Your views: Readers' letters

THEY'RE THE BEST: A recent patient praises the Whanganui Hospital A&E department. PHOTO/FILE

Forget Facebook

Caroline Ritchie displays astonishing -- and, unfortunately, increasingly rare -- true wisdom in her editorial of October 31.

She reveals she has deleted all her Tweets and dumped Facebook.

Hooray! Real people are fighting back against the stifling effect of the pervasive goop that those two addictive digital narcotics represent.

The internet has much positive intelligence, but I don't count Twitter and Facebook among that.

Those online entities often stifle independent thought and pleasant, personal planning as they mould one into mindless sameness.

Seems if you don't agree with the "crowd", you can be harassed. There has to be more to life than setting yourself up for harassment.

I did join Facebook, not long ago, for I had been nagged into believing it would be a primary business tool to get myself known. After a few days of putting up with drivel coming "down the chute" from Facebook, I deleted my membership. I have to face myself in the mirror each morning, and I want to respect what I see.

I had a desperate call from an old friend in Christchurch.

It took me an hour on the phone to bring her to a place in her mind where she could once again think for herself, and then immediately she found her own solution to her previously "unsolvable" problem.

She was so grateful, but essentially all I did was to remind her to be her own person, not someone else's "makeover", caused by do-gooders who tried to make my friend into their image.

The do-gooders were like Facebook -- pressuring my friend to be the same as all their other mindless, identical social "monkeys" without a thought of their own between them.

Caroline Ritchie has done Chronicle readers a service with her subtle allusion in that we need look no further than our own aspirations born of individual personality, and work on those as the primary foundation of what we want to achieve in life.

STAN HOOD
Aramoho

Whanganui A&E

I was referred to A&E by my local GP and spent approximately six hours there.

I can only congratulate all the staff concerned for their courteous, friendly and professional care during my stay.

Even on my departure, when I dripped blood over myself and the floor, the nurses rushed to my aid and cleaned up both me and the floor with not a hint of complaint.

Thank you, ladies, you're the best.

DUSTY MILLER
Marton

Service, not ego\

Hopefully Wednesday, November 9 sees the moment that the United States finally grows up and has its first woman president.

A half-century after America was practising segregation is long enough.

We need to move beyond where we vote on the grounds of gender or ethnicity. The pendulum has swung and the US needs some balance, intellect and maturity.

China and India now hold almost half the world's population, so we do not need a star-spangled policeman. As in New Zealand, we need government where service comes before ego.

KEN CRAFAR
Wanganui

Prison staff

Finally the electioneering abuse of the Opinion section of the Chronicle has come to an end.

Never again will I accept the editor's assurance that such blatant use of this forum will be policed to ensure that this platform is rigidly censored. What a load of hog's wallop!

However, time to venture in other directions, as I notice my friend Potonga has.

Bugger the land claims and unfairness to "Maori", let's have a crack at the US presidential elections for a change. Sorry, Mr Neilson, but I don't think your observations are going to have any effect in the US.

My moan this time is about employment within government departments, in particular the Corrections Department, which I have considered to be farcical for many years.

Like most people in this country, I have always assumed that the staff in our prisons were appointed because of their ability to deal with the physical activities of their inmates, until I looked at a few Corrections officers and wondered how they were ever appointed to this role.

So I write to the Corrections Department and a month later get a response (got to be a doubt there already).

As an old infantry soldier, I have always been amazed at the physical requirements of police officers every two years, but the Corrections criteria are unbelievable. To quote the response I finally got: "Candidates JUST need to have an average level of fitness and be able to walk quickly/jog, walk up steps, bend down to search under a bunk and drag/pull weights up to 75 per cent of their body weight."

(The capitalisation of the word "just" is my disdain for this laughable response.)

Having viewed many Corrections officers in many different forums, I have formed the opinion that this is a great job for elderly, balding males and extremely obese females who are capable of subduing a miscreant simply by sitting on them. I guess there is security in numbers, which all taxpayers are funding.

Think I should apply!

D PARTNER
Eastown

Fluoride & 1080

To Stan Hood: In an ideal democracy, a well-informed majority should be driven by a desire to promote desirable outcomes for all citizens.

In a situation you have illustrated, a well-educated majority may have little to gain itself but is aware that a successful outcome could seriously help a whole community.

Especially those in less fortunate positions who do not have access to or can make use of the necessary relevant information, in part due to the more stressful nature of their lives.

That is what a good democracy is all about. What is so weakening of democracy is when the well educated can't or won't be bothered to accept the important responsibility of making a serious study of a contentious issue and helping the community make good decisions rather than making bad ones.

I do not feel your letter achieves anything to promote better understanding as to how a democracy functions, which I know was your intention.

To Garry Gleason: Of course the whole business of destroying pests is a nasty business, but are we to sit on our hands whilst the killing of our unique wildlife and forests by those pests continues at the present rate?

Until we have more benign and effective ways of pest control which will save our forest heritage, we have no alternative to 1080. Our forests and wildlife do recover from 1080, contrary to your belief.

DARRELL GRACE
St John's Hill

1080 concerns

Mr Gleeson is correct in having grave concerns on the tonnes of 1080 poison being dumped over this country each year.

I too have spent over 45 years exploring untracked regions of bush and have witnessed the deathly silence that follows 1080 drops. Some areas will never recover to pre-1080, and some areas may -- and have-- done so, but not all.

The whio numbers are slowly on the improve in areas with no aerial application of 1080 and using the more successful ground-trapping for bait-shy mustelids.

This indiscriminate class-A poison (1080) with no antidote has been in use for over 50 years in New Zealand. Sadly, over this very long time, thousands of family pets and valuable farm stock have suffered the extremely cruel death of 1080 poisoning, not to mention the unknown numbers (which must be in the 100s of thousands) of our native birds killed through direct and secondary poisoning as it goes through the food chain.

Apparently the original intended victim, the possum, is according to Mr Grace still in the population numbers that were being quoted decades ago. Obviously, it is not cost-effective or efficient in its intended use.

R P TREVOR-ROPER
Whanganui