Stormy Weather

"Avarice, the scourge of politics."        Broughton The weather in New Zealand is lousy.  Like the government, it's totally unpredictable and doesn't make sense.  It has no consideration for the subtleties of life in the slow lane.  One minute the sky is clear and the next it's snowing and freezing the balls off female sheep.  No wonder homosexuality is legal and two ewes can get married to each other.  Even rams can enter a civil union, or whatever it's called.  I think it's a bit like a trade union calling a strike against civil disobedience and then refusing to watch the news on television.  Deprivation seems to be the name of the game. But seriously, New Zealand has struck the depths of winter at the right time of the year.  It makes a change to get something right.  Perhaps Mother Nature has been listening to the politicians and has decided that as she controls the world, she's going to do the exact opposite of what they normally insist upon.  Bad weather in winter and not during the summer months seems logical enough to reduce the fast lane to non stop traffic jams. A massive snow storm a week ago saw parts of the South Island grind to a halt.  Children less than four feet tall were buried in cold white stuff and many lampposts and phone lines collapsed in sympathy. The kids fought their way to the surface and rather than celebrate life, complained bitterly that TV and their electric blankets wouldn't work.  What on earth was the world coming too?  How could they possibly live without electricity?  The only good thing was that their schools closed for the duration.  A week later there are still about a thousand isolated country homes without power or telephone. Naturally the Prime Minister passed the buck by stating that as local councils hadn't declared a state of emergency, bureaucratically speaking, government was unable to do anything sensible like knit woollen socks for children suffering from TV and play-station withdrawal symptoms. The Minister of Civil Defence missed the bus and swallowing commonsense, did absolutely nothing.  Eventually the army swung into action and flew its helicopter over the snowed in areas and charged its Unimog's battery in case it was needed to ferry the politicians around. Housewives rallied together and baked endless muffins decorated with artificial snow and made sure they were delivered by privately owned four wheel drive vehicles.  Owing to the 8.5 billion dollar budget surplus, the Minister of Finance couldn't afford to donate towards the petrol bills, so the volunteers dipped into their own pockets.  There's no law saying snow storms warrant government expenditure. The humbug of Dicken's Christmas Carols? Private choppers flew fodder to floundering stock in the Southern Alps, although many newly shorn sheep froze to death.  Frozen lamb chops for the deepfreeze? Generally speaking, and as usual, the private citizens stepped forward and helped where humanly possible.  So far nobody has died.  I guess one must be thankful for their selfless consideration.  Local councils also stepped into the breech and snow clearing machinery rumbled night and day. No doubt government will call for an official report on what should have been done but inevitably the reality will be ignored as not being feasible or politically correct.  New Zealand politics isn't based around commonsense, honesty and decency.  It's all about self interest and money gathering.  Bureaucratic ticks in little boxes come first, and to hell with the people.