Dargaville Online 080808.pmd

national and local politicians and railway enthusiasts.
For more information visit: http://www.steaminc.org.nz
Questions for Political Parties
Dargaville Online is preparing a questionnaire to be
sent to all the major political parties. In it we will be
asking them to tell us what they will do for our town
and community if elected to govern later this year. We
will publish their replies each week in our newsletter.
If you have a particular question you would like us to
ask them, please send us that question in an e-mail.
We will use a selection of these in our questionnaire
Electoral Roll
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and
half shut afterwards. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
It is time to make sure that you are on the electoral
role if you are eligible to vote. You can do this online
at http://www.elections.org.nz/enrolment/how-to-enrol/
how-to-enrol-to-vote.html
It is of concern to read in the news that a lot of Maori
electors have had their enrolment forms returned so
please make sure that you do get onto the roll and
vote.
The old saying that people get the government they
deserve through complacency is so true!
The F-word sees ‘Whakatane’ censored online
From stuff.co.nz Friday, 01 August 2008
The pronunciation of “Whakatane” and its close proximity
to the offensive F-word has seen the town censored
in cyberspace. A visiting tourist was astounded
that he could not search for “Whakatane” on the district
council’s own online service, because the word
was considered vulgar.
Visiting Auckland web developer John Henry used his
laptop in the middle of the town to connect to the council’s
wireless service, called Freenet. He was flabbergasted
to discover his Google searches for
“Whakatane’ services were rejected by the content filter.
The Freenet website’s explanation was: “The content
is filtered so this service is for legitimate use.” “I
could search for ‘fish and chips’ but not for ‘Whakatane
fish and chips’,” Mr Henry said.Council communications
manager Barney Dzowa explained that the prob-
lem lay in the pronunciation of the town’s name. “The
content filter is an American-based product, and it does
a phonetic analysis of what has been typed in,” he
said. “Whakatane, to the system, sounds like an Fword.”
Following Mr Henry’s discovery, district councillor
Russell Orr, who business provides the service, has
now solved the problem. He added the town’s name
to a list of words capable of over-riding the content
filter.
Historic Dargaville
St Josephs School
On 21 March 1906 Dargaville’s parish priest
- Father van Westeinde’s - wrote a letter to
the Bishop of Auckland, Bishop Lenihan
requesting him to write to Mother Mary
McKillop, founder of the order of Sisters of
Joseph of the Sacred Heart (often called the
Brown Joes to distinguish them from the
Sisters of St Joseph of Nazareth - Black
Josephs). Bishop Lenihan enclosed this in
one of his letters, which he wrote to Mother Mary on
22 April 1906.
In September of 1907 Father A. Bowen, a Mill Hill Missionary,
who had replaced Father van Westeinde as
parish priest in Dargaville, wrote an impassioned letter
to Mother Mary:
“Send us Sisters to nurture and cherish those delicate
little plants in God’s own garden; Sisters to water with
gentle counsel and kindly advice, to prune away an
unsightly growth of unruly propensities — which, if not
amputated, might develop into open vice — in fine,
Sisters who, when the fierce blasts of worldliness and
temptations shall assail these unprotected plants in
their immaturity, may bind them securely to the immovable
support of Catholic faith and piety”.
The Sisters arrived and the foundation stone of St
Joseph’s School was laid on December 8 th 1907.
Monsignor Hackett opened the school in March 1908
with over 60 pupils. At that time the Sacred Heart
Church, St Joseph’s School and the convent were at
Mangawhare, then some distance from the site of the
present township of Dargaville. They stood quite close
Coast Along With Brent on Sunday.
3 - 6pm on Today FM 106.7