Investigate, December 2007

INVESTIGATE

December 2007

Bank of England • Rodney Hide • Rise of Christianity • Iraq

Issue 83

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Volume 7, Issue 83, December 2007

FEATURES

THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD

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SEEKING HIDE

42

A CHRISTMAS STORY

48

GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ

56

26 32

When New Scotland Yard came hunting a New Zealander at the centre of one of the world’s biggest banking fraud allegations, Investigate got there first. IAN WISHART has the WORLD EXCLUSIVE on how the deal went down, who’s involved, why they did it and, most importantly, the New Zealand and Australian connections

Act leader Rodney Hide is warning that New Zealand is heading towards totalitarianism. In an wide-ranging interview with IAN WISHART, Hide shows signs he’s rediscovering his Jekyll

42

A leading philosopher once controversially declared, “God is dead!”

Now, the tables have turned. DINESH D’SOUZA reports in an extract from his just-released book that God is having the last laugh this Christmas

Now there’s a headline we bet you thought you’d never read!

HALIMAH ABDULLAH and NANCY YOUSSEF find not only have the Iraqi civilian and US military death tolls plummeted since The Surge, but the families now feel the deaths of their loved ones have not been in vain

56

48

Cover Photography: Justin McDonald

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EDITORIAL AND OPINION Volume 7, issue 83, ISSN 1175-1290

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FOCAL POINT

EDITORIAL

Sound of firecrackers makes you nervous, Helen?

W

ay back when, a chap named Guy Fawkes devised a cunning plot to blow up the House of Parliament.

Ever since, incumbent governments have felt decidedly uneasy about how to handle the public commemoration of the event. On the one hand, political leaders feel great about the burning of the Guy, the effigy of said Fawkes getting his just desserts for plotting against Parliament. But they can never be certain that all those members of the common herd letting off rockets and firecrackers are not secretly celebrating old Guy Fawkes’ attempt at trying.

So it was with beautiful, and apparently unintentional irony, that Dear Leader, “Sure, maybe Labour voters need Helen Clark chose the mornto be protected from their own ing of Guy Fawkes’ Day to that she hadn’t idiocy, but wouldn’t an armband be complain been able to sleep because a simpler and easier solution than the noise of fireworks going banning everyone’s fun?” off in her street made her feel like she was under siege.

“Last night in my suburb, I felt as if I was in downtown Kandahar [in Afghanistan],” she told the NZ Herald.

I’m sure the residents of downtown Kandahar will be delighted to know their problems are as minor as a couple of Double-Happies and a Mt Vesuvius. No sky-rockets because Dear Leader’s administration has already banned those, and come to think of it no Double-Happies either.

Who would have thought a packet of Warehouse sparklers could be so intimidating?

And so, on the strength of this decided unpleasantness for Dear Leader, she issued another decree from the throne: “We are going to have to look at the reports from this one. I think the best use of fireworks is in the beautiful public displays,” she said, indicating a total ban is now being considered by the Reichstag.

Of course, Guy Fawkes has come at a thoroughly inconvenient time for the Government this year – hard on the heels of reports of a group of disaffected Maori Party, Greens and even Labour Party supporters – including one at the Prime Minister’s own Princes St branch – allegedly conspiring to blow her up. Little wonder her Prime Ministerial Highness is feeling nervous about the sound of a Catherine Wheel out the back window. It’s not enough

, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

that the vast right wing conspiracy has a downer on Labour – the addition of a vast left wing one to the mix is leaving the government feeling decidedly unloved.

All this time police assumed their targets were training with Napalm at the Tuhoe camps when, in fact, as One News reported, “sparkler bombs” are apparently flavour of the day with disaffected youth this Guy Fawkes.

Who’d have thought?

To add insult to politically-correct injury, the Prime Minister’s “won’t someone rid me of these turbulent crackers” speech coincided with the arrest of 16 plotters in Fiji, for allegedly planning to assassinate the Fijian Prime Minister. One of those netted in the swoop was a kiwi, and Fiji wasted no time suggesting New Zealand agencies were behind this latest coup attempt. What, so it’s OK for New Zealand to crack down on its own “terrorists”, but at the same time to foment discontent offshore?

And so we now face potentially a total ban on public fireworks next year. What’s next, matches?

Apparently we can’t be trusted to run our own affairs anymore, or put on a fireworks display in the backyard, without risking a SWAT raid with officers trying to read us our rights in Pidgin Maori, just in case any of us happen to be tangata whenua.

Sure, maybe Labour voters need to be protected from their own idiocy, but wouldn’t an armband be a simpler and easier solution than banning everyone’s fun? Why can’t Labour simply require its own members to register and hand in all their fireworks, blunt instruments and balaclavas – why drag the rest of us into the prime ministerial paranoia?

But then, this is the government that is inexorably stripping away the rights of parents to raise their kids, whilst at the same time endorsing physical violence in our houses of Parliament. Four centuries from now, will schoolchildren be celebrating, not Guy Fawkes, but Mallard Day? Hate to say it, but we already have one of those, and we call it “Lame Duck Season”.

How this government retains any credibility at all in the minds of voters beggars belief, and frankly I find that more terrifying than any firework or Tuhoe ‘guerilla’.

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VOX POPULI

COMMUNIQUES THE POLICE STORIES

I feel compelled to write to you after spending a week in your lovely country.

I found an Investigate magazine here at Millbrook, the July 2007 edition. After reading your article about your corrupt police and government I was moved to make inquiries as to the June 2007 edition. Fortunately the receptionist here located a copy so I was able to read about the entire scandal.

I am an Argentinean exchange student and I have been studying in Sydney, Australia. It therefore follows that police and government corruption are not new to me, however, the extent of the corruption you uncovered, plus the police and government response to your findings, absolutely shocked me.

It appears to this writer that your Prime Minister and Minister of Police went for the so-called adhominem fallacy of ‘attacking the man’ rather than a genuine engagement with the facts as alleged. This then became their diversion, an attack on the integrity of the journalist and an attack on the moral integrity of one of his sources.

They both committed a series of basic mistakes in practical reasoning.

The hypocrisy of their response became ever so apparent when their own source was revealed – in my view – as a corrupt former police officer with his own agenda of dishonesty and unlawful behaviour. The Police Minister, Ms King’s response to the June 2007 article, To Serve and Protect, poured petrol rather than oil on the troubled waters. As for the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, feigning moral outrage, from what I have learnt about this woman, a prostitute faking orgasm would have more credibility!

But back to Ms King – can I suggest by responding as she has, she obviously has a brain that bears an eerie similarity to a Surprise pea – prior to immersion of course.

Perhaps that’s over the top? An uncouth and vulgar thing to say – I should apologise. Abjectly. To Surprise peas everywhere.

Seriously how could any credible government accept without question the statement of a person like Gibbons without even checking the veracity of his assertions by way of an independent inquiry? This person, Gibbons, was rolled out by the Police Commissioner, the very man against who serious allegations had been made. In any

, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

other democratic society that I know of, Gibbons’ statements would have been tested and corroboration sought.

The fact that remains is that there has been no inquiry into this Police Commissioner or his dysfunctional department despite the fact he has acknowledged he allowed bestiality movies / videos to be shown at his home. This is a sad indictment on the New Zealand media for not demanding a full scale inquiry and the New Zealand public for their heads in the sand attitude.

To your reporter and your magazine let me just say this – The right to be different and to disagree, and to point out wrong doing is one of the most important freedoms in democracy. New Zealand society needs and should value its dissenting journalists.

Ricardo Corleto, Australia

GREAT SOUTHERN LAND

Recently you ran a story about oil in the south of NZ which I read with great interest, if only to check its accuracy.

The Hunt Petroleum operation produced many interesting inconsistencies which cannot easily be explained away even by someone like myself, in my travels around the world oil field I have been fortunate to have met some of the men who were on the Penrod rigs when they were contracted to Hunt and the Southern exploration operation, your story only touched the surface, unfortunately the legalities of my profession prevent me divulging too much (where have you heard that before?)

Anyway shall we say you are on the right track and my people cannot wait to have another crack at it regardless of the risk and the cost, the benefit to this country will be worth it.

Name and address supplied, Offshore

AIR NEW ZEALAND

I was annoyed when I read one negative response to your October issue which was great to see you print.

I do not know Rob Fyfe, however I know he is doing a good job returning the airline to profit. I quite like the guy.

Know that I have spoken to dozens of staff (after working for them for thirteen years I know many staff) current and ex staff some who seemed almost relieved to see the airline reported for some of their tactics, all in the article.

For every negative letter on your reporting know there are staff members who see many home truths and will continue to buy your magazine.

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007,

One comment from a loyal staff member of nearly 30 years was...” as shocking as it was for me to read... it was the way many staff saw it”.

Don’t forget more than a thousand staff have signed the EPMU petition to Parliament. People don’t enjoy conflict there are better things in life.

My experience is at the end of the article. Please note I am well known in this airline also because I changed IATA resolution 788 which upholds gay and defacto benefits to this very day.

IATA reso 788 applies to airlines with offices in NZ.If you work for an airline and never heard of it I suggest you read it. It was passed in Parliament and is enforced from Geneva. Its not easy to pass law at that level as an individual, but I surprised myself and through my connections and much hard work it was passed.

I tried to repair any hurt to my employer by developing many incentives including Pink Flight...but I was later pushed. Your article perhaps explains some of it.

I wish the company well but I hope the article made those few bad guys think.

John Armstrong, Auckland

EDUCATION STANDARDS

Len Restall’s article which spoke about the more esoteric educational trends has stimulated me to write the following.

I think what needs to be clarified (if possible) is where/when formal education, as we know it, should exist in relation to a child’s ultimate and overall development. If you took a snapshot of a mature child’s neurological-development [if possible] who never went to school, but still developed in a happy, lowstress, and well-facilitated environment, and then compared that child’s total development to a child who went through intensive institutional-schooling, then I would bet that you would find the “uneducated” child possessing a development richer and more organised/efficient than your typical “educated” child. However, the educated child might test-out better. Why? Because our NZQA tests don’t test development or achievement as such, but a particular form of development. Basically, what our tests look for is the degree to which a child has conformed to an externally-prescribed developmental agenda [which boils down to commercial and political interests trying to turn children into deeply-subordinated easy-to-manage (control) human-resources, but that’s another ghastly story].

Anyway, it’s clear that there is a place, in part at least, for educational instruction as we know it. This applies to formal technical skills such as spelling, reading, grammar and maths etc, and the formal component of probably any discipline. However, though you can teach someone how to functionally read and write, you can’t teach them how to compose for any given effect... nor how to think independently, be creative, solve open-ended problems, or have a fluid conversation or relate to others etc. I believe strongly that the development of non-teachable skills does not belong to externally-prescribed programmes (i.e., education as we know it). This is based on what I have observed from both myself and others.

I think only a tiny part of our development can and should be facilitated in a formal way. I know some kids seem to need a lot of instruction in practice to get on top of those basic 3r’s, but that’s

10, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

almost certainly because they’re responding to bad (blatantly perverted, in fact) educational programmes, and responding to them at the wrong time relative to their personal nature/interest.

Concerned about your kid’s “achievement”? I will point out that you can’t define nor measure achievement because development, outside the most basic levels, is far too complex and idiosyncratic – a student can get straight A’s for example yet still have a crude, mindless relationship to what they have learned, and vice versa. And if you reduce your child’s development to only that which can be measured (this is what “achievement-focused” effectively means), then I would say there’s a very good chance you’ll only end up creating a “well-educated moron”. This, I believe, is what countless parents and schools do today, because so many people can no longer relate to non-institutional development, because they have themselves been so heavily done-over by the schooling process (making serious reform of the system so hard!).

Forget about all these theorists who spend so much time talking about esoteric educational philosophies. It’s all bollocks.

Learning is the natural developmental-reaction to any preoccupation of our interest or concern; really, we should hardly even be thinking about it! There’s nothing exotic about human development, at least until you start confusing yourself with vague ideologies that never really make any sense, or from buying into the MoE’s claim that they can teach the unteachable (and that, in practice, would probably mean teaching something very different to what they claim to be teaching, but again that’s another story). I’ll also say that we should be wary of people who come up with funny new ways of teaching the basics: formal instruction is not hard – it is (or should be) the straight-forward communication of principles and facts. The only time instruction is hard is when you’re forcing someone to swallow what they’re not ready to receive, or forcing them to do stupid exercises to learn, rather than just communicating the information directly.

One of my favourite sayings: Mother nature was brilliant enough to produce the human brain – you’d think she would know how to programme it. Why are we so obsessed with professionalising such a natural function? Do we really believe that we can know better than nature’s way? I recommend that the reader Google’s an American school called Sudbury Valley School.

Sudbury is my personal ideal for kids, and it is one of the many alternatives which, incidentally, solidly challenges the value of state-regulation over your child’s development. A child is more of a tree than a building – we should stop trying to “make” them, and let them grow!

Andrew Atkin, Wellington EDITOR RESPONDS:

I’ d watch out if I were you Andrew – with attitudes like that the Government will be hauling you and your kids in for re-programming PDQ.

CREDIBILITY HIT

I am writing regarding the article in your November issue on the 2008 National Immunisation Schedule (the Schedule).

The Ministry of Health rebuts any suggestion of an undisclosed and prejudicial relationship with vaccine manufacturer Wyeth. We also firmly rebut any suggestion that the Wyeth-

funded research was presented to stakeholders as anything other than qualitative and limited. Further we note that the stakeholder group includes a midwife – unfortunately unable to be present on the day the research was presented and therefore unable to convey to her colleagues the above caveats.

We also take issue with your reference to the “disastrous launch of the MeNZB campaign.” By 30 June 2006 80% of New Zealand children and young people under 20 years old had received three doses of MeNZB – this is a good result.

Had Mr Wishart approached the Ministry for comment he may have been in a better position to understand the planning to communicate the 2008 National Immunisation Schedule.

The Schedule is reviewed every two years to make sure New Zealanders receive safe and effective vaccines. The key change from June 2008 is the addition of the pneumococcal vaccine, Prevenar, for all babies born from 1 January 2008.

The Ministry established a stakeholder group mid-way through 2007 to provide advice on how to communicate the 2008 National Immunisation Schedule to the community and healthcare providers.

A key objective of the stakeholder group is to look at ways of ensuring parents and the general public receive appropriate information about immunisation. This information will then allow them to make informed decisions. In order to develop a successful communications strategy for the 2008 Schedule, it is important that the Ministry works with experts in the field of immunisation and child health. The stakeholder group includes a general practitioner, a public health nurse, a midwife, a National Immunisation Register Administrator, Maori and Pacific providers, a practice nurse, the Immunisation Advisory Centre, a paediatrician, an immunisation co-ordinator, the Meningitis Trust and Wyeth, the pneumococcal vaccine manufacturer. Unfortunately the midwifery representative was not available to attend the stakeholder meeting at which the research was presented.

For the communications strategy to be successful we need to seek advice from the stakeholder group and share information.

This was the rationale behind the presentation of research by Wyeth at the group’s meeting in August. Your claim that this information was “false” is incorrect.

As all stakeholders at the meeting were told, the “Project Smile” research was commissioned and funded by Wyeth. It was based on a similar study in Australia when the vaccine was introduced to the Australian immunisation schedule.

The research was limited and qualitative. It was based on opinion and designed to give a flavour of what providers and mothers thought about immunisation.

The Ministry circulated this research to stakeholders, following a request from attendees at the meeting. Unfortunately the limitations of the research were not circulated with a copy of the presentation, largely because they had been discussed at the meeting.

The Ministry did not contract Wyeth to carry out the research.

The Ministry was not consulted on the design of the research or the presentation of the research findings.

Dr Alison Roberts, Manager, Immunisation NZ Ministry of Health Editor responds:

I’m not sure you can “rebut” the information, in the sense that on the Ministry’s own documents you were forced to apologise. It was the health professionals you criticized in the presentation who labeled it “pseudo research…deeply disturbing…Ministry is at risk of breaching its own code of ethics…endangers of the credibility of the MOH… seriously vexing question of conflict of interest…subterfuge, innuendo, omission of detail…misinforming or forcing parents…scurrilous…hearsay…scaremongering and misinformation…look forward to a retraction of the email and an apology from the Ministry.”

Anti-immunisation researcher Hilary Butler identifies omissions or misleading data presented in the research. You are adding the vaccine for “all babies”, yet risk is a matter of sliding scale and many community groups are very low risk. The Wyeth research emphasizes the need for health professionals to avoid giving parents extra detail so as not to scare them. In my opinion, all of these things and more in the article combine to justify the accusation of “ false”.

We did not approach key players in this for several reasons. Firstly, we were dealing with leaked information which is a matter of public interest but which could have seen the magazine subjected to legal action by several parties trying to stop the release of it. In such circumstances there is no requirement for the media to alert you.

Secondly, we quoted from Wyeth’s and the MoH’s own documentation – we did not need further elaboration and by the letters contained here no one has added anything substantive to what is already in the article. Thirdly, major international media have covered and continue to cover the issues of close ties between drug companies, health ministries and NGOs like the Meningitis Trust.

Our response to your letter can be taken as a response to the letters

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 11

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that follow – all of which arrived within an hour of each other at Investigate, illustrating in our view further co-ordination between Wyeth, MoH and the Trust.

VACCINE MAKER RESPONDS

I am writing in response to an article “Credibility Hit” published in the November edition of Investigate.

In preparation for the introduction of Prevenar next year, Wyeth, as the manufacturer of the vaccine, has an important role to play in ensuring that consumers and health care professionals such as GPs, practice nurses and non-government organizations have the information they need about the vaccine.

Such information includes: the makeup of the vaccine, who it is for, its mode of action, success rate in other countries, dosage and how it’s administered. To ensure information about the vaccine is appropriately targeted, Wyeth, as the manufacturer of the vaccine, commissioned research to assist in identifying how best to communicate with the various consumers and health care professionals that will be involved in administering, and talking to parents about, the vaccine.

The article contains a number of inaccuracies that are outlined below.

• The research referred to was market research, not clinical or medical research • It in no way made assumptions about treatment nor did it provide commentary on the pros and cons of immunizations. It merely reported on the comments of a very small group of people • It had nothing to do with the Ministry of Health. It was commissioned and funded entirely by Wyeth • Its role was to inform the communications activities that we have a responsibility to undertake as the company charged with providing a vaccine for a Government-funded programme • The article was published without a single attempt by the author to contact Wyeth for a response. This is despite the fact that the company is referred to continuously throughout the report The aspersions made regarding Wyeth’s relationship with the Meningitis Trust are also unfounded. The Meningitis Trust – an organization that demonstrates the utmost credibility, integrity, care and support of families affected by meningitis – is an entirely independent organization, of which Wyeth is proud to partner.

As a company that manufactures the only vaccine that protects children from pneumococcal disease, it is entirely appropriate that Wyeth has a relationship with the Meningitis Trust – an organization focused on protecting children from diseases that cause all forms of meningitis including pneumococcal.

Wyeth’s relationship with the Meningitis Trust is in no way exclusive. The financial support provided by Wyeth accounts for very little of the organisation’s total contributions. Consistent with best practice, Wyeth has a formal Memorandum of Understanding with the Meningitis Trust that sets out the partnership’s governance.

As part of the partnership, Wyeth shares, and is happy to do so, information such as the latest clinical papers, research, models and insights into the impact of Prevenar in other countries.

Michael Nobes Director, Corporate Affairs and Health Strategy Wyeth Australia & New Zealand, Sydney

MENINGITIS TRUST RESPONDS

I am writing in response to the article ‘Credibility Hit’ in the November edition of Investigate.

The information in the article pertaining to the Meningitis Trust in New Zealand and our partner charity in the UK is incorrect and misleading, and could be damaging to the future of the Meningitis Trust and the people we exist to support.

The Meningitis Trust New Zealand and Meningitis Trust UK are both dependent on voluntary donations to enable them to continue their work, supporting individuals and their families and communities after an experience of meningitis, and raising life saving awareness about the signs and symptoms of the disease.

Neither the Meningitis Trust New Zealand or the Meningitis Trust UK are solely funded by Wyeth, in fact less than 5% (NZ) and 1% (UK) of the income is from Wyeth.

The Meningitis Trust NZ remains completely independent of any pharmaceutical company, including Wyeth, and this is a very important principle for us to protect our own integrity. However, recognising that vaccines are the only form of prevention of bacterial meningitis and the vision of the Meningitis Trust is to see a country free of meningitis, we strongly support the use of safe and effective vaccines in the fight against the disease and this is a fundamental aspect of the Trust’s ethos.

The quote taken from Mr Philip Kirby dates back to 2004, at the time the Meningitis Trust in New Zealand was the beneficiary of the Fight for Life event, when anti-vaccine campaigners were trying to discourage donors from giving money to us.

Without the funds raised from this event, the Trust in New Zealand would not have been able to continue its work.

In October 2007, the Meningitis Trust New Zealand is again fighting for survival, with no government funding, and struggling to raise the money needed to continue to provide its range of support services and awareness activities. We will continue to fight to be there for people who need us, and for the introduction of safe and effective vaccines to prevent this dreadful disease.

Fiona Colbert, General Manager, Meningitis Trust

A DESPERATE CRY

Almost two weeks ago I attended the Labour Party’s Otaki Electorate’s Women’s Day. I naively thought that our elected officials might be interested in discussing issues. Boy was I wrong!

When I asked Ms Dyson why there was no Independent Complaints Procedure to deal with The Ministry of Social Development, in particular CYFS, I was told “there is no reason to reinvent the wheel as the Commissioner for Children’s Office deals with complaints and we are investigating historic complaints separately.”

When I tried to inform the Ms Dyson in case she was not aware that the Children’s Commissioner will only deal with such matters if they are not before the court, and are to do specifically with a child and not a Social Worker’s conduct, I was told to go the Social Workers’ Registration Board to complain.

I pointed out that most CYFS social workers are not registered, and I was told something along the lines of well…registration has only been around for 2 years or so. I was then told in no uncertain terms that the matter was closed, but that Ms Dyson would like to discuss my case with me and so I gave her my phone number and as of yet I have heard nothing.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 13

I do not want to discuss my case with her only to be told once again that there is nothing they can do, however I still have several questions. My questions are as follows: Why do we not have an independent complaints authority that deals with CYFS matters?

Why are CYFS Social Workers not required by law to be registered? Nurses, Teachers, Doctors, Police, etc mostly have registration and are subject to independent complaints procedures why not Social Workers?

Who will investigate those Social Workers who are not registered?

Also why is there not a code of conduct and clients rights?

Are Social Workers some kind of super humans perhaps? Are they Incapable of bad judgments, prejudice or simply getting things wrong? Or is it that you believe that they need protection from “Bad Parents.”

Ms Dyson, on this juggernaut there are no wheels to reinvent.

In one way or another I have been involved with Social Workers most of my life and I can say absolutely that interventions by the state have caused much of the grief and pain I face on an everyday basis.

According to both CYFS and the Family Court I have a mental illness that makes me so dangerous that I have not seen my youngest child for over a year, So much for ”knowing me before you judge me” as the current campaign goes.

I complained to the Area Manager last year and to date have heard nothing, a little like you?

I suggest that you look me up in the phone book, and maybe we can talk? That is if you and your government are truly concerned about stopping the abuse in families, or is this just another slogan?

The recent criminal convictions of several high ranking police officers surely is warning enough that all government departments and employees need to be transparent and subject to public scrutiny. However CYFS seem to be completely autonomous and the Family Court appears to rely on opinion rather than hard facts and evidence.

For families who need help and support my own story would serve as a warning that while “It is ok to ask for help” please be careful who you ask.

I know I have lived with the shadow of CYFS over my life and seen courts and government officials condone lies and misrepresentations both in and out of court. My children no longer have close loving relationships with each other and nobody seems to care.

I have lost my family, my reputation, so I have nothing more to lose by telling the truth.

I was at times an abusive parent but I did ask for help!

Helena (last name and address supplied)

GOVERNMENT HYPOCRISY

The Labour Government is currently funding an anti-violence campaign in the media with the catch phrase ‘It’s not OK”.

A Labour Cabinet Minister, Trevor Mallard, assaults a National MP, Tau Henare – within the grounds of Parliament.

The Prime Minister, Helen Clark, excuses her Minister’s errant behaviour with the words “he felt he was defending a woman’s integrity”, tacitly implying that defending a woman’s integrity is a rationale for violence.

This of course is the same Prime Minister who, during the 2005 Election campaign, expressed deep offence as a feminist

14, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

at being treated with graceful courtesy by then National Party Leader Don Brash during a heated live media debate, courtesy which she openly mocked Dr Brash for extending to her as a woman.

Honestly, I am now convinced that if one is a Member of Parliament, one can truly be excused for any behaviour, illegal or otherwise. Cheated on your nationality status (Harry Duynhoven), or illegally overspent your election budget?

Retrospective legislation. Majority of the voting population vote for or against a particular issue via referendum? Vote opposite to the public will. Getting criticised for Government initiatives by the public? Censor free speech via the Electoral Finance Bill.

Maori request a hearing about proposed land rights within the appropriate jurisdiction (Maori Land Court)? Take the entire foreshore and seabed.

The pot is heating up, and the frog inside the pot is slowly cooking – wonder if the frog will wake up in time?

Steve Taylor, Auckland

EVE’S BITE

I have nearly finished reading your Eves Bite book and I want to say how glad I am to have had the opportunity to actually read it.

I mean that, had I not read your book, I would have been none the wiser as to world politics and some of the philosophies that many western governments are applying.

I want to thank you for putting together such a well researched document (with scientific backing from internationally renown sources) which addresses many of the critical moral values that government are destroying. I had thought that such Marxist/ Communist/Eugenics style philosophies were at play but have never had such a well documented piece of empirical evidence/ work to support how badly the government social engineering is stuffing up the country.

Your book is great, so thank you for having the guts to release it. It has opened our eyes up so that now we are properly averse and have the knowledge to see through all the rubbish being thrown at us. We will be recommending your book to as many people as we can.

We won’t be putting our kids into the government’s education system that is for sure, no way do we want our kids brainwashed by the state.

Jason Rogers, Auckland

DROP US A LINE Letters to the editor can be emailed to us, faxed or posted.

They should not exceed 300 words, and we reserve the right to edit for space or clarity. All correspondence will be presumed for publication unless it is clearly marked to the contrary.

Address: INVESTIGATE, PO Box 302188, North Harbour, North Shore 0751, or email to: editorial@investigatemagazine.com

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 15

SIMPLY DEVINE

MIRANDA DEVINE New chapter: the class revolution

I

t is a conservative criticism of John Howard that, while he has been in power for 11 years, he has not managed to win the culture wars.

And nowhere is the battle more entrenched than in school education.

Education unions and left-wing education academics cling to proven failures in education theory, despite years of evidence demonstrating the errors of their thinking. They reject, for instance, the research-based evidence showing that “whole language” dominated reading programs do not work for a large proportion of children.

The power of sensible thinking by political leaders in holding off barbarian ideologues can be seen in the influence of the former NSW premier Bob Carr, who saved NSW from the worst edu“In Western Australia, one group cational excesses suffered of teachers became so fed up at elsewhere, particularly in Western Australia, where a having to implement outcomes- decade-long experiment in based education that they managed outcomes-based education just been abandoned. to have it overturned this year” hasBut while governments control the purse strings they have little effect on deeprooted cultural prejudices in organisations such as the ABC and teacher unions. In the battles for hearts and minds, they are outclassed by ideological guerillas, who can only be vanquished from within. At last, however, there are encouraging signs from teachers that the civil war may have begun.

Take the English Teachers Association, which claims to speak for all English teachers. Its most honoured operative is former president Wayne Sawyer, an associate professor at the University of Western Sydney, who has helped develop the NSW English curriculum and is editor of the journal English in Australia. It was his editorial that blamed the Howard Government’s 2004 re-election on the failure of English teachers to properly educate their charges in critical theory.

And in the last edition of the International Journal of Progressive Education, Sawyer tackled the discredited “whole language” theory of teaching reading in an article entitled Whole language and moral panic in Australia.

He claimed “moral panic” was behind a “media campaign … to demonise whole-language methods” of teaching reading, despite the fact the National Inquiry into

16, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

the Teaching of Literacy (which I served on) spent a year examining the worldwide evidence about the best way to teach children reading and came down on the side of systematic, direct instruction in phonics.

If you ever wondered how the teaching of reading could be politicised, the journal is instructive, having devoted its entire June edition to whole language, including “the multilayered dimensions of social justice activism involved in whole language teaching”.

The articles read like a long confession from the stubborn practitioners of a movement which has condemned so many underprivileged children to illiteracy, while professing to care about injustice.

In an article about teaching sixth graders in Grover Cleveland Middle School, New Jersey, the authors “search for ways to disrupt the pre-service [trainee] teachers’ traditional notions of teaching, learning, and curriculum …

We strive to help our pre-service teachers understand that their roles as teachers include a political dimension …

“Too often,” they complain, the teachers “fall back into the direct instruction model with which they feel comfortable.”

Naughty teachers, trying to teach rather than indoctrinate their students. But Sawyer and his acolytes at the association have so provoked those they purport to represent they have sparked a grassroots protest movement of teachers across the country.

In Western Australia, one group of teachers became so fed up at having to implement outcomes-based education, a favourite of the English Teachers Association, that they managed to have it overturned this year. Their lobby group PLATO, People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes, persuaded the West Australian Government to reinstate the traditional syllabus, concentrating on literacy and numeracy.

Now a group of secondary English teachers from Catholic, government and independent schools in Western Australia have formed the English Teachers Forum, the ETFWA, in direct opposition to the English Teachers Association, because they are “concerned about the misrepresentation of English teachers and their views regarding the implementation and the efficacy of the English Course of Study”.

In a letter to the association, the breakaway group wrote: “The ETAWA must realise that the collective voice

“Take the English Teachers Association, which claims to speak for all English teachers. Its most honoured operative is former president Wayne Sawyer, an associate professor at the University of Western Sydney, who has helped develop the NSW English curriculum and is editor of the journal English in Australia. It was his editorial that blamed the Howard Government’s 2004 re-election on the failure of English teachers to properly educate their charges in critical theory“

of the majority of English teachers simply cannot be ignored any longer. It is not just a matter of numbers. It is also a matter of fairness.”

The English Teachers Forum has also managed to have Western Australia’s year 11 and 12 curriculum reviewed by a “jury” of impartial classroom teachers, with the result the West Australian Government agreed to rewrite the courses by 2010.

In NSW, there is similar grassroots unhappiness with the English Teachers Association, judging by a letter I have received from an anonymous secondary English teacher of 30 years.

“The problem in NSW English teaching is not the syllabus. It is the way the syllabus has been interpreted by the English Teachers Association of NSW and its transformation from a wonderfully principled, supportive professional association to a site of leftwing political activism and ideological posturing …

“My dismay comes from a jettisoning of our literary heritage for an obsession with critical literacy and an approach to English based on overt critical theory…

“I look through my past issues of [the association’s journal mETAphor] and ask myself what has happened to the aim of fostering a love of literature in our children? What has happened to the great works of literature?”

That journal is full of articles about postmodernism and such literary gems as: “Power Struggles in the Big Brother House” and “Earnestly Queer: Responding to Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of being Earnest Through the Critical Lens of Queer Theory” by Mark Howie, the president of the English Teachers Association.

It is no good for Australian students that a body promoting extremist ideology should have come to represent their English teachers. But it seems their teachers have finally had enough.

Hoorah for them. devinemiranda@hotmail.com

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 17

LAURA’S WORLD

LAURA WILSON The green machine

I

t’s hard to be gloomy when spring is transforming my garden into a leafy oasis and a month of blustery wind and rain has left Auckland city looking freshly cleaned. Hard to get serious about the latest report by countless eminent scientists that the earth is on a doomsday track, about to go into cardiac arrest followed by a shut-down of vital organs such as the biosphere, our planetary lungs.

NZ is one of the least affected segments of earthly degradation. Our land copes pretty well with four million people, most of them crammed into a couple of small areas. No comparison to the burden shouldered by the land beneath Dutch feet, with twenty million crowded into an area smaller than Northland. Somehow they manage to have ample “The only gesture large enough clean water and dispose of massive waste-output to save this ageing smokers their in kosher ways, while havlungs, is one from the combined ing the temerity to superforces of industrialised nations. sede the Masai in earning the title of tallest race on We need to buy our lungs, put a earth.

Yet apparently this examgreat big fence around them and ple of successful intensive let them regenerate. But instead habitation is no indication of paying for their protection, we that, were we all as organemploy moral bullying of jungle ised and responsible as the Dutch, we could exploit inhabitants for their attempts our environment without to catch up with our lifestyle killing it.

All environmental sciby harvesting their natural entists seem in agreement resources” with James Lovelock’s fifty year old Gaia Hypothesis, in which the earth acts as a single organism. Just as a human body won’t survive without lungs no matter how clever we are, our planet also has breathing apparatus concentrated predominantly in regions such as the Amazon basin. Areas like Holland, Hong Kong and Manhattan owe their existence to the atmospherically replenishing qualities of tropical jungles.

Exactly how much jungle the earth needs for the water and carbon cycles to function effectively is unknown.

What is known is that our life-supporting cycles are under stress, evidenced by dramatic weather changes and

18, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

mass extinction of species. It’s taken a while, but we do seem to have finally admitted with consensus that we cannot expect the planet to keep shelling out fresh air and rainwater endlessly while we transform its surface into our commercial playground.

We are like a hardened smoker who gets to choose between another packet, or life. We know we like smoking. We seem made for it, all the intensity, the struggle, the sense of self. Honouring our lungs simply does not fit in with the struggle to become somebody. We are so committed to advancing, that we seem prepared to kill off our host.

Humans and nature are progressing along different tangents. It is ironic that nature is our original parent. It seems more fitting to imagine a cluster of humans arriving by spaceship a few thousand years ago, rather than progressing through aeons of evolutionary changes from lung-fish to bi-ped. We are cellularly united to nature, yet our sense of alienation is profound enough that when faced with her death, we sign up for ten extra hours a week at work to afford the car of our dreams.

The only gesture large enough to save this ageing smokers lungs, is one from the combined forces of industrialised nations. We need to buy our lungs, put a great big fence around them and let them regenerate. But instead of paying for their protection, we employ moral bullying of jungle inhabitants for their attempts to catch up with our lifestyle by harvesting their natural resources.

I propose a new tax. A global levy paid by developed, deforested nations to those with life-giving tracts of wilderness. It is indecent to expect Brazilians, Kenyans and Javanese to lay off their forests for our benefit. We need them to not follow in our footsteps by industrialising, and so we need to compensate them for their loss of opportunity.

Global responsibility and unity is what its going to take to survive the combined assault against the earths singular organism. No struggling, developing nation is in a position to step up as custodian of essential global resources. We need to do it, in league with Holland, Israel, Japan, USA and all our brother’s who’ve made the most out of modernisation. For all we’ve gained, it’s our cousins in Nepal, Zimbabwe and Bolivia who hold the trump cards for our future. It’s time to let them in the game.

OWNASHIP – WHAT A GREAT IDEA! HERE’S HOW IT WORKS.

O

       , started as a result of many years of family boating leading to a careful consideration of the joys and drawbacks of owning and maintaining various types of recreational watercraft. Today’s busy lifestyle coupled with its ever increasing demands on time and finances, makes sole ownership of a boat a questionably viable proposition. The concept of fractional ownership is well established overseas, and it is great to now be able to offer it to the NZ boating public.

Own A Ship offers  shareholdings in a number of brand new and near new boats. A  share in one of the boats gives you  days guaranteed useage of the boat in each calendar year and unlimited standby days, i.e. if the boat has not been booked by another owner by am the day you want to use it, then you are welcome to take it out for the day with no deduction off your allocated  days which is a great bonus. The  days are divided into “peak and off peak”, i.e. days are divided into  peak days (public holidays and weekends) and  off peak days As a lot of owners have little interest in being on the water during the very busy season anyway, the possibility is strong of having standby days during peak periods as well. Research shows that the  days are as many days annual boating as the average boat owner currently uses, and with a walk on/walk off management program, maintenance, cleaning and high yearly running costs become a thing of the past. The professional team take care of all the boat owning hassles for you while you reap all the benefits. In this way it is very much like charter, but then as an owner it is very UNLIKE charter in that you OWN your share in the vessel and it can be treated as you would any other asset, i.e. sold, traded or retained – whatever your preference.

Online booking system allows you to book the boat directly, or you can phone Ownaship to book and the boat will be ready with optional extras that you have requested, i.e. dinghy, linen, BBQ, lifejackets etc.

can you have confidence in ownaship as a company?

Yes you can. The Principals of the company have been well established in successful business in the NZ community for the last  years and

have substantial assets both in NZ and Offshore. They have enlisted the services of leading Auckland professionals in the legal, accounting and banking environs to ensure that the rights and investments of boat owners are protected. This ensures that each Boat Owning Company has been approved and Registered by the NZ Securities Commission before making equity shares available to the public.

who would benefit from owning a boat this way?

0 Any person who appreciates the benefits of vessel ownership, but realises that the time and financial burden of sole ownership makes poor sense in today’s busy world. With Own A Ship you have the benefits of owning with few of the drawbacks at a fraction of the cost.

0 Any person who realises how little they would actually use their boat especially when compared with the time and money they will expend on its upkeep!

0 People who realise that charter is a non-productive expense and are looking for better utilisation of their hard earned finances.

0 Busy people who don’t need the time hassles of sole ownership boat maintenance.

0 Those who would like a bigger or better boat than they could otherwise ever afford.

0 Those with the desire to own a luxury boat without the huge outlay normally associated with ownership of that type of vessel.

    :      ,                          .    . : ... | : @..

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 19

STRAIGHT TALK

MARK STEYN No smoke without fire

T

hese stories turn up so routinely you hardly notice them anymore: Vancouver’s hookah-parlour owners are celebrating after winning an exemption Thursday from a proposed new bylaw that will ban smoking on most sidewalks in commercial districts, in bus shelters and even in taxis passing through Vancouver.

In giving the bylaw unanimous approval-in-principle, Vancouver city council members bowed to arguments that hookah lounges provide an important cultural space for the city’s Muslims and granted them a temporary exemption.

Can that be right, even in Canada? Infidels can’t smoke but Muslims can? Apparently so. As The Vancouver Sun report continued, Emad “Instead of the immigrant Yacoub “said hookah assimilating with the host society, lounges are essential for immigrants from hookahthe host society assimilates with smoking cultures, because the immigrant. Which makes it helps them deal with depression common sense, given that he seems to the for newcomers and gives value his inheritance more than them places like they have Canada values its own” at home.”

Once upon a time English and Irish and French immigrants to Vancouver used to find “places like they have at home” – pubs and bars and so forth. But not anymore. In fact, if you’re at the Legion Hall and can no longer light up a fag (whoa, relax, I’m just talking about cigarettes, not another lively Muslim cultural tradition), you might be forgiven for getting the impression that fewer and fewer places seem like home anymore.

It’s good to know the state is still prepared to trust adult citizens to be able to weigh the health risks of smoking against the “cultural” value (ie, the pleasure), even if they have to convert to Islam to enjoy the right. Veterans, barflies, cigar aficionados and free-born Canadians in general can no longer enjoy this responsibility. But Muslims, uniquely, can.

Well, not entirely uniquely. For as The Vancouver Sun also reported: The one foggy point in the new bylaw was whether it will apply to crack cocaine and crystal-meth smoking.

Ah, right. If you’re taking a limo from Squamish to Richmond, you can’t light up a Craven A. But, if you do

20, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

feel the need the smoke, just stop off at the nearest crack house or meth lab. It’s good to know that some aspects of infidel culture are still celebrated in Vancouver.

At casual glance, this decision by the city council breaches one of the most fundamental principles: equality before the law. Either smoking is illegal, or it’s not.

But it can’t be illegal for some citizens, and not for others.

But, of course, most of us don’t give that casual glance to this story, or to the gazillions like it that bubble up at the foot of the “News In Brief” section every day of the week across the western world. And, of those who do give it a casual glance, the general blasé reaction was pithily distilled by one correspondent of mine as follows: “We’re rich enough to afford to be stupid.” Yeah, sure, it’s idiotic but it’s harmless. Don’t get your panties in a twist. Ours is such a wealthy, powerful, confident culture it can jab untold numbers of screwdrivers into its own head, and still survive. Death by a thousand cuts is not for us, even if (or just because) the cuts are self-inflicted.

I wonder. In Vancouver city council’s action, what was once dimly discerned is made explicit. An Englishman or Irishman has no culture. Indeed, Canada has no culture, save what others bring to it. Which is the logical reductio of multiculturalism: If coming to Canada causes “depression” among “newcomers”, it behooves us to bring Canada into line with “places like they have at home”. Instead of the immigrant assimilating with the host society, the host society assimilates with the immigrant. Which makes sense, given that he seems to value his inheritance more than Canada values its own. And so we confront the limits of political correctness. It’s fine for a pliant citizenry sedated by decades of propaganda, but not for Muslims or crackheads who don’t yield quite so easily. When the nanny state runs up against the unnannyable, it crumples like a cheap roll-up.

When I wrote my book about Europe and demography, dissenting critics wanted to argue about the rate of change – specifically, the date at which Islam becomes a majority on the Continent. It won’t be 2025 or 2050, they scoff. It might not even be by the end of the century, as Professor Bernard Lewis says. Maybe. Maybe not. My book has very little to say either way about the precise day on which Islam claims 50.00001 per cent of the European population. What matters is the point at which it becomes the key determining feature of a soci-

ety’s political disposition. And that day will not be 2100 or 2050 or 2025, but, as we see in Vancouver, some time rather sooner.

Let us zip across the Dominion, to Etobicoke, a corner of Toronto I know well. Or I thought I did. The other day a reader sent me the list of candidates for the Etobicoke North riding in this month’s provincial election. They are as follows: Shafiq Qaadri, Liberal Mohamed Boudjenane, NDP Mohamed Kassim, Progressive Conservative Jama Korshel, Green Teresa Ceolin, Family Coalition “Teresa”? What kind of cockamamie name is that for an Etobicoke politician? This is the first riding in Ontario in which every major party is running a Muslim candidate. But not the last. To the casual observer, this would seem to be statistically improbable. Etobicoke is not 80 per cent Muslim, nor even 50 per cent Muslim. Yet every major national party already feels obliged to defer, in its candidate selection process, to Islam’s political muscle. I write in my book that, historically, Islam has never needed to be a statistical majority in order to function as one. At the height of its power in the eighth century, the “Islamic world” stretched from Spain to India yet its population was only minority Muslim: Islam conquered and ruled an empire of nonMuslim subjects. But, a millennium and a bit on, it’s not even necessary to conquer – not when everyone’s so eager to concede pre-emptively, all in the name of “tolerance”. As Douglas Farrow told a conference at McGill recently, tolerance is a negative: it implies a kind of passivity. “You can’t build a society on that negative principle,” he says. But you can rot and enfeeble the one you have, and in its ruins something new will be built.

Let’s zip east another few thousand miles, from Etobicoke to Brussels. The mayor of the city is a rather dreary Belgian leftie called Freddy Thielemans. He is the head of the governing Socialist Party. Of his 17-member caucus, ten are Muslim.

Again, Brussels is not majority Muslim. Sure, the most popular baby boy’s name is Mohammed, but then, in western Europe, it would be easier to list the cities where it isn’t. Yet Brussels, the capital of the European Union, already has a Muslim-majority governing party.

It’s been faintly surreal following the recent ructions about the usual instabilities of the Belgian state: Is this it? Are the ancient differences between the Walloons and Flemings about to tear the kingdom apart? Etc, etc. The traditional warring tribes of Belgium are irrelevant to its future. Brussels will be a Muslim city, and so will Antwerp, and Ghent, and even my mum’s quaintly parochial Flemish backwater of St Niklaas. And the disputes of the future will be between Belgian Turks and Belgian Algerians, or Belgian Sunni and Belgian Shia, or some other variant thereof.

Twenty years ago, in The Closing Of The American Mind, Allan Bloom wrote, “As an image of our current intellectual condition, I keep being reminded of the newsreel pictures of Frenchmen splashing happily in the water at the seashore, enjoying the paid annual vacations legislated by Leon Blum’s Popular Front government. It was 1936, the same year Hitler was permitted to occupy the Rhineland. All our big causes amount to that kind of vacation.”

Yes, indeed. “Tolerance”, “multiculturalism”, splashing in the shallows – or so we think. Those Muslims who frequent

Vancouver hookah parlours because they’re “depressed”, because Canada is not like “home”, won’t have to be depressed much longer. Here, as in much of the west, the state is happy to dismantle its own inheritance. And in the vacuum of multiculturalism it’s those groups most fierce in defence of their culture who will build the future.

“The decline of the West,” wrote Samuel P Huntington, is still in the slow first phase, but at some point it might speed up dramatically.” What is the point at which it becomes irreversible? If you’re on a river heading over the falls, it’s not the moment when you plunge over the precipice and are dashed on the rocks below.

That’s the great visual dividing line – Joseph Cotton in Niagara: one minute his boat’s horizontal, next it’s heading straight down.

But the critical point happens way back upstream. It’s still flat, it’s still the river not the distant falls, but what you thought were the placid shallows has, in fact, a strong silent running current and, before you even know it, you’re being swept along. © Mark Steyn, 2007

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 21

EYES RIGHT

RICHARD PROSSER 15 men on a dead man’s chest

Y

o, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum. So sayeth the song, and indeed popular history; legend has it that Edward Teach, a.k.a. the pirate Captain Blackbeard, once punished a mutinous crew by marooning them on Dead Man’s Chest, a remote Caribbean island.

The island was famous for its high cliffs, poisonous snakes, and lack of water; Blackbeard’s hapless mutineers were given a cutlass and a bottle of rum apiece, and left to their own devices.

Fact or fiction aside, there is many a metaphor to be found in folklore, and perhaps one which has some relevance for New Zealand, and for that other great tradition involving fifteen men, in this tale of privateers, treachery, and ultimate demise.

The Rugby World Cup is “This sort of psychobabble over for another four years, wouldn’t have held water in the and many a bottle of rum – days of Whineray or Lochore or amongst other medicinals – Meads or Buck or Griz, when there has been consumed by many a New Zealander, seeking was only one coach, and the All solace from the ignominiBlacks didn’t need psychologists ous departure of the All from the Webb-Ellis or nutritionalists or someone to Blacks tournament. Personally I’m do their nails. They ate steak, and not sorry to see the back end drank beer, and killed things, and of it for a while.

Yeah, we lost, and I’m not won test matches, and life was particularly happy about very simple.” that; but I’m not altogether surprised either. There is much which has been wrong with New Zealand rugby – and indeed New Zealand – these past few years; and perhaps that certain black-bearded French pirate (we all know who I mean) came along simply to ‘Teach’ us a thing or two.

Why didn’t we win the World Cup? Everyone has an opinion. The New Zealand Herald website’s “Your Views” section currently runs to almost a thousand pages of it, this week as I write. I confess I haven’t read them all, nor made any contribution to the debate – until now. In this writer’s opinion, there are three reasons for the demise of the All Blacks’ Rugby World Cup dreams. One concerns the game itself. The second concerns the New Zealand nation.

The third, perhaps most importantly, is more to do with

22, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

how the first two have come to combine in recent years.

First up, and simplest, we lost to France in the quarterfinals because we were beaten by a better team on the day.

Blame the jerseys, blame the ref, blame the lack of home advantage, the weather, the food, the ball, the touch judges, the video umpire, the alignment of the planets, or anything else you care to name; the bottom line is that the French scored more points than we did, and so we came second. The end. No amount of whinging or moaning or criticising will change the result. Swallow it and move on.

Secondly, and more to do with reasons than results, is the mentality which pervades New Zealand when it comes to rugby. We have an unhealthy relationship with the game. It defines us, it controls us, it lifts us up and at the same time holds us down; our happiness is dependent on its success, and as a result, we have come to regard our success within it, as something of a right. This is not so.

Clues as to our mentality regarding rugby, and its hold over us, can be found in the many commentaries surrounding the All Blacks’ departure from France. “Shock Loss,” the headlines proclaimed. “Upset Win to France”, “Unexpected Result”, and “Untimely Departure” for New Zealand from the World Cup. To me, this says simply that we went into the quarterfinal expecting to win, and we played the game as if it had already been won. In short, we did exactly the same as we did in 1999, and from which we have, despite protestations to the contrary, apparently learned nothing.

History tells us that France beats us roughly one game in four. Going into the tournament, we had beaten them seven games on the trot. We were overdue for a loss, and as everyone knows, on the right day, the French can knock anyone over. Yet still, we approached the match, and played it, as if we had some strange kind of divine right to be victorious. This is not a realistic attitude. And we were punished for it. Again.

The third reason is more complex and goes back further in time. New Zealand rugby began to go into a slow decline at about the same time as the nation itself took a downwards turn; the early 1980s, by this writer’s reckoning. On the heels of the divisive ’81 Springbok tour came the huge social and economic upheaval of Rogernomics, the heady days of quick-build skyscrapers, company jets, and corporatised everything, and the myriad fortunes

made on paper, and then lost in real assets, with the sharemarket boom and its subsequent crash in 1987. Somewhere in the middle of it all, New Zealand lost its way; and not only that, but we lost something of the essence of nationhood, as well.

Indeed it could be said that the capitalist expansion of the 1980s paved the way for the era of professional rugby in the 1990s. Professionalism both saved rugby in New Zealand, and brought about the beginning of its downfall.

Before professionalism, rugby at the highest level in New Zealand was played primarily by those people who could afford to play it. There were allowances paid, of course, and some – shall we say “unofficial” – arrangements, and sponsorships and endorsements and a few scholarships; but even so, the All Blacks comprised mostly men who were already successful or selfemployed, who enjoyed a measure of economic freedom, and who were consequently possessed of the confidence and conviction of winners, backed up by a proven ability to succeed. They were farmers, contractors, lawyers and accountants, teachers, tradesman, police officers and servicemen. They played for the love of the game, and aspired to the black jersey from a love of their country.

Professionalism, and a couple of bad choices in terms of coaching staff, changed all that. The All Blacks of today are dominated instead by big strong Pacific Islanders, men selected for their speed and size, their skill with the running ball, brute strength and stamina. We can have these attributes in the people chosen for the team because we can pay for them. But such men do not, in this writer’s opinion, carry the same ability to play the thinking game as did those of the generation they replaced. Dear me, what a terribly non-PC opinion to hold. I don’t care. Call me whatever you like, I’m just telling it the way I see it.

Neither, I believe, do they perform with the passion of men who are playing for their country. For many of them, in fact, this isn’t their country. As one English contributor to the aforementioned newspaper website commented, it’s just the place where they make a living.

You can hardly blame them for that. Professionalism, in the form of Rugby League, had after all been eating away at the cream of New Zealand’s rugby players for some years before the 15-man game went pro.

Bringing the chequebook out from under the table allowed the NZRFU to hang on to many a fine player who might otherwise be tempted across the Tasman or to Britain; but it also ushered in a new era of international gladiators with skills for hire to the highest bidder.

We bought many of them, unashamedly, and with scant regard for the further ramifications of such a shift in selection policy and the philosophy of the game. We did it for the money, and in this pursuit of the sponsor’s dollar, the TV ratings, the international recognition, and the associated commercialism of endorsement, we sold a little of our soul, and we perhaps forgot more than a little of the essence of nationalist spirit. The All Blacks have ceased to be the national team of our country’s national sport. They have become, as we even to this day proclaim with no small measure of bizarrely misplaced pride, a “Brand”. The Black Jersey is packaging, not the embodiment of the nation’s soul, and the Silver Fern has become a corporate logo, rather than the symbol of a people.

“The proud ship of New Zealand and her rugby tradition – hijacked by pirates and privateers – can sail again, but not unless and until we repair the damage of the past twenty years. Fix the nation and the game will follow”

We have lost our way and perhaps our collective mind, and we won’t bring the World Cup home until we find them again.

Don’t get me wrong, New Zealand and Rugby Football are inextricably intertwined, but this is our country for crying out loud, not some bloody corporation.

People say the coach should stay. He’s done enough, his record is good, blah blah blah…I say rubbish. Of course Henry has to go. He’s as much at fault as the entire philosophy which his approach to the job encompasses. This week we are told that the ABs are to be given ‘grief counseling’ from their ‘mental skills coach’. Beg pardon?! For God’s sake, harden up, you sniveling bunch of crybabies. No-one died. You lost a game of footy, and that’s all. Now maybe, if you’d been properly match-hardened, like by actually playing 40 or 50 games of rugby on the trot, the way the Poms did (and they did actually make the final), you wouldn’t have lost; but no, the coach in his wisdom feels you need constant ‘reconditioning’, which only serves to reinforce the subconscious affirmation that you’re really just delicate wee flowers who need to preserve yourselves for hair gel and underwear commercials. Give me a break.

This sort of psychobabble wouldn’t have held water in the days of Whineray or Lochore or Meads or Buck or Griz, when there was only one coach, and the All Blacks didn’t need psychologists or nutritionalists or someone to do their nails. They ate steak, and drank beer, and killed things, and won test matches, and life was very simple.

But New Zealand was a different place then as well, and if rugby is a metaphor for this country, then it’s also the canary in our national mineshaft. Men were allowed to be men back then, and they played rugby like men. But a generation of corporatisation, pacifism, feminism, and listening to idiots against our better judgement, has brought us neither success nor happiness.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we won’t bring the Cup home until we have a man for a Prime Minister; and some men teaching in the classroom, and an Air Force, and until Adidas are told to bugger off, and our boys can wear Canterbury again, because the game and the nation are more important than some shallow monetarist Yankee corporate sponsorship deal.

The proud ship of New Zealand and her rugby tradition – hijacked by pirates and privateers – can sail again, but not unless and until we repair the damage of the past twenty years. Fix the nation and the game will follow. But if we don’t, then the fifteenman game may well die here in these treasured islands, just as a little of that which lives within our nation’s chest has already done, in our pursuit of a measly few pieces of eight.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 23

LINE ONE

CHRIS CARTER The gore hypothesis

W

hat a wonderful system the Internet is for those of us who like to gather together information unsullied by political agendas or unbridled media hysteria. Mind you the same system also is very frightening as one quickly learns how tried and true science, and freely available and accurate climate change statistics, can be so easily manipulated by the inheritors of the Karl Marx mantle, who have as their now clearly emerging agenda, the establishment of The Cult of The Earth Mother, with of course themselves as the self-elected High Priests and Priestesses. Having managed to persuade the majority of the world’s left wing media, with the help of their now demonstrably corrupt “Here in New Zealand of course United Nations co-defen“Man Made” climate change dants, that not only is the sky falling, but that it is all provided a heaven sent opportunity the fault of the wicked capfor probably the world’s most italists and those who selfrefuse to realise that avaricious tax gatherers to steal ishly only a return to Marxism yet a greater proportion of the provides the means to save Nation’s wealth” Earth Mother, thus we now appear to be entering a period of political and taxational repression being sold to us under the guise of “saving the planet”.

One could easily trot out all the facts and statistics to completely de-bunk the Global Warming Scam that are now so readily available thanks to the research facilities provided by the Internet, of which I am sure that those with even a modicum of education and common sense have already done. Sadly though, it would appear that many of those who are of a socialist persuasion tend to follow more the group hysteria approach to life, having lost much of the ability to research anything for themselves, and to then make up their own minds. Led invariably by folk who are essentially the inheritors of techniques developed by a certain Herr Goebbels, who, whilst serving his socialist master came to realise that their followers would believe a massive lie, in fact the bigger the better! Just make sure it’s remorselessly repeated, over and over, at which point it magically becomes a truth! Little lies have always been the common currency of politicians everywhere, the really big ones however, are usually the

24, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

mark of would be, or actual, dictators.

Anyway, recognising the cleverly induced mass hysteria regarding Man’s supposed role in climate change, has brought us to the point where anyone challenging this particular crusade is labelled, horrors of horrors – “A Climate Change Denier”, subconsciously providing a link to people who are silly enough to be Holocaust deniers, which apart from being pretty offensive, at least shows a certain low animal cunning eh? Speaking of animals and tricky slogans, who remembers the assembled mob of farm animals in “Animal Farm”, who you may recall, were also persuaded by the ruling pigs, that, “Two legs are bad-four legs are good”! Like make up a catchy mantra and sing it loud and sing it often...and invariably the believers draw comfort as to the righteousness of their cause, whilst detractors are cowed into stunned silence by the sheer volume and passion being displayed by the recently converted.

However, as is also in the nature of things, eventually there will arise, with luck, a young person, as yet un-brainwashed, who will innocently observe that “the emperor has no clothes”...The assembled multitude will find their mental blindfolds lifted, then will quickly discover for themselves, that what they too have been blindly gazing upon is nothing other than a load of old bollocks.

The history of this latest in a long line of hysterical media-promoted crusades is a pretty interesting one when you take a bit of a look at it. Mother Earth Worship was probably first adopted by the Water Melon Party, or the Greens, (as in, Green on the outside and red in the middle), a political movement mainly based in Europe and essentially drawing its membership from various factions of the old Communist Parties. Having failed in all their previous attempts to bring down Capitalism, they decided to try a much more sophisticated approach, that being to build up a new Deity in the form of a gentle Earth Mother, and then, when she was being worshipped by a sufficiently large flock, to accuse the wicked Capitalists, industrialists and SUV drivers of raping her! Then how to best demonstrate this vile attack to the wider proletariat? What better way than with junk science, whereby the creation of “evidence” of the suffering of Mother Earth, could be, with the telling of a few ‘porkies’, directly traceable to the aforementioned villains, and verily, the world’s truly caring and sharing would tearfully gather behind

the banners of the righteous Green Priesthood, and smite down these capitalist crucifiers of the newly proclaimed Godhead!

And one is bound to observe, haven’t they done well, so well in fact that other parties, if not actually red, but certainly of a very pink persuasion, essentially just swiped their prayer rugs from under them, took over their entire Church which the new owners then re-established in New York at the United Nations. At around about this time along came Al Gore, the fat guy who once looked after the Vice for the Clinton Administration, and who rather astonishingly also laid claim to “inventing” the Internet. Algore, as he’s best known, decided that the new religion really needed an official Prophet with some really apocalyptic propaganda, so he set about directing and producing a Nobel Peace Prize winning movie called An Inconvenient Truth, which whilst it may very well have been inconvenient, certainly owed very little indeed to the truth. It should be pointed out here by the way that I’m sure the deceased Alfred Nobel would be somewhat less than thrilled with the likes of Jimmy Carter – failed US President, Yasser Arafat – Terrorist Extraordinaire, and Algore – False Priest of a pagan religion becoming recipients of this previously highly regarded peace prize...

The word devalued sort of comes to mind. Indeed such were the level of falsehoods contained in Al’s little venture into fibs being made into a movie, that a British High Court judge ruled that Al’s apocalyptic epic may only be shown to innocent UK children in the future with accompanying documentation that clearly outlines all of the bulls**t! Unfortunately, similar legal protection does not exist to insulate the minds of the fortunately decreasingly gullible members of the public, who are still susceptible to the blandishments of a professional con man, although thankfully it now seems that there are clear indications of most people waking up to the undeniable fact, that natural climate change provides no good reason at all for the Socialists to inherit the earth.

Here in New Zealand of course “Man Made” climate change provided a heaven sent opportunity for probably the world’s most avaricious tax gatherers to steal yet a greater proportion of the Nation’s wealth. Ms Clark and her own antipodean version of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Michael Cullen, just couldn’t believe their luck. CO2, despite having little, if anything at all to do with Global Warming was sprung upon by this power hungry pair of pickpockets as being the ideal vehicle for a joyride into your wallets. CO2 production from the beasts of the field farting, through to any form at all of energy production or human enterprise could be levied, taxed or even extorted by a simple wave of the witch’s wand. “We shall lead the world in becoming Carbon Neutral” quoth the previously atheistic pair, now, nevertheless more than happy to become true acolytes of the Great Mother Earth Sect. That New Zealand will henceforth be reduced, on windless nights, to being bereft of heating and power shall be of little account. That the battery powered vehicles shortly to be demanded by Parliamentary edict will run over countless children who fail to hear them coming, if indeed sufficient power still exists to re-charge them when they run flat.

All is but a minor detail in the greater scheme of things, for verily, it is nothing alongside their sacred duty to steal most of our money and to spend it on what they believe is best and of course to complete their mission to introduce the Prophet Marx’s utopia to each and every one of us.

“The word devalued sort of comes to mind. Indeed such were the level of falsehoods contained in Al’s little venture into fibs being made into a movie, that a British High Court judge ruled that Al’s apocalyptic epic may only be shown to innocent UK children in the future with accompanying documentation that clearly outlines all of the bulls**t!”

Remember – “What Helen wants, Helen must have”. (Another well known Labour Caucus mind numbing chant!)

In today’s world, despite there now being enormous and I believe inarguable evidence that man, in no meaningful way, has any ability at all to change the global climate even if we wanted to, it’s nevertheless true that challenging the current level of what can only be described as mass brainwashing, to the opposite point of view, is fraught with danger. Believers in this so called new Truth are so enamoured and beguiled by the utter nonsense that they have been persuaded to believe, that the very wrath of “Earth Mother” is sure to be called down on the head of an unbeliever. Fortunately for such a poor wretch as myself, I am confident that there is little to fear from false Gods.

Chris Carter appears in association with www.snitch.co.nz, a must-see site.

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 25

Man The

Sold World

Who

The

In this world exclusive, IAN WISHART has the inside story on the alleged $75 billion plot to bring down the Bank of England, after locating and interviewing the New Zealand ‘mastermind’ behind it – a man being hunted by Scotland Yard

I

t is a plot that could have been lifted directly from a Robert Ludlum thriller: deep in the throes of World War II, a British government desperate for bullion to pay for its war effort seeks to buy gold from wealthy Chinese families, offering as payment a series of bearer bonds, or promissory notes, worth billions of pounds in today’s money. Throw in deep underground vaults in the Philippines full of gold bars, rumours of the lost treasure of the Japanese warlords, and a mighty typhoon that sucked four CIA aircraft – carrying billions of dollars in US bonds – out of the sky and into a Filipino 26, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

jungle where locals ransacked the loot. If that’s not enough intrigue, factor in six anonymous figures known collectively as “The Family”, and dwell on the peculiarity that the members of “The Family” are aged between 100 and 116 and claim to be the direct witnesses to a historic event so secret it could shake the foundations of the modern world financial system. Then add in a British Police sting, the arrest of several people bearing £500,000 notes, and a New Zealand fugitive allegedly at the centre of a worldwide manhunt in a $75 billion plot to bring down the Bank of England.

Have I got your attention yet?

since September, offering to tell his side of the story. What follows, then, is a world exclusive, never-before-told. Make your own mind up as to the guilt or innocence of those involved:

In late October, newspapers around the world carried the story of the Southwark Six, five Asians and an Australian, going on trial on a charge of conspiring to defraud the Bank of England between 1 Dec last year and March 27 this year.

“A New Zealander remains on the run after British police allegations that he is part of a counterfeiting gang that tried to con the Bank of England out of NZ$75 billion,” noted the Dominion Post on 29 October. “Six people have been arrested.

Their alleged Kiwi co-conspirator is believed to be in New Zealand…identified as Brian [sic] Archer.”

Investigate knew where to find him, however, because the “fugitive”, Bryan Archer, had been in touch with the magazine

IN THE BEGINNING: With its rogue Buddhist monks, international intrigue and bizarre plot twists, this story could yet be a movie. Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Dumb springs to mind, although it might be a trifle unkind and a touch premature. You see, whilst prosecutors in a London courtroom have been keen to portray what follows as “quackery”, nagging doubts remain.

It is an investigation that strikes deep into the heart of decades-old conspiracy theories about hordes of lost Nazi, Japanese and Chinese gold, missing US and British bank documents and a worldwide official “cover-up” of the evidence – or so some are claiming.

Picture this: it is mid 1941, and your country, Britain, is at war. Locked in a death-struggle with Nazi Germany, which already has caused you heavy naval losses, and in the skies your airforce is so close to spent that if Hitler’s Luftwaffe keep up their relentless bombardment for just a few weeks more, Britain will fall to the Third Reich. As the Governor of the Bank of England, you have the unenviable task of finding money to keep the war machine going. The gold bullion reserves you amassed before the war have plummeted from US$2.5 billion worth just two years earlier, to a piddling $115 million today.

In short, not only are you running out of planes and warships, you are rapidly running out of gold to keep the “bang” in the whole shebang.

So you do what every desperate treasurer of a major power has done throughout history. You beg, borrow and steal money.

Who do you turn to? Someone who already trusts you, like China.

In the mid 1930s, China was invaded by Japan. The Chinese government of Chiang Kai Shek fled inland, and the country’s military and economy were propped up by the US, Britain and France – countries with substantial investments in China that they wanted to protect.

A lot of Chinese gold was sent to the US for safekeeping, but much remained in private hands. The currency problem suddenly turned into a Godsend for Britain at the end of 1935 however, when an assassination plus US manipulation of the silver market forced China to introduce its own paper currency, as Time magazine reported in November that year: “Two days after three bullets put the Premier of China to bed, Acting Premier & Finance Minister Dr. H. H. Kung abruptly “Nationalized” the age-old basis of Chinese money, silver. Chinese could still hoard all the gold they pleased, but Dr. Kung made it treason for Chinese to hold silver which he ordered into the Government’s banks. To a nation that has never had any great confidence in paper, the Chinese Government decreed that its paper is legal tender and not redeemable in either silver or gold.

“Significance: As Dr. Kung warned Washington last spring, President Roosevelt’s jacking up of the world price of silver (TIME, April 22) could only disorganize the price structure of China and drive her off the silver standard. The question was last week whether Mr. Roosevelt had driven China into the fiscal arms of Britain.”

This is a key point – an opportunity for Britain.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 27

“Sir Frederick Leith-Ross of the British Exchequer has been in China for some weeks. He is rumored to have made available £10,000,000 as a “monetary re-organization loan” to Nanking, with Chinese currency to be linked with the pound sterling.

This last week could not be confirmed, but British support was immediately obvious in an Order in Council legalizing Chinese paper notes in all transactions with British subjects.”

This, then, set the scene for the events now spilling out in a London courtroom. But there’s a little more you still need to know. In May, 1939, Time magazine reported that most Chinese investors had managed to move their gold out of harm’s way prior to the Japanese invasion of mainland China: “Wealthy Chinese as well as foreign traders in China have long realized that the safest haven for their transferable riches – jewels, antiques, gold and silver objects, foreign bonds, foreign money – was in the foreign-held concessions and International Settlements, where neither Chinese bandit nor Japanese invader could get at them. In their invasion of China the Japanese have found precious little loot with which to finance their war.

Before they retreated the Chinese were careful to strip their cities of wealth, and what they could not take westward with them they hastily deposited in the foreign-controlled zones.”

This aspect is important to the story that follows, because it shows the Chinese had clear motive to swap their bullion for Bank of England paper money, not just warm fuzzies.

“The fullest deposit vaults are in the big International Settlement and the French Concession at Shanghai. There are only guesses as to how much wealth (foreign and Chinese) is on deposit there, but if Japan, already forced to tighten her belt to carry on the Chinese “incident,” could get her hands on these riches, they would help her in financing the rest of the war,” reported Time.

Which brings us back to the early 1940s.

In his voluminous history of the second World War, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent a message to his Chancellor of the Exchequer: “How much gold have we actually got left in this island?”

To give you an idea of how much gold was actually floating around in the world at the time, Time magazine recorded in 1935 the total monetary supply of gold was worth US$22 billion at the time (or nearly US$1 trillion at today’s inflationadjusted prices), of which one-third was stored in America.

How much space would $22 billion worth of bullion take up?

“All the world’s monetary gold could be stored in a room 15m long, 7.5m wide, 6m high,” reported Time.

THE YEAR OF THE ‘SKY DRAGON’ There is one man who has seen some of that gold, and photographed it. Enter Bryan Archer, the New Zealander allegedly on the run from Scotland Yard for masterminding what the media have called one of the world’s biggest fraud attempts.

Fifty-nine years old, silver-haired with calloused hands, Archer doesn’t come across as your traditional fraudster. Nor do his actions. Far from fleeing into the mist when his colleagues were arrested en masse in London on March 27 this year, Archer instead went into bat for them, making approaches to Scotland Yard directly through his lawyer, and even writing to British Conservative Party leader David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling.

28, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

“I’m not hiding out,” he scoffs when challenged. “I don’t quite know what the police are playing at, it’s not as if they don’t know where I live. I was just with the police two weeks ago giving them information about what I knew about the Tuhoe camps up there – I took photos of what was up there 20 years ago and gave them to the police in Rotorua, but they didn’t want to know about it back then.”

Archer is referring to those terror raids in mid October, and says what he saw were “French, Belgian and US weaponry”, including automatic weapons and grenade launchers.

In fact, so high-profile is he that on October 15 TV3 News interviewed Bryan Archer on camera about the training camps – although the network has apparently failed to subsequently make the link to the British fraud investigation.

So what is his link to the British case?

“Since 1983 I’ve been involved in charitable relief aid work, Operation Good Samaritan. I gathered up building materials and we built schools and hospitals in the Pacific Islands after natural disasters, and I’ve sought funding for that in different places.”

That funding has included “some substantial wealthy families in the US” as well as the US Government. “It was through those that I met ‘banking people’. One of them called me and said, ‘there’s this Chinese family that loaned gold to the British, when it was badly in need of gold to finance the war, and they were given notes as receipts which were redeemable’.

“So I started to help them and introduce them to my contacts.”

I

t was in China’s remote, northwestern frontier, beneath mist-covered mountains in July 2005, that Archer first met the patriarchs of ‘The Family’ – a group of six centenarians the oldest of whom is allegedly 116. Archer didn’t speak Mandarin; The Family didn’t speak English. The Family’s other representative, Chin ‘Daniel’ Lim, a 50 year old Malaysian businessman, was able to translate, however. Lim explained to his elders that Archer’s contacts could help realize their dream of cashing in the notes. It was then, in a traditional Buddhist ceremony at a nearby temple, that Bryan Archer was “adopted” as an honorary Chinese ‘son’ of the Family. He was given a new name, Lee Tian Long, meaning “Sky Dragon” and appointed a “Royal Voluntary Trustee” to transact the deal on The Family’s behalf.

Daniel Lim’s involvement follows an equally tortuous path.

A millionaire businessman in his own right, with several companies in Malaysia including a joint venture with German conglomerate Schaefer Kalk, Lim was shoulder-tapped by The Family in 1996. Documents provided exclusively to Investigate detail what happened.

“The most senior person in The Family and the trusts, whose photo appears on the inheritance document, was a very close personal friend of my grandfather. This senior person had no living children or natural heirs,” Lim writes.

“In 1996 I was approached to help The Family in redeeming the various wealth they held. They approached me because of my international connections with the heads of State, business corporations etc due to my business, which involves industrial minerals (resources of countries).”

Lim says that because of his own businesses, and his prominent reputation in Malaysia, he was “very cautious” about taking up the offer to get involved. It took three years of crosschecking, researching and verifying what The Family were tell-

ing him before he made his choice, “whereby I was made the heir to the most senior person, and adopted by The Family, thereby becoming the heir to this vast wealth.”

But what “vast wealth” exactly?

As Archer tells it, The Family showed him special banknotes allegedly issued by the Bank of England during the war as receipts for gold borrowed from the Chinese. Specifically, he saw and handled 360 notes, each carrying a face value of £500,000. That’s £180 million pounds in 1943 currency.

“I had all 360 of these ones in New Zealand at one stage.

And I actually had one of them digitally examined to make sure it wasn’t overprinted. It was enhanced to the point where you could see what was on the back coming through to the front, and he said ‘There’s nothing in between’.”

He also had a hundred £1000 notes.

Investigate asked the obvious question, did they feel and look like banknotes?

“Absolutely. I couldn’t tell it apart from other banknotes from the time.”

Weelll, yes and no. There are some discrepancies, and Archer is the first to admit it. Firstly, the Bank of England denies ever printing half-million pound notes, and secondly it claims only 63 of the £1000 notes remain outstanding from the war years.

Archer suspects both of these objections may simply be the Bank of England’s way of trying to make the problem go away.

“Now you’ve only got the bank’s word that there are only 63 outstanding. And you’ve really only got the bank’s word that they never issued these £500,000 documents and receipts.”

As he points out, would a forger really go to the effort of forging a note that never existed? Then there’s the issue of practicality. If you really were selling £180 million worth of gold bullion, you wouldn’t really be wanting to transport 180,000 one-thousand pounds sterling banknotes. Far easier to have 360 notes. And as Time magazine again shows in a 1935 report, wealthy Asians were selling gold.

“Since the autumn of 1931, when Britain quit the gold standard, India has exported no less than 29,300,000 oz. – more than the rest of the world has mined in any single year to date.

But Indian gold was not mined; it was disgorged from fabulous private hoards. When pound sterling was hitched to gold, the metal was worth about 85 shillings per oz. Indian princes and potentates today receive 140 shillings (£7).

“All India’s gold, along with no inconsiderable portion of the recent output of newly-mined metal, went into hoarding in the Western World. It is estimated that nearly US$3,000,000,000 in coin and bullion is now hidden in countries other than India, China and Egypt, the three traditional sinkholes of precious metals. If world gold production had not increased, much of that hoarded gold would have been drained directly from monetary stocks, vastly aggravating the deflationary course of the Depression.”

Applying these figures to the transaction at hand is a double-edged sword, however. While it shows that gold transfers were indeed taking place thanks to wealthy “potentates”, the Chinese deal we are looking at would be almost equivalent to the total Indian gold sales for the four years from 1931 to 1935 – around 800 tonnes of gold. In today’s dollars, that’s equivalent to US$23 billion.

No ordinary family of Chinese peasants was ever going to

Bryan Archer (L), Daniel Lim (C) and Kwok Chan on the morning of Archer’s initiation into The Family as ‘Sky Dragon’, at a Buddhist temple in China

have cash reserves like that. But then again, this was no ordinary family. It all has to do, apparently, with the events surrounding The Last Emperor.

When the Qing dynasty fell in 1911, Buddhist monks and temples stepped up to take control of local affairs in many areas until the new Republican government was fully operational.

“Unlike the old dynasties where you had one man in charge and his word was absolute law,” writes Archer in his briefing document, “under the new order of the Kuomintang [republican party] it is a democracy and therefore the ownership of this wealth is entrusted to a body of people (a Family). The Family, by agreement…hand the vast majority of it over to the Monks who can be trusted to keep it safe and not be corrupted by such vast riches.”

The Monks, as part of their agreement to hold the funds in trust, allegedly squirreled the gold away, especially when the Japanese invaded in 1937.

“Before Japan could get their hands on the majority of it these treasures were moved and hidden in caves and secret places known only to the monks themselves. Chiang Kai Shek was aware of the Japanese intentions and supported the monks by supplying trusted generals to assist them,” writes Archer.

This might explain a Time magazine report from this period revealing one of Kai Shek’s generals had managed to abscond to British Hong Kong with US$30 million in “small money”.

After World War II, Chiang Kai Shek’s problems worsened, with Mao Tse Tung’s Communist troops rapidly taking over China.

As historians record, Kai Shek tried to round up all the riches he could and ship them to Taiwan.

“Under the penalty of death all Chinese holding gold or silver would be required to surrender their wealth to the central INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 29

bank in exchange for the new gold yuan [a paper note],” reports author Stella Dong in her book about the fall of Shanghai.

By the time the fall of Shanghai came, however, Kai Shek’s troops had managed to shift the final 14 tonnes of gold out of the Bank of China vaults and across to Taiwan.

As Archer tells the story, however, Kai Shek did not get away with as much as he had hoped for.

“The Most Senior Elder [of The Family] was Chiang Kai Shek’s treasurer. Being forced to flee the country in 1949 Chiang Kai Shek begins to move the treasures offshore to Formosa (Taiwan). The Elders of the Family did not leave China.

“The Most Senior Elder, being the Treasurer, was involved in overseeing the move. He, along with the other Elders of The Family are Nationalist, and while having no time for the communists don’t want to see the wealth of China go offshore and be lost forever. They move a vast portion of the treasures to protect them from Mao and the Chinese communist party, and from being taken offshore by Chiang Kai Shek.

“One hundred and eight people commit to move this treasure to secret locations and at the end of the task of moving it those 108 voluntarily give up their lives to protect the whereabouts of it.”

In assessing the veracity of all this, argues Archer – who’s tried 30, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

to get to the bottom of it himself – you need to bear in mind that unlikely as it all seems, it remains possible. The leadership of the Kuomintang Party, for example, included many of the old warlords and nobles from Imperial times – extremely wealthy individuals in their own rights. As the Communist advance drew closer, some of these people for family or other reasons could not escape with Chiang Kai Shek to Taiwan. It is also doubtful that they would have complied with Kai Shek’s last ditch order for all citizens to turn in their gold to his government.

So we are still left with the possibility, however remote, that some of old China’s wealthiest individuals sold their gold to the Bank of England during one of the most turbulent periods in world history, and while England was begging for gold, in return for redeemable banknotes.

What about the contrary evidence? Well, that takes us back to the banknotes and those discrepancies we touched on earlier.

They contain spelling mistakes and strange, English-asa-second-language sentence constructions. On the reverse of the £500,000 notes, for example is the phrase: “This bank note only for the special use by the officers.The supply mustbe mortgaged with gold by the officers. The supply should be kept andnever altered. Not for circulation. Five hundred thousand pounds sterlingdraft payble to bearer.”

[Investigate’s emphasis] Several words are run together, one is misspelt.

According to The Family’s documentation, the mistakes were “deliberate” on the part of the Bank of England, so as to throw counterfeiters off the scent and to stop any old Joe from simply stealing a note and trying to cash it; part of an elaborate threestep security plan. It worked like this: Having printed a half million pound banknote promising to “pay the Bearer on demand”, the BoE could not afford the risk of such notes being copied as is, especially after the Bernhard forgery scare during World War II when the Germans printed more than a hundred million pounds’ worth of top class forged British banknotes, in order to destabilize Britain financially.

By building mistakes into the note, so the conspiracy theory goes, the Bank created a hurdle that anyone presenting such a note would first have to eliminate before they could cash it: is the note genuine? In this way, if half million quid notes started springing up all over the place, of course most people would

believe they were forgeries because of the errors.

But to give the Chinese comfort that they were not being duped, says Archer, the BoE created accompanying documentation that would have to be presented alongside the notes as a three-tier security plan. The second tier was an “Explanation” document bearing the alleged signature of BoE Chief Cashier, Jasper Hollum. It reads: “Explanation of Secret – The Bank had specially set up the English letters by mistake as the drawing evidence for 500,000 pounds, which were the inside code of the Bank, in order to keep secret definitely inside the bank, the bank can’t open the code to the outside world. Hereby keeping secret proves.”

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h yes, Grasshopper. The third tier of security was a gold triangular plate, bearing account codes, and a stipulation that this had to be presented with the notes and the explanation.

To add to the confusion, the half million pound notes had apparently been originally issued in 1943, recalled and reprinted in 1953, and the same again in 1963 – the final incarnation.

Nor were pounds sterling the only currency. The Family had US notes, French Francs and Deutsche Marks.

All this was explained to Bryan Archer during his “adoption” into The Family in July 2005. By October, 2005, however, he was not a happy camper. Having set up a possible deal with

US banking and political contacts – including the US Federal Reserve and representatives from the US, UK and French governments – the rug was pulled out from under Archer by a Family refusal to cooperate.

Part of the problem was The Family’s decision to drip-feed documentation to Archer and his contacts, rather than provide all the information necessary for verification.

“I am bitterly disappointed, disgusted and angry that The Family have used me and destroyed my credibility with Bob and the Trust,” excoriated Archer in a letter to his “brother” Daniel Lim. “But then, it could be said, why should I expect anything different from a family that I see has bitter internal fighting and greed as the basis of their relationships.

“You and The Family asked me to help them get this 180 package to the right people so this could be dealt with. I have done that, and all I get in return is stubborn, blind ignorance of the world’s political climate and a conceited arrogance from a bunch of old people that think they are in control of the world’s finances. It’s time they woke up and smelled the roses.

“For God’s sake, tell The Family to use a bit of common sense and logic…the cash samples are to prove to the Governments that The Family has the real stuff and that it is not like other stuff that has come out of China in the past…

“All you are being asked to do is agree to the following – sign the letter I gave you, which stipulates that you agree to supply samples of the US, UK, FF [francs] and DM [Deutsche Marks]. That means a generous sampling of each currency and a generous sampling of each denomination within the currencies. That includes all the different types of currencies you have from those four nations.”

There’s an important point that emerges from this letter.

Whatever the merits of the Chinese claim, Bryan Archer clearly had confidence the notes were real, and indeed his next paragraph reinforces his belief that the notes will survive “forensic testing” by the US Federal Reserve.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 31

Alleged ‘inheritance’ document for Daniel Lim, also featuring the photo and seals of the ‘Most Senior Elder’ and fingerprints of other elders “The samples are for forensic testing to prove to the three nations that the currency The Family holds is real. I say that as I recall once you saying something along the lines of, ‘The Family produced at least two sets of fake documents for every real set’. I may have got that wrong as I don’t understand the reason for that other than to mislead the rogue members of The Family. The Governments want to make sure they are dealing with the right people before they strike any deals.”

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gain, this is an important paragraph. It shows there has been some kind of internal discussion within the organization about “fake documents”, albeit with the implication that genuine ones exist that they were copied from. It also shows some kind of internal discord so serious that different sides are willing to cheat each other with false documents. If correct, this also implies that somewhere, in the middle of this, might exist a kernel of truth – even if it was only one £500,000 note that has then been copied by forgers.

Archer’s next comment to Daniel Lim, however, shows The Family has had dealings with the Federal Reserve in the past: “The US and the Fed’s history with The Family of 12 years ago tell them that The Family doesn’t honour their word – that while not being devious they tend to stall and play mind games which they somehow believe is part of the consultation 32, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

and negotiation process. Nothing will change that image until The Family starts behaving in an honourable way. Whether The Family likes it or not, that rogue member of 12 years ago severely tarnished The Family’s image.”

In another letter, in December 2005, Archer again tells Daniel that The Family need to get their heads into the 21st century: “To transact the Notes we have to deal with the four Governments of issue. It has already been established that the payout will be between 10-20 cents in the dollar.

“These four Governments are not waiting around for the family to bring this in. They are not sitting in their offices with open arms wishing it would all come in so the family can receive their inheritance.

“NO ONE is sitting out there losing a second’s sleep or wasting a moment’s thought on the fact that some Chinese families are being done out of their inheritance. THAT IS REALITY. “The four Nations of issue don’t want to know about it and they are actively seeking it to destroy it without having to pay out a cent.

“The world has changed over the last 60 plus years, it has turned and it will never go back to being what it was or what the family members remember it as. Those who struck the deals with the family are either dead or retired and those that are still alive are under gag orders about what they did.

“The leaders of the day when the Notes were issued did some very foolish things for reasons unknown to those in the money power positions today.

“The Financiers, Chief cashiers, Treasurers, etc of the Governments the four Nations today have never seen this stuff and they have never seen the original documentation. There is not some board in the banks of those 4 Nations where the copies of the Notes are pinned to it with a “what to do check list if one turns up”.

“The world of finance today operates on who you know and what deals can be cut and “what in it for me”; it does not operate on the basis of right and fairness or any other nice feelings that the family may have about the bankers and banks and Head of State of the Nations who signed the agreements over 60 years ago.”

Archer sounds a warning in his letters that hauntingly foretells the eventual fate of the man he was writing to: “I have spoken to enough people now who have also seen this asset in the past who also know it is real. But, all have said that getting the banks and the Governments to acknowledge that is another story. For any bank or Government to acknowledge it, it immediately upsets their balance sheet; and often the easiest way to solve the problem is to deny it, destroy their own internal documentation on it and plead ignorance (which amounts to saying The Family are fraudsters), or take an exceptional heavy-handed approach in an effort to intimidate The Family into another 60 years plus of sitting on it until it gets totally lost in the mists of time.”

Fast forward nearly a year, to September 2006. Another letter, and still a feeling from Bryan Archer that The Family were not being entirely straight with anyone they dealt with, this time over some of the US silver certificates.

“More recently there were the US silver certificates which, when I had them examined, raised serious questions about their validity. I forwarded you a sample of a real silver certifi-

cate that both Treasury and the Fed were willing to acknowledge, and was informed by you that The Family said the sample was one of their set!

“I have a direct link into the Fed…and asked for The Family to come forward with the real silver certificates or provide evidence that their silver certificates are real, and supply the supporting documentation to prove it. That was over six weeks ago and NOTHING has been said back to me – just silence, which makes me look bad in the eyes of those I am dealing with.”

One of those Archer was dealing with was Phinias Sichoongue, a bullion trader and banker whose contracts included work for the Bank of England and Canada’s Bank of Nova Scotia. He warned Archer of the perils of being wrong about the notes: “I would propose that Mr Daniel Lim comes here to London, give an immunity that whatever he is carrying, fake or genuine, has nothing to do with me, and I will take him to the Bank of England to meet the Treasury Department.

“Please note, the production of such an instrument or instruments – and if the instrument/s are deemed fake – will land you in jail for the rest of your life, including all entities and individuals that are part and parcel of the said instruments, so be cautious.”

Archer mused on it for a day, then passed the warning onto Daniel Lim. He advised Lim to accept the offer, saying the only way to sort the matter out once and for all was to ask the Bank of England whether they could verify the notes.

According to the correspondence, The Family claimed to have run some of their documentation past Professor Charles Goodheart, a banking expert and Emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics. Archer, through his own banking contacts, was dubious about the truth of this, but told Daniel Lim that if this was true and Goodheart had indeed given them cause for hope, then they should follow through and meet the Bank.

“What more can the family possibly want if they are genuine?” he asked at the end of his letter.

THE PITCH Unfortunately for Archer, one of his “contacts”, Ramona Forster, was about to enter the picture. Archer had met her through one of his charities, and she intimated she had contacts in the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. She referred in documentation to a member of the House of Lords she named as “Sir Christopher” who was assisting her on The Family’s claim, and Archer later noted the name of the Lord was Sir Christopher Jones. It didn’t occur to anyone to check and see whether such an individual actually existed (he doesn’t).

“I am familiar with the historical currency for gold and other asset exchanges which took part in the early times of the last century between important Chinese families and the countries of USA, Great Britain, Germany and France. These situations are still unresolved and are significant,” stated Forster boldly.

Forster made a pitch to handle the deal and on November 17 last year sent an email to Bryan Archer asking him to send key documents and a power of attorney to her.

“I will be travelling France, London, etc in a round robin while I put things together. Sir Christopher sends his regards.

He is very old and not very well but he is very interested in your case as well as is the bank.”

Over the next few weeks, documents were sent, meet-

ings arranged, and according to Archer, Ramona Forster had already made contact with the Bank of England. In a diary note of their conversation on 17 December 2006, Forster is quoted as saying: “The BoE has already authenticated the Notes, they were able to do it from the jpeg pictures we sent them. They could even read the magnetic lines in the Notes from the jpegs. The BoE is not interested in the [supporting] documents as they have already verified the Notes. It is a done deal. Tomorrow we will go to the bank.”

It was a Sunday night in London, and Forster was at dinner with Bryan Archer and several delegates from The Family, including Chan Kwok Kwong – later arrested as a conspirator.

Archer says Chan was the illegitimate son of the Most Senior Elder heading The Family. The dinner became heated, however, when Ramona Forster allegedly argued with members of The Family about how much control of the deal she wanted.

The following day, says Archer, “she commented that this £180 million package was in fact more than 180 million, it was £1.8 billion. When I questioned her on this she was adamant… in the end she conceded she had got it wrong. I was concerned at the lack of study she had done on the notes and I wondered if she had in fact read all the information carefully.”

Forster also promised a visit to the Bank of England that day with an escrow officer – a commercial agent who specialises in the transporting of valuable documentation – Monday 18 December, but it didn’t eventuate.

“When I saw her in the morning [Tuesday 19th] and asked INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 33

about what happened to the escrow officer yesterday, she informed me that she had been up during the night talking to her team who were in Australia.”

One of the “team” turned out to be Australian lawyer and escrow agent Ross Cowie – another one of those later arrested.

Now Cowie is no slug. His business is so sensitive and security conscious that his company has contracts with the Australian Defence Force. In fact, the Defence website actually acknowledges this: http://www.defence.gov.au/dsba/CompanyDetails. asp?CompanyID=700 Additionally, Ross Cowie’s company, APPS Escrow Australia, leases office space on the second floor of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s note printing facility in Melbourne, Victoria. Explains Cowie: “NPA [the printing facility] carries out for Australia and 17 other countries, including New Zealand, the role undertaken for USA by both its Central Reserve and Fort Knox.”

With a security clearance to work from the very factory that prints banknotes for Australasia, you’d again have to ask the question: do the British police really believe Cowie formed criminal intent?

Forster, says Archer, “went on to say that ‘the escrow officer will be coming to the hotel to collect the Note and answer your questions’. I informed her that the Notes would not be handed over in a hotel room as The Family needed proof and identification of who was receiving the Notes and that the Bank of England was involved, ‘as to date we have not seen one scrap of evidence concerning the BoE, The Bank of New York, Sir 34, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

Christopher Jones etc’.”

When Archer mentioned that someone from the Bank of England known to The Family might shake his hand when he entered the building, “she again raised her voice and said that if we went into the BoE and anyone came up to greet me they would be immediately arrested. That her team had checked and there was nobody in the BoE connected to The Family.”

As Wednesday 20 December rolled around and there was still no sign of an escrow officer or a Bank of England visit, Bryan Archer pressed Forster for an explanation. She explained that Australian Ross Cowie was arranging for a security firm to collect a banknote for forensic testing.

“This was…an ageing test to see if the paper was in fact that of 1963,” says Archer. “When I brought up the previous things she had said about the BoE having already authenticated and

The Bank of England (L) in the heart of London’s financial district, known colloquially as ‘the Old Lady of Threadkneedle St’.

LEFT: The ‘Old Lady of The Family’ features on Bryan Archer’s inauguration document

verified the Notes from the jpegs, she was unable to offer an explanation.”

It wasn’t the only porkie Ramona Forster allegedly told. The documents suggest she had not been upfront about her international travel movements in regard to the project, or about her financial status.

Ross Cowie, meanwhile, was spelling out a perfectly orthodox approach to the problem at hand, finding out whether the notes were genuine.

“We need to have the forensic people nominated by Bank of England to review one of the notes to establish authenticity.

This is expected to take up to 14 days.”

Hardly the actions of someone trying to pull a fast one on the Bank of England, one would have thought. Bryan Archer’s concerns, however, were heightened by the possibility that Forster

may have misled Cowie about the totality of the transactions.

“As far as I was ever concerned,” says Archer, “the deal was only for £180 million – the 360 half million pound redeemable notes and about a hundred thousand pounds in the £1000 bills. That’s it.”

In Cowie’s email traffic with Forster, however, it is clear Forster has raised the possibility of accrued “interest” on the old notes, which may have been the source of the mysterious reference to a £1.8 billion dollar deal with the BoE. “Now,” responds Cowie to one of Forster’s offsiders, “on the matter of the outstanding interest owing to the consortium, I am happy to take that up with them, and an extra few days, considering the problem is over 40 years old, should not make any difference.

“I intend to come to London to settle all of the first stage, 180 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 35

and hopefully interest, in the first couple of weeks in January,” writes Cowie. “This will be immediately after we get acceptance by BoE that the sample note is approved by their scientific and forensic people.”

The documents given to Investigate suggest a sample £500,000 note was delivered to the Bank of England’s forensic team on 2 January this year by Brambles Security. Or at least, that’s what Forster said. In fact, the note remained in secure storage at Brambles and was not delivered to the Bank. Events moved relatively swiftly after that. Firstly, Ramona Forster was dumped by The Family. Ongoing doubts about her credibility and expertise led Archer and Daniel Lim to cancel her power of attorney in early January. Ross Cowie was invited to pick up the ball and run with it.

“For reasons she never explained to me, nor, I understand, to Mr Archer, Ms Forster instructed…me to present the £1000 notes along with the 180 package. At that stage, not having communicated with Mr Archer personally, I duly advised the Bank and forwarded them a jpeg scanned image of the 1000 note,” writes Cowie in a briefing to The Family dated 19 January 2007.

“The result was that the 1000 pound note and the 180 package have both been presented to the Bank but to different departments, and I am happy to report that the 1000 note has received a favourable report, The Bank has issued me the forms to fill out for its collection and subsequent payout following a visual sighting of the 1000 notes and the subsequent forensic testing.”

THE STING In a further email on 24 January, Cowie advised that the Bank of England was happy to see him in early February, “certainly on 1K issues and, with a little bit less confidence, to negotiate further on the 180 redemption. The hesitation on the 180 is not that they doubt the authenticity, but that they are dealing in a matter which has a long history, some of it lost in the mists of time, and nobody wants to be the person making the wrong decision, so are reluctant to make any decision: typical corporate behaviour.”

Cowie’s contact at the Bank of England appears to have been one Jamie Higgins, who describes himself as a “project analyst” with the Bank on a social website.

Higgins, without having seen a copy of the £500,000 note at all, appears to have kicked for touch, arranging for Cowie and representatives of The Family, including Archer, to meet Bank officials in mid February.

“I had a very interesting discussion with Bank of England last night,” writes Cowie to Archer on the morning of January 30 this year, “and they seem comfortable dealing with me, and with the transactions. They have agreed to meet with me, and, if you or Daniel wish it, with one or two members of The Family, on…13th and 14th February.”

Cowie’s email records that the first meeting would involve the Bank’s “legal counsel” and Cowie to set up “the procedures to effect the Exchange and to table the authority documents authorising me to represent The Family. This will take place at the BoE on the first morning.”

Following that, the second meeting would table “the 1K’s and several of the 500ks. “All persons attending Meeting 2 will need to be carrying identification, at least two items,” warns Cowie.

36, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

Curiously, he also records senior members of The Family expressing “their desire to be there, as the matter is reaching fruition, and naturally The Family wants to oversee the final steps in this half-century saga!!”

Regardless of whether Investigate or its readers suspects the notes are bogus, it would be strange for people who allegedly knew they were counterfeit to walk into the lion’s den clutching the cash.

In a second email late in the evening of the same day, Cowie reports the group’s first hiccup.

“I have had a further discussion with BoE, and the conversation was not too encouraging in relation to the 500K.” According to Cowie, the bank officers told him, “We have some serious concerns as to whether the 500Ks are, in fact, genuine. We have no record of the Bank of England ever having issued notes of £500,000 denomination.”

Remember that statement, as it will shortly become crucial.

“While we understand your comment that these were a special issue,” said the Bank, “and that the notes are supported with documentation, we are not in a position to further discuss these notes until you arrive.”

Remarks Cowie: “They had no such reservations about the 1K notes.”

Cowie didn’t know it, but the men he was now scheduled to meet were not bank officials in the ordinary sense of the word.

One of the two men claiming to be bank officials, “William Hickson”, was, in fact, an undercover police officer. The second, John Nelson, was a security consultant, not a bank historian.

This, in itself, is strange. One would have thought that before the Bank of England called in police it would first want to touch the money, check it out for themselves, hear the story. It didn’t. The Bank of England had no intention of discussing the notes with anyone.

Coincidentally, within minutes of the timing of Cowie’s email, the Bank’s Jamie Higgins fired through a request, “can I confirm that you will be bringing the appropriate ID on behalf of yourself (including the Power of Attorney) and of your clients visiting the Bank in two weeks’ time? I would also be grateful

There’s a lot more where this came from. This photo was taken last year while researching The Family’s links to bullion

of all names of attendees prior to your visit if possible.”

Cowie responded with a confirmation, and added: “I am very concerned, too, that you have doubts as to their authenticity.

However, the only way to check these notes is to present them, and we will proceed on that basis, if that’s OK.” The ball was now in play, and it is at this point, notes still sight-unseen, that the police stepped in.

“Dear Mr Cowie. I am John Nelson, a Senior Security Officer at the Bank of England tasked with the role of dealing with customers wishing to redeem out of date or damaged currency.

Mr Higgins has forwarded me all your correspondence.

“When you and your party arrive at our main entrance in Threadneedle Street, security will direct you to the counter

area. The counter staff will then contact me and I will come and collect you. Please confirm your approximate arrival time.”

When they did arrive on February 14, it was not exactly a friendly greeting.

“Neither of the two men [Hickson and Nelson] had business cards nor offered any form of identification when cards were being handed around the table at the start of the meeting,” remembers Archer.

Attendees included Archer and Cowie, along with Melbournebased New Zealander Euan Ansley (Cowie’s 2IC) and Londonbased lawyer Kim Ming Teo. Teo had no connection with The Family or the fortune, except to the extent he’d been hired mid-December to act as legal counsel because 1) he lived in INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 37

London, 2) he spoke fluent Mandarin and 3) he was Malaysian, like Daniel Lim. Teo, the lawyer, stayed quiet, as did Ansley whose role was purely to take notes. According to Archer, however, bank “official” William Hickson claimed the spelling mistakes on the special-issue notes were not unusual: “We still do that today”.

“When I asked what they meant by that,” says Archer, Hickson replied, ‘The Bank of England covers [underwrites] the Bank of Scotland and rather than cover each denomination they issue special one million pound notes and incorporate mistakes, security measures and codes’.”

“This was a relief to me,” says Archer, because the spelling problem “was my only real concern” about the veracity of the notes.

In some respects, it almost makes sense. If the Bank of England really did print huge denomination bills, it would not want them being accepted at face value as genuine money.

By incorporating glaring errors, it would certainly make them harder to cash, as The Family were finding.

Cowie re-confirmed – although he had already done so in writing prior – that the men were there to offer the notes for forensic examination to see if they were real, under the Bank of England’s stated policy on old banknotes, including possible forgeries: “All old Bank of England bills remain exchangeable for current bills forever. Forgeries however will be retained and destroyed by the Bank (including Bernhard Bills), and it is not therefore advisable to send bills to the bank in order to confirm whether or not they are forgeries. Bills can either be taken in person to the Bank in London…or sent by post at the sender’s risk…”

Hickson responded by saying that if the notes turned out not to be real, the Bank would let the men know and ask them to hand over all stock for destruction. Archer says they all agreed with this course of action.

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wad of the half-million pound notes were tabled, and John Nelson took just one note for testing. A hundred of the thousand pound notes were tabled but the Bank did not want to take any of those for testing, choosing instead only to scan one and hand it back. Nelson allegedly told the men there was no problem with the authenticity of the thousand pound notes.

So far, so good, but nine days later Cowie sent an email to bank “official” and undercover cop William Hickson to start arranging the follow-up meeting. At the end of it he wrote something that appears to be at the core of the current trial in London: “At this meeting, we propose to initiate the second transaction, being a small number (say 500 or so 1000 pound notes) of the Stg28 Billion holdings. That will no doubt prove interesting!”

You can imagine how interesting City of London Police found that email. It is fairly likely that “William Hickson” fell off his chair when he read it.

Where did the figure of £28 billion suddenly come from? For his part, Bryan Archer says he has no idea.

“Look, the deal on the table when I was working on it was the 360 half-million pound notes. Nobody was talking wild figures like £28 billion.”

Was this a result of Forster talking up the case, or had someone from The Family been in Cowie’s ear? Who’s to know?

Either way, it was probably the clincher that set in stone the 38, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

fates of those attending the next meeting, scheduled for March 27 this year, in London.

The Bank of England still had not reported back on the forensic testing of the one £500,000 note they had taken away, with Hickson telling Cowie, “This is a complex instrument, and there are many factors to the transaction. It is like a jigsaw puzzle. Until the whole puzzle is done, with every piece in place, we will not have achieved any success.”

Cowie, by all accounts, was really enjoying himself.

“It is truly the most interesting project I have ever been involved with,” he writes in an email near the end, ironically headed “Custody arrangements and the way forward”.

And the end, when it came, came swiftly.

On the morning of March 27, six men had been selected to meet the Bank of England for the next step in transacting “the deal”. They included 50 year old Daniel Lim; 55 year old Kwok Kwong Chan, an alleged son of the Senior Elder (codenamed ‘The Dragon’); Chan’s 53 year old interpreter Chi Kuen Chung – a Chinese businessman who’d been making enquiries about buying into a New Zealand biotechnology company called Aquaflow after seeing New Zealand’s Energy Minister David Parker endorsing it; 56 year old Pin Shuen Mak, representing the Senior Lady Elder (codenamed ‘The Phoenix’); 41 year old lawyer Kim Ming Teo; and of course 62 year old Australian Ross Cowie. It had been decided that New Zealander Bryan Archer and Australian-based Euan Ansley did not need to attend, although Archer did get himself placed on standby for an Air New Zealand flight to London just in case.

Archer’s last-ever conversation with Cowie was the night before the meeting.

“He informed me that the Bank of England (Mr William Hickson) had made arrangements for a Bank vehicle to take one of them to the safe deposit vault at the Bank where they had kept the items of the package as he didn’t want any chance of the Notes being stolen.”

The sequence of events that followed has been pieced together from news reports and Archer’s conversation with Cowie’s wife in Melbourne after the arrests.

On arrival at the Bank of England, the men were greeted by officials. After a couple of minutes, probably just long enough for all the banknotes and supporting documentation retrieved from the vault to be handed over, the men suddenly found themselves under arrest. The six were taken to different police stations and interviewed separately by detectives. The following morning all six appeared in the local Magistrates Court, charged with “Conspiracy to defraud the Bank of England”.

Apart from Cowie, no one else was given bail.

THE WASH-UP A criminal charge like conspiracy to defraud requires a key element to succeed at trial: mens rea, or criminal intent. This means that not only must an action be illegal, but the participants must have formed the necessary criminal intent to break that law. Assuming the banknotes are indeed forged, the question is how many, if any, of the arrested men intended to defraud the bank whilst knowing the bills to be false? The Family’s lawyer, Teo, is unlikely to have met the mens rea threshold. He had been brought in late to handle any legal paperwork. Like any lawyer, he would only know as much as his clients told him.

Chinese Finance Minister Kung Hsiang-His and U.S. Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau meet at United Nations Monetary Conference, Bretton Woods, USA. The conference was to thrash out a new monetary policy for the world — July 6, 1944

Then there’s Australian Ross Cowie, a lawyer by trade, working in document security with contracts to the Australian military and office space in the banknote printing facility of the Reserve Bank of Australia. Did he know whether the notes were definitely false? Did he try to hide that possibility from the Bank of England or was he open about it?

What about Bryan Archer and Daniel Lim – both ring-ins to help represent The Family because of their banking and business links. Would Lim, a relatively high-profile millionaire Malaysian industrialist with a number of companies and international joint ventures, really have walked into the Bank of England if he’d genuinely believed the notes were a fraud?

Admittedly both he and Archer had been let down by The Family on a number of occasions, and both were aware The Family’s reputation had been sullied by a previous altercation with the US over redeemable bonds. Even so, the evidence suggests Archer was not knowingly trying to pass bad money but was relying on the Bank of England – the experts – to make the call one way or the other.

Sterling and Peggy Seagrave’s 2004 book, Gold Warriors, recounts at one point: “A journalist at the Financial Times told us: ‘It has now reached a point where you can go into one of the big banks in New York, London or Zurich, give them half a metric ton of gold in return for a certificate of ownership, walk around

the block for 10 minutes, re-enter the same bank, and they’ll deny ever seeing you before and have you arrested for presenting them with a counterfeit certificate’.”

What about the Bank of England. Its initial statements were that there had never been a £500,000 note, ever. Even prosecutor Martin Evans took this line in his opening address to the jury: “It will not surprise you to know there never was a £500,000 note but that there was a £1,000 note – it was issued until 1943 when they were withdrawn,” he said.

Suddenly, at the trial in early November, that story changed.

The Bank of England’s John Keyworth, giving evidence on oath, admitted for the first time that the half-million pound notes did indeed exist.

“Mr Keyworth said the £500,000 notes had never been produced for public circulation in the history of the Bank of England, and were used as a way of banking Scottish and Irishissue notes to avoid having to print large quantities of bills,” one newspaper has reported.

Look at that statement for a moment. They existed, and they were never produced for public circulation. Isn’t that exactly what The Family and Bryan Archer have consistently argued?

“What these notes were used for was purely accounting purposes,” Keyworth told the court. Asked if the huge denomination notes leave the bank under any circumstances, Keyworth replied: “No, they do not, they are carefully guarded.”

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 39

So guarded, in fact, that despite being around for decades their existence has only just been publicly revealed.

Another aspect to this that puts some of the outrageous numbers into perspective is the simple arithmetic that lies at the heart of modern fractional reserve banking. Ever since the 1930s, western banks have been allowed to lend out around 20 times more money than they have assets. That means, if a bank has $1 billion in gold or other reserves, it can make loans to the value of $20 billion. Thus, whatever the Bank of England was paying the Chinese for gold, the gold was really worth 20 times more to the Bank of England under western banking rules.

P

rosecutor Martin Evans ridiculed the accused by saying that if the counterfeit notes had been genuine, they would have been worth almost 75% of the £39 billion now in use worldwide. At first glance it does seem ridiculous (and he undoubtedly wanted the jury to think that), until you realize that the amount of cash in circulation is only a total fraction of the total amount of money circulating in an economy. In New Zealand, for example, there is generally $4 billion or so of cash in use, yet our total economy is more than $100 billion.

It didn’t matter how much gold Britain and the US purchased, it was always going to generate vastly more income than it ever cost, under the rules of fractional reserve banking.

But what if Britain and the US simply used the turmoil of World War II and its aftermath to soak up as much foreign gold as possible, with no real intention of ever paying it back?

The mystery deepens when you join a few more dots together.

Back in 1937, while Chinese leader Chiang Kai Shek was busy fighting the Japanese invasion and trying to move gold and treasure out of harm’s way, assistance came from the Americans in the form of General Claire Chennault. One of Chennault’s tasks was to set up an air transport service for Chiang Kai Shek.

That airline eventually became Civil Air Transport (CAT), a front for the CIA and later renamed Air America. CAT would take on the risky missions that no other commercial airline would take, and its pilots and crew would be paid commensurately. This much is established, proven history.

As the Seagraves report in Gold Warriors, it became directly relevant in a British court case in 2003: “Professor Richard Aldrich of Nottingham University, co-editor of the journal Intelligence and National Security, described the strategic situation in 1948 in testimony before a British court in 2003: “As Chairman Mao’s forces advanced through China in 1948, Dr. Aldrich said, Britain and the US dreaded the prospect that one of the world’s largest stocks of gold – worth US$83-billion at current prices – would fall into communist hands. So it was decided to extract the gold reserves from China before the communists could seize them. The CIA provided the means for this bullionrescue mission, flying in B-29 bombers disguised in the livery of its CAT [Civil Air Transport]... CAT flew numerous missions to bring huge shipments of gold out of Mainland China.”

As part of this operation, it is believed the US used redeemable notes of its own, called Federal Reserve Notes and Federal Reserve Bonds, with which to buy the gold.

“Where did the FRNs and FRBs fit in?,” ask the Seagraves.

“Professor Aldrich said they may have been used “for persuad40, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

ing managers of major banks in the interior of China to part with their vast stocks of gold.”

“Printing FRNs and FRBs with a face value much greater than that of the gold they were to replace, he said, served to encourage the banks or wealthy individuals to swap their gold for the bonds and notes, which would be easier to hide and later smuggle out of China to be cashed in the West. As Aldrich said, the US almost certainly had no intention of honouring them, anyway.

“Professor Aldrich explained that the CIA was only emulating Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE), which printed and circulated massive quantities of counterfeit currency and bonds during the war.

“Foreign Office files also show that the CIA was involved in other currency issues, including the movement of printing plates for Chinese currency,” Aldrich testified.

But why were such huge quantities of FRNs and FRBs flown out to China?

“Because of the possibility of operational loss,” Aldrich told the court, “surplus amounts of FRNs were required. Regional banks [in China] receiving FRNs in return for their gold were aware that the FRNs were likely to be redeemable for only a proportion of their face value. Therefore a much larger value in FRNs would have been required than the total value of the gold that the Americans and Chinese Nationalists were trying to extract from China.”

In other words, there’s good evidence that both Britain and the US were donkey-deep in printing anything they could that would transfer Asian gold into the West, and not necessarily with any intention of paying it back. Furthermore, if the value of the notes given to the Chinese far exceeded the actual value of the gold delivered, then that would explain something else: Aldrich’s figures – adjusted for gold pricing – suggest the total value of Chinese bullion in the mid 40s was around US$2 billion at the time. Under the banking system’s rules, that would be worth 20 times more to the Bank of England or US Federal Reserve, so even if they printed funny money bonds to the face value of $10 or even $20 billion in total back then, they would still be making on the deal from day one. A $2 billion gold base allowed the banks to create a further $38 billion in interest-generating credit. Assuming, just for ease of calculation, an interest rate of 5%, that means the banks are earning $1.9 billion a year in interest. Over 60 years, that’s a minimum of $120 billion worth of interest in 1940s dollars. Of course, gold prices have gone up massively since the 1940s when it was only $35 an ounce. It is now topping $800 an ounce, which is more than 20 times higher. As Professor Aldrich testified, the Chinese gold would be worth around US$83 billion today, and in the banking system that’s the asset-backing for nearly $2 trillion worth of lending. Suddenly the Chinese redeemable note figures don’t look as out of place as they did.

You need to remember the world had just lurched out of the Depression straight into World War II, and now desperately needed cash to rebuild shattered economies. Gold was crucial to that plan.

American airforce pilot Erik Shilling used to fly some of these gold missions for CAT, and told investigative journalists Sterling and Peggy Seagrave before he died in 2002 that he’d made numerous flights from Guam and the Philippines “ferrying FRNs and

Nationalist secret agents as far into China as Chengtu in Sinkiang province, and flying boxes of gold out to Taiwan.

“The B-29 had a range suited to long round-trips, and Shilling was skilled at flying the aircraft at 30 or 40 feet [10 to 12 metres] above the ocean to enter and leave Chinese airspace without being picked up by radar.”

The Seagraves believe they have evidence that several CAT aircraft involved in this gold-recovery mission crashed in the Philippines carrying precious cargo.

“According to reliable sources who visited the wrecked aircraft and recovered the dogtags of the crew, the truth is as follows: In May 1948, four US Air Force planes on their way from California to Malaysian Borneo, refuelled at Clark just north of Manila, then continued on their way toward Borneo. A typhoon that had been brewing in the western Pacific moved directly into their flight path, and all four planes crashed into the mountains of Mindanao. In the doomed flight were two B29 Superfortresses of the type that had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, plus a new modified version of the same plane called a B-50, and a much smaller twin-engined B26. The lead B-29 had the serial number 7695132. Among the dead aboard were General Frank Reagan, Colonel John Reagan, and crewmen named Colling, Dalton, Johnrey, and Withor. The two B-29s were carrying thousands of Federal Reserve notes and bonds, in boxes from Chase Manhattan and Wells Fargo banks.

The B-29s were wearing the livery of General Clair Chennault’s Civil Air Transport (CAT), partly owned by the CIA through a front in Delaware named Airdale Corporation.31 In 1948, the CIA was using CAT to fly four million tons of supplies each month to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s forces, which were rapidly losing all of China to the communists.

“These two CAT B-29s loaded with billions of dollars worth of FRNs and FRBs, were on their way to Malaysia on a roundabout route to southwestern China by way of Thailand and Burma.”

But it is the fate of the redeemable notes and bonds on board the plane that impacts this story. In 1948, when the planes crashed, they were not found. It was too dangerous for ground search parties because US forces were still fighting units from the Japanese Army in the area who did not believe World War 2 was over. According to Gold Warriors, the jungle quickly claimed the planes, and they didn’t resurface until the early 1980s, when the FRNs and FRBs recovered from the wrecks started appearing on the black financial markets.

Faced with every man and his dog across Asia waving Federal Reserve Notes worth millions of dollars marked “payable to bearer”, what would you do if you were the British or US banking institutions?

The US sent Secret Service agents down to Manila to assist in tracking the sources of the notes and help arrest anyone caught in possession of them. An Australian private investigator received a warning, quoted by the Seagraves: “If I persisted in pursuing these items, I would most likely receive a visit from some very unpleasant men whose job it is to secure the safety of the USA against any threats to the stability of its economy.

I was informed that if I ever tried to redeem them, I would not see another birthday.”

Bearing in mind the book Gold Warriors was published in 2004, long after The Family first revealed its notes to Daniel Lim but long before the Bank of England had Lim and the oth-

CIA flyer Erik Shilling (L) during the late 30’s, with a China National Airways plane. Shilling would later tell of flying in bearer bonds and flying out gold.

ers arrested, the following paragraph from the book is a lightning bolt: “A fraud that had been used many times by banks all over the world [is that] when a gold certificate was issued in exchange for bullion placed on deposit, embedded codes were used including misspelled words, to ‘assure’ that the owner’s certificate matched the bank records exactly. These misspellings were later easily cited as ‘evidence’ of fraud.”

The practice had been fine-tuned by Japan’s Prime Minister Tanaka during the 1970s Lockheed bribery scandal, when he authorized the secret printing of promissory notes that looked completely different from ordinary Japanese bonds. These “57s” as he called them, were used to buy off support from key officials and politicians domestically and internationally, with the proviso being that the bonds were only worth anything if Tanaka remained in power, because their totally unusual design meant they could be cited as counterfeit otherwise.

According to the Seagraves, the Reagan administration responded to the FRN crisis unfolding in Asia as a result of the plane wrecks, by getting the CIA to print obviously fake Federal Reserve bonds and flood the market with them.

“A large number of Fed bonds and gold certificates were printed at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, on the wrong type of paper, with a comic variety of deliberate errors. Many were engraved with the wrong faces, the wrong mottos, the wrong designs, the wrong signatures…this would be a hilarious disinformation campaign, flooding Asia with blatant forgeries, to make the whole idea ridiculous. It would cut the legal legs off anyone trying to redeem legitimate gold certificates or legitimate Fed bonds. They could be laughed out of court.”

Which brings us back to the fate of Australian Ross Cowie, “fugitive” New Zealander Bryan Archer, and the five Asian men arrested and on trial in Britain’s Southwark Criminal Court for conspiracy to defraud the Bank of England.

Are they the masterminds of an elaborate forgery? Victims of an elaborate forgery? Or are they perhaps the genuine representatives of a financial deal struck long ago when the whole world was at war and desperation was everywhere? Whatever the answer, it is doubtful the truth will emerge from the impending court verdict.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 41

INTERVIEW

THE DAY o f t h e

JEKYLL CONFESSIONS OF A REFORMED POLITICAL ‘TERRORIST’

The sight of Rodney Hide standing up to ask a parliamentary question once caused grown Labour MPs to visibly twitch uncontrollably. Nowadays, it’s Mr Hide who’s softer and his Jekyll has vanished. Or has he? IAN WISHART caught up with the Act Party leader to assess the political year ahead INVESTIGATE: Labour Party conference, how do you see their performance heading into the final year of this term?

HIDE: I think they’re much stronger than people are writing them up. I watched the dying days of the Bolger administration so that’s my definition of a lame duck government. I’d have to say that Helen Clark and Michael Cullen are looking pretty strong.

INVESTIGATE: Why do you think that is?

HIDE: They’ve been a phenomenal government, and I think – I don’t agree with their policies, and I think it’s quite normal or quite common that if you disagree with people’s policies you think the worst or think they’re stupid, when in fact they have been a competent government.

INVESTIGATE: What does that mean for the right or the centre right, what do they have to do over the next 12 months, then?

HIDE: It’s a big job. Helen Clark’s got the advantage of incumbency and she’s also got the Green Party and the Maori Party waiting in the wings. She’s been able to drag in the United 42, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

Party and NZ First to support her. So the National Party is quite isolated in terms of an MMP outcome, and I don’t think they have created a reason for why people would want to vote a change, other than that they’re sick of the current crowd.

INVESTIGATE: National’s poll ratings not strong enough to take it?

HIDE: Well they’re polling well, but that may be part of the problem, because I think there’s a bit of complacency there.

INVESTIGATE: In terms of John Key’s first full year on the job, how has he performed?

HIDE: Oh, I think John Key’s been outstanding. It’s a big step up to go from being a second term MP to being the leader of a major party, and you’d have to say he’s done well.

INVESTIGATE: Strengths?

HIDE: He’s got charisma, and an easy going nature. So they’re certainly strengths. We haven’t seen that in the past from National Party leaders.

INVESTIGATE: What about National’s weaknesses?

HIDE: I think their weaknesses would be a failure to identify the key weaknesses of the Labour Government and hammer them home! So they tend to be critical of Labour all over the place, but it doesn’t sort of add up to a consistent theme. I remember when Helen Clark and her team were attacking the Bolger administration, they were very clear about why National had to go, and it was golden handshakes and sleaze.

INVESTIGATE: People have pointed the same fingers at Labour but it doesn’t stick.

HIDE: Well, they have, but they haven’t done it consistently.

I notice with Labour they did it over and over again and didn’t talk about anything else.

INVESTIGATE: So do you think National’s decision at the start of 2007 to step back from the brink in terms of how much it was going to hit Labour in some of those areas has actually been a mistake?

HIDE: I think so, for them. And of course, there’s been a big change with National. Under Don Brash they had an alternative policy vision and direction for NZ, and they could campaign on that. But John Key, to win the votes, has taken them to the centre and said, ‘We’re just the same as Labour, but with different faces’. So they’re campaigning on the fact that it’s a different team but same policies as Labour.

INVESTIGATE: Getting back to the key weaknesses of Labour, if you were heading National what would you be hitting?

HIDE: I’d be hitting them on the fact that we’re becoming a Nanny State everywhere you look! My goodness, on the Electoral Finance Bill, you’ve got to register in New Zealand to express a political opinion? You’ve got to sign statutory declarations if you want to express a political view? This is crazy stuff, in New Zealand. I’d be hitting them very very hard for the fact that they’re a very controlling government, and I’d be hitting them hard for being hypocrites: they’re busy regulating the

Photography: TVNZ

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 43

thing the Nats had on this at question time that Thursday. The rest of the country was interested in only one

hell out of New Zealanders, but whenever a cabinet minister or even the Prime Minister herself breaks the law, it’s OK. INVESTIGATE: Since they passed the anti smacking bill we’ve seen more biffo in Parliament and with political hangers on than ever before.

HIDE: And that’s a good example. There’s never been an MP hit another MP in our Parliament, ever. So a minister, a top minister – and one who’s not particularly liked but who is effective, I mean, it was Trevor Mallard that derailed Don Brash and got rid of him from National, so he turns around and does a closed-fist punch to a National MP and the next day in the House the National Party had no questions in to the Prime Minister about this. Which I found extraordinary, because the obvious question about hypocrisy with all this is huge. That here I am as a New Zealander, going to be a criminal if I smack my toddler, but a cabinet minister can do a closed fist punch on another MP and it’s OK. INVESTIGATE: Do you think National’s leadership should have taken Tau Henare aside and said, ‘look, regardless of how you personally feel there’s an issue of principle and we need to push it’?

HIDE: Well, there’s an issue of principle and there’s also an issue of politics. Helen Clark is very vulnerable, as I said, both on the controlling nature of her administration, but second of all for being a hypocrite and having double standards. And why wouldn’t we be teasing that out? And I bet you can’t tell me one 44, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

thing.

INVESTIGATE: In terms of your critics, people are going to say, ‘well, Act’s lost its Jekyll this year’, have you tried to hammer the government on some of these issues?

HIDE: No, I haven’t tried to hammer the government. When we tried to hammer the government our experience was that we’d go down, and Labour would go down, and National would go up! So, how smart is that? Plus, following 2005 we only had 2 MPs so I only get one supplementary question a day. It’s very very hard to be an effective opposition MP with that, so I decided it was National’s turn to be the opposition rather than mine and the Act party’s, and to be honest it’s a role I’ve been very very comfortable with and which I’ve enjoyed immensely. So my role now has been to advocate as hard and competently as I can the free market and free enterprise, and individual liberty and personal responsibility – rather than to criticize a particular minister or a particular policy, and also to work with parties in parliament, especially the MMP parties, in order to get better results for the country. So that’s what I’ve been doing. And the most remarkable thing about that is I got my Regulatory Responsibility Bill which is designed to arrest red tape, before Select Committee, and I’m hoping to get a good bill out of that and hopefully get it passed before the election.

INVESTIGATE: In terms of Act’s positioning, now that you have an electorate seat in the form of Epsom, what pressures does that bring in terms of the election and what reliefs?

HIDE: It’s made me think differently about politics, in a sense. It hasn’t changed my ideology or political philosophy, I’m always going to be a free-market man. But it’s changed my politics in the sense that I now represent a geographical area, and I’m very conscious of that. I represent people who don’t necessarily agree with my policies but I’m their MP – and I’m conscious of that. So there are people who vote Labour, Greens, Maori Party that are within my electorate who I represent. And it’s also made me conscious that – I hesitate to use the word ‘role model’ – but I go along to local schools and get introduced by the teachers as “your MP”, and so I’m conscious that I have to have good behaviour as an MP so that people say, ‘yeah, that’s how MPs behave’. So that’s been a change. In fact, I now label it a positive change. People may see it as something of a constraint but it has actually been a positive change for me. The second thing about having the seat of Epsom is that it means no party votes will be wasted for the Act Party. And the biggest challenge that we’ve always had, from Day One in Act, heading into every election campaign is the view by the journalists and commentators and therefore affecting voters – that a vote for Act might be wasted because they’re not going to get over the 5%. Well, with the seat of Epsom we’re going to have MP’s in parliament and every vote will count.

INVESTIGATE: How much impact are the media, and their particular worldview, having on the electoral process in New Zealand?

HIDE: Do you know, I have a funny view of this. I think, much less than we give credit for. I think their impact is actu-

ally on politicians rather than voters, so politicians take them seriously but I don’t think voters do. I think the people that read political comment and political reports are people that are interested in politics and have already made their minds up how they’re going to vote at every election until they die, just about! I think the average voter, and certainly the swinging voters, don’t pay much mind until they start clicking in at election time. My reason for thinking that, my best example, is Epsom: in the election campaign we campaigned very hard, and the view in the electorate was that we were going to win the seat. So voters were telling me, ‘You’re going to win, don’t worry, we’re all voting for you’. But the Herald, on the day before the election said ‘Hide’s not going to win Epsom!’. And the interesting thing about that, was that if that was believed then in Epsom they wouldn’t vote for me! Do you know what I mean? You’d read that and think, ‘He’s not going to win, I won’t vote for him after all’. But everyone went off and voted for me and paid no mind to the fact that every news outlet in the country said I wouldn’t win it. It was the news media that were surprised that I won, no one in Epsom was surprised, because they’d been talking to their neighbours, watching what was happening in their streets and community and they knew. So I have actually come away from that with the view that we do live in NZ in a small village rather than a large metropolis, and we can make up our own minds.

INVESTIGATE: How much impact did the Dancing With The Stars series have on your life and career?

HIDE: Total! It totally changed me in just about every way I could care to think. But the crucial thing was, in hindsight you can see things more clearly, I’d worked very hard as a politician for ten years, done nothing else. I’d learned how to do politics off senior politicians, particularly ones that were good. So I was a very good opposition MP and could hold a minister to account and expose funding scandals, but of course it creates a very negative environment and the job we see in parliament is of one side or MP trying to undermine the confidence of another – which doesn’t make for a very successful parliament or indeed very successful politics. I went off to Dancing, which was a very terrifying thing, and everywhere I went people were being so supportive and positive in an area that I was struggling in, and it had a big impact on me when I returned to parliament. It made parliament to me look very small, that everyone was trying to point-score, or sap an MP’s confidence, or show someone up to be stupid. I thought, ‘This is no way to run a country, no way to manage our parliament, no way to manage ourselves’. So it has completely changed me politically. Now, there could be a reason that politicians do what they do: and that is that they’re successful and I’m not. But I decided to do it the way I do it now, and it is sort of actually returning to my personality pre-politics. Because I was always a positive, happy person trying to see the best in everyone, and that’s what I’m trying to do now. I’m a lot more confident with that and a lot happier as a result.

INVESTIGATE: Do you ever feel the old Jekyll twitching occasionally and think, ‘oh, I really want to do that!’?

HIDE: I have to say, I sometimes look at the Nats and wonder why they are being such pussies. It’s like, you go in there and there are the easy questions to ask, and then there are the hard

ones. Every day, they go and ask the easy ones, like questions about the health system or education. The hard questions are questions like, ‘Could the Prime Minister explain, again, why a parent smacking a child is criminalized, and Trevor Mallard punching another person isn’t, or doesn’t she know the difference between a smack and a punch?’ I can’t think why you wouldn’t ask that question.

INVESTIGATE: Do you think Key’s advisors have perhaps looked at the quantum shift in your own approach and thought, ‘well, we’re rating high, therefore we’ll stay out of the argy-bargy’, but is that a good thing, or a weak thing?

HIDE: I’m sure they have thought that, but again, there’s a way you do it. And Helen Clark is instructive in this regard.

Helen Clark never got involved in the argy-bargy with Jim Bolger or a hapless minister. She would have Trevor Mallard, Michael Cullen, Annette King and Phil Goff, so they’d be the ones throwing it about in Parliament, day after day. And on the real tough stuff, that made even Labour MPs cringe, she had Trevor Mallard. So Mallard was sent to go after Tuku Morgan and his underpants, and they did question after question after question. The Labour MPs were cringing with embarrassment because it was so nasty and so personal, but it was news, and it created this sense of a hapless Jim Bolger trying to manage a hapless government. And then Helen Clark would swoop in INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 45

NZPA

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and do the coup de grace, in a stately, prime-minister-in-waiting way. And what I don’t see in National is John Key being backed up by senior politicians who are doing the hard yards on this government.

INVESTIGATE: It’s that lack of a killer instinct, the confidence to carry it through that initial tough period when people say, ‘where’s the evidence?’ or ‘Aren’t you being a bit harsh?’

HIDE: Sure, and that’s where Helen Clark – again, we’re going back ten years – but in opposition she and her team were ruthless, just like they are a ruthless and methodical government.

I mean, imagine trying to tough it out with a line that Trevor Mallard was trying to defend a lady’s honour! It’s breathtaking.

Also, too, I think the ground has shifted in NZ demographically and also politically with MMP, and a party that is used to being a natural party of government no longer is, and I don’t think they’ve made that institutional shift under MMP. INVESTIGATE: What about the government’s increasing stranglehold on public debate, on how people should think, on what we should be allowed to say, what’s appropriate behaviour, what’s not – have New Zealanders woken up to just how insidious this has become?

HIDE: No. No, we are a very conformist society. The best example of that would be the Brethren, where it has been alright for the Government to pillory a religious group who were legitimately expressing a political view, and no one – I think apart from me – has leapt to their defence. You have this idea that, ‘oh well, because they’re the Brethren and we don’t agree with them we can tear them to bits, day after day, and in fact we’ll shut down New Zealanders’ free speech on the strength of what the nasty Brethren did’. It’s appalling.

INVESTIGATE: It does seem that Labour has been able to successfully frame every debate.

HIDE: Yes. We haven’t seen political operatives of their caliber, I don’t think, ever in New Zealand. And the way they frame the debates is the key to winning, how they win the debates. The Nats quickly folded on the Brethren rather than standing up for free speech. It’s quite good being in the Act Party because we know exactly what we stand for. We had the remarkable situation where we got rid of our sedition laws. So that’s great, and Keith Locke stood up in parliament and was explaining that you should be able, in a free society, to advocate communism and fascism, and even bin Ladenism. And I got up and said, of course, I totally agreed with him, but why the heck can’t we criticize the Greens? And here we are with laws to shut down people from criticizing the Greens. It is very, very insidious. The other thing that’s happened of course, in politics – I think the biggest criticism of Helen Clark, apart from overtaxing and over-regulating us – is the loss of humour in New Zealand. We’re no longer allowed to laugh, and that’s very insidious too. People are now very careful, in public, about what they make a flipping joke about.

INVESTIGATE: The “terror” raids, they seem to be a doubleedged sword for this administration in many respects?

HIDE: Oh, very much so. I think it’s a huge story and it could be seismic in its political effect. It was an extraordinary series of raids. The use of the ‘T-word’, terrorism, was a huge call, and of course we are sitting there yet to see the evidence. Even if there has been terrorist planning, I think Maori will still remain alienated for what went on. And of course, if the claims are not

substantiated, this government, or the police have a big problem, and the country has a big problem about ‘how did this happen?’. And for the government it is two edged, like you said.

Because on the one hand Maori will be upset, but on the other there are people who think Tame Iti should be rounded up just for being Tame Iti. And that throwing a few wooly woofters in jail is not a bad thing. It’s not a view I share, but you can see in people’s perception. It’s Rob’s Mob, really.

INVESTIGATE: Looking forward on current tracking to the election, what’s your pick?

HIDE: No one knows. I know everyone says it’s going to be a change of government, and there certainly is a sentiment for a change of government amongst the public, but anyone who thinks they know the result of the next election doesn’t know anything. Way too early to pick. A lot can happen between now and the next election, but also we have the added complication of MMP. So the media and the polls like to play it as a competition between National and Labour, but actually it’s not that competition that’s going to determine the next government.

INVESTIGATE: You’ve got NZ First without an electorate seat and it is rating through the floor at the moment, United has a seat but very low polling, the Greens will do OK, you have a seat, but also the Maori Party and the Family Party and Future NZ. I mean, Destiny was outrating United!

HIDE: Well, I’ve always got to temper my predictions with my fervent wishes. My fervent wish is that NZ First just sink beneath the sea, and my next fervent wish of course is that the Act Party, standing up for individual freedom and personal responsibility, does well. So there’s my prediction. But the reality is this, I think the Greens will do well as long as they’re never in Government, because people go, ‘yeah, the Greens, I care about the environment’, but if they did get within government I think they could struggle then because of the responsibilities of government and their policies. The Maori Party I think will do very well. These terror raids, of course, are going to do them no mischief. And also they’ll create an overhang – they’ll get the Maori seats, and possibly all of them, but the party vote in those seats will go Labour’s way. So there’s two dramatic results to begin with that people are not factoring in when they say ‘National’s five points ahead or four points behind’ or whatever – it’s actually going to be the make-up of that parliament that is going to be so crucial.

INVESTIGATE: The destruction of United Future and the rising up of family values parties – HIDE: No, I don’t think it’s going to happen. Peter Dunne is secure in Ohariu-Belmont, no one is going to contest that, so he will be there. And we’ve only ever had one party break into parliament from outside through MMP, and that was us. It’s very, very hard to do. We have had Christian parties in the past come close, but didn’t do it. So it is very, very hard to break in, and I’m afraid the rules that National and Labour have written over the years, the election rules, make it very hard for a new party to get into our parliament. My view is, there’s got to be a reasonable vote for a party that stands for free enterprise.

INVESTIGATE: Plans for Christmas?

HIDE: For the last five or six years I have always done the same. I head to the Gibbston valley, near Queenstown, and stay in a cabin with my good friend Dave Henderson, and we philosophize and sleep and read.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 47

A CHRISTMAS STORY

The Twilight of Atheism: The Global Triumph of Christianity

This Christmas, writes DINESH D’SOUZA, God has come back to life. The world is witnessing a huge explosion of religious conversion and growth, and Christianity is growing faster than any other religion. Nietzsche’s proclamation “God is dead” is now proven false. Nietzsche is dead

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he ranks of the unbelievers are shrinking as a proportion of the world’s population. Secularism has lost its identification with progress and modernity, and consequently it has lost the main source of its appeal.

God is very much alive, and His future prospects look to be excellent.

This is the biggest comeback story of the twenty-first century.

If God is back, why don’t we see it? The reason is that many of us live in the wrong neighborhood. “Visit a church at random next Sunday,” Brent Staples writes in the New York Times, “and you will probably encounter a few dozen people sprinkled thinly over a sanctuary that was built to accommodate hundreds or even thousands.” Yes, I’ve seen the “empty pews and white-haired congregants” that Staples describes.2 But then, Staples lives in New York and I live in California. We live among people who are practically atheist.

Of course my neighbors do not think of themselves as atheist.

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Very few of them belong to atheist organizations or subscribe to atheist literature. Some of them who are highly educated like to think of themselves as agnostic: they haven’t made up their minds because the evidence simply isn’t in yet. Others even consider themselves Christian, either because they were born that way or because they attend church occasionally. The distinguishing characteristic of these people is that they live as if God did not exist. God makes no difference in their lives. This is “practical atheism.” We all know people like this. Some of us hardly know anyone not like this. And sometimes we live this way ourselves.

If we live in the wrong neighborhood, we risk missing the most important development of our time: the global revival of religion. It’s happening on every continent. In my native country of India, Hinduism is undergoing a resurgence. So is Islam. As I have written about Islamic radicalism and terrorism I am often asked, “When will the Muslims understand the importance of secularism? When will we see an Islamic Reformation?” My answer is that Muslims will never under-

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 49

stand the importance of secularism. Nor do they need to, because as we shall see, secularism is increasingly unimportant as a global phenomenon. Moreover, Islam is in the middle of a reformation. We see a resurgence of Muslim piety not just in the Middle East but also in Indonesia , Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey, and East Africa. At one time Turkey provided a model of Islamic secularism, but not any longer. No Muslim country is going the way of Turkey, and in recent years even Turkey has stopped going the way of Turkey.

Some Western analysts describe the religious revivals around the world in terms of the growth of “fundamentalism.” This is the fallacy of ethnocentrism, of seeing the world through the lens of our own homegrown prejudices. Remember that fundamentalism is a term drawn from Protestant Christianity. It is an American coinage that refers to a group of early twentiethcentury Protestant activists who organized against Darwinian evolution and who championed the literal reading of the Bible.

Fundamentalism is a meaningless term outside this context.

There are, of course, Hindu militants and Islamic radicals of the bin Laden stripe, and they are indeed a menace to the world. But the growth of religious militancy and the growth of religion are very different. One may seek to benefit from the other, but the two should not he confused. The resurgence I am talking about is the global revitalization of traditional religion.

This means traditional Hinduism, traditional Islam, and traditional Christianity. By “traditional” I mean religion as it has been understood and practiced over the centuries. This is the type of religion that is booming.

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raditional religion is the mainstream, but it is not the only form in which religion appears today.

There is also liberal religion. One can hardly speak of liberal Islam, as liberalism is essentially a nonexistent force in the Muslim world. But there are liberal Jews, whose Jewishness seems largely a matter of historical memory and cultural habits. Here in the West, there are lots of liberal Christians. Some of them have assumed a kind of reverse mission: instead of being the church’s missionaries to the world, they have become the world’s missionaries to the church. They devote their moral energies to trying to make the church more democratic, to assure equal rights for women, to legitimize homosexual marriage, and so on. A small but influential segment of liberal Christianity rejects all the central doctrines of Christianity. H. Richard Niebuhr famously summed up their credo: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”3 I have met liberal Christians who are good and sincere people. But their version of Christianity is retreating, in two senses. Liberal Christians are distinguished by how much intellectual and moral ground they concede to the adversaries of Christianity. “Granted, no rational person today can believe in miracles, but....” “True, the Old Testament God seems a mighty vengeful fellow, but....” “Admittedly religion is responsible for most of the conflict and oppression in history, but....”

This yes-but Christianity is in full intellectual withdrawal, and it is also becoming less relevant. The liberal churches are losing members in droves. Once these churches welcomed one in six Americans; now they see one in thirty. In 1960 the

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Presbyterian church had 4.2 million members; now it has 2.4 million. The Episcopal church had 3.4 million; now it has 2.3 million. The United Church of Christ had 2.2 million; now it has 1.3 million.4 Traditional Christians who remain within liberal churches become increasingly alienated. Some have become so disgusted that they have put themselves under the authority of more traditional clerics based in countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast.

Unfortunately the central themes of some of the liberal churches have become indistinguishable from those of the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, and the homosexual rights movement. Why listen to Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong drone on when you can get the same message and much more interesting visuals at San Francisco’s gay pride parade? The traditional churches, not the liberal churches, are growing in America. In 1960, for example, the churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention had 8.7 million members. Now they have 16.4 million.5 The growth of traditional religion and the decline of liberal religion pose a serious problem for a conventional way of understanding religious trends. This is the way of secularization: the idea that as an inevitable result of science, reason, progress, and modernization, the West will continue to grow more secular, followed by the rest of the world. The more confident exponents of secularization believe, as Peter Berger puts it, that “eventually Iranian mullahs, Pentecostal preachers, and Tibetan lamas will all think and act like professors of literature at American universities.”6 For a good part of the last century, this secularization narrative seemed plausible. Secular people believed it and reveled in it, while religious people believed it and bemoaned it. But now we see a problem with the thesis. If secularization were proceeding inexorably, then religious people should be getting less religious, and so conservative churches should be shrinking and liberal churches growing. In fact, the opposite is the case.

Some scholars put this down to “backlash” against secularization, but this only begs the question: what is causing this backlash? The secularization thesis was based on the presumption that science and modernity would satisfy the impulses and needs once met by religion. But a rebellion against secularization suggests that perhaps important needs are still unmet, and so people are seeking a revival of religion – perhaps in a new form – to address their specific concerns within a secular society.

Of course the secularization thesis is not entirely invalid. In Europe, Australia, and Canada, religion has been expunged from the cultural mainstream. It has been largely relegated to a tourist phenomenon; when you go to Chartres and Canterbury, the guides tell you about architecture and art history and little about what the people who created those masterpieces actually believed. According to the European Values Survey, regular churchgoers number, depending on the country, between 10 and 25 percent of the population. Only one in five Europeans says that religion is important in life. Czech president Vaclav Havel has rightly described Europe as “the first atheistic civilization in the history of mankind.” 7 The religious picture in Europe is not unremittingly bleak.

Ninety percent of Greeks acknowledge the existence of God, and only 5 per cent of Greeks are atheists. Ireland still has church attendance figures of around 45 percent, twice as high as the

Continent as a whole, although Irish Catholicism has also weakened in recent decades.

Along with Ireland, Poland and Slovakia are two of the most religious countries in Europe.8 And some commentators have noted that even Europeans who are not religious continue to describe themselves as “spiritual.” These analysts argue that Europe has not abandoned religion in general but only “organized” religion.

But if Europe generally supports the secularization thesis, the United States presents a much more problematic case.

America has not gone the way of Europe. True, church attendance in the United States has declined in the past three decades. Still, some 40 percent of Americans say they attend church on Sundays. More than 90 percent of Americans believe in God, and 60 percent say their faith is important to them. Surveying the data on religion, Paul Bloom writes in the Atlantic Monthly that “well over half of Americans believe in miracles, the devil, and angels. Most Americans believe that after death they will actually reunite with relatives and get to meet God.”9 All of this is a serious difficulty for the secularization thesis, because America is at the forefront of modernity. The thesis would predict that America would be the most secular society in the world. In fact, America is the most religious country in the Western world.

Perhaps the greatest problem for the secularization theory is that in an era of increasing globalization and modernization, the world as a whole is becoming more religious, not less. In a recent survey, Pippa Norris and Ron Inglehart sum up the evidence. Despite the advance of secularization in the West, they write, “The world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than ever before, and they constitute a growing proportion of the world’s population.” Consequently, the West is more secular but “the world as a whole is becoming more religious.”10 Even more remarkable is that the religious revival is occurring in places that are rapidly modernizing. China and India today have the fastest growth rates in the world, and religion

is thriving in both places. Turkey is one of the most modern of the Muslim countries, and Islam has steadily gained strength there. In Central and South America, the upwardly mobile classes are embracing Pentecostal Christianity.

The global spread of American culture, with the secular values it carries, seems not to have arrested or even slowed the religious upsurge. The reason is that many non-Western cultures are actively resisting secularism. A common slogan in Asia today is “modernization without Westernization.” Many people want American prosperity and American technology, but they want to use these to preserve and strengthen their traditional way of life.

They want to live in a world of multiple modernities.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 51

We often read that Islam is the fastest-growing religion. Not true. Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in the world today. Islam is second. While Islam grows mainly through reproduction – which is to say by Muslims having large families – Christianity spreads through rapid conversion as well as natural increase. Islam has become the fastest-growing religion in Europe, which for more than a thousand years has been the home of Christianity. Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc wrote in 1920 that “the faith is Europe and Europe is the faith.” Belloc was convinced that the future of Christianity lay in Europe.

Ironically, while Europe has moved away from Christianity, the Christian religion has been expanding its influence in Central and South America, in Africa, and in Asia. For the first time in history, Christianity has become a universal religion.

It is in fact the only religion with a global reach. Buddhism and Islam, like Christianity, are religions with global aspirations, but these aspirations have not been realized. Buddhism never established itself even in the land of its founding, India, although it found adherents in the cultures of Southern and Eastern Asia. Even though it has a few followers in the West, Buddhism remains a religion with, at best, a regional impact.

Islam is vastly stronger, but even Islam is regional, with little or no sway in the United States, Canada, Central and South America, or Australia. By contrast, Christianity is a force on every continent and in every major region of the world, with the sole exception of the heartland of Islam, the Middle East.

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he new face of Christianity is no longer white and blond but yellow, black, and brown. “If we want to visualize a typical contemporary Christian, Philip Jenkins writes in The Next Christendom, “we should think of a woman living in a village in Nigeria or in a Brazilian favela.” The vital centers of Christianity today are no longer Geneva, Rome, Paris, or London. They are Buenos Aires, Manila, Kinshasa, and Addis Ababa. “The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes,” Jenkins observes, “and the day of Southern Christianity is dawning.”11 In 1900, more than 80 percent of Christians lived in Europe and America. Today 60 percent live in the developing world.

More than two out of three evangelical Christians now live in Asia, Africa, and South America. Here are some numbers Jenkins provides: Europe today has 560 million Christians and America has 260 million, yet many of these are Christian in name only. In comparison, there are 480 million Christians in South America, 313 million in Asia, and 360 million in Africa.

The vast majority of these are practicing Christians. There are more churchgoing Presbyterians in Ghana than in Scotland.

Oddly enough, this Christian growth occurred after the period of European conquest and colonialism ended. The old boys in pith helmets are long gone, but the faith that first came with them has endured and now thrives without them. It’s just like the early times of Christianity. After Constantine converted and Theodosius proclaimed Christianity the state religion toward the end of the fourth century, Christianity was carried by the Roman empire. Yet the faith spread fastest after the collapse of that empire, and soon all of Europe was Christian. We’re witnessing a comparable pace of growth for Christianity in the rest of the world.

A century ago, less than 10 percent of Africa was Christian.

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Today it’s nearly 50 percent. That’s an increase from 10 million people in 1900 to more than 350 million today. Uganda alone has nearly 20 million Christians and is projected to have 50 million by the middle of the century.12 Some African congregations have grown so big that their churches are running out of space. While Western preachers routinely implore people to come every Sunday to fill the pews, some African preachers ask their members to limit their attendance to every second or third Sunday to give others a chance to hear the message.

Central and South America are witnessing the explosive growth of Pentecostalism. As David Martin shows in his study Tongues of Fire, partly this is a shift within Christianity: millions of South American Catholics have become evangelical Protestants.13 In Brazil, for example, there are now 50 million evangelical Protestants whereas a few decades ago there weren’t enough to count. The movement of Catholics into Protestant evangelicalism should not be considered purely lateral, however, as the conversion of lackadaisical nominal Catholics to an active, energized evangelicalism can perhaps he considered a net gain for Christianity. Even within Catholicism there is an expanding charismatic movement that has grown in response to the success of the Protestant evangelicals. This charismatic Catholicism emphasizes many of the same themes as “born again” Christianity, including a personal relationship with Christ. And the Catholic numbers remain huge: Brazil had 50 million Catholics in 1950, but now it has 120 million.

Despite the limitations imposed by the Chinese government, it is estimated that there are now 100 million Christians in China who worship in underground evangelical and Catholic churches. At current growth rates, David Aikman observes in his book Jesus in Beijing, China will in a few decades become the largest Christian country in the world.14 In Korea, where Christians already outnumber Buddhists, there are numerous mega-churches with more than 10,000 members each.

The Yoido Full Gospel Church reports 750,000 members. The Catholic church in the Philippines reports 60 million members, and is projected to have 120 million by mid-century.

What distinguishes these Christians, Philip Jenkins writes, is that they immerse themselves in the world of the Bible to a degree that even devout Western Christians do not. For poor people around the world, the social landscape of the Bible is quite familiar. They, too, live in a world of hardship, poverty, money-lenders, and lepers. The themes of exile and persecution resonate with them. Supernatural evil seems quite real to them, and they have little problem in understanding the concept of hell.15 Some of them even expect the miracles of ancient times to be witnessed in their own lifetimes. I remember an African preacher who visited a church I used to attend in Northern Virginia. He insisted that through God’s grace he had performed innumerable healings. When one of the assistant pastors looked at him a bit doubtfully, he pointed to the Bible and said, “Young man, there is a big difference between you and me. You see this book right here? We believe it.”

This Third World Christianity is coming our way. South Korea has become the world’s second-largest source of Christian missionaries, with 12,000 preaching the faith abroad. Only the United States sends more missionaries to other countries.16 We may be seeing the beginning of a startling reversal. At one point Christian missionaries went to the far continents of Africa and

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 53

Asia, where white priests in robes proclaimed the Bible to wideeyed and uncomprehending brown and black people. In the future, we may well see black and brown missionaries proclaim the Bible to wide-eyed and uncomprehending white people in the West. We might think that this preaching will fall on unreceptive ears. But I’m not so sure. The Washington Post reports that there are 150 churches in Denmark and more than 250 in Britain run by foreigners as “part of a growing trend of preachers from developing nations coming to Western Europe:” Stendor Johansen, a Danish sea captain, seems to reflect the sentiments of many Europeans who are joining the new congregations. “The Danish church is boring,” he says. “I feel energized when I leave one of these services.”17 If more people come to share these sentiments then secularization may ultimately be reversed even in Europe.

Peter Berger writes about what he calls the “myth of secularization”. He means that the thesis of inevitable secularization has now lost its credibility. In fact, it is going the way of Zeus and Baal. Berger’s work points to the reason for this. Ultimately secularization may be reversed even in Europe.

Berger argues that modernization helps people triumph over necessity but it also produces a profound crisis of purpose in modern life. The greater the effects of modernization, the stronger the social anxiety and the striving for “something more.” As Wolfhart Pannenberg puts it, “Secular culture itself produces a deep need for meaning in life and therefore also for religion.”18 This may not be religion in the same form in which it is imbibed in Nigeria or Korea, but it is traditional religion all the same, no less vital for having adapted to new circumstances. It is quite possible that a renewed Christianity can improve modern life by correcting some of the deficiencies and curbing some of the excesses of modernity.

I have found this to be true in my own life. I am a native of India. I and my ancestors were converted to Christianity by Portuguese missionaries. As this was the era of the Portuguese Inquisition, some force and bludgeoning may also have been involved. When I came to America as a student in 1978, my Christianity was largely a matter of birth and habit. But even as I plunged myself into modern life in the United States, my faith slowly deepened. G. K. Chesterton calls this the “revolt into orthodoxy. Like Chesterton, I find myself rebelling against extreme secularism and finding in Christianity some remarkable answers to both intellectual and practical concerns. So I am grateful to those stern inquisitors for bringing me into the orbit of Christianity, even though I am sure my ancestors would not have shared my enthusiasm. Mine is a Christianity that is countercultural in the sense that it opposes powerful trends in modern Western culture. Yet it is thoroughly modern in that it addresses questions and needs raised by life in that culture. I don’t know how I could live well without it.

In the end, though, my story doesn’t matter very much, and neither does it matter whether the West returns to Christianity.

Perhaps the non-Western Christians will convert the Western unbelievers, and perhaps they won’t. Either way, they are the future, they know it, and now we know it too. Christianity may come in a different garb than it has for the past several centuries, but Christianity is winning, and secularism is losing. The future is always unpredictable, but one trend seems clear. God is the future, and atheism is on its way out.

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Endnotes: 1. Does not appear in this edited version 2. Brent Staples, “If You’re Devout, Get Out,” New York Times Book Review, November 26, 2000.

3. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), 193.

4. Data compiled by the Institute on Religion and Democracy, 2005, http://www.ird-renew.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=fvKVLfM VIsG&b=470745&ct=1571507 5. Ibid.

6. Peter Berger, The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics (Grand Rapids, MI: William Eerdmans Publishing, 1999), 12.

7. Vaclav Havel, “Paradise Lost,” New York Review of Books, April 9, 1992.

8. Philip Jenkins, God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 29, 32, 57.

9. Paul Bloom, “Is God an Accident?” Atlantic Monthly, December 2005.

10. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 5, 23.

11. Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 2-3.

12. Ibid., 4, 91.

13. David Martin, Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (London: Blackwell Publishers, 1993).

14. David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2004).

15. Philip Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South ( New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

16. Norimitsu Onishi, “Koreans Quietly Evangelizing Among Muslims in Mideast,” New York Times, November 1, 2004.

17. Kevin Sullivan, “Foreign Missionaries Find Fertile Ground in Europe,” Washington Post, June 11, 2007.

18. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christianity in a Secularized World (London: SCM Press, 1989), 43.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Dinesh D’Souza. The Twilight of Atheism: The Global Triumph of Christianity. Chapter one from What’s So Great About Christianity (Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing Inc., 2007): 1-12.

From the book What’s So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D’Souza. Copyright © 2007.

Published by Regnery Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by special permission of Regnery Publishing Inc., Washington, D.C.

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WORLDBRIEF

Victory or Death Latest news from the Baghdad front shows America should have flooded Iraq with troops from Day One. HALIMAH ABDULLAH interviews the families of slain soldiers, while NANCY YOUSSEF reports the troop surge has led to the lowest civilian and military death tolls this year

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ASHINGTON – Michael Anderson can recount his son’s last moments on earth down to the second. He knows that the night before his son, Marine Cpl. Michael Anderson Jr., died in the battle for Fallujah he slept in a 17-degree room on a piece of cardboard and that he shared his blanket and iPod with a friend. He knows that on Dec. 14, 2004, his son and comrades shimmied down a rooftop to ambush a group of insurgents, opened the roof’s hatch, threw in a grenade and listened for screams before heading inside.

And he knows that the bullet that hit his son pierced his fourth and fifth ribs and killed him instantly.

The California resident says he also knew that the Iraq war was working and that it must work or the deaths of his son and the more than 3,800 other members of the U.S. military would have been in vain.

“The surge is working,” he says. “I sat through some briefings and investigated for myself. I’ve talked to the boots on the ground. My opinion is that the leaders who are trying to run this war from the comfort of their well-decorated and comfortable offices are wrong.

“This (war) is not going to be over with signing our names on a dotted line saying this is over. This is our children’s children’s war. This is an ongoing conflict of good versus evil and we need to put a collar around it.”

As rancorous debate over the war’s course rages in Washington, soldiers and military leaders in Iraq and the families of service members who’ve been killed in the line of duty have mixed feelings about congressional proposals to draw down troops.

Anderson and others who’ve lost loved ones in the war have traveled to Iraq and Washington to show support for the war, 56, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

efforts that aren’t always welcomed.

During a recent trip to the US capital to meet with lawmakers, Anderson attended a weekend war protest where, he says, “we were outnumbered 100 to 1.”

Emotions run high on both sides of the Iraq war debate. The strain and, at times, conflicted feelings are especially acute in places such as Fort Benning, which has contributed heavily to the war effort over the past four years.

Fort Benning’s 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team is part of the 3rd Infantry Division, the so-called “tip of the spear,” troops accustomed to life on the front lines of the war in Iraq.

Last January, President Bush visited the tightly knit military community and shook hands with hundreds of soldiers headed overseas – many of them for their third tours of Iraq – as part of the troop buildup.

“The new strategy is not going to yield immediate results,” Bush said at the time. “It’s going to take a while.”

But 10 months into the surge, that strategy has been mired in political debate and growing dissatisfaction from some folks back home.

Sometimes, even soldiers have their doubts.

In August, the 3rd Brigade walked and rode through a volatile region southeast of Salman Pak, about 50 km southeast of Baghdad. While the troops saw some progress, they also faced the daily threat of roadside bombs, an unreliable Iraqi police force, the limitations of depending on Iraqis for tips and the ever-elusive enemy.

“Even though we’ve outstayed our welcome, in the big picture of whether we’ve helped or not, I know we have,” Sgt. Christofer Kitto, a 23-year-old sniper from New York, said at

the time. “But now it’s just in a state of quagmire. The U.S. time here has come and gone.”

Others, such as Brig. Gen. Daniel Allyn, the XVIII Airborne Corps chief of staff at Fort Bragg, N.C., think the strategy to transition to Iraqi control is “working well.” While serving as a colonel, Allyn helped lead the 3rd Brigade, also known as the Sledgehammer Brigade, in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

A complete troop withdrawal just isn’t an option, says Jan Johnson whose son, Army Spc. Justin Johnson, died in 2004 in combat in Iraq, days after the death of close friend and fellow Spc. Casey Sheehan.

“I think bringing troops out of there right now is really crazy,” she says. “We really need troops out there to get the job done.”

The two young soldiers’ deaths and the emotional upheaval that those losses caused the Johnson and Sheehan families were chronicled in the book “American Mourning.”

While the death of Cindy Sheehan’s son motivated her to become a prominent antiwar activist, Justin’s death motivated his father, Joseph, to go to Iraq to fight. Justin’s brother, Sgt. Josh Johnson, serves in Afghanistan.

While the Johnsons are members of the Gold Star families – founded as Gold Star Mothers in 1928 to honor women whose sons died during wartime service – Sheehan is founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, a group that represents people who lost

family members in Iraq and oppose the war.

“The morning my wife told me that Justin had been killed I vowed to God and Justin that I would go over there and kill as many insurgents as I could,” says Joseph Johnson, who served as a corporal in Georgia’s Army National Guard unit, the 48th Infantry Brigade. “I had a lot of hate in my heart. That was until I met the children.”

Johnson says the children in northern and eastern Baghdad had helped him understand the larger purpose of the war effort.

“We went to schools and clinics, and every time we showed up kids would come running,” he says. “We’d give them anything we had: candies, school supplies and soccer balls.”

Winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people is no small task, and some military leaders, soldiers and family members worry that the job will become more difficult when fewer U.S. troops are there.

“We are certainly concerned about the welfare of the good Iraqi people in our area of operations,” says Lt. Col. Ryan Kuhn, the deputy commander of the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team in Iraq. “The vast majority of the Iraqis in our area are good people that want the same thing that we want: an opportunity to live in peace, send their kids to school and earn a decent day’s pay. That being said, all we can focus on right now is the mission at hand.”

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 57

More Troops = Fewer Deaths

B

AGHDAD – Violence hit a yearly low in Baghdad during October,

according to end-of-the-month statistics compiled this month, even as killings elsewhere raised worrisome questions about whether security improvements will hold if the United States begins drawing down its forces next spring.

American troop deaths in October declined for the fifth straight month — to 36, the lowest monthly total this year and the seventh lowest in 56 months of war, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, which tracks deaths and injuries among troops in Iraq.

Of October’s deaths, 27 were caused by enemy action, Iraq Coalition Casualty Count reported on its Web site. That total continued a steep drop-off in U.S. combat deaths that began in June, when the U.S. military completed its so-called surge of troops into Iraq. U.S. deaths by hostile action peaked in May at 120 and have declined every month since.

Civilian deaths in Baghdad also reached a low point for the year during October, statistics compiled by McClatchy Newspapers show. In all, 114 people died in explosions in the Iraqi capital during the month, according to the statistics, while the number of unidentified bodies found on Baghdad’s streets totaled 168.

Both figures are well below the peak months this year of 520 in February and 736 in May. Even so, the capital remained a dangerous place. While car bombs declined to 15 from September’s 19, the number of blasts caused by improvised explosive devices increased by more than 60 percent, from 30 to 48. The number of people injured in explosions in the capital rose 19 percent, from 378 in September to 450 in October, according to the McClatchy statistics, which are gathered daily from police and other official sources, but which probably undercount violence in the capital.

Of the 27 U.S. combat deaths, at least 19 occurred in Baghdad, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. Of the six months with fewer combat casualties, five occurred in the first 12 months of the war.

A U.S. spokesman said the military wasn’t prepared to declare victory in the capital. He said the decline in violence is the result of several interconnected factors, any of which could unravel.

For one, anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr could call off the cease-fire he declared, which could lead to renewed attacks on American forces. A major bombing by al Qaida in Iraq, a Sunni-dominated group, could spur retaliation attacks by Shiite militias. Or one of the new local leaders working with U.S. troops to root out al Qaida in Iraq insurgents could be assassinated, destroying the fragile peace in his neighborhood.

“We are not declaring victory,” says Col. Steve Boylan, the spokesman for Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq who in September told Congress that U.S. troops could begin coming home by March. “It’s too early.”

Two other factors could indicate trouble ahead.

Violence remains high in provinces outside Baghdad. In Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province, police say at least 17 decapitated bodies were found in the first week of November, and a suicide bomber on a bicycle detonated himself in front of a police center, killing at least 27.

Police blame the violence on al Qaida in Iraq, many of whose members are believed to have escaped a U.S. offensive over the

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summer and remain active in the province.

In the southern Shiite-dominated cities of Karbala and Basra, residents describe their communities as open battlefields between rival Shiite factions fighting for control.

U.S. officials also are concerned that the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has done little to capitalize on the relative calming of the capital. Virtually no action has been taken on benchmarks that once were the U.S. standard for progress in Iraq.

Maliki’s government also has been slow to incorporate Sunni volunteers into the Shiite-dominated security forces.

In many places throughout the capital, local groups, not official security forces, provide protection. Teenagers guard the entrances to neighborhoods while tribal leaders meet with rival sects to negotiate cease-fires. U.S. troops protect water supplies and electricity generators.

A report by the Government Accountability Office in Washington warns that the U.S. and Iraqi governments haven’t taken advantage of the drop in violence.

Other observers, while acknowledging that violence is down in the capital, say they believe that Baghdad remains a battleground.

“The ‘surge’ in Baghdad has reduced the level of killings and major violence, but not ended sectarian displacement and tension,” Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote recently. “The end result is an unstable mosaic of Shiite, Sunni and mixed zones that can explode into violence if the U.S. leaves (and perhaps if it stays), or simply keep Iraq’s most important city and province unstable and divided.”

There’s no consensus about why violence has declined so rapidly in the capital or why U.S. combat casualties have dropped so dramatically.

U.S. officials partially credit raids against al Qaida in Iraq bombmaking factories and say the detentions and deaths of insurgent leaders have unbalanced the organization.

A rebellion by tribal leaders in Anbar province against al Qaida in Iraq, which drove the insurgent group from the province, also played a role in reducing U.S. casualties.

But some troops believe that the decline in U.S. casualties also is due to some groups’ decision to avoid fighting U.S. forces head on or to leave Baghdad to fight rival groups in nearby provinces.

Some residents believe the drop in Iraqi deaths in the capital has happened because so much ethnic cleansing has left simply fewer people to kill in this country of 38 million.

Outside Baghdad, residents say they believe violence is getting worse, though statistics weren’t available to confirm their impressions.

“The explosions and the bombs appear from time to time, and the security forces don’t react the way they should,” says Asow Mohammad al Shahwani, 30, a bookshop owner in the northern mixed Kurdish/Arab city of Kirkuk. “Many neighborhoods are out of government and security forces’ control.”

Ali Mazin, 39, a teacher in Basra who feels the violence is worsening, says he believes it’s too late for Iraq’s central government to assert authority there.

“The city is an open one, and I see no role for the local or the central government in this city. The Iranians are playing a greater role in our governorate” than the Iraqi government, he said.

To see the statistics, go to icasualties.org.

McClatchy Newspapers special correspondents Laith Hammoudi in Baghdad, Hassan Jobouri in Tikrit and Ali Omar in Basra contributed to this report.

we interview

John Key

UNCUT every week

John Key on MP3: The Key Questions every week, only on

WWW.INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.TV no one gets closer INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 59

thinkLIFE money

The good times roll

Peter Hensley says the bears are being held at bay, but it won’t last forever

J

im had just finished his round at the local golf club and was sitting in the sun enjoying the spoils of victory. He and his partner had cleaned up five and four (which meant that they were five holes ahead with four to play, meaning they could not be beaten) and the daily haggle agreed upon was two rounds of beers. He couldn’t stay long as he had promised Moira that he would take her up to the local plant shop so that she could indulge in her annual spring planting.

His long time friend George raised the topic of whatever happened to the business cycle that they had experienced during their working life? Good times always gave way to bad times and after a while, the good times rolled around again. Now days the good times seem to keep on rolling. Never would happen like that in the old days he lamented.

Now Jim, who could never be accused of keeping his opinions to himself was speechless. George had just come out with a profound statement and it deserved some serious reflection. Jim had to ask him where he heard that idea. George looked at him nonplussed and said that he had

60, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

just come up with it. Jim was on a deadline and left the conversation as he had been married long enough to know that it was not wise to leave Moira waiting.

Jim considered himself a student of the markets and George’s comment about the never ending good times encouraged him to follow up with his financial adviser.

Jim often researched and recycled a lot of ideas sourced from his adviser, however his cronies had picked up on this fact a long time ago.

Jim wasn’t sure how to raise the topic of prolonged economic prosperity with his adviser as he had made a notable stand several years ago suggesting exactly the opposite. This change in sentiment resulted in a radical re-adjustment of their portfolio at the time, however he and Moira had to admit that the results had been very pleasing, so much so the adviser’s practice was constantly expanding.

Jim called in unannounced one morning as he knew that his adviser did not see clients prior to 11am. He used the pretext of returning some paperwork relating to a new bond issue and shared the context of George’s comment. To Jim’s surprise

his adviser was in a position to support George’s statement.

Research shows that during the first 40 years of last century (1900 – 1940), developed economies were in recession for around 40% of the time. This dropped to 15% for the next 40 years (1940 – 1980) and since 1980 recessions have occurred less than 7% of the time.

Economists generally agree that central bankers control their economies by their use of monetary policy, or in layman’s terms, controlling interest rates. They are also in control of introducing new money into the financial system. The share market melt down of 2000 allowed central bankers to conduct a huge economic experiment.

The Great Depression has been the subject of an enormous amount of study and more than one academic has suggested that the economic dark age could have been avoided by flooding the market with liquidity, even though it would have been impossible to do so at the time.

The adoption of the Gold Standard in 1922 meant that a nation’s currency issuance was limited to the amount of gold the Government controlled.

The system was doomed to fail and in 1931 Britain went off the gold standard followed quickly by the majority of countries in western Europe. The USA lasted until 1933 when President Roosevelt passed a law forbidding citizens to own gold bars.

Since 1971, when President Nixon closed the gold window, no currency has been linked to gold. This has allowed central bankers to control their countries money supply and use it to manage their economies.

The share market melt down of the new century allowed Alan Greenspan (Chairman of the US Federal Reserve at the time) a rare opportunity. He did two things which were considered radical at the time. He quickly dropped the official cash rate to 1% and held it there for longer than anyone thought possible. At the same time he flooded the financial markets with liquidity. The markets held their breath, the economic experiment worked and Mr Greenspan was hailed as a hero and received a Knighthood from the Queen.

Sir Alan finished up in the job in early 2006 and handed the reins on to the pres-

ent incumbent Mr Bernanke. The full impact of his radical economic experiments are yet to be fully worked through.

Commentators agree that he was successful in staving off a share market melt down, however the economy is still suffering from the side effects of his actions.

The first was the massive flow on to the real estate market. The impact of ninja (no income, no job, no assets) loans are likely to be with us until 2009.

It is interesting that the US authorities stopped publishing M3 figures in early 2006. M3 records the amount of money currently within the banking system and it has been tracking steadily upwards since 2000. The authorities have also re-adjusted the method used to calculate inflation. A cynic would suggest that these changes have been implemented so that the subsequent dramatic increase in inflation can be disguised and temporarily hidden from the marketplace.

Moira knew that Jim’s attention span was limited and this was displayed when he asked his adviser to get to the point. He knew that each year the grocery bill was getting bigger and it was costing more to

fill up the car. He and Moira could not believe the increase in their council rates over the past couple of years.

When Greenspan opened the liquidity floodgates he unknowingly put the world economy on steroids. Central bankers, whom we have been told have inflation under control are now faced with the problem of feeding the giant whilst at the same time trying to keep it caged because they know what will happen if it gets out.

It would not be a pretty sight.

Jim likened the process to a party host keeping the punch bowl topped up. As long as the music kept playing, the party would continue. The ones closest to the bar and the music believe it can go on forever.

The older ones, whilst enjoying the party know that nothing lasts in perpetuity.

The good news is that whilst there are some dark clouds on the horizon, the party looks like it has enough energy to last a while yet. Jim took a while to digest the information but he was sure he would be ready to share his new found wisdom about how the global economic system was on high on drugs with his golfing buddies on Saturday.

thinkLIFE education

Paying monkeys – getting peanuts

Amy Brooke goes bananas over our sub-standard education system

A

re they simply quite staggeringly stupid, even if well-intentioned – those who’ve continually worked to undermine what was once a well-constructed New Zealand education system?

Or has what has basically been an ominous attack on the very notion of quality education a much more sinister motivation? Take your pick.

With an apparent conviction of righteousness which amounts to hubris, we certainly now have individuals not the slightest bit interested in substantiated assessments and excellent critiques of the wrong directions their theorizing and domination of the system have contrived.

These same individuals, long engineering the collapse of quality education here and

62, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

abroad, include those who themselves put up a mediocre showing at school; individuals who barely even scraped through national examinations such as School Certificate, generously geared towards allowing average students to pass. And yet they’ve been the ones appointed to lead the “reform” of an education system which was largely performing very well, before their ravages began. We should be asking why – and insisting on answers.

Noting so many thousands of children cheated out of anything approaching excellence in education these recent decades, it is risible to observe a few timid principals and other educationists now, oh so bravely, peeping above the ramparts.

Too little, too late. Almost incredible is

their tentatively suggesting that the “new” culpably dumbed-down curriculum – continuing the long attack on the concept of actually teaching students and encouraging a love of learning – “may” produce a lesser quality education… Bring on the clowns… where have they been slumbering this long age?

In the politicized inversion of values which occurs in any socialist society, control of the vitally important education establishment is paramount.

Fundamentally based on envy, even fear, of the brightest and most successful, it is disguised under the saccharine persuasiveness of “equality” – not of equality of opportunity, but of its opposite, the leaden weight of “equality of outcome,” our edu-

cation politburo’s favourite mantra.

This hasn’t meant improving opportunities for all children to learn rigorously and well, in spite of the divergence in their backgrounds. On the contrary, it has long been envisaged as a whittling away of standards of excellence, in particular, those annual nationwide examinations conforming to a yardstick to be attained by all – within pupils’ own individual areas of study – with an insistence on basic competence in fundamental learning areas of literacy, and arithmetical knowledge.

As these same nationwide examinations are key indicators of how well schools, together with parents’ support, are providing quality education, they’ve been the first under attack, especially by teacher organizations where mediocre, underperforming, even fundamentally ignorant teachers gravitate to leadership positions, to gain control. Shaw’s mantra that Those who can’t, teach – should now be that Those who can’t teach well, dominate teacher politics and union activism. Born teachers can’t help enthusiastically teaching. But these are in a minority, and most New Zealand teachers are themselves now the products of decades of the undermining of knowledge and learning.

A revolt by parents and employers in Britain has educationists there complaining that if they have to again start teaching literacy and numeracy in their schools there won’t be room for other subjects! Yeah right. Like Al Gore’s fabrications and distortions in his recent propaganda film on global warming, its most glaring fantasies recently attacked by a British High Court judge. The self-interest of ridiculous claims of excessive atmospheric CO2, initiated by the subsequently disgraced ENRON for new profit areas, and continued, the cynical might observe, in the interests of Gore’s ability to profit handsomely from his multimillion dollar carbon trading interests, has been ignored by the gullible and the fanatical. Extremist movements are invariably undiscriminating.

So Gore’s tacky film, hailed enthusiastically by Labour List MP David Parker (with the absurd title of Minister Responsible for Climate Change issues), was immediately inflicted on our children, not as an example of a self-serving ideology which well suited its promoter’s business interests to have uncritically endorsed, but for our children to be pro-

grammed into its thinking. Naturally, New Zealand’s television channels’ management, largely obedient, intellectually passive products of the same long Left immersion, did not screen the critical review which the BBC showed of this propaganda piece whose maker now openly admits to deliberate misrepresentations – in the name of the cause. Oh well, that’s all right then? However, it serves as an egregious illustration of a hijacked education establishment long determinedly attempting to teach our youngsters what to think, not how to think. The Gore fantasia, dumped on so many classes under the banners of economics, science, social studies, etc. has had pupils made to see it three times at a local college pleading not to be shown it again.

But we can we really see this exposé embarrassing our education apparatchiks, using the schools to indoctrinate children in the ideologies they’ve fostered to undermine Western society? – includ-

ing extreme environmentalism running amok; the subversive doctrines of neoMarxism; feminist, gender, and distorted ethnic issues promoting divisive racism; the corruption of our children by Family Planning’s relentless, premature sexualisation of their lives, including its determined attack on family values and the authority of parents. Post-modernism and deconstructionism, basically attacks on truth itself, and denying all objective values, have been reinforced by the Left education establishment. School texts have endorsed oppressively cruel communist régimes, as in China and the USSR, while, of course, demonizing the democratic US and our British colonial heritage – that essentially Christian lifeline brought by our colonist forebears stressing the values necessary to maintain civilization itself.

In Britain, Labour governments’ continual attack on Grammar Schools shows the sheer hypocrisy of the Left. These

“

Fundamentally based on envy, even fear, of the brightest and most successful, it is disguised under the saccharine persuasiveness of “equality” – not of equality of opportunity, but of its opposite, the leaden weight of “equality of outcome,” our education politburo’s favourite mantra

”

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 63

schools were founded in line with the philosophy of those wanting to enable bright children who were poor or disadvantaged to gain places in schools where they would have academic support. The substituted Comprehensive Schools are widely acknowledged to be inferior, often breeding grounds for violence against teachers and the intimidation of pupils from conservative homes. Their demonstrably poor education outcomes have fuelled controversy about Labour MPs, from the glibtongued Tony Blair downwards, ensuring their own children didn’t attend them, but went instead to private schools.

64, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

Parents in Britain are reacting far more militantly than New Zealand parents, largely still tardy in appreciating that their children are being cheated of anything approaching a good education. White flight is increasing not only from areas where the now acknowledged failed policies of multiculturalism and ensuing violence have promoted community unrest, but from Britain itself. In five years the number of parents home-schooling children has increased, in some areas at least eight-fold.

Most distressingly to the Left, Prince Charles has emerged as a champion of quality education for children with his recent

statement that – “There is a need to revisit the fundamental principles that drive our educational beliefs; to re-inspire teachers; to question the notion that equality and accessibility are best served by reducing the range and quality of work that pupils undertake…and to put a stop to what might be termed the ‘cultural disinheritance’ that has gone on for too long.”

The Left are good haters. Our own will hate him for this. And we let them fob our children off with peanuts. www.amybrooke.co.nz www.summersounds..co.nz http://www.livejournal.com/users/brookeonline/

at Christmas!

Real stories for childre AMY (AGNES-MARY) BROOKE is the only New Zealand author whose wonderfully imaginative, wise and magical stories have been compared to those of C.S. Lewis, Susan Cooper (The Dark is Rising) and Ursula Le Guin.

However, her immense appeal to young readers has not prevented her books being blacklisted for nearly two decades by the left-wing children’s writing establishment for challenging its rigid demands for politically

n – or

correct, edgy, manipulative stories on sociopolitical issues – and teen angst.

With it now stipulated that children’s writers “tackle issues” judged to be “contemporary” and “relevant” – we have entered the area described by The Economist as “a matchless area for adult propaganda.”

Amy’s uniquely real stories extend young readers imaginatively – those “voyages of discovery for readers and characters alike” – to which they return again and again.

grandchildren The Third Star & other stories

The latest book for the young (and young at heart) by Amy Brooke

“Quite simply NZ’s best children’s writer… Amy Brooke’s stories are a voyage of discovery for the characters and reader alike.” Mike King Who will speak for the Dreamer?

“I have read it twice. It is wonderful. Why have I not read your books before? Your storytelling skills are superb…the narrative is illustrative without being heavy, the story is chilling enough to enthrall – a wonderfully spiritual, uplifting ending. I love it”.

Kerry Greenwood – acclaimed award-winning Australian author “I have totally, completely enjoyed my first read of Who will speak for the Dreamer? I found it electrifying – an amazing work to galvanise young thinkers – brilliant.” Pam Nevill

Night of the Medlar

W

“A beautiful story … exciting from the first to the last page…a satisfying ending with all loose ends and predictions tied up... its story line has the potential to become a children’s classic. Very highly recommended for primary and junior secondary students who enjoy mystery and magic.” Jackie Pittman. Australian Review.

“Certificate of Merit awarded to Agnes-Mary Brooke for the best book this year read by the Johnson Family…I really enjoyed Night of the Medlar…The story was so life-like and really exciting. I hope you write another book soon.” Shelley Johnson, 12.

The Mora Stone

“What a fabulous film it would make! Just loaded with action, colour, suspense, exotic stuff, romance, and battles!” Kathryn Asare.

Listed on a Yahoo site as one of the best five fantasy books to read, The Mora Stone was nominated by the Children’s Literature Foundation of New Zealand Inc. in the top ten Notable Senior Fiction for 2001, and included on the initial list of nominees for the prestigious international Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature in the US Mythopoeic Awards for Children’s Literature.

Check out Amy Brooke’s fifteen (to date) brilliant stories for young readers on her website www.amybrooke.co.nz and order in time for Christmas from your local bookstore, or Nationwide Books | www.nationwidebooks.co.nz | (03)366 9559.

Mark Raffills, Director, Dry Crust Communications, P.O. Box 3352, Richmond, Nelson | mark@drycrust.com

What lies behind a Christmas tree with a strangely glowing blue light shining like a star? And what is happening in the deep forest behind? And if the Little People themselves were to come back at Christmas, now why do you think that would be – and how would they be getting here? In this book of magical stories for children, a grey cat is not what it seems; animals have adventures we can only suspect; a very naughty child escapes dire consequences – just: and a brave, hungry little mouse has something wonderful happen to him at Christmas!

“Janet (11 years) loved reading this book.

She says that it was very original, and that you’re the best New Zealand author.”

Lyn Smith INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 65

thinkLIFE science An unidentified subject allegedly filmed on October 20, 1967

by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin who claimed the film was a genuine recording of a Bigfoot

In search of Bigfoot

Stories of things that go bump in the night still captivate researchers, reports Anne Dudley Ellis

W

hat’s David Raygoza’s idea of a good time? A full tank of gas in his Jeep, fresh batteries for his video camera and a bag of apples for bait.

Bigfoot bait.

Raygoza, 49, is an award-winning principal at a major high School west of Fresno, California. But for 14 years, he’s also had a secret hobby: tracking Bigfoot in Sequoia National Forest in the southern Sierra Nevada.

Raygoza admits his belief in the legend-

66, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

ary creature makes him sound crazy.

“It’s one of those things that you don’t talk to people about. I think mainstream America looks at it like UFOs or ghosts,” Raygoza says.

Also known as Sasquatch, Bigfoot purportedly is covered in hair and stands 7 feet tall. The creature roams remote forests, with most sightings concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, from north of Eureka to British Columbia, says David Byrne, a high-profile Bigfoot hunter.

Raygoza had kept a low profile on his Bigfoot convictions until July, when he led a symposium on the creature in California.

Raygoza has several photographs of large footprints he believes could be from Bigfoot, as well as video he says shows glimpses of the creature. He says he once found an old nest Bigfoot may have used.

Raygoza’s interest in Bigfoot dates back to his senior year at Riverdale High School, when he read a newspaper article about a 17-year-old student in the Bay Area plan-

ning a Bigfoot hunting expedition.

“I thought, `Wow. What a bold thing to do,’” Raygoza says.

Then, 14 years ago, while camping with a friend in the Sierra east of Fresno, Raygoza came across 17-inch footprints he could not identify. A science teacher at the time, Raygoza was hooked on tracking Bigfoot.

But he found no further evidence for 10 years: “I was really beginning to believe there was no such thing.”

A chance meeting with a man at a goldpanning exhibit four years ago piqued his interest again. The man, an American Indian, said Bigfoot roamed an area near an old sweat lodge in Sequoia National Forest. He told Raygoza: “If you go there, you’ll find what you are looking for.”

Raygoza and a friend made a trip to the location and found several sets of tracks Raygoza thinks were from Bigfoot. Over the past four years, he’s videotaped what he believes may be Bigfoot in the forest, although he admits the images are inconclusive.

“Is it definitive? No, of course not,” he says.

Raygoza says he once filmed Bigfoot eating an apple he had put out as bait.

Stephanie Martin, a counselor at Pershing High, says she “didn’t have words” when she learned last summer that her boss believed in Bigfoot. She prefers not to discuss it with him; she says his stories sound credible, and she is scared by the idea that Bigfoot may exist.

“I know it sounds kooky and crazy, and (Raygoza’s) obviously not,” Martin says.

Terry Cox, president of the Central Unified School District board, had not heard of Raygoza’s Bigfoot tracking but isn’t bothered by it.

She says she and her sons, now grown, have always enjoyed the Bigfoot legend.

Her children belonged to Indian Guides when they were young and participated in several Bigfoot hunts.

One of the Indian Guide mothers made a Bigfoot costume that an older guide wore, running through the woods, allowing the younger guides glimpses of “Bigfoot.”

One year, they forgot to bring the Bigfoot shoe coverings, so the creature ran around the forest in silver basketball shoes, Cox says.

Raygoza declined to be specific about where he searches in the Sequoia National Forest, saying that he’s worked hard tracking the creature and wants to be the one

to come up with indisputable evidence that Bigfoot is real.

He has plenty of company hunting Bigfoot.

Byrne, the Bigfoot expert, has led three expeditions since the 1960s, outfitted with helicopters and infrared sensors. The work of Byrne and two other Bigfoot aficionados are part of a yearlong exhibit that opened Saturday at the State Capital Museum in Olympia, Washington, examining Sasquatch as a cultural phenomenon in the Northwest.

Several Web sites are devoted to the legend. The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization lists hundreds of sightings, separating them into Class A or Class B reports. The organization says that Class B reports are not considered less credible or less important, but they have more potential to be something other than Bigfoot, such as bear sightings or practical jokes.

Byrne, though a believer, says that “90 percent of what we think we know is pure speculation. There’s no experts. We’re all students.”

There are too many eyewitnesses to discount Bigfoot’s existence, Byrne says: “These are really good, down-to-earth people with no reason to fabricate a story.

“I think there could be something out there.”

But Denise Alonzo, a spokeswoman for Sequoia National Forest, is more skeptical. She’s worked in the area for 20 years, and “I’ve never heard or seen anything about a Bigfoot in the forest.”

Stephen Lewis, chairman of the earth and environmental sciences department at California State University, says that if the creature existed, trackers would have found “Bigfoot poop” and other forensic evidence.

His department offers a critical thinking course, “Facts, Fads and Fallacies in the Natural Sciences,” which explores the pursuit of mythical creatures such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster.

“My speculation is that people have a need to believe in magic and mystery, unexplained phenomenon,” Lewis says.

“People enjoy the idea that there’s something out there that is mysterious and not yet discovered. They get captivated by all this stuff.”

Raygoza is not bothered by the skepticism.

He says he’s enjoyed not only the pursuit of Bigfoot, but the beautiful wilderness he’s explored.

“I’m going to continue looking until I

Patterson film subject head enhancement

“

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization lists hundreds of sightings, separating them into Class A or Class B reports...

Class B reports are not considered less credible or less important, but they have more potential to be something other than Bigfoot, such as bear sightings or practical jokes

”

get that shot that is definitive, where people won’t say, `That’s a bear,’ or until I can’t walk those hills,” Raygoza says.

Students at Pershing relish hearing about their principal’s hunting expeditions. Raygoza does not bring the topic up, but he says students have known about his hobby for about four years.

One drew a cartoon that Raygoza has on his wall, beneath the awards he has won as an educator. The cartoon shows Bigfoot selecting a tie from the closet and a human hiding under the bed.

The caption says, “There’s no such thing as a Raygoza.”

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 67

thinkLIFE technology

Lawsuits reveal what can go wrong with airbags

With airbags looking increasingly likely as mandatory in NZ vehicles, legal action in the US reveals just how crucial they can be, writes Mike Casey

T

hree lawsuits over airbag non-deployments reveal what can go wrong with the potentially lifesaving systems.

1. In South Carolina, the son of Lynda Guyton sued over an accident involving a 2003 Ford. The car’s passenger-seat sensor showed no one sitting there, said the son’s attorney, Johnny Parker.

Guyton, who weighed about 54 kilos, was sitting there. The violent crash threw her forward, and she suffered serious internal injuries from her seat belt, Parker said. Her airbag didn’t deploy during the March 1, 2004, accident, and she died on March 9, court records stated.

Ford maintains that the “subject vehicle

68, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

was state of the art” and met all industry and governmental standards. The carmaker settled, but such agreements are not an admission of wrongdoing, says company spokesman Daniel Jarvis.

“Our heartfelt concern goes to her family,” Ford says in response to media inquiries.

2. In Texas, Sharon Bittner sued after the front airbag in her 1996 GMC Sonoma didn’t deploy when the truck hit a guardrail at around 55 km/h. Bittner was wearing her seat belt at the time of the 2003 crash, according to the accident report.

She suffered numerous injuries, including ones to her neck, knee and ribs, the lawsuit stated.

At a trial, an expert witness for Bittner – Sal Fariello of Eastern Forensic Science Group, an accident reconstruction firm – reviewed internal General Motors records.

He testified that the automaker raised the crash speed thresholds too high for firing the airbag.

“They were looking for ways to immunize this truck against expected off-road and snowplow use,” Fariello explained.

So GM set the bags to inflate at a near instantaneous speed change of 26 km/h, he testified. Other experts Fariello cited thought airbags should fire at a near instantaneous speed change of only 19 km/h.

Bittner and the carmaker settled before

the trial ended.

GM attorney Karl Viehman maintains that had the trial continued, the expert witnesses for the company would have testified that the airbag in Bittner’s pickup performed as it was designed. Experts also would have said lowering the threshold for firing airbags would have led to unnecessary deployments and perhaps injuries, he says.

In settling the case, GM did not admit any wrongdoing.

3. In Florida, a lawsuit filed by the widow of Robert Foster, who died after a wreck that occurred driving his 2002 Buick Century, alleged the Century’s airbag system had only one sensor under the front seat.

But unlike airbag systems in some earlier models – or the Century’s sister cars, the Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Impala – the 2002 Century lacked an additional sensor near the radiator.

At the factory, holes had even been drilled into the Century’s radiator support for mounting such a sensor, the law-

suit alleged, suggesting to the plaintiff’s attorney that plans were changed late in the design process.

A sensor costs automakers $10 to $40 per vehicle, experts estimated.

GM faulted Foster for the accident and said airbags wouldn’t have prevented his neck injury. “If any defect existed in the 2002 Buick Century, which GM denies, then the condition of the vehicle ... was not the same as when it left the possession, custody or control of General Motors,” the company responded in court records.

The carmaker settled anyway.

Agreements in many of the airbag cases contain provisions to keep settlement amounts and company records secret. The practice has drawn criticism from some law professors, like Ohio State University’s Gregory Travalio.

“These documents, if disclosed, might allow consumers to have better information about the dangers of products,” Travalio says, “and might be useful information to government regulators as well.”

“

GM attorney Karl Viehman maintains that had the trial continued, the expert witnesses for the company would have testified that the airbag in Bittner’s pickup performed as it was designed. Experts also would have said lowering the threshold for firing airbags would have led to unnecessary deployments and perhaps injuries

”

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 69

feelLIFE

sport

Now it’s over to you, ladies

Sports Editor Chris Forster reflects on a marathon stint at the Rugby World Cup, the faded glory of the All Blacks, and prays for a netball tonic to end 2007

T

he Black Caps made the semi-finals of Cricket’s World Cup, before being found out by the Sri Lankans.

Team New Zealand dominated the Louis Vuitton Cup and rattled Alinghi’s cage, before falling short of their goal to bring home the America’s Cup. Then, the cruellest blow of them all. The All Blacks failing to cope with the pressure and France, in that ignominious quarterfinal exit in Cardiff. Now the Silver Ferns are in the last chance saloon, with the added responsibility of lifting a country’s gloom by denying the Australians at the World Netball Champs in Auckland.

70, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

GRAHAM HENRY has yet to publicly fall on his sword. A recent opinion poll rated the vanquished All Blacks leader as most likely to carry on as head coach. That seemed to be just a fanciful twist in the grieving process. Henry planned meticulously and relentlessly to succeed at RWC 07. He raised the ire of the rugby world by resting elite players during the Super 14.

But when the heat went on in the cauldron that is the Millennium Stadium, his chosen players didn’t, nay, couldn’t respond.

Everything that could go wrong did. n An ordinary French team played out of their skins with a typically Gallic mix

of verve and tenacious tackling. n The young English ref Wayne Barnes sinbinned Luke McAlister and missed a glaring forward pass in the match-winning French try. n Dan Carter engaged in long distance aerial ping pong with the French kickers – then hobbled off with a recurrence of his calf injury early in the second half. n Carter’s deputy Nick Evans pulled a hamstring a few minutes later. n Captain Richie McCaw’s A-game deserted him. n They resorted to trying to drive over for a match-winning try or force a penalty.

NZPA / Ross Setford

The vast numbers of black supporters fell into an inky silence in that dreadful last ten minutes. All you could hear was “allez les bleus” and rousing renditions of “la Marseillaise” from the 20 thousand or so French supporters who’d made the trip to Cardiff in patriotic hope, more than any realistic chance of actually beating the world’s best rugby team.

The plot had begun to unravel about 11 days earlier. The New Zealand entourage was in the pretty university city of Aixen-Provence – half an hour north but a world away from the metropolitan chaos of Marseilles.

It was a couple of days after a lacklustre 40-nil drubbing of a second string Scottish team at Murrayfield. The players, coaching staff and management had just enjoyed a couple of days off – keeping them fresh for the business end of the tournament.

A group of hardened journalists following the All Blacks’ every move in France and beyond were now wondering whether the New Zealanders would be up to a tough quarterfinal, with just a Romanian romp in Toulouse left in pool play.

A probable quarterfinal with France in Cardiff seemed a quantum leap from the untroubled wade through Pool C. Henry launched a petit counter-attack at the team’s quaint Le Pigonnet Hotel that Wednesday night.

“I understand there’s a few grumbles back home about the All Blacks being underdone. I can only presume those grumbles are coming from reporters inside this room”, casting his fiercest gaze around the 40 or so New Zealand reporters and cameramen there for the team naming to face Romania.

“Well I can assure you we are on track and I am disappointed you haven’t been listening to the message we’ve been repeating over and over again.

“Ted”, as he’s affectionately known, was referring to the team peaking at the right time, being conditioned for big matches and primed to hit top gear in the fabled run to the final.

DAN CARTER tore his calf muscle earlier that day. The gifted first five pulled up lame at training but didn’t realise how serious it was until the next day. He was ruled out of the Romanian match naturally – and in a race against time to play in the quarterfinal. Carter was desperate for game time after an indifferent display against the Scots the previous weekend.

It was the sort of injury the selectors could ill afford at the pivotal point of their 3 year campaign. The cards had started to fall against the tournament favourites.

ALI WILLIAMS played the game of his life in a losing cause that ill-fated Saturday night at the Welsh rugby shrine. The maverick lock has his moments with the media, but there’s no denying his athleticism and all round skill to go with his lanky 2 metre plus frame. He stole plenty of ball from French throws into the lineout, was a dominant figure in open play and generally played out of his skin. It’s just a pity his mates couldn’t match his efforts.

“

Henry planned meticulously and relentlessly to succeed at RWC 07. He raised the ire of the rugby world by resting elite players during the Super 14. But when the heat went on in the cauldron that is the Millennium Stadium, his chosen players didn’t, nay, couldn’t respond

”

ROBBIE DEANS has officially thrown his hat into the ring as the next All Blacks curator. Super rugby’s most successful coach ever is a hot property after his stunning success rate with the Crusaders.

Wales want him, Australia’s desperate for him – and New Zealand needs him.

It seems Deans only has eyes for the All Blacks job too, with the Wallabies very much the second cab off the rank. If he’s appointed it would probably mean the end for not only Henry – but his two assistants Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith, who’ve been conspicuously silent since the Cardiff calamity.

You could also imagine the Auckland outcry if they stuck around and there were three Cantabrians running the show.

France did a tremendous job hosting RWC 07. Fans packed the impressive stadiums for all the pool games, and the cutthroat battles that followed. For a nation besotted with football, they embraced the event and celebrated rugby.

There was no trouble, no positive drugs tests, just some ordinary rugby and the inglorious exit of their Frenchmen to England, after their unlikely toppling of the All Blacks.

The challenge is for New Zealand to match the French in four years’ time, as a rugby nation desperate for success and global acceptance.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 71

feelLIFE

health

Forgotten victims

A new study suggests the families of cancer victims take a huge mental pounding

R

esearchers say that the partners of cancer survivors take a mental beating while their loved one fights the disease, and often, those survivors require psychological treatment.

The odds of a partner of a person living with cancer having clinical depression is 3.5 times greater than a similar person in a family unaffected by cancer.

Spouses and partners experience similar emotional and greater social longterm costs of cancer than survivors, says Michelle Bishop, research assistant professor of hematology/oncology at the University of Florida.

In a report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a publication of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), Bishop says she interviewed 177 couples – a survivor of stem cell transplantation and that person’s spouse or partner – and 133 acquaintances of the couple who acted as controls. The participants had lived continuously with their partners as long as 19 years since the original procedure.

About 61 percent of the patients had survived leukemia, 21 percent had survived lymphoma and 18 percent were breast cancer survivors, all of whom had undergone stem-cell transplantation as part of the treatment regimen.

72, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

Bishop reports that partners who suffered depression were significantly less likely to be treated than the patients, to receive social support or to enjoy spiritual well-being, and more likely to experience loneliness than both the patients and controls.

Bishop says she undertook the study after noting that little is known about the long-term effects of cancer and stem-cell transplantation on spouses or partners.

“Spouses or partners of cancer patients must survive the challenges of cancer alongside the cancer patient survivor,” she says. “Partners experience anxiety, distress, and depression at levels equal to or higher than their ill spouses in response to the cancer experience.

Cancer survivors are increasingly dependent on their partners for physical and emotional care because patients are discharged home quicker and sicker. Partners play a pivotal role in providing support to the cancer survivor, which is critical for successful coping and adjustment and even survival.”

“It is important that oncologists realize that they are treating more than just the patient with cancer,” says Dr. Peter Kozuch, assistant professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Bronx. Oncologists should be aware that often the spouse or partner of the patient

– upon whom so much of cancer care is dependent – may need help, too. The treating doctor should be alert to signs in the patient’s family of depression.

“It is pretty obvious from my own clinical practice and from the findings in this very important paper that emotional and psychological problems are as big a weight on friends and families as it is on the patients – sometimes even greater an impact than to the patient,” he says.

“This is the first study to examine the long-term impact of cancer and treatment on the quality of life of partners of stemcell transplant recipients,” says Bishop. “It is the first to include a comparison group of participants unaffected by stem cell transplantation, and the first to examine spiritual well-being in long-term partners.”

She says that the results indicate that the stem-cell transplantation experience can have long-standing impacts on quality of life and patient depression.

Meanwhile, another new study confirms that anxiety disorders are significantly linked to physical conditions such as thyroid disease and arthritis, among others. This co-occurrence of disorders may increase the likelihood of disability and negatively affect quality of life.

The study, which appears in the Oct. 23 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, claims to be the first to use a large epidemiologic sample and standardized physician-based diagnosis in order to evaluate the association between anxiety disorders and physical conditions.

In the past, the co-occurrence of physical conditions related to depression has been well-documented, but the discovery of a link between physical conditions and anxiety disorders is more recent.

Study author and lead researcher Dr. Jitender Sareen of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada and colleagues found people who had both anxiety and physical conditions also had greater levels of disability than people with just the physical conditions. Other ailments included respiratory disease, gastrointestinal disease, migraine headaches and allergic conditions.

Between 1997 and 1999 the authors surveyed 1,913 men and 2,268 women ages 18 to 79.

For the purposes of the study, anxiety disorders included panic disorder, agoraphobia or a fear of being in public places, social phobia, simple phobia, generalized anxiety

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disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Participants’ disability due to these disorders was evaluated by the number of days within the past 30 days that an individual was unable to carry on with his or her daily activities. The authors found that the combination of anxiety disorders and physical conditions was associated with at least one day of disability due to physical illness.

According to the authors, previous studies have found a link between anxiety and physical disorders, but they were limited in several ways. For example, the association between anxiety disorders and physical disorders in clinical samples may be limited by sampling biases, studies using self-reporting of physical health conditions may be misleading, and most studies have used lay interviewers to diagnose mental disorders rather than health professionals.

In addition, results have varied as to the degree of comorbidity of anxiety disorders and physical conditions with disability and quality of life.

In order to avoid the limitations of previous studies, Sareen and colleagues used the German Health Survey to further examine the link between anxiety disorders and physical illness. The GHS uses the DSM-IV, the Composite International Diagnostic Interview and physician-based diagnoses of participants’ physical conditions.

Across all physical conditions, most of the individuals had onset of anxiety before the physical conditions.

While it is an improvement on previously existing work, the authors acknowledged that the study does have several limitations and more analysis needs to be done. One limitation was that the study did not look at individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder, which is said to be linked to many medical problems. Another limitation is that the study is cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. In addition, certain physical illnesses depend more on selfreported data, which may be inaccurate.

However, Dr. Ronald Kessler, professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School, claims that the study has another major flaw.

“The flaw is that physical disorders vary greatly in severity, and it might be that the most severe versions of these disorders are more likely to cause anxiety,” he says.

Kessler also says that the study should include some measure of the severity of physical conditions, and noted that it is important to know the age of onset for the anxiety and physical conditions in order to gauge if one results from the other.

Severe arthritis, for example, might be more likely to cause anxiety than mild arthritis, in which case it could be the unmeasured severity of the arthritis rather than the anxiety that leads to the impairment.

Sareen says he intends to continue his investigation of the topic, and within the data set from this study he will look at particular anxiety disorders to see if any are more strongly correlated to physical conditions than others. “We’re also going to try to address the limitations in a longitudinal study,” he says.

The findings may prove crucial for the way in which doctors treat patients, Sareen says.

“There’s been an increased effort to screen for depression in the medically ill. Our findings show that it’s important to screen for anxiety disorders in the medically ill, too. Once identified, the appropriate treatment ... would treat not only the emotional symptoms, but the physical, as well.”

feelLIFE

alt.health

Natural doesn’t always mean ‘safe’

Be cautious when taking St. John’s wort with other drugs, advises Richard Harkness

Q

: Can St. John’s wort cause the birth control pill to fail, as I’ve heard?

A: St. John’s wort, an over-the-counter herbal supplement, can be effective for milder forms of depression. Case reports do suggest that St. John’s wort could lead to unwanted pregnancies in women using oral contraceptives.

Certain enzymes break down the hormones present in oral contraceptives for elimination by the body. St. John’s wort coaxes these enzymes to work harder. This causes the hormones to be removed from

74, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

the body a faster rate, thus lowering the amount of working hormones in the blood.

The effect might be like taking a weakened pill. Breakthrough bleeding could be a sign of diminished pill effect and possible contraceptive failure.

Women who combine St. John’s wort with a hormonal contraceptive might wish to use an additional form of birth control.

While we’re on the subject, St. John’s wort also interacts with a number of other drugs in a similar way. Among these are the heart drug digoxin (e.g., Lanoxin) and the blood

thinner warfarin (e.g., Coumadin). Blood levels of these medications must be kept within a narrow range. Slightly low levels may not work, and slightly high levels may be toxic.

In this case, the St. John’s wort interaction is a two-edged sword with one edge hidden. Here’s what can happen: Suppose you’ve been stabilized on warfarin at a certain dose, and you start taking St. John’s wort. St. John’s wort pushes down blood levels of warfarin so that it no longer thins the blood properly. Your physician increases the dose of warfarin to regain its effect. If you then stop taking St. John’s wort, the hidden edge reveals itself.

Because St. John’s wort has been holding down warfarin levels, stopping it is like releasing the brakes, allowing drug levels to surge. The result could be excessive bleeding with possible hemorrhage.

This is a blinking caution light reminding us that “natural” (in this case, St. John’s wort) does not automatically equate with safe. Active ingredients, whether natural or Synthetic, have important effects on the body. That’s what makes them work.

Some other drugs and supplements that can interact with St. John’s wort: Alprazolam (Xanax); Antidepressants, including amitriptyline (Elavil); nortriptyline (Pamelor, Aventyl), imipramine (Tofranil), paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft), fluoxetine (Prozac); fluvoxamine (Luvox); nefazodone (Serzone); Antifungals (ketoconazole, itraconazole); Anti-HIV drugs, including protease inhibitors such as amprenavir, indinavir, nelfinavir, saquinavir; NNRTIs such as nevirapine (Viramune), delavirdine (Rescriptor), efavirenz (Sustiva); Anti-migraine drugs such as sumatriptan (Imitrex); Barbiturates; Calcium blockers (diltiazem, verapamil); Clopidogrel (Plavix); Cyclosporine (Neoral, Sandimmune); Dextromethorphan (e.g., Robitussin DM); Meperidine (Demerol); Phenytoin (Dilantin); Statin drugs, including simvastatin (Zocor); atorvastatin (Lipitor); lovastatin (Mevacor); Stomach acid blockers, including cimetidine (Tagamet); ranitidine (Zantac); Tacrolimus (Prograf, Protopic); Theophylline; Tramadol (Ultram); Tryptophan; SAMe. For others, say your pharmacist or physician.

As a precaution, you should get medical advice before combining St. John’s wort with prescription or OTC products.

Richard Harkness is a consultant pharmacist, natural medicines specialist, and author of eight published books

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Ph: 0800 OLLIENZ (655 4369) or visit www.olliepacifichealth.co.nz INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 75

tasteLIFE

TRAVEL

The dichotomy of Bangkok

Travel writer Thomas Swick gets among the locals in the Thai capital, and finds an intriguing city

B

ANGKOK, Thailand – Bangkok is a city filled with all kinds of engaging people; the challenge – as you may have heard – is getting to them. Though I found Ben with no problem. On Saturday morning, I walked out of my hotel at the end of Soi 2 to Sukhumvit Road, where I headed west – the tall Skytrain track looming suggestively above my left shoulder – to Soi 12, where I had been told to look for Crepes & Co. on the opposite side of the street from Cabbages & Condoms.

Like many of the people I meet, Ben was a FOAF (friend of a friend), accompanied by a few friends: two American expats and a handsome young Thai. The Americans were working in government, law, computers; enjoying life, for the most part, in a steamy, overgrown metropo-

76, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007

lis packed with pleasant, decorous people. Though, they all admitted wearily, they were frequently asked to sing “Hotel California” (especially Ben, who hailed from San Francisco). And there was no good Mexican food around. Which, for a city with a large foreign population, in a country that also eats fire, was a little surprising. But there were a number of other distractions for farangs (foreigners).

“I know somebody who works for the U.S. Embassy,” John said. “One of her jobs is to send home the bodies of Americans who die here. There is a high suicide rate in the expat community. And she told me that when she goes to the home she always finds three things: a large stash of cash, drugs and sexual paraphernalia.”

Late for the movie, I grabbed a taxi, a

big mistake. Unable to make a right on Sukhumvit Road, the driver headed east, then south, making a long, circuitous loop on a car-clogged Saturday night. Five minutes before show time, he dropped me off in front of the Emporium.

A glittering mall, it rose up instead of spreading out. The cineplex, of course, was on the top floor. Escalators carried me in air-conditioned splendor to a maze of food islands and indoor cafes through which I hurriedly worked my way to the ticket counter. There, a young woman handed me my ticket and then brought her hands together under her chin and bowed. The uniformed young man who checked my ticket did the same. I had never been so respectfully ushered into a movie.

This gesture, known as a wei, would

have seemed out-of-place had the ticket been for, say, “Shallow Hal.” But I was going to see a Thai film, “The Overture,” about a village boy who grows up to be a master of the ranad, or bamboo xylophone, playing it even during World War II when traditional Thai arts were actively discouraged by a regime bent on modernization. It was a beautifully told story that made an eloquent statement about the role of national culture in perpetuating national identity. Before the movie began everyone in the theater stood, as they do before all movies, even “Shallow Hal,” while the national anthem played and the screen filled with a photo montage of the beloved king.

The taxi Sunday morning had it easy, gliding unobstructed down Sathorn Nua Road to Christ Church. Attending Holy Communion in an Asian capital gives you a whole new perspective.

The interior featured wooden chairs with armrests instead of pews, and there were no kneelers, or even cushions for kneeling. The clear Gothic windows on the south side looked out on clumps of palms, bringing to mind a phrase coined by the writer Pico Iyer: tropical classical.

The Anglican service, conducted by an Australian priest, was very informal, even the baptism of the triplets: Chawin, Chawit, Chawisa. (To me, the names sounded less like a family than a conjugation.) Afterwards, everyone repaired to the parish hall where tables had been pushed together for a tropical classical feast: bowls of calamari salad and curried chicken sat brilliantly next to square pans of macaroni and cheese.

“Do you always eat like this after the service?” I asked a woman.

“We always have lunch,” she said. “But usually something simpler. Today’s special because of the baptism.”

Most of the parishioners were Anglo expats, a few with Thai spouses (predominantly wives). I asked a Canadian consultant how he liked living in Bangkok.

“There are constant assaults on your conscience,” Dave said thoughtfully. “The way the disadvantaged are treated, the great gap between rich and poor. There are no retirement funds, no social welfare, no safety net.

For farangs, of course, things were different. “Thais are gracious, accepting,” Dave said, “up to a point. They smile. They give the wei. It shows respect, deference to

your position. I have a hard time with that at work. You and I don’t do that; we see each other as equals. Why can’t they come up to me and tell me what they think? But they don’t. That’s not their way.”

His wife came by, and motioned to a woman sitting at a nearby table. “She runs an organization that tries to get girls out of prostitution and into a profession,” she said. “They have a beauty parlor, in Patpong (the famous red-light district), where the girls work as beauticians.”

I walked up Convent Road to Silom Road and then through Lumpini Park – couples and families sitting cross-legged around the lake – all the way up to the gathering of malls on Ploenchit Road where Au had told me to look for her at Starbucks.

There were a couple of Starbucks. I waited in one while Au sat in another. I found a pay phone and called her on her cell. She arrived five minutes later, a petite young woman with hair combed back, a few gelled spikes sticking up starkly. She wore a black velour jacket over a tight red top, and bright red sneakers at the other end of jeans.

She was an editor at an English-language city magazine and not, she insisted, a typical Thai. From the age of 9-13 she had lived in Los Angeles, so she came with attitude – delivered in flawless American – though charm and helpfulness kept pushing through. As did intelligence; she had studied, I later learned, at the country’s two best universities, Chulalongkorn and Thammasat.

She filled me in on all the hot spots – Tapas, Home, Bed Supperclub – and the best street vendors for closing-hour snacks.

Though their nights were potentially numbered; the government was talking about implementing a midnight curfew except in a few specially designated “entertainment districts,” which would include Patpong but not Sukhumvit.

Au said that she was leaving the magazine to take a job with the man who had put on the recent Bangkok Fashion City extravaganza. His dream was to turn Bangkok into a fashion capital of, first, Asia, and then the world, on a par with Milan and Paris. Au had gone to interview him for the magazine and he had ended up offering her a job.

For all the ease with which she seemed to move through life, she was not entirely comfortable. “I’m from the Royal Family,” she said. “Way back, but I’m expected to

be prim and proper. It’s not as strict as it sounds,” she explained, but I knew, or could sense, how far removed L.A. mores were from Asian ideals of courtly behavior.

One morning I took the Skytrain to the river and then caught a water taxi heading north, piling on with a colorless crowd enlivened here and there by a few blue-skirted schoolgirls and saffronrobed monks. The boat churned through choppy currents of mud-colored water, high-rise hotels and lopsided hovels lining the banks.

I got off near the Grand Palace and walked up Mahathat Road to Thammasat University, which I found easily because I had made the exact same trip the previous day. Chat, a friend of a FOAF (a FOAFOAF), had been in the middle of examining candidates for graduate studies in psychology, and suggested I come back the next day.

He was 20 minutes late. (It’s not only farangs who have trouble navigating around Bangkok; he would later tell me his morning commute, by bus, took 2 hours).

A few minutes later, Chat was climbing out of a taxi and then leading me around a tight collection of faculties – student dorms, he explained, were far off campus – squeezed between the Chao Phraya River and the grassy expanse of Sanaam Luang. He would do a quick wei, often in the middle of a sentence, whenever a colleague, or even student, passed by. (The height of the joined hands varied, I had read, depending on the status of the other person.) Some of the students – those taking exams – wore white blouses (or shirts) and dark skirts (or trousers, held up by belts with buckles carrying the Thammasat seal). An outdoor boxing ring stood behind the law school.

We had lunch in the large faculty dining room: boiled chicken soup, though it sounded – and tasted – much better in Thai: tom kha gai. We poured it over rice.

A TV set was on in the front of the room, while Thai pop music, unconnected to the show, drifted out of speakers.

Chat told me that he saw no conflict between his professional and religious lives. “Buddhism is advanced psychology,” he said. “When you have stress, something you can’t clarify, you use the way of meditation. You pray to Buddha.

Sometimes you talk to a monk.”

Outside, Chat found a student for me to talk to. Wasinee (not her real name) was

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 77

in her last year of English and American studies, lively, articulate, forthright. She thought the plan to make Bangkok a fashion center was absurd.

“They spend so much money on that when there are so many other things that need help,” she said. “The poor are in the majority, but they’re treated like a minority.”

Wasinee, while perhaps more outspoken, seemed typical of young Thai women, women like Au. “When our elders say, `Do this,”” she explained, “we say `Why?’ We’re not like the old generation. And if they don’t have a good explanation, we don’t do it.”

Later, when we were alone, Chat expressed regret that young women were smoking more than men. “It’s not good for them,” he said. “It’s not good for anybody. But for women it’s not behaving the way they’re supposed to behave.”

“That’s probably,” I said, “why they do it.”

That evening I made the obligatory visit to Patpong. I had called the woman from church, expressing interest in her work with prostitutes, but she had refused to see me, insisting she was too busy. So I was demoted from crusading journalist to lonely voyeur. Not that I saw much. The two main streets were filled, surprisingly, with a kind of night market, and I strolled them both, seeing through the occasional open door a lineup of young girls dancing in bikinis. In one humdrum bar two hardened regulars played pool to the implausible strains of “Greenfields.”

I preferred exploring the dead-end sois of Sukhumvit. Bangkok was a comparatively safe city, despite a capacity for spec-

IF YOU GO

Photography: Devin Kho

tacular crimes, the coverage of which had become the bread and butter of the local, non-English language newspapers. Most of the mayhem was contained within the local population.

You never knew what you would find at the end of a soi. One night, wandering through a hotel lobby, I ran into a large group of Thais emerging from an Amway meeting. “So you’re going to be rich,” I said to the pleasant young woman who needlessly, and futilely, explained the philosophy.

“Not rich,” she corrected me. “Secure.”

Another night I came upon a singer sitting on an outdoor terrace reading a book on English grammar. (Ah, the big city.)

Rose had just finished her set: Thai pop music for guests of the hotel. But her love was jazz: Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday. I could actually see her as the Thai Billie Holiday. Her boyfriend, she said, was a jazz musician, with a regular gig

GETTING THERE: Thai Airways had wonderfully gracious service, even in coach.

GETTING AROUND: The Skyway (BTS) is great not just for transportation but as a kind of air-conditioned monorail for observing the city. Helping its somewhat limited reach is the newly opened subway. For ground transportation, taxis are cheap but subject to traffic jams; motorcycle taxis will get you there faster (you may be asked to wear a helmet). If you don’t mind the fumes, tuk-tuks – scooters with covered seats added on – are fun and easy to catch.

LODGING: A wide choice, from the historic and luxurious Oriental on the river (www.mandarinoriental.com) to the historic and affordable Atlanta off of Sukhumvit Road (www.theatlantahotel.bizland.com), and everything imaginable in between.

EATING: Again, a daunting selection of foods (a very international mix of restaurants) and places to eat them – from elegant dining rooms overlooking the river to the sidewalks of dead-end streets. You’ll find all your Thai favor-

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in the Bamboo Bar at the Oriental Hotel.

We walked to Sukhumvit Road and stopped for a nightcap on the sidewalk. A short-legged table hugged the shutter of a closed-down shop, two drink menus resting atop it. Inches from the traffic stood a portable, well-stocked bar, which carried, somewhat grandiosely, the name “Bar 5/7” (no doubt because those were the numbers of the sois it stood between).

We took our seats on the tiny stools and the bartender came to take our orders – Singha beer for me, orange and lime juice for Rose. When he returned, he placed our drinks on the table as if we were regulars.

Thai pop music blared from a neighboring shop while the nightly parade – street kids, painted ladies, lanky transvestites, soft-soled tourists, weathered vendors, briefcased businessmen, roving Western men, unlikely lovers – passed inches from our eyes.

ites, of course – pad Thai and shrimp curry and chicken satay – as well as regional specialties less familiar here. The Atlanta Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 2 has a wonderful restaurant, with piped in classical music and what it claims is “the world’s largest selection of Thai vegetarian dishes.” Also, definitely try a durian, the malodorous fruit with the scrumptious taste. (I passed on the insects sold by vendors.) And it’s not just the food in Bangkok: One night, at the restaurant/gallery Eat Me (Soi Phiphat 2), I had the most delicious cocktail of my life: a lemon grass mojito.

SIGHTS: The Royal Grand Palace, Wat Pho (get a massage here at the traditional center of the art), the National Museum, the Night Market (with the Joe Lewis Thai Puppet Theater), Chatuchak Weekend Market, the Floating Market, Phra Arthit Road (full of student cafes), the side canals, Jim Thompson’s House (the beautiful home of the man credited with revitalizing the Thai silk industry, with, appropriately, an elegant silk shop on the premises), Siam Square (to see the hip and the young), among other things.

INFORMATION: www.tourismthailand.org.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 79

tasteLIFE

FOOD

Hamming it up

James Morrow finds that while all pigs are equal, some pigs are more equal than others

I

s there any animal that is by turns more celebrated and at the same time maligned? On the one hand, wherever pigs are raised, farmers and chefs have created delicacies based on complex systems that start with the swine’s diet and continue on through a variety of smoking, curing and preservation methods.

On the other had, the pig is much maligned by two of the three Abrahamic religions. The Jews consider pork traif – that is, not kosher. Muslim prohibitions on pork, which were picked up by Mohammed from his dealings with Jewish traders and tribesmen in 7th Century Arabia, are even stiffer. Witness the tales of pre-emptive banning of Three Little Pigs-type stories from British classrooms!

Yet it may well be that pork found itself on the Biblical banned list due to its deliciousness.

One theory held by some scholars holds that the Old Testament prohibition against pork was not rooted in hygiene but in cold practicality. Pork was such a delicacy, the theory goes, while pigs were such intensive resource consumers, that it was literally a matter of survival to make sure this delicacy did not catch on and create a demand that would have swamped the sustainability of the desert environment.

Yet pork, whether it takes the form of a Christmas ham or a Sunday morn-

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ing bacon and eggs with the family, is so often the stuff of special moments.

A couple of years ago this magazine published the story of a music promoter sent to prison over dodgy dealings, and one of the most poignant moments of the whole tale was witnessed when one of the guards, who kept pigs on the side and fed them scraps from the penitentiary’s kitchen, slipped our protagonist and the other inmates who worked in the kitchen a slab of his bacon and a couple of dozen eggs, admonishing them to have a feed but not get caught. In the squalor of a jail full of lifers and hard cases, the humble meal was a lifeline to the outside world. For a short time, he wrote, they felt like kings.

Of course, even as the prophets were quite literally laying down the law on pork, elsewhere in antiquity clever cooks were working on ways to preserve meat, especially pig meat, and prevent its decomposition.

Today pork – which was tagged “the other white meat” in an advertising campaign several years ago by America’s pig farmers in a bizarre attempt to convince consumers that their product was just as insipid and non-threatening as mass-market supermarket chicken – is undergoing something of a renaissance in our part of the world.

Multiculturalism, and the mainstreaming of immigrants from Italy and to a lesser

extent Spain and elsewhere, have transformed what were once exotic, unfamiliar, and for lack of a better word, “woggy” ingredients into specialities inner city foodies will pay top dollar for. At one Italian deli near my house, top-notch imported prosciutto sells for around $100 a kilo, while at another shop Spanish jamon iberico commands three times that figure.

In the 1980s, it was said that cocaine was God’s way of telling you that you had too much money. Today, the same tale can be told by your antipasto platter.

Is becoming a pork snob worth it? Sure.

So forget shaved ham. Stock your larder with prosciutto, pancetta, speck, and jamon. Wrap scallops or quails with speck and grill them this summer, put pancetta in your pasta sauces, and serve jamon and prosciutto to your mates. Salty, sweet and savoury; what more could you ask?

Spaghetti all’Amatriciana One of my all-time favourites, it is as easy to make for one person as it is for a dozen. A great pantry meal, it’s a great option when unexpected guests drop by.

You’ll need: Spaghetti, or other dried pasta Olive oil 100-150 g pancetta, sliced into lardons 1 onion, sliced into thin half-moons 2-3 cloves garlic 1 400g tin diced Italian tomatoes Dried chilli flakes, to taste Good handful grated pecorino cheese Method: 1. Set a pot of salted water on to boil. When the water is roiling, add your pasta.

2. Heat some olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat, and add the pancetta, turning rapidly to brown on all sides. Carefully pour off some of the fat, then add your onions and garlic, tossing well to coat. Continue to sauté them for two to three minutes, then add a ladle-full of the pasta water.

As this cooks down, add the tinned tomatoes and turn down the heart. Season with salt, pepper and pepper flakes.

3. When the pasta is just al dente, strain well and add to your sauce, tossing to coat with the cheese.

Serve on individual plates or in one large bowl, family-style, with more cheese and olive oil.

This recipe makes enough for two, but can be infinitely multiplied.

Pollo alla Sensese I saw this recipe made one morning on TV, and tried it out that very night. It came out so well that later I would make it for mates, and then with my children, who believe that bacon is a major food group, who were thrilled to help wrap the chicken breasts, and who delighted in my telling them off in a stage Italian accent: “Issa no bacon! Issa speck!”

This recipe is adapted from London chef Giancarlo Caldesi.

For the chicken: 4 chicken breasts 200g pecorino cheese, cut into four slices 12 slices speck 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 50ml White wine 50ml chicken stock 1 tbsp aged Balsamic vinegar For the potatoes: 450g unpeeled Potatoes 2 tbsp Olive oil 4 wild garlic cloves, unpeeled To serve: 1 tbsp snipped chives 4 handfuls rocket salad 1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4.

2. Oil a 5cm diameter ring.

3. For the chicken: slice a 2cm incision at the thick end of each chicken breast.

Insert a slice of cheese into each of the pockets you have created.

4. Lay 3 slices of speck on a chopping board, making sure they slightly overlap.

Season 1 stuffed chicken breast with salt and pepper and lay it on top of the speck slices. Roll the speck tightly around the chicken breast. Repeat with the remaining chicken breasts and speck.

5. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a frying pan, add the chicken breasts and cook for about 3 minutes until the speck is golden brown on all sides.

6. Pour off the oil from the pan and add the white wine. Cook steadily for 2 minutes until reduced, then add the chicken stock.

7. When the stock is heated, transfer the chicken and its juices to an ovenproof dish adding the remaining olive oil. Cook in the oven for 20 minutes until the chicken is cooked. It may take a little longer depending on the size of the chicken breasts.

8. For the potatoes: bring a pan of salted water to the boil and cook the potatoes until just tender. Drain well. Allow the potatoes to cool slightly, then peel and discard the skins. Chop the potatoes into 2 inch chunks.

9. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, when hot add the potato chunks and cook for 3-4 minutes over a medium heat until lightly browned.

10. Just before the end of the cooking time add the garlic cloves. Toss the garlic in the oil and cook until lightly golden. Season well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Crush the potatoes and garlic gently with the back of a spoon, discarding any garlic skin.

11. Put an oiled 5cm diameter ring on a serving plate. Spoon some of the crushed potatoes into the ring; level the top with a palette knife. Remove the ring to produce a small tower of crushed potatoes. Repeat with the remaining potatoes. Sprinkle with freshly chopped chives.

12. To serve: put a handful of rocket salad and 1 chicken breast on each serving plate. Add 1 tablespoon aged balsamic vinegar to the juices from the baking dish and stir. Pour the balsamic juice over the chicken and serve immediately.

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seeLIFE PAGES

Those who forget

Michael Morrissey is tested by Clive James, and fascinated by the case of Paddy Costello CULTURAL AMNESIA

By Clive James, Picador, $45

S

ome of us – as the title of this fat tome of short punchy essays provocatively implies – may be suffering from cultural amnesia but assuredly not Clive James. He seems to have read everything of importance especially of the last two centuries. And then proceeds to make ex-cathedra pronouncements on their cultural and intellectual significance in the arena of ideas with the same confident arrogance that Harold Bloom deployed when choosing his equally provocative Western Canon. I have no problem with arrogant Popish-sounding cultural pundits providing they stimulate, provoke and even show evidence of good judgment – and are witty.

In all these aspects, James scores excellent brownie points especially with wit – his proven forté. Though, at times, one has the feeling James would murder a reputation for the sake of an epigram.

In moments of weakness, I like to consider myself reasonably well read but James puts me not just in the shade but in eclipse. Of the 106 writers, poets, artists, politicians and actors he examines, I had heard of around 66 – that left another 40 who were new to me. While I feel it is no disgrace not to have heard of Ernest

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Robert Curtius, “the most eminent medieval romance philologist of his time”, it seems I should have heard of Golo Mann, “modern Germany’s greatest historian” or Ernesto Sabato who wrote, so James authoritatively informs us, better essays than Jorge Luis Borges.

The gamut of cultural icons runs from Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig and picks up Jorge Luis Borges, Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, Jean Paul Sartre etc along the way. In such a Catholic, if not encyclopaedic assembly, it seems surprising that the likes of Joyce and Lawrence and Hemingway were missed (though there is plenty about Hemingway sneaked in on the essay on Fitzgerald). If Llosa, why not Marquez? And why not Germaine Greer whom James knows? Alan Moorehead is the only Australian included, a choice that reveals James to be an unashamed Europhile, Great Traditionalist, Western Canonist and of course an ex-Cambridge don which means that vogue figures like Kerouac and Burroughs do not even merit a mention – not even in the index. And why include the relatively obscure musicologist Alfred Einstein and not the shatteringly famous Maestro physicist Albert?

Why Tony Curtis? – the only “serious” actor apart from comedians Chaplin and

W.C. Fields? The answer must surely be, this is after all a personal round up not a compendious documentation of the most important figures in European culture even though much of the time that is what this collection distinctly aspires to be.

James loves to think sideways, to explore by association and cross reference.

In his essay on Thomas Mann for instance – and, by the way, there are four Manns included in the lineup – he draws in Charles Chaplin, Wagner, Milton, Croce, Syme (and many others) plus a prolonged attack on the epic. Very dazzling, Clive.

The wonder of it: you never feel James is bluffing, he always sounds like he knows what he is talking about. From time to time, the impressive performance limps a little. The essay on Hitler is woefully inadequate and eccentric. Nonetheless, Hitler merits more mention throughout the book than any other figure. Clearly, James has his sense of history in perspective.

The broadcaster and satirist who is the most public expression of James’ persona is present in the cheery wit that can criticise Steiner for regarding Heidegger and Sartre as being like Goethe and Schiller, whereas in his view they ought to be likened to Abbot and Costello. While this glib shaft shows the flippant shallow side of James, there is a super abundance of

fully re-written and reinvented by the novelist, artfully enrichening the text.

I don’t read a lot of books with a happy ending – is it my pessimistic temperament or is it the times?- but this novel manages it with aplomb. (Clue: formerly sinister foreigner marries local beauty). For Aucklanders in particular, this book is replete with familiar backdrops – Waiheke Island, Great Barrier Island, fishing off the Admiralty steps, the grimly working class Grey Lynn area and the narrow-minded Jingoistic times which, like anything we look back on with a cringe, now possess a nostalgic charm – all well-evoked in this accomplished novel.

GOD’S SPY

By Juan Gomez-Jurado Orion, $36.99

T well-turned analysis that marks him as a memorable and quotable essayist: “The young Hemingway sounded like Gertrude Stein, and later on he sounded more and more like Hemingway, in the dreadfully hypertrophied example of the self-imitation we call mannerism.” Even better is his wry observation on critics of Thomas Mann: “Literary pygmies are always making pronouncements about what goes on in the head of a giant, and the pronouncements always sin through over-confidence.” Clive, old chap, I know exactly what you are talking about.

REMEMBER ME

By Derek Hansen HarperCollins, $34.99

D

erek Hansen is an English-born, New Zealand-raised writer who now lives and flourishes in Australia.

Remember Me, his ninth novel, is set in New Zealand. The time is 1956 and the narrator, a twelve year old, has a knack for getting into trouble.

When I, an almost exact contemporary of Hansen, was riding my bicycle all over Auckland, his hero (I’m guessing modeled on himself) hit on an even better way to find danger and adventure – by going underground. He and his foolhardy com-

panions go roaming through stormwater drains in pitch-black darkness. The danger is the instant flash flood that surges through the tunnels. While Hansen (I shall identify Hansen with his hero), was panicking at being locked in a stormwater drain deep underground, I was shivering in fear at giant mutant ants roaming the sewers of Los Angeles in Them! I’m sure Hansen had a tougher time in the drains than I had in the cinema.

In terms of compelling narrative, the drains are the high point in adrenalin but there is an even larger drama that Hansen effectively explores. Mack, an older man that the boy hero-worships, tells him a chilling story in confidence. When fishing off the coast of Great Barrier Island, he runs out of petrol. When a U-boat surfaces, and the honourable captain, Christian Berger, who speaks English, offers to help him out if he will give his word not to blab, the price of his vow is heavy guilt: when the Niagara is sunk by German mines, the submarine may well be responsible. Thus Mack becomes a traitor and the boy his accomplice in silence.

There is an extra literary layer to this gripping narrative – extracts from essays by the lad which are spliced into the beginning of each chapter and continue the story. The original essays have been cheer-

o write a bestseller these days, mix either Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene, the Pope or the Catholic Church together with sex, murder, torture, secret codes and intrigue and watch your bank balance swell. Gomez-Jurado doesn’t include the Son of God or Mary Magdalene but uses most of the aforementioned ingredients and throws in an additional grisly variation – a serial killer priest assassinating cardinals in the nastiest way imaginable. Unlike the trashy Da Vinci Code, God’s Spy, despite its lurid plot is well written and filled with convincing details about the Vatican – both its layout, architecture, traditions, cardinals – and its police, two of whom figure prominently in the dark twists and turns of this gripping thriller.

It’s also becoming standard fare in these equal opportunity times to have a female hero instead of a male one – enter Paola Dicanti, inspector and psychiatrist, Head of the Laboratory of Behavioural Analysis.

She will need all of her credentials and expertise to figure out the machinations and movements of Father Victor Karosky, one of the scariest villains to be encountered in contemporary fiction.

To counterpoint the blacker than black Karosky, an abused paedophile (as well as cardinal murderer) there is the intriguing Anthony Fowler, a former intelligence officer in the US Airforce who has been involved in some dark doings in Nicaragua, courtesy of the CIA.. Take purely as a character, Fowler is easily the most interesting in the book though

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 83

I wonder if any real life equivalent does exist. The other character of particular interest is the tough and nuggety Fabio Dante, a Superintendent with the Vatican police who makes the tactical mistake of becoming besotted with the indifferent Inspector Dicanti. Dicanti, for her part, falls for the many-sided Fowler who, like a character out of a Graham Greene novel, struggles to find a moral path for himself. In fact Fowler, is the kind of morally ambiguous creation that Greene would have enjoyed creating had to lived into the twenty first century.

This novel adds veracity to what one hopes is a very fanciful plot (but don’t count it out as an impossibility) by adding a description of the Vatican, City from the CIA World Factbook (Cultivated land, 0%, death penalty still in existence); articles from the Maryland Gazette that scream AMERICAN PRIEST ACCUSED OF SEXUAL ABUSE COMMITS SUICIDE (not alas the murderous Father Karosky who has to be dispatched with a bullet between the eyes fired by expert marksman Fowler); a report on the synthetic hormone Depo-Covetan which reduces sexuality but unfortunately increases aggression (at least in Father Karosky) – and so forth. This frequent documentary format adds considerable veracity to what we can only hope is an improbable plot.

Gomez-Jurado’s equivalent to Dan Brown’s Opus Dei is the Hand of St Michael, a covert Vatican hit squad. So far as I know this organisation is nonexistent (though I am open to correction). But it adds an extra fictional flavour to a very spicy Vatican brew. Whether you are pro-Catholic or anti-Catholic, this thriller will take you on a tour of the Vatican complete with secret passageways that are strictly off-limits to tourists. My guess is Juan Gomez-Jurado will never be made a papal Knight and when he goes to confession he should be cautious.

THE SIXTH MAN

By James McNeish Vintage, $35

T

his latest non-fiction book from novelist James McNeish is outstanding. Novelist? By now, McNeish’s non-fictional and historical works exceed in number his eight novels. His previous Dance of the Peacocks skilfully interwove the political and military histories

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of Oxford dons John Mulgan, Geoffrey Cox, James Bertram, Ian Milner and Dan Davin. Here he focuses on Paddy Costello, diplomat and outstanding linguist. Costello was a marginal figure in Dance of the Peacocks, here he takes centre stage.

And what a fascinating and impressive fellow he is! Take his ability as a linguist.

Being someone who once had the honour of being the worst student in an inaugural class of Chinese at the University of Auckland, I feel humbled by the abilities of one who could speak English, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Irish and Persian and a working knowledge of Arabic, Sanskrit, Old Church Slavonic, old Russian and Yiddish.

Clearly, the absence of TV and YouTube has its advantages.

Having left the University of Auckland in a minor blaze of glory in 1932, Costello acquitted himself well at Cambridge and befriended Griff Maclaurin, a gallant and idealistic New Zealander communist bookseller who was killed in Spain fighting Franco. Such associations together with his pro-Russian and antiAmerican stance plus his sacking from Exeter College for allegedly offering advice to a Hubert Fyrth on how to circulate a banned British newspaper, ensured that Costello came to be regarded as a Russian secret agent. Because he was at Cambridge with Philby, Maclean, Burgess etc he is here ironically dubbed the sixth man – i.e. the sixth Cambridge man of this group to become a Russian spy – an allegation currently being contended by Graeme Hunt in Spies and Revolutionaries which McNeish asserts is unfounded.

McNeish is at pains to deny the charge which has been alleged by various writers from Chapman Pincher onward.

According to McNeish, the charge did not directly issue from spy-convicted Anthony Blunt but from a former MI5 officer, Peter Wright, who “remembered” Blunt naming Costello. McNeish comments that, “It was not uncommon of security agencies doing deals with defectors ... to introduce the names of suspects for whom there was little evidence”. McNeish concludes that Blunt may never even have mentioned Costello’s name at all.

Costello’s name also came up in connection with some forged passports for a pair of communist spies, the Krogers. Again, Costello seems to have had no connection

to the matter and it was Jean McKenzie, the New Zealand Chargé in Vienna, who innocently signed off the documents that assisted the Krogers in their mission of passing on atomic secrets to the Russians.

Apart from being an attacker of rumourmongering, Cold War suspicion and guilt by association, McNeish makes a number of canny observations that make it unlikely Costello was what he was accused of being. For instance, that British security officers inspecting New Zealand embassy quarters found that an office safe had been tampered with indicating that the Russians had taken away cipher pads and copied them. Why, asks McNeish, in the manner of an expert defence lawyer, would the Russians have done that if they had a spy in the office? And why, since Costello was the first person to tell the West about the Russian nuclear bomb as early as 1947, would he do that if he was a Russian spy?

In any event, McNeish says his aim was not to disprove Costello was a spy – which can never be done conclusively – yet the charge obviously rankles him.

Apart from the frequent mention of the spy allegation here is a very full and loving portrait – with often just that extra bit of detail that shows the novelist is still very much on alert – of an outstanding New Zealander who was the first western diplomat to report on the Nazi extermination camps and the first to blow the whistle on the Russian nuclear device.

Apart from being a multi-linguist, diplomat and solder, favourite of Freyberg, Costello was a rumbustious Irishman who liked to binge drink, enjoy a good stoush with his close friend, fellow intelligence officer Dan Davin and mischievously get straight-laced men merry as well. All in all he was apparently a colourful and likable character. Where, one wonders, are the polyglot Costellos of today? I’ve doubt they are out there and hopefully at some future time an historian as gifted as McNeish will emerge to tell their story.

THE GREEK LETTER

By Ron Riddell Neoismist Press, $29.95

R

on Riddell has published 15 volumes of poetry – several of which have been translated into Spanish – but this is his first novel. It could be

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 85

Cre8ive 3898CI

called a geographical novel as it is set mainly in Auckland, Sydney and Greece – the latter country being particularly dear to the author’s heart.

It begins with disorientation – Jim Robertson, sometime General Manager of finance, has lost all memory of who or what he is. This amnesiac confusion is not explained thereby creating a sense of psychological mystery. When he is introduced (or reintroduced) to his wife he cannot remember her. His doctor – satirically named Dr Bloch (a Viennese psychiatrist whose father knew Freud) – directs that his “therapy” is to be returned to work. In his condition, this is equally bewildering. The Greek Letter is about the gradual discovery of identity.

Riddell shows a keen sense of satire throughout this novel.

A fine example early is on when the doctor tells the narrator’s wife that he has been having philosophical thoughts, and Stella exclaims: “Goodness ... he’s never had those before”. The doctor also suggests that Jim’s amnesia is merely an attempt to run away from family responsibility. To which he agrees though clearly he is not convinced and neither are we. Whatever the cause of his memory loss, a combination of art classes and a return to social and working life slowly restore him to normal.

A flashback passage quoting a letter from the Prime Minister reveals the narrator’s father went missing during the Battle for Crete in 1941. This thread is taken up later on in the novel and leads to Jim’s discovery of a half sister. Meanwhile, Jim re-enters life with gusto – characters appear and disappear in rapid picaresque-style succession. One of these is the redoubtable Baxter. Arguably New Zealand’s greatest poet, the bearded bard has appeared more than once in New Zealand fiction – and probably will again. Baxter, the poet turned hippie commune leader and would-be prophet, still arouses controversy today. As portrayed by Riddell, Baxter is a slightly sad yet heroically humane figure who winds up being bashed by a local redneck who doesn’t care for “pansie bastards”. In other words, if you’re a poet, prepare yourself for trouble.

Enter romance in the form of the young, casually dressed but beauteous Sasha. So also does the narrator’s old friend Mal now running a trans-Tasman business. Between exchanges with his unsympathetic brother Doug, and a passionate love affair, Jim makes it to Sydney and becomes a tough office executive unimpressed with the local graft which is endemic.

Riddell makes a number of trenchant observations about the differences between Auckland and Sydney with Auckland being the more favorably regarded. Riddell’s socially satiric eye also alights on university English departments and a hectic Sydney cultural occasion in which eclairs and cream sponges are tossed in a melee.

Riddell’s novel recalls the late 60s and 70s with a period charm which includes Jimi Hendrix, Cuban cigar-sized joints, communes, cultural fracas, and macrobiotic carrot juice diets.

In its ending pages, the novel moves way from its earlier satiric tone. When Jim lands in Greece, Riddell the poet makes a strong entry with several lyrically beautiful descriptions of the landscape. The novel ends with the narrator finding roots which he scarcely knew existed though subliminally hinted at in the father’s letter and other flashbacks. In the fulfilling conclusion he, like a character in a Paul Bowles novel, reaches a place that he has never known yet in which he feels curiously at home. Memory has returned!

seeLIFE MUSIC

Hidden treasures

Chris Philpott takes Goldenhorse for a trot, and raves about Paul McLaney GOLDENHORSE Reporter

STEVIE WONDER Number Ones

PAUL McLANEY Diamond Side

I

B

I

’ve mentioned before how hard it must be to follow-up a massively successful debut album, and often miss what may be an even bigger challenge: namely, how do you follow up the disappointing second album without falling into the same pitfalls?

Goldenhorse are known for the kind of feel-good, sugar-coated, lovey-dovey 3 minute pop singles that make me feel queasy – tracks like “Maybe Tomorrow” or “Out of the Moon” are great examples, and Reporter is packed with the same kind of irritatingly catchy tracks we’ve all heard a million times before.

Okay, maybe I’m being a little unfair.

On the positive side, tracks like “Saying My Name”, “Calico Reporter” and album opener “The Last Train” do show the potential that the group possesses, while steering clear of the blatantly annoying pop sound of Out of the Moon. In fact, I can say with some pride that I managed to get all the way through Reporter in one sitting.

Multiple times, in fact!

Reporter gets off to a great start, but ultimately (and far too quickly) falls back on the groups’ catchy pop sensibilities so often that I can’t help but wonder if it is hurting the growth of their writing as a band.

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est of’ collections, particularly from all-time greats like Stevie Wonder, pose something of a challenge for a reviewer like myself.

I mean, what can I say that really hasn’t already been said?

It’s well known that Stevie Wonder was blind from infancy, a defect he overcame to learn no less than 10 musical instruments, sign with Motown Records at the age of 12 (the label he is with to this day).

It’s well known that he went on to become one of the most successful songwriters of the 20th century, pioneering change in a more traditional musical style, bringing it to a mainstream audience and to the top of the charts, and winning 22 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award and selling over 100 million albums in the process.

Likewise, I don’t think I need to start name-dropping tracks like “Superstition”, or “Higher Ground”, or “Signed Sealed Delivered”, or “Sir Duke”, or “Master Blaster”, or “I Just Called to Say I Love You” (all of which feature here).

With a career like that, it really does go without saying that any collection of hits from an artist as popular and as prominent as Stevie Wonder is going to be great value for money.

don’t think I would be exaggerating if I were to say that Paul McLaney is one of New Zealand music’s best-kept secrets, as well as one of its most under-rated talents.

Moving to New Zealand at the age of 12, McLaney started his musical career with band Gramsci (who coincidentally wrote possibly my favourite NZ song ever, “Don’t” with Anika Moa) before going solo in 2006 with debut release Edin and appearing in various collaborations, including “Man For All Seasons”, the highlight track from Concord Dawn’s album Chaos By Design.

2007 sees the release of Diamond Side, a second solo album which finds McLaney’s sound stripped right back to almost nothing – gone are the beautiful string arrangements and lush, full sound of Edin, replaced by McLaney’s sincere, soulful voice and a simple acoustic guitar.

By golly, does it work!

Diamond Side provides testament to McLaney’s talent, with his unique voice booming out over some of his best tracks yet; “Once Upon a Time” and “Red Letter Day” particularly stand out.

This is a simply fantastic album from a great Kiwi talent, and a collection that stands out on its own or as the perfect companion to McLaney’s previous work.

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seeLIFE MOVIES

Of queens and bees

Cate Blanchett’s Elizabeth sequel and Jerry Seinfeld’s the Bee Movie rate with the critics Elizabeth: The Golden Age Rated: M Starring: Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush, Abbie Cornish, Jordi Molla and Rhys Ifans Directed by: Shekhar Kapur 114 minutes

T

he Queen just wants to have fun.

Well, she also wants to defend England from Spain and serve her subjects to her utmost. But when Walter Raleigh, swashbuckling hunk, enters her court, he makes her feel more like a natural woman than a mighty head of state.

Heavy lies the head that wears the crown in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, the long-gestating sequel to 1998’s Elizabeth.

Like that first film, The Golden Age focuses on the battle between private desire and public duty, the necessary renunciation of a personal life when matters of security and protocol won’t permit one. With their mix of cloak-and-dagger intelligence games and royal soapsuds, the Elizabeth movies manage to make the 16th century kinda sexy, if a bit bauble-like.

Last time out, Cate Blanchett’s Elizabeth I realized she couldn’t dally about with

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Lord Robert of Leicester (Joseph Fiennes) and pay her country the attention it needed. So she becomes the born-again Virgin Queen. Now it’s Clive Owen’s Sir Walter Raleigh, fresh from his adventures in the New World, who makes her highness weak at the knees. But she holds it together, at least until her favorite lady-inwaiting, Bess (Abbie Cornish), muddies the waters. That’s when Elizabeth straps on her armor, mounts her steed and rouses the troops to take on the Spanish Armada.

Hell hath no fury like a queen scorned.

The public-private royal tango received a more modern and sophisticated treatment in last year’s The Queen. Helen Mirren’s Queen Elizabeth II feels that public mourning for Princess Diana is unseemly; Prime Minister Tony Blair realizes that it’s politically expedient for all involved.

The film depicts a changing of the guard away from the cloistered royal mystique.

The Elizabeth films, on the other hand, are about the creation of that mystique. It’s no secret that Blanchett is a master of metamorphosis; here’s a woman who can win an Oscar for playing Katherine Hepburn (in The Aviator), then turn around and play Bob Dylan (in the upcoming I’m Not There). Taken as a whole, her double

Elizabeth duty reveals an impressive arc, from naive girl to Virgin Queen to seasoned, very human leader. It’s this sense of humanity – vulnerability, rage, pride – amid the highest levels of power that makes Blanchett’s performance a powerhouse.

Some of that humanity might have been reserved for King Phillip II of Spain (Jordi Molla), whose Catholic fervor comes off as a one-note tune of Snidely Whiplash-like evil. He might have been a bad man, but at least make him a little more interesting for the sake of the drama. And I could have used a little more of Geoffrey Rush’s Sir Francis Walsingham, the queen’s spyin-chief who reminds us that political dirty tricks are hardly an American invention.

The Golden Age feels like two movies – one a bodice-ripping romance, the other a study in statecraft and power. But these strands, one private, one public, come together in the title character and the balancing act she must master. Director Shekhar Kapur cleverly turns us into voyeurs by having his camera peer around latticework and columns, making everything public to the viewer. In the movies, as in the queen’s life, private life is a scarce commodity.

Reviewed by Chris Vognar

BEE MOVIE Rated: TBC Animated Directed by: Steve Hickner & Simon J. Smith 91 minutes

B

ee Movie is a wry, animated lark for a comic who turns out to have a pretty good voice for cartoons – Jerry Seinfeld. But it’s also an often-inspired smart comedy for kids, and a vintage Seinfeld laugh for adults.

Computer-generated animation is used to tell a story full of Seinfeld’s observational humor, almost all of it aimed at observing bees. And, as a father now, he forgets the standing-motto of his old TV show – No learning! Bee Movie packs in more info on bees than you can shake a hive at.

Jerry is Barry Benson, a young bee fresh from a one-day college career (three days for grammar school), ready to take on the world in his bee-sized Converse sneakers.

But in his Central Park hive, that’s a pretty limited world. Sure, there are jobs – “so many choices,” his pal Adam (Matthew Broderick) enthuses. But how good are those jobs?

“Hair removal. Filtering out the crud.

Regurgitating.”

And once you pick a job, that’s what you do. “The same job for the rest of your life?” Barry whines, voice-cracking.

Dad can lecture that “Every small job, done well, means a lot,” all he wants. All Barry sees is the drudgery of drones, making the honey.

He wants to get out, see the world, join the “pollen jockeys” as they ‘’pound the petunias.’’

So he does, and that’s when he breaks the cardinal rule: “Bees never talk to humans.”

In talking with Vanessa, the florist who saves him from a squishing (Renee Zellweger), Barry finds a friend and learns an important truth. All those bees killing themselves in menial jobs their entire lives, and for what? So humans can steal their honey and put it in bottles shaped like the bees’ nemesis, the bear!

A bee can’t afford to lose his temper.

He stings, he dies. So Barry decides to do what the humans do. He goes to court.

Bees, “in our wooden-slatted prisons” – hives – will no longer ‘’be honey slaves for the white man!’’

Chris Rock shows up as a bloodthirsty mosquito, John Goodman vamps as a

“

A bee can’t afford to lose his temper. He stings, he dies. So Barry decides to do what the humans do. He goes to court

”

Southern preacher-styled lawyer for Big Honey in court (Oprah is the judge).

Patrick Warburton is the borderline-hysteric who dates Vanessa the florist.

Some bits don’t work, but the buzz on Bee Movie is that the learning overcomes this. Bees stop working (or die off), you get no flowers. No flowers, no fruit, nuts or vegetables. No flowers would make for a very brown planet. But no fruit or veggies? No people.

That’s the best “lesson” of any animated film this year.

Reviewed by Roger Moore

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 89

seeLIFE DVDs

A laugh a minute

Colin Covert loves Knocked Up, finds the latest Pirates an epic Knocked Up R16, 130 minutes

K

nocked Up throws away the rule book on romantic comedy to give us a giddy relationship story that is as fresh and messy as real life.

The smart, sharp story is neither a male fantasy (though it surges with high-testosterone, R-rated rowdiness) nor a female date-movie daydream (though it overflows with heart). There’s no magic or fate in the way the Ben (Seth Rogen) and Alison (Katherine Heigl) meet; they just bump elbows at a club. There are no contrived hurdles keeping them apart until the fadeout; they’re just unsuitable for each other.

She’s a stunning, ambitious interviewer for the E! channel. He’s a pudgy pothead slacker. Lovely individuals. As a couple, inconceivable.

Yet after a night of dancing and drinks to celebrate her promotion to on-air talent, the tipsy Alison finds herself stripping down with Ben. (“You’re prettier than I am,” is his disarming idea of sweet talk.)

Since the camera-ready blonde is so far out of his league – Ben resembles a scruffy, pink-painted Shrek – their hookup looks as if it will be a one-night stand.

But when a birth-control blunder turns the pair into expectant parents, they set out to fashion an alliance, move on to “friendship with benefits,” and press ahead into love, commitment and sacrifice. The film is a ringing defense of traditional values, delivered with clever, raunchy humor.

Like The 40 Year-old Virgin, Judd Apatow’s

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debut film as a writer/director, Knocked Up is a winning ensemble comedy with a rudimentary plot. Apatow, who honed his craft on standout TV shows such as Freaks and Geeks, The Larry Sanders Show and Undeclared, understands that appealing characters are the lifeblood of the genre, and delivers them.

Rogen, a scalawag supporting actor in his first starring role, makes Ben the kind of easygoing, sardonic dude you’d like to pal around with. He’s not such a good bet for a life partner on paper. He rooms with four arrested-adolescent stoners, and his idea of a career plan is building an Internet database of tasty movie nude scenes. When Heigl’s Alison sees him playing with her little nieces, though, she melts, and so do we.

Alison is no Legally Blonde stereotype of young, successful beauty, but a tolerant, warmhearted optimist who believes that her sister’s bad marriage won’t be the pattern for her relationship. Ben’s reluctance to memorize baby books and tuck in his shirt for a real job, along with Alison’s hormone-induced mood swings and the likelihood that her TV bosses won’t take kindly to her increasingly visible pregnancy, contribute an undercurrent of comic tension.

Knocked Up invites us to spend a lot of time in this crew’s company – it clocks in at a longish two hours and 12 minutes – but the astute mix of soul-baring and stoner gags keeps the film from overstaying its welcome. Grownups, your summer smash has arrived.

Release date: 21 November

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End M, 168 minutes

W

hether you’re satisfied or stupefied by the latest “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, you won’t feel shortchanged. If this extravaganza of frenzied action, multitudes of featured performers, titanic naval battles and a flotilla of miraculous special effects could be distilled to a single word it would be: Whew!

Do you thrill to the sight of great ships in exotic locales? This episode voyages to the China Sea, the Arctic Circle, back to home port in the Caribbean, and, fulfilling the subtitle’s promise, to the World’s End, a torrential waterfall that makes Niagara look like a dripping faucet.

If that’s too wet for you, there are desert scenes where the Black Pearl sails on sand dunes. There’s more swordplay and smooching from Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). There’s more of the resurrected buccaneer Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), ably carrying the film until Depp makes his remarkable entrance.

Best to stop there. The studio has issued a request that reviewers not disclose the story’s twists and revelations, and I’m happy to comply. Even if I were in what Capt. Jack calls a “divulgatory” mood, I couldn’t do the tale justice. The movie demands a second viewing to unpack all the skullduggery.

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TOYBOX Epson Stylus Photo R290

The Stylus Photo R290 has six individual colour ink cartridges, so consumers replace only the ink cartridges that are used for cost effective printing. With fast print speeds up to 38ppm, and borderless 4x6 inch photo printing in as little as 12 seconds, the Stylus Photo R290 is efficient and productive in both home or small office environments. The Stylus Photo R290 features Epson PhotoEnhance utility that enables consumers to produce the optimum print every time by automatically adjusting the colour balance to allow for the different requirements of portraits, landscapes or groups. In addition, both models also come with PortraitEnhance to detect faces in an image and enhance face definition and skin radiance to ensure beautiful, natural skin tones. Included with the Stylus Photo R290 is a USB cable for immediate out-of box usage.

The Stylus Photo R290 is RRP $179 including GST and is available for purchase at consumer electronics retailers, computer superstores, mass merchandisers and office superstores.

Visit www.epson.co.nz

Happy snapping Image creation for summer

Olympus E-410

Breaking new grounds in compactness and weight, the stylishly designed Olympus E-410 takes carry-everywhere convenience for an SLR camera to a new level. Family users, light-packing travelers, snapshot shooters, and keen photo-bloggers alike will enjoy using this camera on a daily basis because of its unobstrusive size and weight, and remarkable slimness. It’s no wonder that this camera is truly ideal for the “Everyday Explorer”. The E-410 lets you take superb photos without the fuss. Easy, selfexplaining “Scene” picture modes automatically adjust the camera to the best settings to use for each shot, so that all you need do is to pick the type of picture you want to shoot, and the camera does the rest! Featuring a 10 megapixel image-sensor and an all new picture processing chip, the Olympus E-410 delivers vibrant yet believable colours with low noise and rich details, even at higher ISO settings. The high image quality allows for large picture prints such as wall sized pictures of a favourite family picture, or a memorable landscape taken on holiday. It also provides convenient cropping flexibility so that you can choose to use only the part of the image you want later in editing. Visit www.heperry.co.nz

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PENTAX OPTIO S10 The stylish Optio S10 features 10.0 effective megapixel resolution as well as Digital SR (Shake Reduction) and Face Recognition AF & AE in an ultra-compact aluminum alloy design that the popular “Optio S” series is so well known for. The Optio S10 is the seventh DivX Certified digital camera from PENTAX, allowing photographers to create high-quality video files that can be played back on a wide variety of DivX DVD players and other devices. One of the smallest, lightest 10.0 megapixel digital cameras in the world, the Optio S10 is a perfect travel companion for both business and leisure. www.pentax.com PENTAX OPTIO Z10 The Optio Z10 features 8.0 effective megapixel resolution and a 7X optical zoom lens in an attractive compact and lightweight design. Designed with a refraction lens system so the lens never protrudes from the camera while zooming, the 7X optical zoom covers a broad range, from wide-angle to telephoto zoom, and offers an ultra high-magnification of up to approximately 35.7X when combined with digital zoom. Shake Reduction allows stress-free telephoto photography, and Face Recognition AF&AE function with high-speed detection time. With the Optio Z10, zooming in on all the action has never been easier, thanks to its high magnification and high image quality capabilities. www.pentax.com

TRIOPS CAMERA

Triops is a robust digital camera which allows the user to experience new perspectives and perceptions and takes the potential of digital photography to a new level. The camera is equipped with three protected fisheye lenses and allows for an active, spontaneous and playful photography experience. This product can take images while being thrown, suspended or just being placed in an unusual location. It captures the moment by responding to sound or movement, or by reacting to the manually operated release. Sequentially taken photographs are possible as well as 360 degree panorama images. All working parts are integrated in the robust casing and can be operated easily and intuitively. Pictures can be wirelessly transmitted to a separate display unit for display. This unit functions as a processing and storage device and the camera‘s charging station. For more details go to www.franziskafaoro.de

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 93

realLIFE

LAST WORD

Trailing an apocalypse

The United States is close to setting up a new tourist attraction – the site of one of the planet’s most cataclysmic floods. William Dietrich discovers just how big this flood was

S

EATTLE – The ground trembling came first, Eastern Washington shuddering under the approach of an Ice Age flood of 500 cubic miles of water, weighing more than 2 trillion tonnes.

The sound next, an ominous rumble growing to an overpowering roar. A cloud of mist on the horizon. Beneath it, a towering, unstoppable wave.

The water was a brown slurry, soupy with silt, rocks, trees, icebergs and any animals unlucky enough to get in its path: mammoths, giant sloths, beavers the size of bears. Basalt columns were peeled off like string cheese. Some gravel from Montana would be carried all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Other would be left in bars as high as a 40-story building.

If any humans were in the Northwest then, roughly 15,000 years ago, the inun-

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dation would have seemed like the end of the world.

The wave itself was a prow of white water, pushing a shockwave of air. Rivers typically flow from near zero to 10km an hour, but this flood started at freeway speeds. In volume, the deluge thundering across the Pacific Northwest was 10 times the combined flow today of all the rivers on Earth.

The flood started in the Idaho panhandle as a wall of water 700 metres high, bursting through the remnants of a glacial dam at 110 km/h. It spread into temporary lakes as it plowed west and south, and bunched into a rising boil at every canyon and constriction. In the Columbia River Gorge, it rose again as deep as 700 metres, its kinetic energy so great that it gouged out a pothole below sea level in the John

Day River canyon.

At the Gorge’s western end, the flood depth was still 250 to 300 metres, and water shot past Oregon’s Crown Point like a fire hose at speeds as high as 130 to 140 km an hour. One of its gravel bars would become east Portland, the water there 130 metres deep. The flood backed up the Willamette Valley as far south as Eugene – 150 km away, the swirling current grounding ice chunks that, when melted, deposited odd boulders across future farmland.

On the flood poured. Sea level was 100 metres lower then than now, and the coast a hundred and sixty kilometres farther west. The flood crossed this plain and plunged into the sea so violently that it scoured a canyon underwater and carried parts of Montana – 600 million cubic

metres of sediment in all – in a curving arc as far south as California.

After a week or two, the flood subsided to normal river levels, the land around stripped bare. Halting recovery began in the ensuing years, vegetation getting a toehold on ravaged floodplains. Then, 30 to 50 years later, another flood would come.

This cataclysm happened as many as 100 times over the next 3,000 years, helping carve the Washington we see today.

Welcome to the Northwest’s proposed newest, most timely tourist attraction.

Well, we increasingly know the past.

And there’s no better place to contemplate the future effect of our atmosphere’s change than the base of Washington’s Dry Falls at Sun Lakes State Park, a landscape catastrophically carved the last time the planet dramatically warmed. The Ice Age’s end may have been partly due to unexplained “burps” of carbon dioxide from the ocean some 18,000 and 13,000 years ago, according to a paper in the journal Science published in May. The last Ice Age went out with a roar, not a whimper. The result is one of the most dramatic examples in the world of what climate change can mean, and Congress has plans for a tourist “trail” to commemorate the little-known story.

Some municipalities aren’t waiting for Congress. The Wenatchee Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau, for example, already has a map of its own 164-mile flood loop, which includes Dry Falls.

Following the entire trail could be a daunting project for the amateur geologist. Its primary roads are estimated to total nearly 1,600 km long, says Gary Kleinknecht, president of Richland’s Ice Age Flood Institute. Secondary loops could double that.

“You just can’t fit the entire story into a national park,” notes retired Eastern Washington University geologist Eugene Kiver. The only photographs that take in the entire scale of the flood are from space.

A key central point is the geologic marvel of Dry Falls, which is what the name implies – the dry cliffs remaining from an Ice Age waterfall more than twice as high as Niagara and 3½ times as wide. It ran when the Ice Age Columbia River flowed through a canyon called Grand Coulee, creating one of the greatest waterfalls in geologic history.

Congressman Hastings has vivid memories of being taken to the site as a boy.

Yet as spectacular as Dry Falls was for thousands of years, it was reduced to little more than a hump during the Ice Age floods, so gigantic and overpowering was their wall of water. “It was absolutely massive,” Hastings says.

He likes to visualize the floods from the crest of Rattlesnake Mountain near Hanford. When the water pooled at Wallula Gap, waiting to force its way through the Columbia Gorge, the TriCities site was under 250m of water.

For decades, making sense of the story was chiefly an arcane feud among rival geologists, the public only slowly informed. Only in recent years have we realized a distant disaster could be a tourist attraction, enhanced by new curiosity about climate change.

Washington is a geologist’s Disneyland, packing desert, glacier, volcano, sand spit, earthquake and flood into a relatively small area. Two epochs stand out.

The first is the floods of lava that flowed over 63,000 square miles of the Pacific Northwest between 17 million and 11 million years ago, covering the Columbia Basin with basalt up to two miles thick.

The surface was flat as pudding until it began to warp and be carved by rivers such as the Columbia.

The second is the most recent Ice Age, from roughly 80,000 to 12,000 years ago.

This was just the latest of a series of ice ages, stretching back 2 million years, and that series is in turn just the latest of at least four major ice epochs in our planet’s history, at least one of which turned the globe into a completely frozen “snowball earth.” For this flood story, only the most recent advance of the ice can be traced.

An ice cap covered almost all of Canada and extended down the Puget Sound basin just past Olympia, burying the area under nearly a mile of ice.

For those wanting to follow the events on a map, here’s what happened. East of the Cascades, a glacier plugged the present-day course of the Columbia River with a wall of ice near the location of Grand Coulee Dam. The ice was four times higher than the dam’s 180m above bedrock. The river backed up to form 4,000square-kilometre Glacial Lake Columbia and, blocked from its normal riverbed, spilled south to carve the canyon we call Grand Coulee.

In Idaho, another ice lobe blocked the path of the Clark Fork River. This 700

metre-high glacier backed water up in western Montana until it formed Glacial Lake Missoula, totaling 530 cubic miles or more than Lakes Erie and Ontario combined.

The Great Salt Lake is the remnant of yet another Ice Age sea that eventually broke through to flood the Snake River Valley.

Just what starts and stops ice ages remains under study, as does the exact sequence that led to the great floods. Solar or astronomical cycles, volcanism and ocean “burps” may all have played a role.

In any event, when Glacial Lake Missoula deepened enough, it may have floated its ice dam and undermined it, the ice giving way in a cracking explosion.

Alternately, the ice might have been overtopped. Whatever happened, the huge lake was released all at once.

When water velocity doubles, its kinetic energy quadruples, and the erosive power of the floods was almost unimaginable.

Geologists John Elliott Allen and Sam C. Sargent have calculated the combined energy of all the pulses may have been double that of the comet impact 65 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Geologist David Alt, in his “Glacial Lake Missoula and its Humungous Floods,” says the deep, fast-moving water formed “kolks,” or extremely powerful whirlpools that plucked at rocks the way tornadoes pluck at mobile homes. Dutch engineers have seen kolks in Europe swirl car-sized boulders like bits of paper.

In Eastern Washington, the whirlpools drilled at basalt like jackhammers. Today’s Dry Falls retreated 30 km from where its lip was first located as successive floods ate backward at the cliff.

Bruce Bjornstad, geologist at Pacific Northwest Laboratories, notes in his “On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods” that the water formed other impressive waterfalls as well, carving the spectacular cliffs of Frenchman Coulee near the Columbia River.

The result is a landscape that puzzled geologists early in the 20th century: what controversial catastrophist J Harlen Bretz called “the channeled scablands.”

Eastern Washington is crisscrossed with dry canyons or ravines called a wash in the Southwest, a wadi in the Middle East, and a coulee here, from the French couler, “to flow.” Bretz, a Seattle high-school biology teacher turned amateur geologist, was puzzled by their proliferation, so he got a geology degree and went exploring. In a 1923 meeting of the Geological Society of

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, December 2007, 95

America in Seattle, he won a standing ovation for carefully describing the coulees, attributing their presence to glacial runoff.

Two months later, however, he shocked his colleagues by proposing that the coulees had been carved not over eons, but in days or weeks.

The uproar was immediate. For the past 150 years, geology had been combating biblical estimates that Earth was created in 4004 B.C., estimating instead that our planet is actually 750,000 times older: time enough for both erosion and evolution to take place. Now Bretz seemed to be evoking Noah. Worse, he had no idea where the water came from.

Another geologist, Joseph Pardee of the U.S. Geological Survey in Montana, had the answer. In 1909 he realized a vast lake had once submerged present-day Missoula 300 metres deep, formed by a giant finger of ice that pointed down Idaho’s Purcell Valley. He wrote a paper about it. But while geologists castigated the prickly Bretz, he and Pardee never formed an alliance, for reasons historically unclear.

Pardee published his own definitive paper in 1942 giving convincing evidence – ripple marks looming 15 metres high and a hundred metres apart – of a rapid emptying of

Lake Missoula in as little as 48 hours.

Still, many geologists remained unconvinced until persuasive field trips in the 1950s, and did not admit their conversion to Bretz until 1962, when he was already retired. One basic geology text wasn’t revised to mention the floods until 1971, and it was only in 1979, when Bretz was 96, that he finally received the Penrose Medal, the nation’s highest geologic award. He died at age 99.

Bretz’s assumption was that one titanic flood was responsible, and Richard Waitt, a geologist now with the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, taught just that with colleague Vic Baker in a field trip in 1977. Shortly afterward, however, he spotted a gash carved by an overflowing irrigation canal in the Walla Walla Valley with sediment deposits that could only be explained by multiple giant floods.

“In the field trip we were down to one or two floods,” he recalled. “Two days later, we had 40. That gash proved to be the Rosetta stone.”

Geologist Brian Atwater of the University of Washington later did careful sampling in northeast Washington and counted 89 floods without reaching bottom, leading to present-day estimates of up to 100 cata-

strophic water releases. The ice lobe would break, fresh ice would flow from Canada to once more dam the Clark Fork, and the cycle would be repeated every 50 years or so. It ended only with the melting of the continental ice cap.

In the past few decades, science has become much more comfortable with catastrophes and the idea that our planet goes through sudden, wrenching changes.

One theory is that rising sea levels after the ice age broke through the Bosphorus Straits and rapidly deepened the Black Sea, drowning early civilizations on its shore and giving rise to legends of Noah’s Flood and Atlantis.

Astronomers have found channeled scablands on Mars startlingly similar to Eastern Washington, theorizing this meant that Mars, too, once had titanic floods.

Here on Earth, the result is a proposed trail with an intriguing tale to tell. It includes a geologic mystery with colorful personalities, a story of cataclysmic instead of gradual change, and an easy-tosee example of the consequences of global warming. The route is not just scenic, it is educational and thought-provoking.

Will greenhouse gases be as dramatic this time? While there is no Canadian ice cap now, there are theories that melting of the Greenland Ice Cap could derail the Gulf Stream and ocean circulation, freezing Europe. The collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could raise sea level 7 metres. Heat energy in the atmosphere could generate more wind and cause more evaporation for rainfall. Africa and the Midwest could become drier, with massive crop failures. But consequences are still debated.

What we do know is that the earth has been gripped in a freeze-thaw cycle for 2 million years, and that civilization has arisen in an inter-glacial period of remarkable climate stability. The cycle of season and temperature that humans have regarded as normal for agriculture may actually be abnormal.

The new trail, then, will serve as both warning and reassurance. The warning is that nature can’t be taken for granted.

And the reassurance, like Noah’s rainbow, is that even some of the worst floods in geologic history did, eventually, pass, leaving the Pacific Northwest with the spectacular landscape we have today.

The mammoths are gone, and humans may go, too. Earth, however, abides.

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