Progress

Donna Wynd, from the Child Poverty Action Group, responded to my column in the NZ Herald.

There are some statistical mistakes or misunderstandings I could comment on but the point I want to highlight is this.

For ten years I have been actively, purposefully and methodically attacking the DPB. When I began the detractors were outnumbering the supporters easily.

I would diligently, obsessively, deal with any arguments using fact. But in the early days I also invested emotion and took counter-attacks very personally. That is a no-no now.

The comments in the NZ Herald responding to my column ran roughly 50/50 pro and agin. Progress. Great.

The first three comments to Donna Wynd are negative. I read these because they came out on the printed version. Haven't perused the others as yet.

My personal battle with the DPB protagonists isn't important. We could spar endlessly and never persuade each other.

The vital aspect of the debate is to allow people who agree (with either viewpoint) to say so, or even if they don't voice their thoughts aloud, to know they are not alone.

The process of advancing ideas is slow but requires persistence. It doesn't feel as though this particular cause is lost.

My brief response to Wynd by way of a letter to the editor;

Donna Wynd, in Make villains of sole mothers at children's peril (NZ Herald, Jan 7) rebutted my suggestion that children are abused because they are meal tickets, by unnecessarily defending the entire sole parent population. Clearly all sole parents do not abuse or neglect their children. Nor do all beneficiaries.

However NZ research shows that a notification to CYF is almost 4 times more likely to occur in a benefit dependent household. She can access this study, The Benefit Status of Caregivers of Children and Young People Who Come to the Notice of CYPFS, on-line.

Yet Wynd writes, "Abuse and neglect of children cuts across income, class and ethnicity." Yes, instances can be found to support this assertion but the fact remains that the predominance of both occurs in lower socio economic, Maori, welfare-dependent settings. It is this blinkered denial of reality that actually perpetuates abuse.

The Ministry of Health, for instance, does not target Pakeha, middle-class females for smoking reduction despite the fact that some smoke. They focus their efforts and resources where the problem is greatest; among Maori, particularly women and girls. This is more likely to effect an overall reduction in smoking.

Shortage of news

A rather breathless headline says,

Youth jobless rate soars to 19.4%

We all know that unemployment is currently relatively high. Unfortunately youth and minority groups always bear the brunt.

Here is the OECD paper the reporter has been looking at. NZ's rate of 15-24 year-old unemployment is 0.9 percent above the OECD average. Not desperately alarming by international standards.

And checking the HLFS rate over the year to September 2010 reveals that the percentage for 15-19 year-olds has dropped slightly from 25.1 to 23.3. The rate for 20-24 year-olds increased slightly from 10.9 to 11.8 percent. So the use of the word "soars" needs some context.

The story is, in line with rising unemployment due to recession, New Zealand's youth unemployment rate climbed after 2007. It has steadied over the past year and is just above the OECD average but below the EU average.

Half-arsed reporting

Here is a stupid headline from the NZ Herald;

More US kids report abuse

Nearly half of United States children who've been victims of crime or abuse are stepping up to tell school officials, doctors and police, according to a 2008 telephone survey of more than 4500 US children and teens. That compares with 25 per cent in a similar study done in 1992.

That's it. Two sentences.

This leaves more questions than answers the central being, how many of the 4,500 were victims?

According to the National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, overall abuse is down on the 1990s. The data reported on is gathered from various state Child Protection Services (CPS). NIS 4 was published this year. Excerpt:

The number of children who experienced Harm Standard abuse declined significantly, by 26%, from an estimated 743,200 in the NIS–3 to 553,300 in the NIS–4. This reflects a 32% decrease in the rate of Harm Standard abuse per 1,000 children in the nation. Moreover, the incidence of all specific categories of abuse decreased: The incidence of sexual abuse decreased significantly, while the declines in physical abuse and emotional abuse were both close-to-significant.

What the survey reported in the Herald shows is that of the children experiencing a crime or abuse, more are reporting it.

To illustrate my point, let's say 100 children were abused in 1992 and 25 (quarter) of them reported it. In 2008 only 68 children were abused but 34 (half) of them reported it.

More children reported abuse but fewer children were abused.

Yet the headline, without greater context, leaves the distinct impression that child abuse in the US is getting worse. The alternative headline may very well have been that

Fewer US children abused

(Although the half-arsed type would probably say, Less US children abused, if bothering).

And yes I could go hunting for the survey myself but that is irrelevant to the point I am making about half-arsed reporting.

Don't frigging tell me how to have fun

One thing that really raises my hackles is being told how to have fun.

"Ideally, parents will be in the water with the child. They'll also have more fun that way. And, if they are in the water with the child, there is less opportunity to be distracted."

A child will swim, especially if the pool (corrected typo 'pot' - must have been subliminal) is well-heated, all day, every day, of a holiday. It is not my idea of fun being in the water remorselessly badgered with "Mum, watch me do this", and "Mum, watch me do this, " and "Mum, watch me do this" which come at the rate of about 60 per minute.

Once big enough for water-wings my kids were off. Kicking around the motel pool happily while I could enjoy a rare read with one eye and ear on them. They were happier with more swimming time, and I was happier with more intellectual stimulation.

Have you noticed how busy the fun police have been this break? And people have started wishing each other a safe and healthy holiday?? I went to Tauherenikau races. They issued bottled water at the gate and kept making public announcements about keeping your fluid level up. I was trying but someone knocked over my glass of Lindauer. Then the cops were breath-testing every punter leaving. I don't object to the last. We make provision for it. But I can do without the constant hectoring about staying out of the sun because the "current UV reading is ---".

Now some utter killjoy has come up with the idea of alcohol-free February. Not happy with a day, these greedy bastards want to impose an entire month on recalcitrant pleasure seekers. Not in my house.

And who is sick of Paula poster-girl-for-the-police Rose? Nanny supremo banging on about road safety every time you turn the telly on. She leads me to having utterly paranoid thoughts like, what if David and I are killed on the road going to the races? The road is the most dangerous place a human being can venture to? What will happen to the kids? Now that they are too busy reading to want to come and have fun with me??

And spare a thought for the poor smokers. Whammo. There's another three bucks penalty for doing something that gives some relief from all the stress of worrying about getting fat, dying in an earthquake or on the roads or from skin cancer or dehydration or just the interminable nagging.

Let the smokers smoke themselves to death if they want. Because that's one less ageing baby-boomer, the new cause célèbre for the anxiety addicts.

Then somebody came into my shop and told me that pastels are highly carcinogenic. I should be wearing a mask and gloves. Oh fuck. No.

I may as well curl up in a little ball and die right now.

Who is John Key's "untrustworthy and obnoxious" suggestion?

Have your guess here as to who the "untrustworthy and obnoxious" character is that John Key has apparently suggested for the next Governor General.

I didn't have to think very hard at all who this description fits.

Winston Peters.

Laws and his problem

The trouble with Michael Laws is he makes statements about Maori which are founded in fact but the qualifier never sees the light of day. Embroiled in a conflict over his use of another child victim's photo on his facebook page he responds;

"I have no intention of letting the feral Maori underclass keep killing their kids. They are almost all exclusively Maori ... victim and perpetrator. Look at the local roll call: Karl Perigo-Check, Cherish, Jhia Te Tua ... now Sahara. Notice the common thread?"

Now "feral Pakeha underclass" could have been substituted and the sentiment still founded in fact. Not all of the children killed through maltreatment are Maori. And most Maori have Pakeha blood anyway (stating the tiresome obvious there.)

The simple truth of the matter is the Maori underclass is more obvious because it is bigger. It is bigger because of historical factors; the massive urban drift, and dislocation and isolation of individuals. Grandparents, and older family members, were not involved in the upbringing of children the way they traditionally had been. Substitute whanau developed; gangs. Economically Maori were the poor NZ race and the creation of benefits therefore had a much greater effect on them than Pakeha. The same happened in the US with Blacks and Hispanics. Family formation (Travis Snyder) was hit harder. And, in the main, Maori cultural values didn't hold education and provision for the future as dear. Understandable when only 100 years ago merely surviving was the priority.

From Nga Iwi o te Motu, Michael King offers:

[Peter] Buck wrote in his annual report [as Native health officer], “The [Maori] communism of the past meant industry, training in arms, good physique, the keeping of the law, the sharing of the tribal burden, and the preservation of life. The communism of today means indolence, sloth, decay of racial vigour, the crushing of individual effort, the spreading of introduced infections, diseases, and the many evils that are petrifying his advance.” [Maui] Pomare added: “The Maori having been an active race and always having been kept in a state of excitement by wars and the rumour of wars, can now only find vent for his feelings on the racecourse, gambling and billiard-playing, with an occasional bout in the Land court”.

The traits Buck describes are still evident today.

But there are Pakeha aplenty essentially mired by the same "communism" - living off other people by right. No vent for their energy through work, they look for excitement elsewhere. I do not believe a young Maori male who is unemployed, abusing drugs and alcohol, mentally scarred by his own upbringing and in a gang, is any more dangerous than a young Pakeha male in the same circumstances. The last time I spent a day in court observing proceedings the more desperate types, as confirmed by their ongoing state custody, up on domestic violence charges, were young white men.

But returning to my main point, there are fewer of them in relation to NZ European numbers.

There are things that need saying in NZ. But for mine Laws just puts it too bluntly and in doing so probably goes no way towards improving matters. Quite possibly he pushes some into resentful, reproachful retreat and doubly deviant.

What we actually need is for (some) Maori to do way better. That is up to individuals and those people who have the most influence over them. Their whanau or whatever is left of it. It isn't for Laws to singlehandedly solve.

BUT ... exactly the same can be said for (some) Pakeha.

(I cede the point in anticipation that constant qualification is a pain in the butt and often fail myself to adhere.)

Violent crime continues to fall in the US

Some good news.

We don't hear much about US crime here in NZ but I have tracked it in keeping with my interest in their welfare reforms. There is a strong connection between lifestyle welfare and crime primarily working through the disenfranchisement of young men, especially minority groups, the subsequent breakdown of the family unit and the reinforcement of dysfunctional living.

Opponents to the 1996 reforms warned that crime would increase. Some even resigned to demonstrate their deep concerns.

Across the nation, homicide rates have dropped to their lowest levels in nearly a generation. And overall violent crime has sunk to its lowest level since 1973, Justice Department statistics show.

The long-term trend is particularly striking in the nation's three largest cities:

* In New York, homicides have dropped 79 percent during the past two decades - from 2,245 in 1990 to 471 in 2009.
* Chicago is down 46 percent during that period, from 850 to 458.
* Los Angeles is down 68 percent, from 983 to 312.

On the downside however;

But the prospect of prolonged economic woes raise troubling questions about whether violent crime could rise again, and some recent trends that affect residents' quality of life have been unsettling:

* In New York, city crime reports though November of 2010 indicate that homicides have jumped 14.4 percent and rape is up 15.6 percent this year, compared with the same period last year. Those numbers don't compare to the 1990s, but are notable in a city that has been a model for reducing crime.
* In Chicago, Police Superintendent Jody Weis says the city has struggled to break an unusual cycle of slaying involving child victims.
* In Los Angeles, authorities have tamped down persistent gang violence, but police acknowledge that the successes are fragile in a never-ending effort to maintain local public safety, even as gang membership has risen slightly, from 43,000 in 2008 to 45,000 this year.

When crime control relies heavily on intensive policing, public service cuts of the kind being made in the US will no doubt be having an impact.

As an afterthought what would it look like if NZ could return to 1973 levels of offending?

Best I can do quickly is these two graphs.

The first is from Statistics NZ and shows all recorded offending per 1,000 until 2000. I have added a rough line extending to 2010.



The next is the FBI Crime Index per 100,000 graph.



Two very different pictures.

Government intervention makes matters worse

Here is a vivid description of the law of unintended consequences. The Australian government is waging war against alcohol abuse amongst some Aboriginals but their interventions are only moving the problem elsewhere and worsening the conditions in which alcoholics are living. They have also become more dangerous to themselves, each other and the public (alcoholics and politicians).

A CRACKDOWN on ''rivers of grog'' in remote Aboriginal communities under the federal intervention has pushed drinkers into camps with no shelter, toilets, water, food or police patrols, the Northern Territory government has been told.

The territory's co-ordinator general for remote services, Bob Beadman, says at the isolated camps ''feuds are fuelled by alcohol, tribal resentments flare, the social order of kinship and avoidance is abandoned, and self-respect soaks into the soil with the blood and excrement of the vomit''.

He also says the declaration of dry prescribed areas under the multibillion-dollar intervention has pushed drinkers from remote communities into major towns where they have no shelter and are away from the care of their families.

One savvy observer notes;

Mr Beadman, a senior administrator of Aboriginal policy since 1973, said bush families were worried that ''not even the governments which make the laws that inadvertently create these places have any duty of care about the consequences of their actions''.

So what have the authorities learned and what will they do next?

The NT government recently announced plans to introduce laws in 2011 to give police unprecedented powers to ban people from buying and drinking takeaway alcohol for up to a year. Problem drinkers will be put on a register of banned drinkers and refused service.

From July, anyone buying takeaway liquor in the NT will have to produce identification.

This will only create more mayhem.

Back however to our more considered player;

But Mr Beadman recommended the government also talk with remote communities and indigenous support agencies about whether dry areas or licensed drinking premises would be enduring solutions, then develop alcohol management plans for specific areas.

It seems to me that there is a greater chance people will be 'redeemed' if there are at least drinking in a reasonably civilised setting and given help and care as needed. Minimise the harm because it will never be eradicated.

Disgraceful crowd behaviour at Alexandra Trotting Park

Newspapers from 100 years ago are more interesting than the present offerings.

The PM Joseph Ward explains how existing public debt will be repaid in 75 years. Very ambitious.

The Colonist patronisingly describes how Maori are "just like Pakeha" when it comes to keeping up with technology. And why wouldn't they be?

Then, in the Marlborough Express, a "frank discussion" with the Chinese Consul, Mr Hwang, about the question of Asiatics entering and working in NZ, and the indignity of "finger printing" labourers because authorities could not tell them apart by looks alone. Thank God most have moved on from this sort of racial prejudice, although I see NZ First is still polling well above other minor parties.

In the Ashburton Guardian, the Secretary of the Howard Association writes about prison reform in England and how they hope to cut next year's prison population by 40,000 through deferring incarceration. Not sure how that improves ultimate numbers.

And finally, the Wanganui Chronicle reports on the disgraceful crowd behaviour at Alexandra Trotting Park causing the postponement of racing. Sergeant Dale was forced to close the bar and post mounted guards over it. I wonder if there was a Alexandra Trotting Park residents association falling over themselves to remonstrate at the lack of police action in the surrounding environs?

If you just feel like a laugh this morning read the last one. Genuinely funny, even if not necessarily intended to be so.

Next year's census

The Ashburton Guardian, December 28, 1910

Real art

This painting had me hovering for ages yesterday at the European Masters exhibition currently showing at Te Papa. The chance to see an original Renoir and NOT under glass was quite special. This reproduction sadly does nothing for it. But the reason why students need to copy the masters on-the-spot was brought home to me forcibly. Without seeing the relief, the brushwork, the actual colours (allowing for fading over time of course) one hasn't a hope in hell of understanding or emulating his techniques, of which there were very many. Possibly too many over his prodigious career.

The elements of the painting - the glassware and china teacups - are so beautifully crafted with bright colours that aren't apparent in this photo. The luminous nature of fabrics is hard to believe when so much white is used. The building up of the highlights is utterly precise. But the whooshing of background washes, and the feathering of hard edges creates an atmosphere hard to describe and I would imagine, almost impossible to imitate.

His paintings are truly inspirational for me. They provide new ideas about colour. For instance since getting more immersed in pastel I have been using violet or purple increasingly. It's a very useful colour for expressing dark or shadow because it isn't cold and brown/black is sometimes quite unpleasant - at least to my eye. So I was fascinated to see, in the only other Renoir in the exhibition, the beginnings were seemingly a warm purple grounding or wash. That is the entire canvas is pre-coated in that shade or variations of it.



Seeing this first-hand I was able to discern or guess that the blouse was initially painted over a already depicted form. The stripes would have been laid down quite carefully. But then, while the paint is still wet, a feathering brush dragged very lightly and rhythmically over the area to create the mistiness that reads so well. Like putting a soft focus on a photographic subject. Whether I am right doesn't matter. It's the idea that matters. I had forgotten how useful a skill it can be, especially with flower and landscapes.

Then there was the inevitable dross which I will not even describe. Wouldn't even look at. Yes I am narrow-minded when it comes to art. Why give pretentious daubs any attention at all?

Even Renoir's paintings, I think, declined as he aged (generalising). Boredom seeps in. There is a parallel in composing too. Often the greatest work of composers - of all genres - is created within a certain time frame. The discovery period. Probably the same happens in personal relationships too. That's why they need work. But art shouldn't be work.

It can take a certain amount of rationalisation or compromise but the more it requires, the less it is by definition 'art'.

Interestingly Renoir had a number of mistresses so his romances obviously grew stale. He would gift a portrait to them on parting. His portraits of his lovers were, shall we say, somewhat generous. Larger breasts, softer eyes, taller statures. But he was never a tortured soul. There was no great angst, no tragedy, no twisted psyche. He painted beauty. Or, perhaps more correctly, he created beauty. Which is what art should be in my book. There is enough ugliness in the world. I don't need art to remind me of it.

Readership increases by a factor of ten thousand

To my surprise the NZ Herald published my latest submission. Not that they never publish me, but it was fairly hard-hitting. The comments facility will no doubt produce some stern detraction.

Why child abuse continues

Here is the problem - or part of it. These are the words of the former Children's Commissioner, Ian Hassall, on the subject of abused children;

A mantra I learnt as a young doctor from older colleagues was, "There but for the grace of God go I". It was a reminder when faced with something shocking or upsetting to be aware of my own shortcomings and try to place myself in the shoes of the people who came my way and not condemn them. From such a position we hope to be able to consider carefully the injured children who come to our attention and offer them and their families the best service we can, whatever that might entail.

Ideally this 'Christian' approach should offer the best results.

However, when it is widely adopted beyond the sphere of the medical profession, it does not.

When social workers, court staff, lawyers, teachers, clergy, and various other volunteers don the self-satisfying cloak of non-judgmentalism those being mentored to, the abusers, actually start believing that their actions are justifiable, understandable and even admissible. They start believing in themselves as the victims of circumstances beyond their control - for instance their own upbringing, or in the case of Maori, their cultural oppression.

While it is true that these factors have bearing on what transpires - acts of domestic violence - they are not excuses.

But the perpetrators are probably quite shocked when they go too far and end up convicted and imprisoned. Quite a rare response from society in the scheme of things.

What is lacking is the broad stigmatisation of child abuse. It is strange that cigarette smoking has been transformed into a detestable, filthy habit by the Health Ministry, other paid zealots and politicians, yet influential people like Ian Hassall are still making excuses and preaching tolerance for child abusers.

Odd. Most odd.

The Ministry of Social Development, on behalf of CYF, are acting as a collection agency for the unnamed 9 year-old abuse victim. They have set up a trust fund (inferred) and are advising people who want to give gifts, to drop them at their local CYF office.

Am I churlish or cynical or just plain curious about this exercise?

It is a first in my experience.

The appraisals of CYF'S role in what occurred have ranged from slightly critical to thoroughly damning. Personally I prefer to sheet the blame back to the culprits. If we didn't have so many poor excuses for parents there would, after all, be no CYF.

But is this initiative a face-saving effort? Is it 'appropriate' for an agency that has arguably failed this child already, to assume the public will want to entrust to it gifts and money that will supposedly make her once again feel "special and cared for"?

Perhaps it is entirely consistent for the primary public agency tasked with protecting the safety of children to channel the inevitable public expression of sympathy when it has been unable to fulfil that charge.

In which case, what about all the other victims of abuse?

Price tag on children leads to abuse and neglect

Responding to the most recent high profile child abuse case, the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Paula Bennett (NZ Herald, December 21) says she will "... do anything in her power to protect children." We must take her at her word. I do not doubt her sincerity.

Why does child abuse and neglect occur? Because the child is 'wanted' at one level, but not at another. Sometimes they are wanted for the benefits that dependent children bring; priority for housing, extra income, and parental amnesty from being self-supporting. They are not wanted in the usual sense; loved more than can be expressed or explained. The way children should be loved by their parents and grandparents.

Sometimes the parent's own mental or physical health problems get in the way of unqualified care, but that is another issue. One that, from a government point of view, needs addressing through the Ministry of Health. But the issue identified here - children as meal-tickets - is a matter for the Minister who assures us she will do anything in her power to prevent the sort of abuse that makes grown-ups cry, if they allow the grim reality to break through their own defence mechanisms.

Meal-ticket children are hostages to their parent's or caregiver's life styles. Politicians on the left of the political spectrum will remonstrate that funding cannot be withdrawn from these parents because the child will suffer. As if the child isn't suffering anyway. Living in environments characterised by gang associations that bring a culture of threats and counter-threats; alcohol and drug abuse; sexual and incestuous abuse. These children exist in their hundreds, if not in their thousands.

Children have been a source of income in New Zealand for eighty years or more. Unlike the Old Age Pension, Maori were easily able to access the Family Benefit which, with their typically large families, accrued a tidy sum by the 1940s. Enough in some rural communities for the menfolk to knock off work and spend their days drinking and gambling. Which in turn set up the right conditions for domestic disharmony and childhood misery.

Child abuse was 'discovered' in the 1950s and 60s but certainly pre-existed that era. While by no stretch of the imagination wholly explaining the incidence of abuse, the more that 'poor' families are paid to look after their children, the more abuse has occurred or, at least, has been notified and substantiated. More money certainly isn't curing the problem. So perhaps it is time to ask if more money is exacerbating it?

The incidence of Maori child abuse is disproportionately high. Conversely, the statistics for Asian child abuse are very low. Yet Asians have the lowest median incomes in New Zealand. Even more telling, they have the lowest proportion of income from government transfers. They are not heavily benefit-dependent. They are busy earning a living and expecting as much from their children in the present and future. In a recent conversation with an ex-plunket nurse I was told how, even in poor neighbourhoods and cramped living conditions, extended Asian families doted on their offspring. The same nurse had eventually abandoned her career because working with families who cared for neither themselves nor their children became too demoralising to deal with.

Grandparents raising grandchildren will tell of bitter custody battles with their own offspring (frequently drug or alcohol addicted) intent on keeping children in their care merely to advance their chosen lifestyle - receiving a state income with no obligation to do anything for it.

Between a third and a half of people receiving the DPB became a parent in their teens when a benefit income guarantees more than an unskilled job. This group has been shown to have the longest duration of stay on welfare often adding more children, and more income, to their benefit. The incidence of abuse amongst non-working families is around four times higher than among working families.

While there is good and genuine cause for the state to temporarily assist parents experiencing a crisis or losing the support of a partner it should rarely bestow an open-ended income. That is a recipe for children to be exploited.

It is within the power of Paula Bennett to consider this ugly aspect of social security and work to change it. It will not be an easy problem to resolve but she should start by at least acknowledging it.

Run up to Xmas

The work continues to come in. I had a lull and produced the following sketch, framed it and hung it ready for sale. Sold another painting yesterday. Some photos of the shop follow the sketch. I have an order for two replicate oil portraits which I am going to begin today. Using turps and oils on the spot will require a great deal of discipline. Not only to avoid a mess but to achieve a result as quickly as possible.

Turning five

If my blog was a child it would be starting school tomorrow - except there is no school tomorrow. Yeh for school holidays.

The five years it takes for a child to progress from birth to school seem very significant with so much mental and physical development taking place. In the last five years my blog has certainly grown physically (content quantity) but I don't think it has growth much mentally (content quality). If anything it has gone backwards with too much repetition of ideas.

But I don't plan to abandon it even if I am moving into a different phase - more art, more people contact and less virtual communication. Not one for dramatic gestures or decisions, I actually mirror my political conviction. Gradualism. Incremental change led by radical ideas that take seed and grow. Slowly. Mind numbingly slowly sometimes.

Some say politics is a numbers game. I say it is a game of patience. Mine has not run out. Yet. But the welfare stuff isn't going to take precedence any more.

Scary stories about the state gone mad

Here is a very scary story that details the potential for new government taxes (levies or fines) through compulsory, tracked, recycling.

Citing the British model, Cleveland, Ohio, is taking a giant step toward a similar scheme of compulsory recycling, says Wendy McElroy, a research fellow at the Independent Institute.

* In 2011 some 25,000 households will be required to use recycling bins fitted with radio-frequency identification tags (RFIDs) -- tiny computer chips that can remotely provide information such as the weight of the bin's contents and that allow passing garbage trucks to verify their presence.
* If a household does not put its recycle bin out on the curb, an inspector could check its garbage for improperly discarded recyclables and fine the scofflaws $100.
* Moreover, if a bin is put out in a tardy manner or left out too long, the household could be fined.
* Cleveland plans to implement the system citywide within six years.

Although you would be shocked to read about legislation forcing pubs to sell only low alcohol beer, you wouldn't be surprised. But this story is even stranger. In 2011 bars and restaurants in Colorado will be banned from the sales of such products.

As the happy-hour crowd began trickling into The Celtic Tavern on Tuesday night, bar owner Patrick Schaetzle — flanked by placards and mirrors touting Murphy's Irish Stout — got some unsettling news.

Sometime next year bars will have to stop selling his Lower Downtown pub's signature stout along with an array of other beers that are lower alcohol.

A bit of both

I deliberated over whether to title this post "It's a bit late now" or "It's never too late".

Ex UK minister in charge of narcotics policy has decided that all drugs should be legalised. Shame he didn't come to this conclusion - or at least act on it - while he was in charge. But from someone in his position and with residual influence on public opinion, his revelation is better late than ever.

"The war on drugs does not work. We need to be bold, we need some fresh thinking," Ainsworth, who was also Defence Secretary in the former Labour government, told BBC radio.

"This has been going on for 50 years now and it isn't getting better. The drugs trade is as big and as powerful as it ever was across the world."

Ainsworth said each drug should be examined on its own terms and there should be different regimes for each one. Heroin should be legally available, but only on prescription, he suggested, while cocaine could be available from legal sources such as doctors.

"I'm not proposing the liberalisation and legalisation of heroin so we can all get zonked out on the street corner," he said.

"What I'm saying is heroin needs to be taken out of the hands of the dealers, put into the hands of the medical profession, done in a mass way to the extent that's necessary."

There was a time when I kept my views about decriminalisation quiet. People think you are mad when you suggest legalisation of all drugs. But over time it becomes clearer and clearer that the madness is in the status quo.

Unsigned threat

Yesterday this was left in my letterbox;



The first thing I note is that the complaint is unsigned. Which immediately raises my hackles - like bloggers and commentors who hide behind anonymity to carp and criticise.

The next is the pedantic detailing of times. The aggrieved writer must be writing them down. They seem a little early as I usually only wake Sam at 7 but they are thereabouts. However, to describe after 7am as "very early hours" is silly. On a week day - the only time I walk Girl at that time - anyone working or attending school is up and about.

Then the "continual barking". Girl, a trained heading dog, gets very excited about her walk and yes, she does bark "madly" from the door to the gate when she quietens down as she goes on the leash. So she barks for a few seconds.

She is not out of control.

But as the writer is threatening a complaint to the council, I wonder what "continual barking in the very early hours" will infer? A dog left alone to bark constantly at one or two in the morning? That would probably provoke an unnecessary and unwarranted investigation.

Then I consider the line about having some consideration for others in the neighbourhood. Having put an anonymous note in my letterbox I am now wondering who I have upset. Is it a newcomer or a neighbour I usually get along with? The writer has cast suspicion over the other neighbours by refusing to sign their name or talking to me personally. In my book that is a more anti-social action than my neglecting to shut my occasionally barking dog up.

I will endeavour to do so by putting her on the leash before she exits the house. But I now face the unpleasant experience of setting off on our walk wondering who is disapprovingly watching us from behind twitching curtains.

Perhaps I will set off today loudly singing "Joy to the World...."