Just because I told her I knew everything important she got into an argumentative discourse.
"I know things you don't know Poppy. You don't know who I sit next to." She had a point.
It was a waste of time trying to explain I only knew important things. Apparently my idea of what is important at 64 is at the other end of the spectrum as to what a 6-year-old thinks is important.
She does concede I taught her all about thunder and lightning. I am also hoping that I am teaching her how to find her own God if she needs one and to question everything.
"Vive la difference" as the French would say. And that includes Muslims.
I am looking forward to the time we may talk about Trump. However, no evidence of political DNA has surfaced as yet.
PAUL EVANS, Parkdale
Future feared
I share Barry Garland's concerns for the future (Chronicle Feb 4) but am resigned to the fact that our actions and attitudes thus far have consigned us to a path of inexorable evolution and arbitrary consequences.
We see this manifested in our own little islands as our Government congratulates itself for its economic management by increasing the population through immigration as poverty, homelessness and the social divide grows.
No wonder Mr Key resigned as the crows come home to roost.
The only ultimate replacement for democratic capitalism would have to be some sort of logically programmed artificially intelligent doomsday machine to mediate upon and enforce human affairs.
That, or the deliberate manipulation of our psychic and physical nature to make us co-operate more like bees or ants for example.
Perhaps we should all be applauding Donald Trump's election, for he shows the potential to be one of history's page-turners - if not for the reasons he espouses.
L E FITTON, Whanganui
Palestine story
Those who wish to understand the reasons for the tension between inhabitants of the Middle East, in particular those who dwell in what is termed Palestine, need to be conversant with more than 20th century history including the events of 1948 when the State of Israel was established and of 1917 when the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire was dismantled after World War I.
I draw your readers' attention to a 66-page A5 booklet entitled Who Owns the Holy Land?
Published in 2001 by the St Andrews Trust for the Study of Religion and Society, it is the written record of four lectures by Dr Lloyd Geering (formerly Principal of Knox Theological College Dunedin and Professor of Old Testament at Otago University) given at St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Wellington.
Copies are available via the inter-loan service operated by the Alexander Public Library.
The first chapter entitled the Jewish Claim would hold little new information for those who are conversant with the Old Testament section of the Christian Bible.
We are reminded that more than 3000 years ago the eastern Mediterranean coast (termed the Levant) was important as a trade and military route between ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Here lived the Canaanites and the Hebrews; Semitic peoples who fought against the Philistines.
Even by 1200 BC the tribal Israelite occupation of Palestine had been completed and by 200 years later a united monarchy of Israel had been established. Yet in 721 BC the Assyrians had subjugated the northern section of the kingdom of Israel.
It was the turn of the southern kingdom of Judah to fall to the Babylonians in 587. The fortunes of the Jews fluctuated under the rule of the Persians and then that of the Romans who figure so importantly in the New Testament part of the Bible.
Dr Geering summarises the Jewish claim on the grounds of divine promise, occupation and anti-Semitism in the Diaspora.
JOHN STEPHENSON, Whanganui
Printing money
Heather Marion Smith wants governments to print money to pay their bills. It is called quantative easing.
Obama favoured this - the problem is that it puts wealth into the pockets of the asset-rich at the expense of wage earners and the elderly who have money which they rely on for their lifestyle so they find they are getting poorer quicker than they thought they would.
Their savings are going rotten, and their income from interest disappears.
We would be in the same situation as countries whose population does not trust the banks and keeps their money under the mattress. The government misses out on tax take as people just do cash deals.
G R SCOWN, Whanganui
