The context for the 2008 Talanoa is ready to rumble and although a little heady for techno nerds, the ‘stuff’ is beginning to get some tasty flavouring.

Make the time and come on over. If you know any pakehas, palangi who must deal with the rabbles from Pasifika, forward them an invite it cannot but enlighten them to the context from which their pacific partners hailed.

If you’re from the Pacific and you’ve been in Australia for too long but still need to think about that Bigpond question:

What’s important about January 26th for Australians?

A day off to watch the cricket (eyebrow raised)

Then you’re just punching to turn up. You’re part of the ‘problem’

2008 Conference
Mana, Vanua, Talanoa
Abstracts received for some of the presentations

Welcome & opening event

The opening event will follow the expected structure of a traditional lotu ceremony, with negotiations to embody the complexities of PI migration. Participants are encouraged to flow the event (or go with the flow if you prefer!) and be respectful of the tapu of the land where we will gather, and the talanoa of the Barramatugal clan and Darug people who cared for it over many generations.

Roots and Routes: Who are we?!

This panel will explore the challenges that Pacific Islanders face when we move overseas, torn between commitments to the homes from where we came and the necessities of settling into new homes. This panel consists of first generation PI migrants, and will explore issues related to church, education, law, justice system, culture and so forth. Members of panel: Liva Tukutama, Filimone Olivetti, Vetinia Waqabaca, Alisa Peacock, Seini Afeaki, and others

Talanoa Oceania is getting closer and here’s an early reminder from organisers, to get ready and book the days away so you can be there to listen and contribute.

If you haven’t been there before, click on the map below and see if you can’t get seriously lost trying to get there.

More information over at: Talanoa Online Home where you can also get your pretty print registration form.

Key Dates: Monday September 29th ~ Wednesday October 1st

There should be some interesting characters, so maybe you should do a theme thing where you come in as eskimoes or something interesting.

If anyone's coming from Sydney to Tonga (and doesn't have the requisite ten bags of luggage) and you can accommodate carrying a back-pack for me.

That would be awesome.

Buzz me at samtaufa@gmail.com

Talanoa Oceania - Be There or be rocked!

Talanoa Oceania are gatherings for people from the South Seas (or Pacific Islanders, abbreviated as PIs), who currently live in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Several reasons make these gatherings necessary, including the following:

1. PIs are torn between where we live and our home islands, partly because we have not been welcomed (to our new locations) and released (from our island homes)

2. PIs continue to look for direction from our home islands partly because a sea of talanoa[1] has not been gathered to root us in our current locations

3. PIs are searching for creative and meaningful ways of continuing to be connected to our island cultures, churches and homes

4. PIs often misunderstand other cultures partly because we are confused about who we are, in our current locations, and we are consequently easily misunderstood

5. PIs are not homogenous, and we need to name and come to terms with our differences

Talanoa Oceania 2008: Mana, Vanua, Talanoa

Under the shadows of those needs, the Talanoa Oceania 2008 gathering will provide opportunities for presentations on three significant PI concepts: Mana, Vanua, Talanoa. These concepts have multiple meanings in the various language and island groups:

· Mana can mean sacred, magic, courage, power, transformation, creativity, healing, imagination, and so forth

· Vanua (fonua, fenua, whenua, etc) can mean land, womb, home, identity, roots, tradition, and so forth

· Talanoa can mean story, storytelling, conversation, orality, empty-talk, and so forth

Call for presentations:

Persons who are related (by birth and/or migration) to the South Seas are invited to propose presentations for the 2008 gathering. The presentations should address at least one of the five needs and at least one of the three concepts outlined above, and they may be offered from and/or address any of the areas of interest to PIs, such as:

§ art, handicraft & body-art

§ poetry, lyrics & rhythms

§ performance, dance & storytelling

§ Pacific, oceanic & indigenous studies

§ academic, theological & island disciplines

§ ministerial, cultural & ethnic praxis

§ and so forth

Presentations by Women and Second Gens are especially encouraged; all presenters are also urged to help PI communities respond to:

§ the challenges of global warming and our drifting generations

§ the realities of dispersion, diaspora and cultural confusions

To propose a presentation for the Talanoa Oceania 2008: Mana, Vanua, Talanoa gathering, please send the following information to Jione Havea {email: jhavea@csu.edu.au; Postal address: United Theological College, 16 Masons Drive, North Parramatta, NSW 2151, Australia; Fax: (+612) 9683-6617}:

1. Your full name, and the island group(s) to which you relate

2. Current email and mailing addresses (tin-can-mail is possible!)

3. Descriptive title of presentation (no more than 20 words)

4. Short description of presentation (no more than 300 words)

Deadline for proposals:

Jan 31, 2008 (pālangi time!)

Unsure of what to do:

If you are interested in participating in the 2008 gathering but are unsure with how you might make a contribution, please contact one of the persons listed below and we will talk with you about how you might present and participate at this event.

Date & venue:

September 29 – October 01, 2008

Centre for Ministry, 16 Masons Drive, North Parramatta, NSW 2151, Australia

Next Talanoa Oceania: Aotearoa/New Zealand (date to be determined)

Contacts in the Southern Sea of Islands:

Fe‘iloakitau Tevi (fkt@wcc-coe.org)

Koila Olsson (arietakoilaolsson@yahoo.com)

Tevita K. Havea (tkhavea@ptc.ac.fj)

Samiuela L.V. Taufa (samtaufa@gmail.com)

Contacts in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Tevita Finau (tfinau@gmail.com)

Aso Saleupolu (asos@methodist.org.nz)

Fei Taule‘ale‘ausumai (fei_taulealea@xtra.co.nz)

Nasili Vaka‘uta (nvakauta@gmail.com)

Contacts in Australia

Seforosa Carroll (sefc@bigpond.com)

Vinnie Ravetali (vravetali62@yahoo.com)

Salesi Faupula (salesif@nsw.uca.org.au)

Filimone Oliveti (filimone7@optisnet.com.au)

Jione Havea (jhavea@csu.edu.au)

Katalina Tahaafe-Williams (katalinatw@nsw.uca.org.au)

Liva Tukutama (livasoffice@netspeed.com.au)

---

[1] When someone from the South Seas shares a talanoa (story), it is not just about sharing information and entertaining listeners. A talanoa also has to do with locating identity (in space and in relationships), with offering instructions (to listeners), with explaining struggles and journeys, with customs and rituals, with hope and more. Sharing of talanoa can also make storytellers and their people vulnerable, as if they have become telenoa (Samoan: naked), so it is a sharing that needs to be offered and received responsibly.

2007.06.01 Tonga Time

Well, the www.nomoa.com machine's going to have to take a walk to another house, which is big hooots for Ma'ata and Pulu 'Anau, but it also means we'll be off the air for an unkown amount of time.

See you all on the otherside

and apologies to the two or three people who follow my wwwwaaaantsss, raanntttzzz

And just when I was working on the family again http://www.nomoa.com/family/ ? I've lost the data I collected since 1999, so I'm having to find someone to cry on and to get the dump from them.

We'll be back, and we'll still be just as ugly 8-)

Saturday night I thought it was about time to update the Gallery software, so off we go to try and get an update.

Two late nights later I've totally lost, blown away the original Gallery and possibly lost some Forum posts (apologies to everyone.) But the Gallery is back up (for me and the other two that browse to it?)

I love Gallery, but this continuing problem with updates is beginning to be frustrating. Of course, one of the frustrations is my continual lack of know-how for doing the upgrades properly (which isn't helped by only having one site where I've got the software.) Since the site's been hacked a number of times previously, we're really into upates now and better this pain than the whole site going down badly from being hacked.

The last major problem again my fault as I moved from version 1 to version 2 pre-betas. This problem was somehow related to the integration between Xaraya and Gallery2 which wouldn't work after I updated Gallery2 2.1 to Gallery 2.2 svn. I needed the svn update of Gallery so I can update the code readily and I was previously using the CVS version.

1. Gallery 2.1 cvs updated to Gallery 2.2 svn
2. Gallery2/Xaraya Integration module would not configure (no matter how much time and cpu I gave it)
3. No error messages were shown, but it would not configure.
4. Gallery2 2.2svn full new install configures properly with Xaraya

What did we lose ? Mostly data, because the photos are sane. But that data made the place more interesting.

The photos, albums aren't in the same place they were last time, so the earlier photo links do not work properly. The album names and descriptions are zapped as well, so although I was able to recover the original structure before the blow-away, they don't really mean much even in context.

I would look at putting the photos up @ flickr.com or zooomr.com but haven't quite got those fixed up yet.

And now, it's too late to be putting up any of the images I've snapped in the past week because we're closing down to pack for Tonga.

Steps to minimise further problems in the future.

1. Name Album Folders descriptively
2. Name photos with the description details
3. Hierarchy like crazy (done)
4. Backup files before updates
5. Backup database before updates
6. install on temp directory for testing
7. install on temp database for testing
8. install xaraya on temp database for testing
9. install xaraya on temp for testing
10. (8 & 9 seem to have been the key factors in this week's horror)
11. Do not do the install/update over the week-end (or at least if you plan on having a busy Sunday, like usual)

Hope to see you after the jump, and hopefully I can get in on the imagery from Tonga too? (here's to slow bandwidths and immesurable patience.)

Hmmm, I've been playing around with some new clothes so decided to put them on www.nomoa.com to see how well they match what we need ?

There's still a number of things to iron-out but we hope to bring something more useable ? and less security problematico.

ciao,

Sam T.

Diabetes, Kids' Vaccinations Not Linked
By STEPHANIE NANO, AP

(March 31) -- Researchers determined there is no link between childhood vaccines and the development of diabetes, the latest study to find no such connection.

Using birth and medical registries, Danish researchers checked vaccination records and cases of Type 1 diabetes for the more than 739,000 children born between 1990 and 2000 in Denmark.

They found no more cases of Type 1 diabetes among vaccinated children compared with unvaccinated children. There also was no increase seen in children with a sibling with diabetes, who are at higher risk of developing the disorder, the researchers reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Type 1 diabetes is increasing in developed countries, where childhood immunization is widespread. That is one of the main reasons some have proposed a link.

"This study will, one hopes, be the last one that is necessary to disprove an association between immunizations and diabetes," Dr. Lynne L. Levitsky of Harvard Medical School said in a commentary in the journal.

Type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, mostly afflicts young children. Because their pancreas produces little or no insulin, they need to take insulin daily. There is no known cause, but genetic and environmental factors may play a role.

The Danish children were vaccinated against eight diseases on a schedule similar to that in the United States, said Dr. Mads Melbye, one of the researchers at the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen. He said Denmark's vaccination records are particularly good because doctors aren't paid for giving the shots until they report them to a registry.

"This really reemphasizes that vaccines are generally very safe and they are extremely important," Melbye said.

U.S. recommendations now call for children to be protected against 11 diseases.

03/31/04 19:50 EST