, Stalin or Idi Amin ….or a long list of other bastards who have wrecked havoc with peoples lifes and countries, oh there is Mugabe too.

Oh to be unaware or unconcerned about these kinds of questions and breese thru life oblivious……………..but I am not, dam it!

I better get back onto my bike and enjoy the sunshine…..and forget about the flouro lights and monitors of Wall St …………..and enjoy the sunshine and avoid the crash. I don’t have much stock in the media………….the real truth may just be that people have had enough…….and tho the rescue package is needed………mainstreet or the working class are sick and tired of being duped, losing money to prop up rich fat cats whose lives go on in blessed luxury after losing millions, they are tired of sending there sons and daughters to war AND being treated this way………………

SEE I am a working class boy @ heart…no wonder I feel so happy on my bike

.

A drunk guy took this photo of me on Sunday last, ( I wasnt drunk @ all but he sure was). It was @ a biker bar in Golden called the Buffalo Rose. I think my shirts in focus.

Hmmmmmm…….don’t get me started on bikers.

Well its been all go, helping a friend move house, writing and taking photos exploring the land of opportunity trying to find the truth……..and I think I am getting nearer.

I have found out that gunfights were not really all duel type situations, man on man type stand offs. Most gunslingers shot their victims from behind coz they did not want to get shot. I watched ‘Open Range’ the other night, a Kevin Costner film. Afterwards they had a doco on the development of gun technology and the gun lifestyle, very interesting. Thats where the above fact re no one on one shoot outs was mentioned. It seems it has been a myth.

Another myth was on ‘Hannity & Colmes’ tonight. This myth is different and beggs some kind of exploration but I am too tired. I have been worrying about the economy all day, it wears you out.

Shaun (sp?) Hannity a Fox media star whose favourite saying is ‘journalism is dead’ was interviewing Condalisa Rice. He said that that America made up 5% of the worlds population but did 95% of the worlds fighting for freedom and democracy…I forget the exact words for the latter part.tho I am sure about the freedom bit.

I like Shaun, Sean, Shawn……..but that seems like a gross exageration. 95% of the world police work for freedom. I gotta think this one thru. For starters  does any nation do anything these days that does not have intrinsic gain. America is not in Tibet, East Timor, The Solomons, etc etc……….I think we could reduce that puffed up or bloated statistic right there. BUT what erks me about this…is that Sean will so believe it…Fox is meant to be about ‘no spin’…………but I find some of the programme hosts to be very verbose on their own veiws even when asking guests questions….especially Bill ORielly….and then they blow you off. If I was gona be anything I’d probably be a thinking or reluctant Republican……but among conservatives sometimes I find attitudes as ugly as those in the liberal camp.

To bed young man……what you think is not important..BUT you have the freedom to think it…..thanks of course to America fighting the worlds battles.

Well this is kind of a continuation of Steven. In fact lets end the Steven story here.

He was a lovely gentle man, he had been ripped off by his employers out of his work inheritance of like 61 thousand, lost his apartment, his mates on the street had taken his clothes and his tax return more than once, AND he smoked the cheapest of cigarettes. Had he smoked more expensively I would have questioned his sincerity. AND he didn’t smell of booze. I like Steven, the sheet metal worker, more to the point in that brief talk I loved Steven, and would have gladly become friends. I have looked for him since and not seen him. Perhaps he’s avoiding this knowledge & understanding hungry kiwi. LOL. Can’t say I blame him. I avoid myself sometimes!

Now to todays image.

As promised, this is almost a generic picture (of the male kind @ least, there are woman and younger than this, though I think a bit of age tampering goes on) of beggars at the crossroads and lights in Denver.

Its a fairly typical cardboard sign. This guy came out crossing himself and I thought he had the look of Moses down from the mountain, which this guys equivalent may just have been leaving the fast food outlet after a feed…invisible @ stage left. Moses eyes would have burned with the presence of God. Wouldn’t yours? I spose it depends if God is a Republican or a Democrat. This guy had the mystical unbalanced look and body language of a zealot.

Speaking of body language, I like John Mc Cain BUT I wish he’d stop pointing to people in the crowd………stage left, stage right…..LOL. who me, what’ve I done. But at least he has a point!

Back to the prophet of the moment. So this is pretty typical. I have it on good authority from  fellow beggars that these guys are well looked after by the churches…feed, clothed, showered and loved.

They have chosen a path……………not just the one to the River Platte to sleep.

Steven was worried with winter coming on. He’d been rained on the night before…..it was getting cold and the shelters didn’t open until October.

As to the burning Bush part of the title.

No doubt Democrats bash Republicans for the problem and visa versa…………………I just thought it was a good play on words.

And you don’t see this kinda thing in New Zealand………..I never have but I guess I haven’t frequented K road.

Please let me know if you have seen this in NZ.

You can see a larger version of this CLICK HERE

Well I have been in Denver tooo long so today I was taken on a trip to Colorado Springs. I had heard so much about that placefrom early contact with a group called the Navigators, ( a christian para-church organisation). Well today was the end (opps forgive me re the Steven story, I am getting back to that  and the round of thinking about poverty and street life in USA. There are new developments !)……today was the end of 90 days of prayer and continuous worship for a church in the Springs. The prayer was directed towards the nation & freedom, and the worship to perhaps an all to forgotten God. BUT not by some. Definitely not those there and many others across Woody’s land.

It was neat to be there, and neat to balance the images of Broadway and Colfax with the images of people who may in fact be poorer, but who represented those who loved a long forgotten Saviour and king.

These people despite their media stereotype are not narrow minded or old or boring or all wearing some kind of cross brand. The only cross they carried was for the love of America and for America to get back to  the God of the founding fathers.

How far America has fallen..and falling and will continue to fall until some sense of black n white in a grey world is re established. I sense in myself even the fear of black n white, so grey I may have become.

There are grey areas for sure, but the problem is that the areas that need to be black n white have become grey, some non negotiables have turned to grey, no thanks to the supreme court and liberal politics.

But the tide is turning.

Yes its war. But the weapons of this warfare are spiritual. Thats what this 90 days was about.

The unraveling has begun.

Humility starts a lot of great changes.