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photo: cyclone meena gathers strength as it nears the cook islands.
// OPINION
What lessons can we learn from the latest cyclone season?
Possibly the first is that we do not seem to be learning anything.
We live in the world tropical zone.
There are cyclones nearly every year.
Most years the country is lucky.
Some years we are not.
Over any 100 year period, there may be three or four years when we can be very unlucky.
The worst year of the last century was 1997 when 19 died, in Manihiki, during cyclone Martin.
No one died this year.
In fact, we got off quite lightly. Pukapuka was devastated, but no one drowned.
Light damage means big dollars, however.
According to government, eight percent of all rooms were knocked out by cyclones, five in as many weeks.
Eight percent may not seem high.
Most of that eight per cent is made up of premium waterfront rooms, from which the industry earns top dollars and bookings.
Latest statistics show occupation rates of around 60 to 70%.
Take your cyclone-gutted rooms from that total and the percentage rises to 11% or more than one in ten of the country's top producing rooms. Let's give a big discount and say each of those rooms were worth $100 a night. That comes to about $16,000 a night lost revenues, or $112,000 a week. Give about three months for those rooms to get back to full capacity and we are talking a minimum total loss of $1,456,000.
And yet authorities continue to allow properties to erect rock walls that have been proven, over and over again, not to work. In fact, rock walls are against the wall as they have a negative impact on the environment. No one wants to enforce those laws.
What will happen when we get hit by the big one?
Another, more worrying, example.
At the height of Cyclone Meena, about 20 people were praying for their lives aboard a small trading ship.
By some miracle, they made it through alive. It could easily have resulted in as many deaths as Cyclone Martin, three years into a new century instead of ninety seven.
What was the ship doing there?
Why was it allowed to sail straight into the cyclone zone?
What warnings were given by authorities?
If any, why were those warnings ignored?
Why has there been no inquiry or prosecution?
Risking the lives of 20 people would seem to be good cause to hold an inquiry. In fact, it might be a good idea to call a commission of inquiry. Then repeat that inquiry every year, tasking it to recommend prosecutions against those who continually fail to wake up to the fact that we live smack, bang in the middle of a tropical cyclone zone.
Otherwise, more Cook Islanders will pay for official inaction.
With their lives.
And that's another lesson we seem to be stuck on learning, over and over again.
I can't believe I really did it!!! Also, if I can put a palm tree in it, I will. Thanks, Joanne for the lessons and somehow giving me confidence over the internet!
A religious lesson at the Mosque of Ibn Al-Arabi in Salhieh, Damascus.
Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) is one of the most famous Muslim philosophers. He was born in southern Spain and lived during the golden era of openness and tolerance in Arab-ruled Andalusia. He spent years traveling around the Arab world before finally settling in Damascus, where he completed his greatest book Al-Futuhat Al-Makkiyyah (Meccan Revelations), which is an encyclopedia of Sufism (Islamic mysticism) and Sufi teachings. He was buried in Damascus; and the Mosque, pictured above, was built in his honor by Ottoman Sultan Selim I in 1516.
Throughout his life, Ibn Arabi preached tolerance among all faiths. In one of his most famous poems, he considers his heart "a center of love":
O Marvel! a garden amidst the flames.
My heart has become capable of every form:
It is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
and a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Kaa'ba,
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.
I follow the religion of Love:
Whatever way Love's camels take,
that's my religion and my faith.
I gave a lesson about the de Havilland Enterprise and how it affected the town of Hatfield to these pupils at the Howe Dell School. The school has been built on the site of the de Havilland airfield. It is an eco school with all the very best facilities. They all enjoyed my photos and the talk!
DCIM\100GOPRO
June has been a great month: sunny, warm & really good conditions for all our customers on beginners windsurf lessons here at Poole Windsurfing
I came across some training the other day that involved the Cosumnes Services District Fire Department, the Herald Volunteer Fire Department and the Walnut Grove Volunteer Fire Department. They were using an abandoned building that was slated for destruction.
I've nothing left to say.
I've nothing left to think.
I've nothing left to do.
But move on.
(Last picture ever wasted on you.)
A neighbor of ours told Deb and I about asking his son to write, just a little, during his summer off from school. Photo taken in California a few years back.
This is a detail of my front porch, one of the posts. The porch ceiling color is a bit off and the shadow was supposed to be more blue, but when it went over the yellow ochre it got more chocolaty. I do love my post tho'!
Today was Liam's last day of swim lessons (for this season, anyway). They put the kids in the canoe and rocked it back and forth, then eventually tipped it over! Liam was panicked at first, but he "swam" to the edge (they all had life jackets on).
Constructing volumes.
I used a very light grey/brown watercolour pencil for sketching out the books first.
I find that line work is one of the easier things for me, so I enjoyed this exercise, until it came to painting the front covers!
Nursery children playing with musical instruments in their music lesson with teachers. They are in the classroom.
At Modbury State Swim (aka Clovercrest Swimming Club).
It has underwent multiple repaints/refurbishments from time to time.
from Mental Children fanzine, issue #2 (1980)
stillunusual.tumblr.com/post/80790252749/mental-children-...