2012 Overture

“Restless night. These are some serious earthquakes.”
“I can’t stop shaking now so I can’t tell if the earth’s moving or it’s just me.”
“Got teens out of bed and under a table – so it must have been big!”
Twitter comments 2/1/12

Is there no reprieve or even time off for good behaviour?  In a reprise of 23 December’s 2012 Overture Christchurch continues to be hammered by earthquakes with a further 50 in the 24 hours to 6pm Monday- two over 5.0 and six 4.0s.* Not too many ringing chimes-most churches with bells are munted- and it’s a bit thin on the brass fanfare,  but  there’s plenty of cannon fire.  130 years after he penned his famous piece Tchaikovsky would be impressed with the special effects.

Hopefully we’re seeing off the seismic enemy like the Russians and winter saw off Napoleon’s army in 1812 but we swamp dwellers are all a bit sick of being apprehensive and defensive during the Christmas and New Year festival season.

On Monday the city had been initially shaken awake at 1.27am with a 5.1 magnitude centred 20km north of Lyttelton.* The largest shake- 5.58 magnitude on the “local magnitude” scale -was another wake  up call at 5.45am and was centred 20km north east of Lyttelton at a depth of 15km. In Christchurch it was mainly felt as a strong rolling motion, rather than a short, sharp jolt that seems to do more damage. It was a Mercalli  VI – “Felt by everyone. Difficult to stand. Some heavy furniture moved, some plaster falls. Chimneys may be slightly damaged.” Not that there are many left still standing in large parts of the city. It was followed nine minutes later by a 4.1 in the same region. 10,000 Christchurch homes lost electricity temporarily.

Dodgy media coverage
The Press reports that footage of past earthquake damage has been used in overseas coverage of the latest quakes .Australian TV news featured scenes of flooded streets and collapsed buildings despite no further reported significant damage from the latest shakes. I suppose this should be expected-everything else on TV is a re-run-but it’s misleading and bad for tourism.

Perhaps we can promote the adventure tourism angle, though the streets of Christchurch are a lot safer than the country’s mountains and rivers and really worth a visit as the inner city Red Zone continues to shrink. Ironically, the suburban red zones will no doubt expand after the cumulative damage and new liquefaction in the past fortnight.

West of the Wall
The West Wall of Christ Church Cathedral has completely collapsed following fresh damage from the 23 December quake and returning holiday makers will no doubt find exacerbated damage from the latest instalment. In its on-line editions, The Press still features a photo of the spire-less cathedral with the lovely stained-glass Rose Window, once a feature of this wall, still intact. It was shattered six months ago in the June 13 quakes.

The question mark over the cathedral is getting even bigger with every new serious shake as a decision is imminent on plans to build the “Cardboard Cathedral”* on the vacant land of an unnamed Christchurch parish,   if parishioners agree, as a centre for the diocese and use by other organisations.

Aftershocks or foreshocks?
Are the latest shocks the “last gasp”of the deadly February 22 fault?*  Or are the “aftershocks” really foreshocks-part of a fault network triggering mechanism that will eventually bring the Main Alpine Fault into play, as portrayed in the prescient 1996 TV documentary Quake! ?* Whatever the anxieties we have no option but to remain positive, even if the teeth are a bit gritted.

Looking back-looking forward
January is named after the Roman god Janus who had two faces so he could look ahead into future and back into the past simultaneously. In the moving now- and in the very best sense- we too have to be two faced at this new crossroads in our civic history.

Here are some lovely New Year words penned by a friend in Sydney:
“A new year is unfolding, like a blossom with petals curled tightly concealing the beauty within. Let this year be filled with things that are truly good, with comfort of warmth in our relationships, the strength to help those who need our help and humility and openness to accept help from others.

It is an unspoilt page in our book of time. Our next chance at the art of living, opportunity to practice what we have learnt about life from past. All that we seek and didn’t find is hidden in the coming year, waiting for us to search it but with more determination. All that we dreamed but didn’t dare do, all that we hoped for but did not will, all the faith that we claimed but did not have, waiting to be awakened by the touch of a strong purpose…” Tejinder Hansra

The New Year is our opportunity to renew our commitment to our fast changing city. We just hope that as the year unfolds the tunes that follow the 2012 Overture are a little less percussive (for some avoidable human percussion see the YouTube video below: Nuclear 1812 Symphony Finale*).

As recovery gets into gear we also hope that we can all sing off the same song-sheet. That is a big ask in contentious Christchurch.

*BLINKS
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6207076/Christchurch-keeps-shaking-in-2012 
http://www.canterburyquakelive.co.nz/ Quake by quake tracking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkTy6ogLDX8   Vid  Earthquake!  Christchurch 1996
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/6208999/Shocks-may-be-last-gasp-of-Feb-22-fault
 http://bluggerme.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/cardboard-cathedral-the-real-monty-python/  My blogpost on the CC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo48YpNOesQ&NR=1&feature=endscreen   Nuclear 1812 Symphony Finale Vid Avoidable percussion.

#Lyall Lukey 4 January 2012
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz https://bluggerme.wordpress.com  My other less serious blog

Seismic Night, Holey Night….

“You could see the panic on people’s faces. That’s the end of Christmas – it’s so unfair,” Sue Joy, florist  23 Dec 2011 

On the eve of Christmas Eve, just when things seemed to be all calm and all bright, the serious jolting started again.  Not only shepherds  were once again quaking at the sight of the quakes. No seismic Christmas truce here in Christchurch in the demolition  trenches  but lots of new sink holes- and a sinking feeling. 

As I write this, at 8am on Christmas Eve, GeoNet has reported 63 earthquakes around the wider Canterbury region over the last 24 hours.* This ended six months of relative calm for the city and will further set back  recovery as insurance companies re-start their risk raters. 

Christchurch residents hoping Christmas celebrations would be a brighter end to a bleak year are instead dealing with more seismic damage to homes, infrastructure and businesses through shaking damage and liquefaction.

Two large magnitude earthquakes on Friday heralded the new activity - a Richter 5.8 and a 6.0, the latter being the 4^th largest magnitude since the seismic season started here in September 2010. 

I was upstairs at home for the first 15-20 seconds roller and was out in the garden for the second shorter, but more feisty shock, talking to our Student Job Search gardener who was just describing how he’s seen our whole house jiggle at the earlier quake when we had an even jigglier encore.

Our post World War II rough hewn rimu house is obviously very elastic and goes with the flow. It probably also helps that it is sitting on a foundation of crusher dust from the old Halswell Quarry across the road which acts like base isolation. The grandfather clock downstairs and the cuckoo clock upstairs kept going through the first but were stopped dead, but ever to go again, by the second. 

Once again we were fortunate but a lot of people, especially on the east side of town, were not with power cuts and liquefaction silting up  parts of the eastern suburbs for the fifth time in 15 months.* Not the Xmas present they were expecting. There appears to have been a Mercalli migration further east. Most of the recent quakes were centred in faults below Pegasus Bay, off the coast of Christchurch, within 8-21 kilometres of the city centre, and many were less than 10km deep. 

Whatever the new physical damage from these earthquakes-and there were scores of minor injuries-  they have further set back the recovery of the city. Retailers who have struggled to survive were dealt a major blow as stores packed with Christmas shoppers were evacuated. Some face being shut on the busiest trading days of Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. 

 Essential tremor 

“Essential tremor” is an involuntary trembling that affects millions of people. In October 2008 Eddie Adcock, 70, a bluegrass maestro whose career was being hampered by a hand tremor was asked to pluck his banjo during brain surgery, so surgeons could pinpoint the right part of the brain to work on. During the procedure surgeons prodded and inserted electrodes into his brain to suppress the nerve cells causing his tremors. When the surgeons found the right part of the brain, the plucky Adcock instantly regained his ability and was able to play at full speed once again*. 

The Canterbury land mass above and below the waterline seems to have developed a chronic case of the sesmic ETs. In this case the geotechnical explorations and explanations can’t by their nature be as precise as Adcock’s half hour. Nor can they give the same instant feedback in any predictive sense, let alone bring about a cure.

For that reason the latest tremors have literally sent shock waves through the psyches of people here who were just starting to relax into the Christmas spirit and contemplate a happier and more stable New Year. For some it was the last straw:
“Had enough now   #52   17 min ago   Thats it. We cant do this any longer, the kids are upset, wife and I cant sleep, the best of the city is gone, we are going too. Sorry to those we are leaving behind to rebuild and tough it out. Family and prospects in Melbourne.*” 

But most, not so badly affected, will stay and hopefully display the spirit and dogged determination needed by new pioneers. Before this latest blitz about half the commercial buildings in the central city have either already been demolished or are about to be, including our former offices. There could well be some new candidates.

This Yuletide in this part of the world it’s just got that much harder to sleep in heavenly peace. But many of us still have a lot to celebrate so best wishes for the festive season, no matter how restive. 

*Blinks
http://www.carols.org.uk/silent_night.htm 
http://www.canterburyquakelive.co.nz/
 http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/6186421/Christchurch-continues-to-rattle
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/6185073/Residents-left-scared-and-emotional
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6185025/Tremors-will-last-for-some-time-GNS-says 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/675837/Banjo-master-plays-during-brain-surgery 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6186421/Rattled-Cantabrians-hope-for-normal-Xmas 

#Lyall Lukey 24 December 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
https://bluggerme.wordpress.com  My other less serious blog

 

 

 

 

Heartfelt Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge

Finished!

“Swaying pine trees, brutal wind gusts… put 9000 cyclists to the test in the annual Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge event…. Strong wind gusts made riding treacherous for road and mountainbike riders in the 35th annual 160-kilometre lake circuit on Saturday. Large pine trees swayed precariously in 85kmh wind gusts. Cyclists, pedalling into energy-sapping headwinds, negotiated scattered branches and debris…”  Dom.Post 28/11/11* 

This time last week I was a tortoise on two wheels- definitely not a hare- in the 35^th Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge. At least I didn’t turn turtle in the blustery conditions. Quite a few entrants didn’t even start.

After a 6am start in the slow pack, my time of 9 hrs 46:57 in the 60-69 years solo 160 k division (I just qualified-it was the day before my 70^th birthday) put me 328^th in the division but, apart from the timing equipment, who’s counting? It was great just to finish again in the conditions, described as “one of the more difficult rides on record”, in reasonable condition. Three months after my last Taupo outing in 2008, I had two stents inserted after a coronary.  

 New Gear

My previous three Taupo rides since 2006, once in the 40K relay and twice in the 160k solo ride, were on my old second hand road touring bike which I bought off a departing Swedish cycle tourist who wasn’t murdered in 1991. It came complete with four panier bags for camping gear.

For three years I was the only Taupo entrant with paniers and a rear vision mirror. Bikes are built either for speed or for comfort and mine was in the latter category, unlike the emasculatory razor seated road bikes that are de rigueur.

This year was different. My Canadian mate Gord Miller, doing the Solo Challenge at Taupo for the second time, has tried for years  to convince me to get a more suitable steed for the event. It was my daughter Sandra who applied the killer psychology. She has an Events and PR company and does the public relations for the Pure Black Cycling Team*

First she got me some sporty PB riding gear. Then she persuaded me to get a sleek carbon fibre Cadent* bike from Avanti, Pure Black sponsor, to match the outfit. It’s  a speedy machine with a slightly ‘softer’ attitude for riders who want something a little more relaxed. It made all the difference, especially with the wind, and the Geltech cover over the original seat was almost comfortable.

I did also add a snappy Vaude clip on under the seat detachable carry bag. I like to be self sufficient and carry more food and water, extra clothes and tools than most, despite the support stations en route, though stories about an on board kitchen sink are calumnies.

Pure Black riders were 1^st and 2^nd over the line. I was 4236^th  overall so they were probably pleased I wore a high viz. vest over my sporty PB  racing shirt. 

I was also helped this year on the nutrition front by Shane Miller, Gord’s son, a gym instructor and high performance coach from Ottawa. Last time I cramped up 10 times on Hatepe Hill at the 132 k mark. This time nary a twinge after a good balance of protein and pasta and several magic potions during the ride. None would have got Lance Armstrong into trouble.

My father Gordon Lukey was a well known long distance cyclist and endurance record holder and all round iron man in the days of gravel roads and no gears. He would have been amused at the hi tech nature of cycle riding today and the fancy fashion and food but he would have applauded the numbers participating.

Life cycle

The biblical age is a bit hard to come to grips with, though these days maybe it’s only mature middle age, at least for the fortunate survivors thus far. The big 70 is inevitably accompanied by a bit of philosophical introspection.

The old black joke is ”A fatal coronary is nature’s way of saying ‘slow down’. Sadly, just a few weeks ago the old friend I usually stay with when doing Taupo died suddenly while still in top gear in a top corporate job with lots of demanding overseas travel. Earlier in the year he put off accompanying his sister on a cycle tour of France because of the demands of the business.

Only three weeks ago, on a Rotary cricket tour of NSW- (geriatrics in pursuit of hattricks-or even a single wicket) - the player in our opponents’ team in the third game, who had just received Man of the Match award, collapsed and died. Sad, but what a way to go.

It’s important to keep doing things you like to do or that provide new challenges while you can. Always at my back I hear times winged chariot…

Supporting Heart Kids

Heart Kids 2011

Thanks to those who supported my Heart Kids web page as part of the Taupo Challenge. Overall $57,000 has been raised to date this year-donations open until 31 December-see my HK webpage below*. Alternatively you can txt HEART to 2427 to make a $3 donation.

 *Blinks
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/sport/6046284/Brutal-winds-make-race-a-real-challenge
http://www.everydayhero.co.nz/event/cyclechallenge2011
 http://www.pureblackracing.com/ http://www.avantiplus.co.nz/products/av500a010/title/avanti-limited-edition-cadent
http://www.everydayhero.co.nz/lyall_lukey  Make a donation to Heart Kids via web or txt HEART to 2427 to make a $3 donation.

#Lyall Lukey 3 December 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
https://bluggerme.wordpress.com  My other less serious blog

 

CPIT Strikers On Shaky Ground

“It is regrettable for students that this action has been taken on the first day of semester two given the disruptions they have already faced so far this year…We are offering what we consider to be more than fair conditions and a 6% across the board pay rise over two years. “
 Patsy Gibson  CPIT Director of Human Resources

Last Monday was the first day of the second semester at the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, in an academic year already disrupted by earthquakes and their aftermath.

But the vacation wasn’t over for some staff and students. About 30 classes at the CPIT were cancelled  when some staff walked off the job for the day with no prior warning, leaving their students to their own devices (which some may find more interesting anyway).
 
Tertiary Education Union-led staff were protesting against proposals by the CPIT management, still in negotiation, for a more flexible workload which may involve some staff teaching more hours on more days of the year.

TEU organiser Phil Dodds said about 96 per cent of the 60 members at a paid stopwork meeting on the Monday morning-interesting timing- voted to take industrial action and 75 per cent voted to strike immediately. The union has 230 members at the polytechnic out of a total of 1329 staff, but neither the union or CPIT management seems to know how many took part in the precipitate action*. Obviously no one took the roll.

Dodds said that taking immediate action “sent a strong message” to CPIT management. It certainly did: that it was dealing with a dinosaur that was prepared to treat students dismissively in a year already fragmented.

It also sent a message to non-members of the TEU, many of whom might like to view themselves as professionals able to argue a convincing case, rather than a pedagogic proletariat which needs to be manipulated by union organisers using anachronistic cloth cap tactics.

CPIT chief executive Kay Giles said the polytechnic had tried to minimise disruption to students, and fewer than 30 afternoon and night classes had been cancelled. She said she was keen to continue negotiations with the union. I would have thought that she would have added the caveat “if they eschew silly stunts like striking”, which are counterproductive and simply disrupt and alienate students and their parents and others who may otherwise be more sympathetic.

Meanwhile Dodds said that the union hoped to meet with CPIT management on this coming week, but “further strike action was possible”.

The TEU obviously hasn’t learnt from the PPTA’s clumsy salary negotiations during 2010 and 2011, which were also preceded by the threat of “industrial action” before they even started.*

After an unnecessarily drawn out negotiation process, featuring unrealistic demands by the PPTA and  punctuated by walkouts and no talkies, a “paid stopwork meeting” was scheduled for 1pm on 22 February. The lethal Christchurch quake got in first by 9 minutes, before the PPTA meeting started in the now badly damaged Christchurch Town Hall.

Those teachers actually at school–mainly primary teachers-did a great job handling their pupils during the destructivel quake and its immediate aftermath. No child in the care of Christchurch schools died or was seriously injured. 

However, hundreds of secondary teachers were not at school and nor were many of their students. At least one secondary school pupil, who would normally have been at school and in the care of the school, was a tragic quake victim. It was reported at the time that he had gone to the inner city because school was finished for the day because of the PPTA meeting

At the same time, as I observed in my slow drive from my office in the CBD, many other secondary pupils were out and about on the streets unsupervised. They used their ubiquitous cell-phones to good advantage and sorted themselves out, with the help of parents and others, including teachers not attending the stopwork meeting.

Many Christchurch learning communities, from early childhood to tertiary, have responded magnificently to the challenges thrown up by close to 8,000 quakes in almost 12 months. Site-sharing, resource sharing, flexible time-tabling, a mix of working from home and teaching in temporary class spaces, sometimes canvas, have all helped to keep a strong routine going in a time of crisis.

Old ways of thinking and traditional ways of doing things no longer cut it in the “new abnormal”. As a new organization at the early childhood stage the TEU needs to take a good look at its modus operandi and grow up quickly before it sidelines itself by inappropriate strategies and actions.

In an age where social media partly redresses the balance of power formerly wielded by the mass and crass media, there are plenty of more effective ways to articulate a case than the blunt, prematurely wielded strike weapon, as the recent Playcentre protests showed*.

But theatre and publicity stunts need to be accompanied by a strong case well argued in live and virtual forums which mobilises public support rather than alienating it by engaging people in intelligent and productive dialogue.

*Blinks
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/5371483/ChCh-polytech-staff-walk-out
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/5354328/CPIT-teachers-mull-strike 
http://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/secondary-symptoms-can-the-ppta-dinosaur-adapt/ 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/5357106/Playcentre-takes-on-Parliament         

 #Lyall Lukey 7 Aug 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz https://bluggerme.wordpress.com  My other less serious blog

Belated Wake Up- Before It’s Too Late

“The fact that she has never appeared (on the honours list) I think is a condemnation of our government.“  Prof. Graeme Wake*

Our civic and military honours system, in its various iterations with or without knights and dames, has often led to some curious awards, refracted through that part of the party political spectrum currently in favour. Over a long period of time, there have been some even curiouser non-awards.

Short Quiz
Which Kiwi, nicknamed the White Mouse by the Gestapo, garnered the following post-World War II awards for wartime bravery but hasn’t made it onto any national New Zealand civic or military honours list in the more than 65 odd years since her incredible wartime exploits?
Australia: Companion of the Order of Australia; George Medal
Commonwealth of Nations: 1939-1945 Star; France and Germany Star and bar
United Kingdom:  Defence Medal and bar; War Medal 1939-1945 
France:  Legion d’Honneur; Croix de Guerre with two palms and a star; Medaille de la Resistance 
United States of America: Presidential Medal of Freedom  with Bronze Palm
New Zealand: Nil, zero, nothing, not a sausage

Yes, that’s right, Wellington born Nancy Wake, who will turn 99 next month and still retains her New Zealand passport after a childhood move to Australia, is a heroine without honour in her own country, apart from a Kiwi Consolation Prize:  Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association Badge in Gold.

Relative Graeme Wake, a professor in industrial mathematics at Massey University’s Albany campus, says Ms Wake was physically frail and living in a rest home in England but her mind was still very sharp.*

Prof. Wake has recently approached his MP, Parliament Speaker Lockwood Smith, in a new bid to have his famous relative honoured by New Zealand.

See my 14 June 2009  blogpost  Nancy Wake-the path of most resistance* for more on the incredible veteran.
Email Lockwood Smith    lockwood.smith@national.org.nz  supporting an appropriate award for Nancy Wake in the next Honours List.

Postscript  8/8/11   It has just been announced that Nancy Wake has died in London aged 98*. See video tribute below.*

*Blinks
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5273334/Move-to-honour-Kiwi-war-hero-gathers-momentum-again  
https://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/?s=Nancy+Wake  Nancy Wake’s incredible story
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/5407585/New-Zealand-born-WWII-heroine-dies     8/8/11
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/salute-world-war-ii-heroine-2-01-video-4343382   Vid

#Lyall Lukey 12 July 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
https://bluggerme.wordpress.com  My other less serious blog

 

The Kahui Hooha-a King Hit?

“I think they’ve gone weak at the knees … We sell Mein Kampf by Hitler and the Communist Manifesto. You can buy any range of books. People have chosen this one and it’s really because of cyber-bullying.” Ian Wishart, author of Breaking Silence: The Kahui Case

Breaking silence? For some people it was more like breaking wind. Just the news of Ian Wishart’s impending book Breaking Silence on the Kahui case and its timing caused blogospherical hysteria which led to the Warehouse and Paper Plus to put a ban on stocking the book, sight unseen.

However, the Whitcoulls bookstore chain, or what’s left of it, took a more measured approach: “a decision on whether to stock the book will be made once the book has been completed and Whitcoulls has been able to evaluate its contents. Until then it is premature to make any further comment.” *

It was full term for the omniscient Mike Hoskins who declared on TV 1’s Close Up* that he didn’t need to read it to know what’s in it.  His instant intuition and uncanny mindreading ability renders Speed Reading obsolete and will save many trees. 

Journalist Wishart is writing the book, with some help from Macsyna King, the mother of twins Chris and Cru Kahui who died in 2006 in unexplained circumstances.  There are no royalties coming King’s way: three pieces of pizza and the opportunity to tell her story are her only reward for collaborating.

From the Inquisition to the Third Reich and beyond,  book burning and book banning-and sometimes author barbequeing-were the inflammatory tactics used by the powers that were to keep their ideologies intact.

In this case the book banning bandwaggon was driven by social media-little brothers and sisters, not Big Brother. Publicity about the impending book at the time of the delayed coronial enquiry into the death of the twins ignited a new Facebook group urging people not to buy it. The Macsyna was definitely not going to become the new ballroom craze in 2011.

But according to Wishart  “She wants the same thing that 50,000 people on Facebook want. She wants answers and she wants people to learn from the mistakes that she’s made and she wants people to see how quickly a life can slip into hell and what you need to do to bring it back.”

 Wishart says that his book is a biographical narrative, beginning with King’s early life and how she started going off the rails.

Families Commissioner Christine Rankin told the Close Up  programme New Zealanders need to read the book because the problem of child abuse was so serious that a better understanding was needed. “Most people go home to their ordered house and their ordered lives and they think most people live like that. There are thousands and thousands of New Zealanders that do not.”

There wasn’t even a conviction for drunk and disorderly in the Kahui case after family ranks closed in misguided loyalty.   After Chris Kahui’s acquittal King is the only real alternative if police decide to charge someone after the inquest into the deaths. Kahui’s acquittal on murder charges in 2008 protects him from further prosecution.

Child abuse in New Zealand is a national shame.  A 2004 UNICEF report 2004 on Child Maltreatment put this country third from bottom of OECD countries.  In each year of the 1990s there was an average of more than 3,000 known cases of neglect, sexual abuse or violence against children. The figures for this century won’t be any better.

For that reason Wishart’s new book  shouldn’t be banned; it should be required reading, with a compulsory short answer test.

Anything that puts the spotlight on child abuse through neglect and violence and reminds us of the sad roll call of dead children like Lillybing*, Nia Glassie* and the Kahui twins should be welcomed not proscribed.

#Feel free to add a comment below and share this post.
*Blinks
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/christine-rankin-read-kahui-book-4279316/video   Vid
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5221017/Whitcoulls-no-decision-on-Kahui-book
http://tvnz.co.nz/back-benches/ban-book-should-required-reading-july-1-4280232 
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=195265 Lillybing counts – excuses don’t
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nia_Glassie_abuse_case 
http://cholmondeley.org.nz/

#Lyall Lukey 9 July 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz 
https://bluggerme.wordpress.com  My other less serious blog

Moving and Shaking: Roger Sutton’s Opening Ceranade

“Thank God we had evacuated the red zone…We are being enveloped with dust. It is very very scary,” Bob Parker, Mayor of Christchurch

The Mayor had good reason to dust off his famous orange and black flack jacket today,  after another 16 quakes in 5 hours from 12.30pm today, including a 5.5 shake at 1pm on the dot while we were having lunch, followed by a very scary 6.0 at 2.20 pm which injured 46 people.

Today was  Roger Sutton’s first day  as Chief Mover and Shaker of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority.*  The new CEO passed up an opportunity  to go for an early afternoon drive around the  Red Zone of the Seismic City with a new Cera colleague, who saw buildings collapse on all sides of him.

Instead he was at Earthquake HQ at the Christchurch Art Gallery, evacuating with Cera and Council staff after the first big shake and watching the gallery glass ripple to almost breaking point during the second.  That was a real team bonding exercise.

The magnitude 6.0 quake registered eight on the Mercalli scale, which measures the intensity of earth quakes. By comparison the February 22 earthquake was a Mercalli nine.

About 50 more commercial buildings in the Central Business Red Zone and Lyttelton  collapsed or were crippled today. They were mainly unoccupied since February 22’s  6.3 killer quake. More than 150 demolition workers and Orion staff were working in the Red Zone, which is more dangerous than ever.

More damage was done to Christ Church Cathedral, including the collapse of the beautiful Rose Window. The clock face at the Arts Centre crashed to the ground and time was finally up for the Lyttelton Timeball Station which was finished off abruptly after being paintakingly deconstructed stone by stone in past weeks.

Some of our dwindling stock of heritage buildings which were previously thought salvageable have literally reached tipping point, as have several more modern commercial buildings hitherto relatively unscathed.

Today was also the first day of an inquest into the deaths of 106 people who died in Christchurch’s CTV building on February 22. Families want to know about the design and construction of the building, as well as remedial work and its effectiveness carried out after September 4′s 7.1-magnitude quake and subsequent aftershocks. Families, media and businesses in the Riccarton Racecourse building fled to the lawn after big shake hit at 2.20 pm, just as the inquest resumed after lunch. It was hurrily adjourned.

Eastern and Southern suburbs are again badly hit. Sutton’s old company Orion was again very busy, with  20,000 homes being still without power and water on a chilly Canterbury winter night. The  psychological toll is rising, with nerves stretched to breaking like many of the city’s water pipes once again.

I was in the CBD last Saturday, getting some stuff from our former offices  just across the road from the recently shrunk quake cordon and just 40 metres from the cleared site of the collapsed PGG building.  Just the sound of silence-without any neon lights. Not today. Yesterday I to biked to Sumner and twice chose the footpath, near rockfalls from February 22,  because of the dangers of the constricted road. Today that footpath was not a safe haven, with more boulders bouncing down the Port Hills like a giant pinball  game. They had definitely stopped gathering any moss.

As the Rolling Stones would say, we can’t let no liquefaction beat us, but it’s pretty depressing for many people experiencing a third wave of silt. The Student Volunteer Army, silt shovellors par excellence, must feel that they’re refighting an interminable Battle of Ypres. Can they mobilise for a third time?

A friend, due to fly tomorrow on his annual migration to Oz, is stuck in Christchurch because the Peruvian volcanic ash clouds over the country have caused Jetstar and parent Qantas to cancel flights. He feels as if he’s between a shifting rock and a not so hard place as he watches the land outside his house ripple like a seismic sea.

 (Another shake rattles the house as I write).

A little earlier there was an eerie red sunset, courtesy of the Chilean ash. The 23% prediction*two weeks ago of a 6-7 quake in the next twelve months would have been a better TAB bet than backing the Moon Man Ken Ring* (though it is an almost full moon tonight) or even betting that the Kiwi dollar will recover from the quake hit today and bounce back by the end of the week.

Sixteen  shakes and what do you get….? Another day older and deeper in debt, the way the Government is borrowing. Plus more aftershocks in coming days, months and years according to a GNS Science warning on TV a couple of hours ago.

In the last few days,  both ends of the 40 kilometre Greendale Fault ruptured in the Sepember 4  7.1 shake have come into play accompanied by the Port Hills Fault, implicated in the September 9, February 22 and today’s  big quakes. Hopefully all this subterranean activity is releasing some of the pressure on the trigger of the main Alpine Fault*, not adding to it; but it is sure as hell adding to our stress and to the distress of many.

 We hope that the goodwill which greeted Roger Sutton’s appointment* doesn’t dissipate too quickly and that  his baptism of fire today doesn’t turn into a symphony of ire as he handles some very tough decisions about the future of Christchurch and its people.

*Blinks
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/5136644/Powerful-earthquakes-rock-Christchurch 
http://quake.crowe.co.nz/  3^rd biggest quake
http://lukeytraining.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/follow-that-star/  Roger Sutton’s appointment to Cera
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/5076193/Big-earthquake-risk-put-at-23-per-cent   Big Quake odds a fortnight ago
http://bluggerme.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/the-lunar-ring-cycle-gullible-travellers/ Moon Man Ken Ring
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkTy6ogLDX8   Vid  Earthquake!  Christchurch 1996 Why buildings collapse

#Lyall Lukey 13 June 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz https://bluggerme.wordpress.com  My other less serious blog

The Christchurch Arts Centre- Closure and Opensure

 “It is the nature of the work when you are working with heritage fabric. Each stone has to come down and be put back in place. It’s very time consuming.”  Deane Simmonds    Christchurch Arts Centre Trust Board 

We were told recently that the restoration of the quake–damaged Christchurch Arts Centre could take 10- 15 years. Each historic building was red stickered after the lethal 22/2 quake and  all the tenancies except one have been ended.

Among the terminated are the Dux de Lux, the former Student Union building before the University of Canterbury’s move to Ilam and Annie’s Wine Bar, part of the former library. The building occupied by the Dux was designed in 1883 for a merchant by Francis William Petre, the architect of the now badly damaged Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, and bought by the university in 1926. After it became the Student Union in 1929 many of us UC alumni spent much time in the building honing our skills in Billiards I and Snooker II.  

Former tenant and Dux de Lux owner Richard Sinke says that the Dux- wood and brick, not stone, but still historic-could be fixed and ready in weeks. He has offered to help fund the repair work.  

We understand the Trust Board’s position that limited repair funds have to be prioritised.  But it’s not good enough to say “If we spend money to fix the Dux de Lux, what happens if we run out of money for the Great Hall and the Clock Tower”. At least the Great Hall has now got its correct name back, but this is an obtuse argument. 

Let’s make opening the Dux second priority after sorting safety issues. Apparently work to make the outside of the Arts Centre buildings safe is almost finished. Once it is, reduce the cordon inside the Arts Centre precinct a little, confining it to the old stone buildings. This would get the Dux in a row of functioning businesses, including the one lease still operating, the cheese shop in the back of the old Registry and others on the Montreal Street fringe which are able to open in the short to medium term, including some of the food and craft stalls in part of the stall area near the Dux. 

As well as closure some people want “opensure”. I look forward to at least part of the Dux reopening, like Ballantynes,  for New Zealand Cup week,  and maybe even before the Rugby World Cup starts. It will be another positive step to drawing people back to parts of the inner city, but it will only happen if the Trust Board takes a more flexible approach.  

Until the February 22 quake, the Dux contributed 20% of the Trust Board’s income. If the social needs of the shaken citizens of Christchurch don’t stir the Board into action you’d think self-interest and self-preservation would. A torrent of letters to the Press, including one of mine, is now finally evincing a response*.

A Sinke fund is better than a sinking fund.  We need to shed some more light on the way the tenancies of the Dux de Lux and other Arts Centre businesses have been handled and sheet home the Board’s responsibility to be more responsive to the needs of its own stakeholders, of the citizens of Christchurch and of visitors from outside the city and the country. 

Unless there is some early  engagement of the public inside a social bridgehead on the south east corner of the precinct, as Yeats may have repeated, the Centre will not hold.

#Feel free to add a comment below and share this post. 

*Blinks
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/5067900/Rebuild-on-but-timing-unclear
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/5099388/Talks-positive-but-Dux-reopening-an-unknown  
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/5124923/Arts-Centre-was-seconds-from-collapse  [Added 10/6/11]

 #Lyall Lukey 4 June  2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz

A Star for Earthquake Tsar!

 “We’re gathering everybody’s ideas so we can create an informed and inspiring vision for the Central City following the quakes. This is just the beginning of the conversation – over the next couple months we’ll be asking plenty of questions about a range of topics.”  Share an Idea*

 Like many Cantabrians I was nervous about who might be crowned the Earthquake Tsar.*  The appointment on Thursday of a local star from Orion, the powerlines company that has been in the thick of the emergency response to the series of seismic shocks in Canterbury,  is great news.  

 The stellar Orion is a large and bright constellation on the equator. As the man in the middle in Christchurch the equable Sutton will have more than his share of challenges to avoid polarising people and instead take them with him on a collective journey to the future of this city.

He seems to be an all round good guy and communication straight shooter who is highly regarded by his Orion people at all levels from the boardroom to the staffroom and by civic and business leaders and the wider community. Anyone who takes a $200,000 drop in salary, rides a bike to work and was photographed after the announcement of his appointment in a hastily donned suit plus work boots has to be ok.

He is, in his own words, an engineer who is big picture guy. This is good because for the rebuild we need re-imagineering before engineering. The trick is going to be sharing the palette and brushes.

That’s what is happening this weekend at the CBS Canterbury Arena with the Christchurch City Council’s Share An Idea initiative to engage the people of Christchurch in the CBD re-design.*

CCC has 9 months from conception through gestation to deliver on the CBD plan. The countdown is rather more imperative than the Rugby World Cup countdown clock which flashed its inexorable  reminders in the Square before the February 22 quake.

Re-building a city-or rather, building a new city, should not be a spectator sport. That is why the grassroots engagement process is important. But it must be more than surface tokenism while subterranean bureaucrats burrow away on unrelated plans. 

The sequence is the secret, eliciting and distilling key principles and values to inform the unfolding vision before planning starts.*

The old city slogan The City that Shines might even take on some new lustre if he and we get the deconstruction and reconstruction right, with a focused and shared vision and some radical new thinking. Follow that star!

 #Feel free to add a comment below and share this post.

 *Blinks
https://bluggerme.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/que-cera-cera-catch-february-22/
http://www.shareanidea.org.nz/  
http://www.youtube.com/shareanideachch#p/u/91/1XP2w8WuhjY  Vid Lyall’s  YouTube video from Share An Idea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjeXPh-4uNM  Music Vid Follow that Star Logistics

 #Lyall Lukey 15 May 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz

 https://bluggerme.wordpress.com  My other less serious blog

Yuriy Gagarin:The Importance Of Being First

 “Modest; embarrasses when his humour gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.”—Soviet Air Force doctor reporting on Yuriy Gagarin*

Ground control to Lieutenant Yuriy…

Fifty years ago 27 year old Soviet Union air force pilot Yuriy Gagarin became the first human being in space – making his own first giant orbit for mankind in a single circumference and spurring America to set itself the challenge of getting the first man on the moon by the end of the decade.

The popular and genial Gagarin was the ideal but apparently not the strongest cosmonaut candidate for the debut flight.  It seems that Gherman Titov was  ranked first but kept under wraps for the scheduled longer second space flight in the series. Gagarin was a much favoured candidate by his peers. When the 20 candidates were asked to anonymously vote for which other candidate they would like to see as first in the space hot seat, all but three chose Gagarin. 

Apart from all his other qualities Gagarin’s short stature at 1.57 metres (5 ft 2 in) was an asset in the tiny capsule of his rocketVostok 1, which lifted off as scheduled on 12 April 1961, at 9:07am Moscow time (6:07 GMT).   

The entire mission was controlled by either automatic systems or by ground control. This was because medical staff did not know how a human might react to weightlessness, so it was decided to lock the pilot’s manual controls. A code to unlock the controls was placed in an onboard envelope, for Gagarin’s use in case of emergency. It remained unopened, though he had already been told the code by the head of cosmonaut training Nikolai Kamanin. There were a few tricky minutes at re-entry when the service module remained attached to the re-entry module by recalcitrant wires that had failed to separate but Gagarin’s admirably equable temperament during strong gyrations was equal to the situation while the module’s attitude and altitude realigned.

Later Gagarin said; “The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended.”*

Ground Control was certainly in suspense until after about 106 minutes  the reentry capsule made a hard parachute landing in the Saratov region of the USSR. Gagarin made a softer one by personal parachute in the same place 10 minutes later, though at the time his detached reentry was kept secret because of what was held to constitute a full manned orbit of the earth. He had to be prepared to both die and lie for his country.

There was no slomo replay of his landing to contradict the official verdict.  A farmer and her daughter observed the strange scene of a figure in a bright orange suit with a large white helmet landing near them by parachute. Gagarin later recalled, “When they saw me in my space suit and the parachute dragging alongside as I walked, they started to back away in fear. I told them, don’t be afraid, I am a Soviet like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!  It was probably a collect call. 

Following Gagarin’s return to Earth he was bubble-wrapped by the Soviet authorities and incessantly paraded around for years as an example of Soviet communist success, helped by the fact that one of his most notable traits was his warm smile “that lit up the Cold War”.

When he visited Manchester in the United Kingdom some time later  it was pouring with rain; however, Gagarin insisted that the car hood remain back and refused an umbrella so that the cheering crowds could catch a glimpse of him, saying “If all these people have turned out to welcome me and can stand in the rain, so can I.”

He was finally allowed to return flying at a somewhat lower altitude but died when his plane crashed during a training flight in 1968 during bad weather, possibly after a manoeuvre to avoid a weather balloon. A legacy of early flight may have brought down the first spaceman.

Though his career as a cosmonaut was brief he left a lasting legacy. His legendary flight into space, four years after the unmanned Sputnik,  triggered John Kennedy’s prescient presidential speech at Rice University on September 12th, 1962 setting the goal of a moon landing by the end of the decade.

Before the shooting for the moon speech there was a period of American despondency, with worries that the spaceflight had won a propaganda victory on behalf of Communism. This was not the time for American boosterism. President Kennedy was quoted as saying that it would be “some time” before the US could match the Soviet booster technology and “the news will be worse before it’s better”. At the same time Kennedy also sent congratulations to the Soviet Union for their “outstanding technical achievement.”  Op-eds in many US newspapers urged renewed efforts to overtake the Soviet scientific accomplishments. 

The public challenge, in contrast to Soviet secrecy, galvanised American education, science and technology and military communities and led to the successful manned lunar shot in 1969. There was no seven year hitch, but a couple of major setbacks on the way including a fatal launchpad fire in the full glare of the media’s arc lights.

Decades later the earlier fierce space rivalry between the two titans was transmuted into an age of international space collaboration across national boundariesandacross disciplines on the international Space Station.** World views had changed, not the least because of the views from outer space first experienced by Gagarin.

His photo is the only astronaut portrait on the wall in the central section of the Space Station, said Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield: “Because we recognize that he is the one who opened the door for all of us.”* In the words of Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, commander of the current mission at the International Space Station, from orbit 12 April 2011, “He is a human who made the first-ever step into outer space, which became a milestone for humankind at large.”

A real time recreation of Yuriy Gagarin’s pioneering first orbit, shot entirely in space from on board the International Space Station, was made this year.  The film combines this new synchronised footage with Gagarin’s original mission audio and lets us see what he saw on his trail-blazing blast.*

Since Gagarin’s epic voyage, more than 500 astronauts from countries around the world have left the Earth. Some have walked on the moon. Many, including Hadfield, have lived and walked in space.

A projectile is a self-propelled missile capable of being impelled forward. In metaphorical terms what drives a project is the energy of its participants. At the national level in New Zealand, which projects are our equivalent lunar challenges?  The Rugby World Cup isn’t a big enough or inclusive enough challenge, nor is the America’s Cup, though both consume a lot of national resources for marginal returns.

We need more than spectator sports to engage and involve people. We need worthwhile projects of national significance and a new world view projecting ourselves forward as a nation, making a quantum leap into a new orbit and expanding our sphere of influence globally by transforming ourselves into the Innovation Nation. 

As Robert Grudin, author of Time and the Art of Living put it:  “….people with great projects afoot…look further and more clearly into the future than people who are mired in day to day concerns. These former control the future because by necessity they must project themselves into it…”

Into which  future will we project ourselves?

#Feel free to add a comment below and share this post. 

**Alert   Dr Jack Bacon, internationally-known motivational speaker, futurist and technology writer and author of The Parallel Bang is back in New Zealand on a speaking tour in October 2011. He was the United States’ lead systems integrator of the Zarya-the jointly-built spacecraft that forms the central bridge and adapter between all US and Russian technologies on the Space Station. Visit http://www.drjackbacon.com/    If you are interested in an in-house presentation contact lyall@smartnet.co.nz     

*Blinks

Yuri Gagarin- 50th anniversary of the first …  Vid Russia celebrates the anniversary of the first human spaceflight on 12 Apr 1961.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKs6ikmrLgg    Vid   First Orbit  Documentary film maker Christopher Riley partnered with European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli to record a stunning new film of what Gagarin would have seen of the Earth from his spaceship. This was released online in April 2011 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight.
We Choose to go to the Moon Vid  John Kennedy’s speech at Rice University on September 12th, 1962 setting the goal of a moon landing by the end of the decade.
http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/hadfield-honours-gagarin/16az87wg4   Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield reflects on Yuri Gagarin’s space trip 50 years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFks9A9TCF0  Music vid David Bowie “Space Oddity”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Orbit  The making of First Orbit.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gagarin 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_1 

#Lyall Lukey 2 May 2011
http://www.lukey.co.nz/  http://www.smartnet.co.nz
https://bluggerme.wordpress.com  My other less serious blog