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The Weekend Sun
The Weekend Sun is published every Friday, circulating throughout the Western Bay of Plenty, delivered free to 63,100 homes of more than 157,300 residents from Waihi Beach, through Katikati, Tauranga, Mt Maunganui, Papamoa and Te Puke including rural and residential mailboxes.
THE BAY’S MOST READ NEWSPAPER. The Weekend Sun is produced by Sun Media Ltd, an independent and locally owned company based at 1 The Strand, Tauranga. Sun Media also publishes Waterline and Coast & Country
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Happy Feet destined to be a Happy Meal We’re all delighted, in our typically hapless, misguided way, to see celebrity penguin Happy Feet hitching a ride on a ship going south.
All our do-gooder instincts give us a warm fuzzy feeling thinking we’ve done something helpful for nature, when in reality, we are messing with things we understand little about. After all, Happy Feet is about to become a Happy Meal. He’s been cooped up in captivity for months, weak, out of condition, disorientated and perfect fodder for the first pod of sly orca cruising past. Call me callous, but the chances of this penguin ever adjusting safely back into the wild is about as good as Goff ’s chances of winning an election anytime soon – one is southbound to the pole, the other is southbound in the poll. Both destined to be eaten alive. If you were thinking that at least it may have been an educational opportunity for children, think again. A series of youngsters blabbing on television revealed a complete lack of understanding. One even said she wanted to be friends with Happy Feet “and show him all my toys.” Which just goes to prove that for one child at least, she hasn’t learnt a lot and their concept of this penguin as a wild animal is about as far from reality as a Bluebird potato chip commercial. A couple of people this week have likened the penguin to Moko the wayward dolphin. Entertaining from a human perspective, but a weirdo outcast amongst his own species and possibly quite sick. Worse, thousands of dollars have been spent rehabilitating and fussing over the wayward penguin, while taxpaying New Zealanders go without.
Sun Media owner/editor Brian Rogers
Add to that the spending on other fruitless causes – such as the millions on the aftermath of the Kahui twins tragedy and many other wasteful cases – and it seems criminal that a woman with cancer has to go to the US for her treatment because apparently our health system can’t afford it. Yet as a country, we pour thousands out of our wallets to provide a bunch of orca in the Southern Ocean with an easy lunch. Another sad case of misguided spending priorities surfaced this week, as we recognised those who served selflessly in the Merchant Navy. I’m told the sailors pay was stopped the day their ship was torpedoed and the survivors never saw a penny for the years subsequently spent in POW camps.
Moon madness
If you thought The Fellowship of the Ring was a crazy piece of fantasy, wait till you see The Forecast of Ken Ring.The latest piece of tripe from this self-appointed expert is claiming his moon studies reveal when more earthquakes will ravage Christchurch. As if his half-cocked weather forecasts aren’t enough, Mr Ring has branched out into seismic science. Considering there’s been 7000 aftershocks during recent months,
Tauranga council flew the red ensign in remembrance this week; too little too late for men who put their lives on the line for their country and received no thanks. Shame those climbing on the penguin bandwagon couldn’t re-focus on issues that really matter. Makes you really wonder about this society’s priorities.
Horsemanning
The craze of planking was over before it started; however, the latest cheerful idea is horsemanning; where people fake photos suggesting they’ve been beheaded. It seems to have started with a photo from the 1920s found in a garage sale (pictured left). Then it was all on. Now Horsemanning photos are popping up all over the place. We can’t see it catching in Iraq, where genuine beheading is still popular. I mean, why would you fake it when Mohammed can easily supply you with any number of genuine infidel beheading photos? So horsemanning and planking might be a stupid pastime, but at least it doesn’t unnecessarily upset anyone else. For that, have a crack at earthquake forecasting by the moon.
it’s hardly surprising that there will be more shakes. No doubt he’ll claim one or two of these to justify the whacko predictions. We gave Mr Ring the benefit of the doubt a few years ago and bought his almanac. The actual weather that year bore very little resemblance to his forecasts, in fact, we concluded it was downright dangerous. We found a coin flip was more accurate. Further, he pronounced it would be a year of
large scale marine mammal strandings. DOC officials told me it was actually one of the quietest years in many. If his latest outbursts weren’t upsetting people, it would be a great joke. But his previous faulty predictions caused widespread panic in Christchurch and contributed to thousands fleeing the city. There’s an old term for those who worship the moon – they were called lunatics. That’s still a pretty accurate term. brian@thesun.co.nz
IMPORTANT STUFF: All material is copyright and may not be reproduced without written permission of the publishers. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the publishers. The Weekend Sun takes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all published information however will not be liable in any way for errors or omissions or the subsequent use of information published. HORSEMANNING ( often misspelt as horsemaning) gets its name and theme from The Headless Horsemen, the evil character from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. The object of “Horsemanning” is to make it appear that your head is laying next to you, detached from your body like the headless horseman. Horsemanning requires two individuals, one laying with their head back and hidden while the other individual hides everything except for their head. The effect of horsemanning creates an illusion much funnier than simply planking. Also, while planking is a solo game, Horsemanning encourages social interaction by requiring a partner.