AmeriNZ

NZ Views: Waikato

2009-11-09T11:31:00.004+13:00

This past week was one of the busiest I’ve had in ages. It’s actually not entirely over yet, with some odds and ends to clear up before moving into this week. All of which is why I haven’t blogged much lately. So as I take care of those last things from last week, I thought I’d just share some more of my views of New Zealand.

Yesterday we went down to the Waikato for a family get-together, a birthday BBQ. We were outside of Hamilton, near a settlement called Gordonton, an area Nigel and I have always thought was quite nice: It’s rural, but close to Hamilton and only about an hour and a half to Auckland. We also have family there or not very far from there.

The Waikato is a large region, which is primarily faming country (especially dairy and sheep farms), but it’s more varied than that. The area we were has farms, but also “lifestyle blocks”, large bits of land on which “executive style” houses are built. Often these houses are in small clusters, like a suburban subdivision, but on sections that typically range up to five acres.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the middle of a continent, but I tend to be drawn to wide-open views over land rather than sea views, much as I like them, too. But one of things I like most about New Zealand is the visual diversity: There are mountain views, places near dense bush or forests, overlooking wide-open plains or rolling farmland as well as, of course, plenty of sea views (and lake and river views for that matter). You want it? We got it.

I’m trying to post more photos of the places I visit, and I actually have more from another part of Auckland, when I get the chance to post them. These will have to do for now.

I don’t have time for this

2009-11-04T21:21:00.001+13:00

I don’t have time for this. This is the busiest week of the month for me, and I have a lot of work to do, so I don’t have time for a blog post. But that’s not what I’m talking about: I just don’t have time for the bullshit anymore. Tonight Maine repealed marriage equality.

This came about because our opponents ran a campaign filled with lies and distortions made possible by millions of dollars in out-of-state contributions. This came about because of out-of-state agitators organised by a prominent national organisation quietly backed by the Mormons.

The people fighting for our side were brilliant: They ran a strong grassroots campaign involving thousands of ordinary Maine folks who made phone calls, went door-to-door and did all they could to keep equality in Maine. However, they had one major handicap: They were in the reality-based world where facts and reason matter, something our opponents know little about, but, apparently, didn’t need to.

Our opponents played on people’s fears, as they always do. They played on people’s ignorance, as they always do. They played on people’s prejudice and hatred, as they always do. And for good measure they just made stuff up, as they always do. Our side couldn’t match the millions of dollars the right’s churches collected to promote the lies and hatred, so it was always an uphill fight.

It’s time to make one thing abundantly clear: Our opponents don’t have a minor disagreement with us—they hate us. It’s not the word “marriage” they have a problem with—it’s that we have any rights whatsoever.

In California, they claimed their problem was with “activist judges” (a term they only use when they disagree with a ruling). If “the people” don’t enact it, it’s not legitimate, they said. Then when Maine’s elected legislature enacted marriage equality, and its elected Governor signed it into law, the religious extremists tripped all over themselves to repeal the law the people’s representatives had enacted. Apparently, by “the people” the religious extremists meant only themselves.

In doing so, the religious extremists glossed over the gross immorality of the majority ever being allowed to vote on the rights of the minority, as if it’s ever proper for voters to decide who has full equality and who does not.

Maine’s governor—who formerly opposed same-sex marriage—was a strong advocate. So were many other prominent Mainers. But the national Democratic Party, including President Obama, were absent. The president issued a mild, vague statement but never said, “vote NO”.

The mainstream news media failed miserably. They treated it as an interesting, possibly significant, curiosity. They never once called out the religious bigots on their lies; maybe they’re too frightened of them.

Still, despite all that, we'll win because we’re on the right side of history. Those who oppose us will be remembered like the famous bigots of the near past—Thurmond, Wallace, and so on—and that day is fast approaching.

So, I refuse to give up on America. Despite all the hate, despite all the money and power being deployed against us, despite the evil being done in the name of their god, I know we will win. I have that hope because America gave it to me as a birthright. I have that hope because generations of Americans have fought and died to nurture it. I have that hope because at this moment, all across America, millions of people are hanging their heads in sadness or shame over how GLBT people are being treated—again. I have hope because, as the president once said, “In the unlikely story that is America, there is nothing false about hope.”

An activist friend suggested the song in the video at the top of this post as an antidote for those filled with sadness from this defeat. I love how very gay it is to take courage from a song by Liza—Judy’s daughter—but I also love the sentiment.

This isn’t the end: It’s just the beginning. We will win—if not tomorrow, then the day after that.

Fourteen

2009-11-02T11:02:00.003+13:00

Today is Fourteenth Anniversaries, plural: I arrived in New Zealand to stay on this day in 1995, which makes it my “Expataversary”, or the anniversary of the day I became an expat. That means it’s also the date Nigel and I have always taken to be our anniversary, since this was the day our life together really began.

So much has changed over those years, not the least the fact we now have another Anniversary: January 24, the day we held our Civil Union. We were talking the other day about what we would answer when people ask how long we’ve been married. We decided the long explanation is best: We’ve been together fourteen years, and made it “legal” in January. This lets people know both the long-term nature of us, and also that we’re legally joined, too.

In the past, I’ve talked about how people ask me if I’d ever live in the US again and, truth be told, I’ve always ducked the question because I’ve never known how to answer it. However, I realised recently that the chances I’d ever live there again are slim to none.

The America I left in 1995 no longer exists, it’s changed so much. Whether those changes are good, bad or indifferent is beside the point—it’s the scale of change that matters. Every year I live away from the US, the more like a foreign country it becomes. Every week I see a reference in American news media or among my Internet friends to something currently in American pop culture—and I have no idea what they’re talking about.

If this sounds implausible, then consider that when I left the US the Internet (as we know it today) was still in its infancy: Connections were slow and expensive and the World Wide Web was barely beginning. Cellphones existed, but were expensive and only beginning to catch on (and they were analogue—no WiFi, no texting, no downloading anything to your phone).

When I arrived in New Zealand in 1995, I couldn’t possibly have known that over time I’d begin to feel like a foreigner in my own homeland, but that’s what happened. But I also couldn’t have imagined that a day would come in which I’d feel completely at home in a country other than the US, and that happened, too.

I think the difference for me is that I love adventure—not the trekking across the Antarctic kind, but the perfectly ordinary “let’s see where this goes” kind. As Nigel and I have built our life together, we’ve moved around and tried new places and jobs, but we’ve always moved to something, not from anything.

And that was true for me, too, fourteen years ago today. I think that sense of adventure is the secret to why this experience has been so amazingly wonderful for me. The fact that Nigel and I share a sense of adventure is probably one of the secrets to why our life together has been so amazing.

So, on this fourteenth anniversary, I’m living in a place I love, having a wonderful life, and sharing it all with my best friend and soulmate—and now husband, too (and Jake, too, of course). Fifteen years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that any of that would be true, so maybe that’s the real “take away message” from my experience: Don’t assume that your dreams won’t come true, because you may be only one day away from the start of it all.

And for me it all started fourteen years ago today.

Previous years’ posts:

Lucky 13: Expataversary and more

Twelfth Anniversary

Eleven Years an Expat

A related post:

Ex, but not ex-

What Magna Carta?

2009-11-01T14:33:00.002+13:00

The New Zealand has enacted a law that will allow the police to collect DNA samples from anyone arrested for a crime that could lead to a jail sentence. The arrested person has no say in this and a warrant is not required. If the person is ultimately found not guilty, we’re promised that the samples will be destroyed, which actually isn’t at all reassuring.

Predictably there’s been the chorus of “if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’ve got no reason to complain,” but this goes against nearly a millennium of common law stretching all the way back to Magna Carta. There should be probable cause and warrant from a judge, just as there is for other searches. This law change is the reason the phrase “slippery slope” exists.

The other day on TVNZ’s “Breakfast”, the ever-moronic Pippa Wetzell dismissed this as if her opinion were fact. Perhaps she might want to learn something about the issue—and the history of our system of rights and legal privileges—before pontificating on something she clearly knows nothing about.

Halloween, R.I.P.

2009-11-01T09:56:00.007+13:00

As I expected, we didn’t get a single Trick-or-Treater last night. So, because I’m always prepared just in case, I’m stuck with candy I’ll have to eat. Such a burden!

Since I started posting about Halloween seeming to be dying out in New Zealand (in terms of the American traditions, at least), I’ve heard from several people in NZ who are or are not still seeing evidence of Halloween (some of those comments can be seen in the comments to previous posts on this subject). The TV news featured a party for kids in Devonport put on by some Kiwis who—surprise!—had lived in the US one stage, and liked the Halloween hoopla. This year, that seemed unique.

What I’ve seen this year has been a decline caused the one force more powerful than hype: Indifference. There was no campaign against it, no public discussion, just indifference.

When I first started seeing people in our area pushing American Halloween traditions—especially Trick-or-Treating—I hadn’t been in the country very long. Then, the opposition, such as it was, came from two main areas: Those who resented “creeping Americanism” (a phrase I hardly ever hear anymore), and those who objected on religious grounds (Auckland’s North Shore seems to have more than its fair share of fundamentalist churches—way more than its fair share…). But even way back then the biggest opponent was simple indifference.

This year, the NZ Police made two signs (above) available for download from their website. One was designed to welcome Trick-or-Treaters, the other asked them to stay away. This is a sensible, common-sense solution I thought was a logical thing to do way back when, but the Internet makes it easy to distribute such signs.

The police also posted a flyer of “Spooktacular things to remember at Halloween”. It was filled with the sort of advice that American parents follow, like “Stay in areas that are lit with streetlights,” “Be visible,” and “Always go trick or treating with an adult” (the first couple years, I seldom saw adults anywhere nearby). But there was also somewhat more modern—and sad—advice: “Only go where you or your friends know the residents.”

The police also reminded kids to “Understand what a prank is. Do not commit a crime thinking you will get away with it because it is Halloween.” Killjoys. They offered “Key Messages for householders” (why do all organisations talk of “key messages” nowadays?): “Householders do not have to open the door or respond to knocks on the door on Halloween.” Um, duh?

Kudos to the police for putting their slogan “Safer Communities Together” into action. The flyer may have been a bit wordy, but the advice was sound and the whole thing was a sensible way of approaching Halloween.

So, while this year was a total non-event in our area, that doesn’t mean it won’t come back in the future. Indifference is a powerful thing, however.

Update November 2, 2009: Some houses, however, are into Halloween fun.

Lion sleeps tonight

2009-10-28T22:58:00.000+13:00

Lion Nathan, one of New Zealand’s oldest companies, ceased to exist today: It was de-listed from the New Zealand Stock Exchange (and Australia’s, too) after the company was acquired by Japan’s Kirin Breweries. While this was a bit of a yawn by itself, I think it says something about the modern business paradigm.

The brewery was formed in Auckland in 1840 by John Logan Campbell, and only became Lion Breweries in 1977. After tycoon Doug Myers took control of the company in the 1980s, the company bought New Zealand’s largest retailer (at the time), LD Nathan & Co. from the asset-stripping merchant bank, Fay Richwhite and formed Lion Nathan.

In the early 1990s, they bought the brewing companies of Aussie tycoon Alan Bond, Tooheys Brewery and Castlemain Perkins. A few years later, Kirin bought 45 percent of the company.

The Kirin move sparked a major revamp of the Takeovers Code because ordinary people couldn’t participate in a partial takeover. The Kirin move solidified government resolve and the new Code was completed in time to prevent Lion Nathan from taking over wine maker, Montana.

In 2000, after the Kirin partial takeover, Lion Nathan moved its headquarters to Sydney. By the time of the company’s death, it controlled 50% of the New Zealand beer market and 40% of the Australian market.

What’s instructive about this is that the company followed the current business imperative for New Zealand companies: Grow big, so big that international expansion is required to continue growing profits, then be taken over by a multi-national corporation. This, conservatives tell us, is the highest and best result for any company.

That’s true—if greed is your sole motivator.

While the right wing considers globalisation to be holy, it’s not always, nor the best objective. As once proud New Zealand companies are reduced to irrelevant branch offices of multi-national corporations, something of our cultural identity is lost, as well as a stake in the success of the company.

Multi-nationals try to force consumers into a kind of great global goo, and in the process the unique cultural heritage, traditions and even preferences of a place get reduced to mere “local market variations”. All decisions, and the fate of NZ workers, are decided in some foreign country that won’t feel the consequences of their actions here.

Economic conservatives tell us while that’s sad, it’s ultimately the way of the world. Describing a situation is not prescribing it. Investors hell-bent on acquiring maximum wealth no matter what may not care if a New Zealand town loses its biggest employer when the foreign owners move production to Asia (for example), but there ought to be value in a company that digs in its heels and seeks to maximise its profits AND its connection to New Zealand. That’s what’s missing from the current business paradigm that values maximised profit over everything else.

So Lion Nathan is gone. I won’t mourn it, since, in my view, it was hardly a “good corporate citizen” in its last couple decades. By the time of its death, it wasn’t really a New Zealand company anymore, and neither were its profits or its commitment. And that’s the problem.

The extent of Halloween

2009-10-28T20:51:00.004+13:00

Last week, I posted a couple photos from what was the largest Halloween “display” I saw at our local mall. Actually, it was really the only Halloween display.

So as part of my research into my thesis that Halloween is fading, I went to our local shopping centre. The photo above shows the candy display in our supermarket. It was the only display in the entire store.

Out in the mall, a cheap shop had a small display (photo below). As a percentage of store size, this was actually the biggest display I saw.

Today I went to our local, smaller branch of the main discount store, and the Halloween stuff was at the front of the store—and consisted of two displays, each one square metre in size. I heard on the radio this afternoon that the chain was offering 20% off all Halloween decorations “while stocks last.” Sounded like they were trying to get rid of it.

Now I’m especially interested in what happens on Saturday.

Slap some sense into this story

2009-10-27T19:23:00.001+13:00

A man identified as “an Auckland businessman” plans to spend up to $450,000 on a march to protest the Government’s decision to ignore the deeply flawed smacking referendum. He’s been endorsed, of course, by the same far-right christianist group that’s been moaning the loudest about the referendum. The march idea is silly, and the nearly a half-million dollars would be better sent on preventing child abuse. Still, it’s their democratic right to waste their money on yet another stunt if they want to.

However, they can’t expect to spout utter nonsense and not be called out for doing so.

Their promotional material reads: “In the election 45% of votes counted for John Key. In the referendum 87% of votes counted for nothing.” Bad grammar aside, this is a double deception.

First—and most importantly—what they’re referring to is that 87.4% of people who voted cast a pro-smacking vote. However, what the activists are hiding is that the voter turnout was only 56.09% of eligible voters. That means that fewer than 48.98% of all eligible votes actually voted the way the activists claim. If you’re feeling generous, you could say that “about half” of New Zealand voters voted “no” in the referendum, but constantly using the 87.4% figure is deliberately deceptive and misleading, meant to imply overwhelming support where it never existed (see also my previous post on the results).

Second, there’s absolutely no direct link between those who voted for the National Party in the general election and those who voted “no” in the referendum: In fact, we have no idea how many voters of any party voted in the referendum or how they voted. We can make some educated guesses, but a direct correlation, as the activists imply, simply does not exist.

A companion piece on the christianist group’s website reads “Should a kick in the guts as part of responsible government go unanswered?” Intended as a play on the wording of the referendum, it’s also deliberately confrontational. If less than half of New Zealanders supported the activists’ position, how is it a “kick in the guts” if the government recognises that there’s no mandate for change? The referendum question was deliberately written to be confusing and counterintuitive. It’s not a stretch at all to assume that some of the “no” voters actually favour the law as changed and don’t back activists’ position.

So what we have are activists who were backed by fewer than half of all New Zealand voters, but who are still trying to force their agenda on everyone. The government is right to ignore them. Let the activists spend their half million dollars on a vanity rally if they want to—at least it’s not taxpayer money this time.

Are they really so clueless?

2009-10-27T10:13:00.003+13:00

The more this National Party-led Government goes on, the more I wonder if they have a clue what they’re doing. So many of their ministers are so clearly out of their depth that it’s difficult to have any confidence in John Key’s premiership. Worse, their approach on issues often seems, at best, naïve.

The government’s strategy on Internet broadband is a good example.

The previous Labour-led Government set a goal of ultra-fast broadband (UFB) available to most New Zealanders. They intended to use the government as the instrument for achieving what the commercial sector had shown no interest in doing. The current government, however, has decided to pursue “public-private partnerships” to make this happen.

As a centre-right government, it’s understandable that they’d have unshakeable faith in this approach. The reality is that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t—which means it’s no perfect solution, as they seem to think.

Their initiative will require the formation of companies to take on the wiring of local areas with fibre-optic cables to the premises (which they call “FTTP”). This in itself a good thing: Previous commercial interest has been in extending cables only to exchanges. One company proposed to extend the cables to the cabinet (the junction boxes on the street), but they provided no timetable and didn’t actually do anything.

The government’s goal is “a minimum uncontested 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink”, with the capability to support speeds up to ten times that. This would represent a dramatic improvement. The government intends that UFB will ultimately be available to “75 percent of the New Zealand population.” However, since a projected 4.5% of New Zealanders will live outside of “high-density population centres” by 2021, the government has decided that some rural areas will probably not get UFB. But their own projections also show that UFB won’t be available to about 20% of the population, which means some non-rural areas won’t be served, either, because it won’t be economically feasible.

And that’s the crux of the problem: National’s reliance on “public-private partnerships” means that urban areas will be wired first, providing, they believe, the profits necessary for the companies to wire smaller areas. Despite National’s unbridled optimism, there’s no evidence to suggest that without massive government subsidies businesses will find any economic rationale for going outside urban areas.

The plan calls for this all to be completed over a decade (or longer). The need for reasonably-priced, fast broadband exists now, and we’ll continue to fall behind the world the longer it takes. The government doesn’t seem to understand the huge urgency behind upgrading our Internet infrastructure.

New Zealand is completely dependent on the so-called “primary sector” (chiefly dairy products, meat and wool). In order to compete in a global economy from one of the countries farthest from world markets, New Zealand must have a fast, reasonably-priced and reliable internet infrastructure as soon as possible. Despite good aspects of the current initiative, there’s nothing in it to suggest the government understands this.

Update: According to Statistics New Zealand (via NZ Herald), in the 15 months to June, broadband connections in New Zealand jumped 27 percent to 1.1 million, meaning that broadband now makes up three-quarters of all Internet connections. However, half of all broadband subscribers had a data cap of less than 5GB per month. The number of subscribers with a 20GB data cap or more had tripled, but was still only 126,000. All of which shows how the market is not delivering the solutions that New Zealand needs.

Um, no, no it won’t

2009-10-26T11:01:00.003+13:00

The Sunday Star-Times (via Stuff) reported that the longtime aide to former Prime Minister Helen Clark, Heather Simpson, has married her partner, Sue Veart, in a civil union at their home in Wellington. Clark, whose government created civil unions, did not attend.

The article talked about Simpsons political power during Clark’s Labour-led government, before moving on to how Simpson had her “arm twisted” to work for Clark at the United Nations in New York City. Apparently Veart recently left her job so she could join Simpson.

The article said: “One acquaintance said she believed the civil union would make it easier for Veart to live in the US.” Personally, I doubt that’s true, given Simpson’s well-known political nous. She would know that no foreign or domestic legal recognition of same-sex relationships—whether civil unions or marriages—are recognised by the US Government for any purpose whatsoever, including immigration. The couple could’ve held a Tupperware party, because it would make no more difference to American authorities than their civil union will.

All of which goes to show—yet again—that GLBT people, even ones who were powerful in their home countries—are still seen and treated as second-class in the United States. Sugarcoat it all you like, but America is not a land of equality or equal opportunity for all its citizens or legal residents. This is just another example of why it isn’t.

Changing their tune

2009-10-26T08:57:00.000+13:00

The New Zealand Herald reported that New Zealand-owned Marbeck’s CD stores are about to open a “concept store” in Dunedin, a kind of "boutique Borders". Unremarkable news by itself, the article says that the new store “will be run by older staff than those usually seen in The CD and DVD Store” (the chain that bought Marbeck’s three years ago).

But what caught my eye was this: They plan to offer their own digital music downloading service. Roger Harper, Marbecks' managing director, told the Herald, "Initially, we viewed downloading as a threat, now we are working it into our business strategy, seeing it as an opportunity—we're not going to sell more CDs tomorrow." It’s the first time I’ve seen a traditional music retailer acknowledge that the future of music sales is digital music without a physical CD. Put another way, we consumers were right all along, they were wrong, and now, late in the game, they realise that.

The move to digital music, adding books, knowledgeable staff and a café, and even avoiding use of the extremely limited—and increasingly old fashioned—company name, "The CD and DVD Store" shows that the customer is always right. For their sake, I hope they didn’t learn that lesson too late.

More short shots

2009-10-24T11:13:00.002+13:00

There are often topics that I don’t have time to blog about, or enough to say to write an entire post, but I want to say something, So, more short shots:

The Matthew Shepard Act finally passes

It’s been a long road to passage, but the hate crimes bill finally seems likely to become law. But if there’s one topic about which the right has lied nearly as much as they have about healthcare reform, it would be this bill. Some of the things said in Congress have been so crazy that one wonders if the men in the clean white coats weren’t far away.

But one other thing occurred to me through this: The Republican Party had little to do with opposition to the bill—it was the religiously-driven wingnuts at the core of that party. Which kind of makes clear that the enemy of freedom and democracy isn’t the Republican Party per se, but these wingnuts. That’s useful in itself.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

I saw a report at Chicago Tribune online that began this way:

“Students from Washington University in St. Louis raised civil rights complaints Thursday against a popular Chicago nightclub after six African-Americans were denied entry under the bar's "no baggy pants" policy—even as fellow students said the bar admitted similarly dressed white students.”

This reminded me of a long-gone gay nightclub (the building has been torn down) in Chicago’s “Boystown” neighbourhood, which had instituted a “no hats” policy. At the time, young African American men, gay or not, wore fancy baseball-style caps as a fashion statement. It was alleged that by banning such hats, the bar was hoping to exclude African Americans. Yep, some things just don’t change. Interestingly, the “no hats” bar ultimately failed—and for a time the space was occupied by a bar catering to GLBT African Americans.

Catholics poach haters

The Roman Catholic Church announced it would be working to allow breakaway Anglican parishes to join the Catholic Church—or is that “re-join”? The Anglican Church was formed in 1534 when the pope wouldn’t grant Henry VIII a divorce. These modern parishes are “breakaway” because they don’t like women bishops and—especially—they don’t like gay people being treated as equal human beings. So, the Catholics are eager to welcome their fellow anti-woman, anti-gay religionists—all of which probably means nothing to people who aren’t Catholic or Anglican; to us, it’s a kind of “no surprises there,” moment.

But the best comment I saw came from my e-buddy Mark, author of Slap Upside the Head (one of my mostest favourtist sites on the web). Said Mark: “Aw, isn’t that just the most adorablest thing ever? There’s just nothing like a common dislike of us gays to mend a 475 year old religious rift.” Amen, brother.

Farewell, Halloween

2009-10-23T21:36:00.003+13:00

Today I went to a local mall and saw what I suspected: In New Zealand, Halloween is passé.

There were no displays in the mall, which was decked out for Christmas (the Christmas selling season begins this weekend). The only store with anything like a Halloween display was The Warehouse (the "Home of Halloween", you'll remember), but its display was pathetic by American standards. The photos with this post show all there was.

I also checked two grocery stores (the things I do for my readers!), and neither had Halloween displays. However, sacks of 12 small candy bars were on special this week, and the store I actually shopped in had a cardboard Halloween sales rack from M&M/Mars promoting their product, not that anyone noticed.

Have I mentioned that big, orange pumpkins like we Americans are used to are simply non-existent in Auckland? I don't know that they're available anywhere in New Zealand.

So, this year, Halloween is pretty much a non-starter. Since it falls on Saturday, I doubt we’ll have any trick-or-treaters. And that could be that—or will it? Like the ghouls of American Halloween, attempts to promote the holiday in New Zealand never seem to ever be truly dead.

Halloween is homeless

2009-10-22T23:08:00.001+13:00

Halloween has never been big in New Zealand, despite the best efforts of retailers, a few ex-pat Americans and other enthusiasts. I suppose part of it is that Kiwis didn’t grow up with it, so it’s kind of alien. Maybe as a result of that, some people are suspicious of retailers pushing to have Kiwis adopt a foreign custom.

To me, it looks like in the time since I moved to New Zealand, in some years retailers have put on a major push, nothing much happened, they stopped for awhile. Then, they tried again, nothing happened again, and they stopped. We seem to be in another stopped period. So far—only about a week away—I haven’t seen any Halloween displays in stores (I’m going to have a special look tomorrow).

We just got the sale flyer for The Warehouse, a major retailer. Their 20 pages promote the chain’s “Massive Labour Weekend Sale” (Monday is the Labour Day Holiday in New Zealand). Out of those twenty pages, exactly one half of one page has Halloween items. At the very bottom of the page—with camping gear between it and the Halloween products—is a banner that reads: “The Home of Halloween – Monster Range! Wicked Bargains!” If The Warehouse is the home, no one lives there.

New Zealand’s Australian-owned Kmart chain put out its own 16-page flyer containing absolutely nothing related to Halloween—but it has three-quarters of a page devoted to Christmas decorations.

I saw a report on the evening news about NZ retailing in another context, and they mentioned that the Christmas selling season begins this weekend. That actually probably explains a lot: Retail stores tend to make most of their annual profits during the Christmas season, so it figures that they wouldn’t give up floor space or advertising budgets to promote something that Kiwis have shown a resounding indifference to.

All of which means that this could be among the last posts I write about Halloween in New Zealand. I'm not quite sure whether that's a trick or a treat, actually.

Bye-bye ACC?

2009-10-22T20:15:00.000+13:00

Today Prime Minister John Key said that, contrary to what he’s been saying, his government will look at “opening-up” all of the Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) to competition. In their election campaign, Key and the National Party said they’d look at “opening up” ACC to competition, but wouldn't sell anything in a first term.

Since winning government, National has been setting out, in my opinion, to make ACC so awful, so useless, that people will be glad to be rid of it. The ultimate goal of the National and ACT Parties has always been to sell-off ACC. It seems that National may be moving that up on the agenda a bit.

When there’s a concrete proposal, you can be sure I’ll have plenty to more to say.

Spring blooms

2009-10-21T20:27:00.006+13:00

It’s difficult to find any photos that show spring in Auckland. There’s just not that much visual difference between the seasons in Auckland, apart, maybe, for the odd day here and there.

I could show trees budding out or in bloom—but many of them aren’t natives or aren’t near the house. I’ve been trying to post more photos of what I’m seeing and experiencing, but apparently I haven’t been near many things in bloom.

The two photos here show the yuccas near our house in bloom. Yuccas, of course, aren’t natives, but I’ve never seen these in bloom before. So, here’s another little part of my day-to-day reality.

The cost of things

2009-10-21T20:00:00.002+13:00

The first thing I noticed when I moved to New Zealand was how expensive everything seemed. The problem, I quickly learned, was that I was constantly converting prices to US dollars. Once I stopped doing that, I realised that things weren’t anywhere near as expensive as I’d thought.

Later, I noticed some things really were more expensive: Expensive things that had to be imported from overseas. New Zealand allows parallel importing—that is, a business can import goods directly into New Zealand so that consumers can buy products at much cheaper prices than they’d find through “official”, “authorised” importers. The “official” importers declare that the goods aren’t covered by manufacturer warranty, but even if that’s true, they’re still covered by New Zealand’s Consumer Guarantees Act, which is even better.

Some businesses provide strong incentive to find alternative sources, companies like Apple Computer.

For example, Apple advertises on its New Zealand Online Store that the Mac Mini is available “from $1398”, which, at the moment, would be $1,046.96 in US dollars. Trouble is, Americans actually pay “Starting at $599”, which is $NZ799.84. That means we pay nearly 75 percent more than purchasers in the US.

Okay, so take the US price (in NZ dollars) and add GST. The Mac Mini would be $899.82—still nearly $500 less than we’re being charged—more than enough to pay to have one shipped to New Zealand.

Up until the recession, pricing between NZ and the US was more comparable, as it still is, more or less, for music on the iTunes Store. But Apple has had huge pricing discrepancies in the past, and I know people who had friends order Macs in the US and ship them here (they just had to pay GST when it arrived here).

This sort of huge price difference isn’t all that common, but when it happens, it’s because a product is difficult to obtain except through authorised distributors. There are usually ways around it for people who really want the product. The point is, we shouldn’t have to do that.

I always used to think that the reason Americans pay so little for products is that the market is so huge, and obviously that’s a factor. But it sometimes also looks like those of us outside the US help American business keep prices low by subsidising our American cousins. “Global economy”, indeed.

Update 22 October 2009: Along similar lines, Melbourne’s The Age reports that “Aussies pay top dollar for Windows 7”. The basic version will cost $A199 to upgrade, while it’s $US119 in the US (equivalent to about $A129).However, at the Ultimate version will cost Australians $A429 for the upgrade—almost double the $US219.99 ($A238) price in the IS.

Microsoft justified this by claiming “taxes, freight costs and currency fluctuations” were the reasons for the higher prices. The weak US dollar means that the Australian and New Zealand dollars both have greater purchasing power than they had only a few weeks. Try another excuse Microsoft—and Apple.

The columnist, her prejudice and consequences

2009-10-20T19:23:00.005+13:00

Time was, it was impossible to open a newspaper without seeing something anti-gay lurking on the pages. Homophobia was rampant in the dark old days (not so long ago); it was almost a universal journalistic convention—in the English-speaking world, at least.

Times have changed, and as the world has moved forward, much of the antipathy toward GLBT people has waned. And yet, sometimes it still rears its ugly, fanged head to have another go.

Jan Moir, a columnist for Britain’s Daily Mail, not exactly a top-tier newspaper, penned a column on the death of Boyzone co-lead singer Stephen Gately that was widely viewed as homophobic. She denies this. Nearly everyone agrees it was insensitive in the extreme to publish it as the singer was being farewelled, but is being tacky a sackable offence?

Well, yes, it is, but more about that later. First, to the main charge: Was it homophobic? Without a shred of doubt—though she’s apparently incapable of seeing it.

Moir claims she’s not homophobic because she supported the “civil partnership” law in Britain, as if that has anything do with, well, anything. We can see from her column that she believes that gay men, celebrities especially, use drugs, have promiscuous sex, even if coupled, and that their relationships don’t last. She used her column to support those beliefs by projecting them onto Gately.

She claimed that on the night he died, Gately had used drugs and insinuated that he and his partner had brought a man back to their apartment for sex. In fact, the coroner ruled that Gately’s death was due to natural causes, which Moir grandly dismissed, “Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one.” Unfortunately for her, the toxicology report showed no sign of drugs.

She also cannot know why 25-year-old Georgi Dochev accompanied Gatley and his husband, Andrew Cowles, nor what happened when they got there. And, quite frankly, it’s none of her business for the same reason that I don’t know—and certainly don’t care to know—the sexual appetites and behaviours of Moir or her cohorts. Unless she has some evidence of murder—which she absolutely doesn’t—then it’s an irrelevance designed merely to smear Gately and, by extension, all gay men. She makes this clear in her arrogant defence of her column in which she refers to “the casual invitation extended to a stranger” (she doesn’t know it was casual or that he was stranger).

She clearly didn’t like Gately. She dismissively declared, “he was the group's co-lead singer, even though he could barely carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk” (catch the subtle fag joke in that?). I can hear fans all over the world shouting back at her, “says you, bitch!” which is fair enough, actually: So she hated Gately’s singing—so what? What on earth does that have to do with his death? Absolutely nothing, but it gives her another opportunity to spit on Gately.

She also said that Gately only came out because “someone was planning to sell a story revealing his sexuality to a newspaper” and “Although he was effectively smoked out of the closet, he has been hailed as a champion of gay rights, albeit a reluctant one.” So, in her view, he couldn’t even be good at being gay. It’s fair to infer from this and her dislike of Gately that she views his continued fame as being the result, in part, of being openly gay, which she clearly doesn’t feel is legitimate.

She then used this all of this as a reason why gay relationships are inferior:

"Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

"Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened.”

She neglects to mention that McGee committed suicide after years of drug addiction and depression, problems that began long before his marriage to Matt Lucas. Or does she mean to insinuate that all gay men are incapable of relationships? What, precisely, do these two examples have to say about the thousands of other civil partnerships in Britain? Precisely nothing, actually.

What this all adds up to is that Moir was homophobic: She used her column to project her own prejudices against gay men onto Stephen Gately, and then used that to reinforce those prejudices. She used facts irrelevant to Gately’s death to denigrate both Gately and gay men generally, clearly intending to call them into public disrepute. She then used those same prejudices to denigrate gay men in relationships, attempting to suggest by innuendo that they’re not equal to heterosexual relationships, again in an attempt to call them into public disrepute.

More seriously for a newspaper, she was also factually wrong: Toxicology reports found no evidence of drugs, yet she continues to say they must’ve been a factor. The coroner ruled the death was from natural causes, yet she dismissed that based on nothing more than assumption, conjecture—and prejudice.

All of this is reason enough to sack her. No newspaper wants a columnist who uses her column to promote her own prejudices and trash minorities without at least some justification, some factual basis. But she could also be fired for being tacky: Advertisers have told the paper that their ads are not to appear near her column. Cancellation of ad contracts isn’t unimaginable if the paper doesn’t act against Moir in some way. Columnists who create problems for their employers can’t count on keeping their jobs.

As always, there’s politics: Moir will definitely become a cause célèbre for the rightwing, who often complain darkly of the intolerance of GLBT activists as they spit out the phrase, “pink mafia” (while also often demanding that their critics be fired, though we’re not supposed to remember that part). Moir claims she isn’t homophobic and that her critics haven’t read her entire column (I have, they’re right, she’s wrong).

If she really intended that her column “was to suggest that, in my honest opinion, his death raises many unanswered questions. That was all,” then she could have done so with the snide remarks and insinuations. If she really did mean by writing “it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships” that she “was suggesting that civil partnerships… have proved just to be as problematic as marriages,” then she didn’t need to do so by implying none can last.

In sum, Moir was insensitive, tacky, factually wrong and homophobic. She, and the editor who allowed the column to run, should be sacked. And if she is, she has no one to blame but herself.

Information, suppression and social media

2009-10-19T20:14:00.002+13:00

The Internet is still changing the way information is gathered and shared. Much of what passes for news is now often hearsay, passed quickly through the various social media, but sometimes it’s a bit more.

Not long ago, the Iranian regime tried to hide the truth of its rigged elections and the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protestors. They might have been able to keep it all secret—if YouTube and Twitter hadn’t kept the story alive.

In Britain, a law firm has gone to extraordinary lengths on behalf of its client. They’d already won a suppression order to keep newspapers from reporting on the case, but when they found out a question was to be raised about it during Question Time in Parliament, they got an order forbidding the publication of the details of that, too.

However, the question was posted on Parliament’s own website and people quickly figured out what was going on and spread the news through Twitter, Facebook and other media. The truth got out, despite the efforts to suppress it. The law firm didn’t learn its lesson, however, and are reportedly attempting to block Parliament from discussing the matter. While parliaments in most Westminster-style systems routinely refrain from discussing matters that are sub judice—under judicial consideration—that’s usually merely a courtesy (it’s unclear whether a court would attempt to tell any parliament what it could and could not discuss). I bet that if there had been no suppression orders, hardly anyone would know or care about the specifics of the case, so they may have made things worse for their client.

Then, also in Britain, a columnist for the Daily Mail made some outrageously homophobic remarks about the death of Stephen Gately, and when people understandably complained, she claimed to be the victim of “a heavily orchestrated internet campaign” (for the record, she claims her remarks weren’t homophobic, but that’s a topic in itself).

What the Iranians didn’t realise is that the so-called “New Media” allow people to report on things that journalists in the newsmedia simply can’t. What the British law firm didn’t realise was that no one likes being told what they can and can’t know, and they hate their democratic rights being trampled.

And what the British columnist doesn’t understand is that no one needs to “orchestrate” anything anymore. People just Tweet it or put in on Facebook, it gets repeated and in minutes millions of people can know about it.

This makes the Iranian regime, the British law firm and the columnist all seem rather quaint and old-fashioned, as if they were just learning about this thing called The Internet. It also makes them seem more than a little stupid for not understanding the power of these social media to spread information quickly.

Of course, not all information that’s spread is quality information (Tweets with unfounded rumours of celebrity deaths, for example). But sometimes New Media and social media can spread the truth that governments or corporations want to suppress. And when that happens, it makes all the false rumours worth enduring.

New ‘comment spam’?

2009-10-19T11:52:00.000+13:00

Comment spam is the bane of any interactive site, like a blog, and most have strategies to deal with it. Sometimes it’s simply word verification, other times it’s comment moderation and sometimes it’s software filters.

But there’s another kind I’m seeing with greater frequency. It’s not susceptible to most normal screening techniques—in fact, I’m not entirely sure it even qualifies as comment spam.

Broadly, “comment spam” is any unwanted attempt to hijack a comments thread to drive traffic to a commercial website, probably one of dubious merit. Such sites may include ones purporting to sell porn or prescription drugs, or they may be some sort of phishing scam. Generally, the comment is irrelevant or unintelligible, so it’s pretty clear what it is.

Lately I’ve been getting some comments that seem, on the face of it, to be legitimate, but instead of a link to a profile or personal website, they link to a commercial site where the commenter isn’t mentioned (and it’s probably irrelevant to this blog or the topic of the post). As long as the comment is about the topic of the post or other comments, I leave them alone. If they make what I think is a valid point or at least seem to have read the post, then I often reply to the comment as I would any other.

I’m a believer in open discussion of issues, and so I generally don’t delete any comments except comment spam, as I defined it above. While I reserve the right to delete any comment that I, at my sole discretion, believe to be racist, sexist, homophobic or some combination, in fact I seldom have. Spam comments, however, get the boot.

I understand why some organisations would engage in comment spamming as part of an astroturfing exercise against opponents, but quite frankly the only gain I can see a company gaining from having comments from blog posts completely unrelated to their business linking back to them is the sheer number of links. But, as I understand it, Google changed their algorithms to preclude this sort of thing skewing rankings for search results.

When I read comments on a blog (including this one) and I want to know more about a commenter, I hover the mouse over their profile link. I always right-click those links to open them in a new window anyway, but if the address seems odd in any way, I “copy link location” and paste the address into the new window. I do this so that if it’s an irrelevant commercial site, its statistics will show it as a direct arrival, and not coming from the site where the link was left. To open it directly from the site only encourages them to leave more commercial comments, something I don’t want to do until I decide what I think about the whole thing.

I’d love to hear the opinions of other bloggers: What do you do? Also, has Google changed their algorithms to make this tactic pointless?

We liked to dance

2009-10-18T21:18:00.000+13:00

People who’ve met me in the past fifteen or twenty may be surprised to learn there was a time that I used to like going out dancing with my friends. It would surprise them less to know that I only tolerated the dancing part—it was the going out with my friends that I liked.

My life has had many unlikely-to-happen things, and this was one of them: I met a group of guys through Dignity/Chicago, the local chapter of the group for Roman Catholic gay and lesbian people—even though I wasn’t Catholic. I was in my early to mid twenties, and they were all older than me—some more than twice my age.

I’m surprised they had anything to do with me at all: I was just a kid in their eyes. But from my mid-teens onward I’d felt older than I really was, so it didn’t occur to me that we weren’t equals. Some of them were a bit standoffish, which confused me at the time, but others were intensely kind and patient with me as I sought my way in the world.

One of them was Patrick, an ex-brother (there were several men in Dignity who had been brothers or priests). We were never anything more than friends, but he was kind to me at a time when much of the world seemed not to be.

Patrick loved the dance music of Patrick Cowley and "Megatron Man" (the music in the video above) in particular. Every time we were out and the DJ put that on, we had to go to the dancefloor. “Menergy” would do, but it wasn’t Patrick’s favourite.

In 1982, Patrick Cowley died from what they were still calling GRID. He was the first person to die from AIDS that any of us had ever heard of. To get a sense of what it was like among the people I knew back then, watch the beginning of the film Longtime Companion—our conversations were very similar.

By the mid-1980s I was settling in with long-term boyfriends and gay political activism, and I saw less and less of that group of friends until I eventually completely lost touch with them. I have no idea what became of any of the guys in my group.

But whenever I hear music or a remix by Patrick Cowley, I think of those days back before—well, back before almost anything, really. And, I think of the Patrick who was my friend, and how much he loved “Megatron Man”, and how, for awhile, we liked to dance.

Who will rule them all?

2009-10-18T12:19:00.003+13:00

Last week a bill was drawn from the members’ ballot that may end up having far-reaching implications—if the government doesn’t kill it off, of course. If the Government does permit it to go forward, the bill could lead to New Zealand becoming a republic.

First, it’s necessary to explain a bit of how the legislative process works in New Zealand: The government of the day drafts bills for Parliament to consider, and determines the order in which they’ll be taken up. Most of these are certain to be passed by Parliament and become law, because the government and its coalition partners have more MPs than the Opposition and other parties combined.

Members of Parliament who are not Government Ministers can put forward bills, called Members’ Bills (or “Private Members’ Bills”). There are always more of these bills proposed than can be considered by Parliament, so a ballot is held to draw a bill Parliament will consider.

A Members’ Bills seldom become law unless the Government backs it or if they allow it to be voted on through a conscience vote (which means individual MPs are permitted to vote however they want, regardless of the official position of the Party Caucus of the main party of Government. It’s important to understand this because the odds against any Members’ Bill are long.

This past Wednesday, Green Party MP Keith Locke’s Head of State Referenda Bill (92-1) was drawn on the ballot. Locke has had this on the ballot since at least 2001. The bill proposes that two referenda be held asking voters about what they want for the Head of State of New Zealand. In the first referendum, voters would select one of three options:

1. I vote for the sovereign to continue as New Zealand's Head of State.
2. I vote for a Head of State to be appointed by a vote of at least 75% of the House of Representatives.
3. I vote for a Head of State to be directly elected by the people.

If one of the options received a majority of votes, it would win. However, if no option received a majority, the two options receiving the highest votes would go to a final binding referendum. In that case, the final options would probably be number one and either 2 or 3—but my bet is that this won’t happen.

The most likely scenario is that the Government will say there are far too many important issues to be dealt with before such fundamental constitutional change is considered, especially as the Government plans to hold a referendum on New Zealand’s way of electing Parliament and allocating Members. The Government will most likely kill the bill quickly.

Which is a shame: While many New Zealanders want the country to be a republic, plenty of others don’t. Both sides are guessing about what New Zealanders want, and it might be nice to find out what it is that voters really want. Asking the people of New Zealand what they want, rather than deciding for them—what an amazingly novel idea! (yes, I'm being sarcastic…)

I believe that a republic for New Zealand is inevitable. I just don’t think it’s likely that this will be the time it’ll happen.

You got that right

2009-10-16T23:30:00.001+13:00

One of my favourite YouTube folks is Rob Tisinai, and I subscribe to his YouTube Channel. This video just puts it out there: The truth for those who care to know.

Modern racism in America

2009-10-16T12:13:00.002+13:00

One thing that’s become clear to me in the rightwing pushback against accusations that some of their rhetoric against President Obama is blatantly racist, is that they simply don’t see it. To them, unless they’re wearing a white sheet or burning crosses, they can’t possibly be racist.

In Louisiana, a justice of the peace refused to sign the marriage license of a couple because they’re interracial. "I'm not a racist,” Keith Bardwell told the Associated Press. “I just don't believe in mixing the races that way,"

He tried to “prove” his lack of racism: "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else." So, he’d be racist only if he didn’t allow them to use his bathroom? WTF?

Apparently, Bardwell’s objection is over children: "There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage. I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it." So apparently he’s also an expert in child psychology and children’s welfare.

To Bardwell, and probably his defenders on the right, because he “didn't tell this couple they couldn't get married. I just told them I wouldn't do it" he’s not discriminating or violating the law. He must be unaware that the Supreme Court has already ruled that the state—which Bardwell represents—cannot deny couples the right to marry solely on the basis of race (they must still be heterosexual, of course).

The bigger issue is not the denial of the license itself—the couple ultimately got it signed by another JP. The issue is that Bardwell cannot see the racism inherent in his deciding that an interracial couple shouldn’t marry, and that doing so may create children that are somehow inferior. He doesn’t get a free pass just because he has “piles and piles of black friends” or because he let’s them use his bathroom. His underlying assumption is the problem, a paternalistic attitude based on race that has no place in the 21st Century.

And this is why the rightwing just doesn’t get why some of their rhetoric comes across as blatantly racist: They simply cannot see it and don’t believe they have any racism in them, whether or not they allow black people to use their toilets.

I was thinking the same thing

2009-10-15T19:15:00.003+13:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Queer and Loathing in D.C.

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

I watch Fox Noise from time to time, because I’m curious and because it’s always a good idea to know what your opponents are saying. So on the day of the National Equality March (NEM), I surfed through to Fox to see what it was saying.

Surely, I thought, they’d be covering the NEM after making such a big deal of the “9/12” rally in DC, the one they attacked other networks for “ignoring”. Since they so self-righteously and pompously patted themselves on the back for covering the march, and since they’d declared they don’t “pick and choose these rallies and protests”, I was sure they’d cover the NEM.

Of course, they didn’t cover it. Obviously, Fox only considers the rightwing causes it promotes to be news. That’s kind of funny, actually: Fox wouldn’t know what news was, even if looked out the windows of its Washington, DC Bureau.

This Jon Stewart video captures exactly what I was thinking. (Sorry to Canadian readers—this apparently isn’t available in Canada).