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LABOUR’S LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE Who can really replace Phil Goff?

INVESTIGATION

GM FEARS Have GM crops caused the appearance of a new disease?

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HERS

Contents May 11 | Issue 124 | www.hersmagazine.tv

ON THE COVER Labour’s Leadership 14

Phil Goff may be dog tucker after the election, but honestly, who could replace him? We look at the three leading contenders

Private Dancers

18

GM Food Fears

22

Beautifully Aged

28

Insect Sprays Harm Kids

42

Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, Sting, Mariah Carey - they’ve all hit controversy for private concerts where clients have been men like Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi Have Monsanto’s GM crops unleashed a new disease on the planet? One scientist says yes Forget about rake-thin 15 year olds, these models are aged over 90!

Groundbreaking medical study warns automatic spray dispensers may be as dangerous to children as lead paint

FEATURES

Michelle Monaghan

54

Greener Cleaning

56

Overplayed

58

The Source Code star talks about her new movie Ten tips for a cleaner, greener kitchen Quality time or quantity time?

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HERS

Contents

50

56

34 58 48 FORMALITIES

DECOR & CUISINE

63 Adieu 64 Subscriptions

6 Brighten up 4 48 Getting figgy with it

VIEWPOINTS 10 Miranda Devine on chivalry 12 Chloe Milne on nanny state

BOUTIQUE

TRAVEL & LEISURE 50 Tropical Singapore 52 Read it: Michael Morrissey’s reviews 54 See it: Michelle Monaghan

33 What a girl wants

HEART & SOUL

BEAUTY & HEALTH

56 LIFE: Easier, greener cleaning tips 58 FAMILY: Too much parental play?

60 FAITH: An Easter message

38 Five minute makeup 40 The Male Pill 42 Insect sprays harm baby

6 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

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HERSDEVINE

Attack chivalry at your peril Miranda Devine

T

he core contradiction of the Australian Defence Force Academy sex scandal was captured unwittingly by feminist Eva Cox this month, when she said chivalry in men is outdated and – in effect – good riddance.

Yet it is precisely a lack of chivalry in the young men who humiliated their fellow military cadet “Kate” that led to the problem in the first place.

We have only Kate’s version of events on the public record, after the 18-year-old first-year air force cadet went to Channel Ten early April.

She said she went to the room of a fellow cadet to have sex but later discovered that he had broadcast their encounter via Skype to six other cadets in another room.

“I engaged in sexual intercourse with another first-year at ADFA,” Kate said.

“We weren’t seeing each other in a relationship but we were friends and we agreed that, yeah, we’d just keep it physical and that was OK. “But the agreement was that nobody could find out because it had implications for both of us if they find out at ADFA because fraternisation is against our rulebook, so that was agreed.

“I then found out on the Friday that he had in fact had a webcam set up via Skype during the [encounter] in his room. The webcam had been set up and it was being broadcast live to six guys in another room.

“I trusted this guy,” she said. “I thought he was a nice guy.”

Clearly he wasn’t, and Kate should be pitied, and any men found to have betrayed her punished. But the political fallout from this unpleasant incident far outweighs the gravity of the offence.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith’s grandstanding, his intervention into military

proceedings and his scapegoating of respected ADFA commander Bruce Kafer have led to reported tensions with Defence Chief Angus Houston – and a staggering six inquiries.

The stricken face of Houston as he stands alongside his perky minister in press conferences speaks volumes about the way the military views this circus.

But, while what happened to Kate is appalling, it is unrealistic to hold ADFA up to some lofty ideal of cadet behaviour after they have been in its care for all of 12 weeks.

Essentially, ADFA is a Canberra campus of the University of NSW and not divorced from the toxic, sexually permissive, pornographysoaked culture its Gen Y recruits are raised in.

What happened to Kate is a symptom of that culture, and if we want to stamp it out in the

When community standards are eroded and taboos are jettisoned, the result is not a happier or more enlightened or “progressed” society

10 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

military we need to be honest about its causes.

Eva Cox’s deriding of chivalry is as good a place as any to start.

The spokeswoman for the Women’s Electoral Lobby was dismissing the view that women in combat roles will weaken our military because male soldiers expose themselves to greater risks trying to protect women on the battlefield.

“Grow up, I mean get over it, because that’s something that comes out of some very ancient views about women and chivalry,” she said.

“Modern younger men don’t share those sorts of views.”

If that is the case, it should be cause for lament.

Misguided feminists have long scorned male

virtues of chivalry, valour and courage in the belief they held women back, rather than protecting them from harm. But it is not fair to young men to unmoor their behaviour from virtue and condemn them to a life of moral impoverishment.

On the one hand we want soldiers to act in a respectful, sensitive, yes, chivalrous manner towards the weaker sex. And on the other hand we expect them not to extend that same level of protection to women on the battlefield.

The absurdity of this was shown in testimony of a US Presidential Commission in 1992, into the inclusion of women in the armed forces, which claimed the military was training male soldiers to be desensitised to the screams of tortured women prisoners.

The Australians who are attracted to the military generally are patriotic, idealistic, and believe in a moral code. They are still just young people, drawn from the prevailing culture, and not immune to the failings and temptations it offers. But they essentially have the raw material to be the noblest members of our society, willing to lay down their lives for their country, for its people and, most of all, for their mates.

It was an insult for NRL chief David Gallop to assert this month that the military should learn from rugby league how to “improve” their culture. What evidence is there that the NRL has actually been successful in stamping out a misogynistic, testosterone-fuelled culture anyway?

Gallop claims that turning to outside gender experts such as journalism academic Catherine Lumby has “progressed” rugby league’s culture.

Successful academic though she may be, and serving on the Advertising Standards Board, Lumby’s notions of sexual propriety are not shared by most Australians. For instance, at the height of the Bulldogs sex scandal, she expressed unusually tolerant views towards group sex, or what rugby league players called “the bun”.

Lumby, of course, is entitled to liberal views which push the limits of community standards.

But a gender re-education course for rugby league players or military recruits based on such views seems unlikely to rein in hyperactive libidos, or engender more respect between the sexes.

When community standards are eroded and taboos are jettisoned, the result is not a happier or more enlightened or “progressed” society.

You only have to listen to poor Kate talking to Channel Ten, with a voice devoid of emotion, describing the act of making love with her fellow cadet as essentially a mechanical hook-up to understand the consequences.

The emotional wreckage of our sexually permissive society is strewn through the news pages every day, from scandals at ADFA or the NRL to the sexual abuse of children.

So we hold inquiries and make new laws and enforce them in ever more draconian fashion.

In the end the sexual free-for-all is lethal to human dignity and real freedom. devinemiranda@hotmail.com

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 11

HERSGEN-Y

Donut Daddy Chloe Milne

T

here’s something about New Zea landers that isn’t quite right. Some of us seem to think that the government should act like they are our parents. Not in the sense that they tell us of stories of how back in their day the bread and milk was delivered to the letter box and one shilling could buy them fish and chips, but in the sense that we think they should hold our hand and make sure we cross the road safely, they will pick up our rubbish for us and most importantly they will dish out money for us when we find ourselves in a tricky situation.

People of New Zealand, you cannot be blamed for thinking of John Key as your long lost Dad – the father of the nation if you will.

This is because in many ways John Key is very much like a father. Firstly we believe he either does or at least should have the answers to all our questions.

He has an uncanny talent for attempted humour just like real Dads …but actually John, there is nothing funny about sharing your vasectomy with us. And I mean who can forget that strut down the catwalk? It was a classic “embarrass me, Dad” moment. But most importantly he has access to government money and of course we all know the most important role for fathers is being an ATM machine.

However it seems that even though you’ve now moved out of home and have your own family some of you still think that the government in the form of “Daddy John”, should be baby-sitting you through life.

I believe we have come to expect too much from our leaders. If you don’t want to work, society will step in and pay you anyway. If you decide to axe your wife and daughter to death à la Mark Lundy then the rest of us have to spend a whole lot of money keeping you housed and fed until you’re ‘no longer a threat to society’, and if you choose to smoke you will clog up our

health system while we pay for your treatments.

Jasmine and Linda, two morbidly obese women weighing in at a hefty 200 and 151 kg’s respectively, were disappointed that New Zealand would not pay for their stomach stapling surgery. Now, I don’t know how many donuts you need to eat to get into the two hundreds, but I suspect it’s a lot. Why should we as the taxpayers pay for your surgery when there are people who need help, who have problems that they didn’t cause themselves?

Obesity is a global issue, unfortunately so is starvation. I think of the child I sponsor in India and wonder if she has enough food to eat. Yet back here in New Zealand twenty percent of us are obese and some of us are actually content with eating ourselves to death.

Yes, the obesity epidemic has taken hold in

Now, I don’t know how many donuts you need to eat to get into the two hundreds, but I suspect it’s a lot

12 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

New Zealand, we are the 7th fattest country and next thing you know The Biggest Loser will be here. Some people say a TV reality show about fat people trying to lose weight is inspirational, I suppose it’s just as inspirational as a whole lot of anorexic girls trying to be models. The good thing is that one show could lead to the other and if that isn’t maximum exposure I don’t know what is. But seriously I think that anything that helps people lose weight is positive and really there’s nothing more inspirational than being able to tell your friends ‘I used to be fat but now I’m a big loser”.

It’s about time we started taking control of your own lives. As John F Kennedy, who arguably really was the father of his nation, said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” … yea that, or just take the easy option and move to Ozzy.

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HERSPOLITICS

If Goff Walks The Plank…

JUST HOW SHALLOW IS LABOUR’S LEADERSHIP GENE POOL?

W

WORDS BY IAN WISHART

ith speculation growing in a politically hyperactive daily media that Labour leader Phil Goff’s days are numbered, it seems the Press Gallery haven’t paid enough attention to an obvious question: who could credibly replace him?

Names being tossed around by newspaper commentators include David Parker, David Cunliffe and even pornpunter Shane Jones. But just how realistic are the chances of any of these men taking the helm? This side of the election there’s no chance at all. Barring divine intervention, Labour will lose the 2011 poll comfortably, as is the fate of most first term Opposition parties, regardless of whether the leadership changes.

The best a newcomer could hope for is a dead-cat-bounce in the polls. No one genuinely capable of leading the Labour Party will want the job leading up to the election.

After the election, however, there’s a good chance someone will take a crack at Goff, who’s seen as a throwback to the Rogernomics years of the 1980s when he first served in David Lange’s cabinet.

But Parker, Cunliffe and Jones all have their baggage and – in the case of the latter two it could be political kryptonite.

All three men have been at the centre of inquiries by Investigate magazine, and

14 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

with Gallery journalists suffering collective memory loss it’s probably a good time to revisit those investigations.

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Murdoch on future of papers

Paige rides the wave

Paul Anka, still on song

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EDITION

14

Queenstown

www.tgifedition.com

ISSN 1172-4153 | Volume 1 | Issue 16 |

Corrupt or incompetent?

| 21 November 2008

on the

INSIDE

‘Explosive’ documents could be the end of Shane Jones’ career

By Ian Wishart Editor, TGIF Edition

NZPA/ Ross Setford

The career of high-flying Labour MP Shane Jones looks dead in the water tonight with revelations he awarded citizenship to a Chinese migrant despite an explicit official warning that the man was still under an ongoing “criminal investigation” by NZ authorities.

The revelations are contained in devastating new documents released on the former Minister’s decision to grant citizenship to Labour party political donor and wanted Chinese criminal,Yang Liu. Additionally, it’s just been revealed that Labour’s then Ethnic Affairs Minister Chris Carter also lobbied in favour of Yang Liu, after receiving a $5,000 donation.

TGIF Edition and Radio Live News have been given a copy of the file that Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones considered before deciding to award the Chinese businessman citizenship back in August.

The Internal Affairs Department file, released under the Official Information Act tonight and slugged “Confidential”, shows Jones was explicitly warned by his Department that Liu – real name Yongming Yan – was still under “active…criminal investigation”at that moment, and that the citizenship application should be “DECLINED”.

In a covering letter to the Minister, Geoff May of Internal Affairs wrote on 14 July this year:

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“The applicant does not clearly meet…the good character requirement”of the Citizenship Act. “Mr Liu remains the subject of an Interpol wanted to arrest in China ‘red notice’ for allegedly committing serious financial fraud…

“Mr Liu remains the subject of an active Immigration New Zealand Fraud Branch criminal investigation concerning his true identity.

“It is alleged that Mr Liu has fraudulently obtained and used Chinese identity documents

COWBOYS NASA needs cash Page 19 Continue reading

EXCLUSIVE

German president dodged NZ Police bullet

By Ian Wishart

The accidental police shooting on a VIP aircraft revealed this week, put the life of a visiting world leader, the President of Germany, at risk.

Police National Headquarters was today playing coy with the news media after the former press advisor to Prime Minister Jim Bolger, Richard Griffin, went public yesterday over the incident, suggesting it happened on a flight carrying Bolger.

However, NZPA this afternoon provided a different version from police: Wellington, Nov 21 NZPA – The police have confirmed a Diplomatic Protection Squad officer once discharged a pistol inside an airborne VIP air-

craft but said there was no damage to the plane and former prime minister Jim Bolger was not aboard.

Mr Bolger’s former press secretary, Richard Griffin, revealed the incident during a Radio New Zealand panel discussion earlier this week.

He said the officer shot a hole in the side of the plane while Mr Bolger was aboard.

Mr Griffin later told NZPA it occurred on an Air Force VIP flight in the 1990s.

“In the process of taking his Glock (pistol) out and disarming it he managed to discharge it, in the air,”Mr Griffin said.

There was no loss of pressure in the cabin and the flight continued, despite “a bit of a panic”, Mr Griffin said.

Mr Bolger was “sanguine”about the incident.

Police National Headquarters said today the incident occurred 15 years ago.

“The DPS member followed correct procedures but due to a handling error his pistol discharged into a briefcase.The bullet lodged in the battery pack of a police radio in the briefcase,”police said in a statement.

“The bullet did no damage to the aircraft and it certainly did not put a hole in the aircraft as has been reported. The safety of the aircraft and passengers was not at risk.”

The statement said reports that Mr Bolger was on board the aircraft were incorrect.

That’s the official police version, relayed to NZPA. However, Investigate magazine obtained papers on

the incident eight years ago under the Official Information Act. Here’s what really happened.

The DPS officers were guarding Germany’s thenpresident, Richard von Weizsacker, on a 1993 flight between Auckland and Wellington when the gun was accidentally discharged. It is true the bullet lodged in a briefcase,but the Police National Headquarters statement that “the safety of the aircraft and passengers was not at risk”is misleading, as it gives the impression the officer had control of his weapon. If he’d had control of his weapon,it wouldn’t have gone off.The bullet could have hit a passenger,including the German president. It didn’t.The police got lucky.

The incident was hushed up because of the enormous diplomatic embarrassment to New Zealand.

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CONTENDER 1

SHANE JONES, 51 Born: 3 September 1959 Married: Seven children Sins: Media fixated on his decision to

watch hotel porn, over and over and over again. Much bigger issue, however. is whether a man of the character below could ever be a credible cabinet minister, let alone a future Prime Minister. Can

a Minister who overrides the advice of independent officials on an issue as serious as the criminality of a Labour party donor, ever be trusted in full public office again?

The Kryptonite: Investigate TGIF Edition, November 21st 2008, “Corrupt or Incompetent?”

T

he career of high-flying Labour MP Shane Jones looks dead in the water tonight with revelations he awarded citizenship to a Chinese migrant despite an explicit official warning that the man was still under an ongoing “criminal investigation” by NZ authorities.

The revelations are contained in devastating new documents released on the former Minister’s decision to grant citizenship to Labour party political donor and wanted Chinese criminal, Yang Liu. Additionally, it’s just been revealed that Labour’s then Ethnic Affairs Minister Chris Carter also lobbied in favour of Yang Liu, after receiving a $5,000 donation.

TGIF Edition and Radio Live News have been given a copy of the file that Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones considered before deciding to award the Chinese businessman citizenship back in August.

The Internal Affairs Department file, released under the Official Information Act tonight and slugged “Confidential”, shows Jones was explicitly warned by his Department that Liu – real name Yongming Yan – was still under “active… criminal investigation” at that moment, and that the citizenship application should be “DECLINED”.

In a covering letter to the Minister, Geoff May of Internal Affairs wrote on 14 July this year: “The applicant does not clearly meet… the good character requirement” of the Citizenship Act. Mr Liu remains the subject of an Interpol wanted to arrest in China ‘red notice’ for allegedly committing serious financial fraud…

Mr Liu remains the subject of an active Immigration New Zealand Fraud Branch criminal investigation concerning his true identity.

“It is alleged that Mr Liu has fraudulently obtained and used Chinese identity documents relating to another

identity including obtaining two false passports. An Immigration New Zealand search warrant has been executed to seize Mr Liu’s Chinese passports and other identity documents which were held by the Department of Internal Affairs whilst his application was being processed. As a result of the seizure of his passport Mr Liu claims he is ‘stateless’ although he has provided no evidence to support his belief.

“On two separate occasions Hon Dover Samuels MP has written to you in support of Mr Liu’s application. Hon Pansy Wong MP has written to you in support of Mr Liu’s application. Hon Chris Carter, Minister for Ethnic Affairs has written in support of Mr Liu’s application.”

Particularly difficult for Labour MP and Newstalk ZB commentator Shane Jones to explain is the next paragraph in the Internal Affairs briefing paper, suggesting Yang Liu had set off multiple crime alarms: “Despite remaining under multiagency inter-governmental investigations Mr Liu has requested that you consider his application at this time,” wrote the IAD’s Geoff May. “It is considered that Mr Liu does not meet the good character requirement and is not eligible for the grant of citizenship.”

Why was Liu so keen for his application to go before a Labour cabinet minister ahead of the election, even given the mounting evidence against him, and why was Liu seemingly so confident his citizenship would be granted? These are questions TGIF Edition would like to ask Labour’s Shane Jones, but he refuses to take our calls.

When former Prime Minister Helen Clark was questioned on the campaign trail about the Yang Liu case, she was quick to reveal the man wanted in connection with a quarter-billion dollar fraud [the Internal Affairs documents wrongly identified only a fraction of the total amount] in China had donated $5,000 to Labour’s Ethnic Affairs Minister, Chris Carter. But Clark was quick to add that Liu had donated to National as well. Clark did not disclose to the press gallery that Carter had also written a letter of support on Liu’s behalf this year.

Despite the political show of support for Liu behind the scenes, the Internal Affairs Department issued a recommendation that cabinet minister Shane Jones could not have failed to see: “It is recommended you DECLINE [their emphasis] the grant of New Zealand citizenship to Mr Yang Liu.” Right below it, however, Jones crossed out the bold capitalised word “DECLINED” and instead ticked the box “APPROVED”. Just three days later, the man’s citizenship was conferred in a special ceremony at parliament giving him an official New Zealand identity under a false name, Yang Liu. But that’s just the covering document.

The larger file sent to Jones, accompanying the recommendation to “DECLINE”, was even more damning.

Internal Affairs notes that “It is alleged he misappropriated a significant sum of money in China by entering into a false contract in 2000 using one of his companies. According to the Chinese in 1999 he stole another person’s identity by falsely registering their birth. He then used this deception to obtain two false Chinese passports.

“Immigration New Zealand is actively investigating Mr Liu on the basis that he may have entered New Zealand under a false identity…however, at this time Mr Liu remains a permanent resident of New

Zealand despite remaining under investigation by the Immigration Fraud Branch.

“The Jilin Public Security Bureau of the Chinese government considers that Mr Liu is actually ‘Yongming Yan’ and that in 1999 he took another person’s identity (‘Yang Liu dob 20 October 1972’) by registering a fake household birth register. It is suggested that he subsequently obtained two Chinese false passports in this false identity. The Department cannot be satisfied that Mr Liu is living in New Zealand and has applied for New Zealand citizenship under his true identity.”

What is interesting is that the Internal Affairs briefing paper to the Minister of Internal Affairs reveals that Yang Liu had some kind of direct line of communication with the Labour cabinet: “Mr Liu has written that he will petition you [the Minister] directly if any supporting evidence becomes available before his application is considered.”

The Ministerial briefing concludes: “What is known is that Mr Liu remains wanted and subject to arrest in China, is unwilling to resolve the Interpol red notice matter, [next clause deleted by Internal Affairs], is under active investigation by Immigration New Zealand and has allegedly obtained and used false identity documents.”

With Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones on clear notice that the

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 15

applicant before him was still the subject of an active criminal investigation by NZ authorities, serious questions arise as to why the Minister overrode his officials and awarded the Labour party campaign donor citizenship, without waiting for the outcome of the criminal investigation.

POSTSCRIPT, APRIL 2011: Yang Liu is now awaiting trial on criminal charges in New Zealand as a result of the Investigate TGIF Edition stories. Shane Jones has never answered questions about his role, and the Press Gallery have failed to probe him on it.

NZTONIGHT

WORLD

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Finance Minister has grim warning

Mumbai: a survivor’s story

Beckham makes Jemma’s day

Four Holidays reviewed

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EDITION

BArBIE forCES BrAtz rECALL

Liu, real name Yongming Yan, is wanted by Chinese police for an alleged company fraud involving up to a quarter of a billion dollars. Papers released to TGIF Edition by both Internal Affairs sources and the Department itself have revealed Liu’s entire New Zealand identity appears to be fake. If true, that would mean dozens of breaches of the Crimes Act with maximum jail sentences of seven years or even higher on each count, because of the network of companies, bank accounts and official applications he has lodged under a false name.

TGIF Edition sought copies under the Official Information Act of the file that went to Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones that“discussed the option of revoking the permanent residency of Yang (Bill) Liu”.

Jones, as Associate Immigration Minister, was presumed to have seen immigration files on Yang Liu, in addition to his role as delegated Internal Affairs Minister. It was in that latter role that Jones gave Liu New Zealand citizenship, against the explicit warnings of officials who told him Liu’s identity was believed fake and that his citizenship application was fraudulent.

Internal Affairs sources have told TGIF that a recommendation also went to the Minister of Immigration recommending Liu’s permanent residency be revoked while it was still possible to do so, but the Minister overturned it.

TGIF spoke to then Immigration Minister Clayton Cosgrove who denied any involvement with the

Los AngeLes – The battle of the super-dolls has been decided.

Mattel, the world’s largest toy company and the maker of Barbie dolls, has won a crucial court battle that could prematurely end the career of Barbie’s biggest-ever competitor, the s a s s y line of Bratz dolls.

In a court ruling released today, federal judge Stephen Larson granted Mattel’s request to force Bratz maker MGA to stop making the multi-ethnic dolls and from using the Bratz product name.

Earlier in the year, a jury found that the Bratz designer had developed the concept for the dolls while on an exclusive work contract with Mattel before moving to MGA. The jury awarded Mattel 100 million dollars in damages – just 5 per cent of what the company had sought.

Last week’s terror attacks in Mumbai have exposed a glaring weakness in New Zealand’s border security checks – a reliance on security assurances issued by overseas agencies.

As reported in TGIF Edition last Friday, and earlier on November 14, the Immigration Service cleared two Pakistani migrants to work in New Zealand on the basis of clean references from Pakistani security agencies.

However, the two men turned out to be members of Pakistani terror group Lashkar e Ta’iba (pro-

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nounced Lashkaree Ta’eeba) – the organisation now known to have carried out last week’s massacre and hotel siege in India that killed nearly 200 people.

Indian and US agencies have discovered the Lashkar e Ta’iba training camps attended by the Mumbai attackers were held with the assistance of the Pakistani army and the country’s rogue intelligence service, ISI. Those revelations raise a major security conundrum for New Zealand: have members of terrorist groups been able to easily enter New Zealand because of our reliance on assurances from foreign governments?

Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman told

on the

INSIDE

OBAMA

DUMPED She hung up on him Page 9

ROCKING REVEREND

Al Green sings Page 14

HEALTH

MIRACLE Salmon’s secrets Page 16

Read more, page 10

Mumbai attacks highlight NZ security weakness

By Ian Wishart

Dunedin

SUBSCRIBE TODAY, ONLY $3 PER MONTH | 5 December 2008

Goff in lockdown, Cunliffe implicated Labour leader Phil Goff is in lockdown mode tonight as the Yang Liu citizenship scandal threatens to engulf his front bench, with another top Labour MP dragged into the controversy tonight.

Goff has been considering three questions from TGIF Edition since midday, but at 5pm his chief media advisor Gordon Jon Thompson revealed the Labour leader was choosing to stay silent.

The reason for Goff’s silence is simple: the New Zealand Immigration Service has now implicated former Immigration Minister and Labour frontbencher David Cunliffe in the growing scandal surroundingYang Liu’s donations to the Labour Party and the government’s subsequent decision to award him citizenship.

The revelation is a body-blow to Goff, whose attempts to lead Labour in a new direction are being overshadowed by what is shaping up as New Zealand’s most serious political scandal in years.

Up till now attention has focused on former Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones, and his ministerial colleagues Rick Barker, Dover Samuels and – to a lesser extent - Chris Carter.

But the addition of David Cunliffe, Labour’s former Minister of Immigration, to the list of those who were tipped off about Yang Liu’s criminal record and who failed to act, means that Phil Goff’s talent pool is now being seriously compromised by the scandal.

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ISSN 1172-4153 | Volume 1 | Issue 18 |

EXCLUSIVE

By Ian Wishart Editor, TGIF Edition

13

Queenstown

TGIF he’ll seek a report from officials and has no further comment at present, but a lecturer in Afghan and Pakistani politics at Otago University, Najib Lafraie, has warned New Zealand should exercise caution when accepting security clearances from offshore agencies.

“In general, it is true that Lashkar e Ta’iba has a very close relationship with Pakistan authorities,” noted Lafraie, although he added that relationship was with Pakistan’s military agencies, rather than civilian organisations.

Lafraie told TGIF it was legitimate to continue recognising foreign security clearances, but not

to regard them as trumping clear evidence to the opposite effect.

“It makes sense,particularly if there is credible evidence, not to regard the security clearances as proof that there is no need for further investigation.”

Documents obtained by TGIF Edition and Investigate magazine revealed the two migrants from Lashkar e Ta’iba had studied in hardline Islamic fundamentalist schools, or madrassas, as well as at commando training camps run by the terror group.

As previously reported, the Immigration Service cleared the men before a police investigation was complete, and without translating documents and videos in the Urdu language where membership of Lashkar e Ta’iba was discussed.

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CONTENDER 2

DAVID CUNLIFFE, 47 Born: 1963 Married: Two children Sins: Not many, but for one biggie – the

same scandal that has sunk Shane Jones.

Although less information has been revealed on Cunliffe’s role in the Yang Liu corruption investigation, we do know Cunliffe also had the chance to deny the Labour party donor residency, and chose not to – apparently against the explicit advice of his officials. Could David Cunliffe, regardless of his personable qualities, ever be trusted to make the right judgement call as a future Prime Minister? Just as in Jones’ case, time does not dull the seriousness of this scandal.

Jones and Cunliffe both have aspirations to the highest office. Both are yet to

16 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

answer questions on their actions.

THE KRYPTONITE: Investigate TGIF Edition, 5 December 2008

L

abour leader Phil Goff is in lockdown mode tonight as the Yang Liu citizenship scandal threatens to engulf his front bench, with another top Labour MP dragged into the controversy tonight.

Goff has been considering three questions from TGIF Edition since midday, but at 5pm his chief media advisor Gordon Jon Thompson revealed the Labour leader was choosing to stay silent.

The reason for Goff’s silence is simple: the New Zealand Immigration Service has now implicated former Immigration Minister and Labour front-bencher David Cunliffe in the growing scandal surrounding Yang Liu’s donations to the Labour Party and the government’s subsequent decision to award him citizenship.

The addition of David Cunliffe, Labour’s former Minister of Immigration, to the list of those who were tipped off about Yang Liu’s criminal record and who failed to act, means that Phil Goff’s talent pool is now being seriously compromised by the scandal.

TGIF Edition sought copies under the Official Information Act of the file that went to Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones that “discussed the option of revoking the permanent residency of Yang (Bill) Liu”.

Jones, as Associate Immigration Minister, was presumed to have seen immigration files on Yang Liu, in addition to his role as delegated Internal Affairs Minister. It was in that latter role that Jones gave Liu New Zealand citizenship, against the explicit warnings of officials who told him Liu’s identity was believed fake and that his citizenship application was fraudulent.

Internal Affairs sources have told TGIF that a recommendation also went to the Minister of Immigration recommending Liu’s permanent residency be revoked while it was still possible to do so, but the Minister overturned it.

TGIF spoke to then Immigration Minister Clayton Cosgrove who denied any involvement with the Liu case and said such cases would normally have been handled by the Associate Minister. Cos-

grove subsequently told us this week he’d received a verbal briefing from officials confirming they believed Liu’s residency had been obtained fraudulently, and that he was under investigation. But Cosgrove reiterated he had never seen Liu’s file or received any written briefing.

Yet our OIA request to the Immigration Service for the file to Shane Jones recommending residency be revoked turned up a surprise answer: “Papers of that nature were sent to a previous Minister of Immigration and are withheld,” confirmed Api Fiso, the Group Manager for Border Security at the Immigration Service.

With Cosgrove out of the picture, that left his predecessor David Cunliffe in the gun. It now appears Cunliffe was, like Jones, explicitly warned about Yang Liu’s fraudulent residency application, yet for inexplicable reasons chose not to revoke the Labour party donor’s visa when he had the chance.

David Cunliffe was seen as a potential leadership rival to Phil Goff and is ranked third in the Labour line-up.

Cunliffe, like Goff, wasn’t taking calls from TGIF this week, but if he had the chance to revoke Liu’s residency on official advice, and didn’t, his competence to ever serve as a Minister again will be called into question, as Shane Jones’ has.

CONTENDER 3

DAVID PARKER, 51 Born: 1960 Separated: three children Sins: Not many, but did file false annual

returns to the Companies Office in regard to companies he was involved in.

The Kryptonite: Investigate, April 2006, updated for Absolute Power: The Helen Clark Years, 2008

I

nvestigate was approached by a Dunedin businessman named Russell Hyslop – a former business partner of new Attorney-General David Parker. Before his entrance to Parliament in 2002, Parker was a Dunedin-based lawyer and businessman.

While there’s no point re-litigating their personal business dispute, the relevant facts are that a business deal between them went sour, resulting in Hyslop’s bankruptcy. Despite that, Hys-

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lop was still listed as a shareholder on the property development company they owned together, Queens Park Mews Ltd, which was still in business.

Every year, companies are required to file “Annual Returns” with the Companies Office, disclosing up to date director and shareholder information. As part of the return, directors are required to sign off that the shareholders have “unanimously agreed” in writing to waive their right to appoint an auditor to examine the company’s books.

Between 1997 and 2005, David Parker or his agents had each year filed those annual returns confirming that all shareholders were agreed there was no need for an auditor.

The only problem was, Hyslop and Parker – both shareholders – were locked in bitter dispute over their company, and what Hyslop claims was the disappearance of $500,000 of his money.

“For at least the past five years,” began a report in the April 2006 Investigate, “four of them while he was a Labour MP, David Parker has personally filed declarations to the Companies Office where he has answered ‘Yes’ to the following question: ‘Did the shareholders pass unanimous resolution not to appoint an auditor for the current year?’

“The Attorney-General’s problem? One of the three shareholders says he hasn’t been consulted about the company’s affairs since 1997, and certainly has never been asked to approve a ‘unani-

mous’ shareholder’s resolution each year waiving the right to audit the company’s accounts.”

If he had been asked, Hyslop points out, he would have demanded an audit.

Now the picture is complicated somewhat because Hyslop’s affairs were being managed by the Official Assignee during his bankruptcy, which lasted between mid 1997 and mid 2000. But throughout the period, and right up until April 2006, Hyslop was listed as a shareholder on the official register.

Section 377 of the Companies Act states: “Every person who, with respect to a document required by or for the purposes of this Act – (a) Makes, or authorizes the making of, a statement in it that is false or misleading in a material particular knowing it to be false or misleading…commits an offence, and is liable on conviction to the penalties set out in section 373(4) of this Act.” Section 373(4) of the Act says: “A person convicted of an offence against [s377] of this Act is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to a fine not exceeding $200,000.”

If it was five offences, that’s potentially a million dollar fine or prison. If it is nine offences you can add another $800,000, taking the potential fine facing Attorney-General David Parker to $1.8 million for breaches of the Companies Act. Reading the article, Attorney-General David Parker knew what he’d done, and knew it was wrong.

“I’m ashamed,” Parker told a packed news conference later that day to announce his resignation as AttorneyGeneral,1 “I’m certainly ashamed of this particular mistake. With the benefit of hindsight I was a bit glib in the way I ticked the form and sent it in.”

TV3 expanded on it, suggesting Parker had been worried for some time that the problem might be raised, but that he was unsure whether he had broken the law and decided not to raise it with the Prime Minister when he was first appointed to cabinet.

In other words, this wasn’t some momentary lapse or inattention. Filing a document asserting he had gained the

approval of all shareholders, when he knew he hadn’t, clearly was gnawing at Parker’s conscience and had been for some time.

“I filed the last of these declarations in the middle of last year,” added Parker.

“I had the relevant resolution signed by myself and my father ... and didn’t flick it past either the official assignee ... or Mr Hyslop and that’s my mistake and that’s why I’ve resigned.”2

POSTSCRIPT:

Parker’s behaviour in resigning was honourable, and suggests that of all three leadership contenders he has the best-illustrated example of integrity and accountability. His gut instinct was the correct judgement call. However, Helen Clark’s administration was not content to let matters rest there, and swiftly jacked up a “Yes Minister” style inquiry which “miraculously” found a letter from the Official Assignee that “waives the requirement to seek confirmation on a yearly basis that a unanimous resolution was achieved in respect of no Auditor being required for the above company”.

Forensically, the letter appears to have been anachronistic – created years after it was purportedly written. More to the point however, it was illegal, regardless of whether it was genuine. The law states written waivers have to be renewed “each year” to be legally effective. This one letter from 1997 simply wouldn’t work in 1998, 1999, 2000 etc.

For Parker, as Shadow Attorney-General, to now claim he has been cleared suggests to us this would-be Prime Minister and former lawyer doesn’t understand the law.

Nonetheless, of Labour’s leadership contenders, he appears to have the least baggage and the best judgement. Whether he gets the job after the election will depend on whether his caucus colleagues would prefer to take the risk of a Jones or Cunliffe scandal coming back to bite them.

HERS PREDICTION: Parker will be the next Labour leader. You read it here first.

References: 1. NZ Herald, 21 March 2006, “I’m ashamed, says minister who resigned” 2. Dominion-Post, 21 March 2006, “I cut a corner and that was a mistake”

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 17

Dances with DESPOTS WORDS BY REED JOHNSON & RICK ROJAS/LATIMES

18 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

When Jennifer Lopez cancelled a $3 million private appearance because of political controversy, she made an ethical call. But many actors and celebrities aren’t as canny, and have been caught selling their talents to dictators and criminals

W

hen pop stars Mariah Carey, Beyonce, Nelly Furtado and 50 Cent recently said they’d renounced millions of dollars they’d received for performing for members of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi’s family, they drew attention to a growing and controversial cultural phenomenon: celebrity artists being hired by rich, powerful and sometimes disreputable clients to play at private or semi-private functions.

From flashy hotel openings to wedding receptions, upscale bar mitzvahs and Caribbean bacchanalias, brand-name musicians, Hollywood actors and other celebrities are increasingly renting out their talents, or simply their crowddrawing presence, for under-the-radar engagements.

Despite the potential ethical breaches, and the risk of tainting their public images, big stars likely will continue to be tempted by fat fees and all-expensepaid trips by private jet to a remote tropical island or luxury resort. Today’s free-spending clients include Fortune 500 corporations, Wall Street tycoons

and nouveau-riche developing-world businessmen.

Some of these artists may be motivated largely by money and are ignorant of, or indifferent to, political concerns.

Others like Sting, who performed at a 2009 concert arranged at the behest of the daughter of Uzbekistan dictator Islam Karimov (known for jailing dissidents and other human rights abuses), see themselves as cultural ambassadors opening new communications channels into closed societies.

Top stars’ managers take care to protect their artists’ reputations by pre-screening clients, “so they know they’re not getting a briefcase of cash that wouldn’t be clean, wouldn’t be legal and would cause them all kinds of problems,” says Bob van Ronkel, who runs a Moscow-based business that arranges for actors and musicians to appear at charity events, concerts and other activities, frequently in Russia and Central Asia.

But that can be difficult if the client is using a third-party intermediary or hiding behind a pseudonym, as one of Gadhafi’s sons is known to do, Van Ronkel concedes.

That was the explanation put forward by Carey when she renounced the reported $1 million she earned for giving a private 2008 New Year’s Eve concert bankrolled by a member of the Gadhafi family.

“I was naive and unaware of who I was booked to perform for,” the singer, who has a substantial record of philanthropic activities, said in a statement. “I feel horrible and embarrassed to have participated in this mess. Going forward, this is a lesson for all artists to learn from.

We need to be more aware and take more responsibility, regardless of who books our shows.”

A few days previously, Furtado, the Canadian pop chanteuse, had announced in a Twitter message that she planned to give away the $1 million she made playing a 45-minute show for the Gadhafi clan at an Italian hotel in 2007.

She did not specify where the money would go.

Beyonce said in a statement that she hadn’t realized who was picking up the tab for a Gadhafi-sponsored private party.

“Once it became known that the thirdparty promoter was linked to the Gadhafi family, the decision was made to put that

I was naive and unaware of who I was booked to perform for. I feel horrible and embarrassed to have participated in this mess. Going forward, this is a lesson for all artists to learn from HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 19

and the people around them to make that kind of call.”

But even booking agents and managers may not know who’ll show up at a gig until after it’s planned. Van Ronkel says that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin turned up on short notice last December at a charity event, billed as aiding hospitals for children with cancer, at which Kevin Costner performed with his band. Putin sang “Blueberry Hill” and played a grand piano.

A

payment to a good cause,” the statement read. The singer said she already had donated the money she earned to Haitian earthquake-relief efforts.

Then earlier this month rapper 50 Cent said that he, too, would donate to charity the money he’d earned performing several years ago at yet another private event linked to Gadhafi family members.

Chris Palmer, a former vice president of progressive music and senior vice president of marketing for Warner Bros.

Records, said that many artists typically

20 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

are disconnected from who they are performing for, or for what reason, being more interested in putting on a good show.

“Some of the artists are so focused on being good entertainers, they’re oblivious to the politics,” said Palmer, now an assistant professor and program director for Arts Presenting at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. “Not all artists are as politically aware as Bruce Springsteen, Sting or Bono. It’s a responsibility of their agents, and support staff,

t the time, Van Ronkel explains, no one in his entourage was thinking about politics. “Governments think politics, but most of us are thinking, ‘Wow, Kevin’s here performing.’”

The event has subsequently drawn Russian media attention after the mother of a girl with cancer wrote an open letter implying the event may have benefited Putin’s public image more than the children.

Sam Craig, director of the entertainment, media and technology program at New York University’s Stern School of Business, notes that although such private performances can backfire on an artist, the risk is minimal – at least in commercial terms. In a culture in which celebrities becoming tangled in a fracas of one kind or another is commonplace, these episodes don’t tend to leave any lasting damage, he says. The fact that performances of this kind, by nature, fly under the media radar also lessens the danger of exposure.

“If it really blows up, you can just say you made a mistake, and ‘I’ll give the money to charity,’ or something. There’s got to be a pattern of something before fans flee.”

Sting, for his part, offered no public mea culpa for playing the Uzbekistan concert, for which the former lead singer of the Police, well-known for his concert work on behalf of human rights and ecological causes, reportedly pocketed as much as 2 million British pounds.

Sting later said he was “well aware of the Uzbek president’s appalling reputation in the field of human rights as well as the environment. I made the decision to play there in spite of that.”

“I have come to believe,” the rock star

declared, “that cultural boycotts are not only pointless gestures, they are counterproductive, where proscribed states are further robbed of the open commerce of ideas and art and as a result become even more closed, paranoid and insular.”

S

till, boycotts, whether formal or informal, may cause a celebrity to think twice. Last year Jennifer Lopez called off an appearance at a luxury hotel in the breakaway Turkish north of Cyprus when a furore over the gig erupted between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in that divided Mediterranean island. The pop star and American Idol judge reportedly would’ve earned $3 million for the gig. A statement posted on Lopez’s website said the singer’s decision “reflects our sensitivity to the political realities of the region.”

Artists may find themselves standing on the wrong side of an ethical line if political circumstances shift suddenly.

Although widely reviled for decades, the Gadhafi regime had marginally improved its international standing in recent years after Libya renounced its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The regime’s brutal crackdown this winter has restored its pariah status; that has drawn renewed scrutiny to foreigners dealing with the Gadhafis.

Raul Pacheco and Ulises Bella, members of the left-leaning, politically activist band Ozomatli, said in an interview that the group had debated long and hard about whether to participate in foreign concert tours sponsored by the U.S. State Department in countries such as Myanmar, also known as Burma, which for decades has been ruled by a military junta.

In such situations, the ethical choices facing artists can be complex, the band mates suggested. Speaking of Furtado’s recent about-face, Bella said, “She got dissed, (but) I’m thinking, ‘Wow, she’s giving $1 million to somebody that can use that money.’”

Pacheco said that, “Whatever the agendas of most governments are, I think people getting together is very important.”

“The double-edged sword of it,” he says, “is, if you speak up, it’s, ‘Who are you? You’re just a musician.’”

Once it became known that the thirdparty promoter was linked to the Gadhafi family, the decision was made to put that payment to a good cause HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 21

HERSPLANET

ARE GM CROPS

SAFE?

SEASE PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN DI HITS US FOOD CHAIN

B

WORDS BY PJ HUFFSTUTTER/LATIMES

ouncing down a dirt road a couple of summers ago, past a gentle patchwork of barnyards and soybean fields in central Iowa, farmer Kent Friedrichsen strained over the steering wheel of his van and stared through the windshield in dismay.

His soybean fields, where he’d used seeds developed by Monsanto Co. and sprayed with its popular glyphosate weed killer Roundup Ready, were littered with yellowed leaves and dead plants. Four days earlier, the plants had been waist high and emerald green.

Nearby, in fields where he had planted seeds that weren’t genetically engineered and didn’t use glyphosates, the soybean plants were still healthy and lush.

Farmers call this “sudden death syndrome,” a plant disease that has plagued the country’s heartland and the nation’s estimated $36.8 billion soybean industry. Scientists who first spotted the disease in Arkansas in 1971 – more than 20 years before Monsanto introduced its Roundup Ready soybeans in the U.S. – blame damp weather and a fungus that rots the plant roots.

But, Friedrichsen says, “for years, I’ve

22 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

wondered whether there wasn’t something else.”

Now, despite mountains of research to the contrary, one soil scientist is roiling the agricultural world with claims that there might be some truth to the farmer’s unease.

Don M. Huber, an emeritus professor at Purdue University who has done research for Monsanto on chemical herbicides, alleges that he has found a link between genetically modified crops and crop diseases: an “unknown organism” he and other researchers claim to have discovered last summer in Midwestern fields like Friedrichsen’s.

“This organism appears NEW to science!” Huber wrote in a letter in January to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack about the matter. He claimed the unknown organism may also be linked to infertility in livestock.

He added, “I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high-risk status. In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency.”

Huber, 76, asked in the letter for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate. A USDA spokesman says Huber’s letter was forwarded to its correspondence office in April.

“As part of normal protocol, Mr. Huber’s letter will receive a response,” the agency says in a statement.

Though the science behind Huber’s claims is far from settled – and Huber has refused to make public any evidence of his claims – his letter has intensified the battle between those who believe technology is the only way to feed a ballooning global population and those who are increasingly fearful that biotechnology is resulting in food that is nutritionally lacking and environmentally dangerous.

This year the Obama administration announced several decisions that have generated concern in the organic farming industry. After conducting a court-ordered environmental impact review, Vilsack approved the planting of genetically modified alfalfa. (The USDA also approved a type of corn that can be used to make ethanol and gave the OK to plant genetically engineered sugar beets in certain situations.)

Alfalfa, like the soybean, is a legume and a key food source for livestock and dairy cattle. To the organic farming industry, the fear is one of possible contamination, in the form of seeds or pollen from genetically engineered crops being picked up by the wind, bees or birds and falling onto nearby organic fields. Such contamination can be devastating to organic farmers, cheese makers and dairy producers, who say even the smallest presence of genetically engineered seed can result in domestic retailers and overseas buyers refusing to buy their products.

Huber’s letter was leaked onto the Internet in February and was posted on scores of websites including the Huffington Post and gardening blogs. It also catapulted Huber into the spotlight.

Slender, with a full head of gray hair and a quiet voice, Huber fits the Midwestern farming archetype. He’s been married for 52 years and has 11 children and 36 grandchildren. When he spoke to a crowd of 80 farmers and University of Nebraska researchers about his claims last month, Huber opened his speech with a quote from the Book of Isaiah: “All flesh is grass.”

The letter, however, does not read like the writings of a man with decades of experience as a plant patholo-

I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high-risk status

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 23

gist. Peppered with capital letters and exclamation points, Huber’s letter calls the alleged discovery “microscopic pathogen.”

In an interview, he called his finding “it.” Huber said this is all he knows: “It’s a life form.”

It could be innocuous, Huber said. It may have been around for a long time, even if scientists never knew it.

Huber declined to say publicly who his fellow researchers are, saying they are worried about professional backlash by their academic employers who received research funding from the biotechnology industry. Peers wondered if it was a fraud.

T

he letter sparked a response from Monsanto. The company, contending that industry and academic research had disproved other allegations Huber has previously made about its products, posted a statement on its website challenging the letter’s claims.

The company said it wouldn’t ignore the letter because “we feel it is important for us to look into allegations involving our products. Our statement and subsequent conversations focus on requests to see the data used in drafting the letter, as decades of farmer use and data from numerous sources show a very different reality.”

An official from the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and researchers at Iowa State University have tried since last fall to get access to plant samples, but to no avail. Instead, Huber and his team have opted to talk to the media – rather than fellow scientists, says Robin Pruisner, entomologist for the Iowa agriculture department.

“They’re telling these horror stories with nothing to back it up. We’re arguing about something we can’t see and they won’t let us see.”

The American Phytopathological Society, of which Huber is a member, issued a statement distancing the group from him. Other leading agricultural research centres have dismissed Huber’s claims as being far-fetched or irresponsible.

“It’s simply ridiculous,” says Peter Goldsbrough, head of Purdue’s botany and plant pathology department, where Huber is an emeritus professor.

“If this is true, and you can prove it, that’s a one-way ticket to a Nobel

24 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

Prize. Where’s the evidence? What’s he hiding?”

But Huber’s supporters say he is a gadfly the federal government can’t afford to ignore and are calling on the Agriculture Department to ban farmers this spring from planting genetically modified alfalfa, typically a key food source for livestock.

Even if Huber’s discovery later turns out to be the scientific equivalent of junk, there are mounting concerns that the government approved genetically engineered alfalfa too quickly and without doing enough research about potential long-term effects on the environment, said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior plant pathologist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Gurian-Sherman said the fears driving Huber’s fellow researchers to remain anonymous may not be trivial. In 2009, a group of 26 entomologists – all in favour of technology, most from universities with large agricultural programs – filed a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency saying that biotech firms

GM FOOD BAD FOR MICE

By KATE MCLAREN/DPA

F

eeding mice with genetically engineered maize developed by the

European Commission to allow the use of genetically modified food, but it finally

US-based Monsanto corporation led to

had to lift its ban on MON810 maize as

lower fertility and body weight, according

animal feed a couple of years ago. How-

to a study conducted by the University of

ever, Austrian feed companies have so far

Veterinary Medicine in Vienna.

agreed to a self-imposed ban on MON810.

In the study, mice fed with the NK603 x MON810 sweetcorn variety over a period

The tested corn breed is a cross of MON810 and another variety and

of 20 weeks showed a smaller litter size

is designed to be resistant against her-

and lighter offspring than mice fed with

bicides and insects. An expert panel of the

non-engineered maize.

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)

The differences “were statistically significant in the third and fourth litters,” according to an abstract of the study led

found in 2005 that the hybrid was “safe for human and animal health.”

Monsanto, for its part, wants to dissuade

by Professor Juergen Zentek and commis-

officials from investigating the possibility

sioned by Austria’s Environment Ministry.

of dangers to human health, stating on its

Although in an alternative set-up of the

website, “There is no need for, or value in

study the differences between the groups of mice were found to be less pronounced and

testing the safety of GM foods in humans.”

Following the release of the study at a

statistically not significant, the environmen-

conference in Vienna, Global 2000 and

tal organization Global 2000 said this meant

Greenpeace criticized EFSA’s approval of

that further long-term tests were needed.

the variety and called for a ban of geneti-

Austria has long resisted calls by the

cally engineered maize.

WORLD DOMINATION BID HITS SNAG

By BEN NIMMO/DPA

E

uropean Union patents on genetically-modified plants only apply

when the modified genes are actually doing their job, the top EU court has ruled in a landmark case brought by agricultural industry giant Monsanto.

The ruling means that biotechnology firms, such as Monsanto, cannot use their patents to stop other companies selling the genetically-modified plants in Europe throughout their life cycle, but only at the stage when the modified genes are doing their work.

“Monsanto cannot rely on (EU law) to prohibit the marketing of soy meal originating from Argentina which contains its biotechnological invention in a residual state,” the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg said in a statement.

The case dates back to 1996, when Monsanto patented a DNA sequence which made plants immune to the weedkiller glyphosate. The company introduced the DNA sequence into soy beans,

were preventing academic researchers from fully studying the effectiveness and environmental impact of genetically engineered crops.

“As public funding has been drying up in the agricultural sciences, industry has been filling the gap. Public-sector scientists are getting more and more money, and there’s a strong perception that if they say anything negative about the biotechnology companies, they could lose their funding and essentially be blackballed,” Gurian-Sherman says.

Even some critics agree that the controversy has at least one upside.

“He has gotten people to think and talk about sudden death syndrome,” says David Wright, research director for the Iowa Soybean Association. “SDS is a problem that needs additional research.

Scientists challenge each other all the time and that’s a good thing. That’s how we get solutions.”

It was the lowly soybean that was the first staple crop to be successfully engineered and widely planted, thanks to Monsanto. In an effort to bolster sales of its herbicide glyphosate, or Roundup,

Monsanto turned to its laboratories to create crops that would tolerate the weedkiller. Instead of trying to alter soy’s genes, they layered on new ones.

It helped make Monsanto huge and extend its influence to consumers: About 75 percent of processed food on US grocery shelves – such as margarine and chicken soup – contains GM engineered ingredients.

D

espite hundreds of studies that show genetically engineered seeds and crops are safe, the technology unnerves some farmers and a growing segment of consumers who pay attention to how their food is produced. Those concerns have mounted as some recent studies have found that the widespread use of genetically engineered crops and pesticides such as Roundup Ready has led to so-called super weeds that are resistant to the pesticide. That in turn has forced farmers in the South and elsewhere to spray their land with increasingly toxic chemicals and hire labourers to walk the rows and pull weeds by hand.

making it easier for farmers to cultivate the beans while fighting off weeds.

Monsanto’s patent is not recognised in Argentina, but its modified soy bean is widely grown there.

In 2005-06, a number of companies imported soy flour containing Monsanto’s patented DNA sequence from Argentina into the EU. Monsanto demanded that the trade be stopped, arguing that it infringed the company’s patent.

But the ECJ argued that EU law “makes the protection conferred by a European patent subject to the condition that the genetic information contained in the patented product ... performs its function in the material in which that information is contained.”

Monsanto’s patented DNA sequence is held to be performing its function only while the plant is growing, by protecting it against weedkiller, the court argued.

“That function of the protected DNA sequence can no longer be performed when it is in a residual state in the soy meal, which is a dead material,” according to the ECJ statement.

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 25

For soybeans, sudden death syndrome has been a serious issue in the Midwest in the last two years. Part of the problem is climate change, said Xiao Bing Yang, a leading expert on the disease at Iowa State University. Soil that is too moist, coming after too cool of a spring, can be a breeding ground for the fungus Fusarium solani f.sp. glycine. It’s the fungus that causes sudden death syndrome, scientists say.

T

he effect on soybeans can be dire. At best, a farmer could lose 10 percent of his crop. At worst, 90 percent could be wiped out. Once the fungus is in a field, it can remain for years and cause havoc when the environmental conditions are right.

Last year, after a chilly spring and a very wet summer, soybean sudden death syndrome raced across the Midwest. The hardest hit was Iowa: Yang estimated last summer that up to half of the state’s

26 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

The effect on soybeans can be dire.

Once the fungus is in a field, it can remain for years and cause havoc when the environmental conditions are right fields might be infected in varying degrees. The USDA warned in August that “the amount of acreage is becoming a concern.”

Rumours of quick fixes spread rapidly across the farming community, Wright says.

“None of it was based on science. It was a mess.”

Scientific curiosity about that outbreak, Huber says, prompted him and a group of researchers to tromp across soybean fields in Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois to take soil and plant samples. Some of the fields were planted with seeds using

Monsanto’s technology and sprayed with glyphosate.

They assumed they were seeing a normal sudden death syndrome outbreak, Huber said. The team took samples from a number of fields, he says, and sent the samples to a researcher who had access to an electron microscope. The researcher looked and, Huber says, saw “it.”

Huber said he doesn’t have anything personally against Monsanto.

“If I’m wrong, OK. What’s the worst that can happen? If I’m not, then we find out what ‘it’ is.”

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 27

Beautifully

HERSINSPIRE

Aged

FASHION AT 90 WORDS BY SARA GLASSMAN/MCT

In our beauty-crazed culture, where wrinkle-free faces dominate magazine covers, runways and red carpets, beauty is youth and youth beauty. But women with an enduring sense of style know that true beauty is ageless. We talked to three nonagenarians, each of whom has honed her own brand of panache and established a signature style. And while these fashion mavens may not have discovered the fountain of youth, they have discovered how to look their best at any age.

28 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

Elsie Lorine Menser, 94 Family: One son, three grandchildren, one great-grandchild and one Shih Tzu named Brittany.

Her style: Classic, with a twist. “I’ve always liked a little splash – a scarf or a pin or animal print.”

The outfit: Suit from Nordstrom, lace blouse from Dayton’s, handbag from her granddaughters and ostrich boa from her mother.

In her handbag: Lano Lip, mirror and Kleenex.

Makeup routine: A little Coty loose pow-

der, which she’s used since high school, and eyebrow pencil. “I don’t wear lipstick anymore because it looks grotesque on some older ladies. Be natural – you look so much prettier.”

Must wear: Pearls. “They’re pure.”

Don’t be afraid of: Heels. “I used to wear much higher heels. Your ankles look so much better in them.”

Wardrobe do: Capes. “They hide a multitude of sins.”

Secrets to life: “Eat as naturally as you

can, live as naturally as you can. Moderation in all things.”

Role model: Her mother, who lived to be 101. “She taught me how to have good manners and how to love everyone.

There’s good in everyone and my mom always found the best.”

Easy aging: Embrace your birthday. “I don’t mind that I’m getting older – I’m getting wiser. Your birthdays mean you’re alive and ready for whatever new thing comes next.”

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 29

Gert Weiner, 92 Family: Five kids, 10 grandchildren.

Fashion philosophy: “It’s important that my outfits match and my house be straightened up. I’m not obsessive about it, but I’ve always been that way.”

Signature accessories: Colourful costume jewellery, earrings and a watch.

Hair routine: Styled once a week, every three weeks for colour. “It’s important that I do as much as I can to keep myself as attractive as I can be.”

Makeup musts: “Foundation, a little eye shadow, rouge and lipstick and then I’m off and going. If I leave the house, I’m vain enough to try to look my best. I’ve never gone to the grocery store without makeup.”

Beauty secret: “Cheap is better. I’ve never used expensive makeup. I’ve been using the same CoverGirl blush for years.”

Can’t do without: Heels. “I bought a pair of tennis shoes, and I’m still better off in a heel. I’m more comfortable. I can’t wear a flat.”

Accentuate the positive: “I’ve always worn a lot of belts. I had a small waistline, so I showed it off.”

Modesty rules: “I don’t think I’ve felt beautiful. I have felt good, but I keep it to myself.”

Best advice: Family comes first. “I have wonderful children and son-inlaws who treat me like a queen. They’re pretty terrific kids. I have no complaints, believe me.”

A MODEL AT 100

BY JEFF ABRAMOWITZ/DPA

She will soon celebrate her 100th birthday, but Luba Fishman has found a new career – as a poster woman for an international cosmetics company.

The Latvian-born, Israel-domiciled great-grandmother was chosen as a new face for Dove Cosmetics› “real beauty” campaign in Israel, with the slogan “Does true beauty have an age limit?”

The company says the campaign is designed to avoid “beauty stereotypes.”

Posters featuring the bespectacled, smiling granny now adorn Israeli bus shelters and highways, contrasting sharply with adjacent advertisements featuring young glossy super-models.

Luba was born in Latvia in 1912, and moved to pre-state Israel in 1932.

Her unlikely career as a model began when an executive at an advertising agency received a request for help to find a 100-year-old model.

30 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

The executive immediately thought of her husband’s grandmother, and Luba, when asked, burst out laughing, explaining that she was not at all photogenic.

Assured that the photography would be of a high professional standard, Luba gave her assent.

“In the beginning it amused me – to be a model at my old age,” she told the Yediot Ahranot daily. “But really, it was worth waiting until now. I feel like a queen.”

Grace Roepke, 93 Family: Two kids, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

The outfit: Jones New York sweater and necklace and bracelet by Sequin New York.

Fashion philosophy: “We didn’t have very much when I was growing up, so I wasn’t able to purchase new clothes. My mum was an excellent seamstress and would sew me the most beautiful clothes, including gloves. She taught me that even if you don’t have much money, you can take pride in your appearance and choose to dress well.”

Signature accessory: “I love shoes.”

Makeup musts: Estee Lauder Projectionist High Definition Volume Mascara, Clinique High Impact Eye Shadow in neutral colours and Rouge Dior Lipstick. “I don’t let anyone see me without makeup.”

Best compliment: After showing up for a dinner in a St. John skirt and jacket trimmed in gold, “a woman told me I looked like I had stepped out of Vogue magazine.”

Dress-up don’t: Blue jeans. “I do have jeans, but I just wear them around the house. I don’t think women my age should be wearing them out.”

Favourite indulgence: Pedicures and manicures once a month. “I do my nails myself in between. I always look at people’s hands.”

Style Icon: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Best advice: “Keep busy, stay very social, stay as physically active as possible, travel, use your brain by playing bridge or reading and maintain a positive attitude. I entertain, cook, pay my own bills, play bridge, exercise and hit golf balls.

You look as good as you feel, so please do everything you can to feel wonderful.”

My mum was an excellent seamstress and would sew me the most beautiful clothes, including gloves. She taught me that even if you don’t have much money, you can take pride in your appearance and choose to dress well HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 31

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34 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

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ABOVE: Nokia’s new E-7 has just hit the market. This time last year the top of the range Nokia on the local market was the E-71 (Vodafone) or its twin the E-72 (XT).

That model was similar to a Blackberry in design and spec, and in fact my E-71 is one of the most reliable and well-featured mobiles I’ve ever owned. The new E-7 on the other hand is a direct strike on HTC, with its touchscreen and hidden keyboard for those times when speed and practicality are important. Boasting full connectivity to social media sites, an 8mp camera and HD video, the E-7 is another must-have for people on the move. www.nokia.co.nz

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 35

DAISYMARCJACOBS.COM

HANNAH PHOTOGRAPHED BY JUERGEN TELLER

FIVE-MINUTE MAKE-UP 38 Bobbi Brown collection

HERS

Beauty & HEALTH

THE MALE PILL 40 Does he need this?

INSECT SPRAYS HARM BABY 42 New medical study

HERSBEAUTY

Five-minute make-up LOCATION: BERLIN WORDS BY CLAUDIA STORR

E

very woman knows this situation: It’s a hectic morning, time is ticking away and there’s no time to put on make-up.

There’s no use digging through a cosmetics bag to unearth the right lipstick, rouge and eye shadow. A better way is to focus on a few basics.

With a little practice it’s possible to look neat in a short amount of time with minimal effort.

“We like to call such basic make-up ‘a lot of nothing’,” says Martin Ruppmann of the Berlinbased association of cosmetic manufacturers.

“You don’t really look like you’ve got make-up on, but you still look fresh and well-groomed.”

An important prerequisite for a successful quick make-up application is thorough facial cleansing on a regular basis.

“The cleaner the skin, the simpler it is to apply make-up,” says beauty expert Claudia Pilatus.

“Then it’s just a matter of emphasizing skin that is well-looked-after rather than a laborious coverup.”

Foundation, which is most effectively applied with the fingers, is the basis of any make-up, says Ruppmann. He suggests brightening the area around the eyes and along the sides of the nose with a concealer to provide a fresh appearance.

An alternative is a daily facial creme with a skin tone that moisturizes and conceals at the same time, says Pilatus. A slightly lighter eye shadow emphasizes the eyes and is easier to apply than darker colours or a combination of light and dark colours.

“You can also use a white eye shadow on the inner side of the eyelid to make the eye look larger,” suggests European celebrity make-up artist Horst Kirchberger. A generous application of mascara thickens and lengthens the lashes, while rounding out the eye make-up and creating an alluring look.

Make-up artist Ursula Haas advises women to choose a colour-tinted lip gloss when the makeup application must go fast. It gives the mouth a pretty shine, but doesn’t have to be applied as precisely as regular lipstick. It also gives the lips a bit of protection, says Haas, director of a make-

38 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

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up school in Frankfurt, Germany.

If there are still a few seconds left, a bit of powder helps the make-up hold, says Ruppmann.

Bronzing powder adds a bit of colour to the face, and a bit of rouge under the cheek bones livens up a pale complexion.

Anyone who can achieve all this just before catching the train or bus has accomplished a lot.

Practice makes perfect.

“Optimally, you should have a good make-up consultation at least once in your life to analyze your own face and learn little tricks to better highlight the shape of your face and skin type,” says Horst Kirchberger.

“It costs a bit of money up front, but you save the rest of your life because you can avoid buying products that don't work on you and you can have a good outcome with little material,” agrees Haas.

And if things don’t always work out with minute make-up, there’s no need to worry.

“On bad days, my eye-liner isn’t 100 per cent, if I put it on myself,” says Haas. “That's just life.”

EXPERT TIPS ӵThe ӵ most common make-up mistakes have to do with using the wrong colour. Women often use make-up that is too dark or too light, leaving the skin looking either grey or sallow. Eye shadow should never be the same as eye colour. Contrasting eye shadow colours bring out the eye more optimally. ӵRouge ӵ should never be applied above the high point of the cheek bone because that can make the eye area appear smaller. Rouge should not be applied too heavily, otherwise the result is apple cheeks. ӵTo ӵ avoid spots and streaks when applying foundation, beginners in particular should apply foundation with their fingers by patting it on. Always carry out the normal daily cleansing routine prior to applying foundation.

OPI NAIL LACQUERS DO NOT CONTAIN DBP, TOLUENE, OR FORMALDEHYDE www.globalbeauty.co.nz

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 39

HERSHEALTH

The male pill WORDS BY IAN WISHART

S

udden death from heart failure is one of those spectres that hangs over us, particularly men, but there’s a growing realisation that good diet, exercise and some natural remedies may help significantly lower the risk One herbal extract run through a full pharmaceutical process continues to do well in medical studies for helping to prevent and treat cardiac problems and associated complaints.

Officially, the extract is known as WS 1442, marketed as Cardiomax, derived from the hawthorn plant but in a highly concentrated form stripped of the bits of the plant that don’t work or which can’t be used.

So how does it work? Hawthorn has long been known to have beneficial properties, but eating an entire hedge wasn’t really feasible. Modern science has allowed scientists to put concentrated doses of the specific extract into a pill form, and naturally they’ve been putting it through its paces.

In an international study stretching from universities in the US to Germany and Poland, known as the SPICE trial, cardiac researchers quickly discovered that patients taking WS 1442 supplements were significantly less likely to

40 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

drop dead of a sudden heart attack.

“WS 1442 reduced sudden cardiac death by 39.7% by month 24,” reported the research teams in the European Journal of Heart Failure.1 The product was recommended as an adjunct to existing formal heart medication.

The world-respected Cochrane Collaboration, an international multi-disciplinary scientific research programme, also ran the numbers on it, and found patients had “significantly improved” tolerance to exercise after taking the extract. Additionally, “symptoms such as shortness of breath and fatigue improved significantly.”2 Those findings are borne out by New Zealanders in their anecdotal reports.

One Nelson man says he’s had a significant improvement in his quality of life.

“As a heart attack victim under medication I still struggled with shortness of breath and tightness of the chest when exercising under load, however within 2 months of taking CardioMax I can do exercise with the ease I expect of a younger person. I had my heart attack 12 years ago and the last 14 months have been great, I visit a local gym 3 times a week (on average), still take medication, and have my doctors blessing in taking

CardioMax. I turn 60 in 4months.”

In scientific language, the Cochrane Collaboration put it more specifically: “It has been suggested that hawthorn extract has positive inotropic effects, decreases atrioventricular conduction time, and increases coronary blood flow.

These effects seem similar to those of phosphodiesterase inhibitors such as amrinone and milrinone.

“Hawthorn extract, however, increases the refractory period (Joseph 1995), which may explain why it seems to be associated with antiarrhythmic activity (Chang 2002; Loew 1997).”

“The best evidence that is available suggests that hawthorn extract has significant benefits, compared with placebo, as an adjunctive treatment for patients with chronic heart failure. Reported adverse events were infrequent, mild, and transient.”

With New Zealand’s rate of heart disease high, and men in particular prone to sudden cardiac arrest, it’s a natural herbal product that may be coming into its own as part of the heart health mix.

References 1. Holubarsch et al, 2008 2. Cochrane Collaboration, 2008

is your get up and go

going?

With age our cardio vascular system tends to sloW doWn losing some eFFiciency along the Way

A 2008 Cochrane review suggests WS® 1442 extract has significant benefits, when compared with placebo, as an adjunctive treatment.(2) A 2003 study showed that the use of

In summary CardioMax® supports and helps maintain overall good health as well as a healthy heart and cardiovascular system. It is suitable for all adults who want to care for and protect their heart health.

There are no contra-indications for CardioMax® with prescription heart medication. It has an excellent safety profile and a high level of tolerance.(5) It is manufactured and marketed in Germany as Crataegutt® by Dr. Willmar Schwabe Pharmaceuticals. Last year this No 1 selling German natural heart care product had German sales in excess of 1,000,000 packets.

Recommended by doctors and cardiologists around the world.

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Supplementary to and not a replacement for a healthy diet. If symptoms persist see your healthcare professional.

Read the label and only use as directed.

Distributor: Pharma Health NZ Ltd Your Health. Nature’s Power.

PO Box 15-185, Auckland 0640.

Ph: 09 827 4102. www.pharmahealth.co.nz Information: Email info@phealth.co.nz 1. Pittler et al Cochrane Library, 2008, Issue 1.

2. Cochrane Collaboration review (Issue 1, 2008) 3. Commission E. Monograph on crataegus folium.

The Complete German Commission E Monographs, Therapeutic Guide to Herbal Medicines. Blumenthal 4. The American Journal of Medicine Vol 114 June 2003 5. Eichstadt et al (perfusion) 2001.

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It enhances overall physical activity by supporting a healthy heart and cardio vascular system.(1)

CardioMax is rich in anti-oxidants, helps maintain normal and healthy blood pressure and pulse rate.(4)

ICALL IN

CardioMax® has been shown to support physical activity for those who are prone to fatigue.(1)

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his can result in less oxygen and nutrients being delivered to muscle groups and organs, particularly in times of physical exertion. This can impact on our lives in various ways.

Commonly people feel less energetic; many just feel like they are slowing down. Some find it takes longer to do the things they do every day.

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 41

HERSALTHEALTH

baby

Insect sprays harm WORDS BY IAN WISHART

I

nsect spray dispensers have become ubiquitous in homes around New Zealand – we all use them, and ads from various manufacturers saturate our TV screens, particularly over summer. We’re told the cans contain “natural pyrethrins” – a chemical found in chrysanthemum plants – that help send flies and other insects scurrying for fresh air outside the home.

For the most part, these automatic spray dispensers work well, but like all things that seem too good to be true, researchers in the United States have just discovered a major fly in the ointment, so to speak – many of the dispensers contain a chemical that is as damaging to children’s mental development as licking lead paint on a regular basis.

The first major research study 1 into the safety of automatic spray dispensers has just been completed by scientists at Columbia University. They tested hundreds of pregnant women who had automatic spray dispensers in their homes, and then tested the long term outcomes on their babies’ health.

The study included checking for spray dispensing chemicals in the blood and umbilical blood of the mothers. The women were also given an air-sampling back-pack to wear for 48 hours in the home during the third trimester of their pregnancies, so that scientists could get

42 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

an accurate sample of what chemicals were in the air in the homes, and then their children were assessed at age three using standard health and IQ tests.

While the study found the pyrethrins themselves were not associated with any health issues, it seems manufacturers have been adding a chemical called piperonyl butoxide, or PBO, to the “natural” sprays to give them more punch. What the researchers found astounded them:2 “While the results demonstrate that a significant prenatal exposure to permethrin in personal air and/or plasma was not associated with performance scores for the Bayley Mental Developmental Index or the Psychomotor Developmental Index at 36 months, children who were more highly exposed to PBO in personal air samples (≥4.34 ng/m3) scored 3.9 points lower on the Mental Developmental Index than those with lower exposures.

“This drop in IQ points is similar to that observed in response to lead exposure,” lead researcher Megan Horton of Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health told journalists. “While perhaps not impacting an individual’s overall function, it is educationally meaningful and could shift the distribution of children in the society who would be in need of early intervention services”.

“Prenatal exposure to PBO seems to have an impact on cognitive rather

I Q

than motor development, which is quite worrisome because mental development scores are more predictive of school readiness,” added Megan Horton.

The official conclusion to the study puts it bluntly: “Prenatal exposure to piperonyl butoxide was negatively associated with 36-month neurodevelopment.”

What does this mean for families? The researchers caution that because it is the first study of its kind in the world, the results are officially “preliminary” – they need to run more studies to confirm their suspicions.

The drop of nearly 4 IQ points in kids whose mothers used automatic insect spray dispensers containing PBO during pregnancy is sharp, but it’s not known if the impact resulted totally from exposure during pregnancy, or whether ongoing use of the sprays in family areas compounded the damage during early childhood.

PBO’s were detected in 75% of the homes tested in the study.

HERS magazine did a brief check of insect spray dispensers at two large NZ hardware chains and found PBO’s were used in all of the brands on the shelves.

References 1. http://pediatrics.aappublications. org/cgi/content/abstract/127/3/e699 2. http://www.mailman.columbia.edu/ academic-departments/environmental-health/research-service/commonhousehold-insecticide-linked-delay

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Please, take a seat

Oh, what stories the occasional chair can tell! Tucked quietly in the corner it sits elegantly while discretely observing and listening. Or sat centre stage it sets the scene and shouts, “Look at me! How fabulous am I in this gorgeous fabric?” Wherever it sits, the occasional chair is never out of the action or out of place.

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44 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

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HERS

Decor & LIVING

BRIGHTEN UP 46 Ideas to spice up Autumn

GETTIN’ FIGGY 48 Figgy fettucini

GETAWAYS 50

Tropical Singapore

HERSDECOR

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ABOVE, Banks Round Mirror, $399, www.freedomfurniture.co.nz RIGHT (& TOP LEFT), ‘CONFLUENCES’ by Philippe Nigro for Ligne Roset. Calling to mind a set of customized LEGOs for grownups, Confluences is a playground of shapes, sizes and colours. Inspired by contemporary art, French designer Philippe Nigro may be considered to be a trailblazer in terms of the new trend for ‘counterforms’ as characterised by the interwoven yin-yang or puzzle-type effect.

Each piece differs in its height and depth, colour choice and unbridled compositions. Can’t figure out the right colour combination? The designer has created 27 different preconfigured colour pairings. www.domo.co.nz

46 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 47

HERSCUISINE

Gettin’ figgy with it James Morrow finds he really does give a fig…

48 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

C

ould there be any fruit more seemingly innocuous, yet utterly controversial, as the fig? Having been cultivated for over 4,000 years, it has quite a history: Many scholars think the Biblical Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was in fact a fig tree, and in the Book of Jeremiah, they were symbolic of destruction. The Lord slated fig trees for destruction in Psalm 78, and Jesus, finding Himself confronted with a fruitless fig tree in the Gospel of Mark, became so enraged that he cursed it: “May no one eat of your fruit again!”. But figs also have had their fans throughout history: Pliny of Rome wrote that “Figs are restorative. The best food that can be eaten by those who are brought low by long sickness and are on the way to recovery. They increase the strength of young people, preserve the elderly in better health and make them look younger with fewer wrinkles”. Meanwhile the poet DH Lawrence wrote lasciviously of Ficus carica, thinking it first a masculine fruit in his poem “Figs” before agreeing with the Italians that, ultimately, it is female in nature. (I’ll leave it to your imagination why). Perhaps this is why figs are considered an aphrodisiac, especially among crunchier vegetarian types who weave their own yoghurt. Meanwhile Mohammed – ironic, given that many of his teachings were cribbed from the Old and New Testaments – was a big fan of figs, and to this day figs are considered, ahem, sensual in Arab culture.

Hopefully no one will issue a fatwa on the fruit anytime soon.

Here in New Zealand, meanwhile, fig cultivation is still fairly limited; they are delicate creatures that need to be gotten to market in relatively short order and don’t bear a lot of knocking around or long storage times like, say apples. No wonder they are so pricey.

In any case, it’s really not clear why anyone would take umbrage to a fig. Though they can often be difficult or expensive to find, and anyone who has ever found themselves looking to cook with the things only to find them costing more per kilo than printer ink or bananas in post-Cyclone Larry Australia may very well find himself uttering a few curses – though none with the power to leave a tree barren. At their best, they are tender, just before the point of fragility, and have a savoury sweetness that stands up to other powerful flavours such as balsamic vinegar and black pepper (in this case they are similar to strawberries) and stinky blue cheese. As always, the stinkier the better.

And there is no need to limit one’s self to the standard issue fig dishes: everyone has had figs wrapped in prosciutto and baked with gorgonzola, and that’s fine. But why limit oneself?

They make a sexy addition to many salads, perhaps one with lots of hand-torn buffalo mozzarella, a la Jamie Oliver. They can also be tossed into pastas and turned into tarts; one easy idea is to take several layers of filo, layer with thinly-sliced figs, brush with good balsamic vinegar (on the subject of aceto balsamico, I’ve found that the widely-available Mazzetti four-leaf vinegar is far cheaper and yet superior to most balsamics one finds in the gourmet delis) and sprinkle with crumbled blue cheese.

My advice: If you see figs, buy them. They’ve got a relatively short season, and they can be pricey, but they’re worth the effort.

Figgy Fettucini You’ll need:

250g fettucini (or other wide pasta, fresh is better) 125 ml unthickened cream 1 large white or brown onion, diced reasonably fine 1 bird’s eye chili (scud), thinly sliced 4-6 (or more) large ripe figs, quartered large handful basil, torn Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, about a handful Good salt and pepper Olive oil 1. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil; when it’s rolling, throw in the pasta.

2. Meanwhile, sauté the onion in bit of olive oil, and add the chili. Add in the cream bring to a simmer, and add figs, stirring until they just begin to break up. Add salt and a good grinding of pepper.

3. When the pasta is al dente, drain well and toss in the pan with the sauce, torn basil, and cheese.

Serves 2 as a main or 4 as a starter.

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 49

HERSTRAVEL

Tropical

Singapore

WORDS BY DPA PHOTOGRAPHY BY DREAMSTIME

S

ingapore is famous for its skyscrapers and luxury hotels but the south-east Asian city is also a culinary capital with thousands of street food vendors in market halls providing tasty titbits for just a few dollars. Typical dishes on offer include fish curries and traditional chicken satays, fried rice and chilli crabs freshly prepared with top quality ingredients.

Singapore is populated by food fanatics. The only thing locals are more interested in than stock prices and the English football league is where to buy the best Nasi Lemak, a dish of steamed rice, coconut milk, fried fish and chilli.

50 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

No culinary experience is regarded as too audacious in Singapore. Even the durian, a fruit that smells of over ripe cheese, is so highly regarded it has its own festival that lasts several weeks.

“You can go the ‘Durian Fiesta’ on your own,” says tour guide Danny with a hint of revulsion in his voice. He would much prefer to go to Changi Village in the north-east of the city where the best Nasi Lemak in the world can be found at corner stand number 57 in the Hawker Centre.

And indeed there is a long line of customers waiting as Danny and his guests arrive in the late morning for a sample.

Almost 2,000 portions at 3 Singapore

dollars (2 US dollars) each are sold here every day, according to the owner’s daughter.

Three dozen other stands are in the Hawker Centre selling Asian delicacies such as shrimp soup, satays with sweet peanut sauce and grilled ray with fresh pineapple juice or coconut milk. No dish is more expensive than a couple of dollars.

The street food guide book Makansutra has tested over 1,000 hawker stands in Singapore which provides visitors with plenty to choose from. However, real Singapore street food fans always have one favourite that they are prepared to travel a long way to get to.

Thankfully a taxi ride does not cost much in Singapore and tourists can easily and cheaply go on a culinary odyssey.

Street food in Singapore tastes good everywhere. All stands are checked by the city health authorities and the city is rightly famed for its conspicuous attention to cleanliness in public places. To get the best Laksa, a popular fish and noodle soup, Danny takes a group across half of the city to Katong where many long-time Singapore- Chinese residents known as Peranakan live.

Peranakan are the descendants of Chinese settlers and have combined together the region’s different culinary styles. For example street vendor “328 Katong Laksa” at 216 East Coast Road sells a hot, sour soup with fresh vegetable and pink shrimps. Though many customers like to add some extra chilli sauce to the soup, some tourists might prefer tea to quench the fire in their mouths.

Katong district is a good place to go if you are feeling in the mood for a culinary adventure. Just a few steps away on the East Coast Road 109/111 is Kim Choo restaurant.

The junior cook Raymond Wong has created a Best Of menu including beef strips with tamarind sauce and cooked Black Nut (Ayam Buah Keluak). To follow are sweet and sour marinated bass with tomatoes, aubergine and okra. Desert is a kind of sorbet made from shards of ice, coconut milk and squashed red beans (Chendol).

Information: www.visitsingapore.com and www.thaiairways.co.nz

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 51

HERSREADIT

Put your feet up WORDS BY MICHAEL MORRISSEY PHOTOGRAPHY BY DREAMSTIME WATER FOR ELEPHANTS

By Sara Gruen Allen & Unwin, $29

I am just old enough to remember “real” circuses – monkeys riding on ponies, handsome horses, lions and tigers snarling as they reluctantly did tricks for the lion tamer and above all, the splendour of multiple elephants turning adroitly on impossibly small inverted wooden tubs.

The elephants would also help erect the big top. Alas, there were no fat ladies or human skeletons which apparently were de rigueur at the time of this rollicking circus novel set in the 1930s.

The novel is presented in two strands – the main one being breathlessly narrated

by Jack Jankowski, an all but qualified veterinary surgeon, who dropped out of Cornell University due to family tragedy to see the world and winds up attached to a second rate circus; the secondary narration is by Jankowski, at age ninety three, complaining bitterly about the treatment he is receiving in an old folks’ home. The circus part of the narrative is always colourful and grippingly romantic; by contrast, the nonagenarian strand is rather hard going though it improves at the novel’s conclusion – plot spoiler!

– when, improbably, Jacob rejoins a circus as a ticket collector.

From the novel’s onset, when Jacob jumps a circus train, to his suspenseful romance with the glamorous equestrian Marlena, his conflict with the tyrannous ring master known as Uncle Al, to the animal

52 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

stampede, this is a joyous nonstop ride. Opponents of the old style circus concentrated their protests on cruelty to animals.

In Water for Elephants, the dominating cruelty is to human beings. Apart from the hierarchy which determines who gets paid promptly and who must wait, there is the murderous practice of “redlighting” whereby troublesome staff are tossed off the train while it is moving, usually resulting in death. Uncle Al gives the order and strongmen do the dirty deed.

The most vivid character is a contrary fellow called August, who is in charge of the animals. After Hamlet, he must be the moodiest man in all literature – he switches from charm to jealousy, from warmth to spitefulness in the blink of an eye. These mood changes are later explained as paranoid schizophrenia (which Uncle Al amusingly calls “paragon schizophrenic”), though his behaviour seems more capriciously cruel than schizophrenic. However, like all bad guys in a good western (which this novel resembles), he eventually gets his comeuppance.

Though the treatment of the circus staff is often cruel, they feast like kings on abundant quantities of meat, vegetable, bread, butter, eggs, oranges etc. and lemonade when the elephant isn’t drinking it.

Rosie, the huge benign female elephant, and a prominent character in her own right – she has more personality than some of the human characters – doesn’t enter the novel until it’s a third of the way in. Melville used a similar delaying tactic with the introduction of Captain Ahab in Moby Dick. It’s a powerful and dramatically suspenseful device. Rosie is too flirtatious and too intelligent to be quite credible but

of course these qualities would add a ton of charm to the inevitable film version which will surely follow in the wake of this moving and appealing novel.

(Stop press – it already has!)

This book also has a number of delightful period photographs of the circuses of the day, including a large elephant which I can only assume is the model for the mischievous but likable Rosie. Bon appetite!

FROM UNDER THE OVER COAT

By Sue Orr Vintage $29.99

One of the loveliest and heartfelt ways writers can pay tribute to great stories of the past is to write sequels, expand minor characters, shift the point of view, parallel the original story with a fresh plot, and so forth. Up and coming short story writer Sue Orr has taken eight classic stories and revisited them in various ways, sometimes obviously, sometimes subtly..

The authors are respectively Guy de Maupassant, Katherine Mansfield, Sherwood Anderson, James Joyce, a Maori Creation myth, Arthur Schnitzler, Anton Chekhov, the Brothers Grimm and of course Nikolay Gogol from whose famous story, “The Overcoat”, the collection derives its title and its inspiration.

As noted by Orr in her introduction, a remark credited to either Turgenev or Dostoyevsky, “We have all come out from under Gogol’s Overcoat.” is the foundation stone for this project. The tradition, noted by famous short story writer Frank O’Connor, relates to pioneering

explorations of ordinary life as opposed to stories about the rich, the powerful, the famous or the heroic. Orr’s collection suits New Zealand literature well, for it is in the tradition of Frank Sargeson and carried on most prominently by Owen Marshall. Her style is in the main honest and unshowy, in which small gems occur, glowing all the more brightly for their relatively rare appearance.

The stories are all impressive and well-crafted but I had problems with the first one “Journeyman”, an adapted tribute to “Boule de Suif” (or Ball of Fat) by Guy de Maupassant. Try as I might, I could not detect a ready parallel with the expert golfer David and the famous original, arguably the greatest short story of all time. I admit this could be my lack so I’ll give it a re-read some time soon. The next story “The Open Home”, extends the original “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, the effective metaphor being that a doll’s house is readily prised open for examination as is its larger version, the open home. “Worm” which owes its inspiration to Henry James, and has young surfers getting smashed up and allegedly drinking the worm in a bottle of Mescal is even better and could have come from that great chronicler of surfing, Timothy Winton.

“A Regrettable Slip of the Tongue” based on Joyce’s “The Dead” shifts narrative focus from Gabriel Conroy to his wife Gretta. It’s a warm enough story but a very pale echo of the rich Joycean original. The most evocative story in the book is “Eviction Party” which explores the grim lives of young folk living poorly and desperately – drug takers and dealers, and eventually arsonists. It’s poignant, moving, well-constructed and Chekhov, the originating master, would have liked it. Orr’s ability to set a scene is beautifully exampled in the opening of “Spectacles” (her tribute to Gogol’s “Overcoat”): “Jackson sat where he always sat – under a large poster of Che Guevara, at a round wooden table which wobbled due to one leg being slightly shorter than the others”.

I would have enjoyed this collection more if Orr had tried to more explicitly echo

NEW DISCOVERIES My Father’s Fortune: A Life

By Michael Frayn Metropolitan Books (273 pages, $49.99) It doesn’t seem possible – playwright and novelist Michael Frayn’s father, Tom, born in 1901, grew up in a family with two deaf parents and three deaf siblings. Tom Frayn became deaf in middle age. His son, Michael, has written 10 novels and some 16 plays. My Father’s Fortune is a memoir muttered under the author’s breath – he talks to himself, asks himself whether he is exaggerating, whether his memory is playing tricks. His father emerges from these pages as a character in a black homburg, mysterious and loving.

The son disappoints – he can’t play cricket and he’s slow-witted. He remembers his mother, Vi, and tries to reconstruct his parents’ happy marriage. He remembers the sounds of bombs at night in 1944, when he was 11, and his mother’s death soon after the war. Frayn blinks at each new detail of his father’s life and even his own – the way we feel looking back at our own lives with wonder. So that’s why we did that!

So that’s how we really felt! His father’s frugality, his life as an asbestos salesman, his patience and his grief all merge. And with these memories, a little guilt – why can’t we feel more, express more when the people we love are still living?

The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life’s Work at 72

By Molly Peacock Bloomsbury (416 pages, $50) Mary Delany was born in 1700 to an upper-class family in England that would fall out of favour with the court and use its lovely young daughter, as so many families did at the time, to marry itself back into money. Elderly, alcoholic Alexander Pendarves came with a castle, and Mary endured her marriage to him by writing letters to her sister and surrounding herself with clever friends such as Jonathan Swift, Samuel Richardson, Hogarth and Handel.

Years after Pendarves died, Mary’s passionate life began with an Irish clergyman named Delany. But it was not until his death, after years of suffering, that she began creating the startling paper collages, intricate mosaics – flowers cut from paper, thousands of them, that now survive her in the British Museum and in books. Molly Peacock discovered Mary after an exhibit of her work at the Morgan Library in New York. She became a role model for Peacock, a way to understand her own life and a way to grow old with dignity. This book layers Delany’s life and work over Peacock’s.

The book is organized by flower – forget-me-not, thistle, poppy, etc., each a metaphor for a different phase in Delany’s life. In this way, the book itself is a complicated, delicate and beautiful collage.

“If a role model in her seventies isn’t layered with contradictions,” Peacock writes, “as we all come to be – then what good is she? Why bother to cut the silhouette of another’s existence and place it against our own if it isn’t as incongruous, ambiguous, inconsistent, and paradoxical as our own lives are?”

Reviewed by Susan Salter Reynolds

the writing style of the originals, though it must be said, this would have been a risky strategy but one I would like to have seen attempted. Regardless of the success of these parallels, creations or extensions, it is a fine collection in its own right, well worth

reading. Of Orr’s humanity towards her characters and her own gifts there can be no doubt. And also Orr’s book provides a timely excuse to read the great originals to which it pays tribute – Gogol’s “The Overcoat” is reprinted at the book’s conclusion.

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 53

HERSSEEIT

The Girl Next Door Source Code star Michelle Monaghan talks to Michael Phillips

I

n the new thriller Source Code, Michelle Monaghan plays a Chicago woman described by the Jake Gyllenhaal character as “beautiful,” “decent” and “honest.” Beauty comes cheap in the movies.

Hollywood boasts an eternally full quota of attractive nuisances, the nuisance part (separate from the beauty part) being the expressive limitations of those who achieve stardom without really having much star quality.

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The ability to convey decency and honesty in a lively way on-screen, however, is rarer, and more interesting. This brings us to Monaghan, who at 35 may be a more familiar face than a name, but whose well-regarded career has avoided the rut of typecasting.

This is just how she wants it. “It’s important to keep Hollywood guessing,” she says over coffee at a downtown restaurant. “I’ve done one or two romantic

comedies” – her resume includes Made of Honour and The Heartbreak Kid remake – “but if that was all I did, it’d be the end of my career. I want to be around a long time. I love my job.”

Your average Midwestern chauvinist would argue that Monaghan’s forthright, avid-eyed appeal has to do with her point of origin. She comes from tiny Winthrop, Iowa, in the eastern part of the state. In the 2000 census, Winthrop’s population was 772. For 40 years her father worked at a copper factory in Cedar Rapids, retiring recently to concentrate on a 90-acre family farm yielding corn or beans, depending on the crop rotation. Her mother ran a day care centre out of the family home.

They’re active grandparents, with nine grandchildren. Michelle has two older brothers, one of whom ended up in Cedar Rapids, the other in Cedar Falls.

Monaghan’s high school years were dominated by the speech team, drama rehearsals and, as a senior, the duties of class presidency (senior class: 38 kids).

“She always had talent,” recalls Cheryl Beatty, who coached the speech team and directed plays at Winthrop’s East Buchanan High School. Beatty asks me to hold the line while she checks the 1994 yearbook for Monaghan’s credits. “Let’s see ... she wasn’t in band ... or vocal ... but she did ‘Plaza Suite’ when she was a junior. In ‘Sleeping Beauty’ she played one of the ladies in waiting. She wasn’t even Beauty!”

Beatty states, sweetly yet proudly, that Monaghan was “your typical small-town girl. She has a strong family background.

Good, solid upbringing. She was friendly to everybody. Everybody.” Neither Beatty nor Monaghan recalls Monaghan ever talking about becoming an actress. She had her sights set on broadcast journalism, Beatty remembers.

Then, in her senior year, Monaghan left Winthrop for a little modelling gig. In Japan. And there goes the typical-smalltown-girl angle. This would’ve been out of the ordinary for most big-city high schools. In Winthrop, it was extraordinary, and the money was good, and a seed was planted.

After graduation she followed her high school sweetheart to Iowa State for a semester, then thought better of it, and transferred to Columbia College in

Chicago as a journalism undergraduate.

“News and newspapers were always at the forefront of my household growing up,” she says, “and now, when I look back on it ... I suppose if you come from a small town you always wonder what’s out there, in the world outside your own.”

She paid her own way thanks to the Elite modelling agency. Monaghan took classes early mornings and evenings and worked in between, “driving up to Minneapolis for a Target ad, or up to Milwaukee for something else, or off to Dallas for the afternoon. I was so fortunate.

On my school breaks I’d travel overseas and make enough money for tuition for the upcoming year.”

Then, a year before she planned to graduate from Columbia College, she decamped for New York. It went well: more modelling, some commercials, some television, then some more television and her first small roles in films.

In 2000 she met her future husband, Australian graphic designer Peter White, with whom she has a daughter, Willow.

And then came Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, her seventh picture but her first major part onscreen, co-starring as a small-town Midwest girl down, but not out, in Hollywood alongside Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. The film was written and directed by Shane Black, recently signed for Iron Man 3.

“To have that experience that early on,” she recalls, “meant everything to me. Such creative freedom. Robert was so good to me. He taught me how to improv! He just made me do it. ‘OK, everything Shane just told us, we’re not gonna do any of it. We’re gonna make up the lines! OK, ready, 1-2-3 let’s do it! Let’s go!’” Monaghan was pretty enough to fulfil that role’s decorative requirements, but off-centre and quick-witted enough to make the results distinctive.

“I saw her first in that film,” says Source Code director Duncan Jones, “not just holding her own, but giving as good as she got. She was fantastic in that.

And I thought if we could capture that Michelle Monaghan in our film, we’d be in good shape. And I think we did more than that.”

From Kiss Kiss Monaghan went on to co-star in Mission: Impossible 3 with Tom Cruise, Gone Baby Gone with Casey

Affleck, Eagle Eye with Shia LaBeouf (her high school drama teacher’s favourite movie) and others. She took two years off after the birth of her daughter before resuming work with Source Code and the upcoming Machine Gun Preacher with Gerard Butler and Michael Shannon.

“Keeping a positive outlook while she’s working is part of her skill set,” says Jones. “She knows how to make a film set an enjoyable place to work, which is really important, because film sets have the potential to be really, really tense environments.”

Monaghan has heard it before. “I do feel pretty grounded,” she says, a little sheepishly. “I would say I’m pretty easy to work with. I think I’m pretty easy to live with, too, though maybe I’m just fooling myself on that one.” She laughs.

“As hard as it is to navigate work and family, it’s important for me to be a good mum. I don’t know what the ideal balance is, really, the right amount of work. We want to have a bigger family.

I’m just trying to stay open. Life happens,

and work happens, and you just kind of figure out how they go together.”

Next up is a movie she’s producing, based on a book she optioned for herself.

It’s The Blonde by Duane Swierczynski, a race-against-time thriller akin to D.O.A. The producer/star describes it as “kind of like ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ for a girl,” her eyes widening at the prospect. “’Bourne Supremacy’ meets ‘Run Lola Run.’ We haven’t found the guy yet, but we think we have our director.”

The way she talks about the project in development, Monaghan sounds like complementary versions of herself. She’s the woman taking charge of her career, sussing out the benefits of taking a studio picture in order to pay for doing a more challenging indie film. Yet there’s that persistent, buoyant strain of niceness.

She is, in other words, apparently not so different from the Michelle Monaghan who remembers arriving in New York years ago and telling her prospective agent, “I don’t know what I’m doing. But I promise I’ll work hard.”

As hard as it is to navigate work and family, it’s important for me to be a good mum. I don’t know what the ideal balance is, really, the right amount of work

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 55

HERSLIFE

Tips for Safer Cleaning

There Is An Easier Way

WORDS BY KATHLEEN PURVIS/MCT PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNA YAKIMOVA

T

he first day of autumn has come and gone. To get the season started right, we looked for the best advice on cleaning the busiest – and maybe dirtiest – room in the house: the kitchen. For a list of what we should clean, how and when, we asked a bunch of germ experts from public health systems and leading universities.

The biggest surprise? People with pets are six times more likely to get salmonella-based infections. The culprit is pet bowls, particularly the water bowl. We often dump it in the sink before we start handling food.

Want to sanitize?

Professional kitchens use a sanitizing solution made with 1 teaspoon household bleach in 4 cups of water. It’s sprayed on counters and cutting boards. Experts disagree on the need to use it at home, but if you do, do it correctly: Let sprayed surfaces air-dry – drying with dish towels may recontaminate the surface. Always clean before you sanitize. If chlorine comes in contact with dirt or soil, it can no longer sanitize. Don’t use more than 1 teaspoon chlorine – stronger isn’t better. And change it about every 5 days. Chlorine dissipates quickly.

Green up When you create a green cleaning kit with baking soda, white vinegar, borax, and hydrogen peroxide you have all you need to clean everything in your home. And, it’s just a fraction of what it’ll cost you to buy store-bought household cleaners. For instance, a 2kg box of Borax can produce 72 litres of mould and mildew cleaner. You would need to buy more than a 150 450ml bottles of store bought cleaners to produce the same amount.

1

Microwave Fill a bowl with 2 cups water and a whole lemon, cut into slices. Place it inside and microwave for 2 minutes, then wipe it out with paper towels. The hot water softens food spills and the lemon cuts grease and keeps the microwave smelling fresh Stove and oven Spray stove spills with an all-purpose cleaner and let stand 10 minutes for easier cleaning. Oven spills aren’t a food

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hazard if you regularly heat the oven to 200.

Cover a fresh spill with salt until you have time to clean it.

Counters Clean regularly with an all-purpose cleaner. Spray with a weak bleach solution and air-dry if needed.

Dishes and dishwashers If you hand-wash dishes, air-dry in a rack. Dirty or wet dish towels can recontaminate clean dishes. To reduce soap buildup in a dishwasher, occasionally fill the soap dispenser with baking soda or place a small cup of vinegar on the top shelf, then run the dishwater empty.

Sink, drain and faucet handle Clean regularly with household cleanser, especially after washing or rinsing raw meat. Don’t forget to clean the faucet handle.

Refrigerator Every day, wipe down the handles, including the underside. Every week, throw out anything that’s past its date or shows age. Every 3 to 6 months, empty shelves and clean the inside with 1/4 cup baking soda in 1 litre warm water, then spray with a bleach solution and air-dry. Remove drawers and clean under them. Before you return the food, wipe jars to remove drips. Clean the rubber gasket inside the door to ensure a tight seal. Vacuum the coils in the back and empty and clean the drip pan if necessary.

Pet bowls Find a place besides the kitchen to clean turtle or frog habitats and empty pet bowls, or clean and sanitize the sink before you start washing fresh food.

Cutting boards Most scientists believe wooden cutting boards are safest, as long as they are kept clean, sanitized and dry. Studies have shown wood hampers bacteria growth, while bacteria thrive in scars on plastic. Either way, keep them clean by running them through the dishwasher, or sanitize by spritzing with a weak bleach solution. Always change boards or clean with soapy water after preparing raw food – even vegetables. They grow in dirt, after all.

Sponges and dish towels Change dish towels daily, or more often if they›re wet or dirty. You can microwave a wet sponge for 2 minutes, but the time varies depending on the power of the microwave (and if the sponge is dry, it could catch fire). Instead, put sponges on the top rack of the dishwasher at the end of every day.

Cross-contamination You know you’re not supposed to put cooked food on the same surface you used for raw food. But it›s not just a problem with cutting boards. You touch all kinds of things while you›re handling raw food: Salt and pepper shakers, cabinet handles, etc. Pay attention to what you touch so you can wipe things down. Tip: It’s not necessary to rinse raw meat and chicken – it just spreads bacteria.

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HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 57

HERSFAMILY

Overplayed

Quality-time or Quantity-time?

K

WORDS BY HEIDI STEVENS PHOTOGRAPHY BY RENE JANSA

imberly Dzielski worries she doesn’t play enough with her 5-year-old daughter. “I read to her. We play games. We play make-believe,” Dzielski says. “I even try to make housework into a fun thing.”

But she worries it’s not enough. Except when she’s worrying that it’s too much.

“I worry if she’s just by herself she’ll be lonely, and I don’t want her to just be in front of the TV,” says Dzielski. “Then part of me thinks she’d be more independent if I wasn’t doing everything with her all the time.”

Dzielski is not alone in her dilemma. Countless parents of young children are finding themselves navigating a world in which books, blogs, parenting magazines and researchers extol the virtues of parent-child play, even as an equal number of resources warn that we’re raising a generation of spoiled, entitled children accustomed to viewing their parents as pals – and struggling to deal with teachers, bosses and other authority figures as a result.

The issue is a fairly modern one. “My mother never played with me,” Dzielski says, echoing a common sentiment among the over-30 set. “I don’t have any example to go on. I don’t know what’s normal.”

Parenting experts say a happy medium does exist. And there’s even time to throw together dinner or, dare we say, relax with a (nonparenting) book on occasion.

“Set aside a period of time that’s bounded,” advises Julianne Idleman, communications director for Hand in Hand Parenting, a California-based group that conducts parenting workshops and support groups. “It needs to have a beginning and an end so the child understands they’re going to have you to themselves and you are fully devoted to them.”

Clear-cut start and stop times allow both parent and child to settle immediately into play mode.

“The child can’t really relax knowing every minute is negotiable,” says Idleman. “You make a special gate for special time, and if the phone rings, you don’t answer it.”

Likewise with the buzzing dryer, the barking dog and the beeping BlackBerry.

The allotted time might be five minutes or 30 minutes, Idleman says. But it’s protected.

“The kids (who) are constantly demanding attention never feel full,” she says. “It’s like eating junk food and never getting

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satisfied. They never know they’ve got your full attention or your full cooperation.”

And when the time is up, you shouldn’t feel guilty about moving on.

“Simply say, ‘I love spending special time with you, and we’ll do it again tomorrow. Right now it’s time for ...’” says Idleman.

“It doesn’t take playing with them all day long. It takes playing with them well.”

“Different kinds of play are important in different ways,” says renowned parenting expert Penelope Leach, author of Your Baby and Child (A.A. Knopf). “Free play is anything a child thinks of for himself, does because it’s fun and goes on doing until it stops being fun. Imaginative play, where a toddler whizzes around the room being a truck, or a preschool child sits talking to dolls, is of that kind. And that’s the kind of play where parents have the least to offer – and trying to join in may even be interfering.”

Other times, a parent makes a perfect playmate.

“A 3-year-old who wants to make a den won’t get far enough to satisfy himself unless someone helps him,” says Leach. “A 5-yearold who enjoys puzzles won’t be able to get from 50 pieces to a daunting 100 unless an adult will help him go patiently on.”

Parents can use this time to model behaviour they would like their children to mirror.

“Children who enjoy ball games early are often frustrated by trying to play with peers because they can’t yet catch or hit the ball or abide by the rules,” Leach explains. “Likewise board and card games. It’s hard enough for a grade-school child to manage his own competitiveness and be a good loser, but if he’s playing with another child who’s in similar difficulties the game often stops being fun. A grown-up player can keep it enjoyable.”

“It’s a little space we carve out for them to learn to be a leader, to learn to direct things, to learn to work with other people,” says Idleman.

“After the age of about 4, parents shouldn’t try to join in when two or more children are playing together – unless they need an assistant,” says Leach. “But there may still be times when a lot of playing together is appropriate and hugely enjoyable, whatever the child’s age. On a holiday, for example, where nobody in the family has their usual outside-family companions.”

Don’t be afraid to prod your children to entertain themselves as well.

“Sometimes you have to be more boring than the boredom,”

says Kim John Payne, author of Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier and More Secure Kids (Ballantine). “You don’t want to become an unpaid performer where you’re offering them option after option after option. They can take that for hours.

“That’s when you answer, ‘I’m bored,’ with, ‘Oh, that’s too bad. I’m sorry to hear that,’” Payne says. “The payoff for parents is, when kids learn to get creative on their own, we can finally sit down and read that magazine.”

“Children tend to do better when they know an authority figure is setting limits and rules for them,” says Tanya Remer Altmann, associate medical editor of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ manual “Caring for Your Baby And Young Child: Birth to Age 5.”

“You shouldn’t be your child’s best friend. But you can play with your child and have fun with your child, and you are still the authority figure.”

Children are accustomed to seeing their parents wear multiple hats, after all.

You shouldn’t be your child’s best friend. But you can play with your child and have fun with your child, and you are still the authority figure

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 59

HERSFAITH

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An

G

Easter

Message

Is Religion Dying?

WORDS BY CHARLES DONOVAN

od is not dead. But he might just be sick with worry about us. If a team of respected scientific researchers is right, religious belief is headed for extinction in New Zealand and at least eight other nations. This projection, sombre to some and soothing to others, got a lot of play during the recent annual meeting in Dallas of the American Physical Society. First reported by the BBC, the findings came in the form of a highly technical account of group dynamics based on a mathematical model.

They would spark little public interest if the subject were bowling leagues or bocce enthusiasts. Religion, to put it mildly, is different.

A fair historian would acknowledge that faith has been on trial since the beginning. The centuries have seen intense, sometimes violent, conflicts among competing creeds. But the most intense conflicts of the 20th century weren’t among groups of religious believers, but among political cultures that believed human rights to be of divine origin and others that placed their trust in a state that bowed to no God. States founded on the divine authorship of human dignity and freedom waged defensive struggles against the claims of officially atheistic ideologies such as communism and Nazism.

Marx framed his ideology as a permanent endpoint of human development where religion, the opiate of the masses, at last had been destroyed.

Hitler envisioned a thousand-year reich of Aryan supremacy, where the altars of Europe would be stripped of their Bibles and crowned with his racist manifesto, “Mein Kampf.” Western democracies were slow to awaken to the implications, responding only when their own survival was threatened. The abiding faith of Americans, of Britons, ANZACs and free French, of the entire Western enterprise, rose to the surface in these circumstances. At the end of World War II, the people of Great Britain seemed to stand as one to hear “A Song of Thanksgiving,” composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’ stirring choral prayer celebrating the defeat of Hitler. The libretto deployed verses from Isaiah – “they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations” – to summon a war-torn nation to recovery.

Existential threats still have that effect on populaces with a national memory of faith. Remember the fullness of America’s churches in the months after 9/11? A profound sense of peril sharpens the spiritual sense, or at least spurs the spiritual search. But the faith that springs up in the dust of calamity

may be dispersed in the breezes of better times or the whirlwinds of scientific atheism. The excesses of religion also fuel the revival of cynicism (although how swiftly we forget atheistic expressions of modern terror, among them Germany’s BaaderMeinhof gang in the 1970s). Scandals of money and sex dispirit millions and destroy entire congregations. The “religious” motivations of today’s worst terrorists provide fodder to celebrity intellectuals anxious to promote the idea that religion itself is the enemy of, and not the answer to, the highest aspirations of humanity. Mao and Stalin certainly disprove that idea. Monstrous deeds come in garb both sacred and secular.

So are the researchers with their math model right? Is religious belief on the rocks? Strictly speaking, they examined a grand total of nine countries, Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. The decline in church attendance in Europe and New Zealand is well documented. But religious tides roam worldwide, and demographics – adherents bearing adherents – still matter. Islam is growing and so too is Pentecostalism.

What about the United States? Despite all the noise about surging atheism, more than 60 percent of Americans do not doubt the existence of God. Almost 40 percent frequently attend church. Even with an increase in those who decline to affiliate with a particular faith, the majority of us hold to some religious belief. It’s also debatable whether those claiming “none” on surveys of religious affiliation actually are irreligious.

The Pew Religious Landscape Survey for 2007 found that about 16 percent of the U.S. population was non-affiliated. But only a quarter of those were either atheists or agnostics – in other words only 4% of the US population. Half of the remainder said religion was either somewhat or very important to them.

Perhaps brick-and-mortar churchgoing is in decline, while individual spirituality is not. In such an environment, the future is volatile.

Churches that are lax on self-policing may reform. Personal faith may seek sustenance in community. And, as tsunamis and Middle East uprisings remind us, existential threats may arrive at any time. Mathematicians who bring special talents to quantum mechanics can’t take us any further than others in the quest for meaning. People are not particles. Heaven’s heartaches begin when we act otherwise.

Charles A. Donovan is senior research fellow in the DeVos Center on Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation in the US

HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 61

Real people, real homes.

John and Joanne had seen a G.J. house they really liked in Australia.

The team at G.J. Gardner Homes flew back to Australia with them to look at the house and modify it to meet NZ conditions.

“The trip was amazing – we had a lot of fun. We have a house we just don’t want to leave. From when we first open the front door, through the spacious living areas, to the gorgeous bedroom-bathroom, we can look out of the windows at the beautiful view, it has the feeling you are on cruise ship. G.J.’s literally went the extra mile and built a truly magnificent home.”

62 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011

Investigate HERSADIEU Crossword No. 3 2

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1 2 3 4 5 9 Investigate Crossword No. 64

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by P PMH L A Y W I T H F I R Solution No. 4 E L A S R U C UI No. L T Solution 4 O S V E D N I FB I E T T G N K S U P R E M O A U I N S BS PA NP G I ON GV R E S UN P OR RE A M O S AE UNRT A ZL O A B AS L M N S Z C I H AA S R E B U G L O B A L B A L AM S C HE A SOS I AS B K N O A R EE V O E L AI NT RM A D E M S R ER V I E OL T RE AN EI N FI T A O R E A DE C P A R F E D ON F F B P AE RCE HD E L O O F FN B EB A ET S A B A R E A RB R EE RA V U HK C R A M N I RU I MD E RR I C R AGN EI NU E A L O G I S I R RI I T I N T I NR R PT I NSO PF IF N F L I FR LT I S Y M Y Y M T Y C TP CT

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Across 1. Take foolish risks (4,4,4) 8. Unorthodox or extremist sects (5) Across Across Across 9. Large andwith imposing building 8. Person great authority or (7) skill (7) 8.

Person with great authority or skill (7) 10.9.

Act of entering (7) Relating to ear or sense of hearing (5) 9.

Relating to ear or sense of hearing 11.10.

Unspecific of deep Soothing feeling skin creams (5) anxiety (5) (5) 10.

Soothingframework creams Structural of car(5) (7) 12.11.

World-wide inskin scope (6) 11.

Structural framework of(6) car (7) Get great pleasure from (5,2) 14.12.

Reject outright and bluntly 14.

Indian side dish of yoghurt and cucumber 12.

Get great pleasure from (5,2) 17. Violent disturbances by unruly mobs (5)(5) 15.

Trimmed by cutting away outer edges (5) Indian side dishinofparticular yoghurt and cucumber (5) Epistle During Lent 19. 14.

Regularly present locality (7) 17.

Strikingly unconventional (7) 15.

Trimmed away or outer edges 21.20.

Level or rankby in cutting organisation society (7)(5) Dear Paul, you asked about the Lenten break of fast.

Part of skull that encloses brain (7) I believe you disapprove. Forty days of diet?

17.

Strikingly unconventional (7) 22.21.

Assail on that all sides (5) to document (5) Clause is appended Come off it! Sure, maybe they’ll last; 20.

Parttree ofinskull that (12) encloses brain (7)(5) 23.23.

Family experts Indulge light-hearted amorous banter But when we want them dreaming in the quiet 21.Incidental Clause that is appended to (4-3) document (5) 24. benefit or by-product Gardens of soul’s refinement, what will they see?

23. Indulge in light-hearted amorous banter (5) Down How shall their meat-filled languorous prayer atone?

Down Down 24. Incidental benefit or by-product 1. Hierarchy of status or power (7,5) (4-3) I saw lamb chops in every shrivelled tree, 1. Pressure line on weather map (6) I saw Nigella’s lips in every stone.

2. Brisk lively music tempo (7) 2.

Multi-coloured silica gemstone (4) Down 3. Use carelessly or extravagantly (5) Get behind me! said I, and did not weaken, 3. Ship or large boat (6) 1. Pressure line on weather map (6) 4. African fly that transmits sleeping But when she’d undulated from my scheming heart 4. Not following accepted norms (13) sickness (6) Premonition in my hands and side awoken 2.

Multi-coloured silica gemstone (4) 5. Medium-sized warship 5. Middle Eastern market (7) (6) Father, said I. Please? I saw the heavens part.

3. Clean Ship regret or 6. Feeling or boat remorse for(8) (5) 6. andlarge unspoilt as(6) if new 4. Colourless Not following accepted norms He smiled and told me: there is an inn behind the hill.

7. fluid part of blood (6) (13) 7. Official record documents (12) They do pub meals. And Son, this once you may eat 13.

Word for word (8) 5.

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15.

Appease or calm down (6) Clean and 15. 6.

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13.

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Earthy pigment ferric (6) oxide (5) Extreme care incontaining spending money Then send submissions to 15.

Appease or errors calm down (6) 20.22.

Identify and fix insocial computer ____ in - make casual call (4)software (5) Poetry Editor Amy Brooke: 16. Delicately small and pretty (6) amy@investigatemagazine.tv 18. Relating to or containing iron (6) © Pam Hutton 2011 HERSMAGAZINE.TV May 2011 63 19. Extreme care in spending money (6) © Pam Hutton 2011 22. ____ in - make casual social call (4)

Poetry

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