Canning of peaches is history repeating
We should support locally owned producers.
A lesson from history. Canned New Zealand apricots have not been available since about 2006. The imported "replacements" are hard, pallid and tasteless.
We need to bottle fresh Central Otago fruit when in season if we want to enjoy preserved fruit during the rest of the year.
Now it seems this experience will be repeated for peaches and plums because the industry is controlled by multinational companies.
What will happen to dairy products if Fonterra divests its consumer products to multinational companies? Will we only able to buy imported dairy products because "costs of production are too high in New Zealand"?
Back to the future
Would it be possible to upgrade and use the old Roxdale cannery at Roxburgh to can peaches and other fruit at competitive prices?
It’s a great idea
What a great idea to plant a broadleaf hedge around part of the Queens Gardens (ODT 20.9.25). And what a generous gift to the council.
Mr Macknight is to be congratulated for thinking of a border to screen the garden from the busy roads around it. The hedge will create a peaceful oasis in years to come.
On the other hand
Who the hell does Mr MacKnight, so called advocate of Dunedin heritage, think he is?
He has no right whatever to violate ratepayers’ property without consent. The city council should remove these trees immediately and charge Mr MacKnight for all remedial work necessary. These areas of grass are for recreational purposes: we already have sufficient native trees in our town belt.
Letter appals
I am horrified to read the letter by Hayden Williams regarding the public assassination of Charlie Kirk (ODT 19.9.25).
The letter slanders Kirk by labelling him a "white supremacist and a Christian nationalist" and then attempts to qualify the statement that "obviously, the murder of Charlie Kirk was wrong, but…".
Let’s be clear — there is no "but" when it comes to political violence.
A public assassination is wrong, full stop.
While there are indeed white supremacists and white nationalists in the world, to suggest that Charlie Kirk was anything other than an evangelical Christian Republican is a blatant falsehood.
This is especially ironic given Hayden’s accusations that Kirk spreads misinformation.
When we confront, with conscience, the public assassination of an innocent man whose murder was witnessed by his wife and two young children, we ought to respond with compassion and a recognition of the human cost of dehumanising each other over political disagreements — not qualifying statements with false accusations which slander the deceased and imply their death was deserved.
Not sure what dark, mean rabbit hole your correspondent Hayden Williams has been inhabiting recently but I feel motivated to write in to dispute his shameful lies about Charlie Kirk.
Charlie was not a white supremacist, Nazi, racist.
He was an inspiring preacher who took on the mission to try and reacquaint people with the teachings of Christ.
Charlie was admired and respected by millions of people from all sorts of backgrounds and ethnicities – witness the truth of that statement by the young, including young black people who are now proudly composing music, writing poems or painting images to celebrate and pay their own humble tribute to Charlie.
That was not the reaction of people of colour and Jews, when Hitler — who was an actual white supremacist, Nazi, racist — died.
Do better Hayden.
Body of work
It was interesting to read about the research which Prof Sian Halcrow will be undertaking into the source of skeletons in anatomical collections (ODT 16.9.25) — a long overdue acknowledgement of the human beings whose remains were taken for this purpose.
The story of Burke and Hare is well known: two centuries ago they murdered people in Edinburgh to obtain cadavers for dissection. Cassandra Pybus has written about the trade in human bodies from Tasmania in the 19th century: "gentlemen" collectors were particularly keen to obtain specimens of the island's original Aboriginal people. They also sought species which were considered exotic, or which are now extinct, like the thylacine.
Some of these remains are still held in overseas museums, but a few of them have been repatriated.
When will it end?
Under this government we are constantly seeing policies and legislation that provide for the wellbeing and health of New Zealanders being constantly eroded. This latest proposal from Health NZ to make up for the shortage of nursing and carer staff by roping in family members as volunteers is ludicrous. This is a third world solution to the acute lack of staff and will not provide improved care.
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: letters@odt.co.nz
