Matthew Taylor

If you:

• re-download the app to get around someone’s block
• detail a sexual fantasy (involving that person) after they say “I just want to chat”
• repeatedly ask to meet someone after they say “I just want to chat”
• re-download the app to get around a block and repeatedly ask to meet someone after they’ve said “I just want to chat”
• feel it’s appropriate to chat to someone once, wait months, then send a naked selfie

Air New Zealand is a quality brand. I like their in-flight snacks, don’t mind paying slightly more for their reputation of reliability compared to their domestic route competitor JetStar, and I appreciate their creative safety videos and the fact they are slightly more interesting to watch multiple times.

Then there is POLi. POLi sounds friendly.

If you can use POLi, it saves you from Air New Zealand’s excessive credit card surcharge fees by letting you use a bank transfer to pay for flights. You can’t use it if you’re in New Zealand and have a Mac. This rules me out. Apparently the Australian POLi now works with Macs fine.

ASB and BNZ </3 POLi

Last year banks started warning against using POLi because how it operates to verify you are actually paying Air New Zealand and friends is a bit suspicious.

Interestingly, Air New Zealand isn’t even listed in that Stuff article, even though they’re likely the biggest company using POLi in New Zealand, and are featured on POLi’s website.

Providing your log in details to a third party will be in violation of the internet banking terms and conditions you’ve agreed to, and potentially opens you up to being liable for losses.

There is the possibility of an additional motive going on here: banks sell credit and debit cards, and those cards make them money. POLi is quite an attractive alternative because it saves you something like $8 on a return domestic flight.

Air New Zealand’s Surcharging

This surcharging is extortive, misleading, and unlike airplanes that come on time, Peter Jackson spoofs, and free-but-not-really-free cookies, doesn’t endear Air New Zealand to me. Especially on domestic flights.

It’s presented as a transaction charge to recover costs (“Air New Zealand needs to recover this cost”), but it gets charged multiple times in the same card transaction. When I pointed this out to Air New Zealand they ignored me.

Air New Zealand pay something to accept credit cards, but that is not $4 per person flying, per direction they are flying. Instead of passing on the percentage they are actually charged, which Bernard Hickey’s industry experts say would be less than 1%, they charge a fixed fee multiple times in the same card transaction.

A group booking shows how ridiculous this gets. I once flew with a dozen or so people, and each person was charged $4 there, and $4 back, even though the flights were booked over just two transactions. To their credit Air New Zealand refunded close to $100 of fees after I called them.

Air New Zealand even issued a press release in 2008 chastising Pacific Blue for, among other things, their $4 per sector card surcharge because Pacific Blue offered no alternative payment. Kind of like what Air New Zealand does to Mac users. Or what they do to anyone following the advice of banks. (I’m ignoring Airpoints and Travelcard as payment methods because they aren’t accessible forms of payment for a lot of people.)

The ComCom have “investigated” the matter, concluding that the “card payment fee is used to recover all of the direct and indirect costs associated with credit cards payments.” The key word here being indirect, I think.

To be fair to Air New Zealand, JetStar charges $5 per flight for card transactions, but let’s be honest, JetStar are a hot mess, and Australian, and you shouldn’t be booking with them anyway.

Either way, it’s interesting to see these surcharges creep up over time, for cost recovery purposes, I’m sure. Are the airlines poor negotiators when it comes to their merchant agreements? I wouldn’t think so.

To quote ex-Air New Zealand Chief Operating Officer Andrew Miller: “research feedback shows customers are keen for… one easy to understand price with no added levies to the fare”.

Tomorrow: Ticketek, Ticketmaster and their fees (including the emailing-you-a-PDF surcharge). Maybe. Probably not.

• ASB’s security alerts (18/19 December 2012, cached)
• BNZ’s updated security alert (did both banks have to update their alerts after being threatened with legal action by POLi?)
• Bernard Hickey on credit card surcharges and the ComCom

^{Image credit: me}

December 5 was my last day of school. Ever. I’m not sure how to describe the feeling of satisfaction I got from being able to leave a place with my head held high, integrity in check, and on my own terms; not having been suspended, or baited into leaving by people who would rather no one challenged things as they are. It feels good to have shaken things up a bit, to get people to question things, and to hopefully cause change in some small way. Just before I had left, someone said that I had divided the teachers over the photography incident. And that’s okay with me.

I thought there was a couple of interesting things I’d share, now that threats of suspension are off the table.

First, there’s a detail that I’ve missed from all the posts about my old high school… my dad works there. This obviously created very interesting situations, like a blog post being printed out and shown to him by a deputy principal, as if he should convince me to take it down because it was inconvenient for the school. I have a huge amount of respect for him for standing beside me, with the view that I was old enough to make my own decisions, even if he didn’t understand, or agree with them (and that a school really has no jurisdiction over outside of school speech). What annoys, angers, and frightens me is that I know there are parents out there, who in the same situations would immediately side with the school.

—

On the Monday morning after the photography incident, I was given a green piece of paper by my deputy principal, a blank incident report to complete, typeset in Comic Sans as if to emphasise its ludicrousness. I didn’t fill it in, because it was apparent I was going to be cross-examined over whatever I wrote down, while the teacher’s incident report would be treated as the truth… the holiest of untouchable, unquestionable statements. I kept the form though.

On November 1, after my photography panel was finished, I submitted my own incident report after it appeared to me like a teacher was trying to bait me into reacting to them, yelling at them, or more.

I gave it to my deputy principal who gave it to the principal, and I never heard about it again. Clearly incident reports are a one way street.

On Wednesday P6 I had design. The computer suite is my classroom. S slammed the door that leads to the computer suite from the office. She spoke loudly on the cordless phone in front of her class about me. I could hear from the other room. She said, among other things, that she thought I wasn’t allowed over there, meaning the art department, until I said sorry to her. This would be unheard of in other departments, e.g. if a physics teacher had a problem with me she would not be allowed to hijack my education in chemistry. Today, Thursday P2 I had design again. S slammed the door that leads to the computer suite from the office again.

Sending disparaging emails to other staff about me, and putting lies in quotation marks to make them appear like the truth is also completely inappropriate, unacceptable, and hurtful.

Here is what actually happened on the quad. “Can I please talk to you?” “Ah, not at the moment Matthew.” “Did you say that you didn’t want me in your class?” “Ah, I didn’t make that decision, you need to go and… this is from [the HOD]. I’ve had to provide a statement about what happened.” “I just-” “Matthew.” “I just want to hear you say that you know that panel is due tomorrow and you’re not doing anything about it. Do you want me to pass?” She says nothing, enters the office, and I follow to go to the board room. I say “that’s all I needed to hear.”

Submitting a scathing personal attack and character assassination about me, that is full of lies, disguised as an incident report is hurtful.

Blackmailing me for an apology in exchange for her help is also inappropriate.

These events are not acceptable and are upsetting. Where is my apology?

—

I learnt two big lessons after all of this. You will never know all of the things going on behind the scenes, and that you will find support in unexpected places.

—

The other thing that seemed best left unspoken about until after I left was that I learnt that four builders were kicked off a building site at school last year because of their police checks. I think it’s pertinent to disclaim, based on what I said above, that I didn’t learn this through my dad. One of the offences was unlawful sexual connection with a young person aged under 16, and my principal wasn’t happy that I knew. From what she said, it sounds like they were working during school hours: “people… who are working on our building site during school hours, even though they’re not working directly with young people… have to be police checked”.

She said that that sort of information is highly confidential, and was an invasion of privacy of those workers, that I knew they were kicked off and why. I didn’t (and still don’t) know the names of who was kicked off the building site, just that obviously processes in place failed, e.g. waiting for police checks to come back before people are allowed to work at a school. I think it’s interesting that in a school with reasonably young students attending, the parents weren’t informed. I would even argue that it would be in the interests of the parents and students, especially considering the under 16 part of the offence, that a lack of oversight like this was disclosed to them.

I wonder if the Ministry has to be informed of situations like these. If anyone finds Hekia, could you please ask her for me?

—

Before prize giving, I told someone at work that I was ready to leave school. She asked if I thought I had questioned the right things.

Are there right things to question, or should we always doubt those who say that they have found the truth?

^{Image credit: Bart Everson}

This post relates to the small problem that turned into a big problem last Friday.

“Can I please talk to you?”

“Ah not at the moment Matthew.”

“Did you say that you didn’t want me in your class?”

“Ah, I didn’t make that decision, you need to go and… this is from [the head of department]. I’ve had to provide a statement about what happened.”

“I just-”

“Matthew.”

“I just want to hear you say that you know the [photography] panel^* is due tomorrow and you’re not doing anything about it… Do you want me to pass?”

She doesn’t say anything, and walks into the office.

“That’s all I needed to hear.”

^{*In NCEA Photography you work throughout the year on a panel of work (three big boards stuck together) that’s worth 14 credits. This is very important as, in simple terms, you need 14 credits to get University Entrance in a subject, and 60 credits overall to pass the year.}

—

It is a Monday morning. There are four people in the school board room. My deputy principal, E, asks if I remember last time.

She’s referring to when she wanted to talk to me about this blog post (i.e. pressure me to take it down), but ended the interview before it started when I told her I was recording the conversation on my phone. She said I needed her permission. I told her I didn’t.

She says that she doesn’t want me to tape this conversation, but she’s happy to have it taped as long as she gets to tape it, keep the tape, and transcribe it. Today, two days later I am told that this transcription has still not occurred.

E has a statement from my photography teacher, S. I ask if I can read it. “No you can’t sorry.” Not before I give mine. I wonder if this complies with the Privacy Act.

She asks me to tell her about Friday period six.

—

I asked S to unlock the computer suite, and if she had the camera card reader.

S told me she didn’t know if one of her keys would unlock the filing cabinet the card reader is now kept in. She said she could check soon. She gave me her keys. The door I wanted her to unlock was three steps from where she was standing.

I unlocked the computer suite. I walked through the art office to her classroom. She seemed busy, like she wouldn’t be able to find the key right away, if it turned out she actually had it. To save everyone time^* and because of multiple reasons I didn’t think getting the card reader myself would be an issue, I walked over to the filing cabinet and tried one key. It did not fit.

^{*Our class time with S has been cut because of budget issues. Previously I have been to S’s office to ask her to look at my work and been told that I was interrupting her only hour of non-contact time with students that day, and on another occasion that she needed to send a really important email.}

S walked into the office and overreacted. She was angry I was trying to get the card reader. I made a comment that she should stop being bipolar. This was a poor choice of words. I meant that she gave me her keys and then switched to being angry about me using them just like that. At this point she had a door behind her–an exit.

We argued for a few minutes.

She showed me a sign on a door to the office that said ‘staff only’. I said that this is never enforced and everyone goes into the office, alone or otherwise, to walk through, or to get things. As there were other students in the computer suite, I pushed the door closed. At this point she had the door to the other art room behind her–an exit. Doors in schools are designed so that people can always exit rooms, and even if I wanted to (I didn’t and wouldn’t) I could not physically block the three doors several metres apart from each other in the office, at the same time. At no point did S attempt to leave the room.

I said that I was fed up with stupid policies and asked why the card reader was locked away anyway. I asked about a new policy which based on a single incident that only art students are allowed in the computer suite (previously others have been allowed e.g. a friend I have a study period with, with no issues).

It was apparent I was not going to get the card reader.

—

“At the moment she doesn’t want to be alone with you,” E says.

I have known this teacher for five years. I have never been violent towards anyone. S knows this. Context, context, context.

I ask, “is that her?” referring to that morning when she told me it wasn’t her decision that I wasn’t allowed in her class.

“She doesn’t feel safe.”

This hurts.

—

“Can I read what S said?”

“No… well I can read it out to you.”

“Matthew Taylor asked for my keys to unlock the mac suite at the start of P6, while I was sorting out my Y9 class, he also asked if I had a key to unlock the file cabinet in the Art staff room, as he needed the card reader, to which I replied I’m not sure, if I do I will have a look shortly.

When I walked into the Art office to get the equipment for my class, Matthew was attempting to unlock the staff file cabinet, without permission and with no staff member present.

He spun around when he was caught, I was shocked–”

I laugh. The hyperbole is dripping off the page already.

“–and said what do you think you are doing, he walked up to me and handed me my keys, I asked quite firmly what he thought he was doing [she actually said that what I was doing was highly inappropriate], he replied “can you stop” I said “I beg your pardon” as he was right up in my space [the room we were in was about 3 metres by 2 metres, even if I tried my best, I'm sure I would still have been “up in her space”], he replied “can you stop” I said ” I beg your pardon” as he was right up in my space, he replied “can you stop with the Bi Polar” again I said I beg your pardon! what do you think you are doing in here, this is a staff only area and you are trying to unlock the staff filing cabinet without permission.”

“She’s got a very good memory if she can remember word for word what she said.”

“I gave you my keys to unlock the Mac Suite. Matthew said ‘it was implied that he could go into the staff file cabinet, to which I said NO it was not. Matthew closed the door to the Mac suite, I felt very uncomfortable–”

“So you locked her with you?”

“I didn’t lock her in there. I closed the door because it’s inappropriate to talk like that in front of other students.”

“I felt very uncomfortable as he was in my space once again being very aggressive, using a very firm and aggressive snappy [snappy is her go to word to describe me when we don't agree on something, see the Facebook incident incident report, which she also wrote] tone. I opened the door and showed him where it has printed very clearly STAFF ONLY. He replied people come in here all the time, I replied no they don’t, people only go in here when staff are around, not un attended. He was being very rude and argumentative.

I told Matthew if he had a problem he needed to talk to [head of department], he kept asking for the card reader, I told him he needed to talk to [head of department] before that would happen, he said WHY, I replied because of what you just did.

He said why, and began shaking and was red in anger [I didn't realize this, but I blame adrenaline], and very firm in his tone with me, completely unacceptable, and he closed the door again”

“I suppose we have a problem in that you essentially… it was interpreted as being quite aggressive in there…”

“Well I’ve never been aggressive to staff before and we’ve known each other for five years so I think that’s an… overreaction and it’s a little bit of hyperbole.”

”He then said he was sick of this school and the stupid rules, “who said who has said other students cant come into the Mac suite”, I said he needed to talk to the HOD if he had a problem, he said “who said we cannot come into this office”, and “why do you lock away the card reader anyway”, I replied you need to talk to the HOD, as I am finding your tone very disrespectful, I don’t make all the rules, however I do follow them, you need to speak to the HOD if you have a problem. I opened the door and said you need to go in there. I was very uncomfortable, like he was trying to intimidate me, he asked rudely about the card reader, I told him he needed to wait and have a discussion with [head of department] about it, because of his actions and closed the door. I was very shaken; he was so very aggressive in his manner and really out of line.

Once I got my class sorted, I seen [head of department] and told her, she asked me to write it up and we agreed today was not the best time to confront him and we would leave it till Monday, due to the way we felt he would react and talk to [head of department].”

—

We’re about to leave. E has gone away and come back.

“Did you hassle S this morning?”

She’s holding another incident report.

—

From: [Photography teacher]
Sent: Monday, 29 October 2012 11:07 a.m.
To: [My deputy principal]
CC: [Principal]
Subject: Matthew Taylor

I have another incident form which i will give to you [my deputy principal] re Mattherw Taylor this morning at 9.45am, where he cut me off in the quad and confronted me and said “i want to here from you that you said i cannot do Art in the Art room”, to which i replied i did not say that, he kept going, its all written up, , so i turned and went to and knocked on [other deputy principal (we have lots)]‘s door to escape from him as i was not going to enter into a debate with him due to not feeling like i can trust him. He said”do you want me to fail”, which really hurt as i pride myself on the way i do my job and the results we get in our dept.
Cheers
[Photography teacher]

 

Incident report
Incident: Matthew Taylor Part 2
Date: 29/10
Statement: On the way to my classroom at 9.45 am, I seen Matthew Taylor.

He cut in front of me in the quad I said hi Matt

Matthew said I need to talk to you I replied sorry I carn’t do that at the moment

He said no I need to talk to you. Did you say I carn’t do Art to which I replied, No I did not say that, he then said “I want to here you say I cannot do it”, I said I never said that you will need to talk to [head of department] or [my deputy principal]. You realise the pannels are due tomorrow and you want me to fail, I was walking away from him at this stage & knocked on [other deputy principal]‘s door & walked in Matthew kept walking to the confrence room where he should have been

Once again his manner was not acceptable & saying I want him to fail is upsetting as I pride myself on the work I do & results we get in our dept.

See the top of this post for what was actually said. This email and incident report are examples of S putting things in quote marks and presenting them as the absolute truth, when, in reality, that is not what was said. This applies equally to the other incident report.

—

The plan is to come back in an hour and work, supervised, with S.

But I don’t feel up to it and don’t return to school. The new plan is to go after school and complete my panel, without help from S. Working outside of school hours has never been an issue for anyone in the past.

But, now it is:

[Head of department], [my deputy principal], [my geography teacher/a deputy principal] met
unhappy re him being in Art Suite unsupervised

The art teachers felt that this was not appropriate

—

That S feels unsafe around me (even though I am smaller than her) was mentioned at least six more times in the meeting.

”We’ve got a teacher who at the moment doesn’t feel safe with you.”

“Yeah but she’s not feeling safe.”

“But how do we solve the problem that she feels really unsafe?”

“…and she’s feeling safe enough to help him.”

“But she doesn’t feel safe.”

“Irregardless of being a professional is still the fact that at the moment she is still pretty angry and she feels uncomfortable.”

 

It was upsetting.

That afternoon I see the psychologist I had stopped seeing.

—

I work at home that night, and am allowed to go into school at 7:30am on Tuesday to print one last photo. The plan was to print with ink over some photos (referred to below as “do more to his panels”), but I decided against it.

Later in the morning [photography teacher] came and saw me saying Matthew needs to do more to his panels as she felt that they were not up to a suitable standard. I contacted Matthew to come in which he did and I said that he needed to acknowledge that his behaviour on Friday was out of line and inappropriate and he needed to say this to the teacher – [photography teacher] before she could help him to do further work on his panels. He thought about it but said that he could not do so and he went home.

—

In design, last period today, I hear the computer suite door slam. I didn’t need to see to know who slammed it.

I hear S say on the phone: “I thought he wasn’t allowed over here until he apologised.”

—

Being assertive and sticking up for yourself is not inappropriate. Writing a scathing personal attack on my character disguised as an incident report, however, is. Where is your apology to me?

Judge not lest ye be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

^{Image credit: Linus Bohman}

“Hey… why are you out here?”

“Small electronics.”

“…?”

“Three camera card readers have gone missing. The immediate conclusion is someone must be stealing them, right, and the one camera card reader that’s left gets locked away–”

“Aren’t they like $20?”

“$16.30.”

“And it gets locked away?”

“In a padlocked filing cabinet drawer. I needed to use the camera card reader so when I asked to borrow her keys for the computer room I asked if I could have it. She’s all ‘I’m not sure if I have a key for that drawer–’”

“So… even she isn’t necessarily trusted with the camera card reader?”

“Apparently not. I open the room and go through the closet office to her give her her keys back.”

“The closet office?”

“It’s a small room that joins all the art rooms together. It says ‘staff only’ on the door but no one takes any notice of the sign. Anyway, I get to her door and she seems busy with her class, so I figure I’ll see if one of her keys opens the drawer because it’s going to take her a while to get her class started–”

“And when she does come she might try all of her keys and find out you need to get someone else to open it anyway?”

“Right. So I’ve tried one key when she comes in and throws a huge fit that I’m trying to open the drawer.”

“How huge?”

“She used the words ‘highly inappropriate’. We had a go at each other for two minutes. It’s like she forgot that she’s known me for five years, and you know, I’m probably just trying to get the camera card reader, as opposed to stealing all the other stuff of huge value they must also lock up in that drawer along with the $16.30 card reader.”

“Yeah… they all demand respect for themselves and the ridiculous policies they enforce but don’t know how to treat others properly… did you get the card reader in the end?”

“No, I came outside because I can’t deal with that bullshit… actually, can you go in and get my stuff? I didn’t grab it on the way out.”

 

While I was waiting the fire alarm went off.

“Please evacuate the building using your nearest fire exit.”

^{Image credit: Robert S. Donovan}

You might want to skip this post (about abortion). Need help? In New Zealand, you can call Lifeline on 0800 543 354 or Youthline on 0800 37 66 33.

Click here to watch the documentary. You can make the video full-screen to avoid the advert.

The two sides of the abortion debate in America literally face one another in this documentary from filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady.

In Fort Pierce, Florida, a women’s heath care center is located at the corner of 12th and Delaware. On the same corner, across the street, is another women’s heath care center.

However, the two centers are not in the same business; one provides abortions along with a variety of other health services, while the other primarily offers counseling to women considering abortion, urging them to keep their babies.

In 12th and Delaware, Ewing and Grady offer a look inside both offices, as pro-life counselors give women a mixture of concern and disinformation about terminating their pregnancies and the pro-choice medical staff struggles to work under the frequent threat of violence against them.

The film also examines the handful of protesters who stand outside the abortion clinic, confronting both patients and staff as they enter and exit. (via)

In Florida there are two street corners, both 12th & Delaware. An abortion clinic, run by a husband and wife, and an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy care center, run by Father Tom sit across the street from each other.

“We still get women coming in who think they’re going there [to the abortion clinic].”

Women aren’t sure which one they’re calling or visiting. The pregnancy care center does nothing to clarify that they don’t actually offer abortions. What they do offer is “counseling” to actively try to persuade women from choosing abortion, graphic photographs, free ultrasounds (with ‘HI DADDY!’ typed in the corner of the print out), models of fetuses, DVDs of anti-abortion propaganda playing in the waiting room, flip books of the abortion process, graphic DVDs of the procedure, and brochures stating that abortion causes breast cancer.

The abortion clinic claims the pregnancy care center gives incorrect information to women–among spreading myths about abortion and medical disinformation, they say the center tells women they are earlier in their pregnancy than they actually are, so if they think they have a few weeks to make a decision and then decide to have an abortion they either won’t be able to get an one or will have to travel to another state to get one.

Choice quotes from one of the crisis pregnancy center counselors

“She’s abortion-minded.”

“She had an abortion in December. She might do it again.”

[to ultrasound technician (likely the only person in the building with any sort of medical training)] “Maybe we can get a heartbeat.”

”Yus, yus, yus, two [“saved”] in one day.”

The efforts the pregnancy counselors go to push their agenda have no bounds

A woman comes in. She already has two kids. She says she wants what is best for herself and the children she already has. Her position is entirely understandable.

The counselor goes to her office and sends an email out to a prayer mailing list: “Please pray for Victoria, she is in our counseling room at this very moment, and her only option is abortion…”

She buys McDonald’s for the woman, thinking that if the woman leaves before having an ultrasound that she might “lose her”. They eat together.

She tells the woman that her verbally abusive partner might change if she has this baby.

“I’m gonna step outside and make a phone call.”

“[on phone] Man this bitch is getting on my fucking nerve.”

 

The crew follow-up with a 15-year-old who was convinced she should continue with her pregnancy by the care center. She tells the crew that she tried to end the pregnancy herself. She hopes that everything will turn out alright.

The protestors and the doctors

The same counselor from above makes her way across the street to talk to the protesters. They’re friends. She shares news from an anti-abortion website.

She comes out a second time after the police are called and defends the protesters’ use of graphic signs.

The doctors who perform abortions are picked up by the clinic owner, and, with a sheet covering their heads, are taken into the clinic’s closed garage to protect their identities.

“I’ve discovered, thanks through God that I know where the owner of the abortion clinic meets the abortionists.”

One of the protesters from outside the abortion clinic leads the documentary crew to a Wal-Mart parking lot. He’s found where the doctors and clinic owner meet and swap cars. He, as well as others try to find out names and addresses of the abortion doctors. They want to out the doctors, using methods like displaying their photo on billboards; and visiting their homes, churches, and workplaces, to deter them from performing abortions.

The abortion clinic

“I just wanna make sure that this is definitely what you need to do, not want to do, nobody ever wants to do this… It’s your decision only.”

In strong contrast with the pregnancy care center, the abortion clinic is truly about choice.

“Yeah… they got a replacement and that doctor was killed too.”

The main fear is that they will lose their doctors. Their abortionists are in their 50s and 60s. “Where is the next doctor coming from” if a doctor retires or is outed?

—

Watch an interview with the co-directors of the documentary, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady.

Here’s a new Tumblr sharing New Zealand women’s stories of abortion.

Click here to watch the documentary. You can make the video full-screen to avoid the advert.

The anti-discrimination laws of New Zealand do not apply in the territories of Niue, Tokelau, or the Cook Islands, and male homosexual acts remain illegal in the Cook Islands.

In Niue and Tokelau laws against sodomy were repealed in 2007, however in the Cook Islands sodomy still remains a crime (pdf). Along with sodomy, “indecency between males” and “keeping place of resort for homosexual acts” are also against the law in the Cook Islands.

The Cook Islands and Niue are self-governing in free association with New Zealand, and so New Zealand’s Parliament are not empowered to pass legislation there. However, New Zealand acts on behalf of these places in matters of foreign affairs and defence.

Tokelau has less independence from New Zealand than the Cook Islands and Niue–it has been administered by New Zealand since 1926. However, New Zealand law does not apply to Tokelau either, unless expressly extended there (which in practice does not happen).

New Zealand needs to urge Niue, Tokelau, and the Cook Islands to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, and the Cook Islands to legalize consensual homosexual acts between men.

New Zealand supports Niue and the Cook Islands with their defence and foreign affairs, and administers Tokelau–New Zealand must also support LGBT people in these places too and ensure they are not discriminated against.

Tell Jonathan Kings, Toke Tufukia Talagi, and Henry Puna that the people of the world expect their citizens to be afforded the basic right of not being discriminated against because of who they are.

Tell John Key and Murray McCully that the people of the world expect that the places New Zealand has ties with respect human rights.

^{Image credit: See-ming Lee}

“Watch this.”

A friend slides her phone over to me.

I push play, and start watching a seven minute cellphone video of a parked car.

The car is not empty, though. There are three female occupants inside. And the car is surrounded by two dozen bystanders.

“Why don’t you say it to her face now?!”

This is a bullied schoolgirl’s father yelling through the windows.

A female voice is behind the camera. I guess the bullied girl’s mother.

“You’re not so tough now, huh?”

Someone gets the left passenger door open, and tries to drag the girl in the passenger seat out.

She kicks her legs free and locks the door.

“It would only take a few of us to tip them.”

There are cheers from the crowd.

“I wish you were my dad.”

This was a good promotion for ‘get your parents to intimidate your bullies.’

I wish it wasn’t.

I feel sorry for the girls in the car.

^{Image credit: Alan Cleaver}

It’s pretty sad when your principal thinks that getting drunk in a park is safer (and looks better for the school) than having a controlled, supervised after party, where alcohol isn’t provided.

It’s pretty sad when your principal thinks the appropriate venue for discussion of said decision is behind closed doors where she can bully you into submission.

And it’s pretty sad when a community organization that’s meant to be all about young people won’t support said young people when they try to do something the right way.

But at least if something goes wrong the school had done something! The community organization played no part in it! Their names won’t be spread through the newspapers!

Or will they?

Just some food for thought, Halswell Scouts and Dear Principal.

===

I tried. And it feels good.

^{Image credit: Christian Senger}

 

 

TEDxEQChCh was streaming live all day here.

Exploration

Rakihia Tau – Mihi

Highly Flammable – Performers

Highly Flammable

Roger Sutton – Opening remarks

Tom Hooper - CEO, Canterbury Development Corporation

The Kiwi mantra of ‘give it a go’ is far more valuable than we give it credit. Christchurch might not be attractive to the risk-adverse at the moment, but that’s alright. The job right now is to attract and retain young people, and make sure that talented young people are going to want to come here.

Vibeke Linde-Strandby – Architect

“Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services, processes and even strategy.” – Tim Brown

Arlanda Stad is a business park concept with a soul.

“This is the first time I’ve tried to explain architectural concepts without slides.”

 John Hunter – Recorded TED talk

Watch the talk here.

John Hunter puts all the problems of the world on a 4′x5′ plywood board — and lets his 4th-graders solve them. At TED2011, he explains how his World Peace Game engages schoolkids, and why the complex lessons it teaches — spontaneous, and always surprising — go further than classroom lectures can.

John was put in charge of a gifted education programme. His first question was “What do I do?” the response was “What do you want to do?”.

The answer was the World Peace Game that features the UN, arms dealers, saboteurs and weather goddesses.

John admits to his students “I don’t know the answers.”

The documentary film John talks about is showing at the Hollywood Cinema in Christchurch, details will be up on the TEDxEQChCh website.

Jamie Fitzgerald – Adventurer, presenter on First Crossings

“For 42 hours we did not move anywhere.”

“So we haven’t moved anywhere and we’re winning the race.”

Sometimes when you think you’re making the least progress you’re actually making the most.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” - Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland

Experiential learning.

They asked what are the insights from other people’s success that we can apply tomorrow?

Celebrating milestones

We only ever focussed on that next milestone and we celebrated it.

“Why do I push my boundaries? If I let an opportunity pass I might be letting myself down.”

Ryan Reynolds - Chief Evangelist, Life In Vacant Spaces

We live in a culture of permits.

Anything a bit out of the ordinary is forbidden unless we get special permission.

We internalize this and close ourselves off.

There is a brief time in adolescence where we act as if anything is allowed unless strictly specified as forbidden.

Approach any rule asking what does it allow?

The Book Exchange Fridge Gapfiller project: people asked “Who’s going to be locking the fridge every night?”

A permanent solution might have been too daunting.

If people will not try things without permission, you have to make it easy to get a permit, Life in Vacant Spaces deals with barriers.

It’s easy to try something when it’s temporary.

What if you could try out an idea for free for 30 days?

Festival of Transitional Architecture.

“We’re totally unresourced and in over our heads, but everyone should get in over their heads right now.”

The caption of one of the projects featured in Ryan’s slides: “Needs funding – let’s talk ”

The opposite of a permit is an invitation.

We want to foster a creative culture of creators and doers.

Inspiration

Kiel Johnson – Artist

A good idea only comes when working on a bad idea.

Lots of slides with awesome projects Kiel has worked on.

Made a printing press: “I am the press, I have the power.”

Made a survival vest for an emergency “I’m living in Los Angeles so when we fall into the ocean…”

“Get started on whatever you do… and good things will happen.”

“I do outreach… which is basically making more people like me.”

Two words: robot party.

Jane Henley – CEO, World Building Council

Green in a generation.

What we’ve created now is a set of disconnects and it’s difficult to realize visions in this environment.

“I wonder how long their drive to work is everyday.” Jane on a photo of a suburban cul-de-sac.

Market uptake is increasing in speed with each new technology.

We use labels to understand the plethora of information available to us. Performance ratings – energy, water, fuel efficiency ratings on appliances and vehicles.

Growing vegetables, community involvement, walking, closeness to family – valuable things from the past that need to be brought back.

Consumption to co-sumption

Good ideas: walking school bus, AirBNB – renting a room in your house out, carpooling (10 weddings have happened because of connections made through carpooling.com).

Community collaboration
Say a neighbourhood wants green energy – these community collaborators think up a solution.

We can look at Skype and the NZ Insulation Programme and see values becoming easier to achieve and becoming more important – connecting with friends overseas, having a warm home…

“When I was at school working together was called cheating.”

Twitter @worldgbc.

Donald Sadoway – Recorded TED talk

Watch the talk here.

What’s the key to using alternative energy, like solar and wind? Storage — so we can have power on tap even when the sun’s not out and the wind’s not blowing. In this accessible, inspiring talk, Donald Sadoway takes to the blackboard to show us the future of large-scale batteries that store renewable energy. As he says: “We need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big. We need to think cheap.”

Making a liquid battery to solve the strain on power sources.

“If you want to make something dirt cheap, make it out of dirt.”

“One of the greatest benefits of being a professor? Coloured chalk.”

“David’s young, smart, and wants a PhD.”

Abbas Nazari – Student, Former Afghan Refugee

Don’t think I could do his talk justice. Watch the video when it’s posted.

Wil McLellan – Founder, EPIC

Disruptive collaboration, the journey of getting EPIC built.

“Not feeling super positive.” – Wil on the day after the earthquake.

“We we got no money, we got no land, we got no property development experience.” But that didn’t hold them back.

“You’re pretty good at art… cough Lord Of The Rings” Wil to one of the most creative businesses in New Zealand, WETA.

Challenge convention, think outside the box.

Activation

Jed, Hera with Happiness Stan – Music

Jade Temepara – Founder, Hand Over A Hundy

Think about food differently.

Food has changed through generations ending up with things with no nutritional value.

A few days after the February quake there was no food in a supermarket near Jade and there wasn’t going to be for a week. “What am I going to do to make sure I have enough to sustain my own family” if food wasn’t available anywhere for a period of time?

Start a food revolution.

Hand Over A Hundy gifts $100 to families to start a vegetable garden.

Handing down skills and knowledge through generations – most of the mentors assigned to families are older people.

Do you have your own food system? Are you passing down valuable skills to your kids?
Are you teaching your children where real food comes from?

Pam Warhurst – Recorded TED talk

Watch the talk here.

What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With energy and humor, Pam Warhurst tells at the TEDSalon the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable gardens, and to change the narrative of food in their community.

Propaganda gardening.

“We did not write a report, we did not ask for permission.”

Food is a common language.

“And we’ve done it all without a flipping strategy document.”

“I’ve seen the power of small actions and it’s awesome.”

“And for some reason I can’t comprehend it’s surrounded by prickly plants.”

“And there’s some people who don’t know what a vegetable looks like if it’s not in plastic with a label.”

“If you eat, you’re in.”

Ernesto Sirolli – Founder, Sirolli Institute

“We paid them to come… and sometimes they showed up.”

“Instead of asking ‘why aren’t you growing anything?’ we just said ‘thank God we’re here’.”

“If people don’t want to be helped, leave them alone.” It’s about respect.

“Let me tell you a secret. There is a problem with community meetings. Entrepreneurs don’t come.”

“How do you do that?” “I do something very, very difficult. I shut up.”

Entrepreneurs want confidentiality, dedication and for you to realize that a successful business needs:

A fantastic product, marketing and financial management.

None of the successful companies started with one. Study Richard Branson’s book – the first two pages. He doesn’t mention I. He says We 32 times.

George Parker – Actor

George talked about a performance he was involved in about the Canterbury earthquakes.

“We were used to working in unconventional spaces.”

Joshua Iosefo – Poet

An amazing live performance on invisible borders and being brown.

Aspiration

Ian Taylor – Managing Director, Animation Research Ltd

Ian wowed everyone with his animations.

“While everything was turning to crap here, people of that calibre were thinking about you.” Ian on getting help from big companies for his earthquake auction.

“Don’t see why not” attitude gets his staff around the world.

“Something special happened in Christchurch, grasp it.”

Sam Johnson – Founder, Student Volunteer Army

When we’re young we’re taught to value money, time, skills. Contribution is more important.

“Do you have any skills?” – A business to Sam after he asked how he could help after the earthquake.

“Why humans exist is to interact with each other.”

“In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. Pick a general direction and implement like hell.”*

The Concert

The only way to get there is by doing four hours of volunteer work.

Bryan Stevenson – Recorded TED Talk

Watch the talk here.

In an engaging and personal talk — with cameo appearances from his grandmother and Rosa Parks — human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about America’s justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of the country’s black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives. These issues, which are wrapped up in America’s unexamined history, are rarely talked about with this level of candor, insight and persuasiveness.

“There is power in identity.”

1/3 young black men in USA are in jail, prison, on probation or parole.

34% of black male population in Alabama have lost the right to vote permanently.

Rich and guilty are treated better than poor and innocent.

The death penalty question is really: “do we deserve to kill?”

1/9 on death row are innocent. In aviation we would never let an airline fly if one plane out of nine went down.

11 times more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white opposed to black.

22 times more likely to get the death penalty if the defendant is black opposed to white.

Germany would never institute the death penalty – it would be impossible with their history to endorse the systematic killing of its citizens. But in the USA it’s fine to kill more black people than white on death row.

“That’s going to make you tired, tired, tired… that’s why you gotta be brave, brave, brave.” To Bryan on his justice initiatives.

The opposite of poverty is justice.

Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

Alexandros Washburn – Urban Designer

“When you meet one kiwi, you meet 100.”

On seeing one of the towers on fire on 9/11: “And we were interested in this from a technical standpoint as architects because no one had died in a high-rise building that had sprinklers.” He thought that the plane close by was some sort of firefighting plane. It wasn’t.

9/11 was the first day of school for a lot of students (something I’d never heard before).

So many similarities to Christchurch: cellphones and most landlines weren’t working immediately afterwards, portable toilets, military stationed around the city, a no go zone, a mayoral election.

Improve the quality of public life by improving the quality of public space.

Urban planning

The smallest units matter.

If it’s worth remembering, it’s worth drawing.

How do you judge an effective public space? By the perspective of a pedestrian.

Alexandros drew an awesome diagram of a street with dimensions.

When you’re walking down the street, something should catch your attention every 10m.

Sewer catch basins can’t be moved when placed – it’s too expensive.

The fire department want specific things in specific places.

The Highline

“We had to think clearly, when there was high emotion.” After 9/11.

You have to hope for something greater tomorrow and you have to accept the fear that generates.

My hope for Christchurch video

Created by Becca MacGeorge.

Time’s up.

Fin.

—

Great day. Watch the talks when they get posted on the interwebs.