Google’s Year in Search 2022

The video above is Google’s “Year in Search” video for 2022, and below are some of the “top five” searches globally, in New Zealand, and in the USA. This is something I’ve done several years because, as I said in 2020 (the last time I posted about the Year in Search), “I think it’s important to have a record of what was on our collective minds during a year, and posts like this make it easier to refer back to later,” and these posts make it especially easy for me.

Here’s what was trending in 2022:

Global

Top 5 overall searches in the world: 1 Wordle, 2 India vs England, 3 Ukraine, 4 Queen Elizabeth, 5 Ind vs SA. Top 5 news searches in the world: 1 Ukraine, 2 Queen Elizabeth passing, 3 Election results, 4 Powerball numbers, 5 Monkeypox.

New Zealand

Top 5 overall searches in New Zealand: 1 Wordle, 2 Locations of Interest (probably refers to Covid), 3 Australian Open, 4 Covid cases today NZ, 5 All Blacks vs Ireland. Top 5 news searches in New Zealand: 1 Covid cases today, 2 Ukraine, 3 Queen Elizabeth, 4 Costco, 5 Will Smith.

United States

Top 5 overall searches in the USA: 1 Wordle, 2 Election results, 3 Betty White, 4 Queen Elizabeth, 5 Bob Saget. Top 5 news searches in the USA: 1 Election results, 2 Queen Elizabeth passing, 3 Ukraine, 4 Powerball numbers, 5 Hurricane Ian.

What I find interesting about the searches this year is how common some topics are. The most-searched things within countries are often specific to that country or its region of the world, but somethings transcend borders. I wonder if “Powerball numbers”, the fourth most-searched thing globally, is because of the USA (where it was also fourth in the same category), because not every country has something similar to the USA’s powerball draw. I had lots of similar “I wonder if…” and even just “Huh!” moments when I looked at other search categories (you can get to the three I shared by clicking on any of the three section titles, and once there you can change the country whose search results are displayed).

Funny thing to me, though, is that “Wordle” was the number one general search term globally and in New Zealand and the USA (and for other countries, too). I hadn’t really realised it until I looked at what was trending in search in 2022, but I see now that this year was apparently a lot more boring than recent years preceding it. Here’s hoping the searches in 2023 are equally boring!

Ask Arthur 2022, Part 4: Helping Ukraine?

This post is the actual penultimate post in this series, thanks to a question I received after Part 3. The final post in this year’s series will be at the end of this week.

Today’s question is from my long-time friend Sherry, who wrote:

The situation in Ukraine is heavy on my mind. I have no idea how there is never enough money for America, but something like helping Ukraine becomes a global crisis and all of a sudden we have the money to help another country. I can't help thinking what that kind of money would do for the U.S.

I wonder if we will ever get our money back from Russia. We should confiscate the assets we can to help pay for what they have done.

So, my question is… how does the world get Russia out of Ukraine so we can stop funding the war, and so Ukraine can become whole again? I believe in the 10 steps The President of Ukraine laid out...but it seems impossible!

That’s a really good question, and it’s one that comes up in one form or another all the time. I think there are several different aspects to this situation.

The thing that’s probably the most obvious is that there’s only one way to get Russia out of Ukraine without a global, possibly nuclear, war, and that’s funding Ukraine itself. If Western nations can prevent Russia from conquering Ukraine, over time the regime will become so weakened that they will agree to peace terms, or else the Russian dictator “falls out a window”, as so many of his enemies have. Either way, the war will end when Russia has had enough.

There’s no way that Russia will ever pay for its illegal war, and Western governments have (so far) shown very little appetite for penalising big corporations that do business with the Russian regime. The main barrier to cutting Russia off from the global economy is that Europe is still dependant on Russian oil and gas. The European Union is trying to rapidly accelerate their move away from that dependence, but there’s no easy or quick solution, and while it remains, Russia has a source of foreign money to spend on its war, and European nations can’t push too hard without retaliation, as we’ve already seen.

All of which means that the question of cost in a situation like this has to be seen in its larger context, namely, how much higher the cost would be to do nothing—or to do more. The reality is, this isn’t just about saving the Ukrainian people and nation, but about preserving freedom and democracy throughout Europe and beyond. Time was, that sort of statement would have been hyperbole, but now it’s simply the truth.

The Russian dictator is determined to restore the Russian Empire—not merely the Soviet Union, but going back to czarist times. So far, he has relied on installing compliant regimes in former Soviet “republics”. For example, he’s done that in Belarus, which gave him a staging point to use to invade Ukraine when the Ukrainian people had the audacity to depose the Russian regime’s hand-selected despot. It’s obvious now that the Russian dictator really did think that Kyiv would fall in a few days, and the Russians would be able to install an obedient servant to rule what would essentially have been a Russian vassal state. The Russian dictator vastly underestimated the fierce determination of the Ukrainian people and army, and vastly overestimated how good his own army was.

We also know how reliant the dictator is on mercenaries, who are responsible for most of the war crimes, acts of genocide, and brutality—most, but not all. Russia has deliberately targeted civilians in their homes, but they’ve also target hospitals, which itself is a war crime under international law going back the first international convention of 1864. The International Criminal Court and the United Nations have sent war crimes investigators to Ukraine to document Russia’s crimes—and, Russia is obligated by membership in the United Nations to turn over war criminals for prosecution, though no reasonable person could imagine them ever agreeing to do that while the current dictator is in power.

All of that is important to note because it underscores the Russian dictator’s imperial ambitions, ruthlessness, and gleeful brutality. He will never stop with Ukraine: He plans to eventually invade Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and also—at the very least—the rest of the European nations that were formerly controlled by the Soviet Union. However, that would mean a direct attack on NATO nations, which would cause a global war. He’s trying to avoid that by weakening western resolve so countries in the west give up and don’t resist, and then one day, it would be too late to resist.

The Russian dictator’s giddy embrace of war crimes and genocide, along with more routine brutality, is, like his constant threats of nuclear war, intended to frighten the citizens of nations supporting Ukraine. It’s why, as winter loomed, Russian agents sabotaged a natural gas pipeline leading to Germany. This is also why he courts direct support by far-right politicians in countries around the world, people who would be a sort of “fifth column” to help prevent foreign military opposition as he expands his empire.

It’s obviously far cheaper to fund Ukraine than to wage a global war, but it also drains Russian resources which would make a global war less likely, or less likely to succeed, the longer the current conflict continues. In the short term, that does nothing to help the folks in Ukraine or among its supporters, and the Russian dictator is counting on that fact to dissuade the West from supporting Ukraine long term.

So, funding Ukraine is far cheaper than waging a direct war with Russia or doing nothing and waiting for Russia to further expand its empire. However, no matter how important funding Ukraine is, that doesn’t address the heart of your question, about how much good could be done “at home” with money being spent in Ukraine.

I think it’s important to look at why, precisely, the USA never has enough money for its own needs: Pure, bald, crass, selfish politics. The USA could well afford to look after its own and help with problems around the world, but money is always short by design and on purpose.

We all know that the USA’s rightwing doesn’t much like international cooperation: Some factions hate the United Nations, others hate government funded humanitarian aid, and others adore the Russian dictator and his brutal regime. At the same time, other rightwing factions are concerned only with the needs and desires of the ultra-rich and corporations, and the needs or ordinary people are invisible to that faction.

Imagine an alternative reality where the ultra-rich and corporations paid their fair share in taxes—that doesn’t even have to mean higher taxes, just that they pay their existing tax obligations like ordinary people have to. Imagine if all the loopholes that favor the ultra-rich and corporations were closed—not just the ones that let them avoid paying any income tax, but also the ones that let them claim federal welfare payments, too.

Put another way, it’s not that the USA can’t take care of its own AND be an active participant in the world, it’s that the rightwing in the USA won’t allow it, and the electoral system is sufficiently rigged to allow that to continue being the case.

In my opinion, the problem isn’t that there’s a shortage of money, it’s that there’s an excess of greed. It’s not that there’s not enough money available to deal with problems at home and overseas, it’s that there’s not enough humanity among politicians to find ways to solve problems. Fixing that is up to ordinary people, because despite all the nefarious shenanigans of the politicians working to block change, ordinary people in democratic nations are the most powerful force in their countries. They just have to use the power they already have.

Thanks to Sherry for today’s question!

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-21”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously:

A decade-long inquisition
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 1: Speaking in the House
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 2: Indepen-dunce
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 3: Ranking choices

National transitions

The normal progress of transition from one monarch to another is underway. Saturday night (NZ time), I watched the official proclamation of King Charles III at the Palace of St. James in London, an event that, of course, last happened when Queen Elizabeth II was proclaimed 70 years ago, but this was the first time it’s ever been televised (the full 1:10:35 long video of the “Accession Council and Proclamation Council”, which includes the actual proclamation at the end, is available on ”The Royal Family” YouTube Channel; to skip directly to the official proclamation, click here). The events have never been televised before, so few people alive today would ever have seen it before.

Yesterday, the New Zealand government officially proclaimed Charles III as the King of New Zealand (video above) in a ceremony that’s been established for ages, and that clearly borrows phrasing from the UK’s proclamation. As with the UK’s ceremony and proclamation, this is the first time New Zealand’s was televised, too, though television didn’t officially begin in New Zealand until 1960). Canada has also proclaimed Charles III as their new king (WATCH), and so has Australia (WATCH). I think it’s fascinating that only Australia dropped “Defender of the Faith” title from the proclamation, even though neither New Zealand, Canada, nor Australia have an established church, and so, there’s no “faith” to be defended as there is (officially, anyway…) in the United Kingdom.

As an ol’ political science major, I find all this fascinating, and it’s especially interesting to be able to witness history that so few people alive have ever seen. And there’s more still to come..

Meanwhile…

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was on the USA’s CBS “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” recently, and guns partly dominated the discussion, as they have on her entire trip. The Prime Minister did very well, and even still managed to do her main goal, promoting tourism to New Zealand. It’s her second time on the show, and both times were casual and relaxed. I think she did very well.

The interview is in three separate videos on YouTube (I watched them mere hours after the show aired in the USA), so I decided to post them here in order so no one else has to work out what order they go in (they were out of order in the YouTube App for my TV that I used to watch them.

Changes for the times

Today the NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced adjustments to Auckland’s Level 3, with an eye toward gradually easing restrictions before an actual Level change. There have been other changes announced in recent days, all of which are related to Covid. That’s the times we live in.

The changes announced for Auckland involve three stages modifications to Level 3 restrictions in Auckland. From 11:59pm tonight:

People will be able to connect with loved ones OUTDOORS with no more than two households at a time, up to a maximum of 10 people; early childhood education will return for all; and people can move around Auckland for recreation such as beach visits and hunting.

The changes only apply to Auckland, and not the parts of the Waikato that are temporarily under Level 3 restrictions. There’s also no indication on when the next Step may be implemented, but they plan on reviewing the situation weekly.

Part of what will determine the easing of restrictions anywhere in New Zealand will be achieving higher vaccination rates. Today, the Government also announced that 2 million Kiwis—48% of the eligible population (people aged 12+)—are now fully vaccinated. Overall, 79% have had at least one jab. The percentage of Aucklanders who have had at least one jab is now higher than 80%.

The Government has also begun point out that, in this current outbreak, only 3% were fully vaccinated. More importantly, NONE of the fully vaccinated people who got Covid were hospitalised, and none died. This also means, of course, that none of the fully vaccinated people ended up in an Intensive Care or High Dependency Unit, either.

What this shows is that vaccination slows the spread of the disease because the virus doesn’t affect the vast majority of vaccinated people, however, if a fully vaccinated person is infected, their disease will be milder and is unlikely to be fatal. All of which strongly suggests that some sort of vaccine passport will be required for events with large crowds, and the Government expects that next week they’ll be able to make an announcements about what that might look like.

Lost because of the Waikato drama yesterday was an announcement from Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins, who revealed that, “Full vaccination will become a requirement for non-New Zealand citizens arriving into the country from 1 November.” This will mean they’ll need to have had “a full course of any of the 22 COVID-19 vaccines approved by a government or approval authority” 14 days or more before their arrival in New Zealand. This won’t apply to NZ citizens, anyone under 17, or people with a valid medical exemption. But before packing one’s bags, it’s important to remember that:

Everybody arriving will still be required to complete 14 days in Managed Isolation and Quarantine, and all travellers except those from exempt locations will still need to have evidence of a negative COVID-19 test result from an accredited laboratory within 72 hours of their first scheduled international flight.

This is related to Air New Zealand ’s announcement yesterday of mandatory vaccines for international travellers, a “no jab, no fly” policy that will begin in February, 2022. They also elaborated a little bit on how it’ll work:

Using Timatic, the IATA Travel Pass will check customers' health information against flight details to ensure they are meeting entry requirements for that destination, and the airline.

The app is based on decentralized technology which means there is no central database holding passenger information. Passengers have complete discretion as to whether they share their data or not and they can delete their data at any time on the app, without fear of this being stored.

The last part is very similar to the way NZ’s Covid-19 Covid Tracer (check-in) App works. More concrete details will be released over time.

On Saturday, (October 1 USA time), the USPS (United States Postal Service) announced in a message on its website that it was suspending processing most international deliveries to 22 countries, including New Zealand, Australia, and Samoa. It said it was “due to impacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic and other unrelated service disruptions.” They also said that anything already in the system will be returned to the sender.

Covid-19 has definitely disrupted shipping around the world—absolutely it has. However, I tend to suspect that the real problem here is “other unrelated service disruptions”, and while I might have my suspicions on what the real cause of this disruption is, I couldn’t possibly comment further. All I know is that I won’t get a huge stack of Christmas cards from the USA this year! Seriously, though, I hope this doesn’t further delay—or prevent delivery of—those Torx screwdrivers I ordered nearly a month ago, but that haven’t left the USA yet. In fact, nothing’s happened since I wrote about the delay last week.

Right now, the only constant is change. Absolutely everything I’ve talked about here will be changing even more in teh weeks ahead. I guess we’d all better get used to that happening. Change is now (a big) part of the times we live in.

Worth quoting: President Joe Biden

This weekend is the Waitangi Day holiday weekend, and yesterday most politicians were in Waitangi for the observance. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern later posted a message from President Biden on her official Facebook Page. She said:

Just got home from Waitangi to find a letter from President Joe Biden to mark Waitangi Day. Given it was intended for everyone, I thought I’d share it here!

Here is the message she shared:

Dear Prime Minister.

The American people join me in offering warmest regards to the people of New Zealand on the occasion of Waitangi Day on February 6.

New Zealand is one of our closest friends and partners. The unbreakable bond we share was established when the first U.S. Consul to New Zealand was on hand to witness the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on February 6, 1840. We have since partnered together to build the multilateral framework that benefits our nations as well as the global population.

I look forward to strengthening the U.S.-New Zealand relationship and cooperating to overcome the greatest challenges of our time...

I have fond memories of my trip to your country in 2016 when New Zealand’s legendary reputation for friendliness and hospitality was on full display. I wish you and all New Zealanders well on this Waitangi Day.

Sincerely

Joseph R Biden

The meme accompanying this post was created by Democrats Abroad, an official group of the USA’s Democratic Party to, among other things, inform and organise US citizens who support the Democratic Party and live overseas. The group shared it to their Facebook Page. The meme contains an excerpt from a speech delivered on February 4 (USA time), “Remarks by President Biden on America’s Place in the World”. His message to New Zealand is a concrete example of what he was talking about.

The elipsis at the end of third paragraph of President Biden's message may indicate some of what he said was redacted for some reason, and, if so, it could mean there are areas where New Zealand will still chart an independent course—because there are, and it will. The point is, the two countries will work together again on mutual goals again, and that's a good thing.

Google’s Year in Search 2020

Every year, I like to share Google’s “year in search”, both the year’s video (above) and some of the “top five” searches globally, in the USA, and in New Zealand. I think it’s important to have a record of what was on our collective minds during a year, and posts like this make it easier to refer back to later. I think those sorts of things are useful, too.

In the following lists, clicking on the section headline will take you to the Google page for the “Year in Search” results. From there, it’s easy to change the view by country.

So, here’s what was trending in 2020:

Global

Top 5 overall searches in the world: 1 Coronavirus, 2 Election results, 3 Kobe Bryant, 4 Zoom, 5 IPL. Top 5 news searches in the world: 1 Coronavirus, 2 Election results, 3 Iran, 4 Beirut, 5 Hantavirus.

United States

Top 5 overall searches in the USA: 1 Election results, 2 Coronavirus, 3 Kobe Bryant, 4 Coronavirus update, 5 Coronavirus symptoms. Top 5 news searches in the USA: 1 Election results, 2 Coronavirus, 3 Stimulus checks, 4 Unemployment, 5 Iran.

New Zealand

Top 5 overall searches in New Zealand: 1 Coronavirus, 2 US Election Results, 3 Zoom, 4 Seesaw, 5 Kobe Bryant. Top 5 news searches in New Zealand: 1 Coronavirus, 2 US election results, 3 Australia fires, 4 Election results NZ, 5 NZX50.

I said something in last year’s post that turned out to be true: “2020 is an election year in New Zealand and the USA, so I expect to see terms relating to politics on the lists for the two countries.” That was obviously going to be true, but the next sentence, “And plenty that aren’t,” turned out to include one of the biggest things in our lifetimes, the one event that dominated the year for the entire planet (and its searches): The global pandemic. Which goes to show, I guess, that at the end of one year we can never guess what we’ll be searching for in the next.

Here’s hoping the searches in 2021 are boring!

Related: In October, Google also posted an hour-long video, “Trillions of Questions, No Easy Answers: A (home) movie about how Google Search works”.

Lives depend on a change

Most up-to-date figures (at the moment): 237,178 Americans have died from Covid-19, which is roughly 20% of all the people in the world who have died from it—despite the USA having only 4.25% of the world’s population. 1046 Americans died in the past 24 hours alone, and at that rate, there will probably be at least 240,000 Americans dead by Election Day.

There were 89,048 NEW American cases in the past 24 hours, for a total of 8,852,730 cases. That’s roughly 20% of all the world’s cases, too.

Lives depend on a change. Biden/Harris 2020.

Google’s Year in Search 2019

Another post I make every December is one sharing Google’s “year in search” video, along with some of “top five” searches. I like those posts so I can refer back to them, so I didn’t want to skip it for 2019, even if I wasn’t all that blogtastic last month.

So, here’s what was trending in 2019.

Global

Top 5 overall searches in the world: 1 India vs South Africa, 2 Cameron Boyce, 3 Copa America, 4 Bangladesh vs India, 5 iPhone 11. Top 5 news stories searched in the world: 1 Copa America, 2 Notre Dame, 3 ICC Cricket World Cup, 4 Hurricane Dorian, 5 Rugby World Cup.

United States

Top 5 overall searches in the USA: 1 Disney Plus, 2 Cameron Boyce, 3 Nipsey Hussle, 4 Hurricane Dorian, 5 Antonio Brown. Top 5 news stories searched in the USA: 1 Hurricane Dorian, 2 Notre Dame Cathedral, 3 Women's World Cup, 4 Area 51 raid, 5 Copa America.

New Zealand

Top 5 overall searches in New Zealand: 1 Rugby World Cup, 2 New Zealand vs England, 3 Cricket World Cup, 4 Christchurch Shooting, 5 Stuff News NZ. Top 5 news stories searched in NZ: 1 Christchurch Shooting, 2 Nelson Fire, 3 The fall of the Berlin wall, 4 London Bridge attack, 5 Measles.

I know what most of those refer to, but I’d never heard of Copa America, probably because it’s not terribly relevant in Australasia. I do think it’s interesting that it made the top 5 searches both globally and in the USA; that doesn’t always happen.

Staying on the sporting theme, two of the top 5 global searches refer to cricket—“India vs South Africa” and “Bangladesh vs India”, which figures since a top 5 global news search item was “ICC Cricket World Cup”—and “Rugby World Cup”. Both of those made New Zealand’s search lists, but not the USA’s. Of course. NZ’s search for “New Zealand vs England” is probably about cricket—but it could be about rugby, too. All of which goes to show that search terms alone leave out some information.

2020 is an election year in New Zealand and the USA, so I expect to see terms relating to politics on the lists for the two countries. And plenty that aren’t. We search for lots of stuff, after all.

2019 December Solstice

The December Solstice arrived in New Zealand at 5:19pm NZDT today. That means that today was the longest day of the year—and they’re now getting shorter. It seems like we only just started having them get longer, but June does feel like a lifetime ago. Today was a nice day—one of two in a row, actually, with lots of sunshine and some blue sky (though a bit windy).

In this part of the world, we always say Summer begins on December first, so the December Solstice three weeks later doesn’t really have any particular meaning. Add to that the fact that because equinoxes and solstices are astronomical events, the date and time of their arrival changes each time. That’s a good reason to ignore them and just use the first of the month in which it occurs.

We’re now done with astronomical events for this year. I often talk talk about all of them, but not this year: I only published this post and one about the June Solstice. That was because the March Equinox was at the time of the Christchurch terrorist attack, and the September Equinox—well, there are obvious reasons I wasn’t paying any attention to that.

Here’s the list of when the solstices and equinoxes arrive in New Zealand next year, provided by TimeAndDate.com:

March Equinox: 4:49pm NZDT on March 20, 2019.
June Solstice: 9:43am NZST on June 21, 2019
September Equinox: 1:30am NZST on September 23, 2019
December Solstice: 11:02pm NZDT on December 21, 2019

Related:

In New Zealand, Daylight saving starts each year at 2am on the last Sunday in September, and ends at 3am on the first Sunday in April, so our current NZ Daylight Time (NZDT) ends at 3am on Sunday, April 5, 2020, and we resume NZ Standard Time (NZST). Then, at 2am on Sunday, September 27, 2020, NZDT returns again. In both cases, the dates and times are fairly easy to work out, unlike solstices and equinoxes.

I created the graphic above for a post in 2012. I used an image in the public domain and claim no ownership over that image, however, the composition is licensed under my usual Creative Commons license.

When it all ends

It seems obvious that the existence Hong Kong has known is about to end. Whether it’s a brutal crackdown by Hong Kong police or invasion by China, either way the movement demanding democracy will be crushed. It’s not a question of if, but when.

A couple days ago, I posted this on my personal Facebook:

I don't know how many of my FB friends are following what's happening in Hong Kong, but I've said from the beginning that China will inevitably intervene to put down the protests. I think that time is approaching rapidly—mere days, maybe even hours.

When the suppression begins, it will most likely end Hong Kong's special relationship, and China will fully incorporate the city into China. When it does, no country, including the USA, will be able to do anything to stop them. Maybe this is the reason China has waited so long to intervene? To wait until the protests became so "bad" that they had "no choice"? We all know that a lot of countries will buy that excuse, not the least because they want to.

In any case, it seems obvious to me that the people of Hong Kong will soon lose all democratic rights, especially the ones they're exercising so exuberantly at the moment, like free speech and the right to protest. The question is merely how soon will that happen?

The inevitable repression will likely come soon, possibly this weekend, with more protests planned. The Chinese army has been training riot suppression techniques all month, and video of some of their training included signs partly in English, probably for the world’s newsmedia. They’ve also been photographed training with a giant—2 and a half metre—electrified “devil fork” crowd control weapon. They mean business.

In her Washington Post column, Anne Applebaum writes, “Hong Kong and Russia protesters fight for democracy. The West should listen and learn.”. Yes, it should. But it won’t—least of all the supposedly democratic Western countries that have lost their way.

Also writing in the Post, Keith B. Richburg, a journalism professor at the University of Hong Kong, tells us why “The Hong Kong protests are the inevitable effect of an impossible system”, and how the “one country, two systems” idea was never going to work. In other words, this day was inevitable.

But at least the current occupant of the White House offered words of wisdom: , "I hope nobody gets hurt, I hope nobody gets killed," he said. Yippee. So comforting.

Meanwhile, a boycott of Disney’s new live-action remake of Mulan is being urged after its star expressed her support for Hong Kong police. Action movie star, Jackie Chan, who was born in Hong Kong, has also drawn criticism for his backing of China. That’s show the Chinese government! As if.

This cannot end well. The only thing holding the Chinese back is that they realised that this could look like a repeat of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, where the Chinese Government put down protests demanding change. Back then, protesters had a 10 metre tall statue, Goddess of Democracy a statue that was strongly reminiscent of the USA’s Statue of Liberty. Now, protesters are using American flags.

The reality is that there’s not a lot the world can do to stop China’s inevitable crackdown and repression. The world certainly can’t intervene militarily, but it could at least make clear whose side it’s on. Just as the “one country, two systems” was always going to fail, its collapse may provide a blueprint for China’s invasion and subjugation of Taiwan. The only thing that might make them hold their fire—literally—is if the world makes it unmistakable that doing so would have severe consequences. But the head of the USA’s government can’t be bothered to speak up in defence of democracy and freedom—perhaps because he doesn’t value them?—so the message China is receiving is that they just have to make their excuses for invading defensible by milquetoast Western politicians. That was the whole point of all the military training, and their signs in English, and—allegedly—various other tactics like—allegedly—infiltrating the protest movement to instigate violence to help give China a pretext for invasion.

When it all ends, Hong King will be under China’s authoritarian rule. And the world could be one day closer to what may end up being a war with China. Who would be there to stand up for our freedom and democracy? As unstable as the world and its political leaders are at the moment, would any of us survive?

We know how this chapter will end. But we don’t yet know how the story will end. It’s up to us to write it, and so far we’ve been pretty illiterate.

Delivering mistakes

The USA is poised to withdraw from an international treaty that could make life more difficult for citizens who live overseas temporarily or permanently. This could affect a great many things, including voting by overseas US citizens, but the reason behind the change seems to be about money—and mistakes.

The (US) National Association of Counties (stylised as NACo) reported on its blog yesterday that the USA is about to withdraw from the United Nations’ Universal Postal Union (UPU). The UPU is a 142-year-old treaty, which the UPU describes this way:

With its 192 member countries, the UPU is the primary forum for cooperation between postal sector players. It helps to ensure a truly universal network of up-to-date products and services.

In this way, the organization fulfils an advisory, mediating and liaison role, and provides technical assistance where needed. It sets the rules for international mail exchanges and makes recommendations to stimulate growth in mail, parcel and financial services volumes and improve quality of service for customers.

Back on October 18, 2018, the White House announced (copy and paste this link to get to the White House Press Statement: http://bit.ly/33znhi6) that it was withdrawing from the UPU. That process is due to be completed on October 19, 2019—just a few short months before the 2020 presidential primary voting is due to begin.

According to estimates by the Federal Voting Assistance Programme (FVAP), and shared by NACo in the link above, there are approximately a million active duty service members and three million other US citizens living in 170 countries that are eligible to vote in federal elections, and all of them will rely, at least in part, on postal delivery. No one knows how the US withdrawal from the UPU will affect those voters.

We could find out soon. There are some state and local elections in November of this year, and some ballots will be sent out in September. That means that the withdrawal from the UPU will happen right in the middle of the 2019 voting programme, and no one knows what that will mean for returning ballots on time this year. Tt may out to be a test for what could happen in 2020.

It’s tempting for some to think that this is part of a plan to deny the vote to US citizens living overseas, but while that’s without basis, it’s definitely understandable. As everyone knows, the USA has long been notorious for its efforts to make voting harder, whether through gerrymandering districts, actively suppressing the votes of minorities or supporters of the other political party, or refusing to allow former prison inmates to vote—the list is practically endless. However, not only is there no evidence suggesting vote suppression is the reason for this, the evidence suggest that it’s merely a consequence.

First, there’s no solid data on how overseas US citizens vote. That means there’s no way of knowing which party would be most affected by the change, so targeting overseas voters could be self-defeating for the current regime, particularly since no one knows if it will affect voters at all. Second, and regardless of party preference, there just aren’t enough overseas votes to sway a statewide election, like for US Senator or US President in a state, and that means overseas voters are highly unlikely to influence what candidate gets a state’s Electoral College Votes (the only total that actually matters). That said, those votes might, at least theoretically, help determine small elections, like for US Representative. Maybe.

The real issue is that withdrawal from the UPU is that it will affect far more than just voting: Potentially, all letters, cards, small packages, etc., sent through postal services could be affected, with higher costs and potential delays. Even NACo, which is interested in the move because counties are usually responsible for sending out and receiving elections material, noted that the current regime “cited concerns over terminal due rates as the primary reason for the withdrawal and hopes to establish self-declared rates for small packages to ensure American businesses remain competitive in the e-commerce marketplace.” In other words, it’s all about money. It’s not hard to imagine the leader of the current regime calling the UPU arrangements “very unfair”. Probably in a Tweet. Well, maybe if he understood it.

The best and most likely explanation, then, is that this is all about money, as such things usually are. It seems unlikely that withdrawal from the UPU will accomplish what the current regime thinks it will, of course, which, of course, isn’t unusual for them. Based on the evidence, I think the move is absolutely ideological, but only because it’s all about money for corporations. It’s also probably about the current regime’s general, ordinary incompetence.

I’m certainly open to evidence that I’m wrong—about the regime’s motives or even its incompetence. But absent that, this seems to be one of those times that the simplest explanation is the best.

US citizens living overseas could, potentially, have a harder time voting, yes. But they also could have a harder time sending a birthday card to Great Aunt Agnes, or a Christmas present to their parents. And this could result in higher costs for e-commerce companies, including ones shipping TO the USA. Time will tell if these are a problems or not, but, for now, there’s no evidence that the regime is intending to make life harder for US citizens living overseas, even though it could very well do so. The really sad part of all of this, though, is that saying the current regime doesn’t appear to be trying to make people’s lives harder intentionally is unusually high praise of them.

The photo at the top of this post is from a 2016 Instagram Post that I also shared in a blog post called, “I Voted, 2016 edition”. It’s my own photo. And my hand, for that matter.

When you visit

The video above is a new TV commercial from Immigration New Zealand (INZ) talking about the NZeTA (New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority), something that all foreign visitors will need to get before travelling to New Zealand, beginning on 1 October 2019. Many countries, including the USA, already have a similar requirement, so, in that sense, New Zealand is just joining in. What these programmes all have in common is that they provide an easy way to exclude someone before they get on the plane—and, potentially, having to be deported. It’s good to see INZ promoting awareness of this here in New Zealand, since many of us have family and friends overseas, but it’s important that they promote it overseas, too.

This new programme applies to people from “visa waiver countries”, that is, countries whose citizens can travel without first needing to apply for and obtain a vistor’s permit/visa. The agreements are usually reciprocal, but not always. Some countries are more welcoming than others, too: The USA allows people from 38 countries to enter the USA without first obtaining a visitor’s permit/visa, and New Zealand permits people from 60 countries.

The US programme has several requirements. A traveller to the USA must:

• Have a biometric passport (most are nowadays)
• Have an Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA), which is like New Zealand’s NZeTA.
• The passport must be valid for six months beyond the expected date of departure (this is also pretty standard)
• A ticket on a commercial carrier, either to return home or to travel onwards, before the time limit for a tourist ends. This, too, is a common requirement in some form or other.

What all this means is that New Zealand followed all the same procedures apart from the NZeTA, and now it will have that, too. Naturally, there’s a cost to that, and, naturally, that’s not the only new cost for visitors.

The NZeTA will cost NZ$9 if purchased using the free App, or NZ$12 if purchased online (today, that’s about $US5.82 and US$7.76, respectively). The USA’s ESTA costs US$14 (today, about NZ$21.64). Both countries say to allow 72 hours for approval, though it's usually faster. Australian citizens don’t need an NZeTA, nor do we need their Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) to visit their country, due to specific bilateral agreements.

New Zealand has also enacted an International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy, which is intended to raise funds to maintain infrastructure and the natural environment put under strain by the growing numbers of tourists from overseas. The fee for that is NZ$35 (today, US$24.62). The fee is paid when someone applies for their NZeTA (or their visa, if they’re not from a visa waiver country).

As I noted in a recent AmeriNZ Podcast episode, this is the first time in more than two decades that I’ve actually seen a concrete benefit from being a dual national. Because I’m a US citizen, I don’t need the ESTA, and because I’m a NZ citizen, I don’t need an NZeTA. There’s actually a third benefit: Because I’m a NZ citizen, I don’t need an ETA to visit Australia, but I would if I was just a US citizen. Sadly, I don’t actually get much benefit from this reality because I don’t travel overseas very much at all.

International travel is becoming much more complicated all the time. While at least some of that was probably inevitable, it would be nice if countries figured out a way to streamline these requirements to make it easier for travellers. At least New Zealand allows people to pay for their NZeTA and the IVL at the same time. I guess.

Because I talk about this sort of stuff on this blog and on my podcast, I’m probably a bit more aware of these changes than most people are. That’s why I think it’s good to see INZ promoting awareness of the NZeTA here in New Zealand. But it’s also important that they promote it overseas, too. I hope they do, but maybe these days travellers just need to expect to do more research about travel requirements.

That, and remember to not pack too much and make their suitcases too heavy.

Is Boris bad enough?

Last night (NZ time), Alexander Boris de Pfeffel (Boris) Johnson, age 55, was chosen to be the new leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, and so, will become that country’s next Prime Minister. A mere 0.24% of people in the United Kingdom decided he should get the job. Critics often call Boris the UK’s equivalent of the current occupant of the USA’s White House because of his frequent lying and buffoonery, but unlike his American counterpart, Boris is quite smart and a career politician. With the fate of the entire UK in the balance, is he as dangerous as everyone supposes?

Boris is certainly capable of becoming a demagogue if he wants to, and some are suggesting he wants to on one issue alone, the one he’s constantly lied about: Brexit. He vowed that the UK will leave the European Union by October 31, “do or die, come what may”. That could mean a so-called “no deal Brexit” in which the UK crashes out of the EU with nothing in place to deal with the resulting economic and political chaos in the UK, not the least because it may spur pro-EU Scotland to vote for independence form the UK, and Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon suggested as much today in a series of Tweets.

Theresa May, the soon-to-be ex-Prime Minister, tried to get a deal through Parliament three times and failed three times. A large bloc of Conservative Party (Tory) MPs oppose a no-deal Brexit, and would not support Boris going the no-deal route. In addition, the Tories have a tiny majority in the House of Commons, and will end up with just two votes to spare if, as expected, the Remain-supporting Liberal Democrats pick up two seats in upcoming by-elections.

To get around this problem, Boris is supposedly thinking about proroguing Parliament, that is, briefly suspending it so he can do as he wishes without risking Parliament voting against him. This is widely considered unconstitutional, it’s obviously anti-democratic, and it would be a bad faith move. Would he risk it? Or would he decide to go to an early election it the hope of winning a mandate?

Bets are being taken on both outcomes.

The whole process of Boris’s elevation has been anti-democratic. 159,320 members of the Conservative Party—the pro-Brexit party, of course—were the only ones who could vote. That works out to about 0.24% of he population of the UK who got to choose the next Prime Minister. The Conservative Party’s demographics don’t come close to being representative of the UK: The Conservative Party is 71% male, the highest proportion of any party in the UK. Its members’ average age is 57, the oldest of any political party. So, a small number of people who are more male, older, and concentrated in southern and southeast England, determined who the Prime Minister would be for the entire United Kingdom.

Conservative Party membership went back up in recent years, after a long period of decline, suggesting the party is attracting hardline conservatives, especially nativist/anti-immigration/racist folks. The party had lost about a third of its members after ex-PM David Cameron pushed through marriage equality in 2013, and that further suggests the party has moved more hard right than it was, which would make it more conservative than the general population.

Yet Tories alone, totally unrepresentative of the UK, were the only ones who got to elevate Boris.

In most Westminster-style systems, the party caucus chooses the replacement for a party leader, which also means the prime minister if they're leading government. Ordinarily, it's because the party leader has been rolled, but this is the second time in a row that the Tory Leader/PM has resigned and then been replaced. The normal procedure gives at least a theoretical possibility that the government will fall and fresh elections will be called so that the people can have a voice. In this case, older, white, richer conservative men decided for the entire country, and a Tory MP who defies the will of the party membership would be very, very foolish, and almost certainly committing political suicide.

I should add that I don't have an issue with a party in Opposition consulting its members—NZ Labour did that twice, though the membership only got a share of the total weighting, not the final say. Labour were the Opposition at the time, and who their Leader was didn't matter to government—obviously, because neither party leader chose in this way became NZ Prime Minister.

Still, it's possible that the chaos that will result when ego meets political reality will spark fresh elections called in a few weeks or a couple months. Boris believes in himself more than anything, apparently, he’d want to go for a mandate form the people. But with the Liberal Democrats winning all over the place on a pledge to hold a new referendum, he shouldn't count on holding his razor-thin majority. Whatever happened in the even of a new election, at least the people would get the voice they have been denied.

Is Boris as dangerous as everyone supposes? Potentially, absolutely, however, absolutely nothing is certain. He may try to play games by proroguing Parliament, he may call fresh elections, or for all we know he might get so frustrated by not getting his way that he just storms off.

The fate of the entire UK is in the balance.

On yer bike

What are the best cities for cyclists? According to an insurance company called Coya, that describes itself as “digital insurance specialists” and also as “committed bikers”, Auckland is 7th best city in the world for cyclists, and one of only two non-European cities in the top ten. This is largely because of the huge improvements Auckland has made since Auckland Council came into being nearly a decade ago. There’s still a long way to go, however.

Coya produced its “Bicycle Cities Index 2019” their study focused on six main categories using various factors that to determine how cycling-friendly a city is:

• Weather.
• Percentage Bicycle Usage.
• Crime & Safety: Fatalities / 100,000 Cyclists, Accidents / 100,000 Cyclists, Bicycle Theft Score.
• Infrastructure: Number of Bicycle Shops / 100,000 Cyclists, Specialised Roads & Road Quality Score, Investment & Infrastructure Quality Score.
• Sharing: Number of Bicycle Sharing & Rental Stations / 100,000 Score, # Shared Bicycles / 100,000 Score.
• Events: No Car Day, Critical Mass Score.

Complete details of the rankings and the process used can be found at the link above.

From our perspective here in Auckland, the city still has a long way to go, however, Auckland Council, NZTA (the transport agency responsible for roads, like the Auckland Harbour Bridge) and other government agencies are committed to making cycling more easily and safely.

For example, last week NZTA announced plans for new, improved cycling and walking path next to the bridge. The bridge, which turned 60 years old yesterday, was originally supposed to be built ‘with footpath and cycle-track’, according the 1946 Royal Commission, but by the time the bridge was actually built a decade later, those plans had been scrapped.

Quite why the plans were dropped is a matter of debate, but in the 1950s through 70s Auckland was plagued with shortsighted politicians who couldn’t see how big Auckland would become, and what the implications of that were, so that’s probably a big part of it. Fixing that earlier mistake has taken up the past decade, and finally started moving forward within the past few years, especially with the change of government in 2017 when the new government committed to build the cycling and walking path across the harbour. Finally. Work could start next year.

NZTA is also adding cycling and walking paths as part of their major expansion of the Southern Motorway, connecting Karaka and Papakura. That project will be completed later this year.

Auckland Council is also making cycling safer and easier, by making roading improvements, like on Quay Street in the CBD, as well as in other areas throughout the city. Some of the projects in suburbs (neighbourhoods) are currently under consultation or design, while others have been completed.

Add it all up, and in five years Auckland could very well rise in global rankings like Coya’s. That’s incredibly good news because it means fewer people in cars, more people getting exercise, and both of those will make for a healthier city—and healthier people. It’s a win all around.

I can’t fairly evaluate the index or its rankings—I’m not a cyclist nor an expert in that subject or transport generally. I admit that I think that it is a bit, um, nice to Auckland. But I also know that better and safer cycling and walking is important for any modern city. Anything that helps advance that is a good thing, in my opinion.

The data visualisation of Coya’s index at the top of this post is a “Chart of the Day” from Statista. Their summary of the data can be found at the link.

Keeping the holidays

Today was Memorial Day holiday in the USA, a day for remembering those killed in wars. Many Americans get it mixed up with Veterans Day, a holiday for honouring living people who have served or are currently serving. That’s always annoyed me. But, at least Americans are in no hurry to give either up.

The chart above from Statista shows the results of a recent YouGov survey that asked Americans what public holiday, if any, they thought should be removed. Around half, sensibly, said none of them should be eliminated, which makes sense: They know that if, say, Columbus Day was eliminated, Congress wouldn’t designate a new one to take its place.

This is because Americans are uniquely shortchanged on paid time off. Public holidays aren’t necessarily observed by businesses, and around a quarter of Americans get no paid annual leave (vacation). The chart at the bottom of this post, Statista’s Chart of the Day from August, 2018, shows the comparison of annual leave/public holiday entitlements in various OECD countries. The USA bar shows there are no annual leave days required by law, and, because the public holidays aren’t necessarily days of for workers, they’re doubly screwed.

I’ve written several times about how good New Zealanders have it for time off compared to the USA. For example, in 2013 I talked about a chart similar to the one below, and corrected errors the chart had for New Zealand, where workers get 30½ paid days off a year.

Then, at the start of this month I talked about how despite having so much time off, New Zealanders worked nearly as many hours as workers in the USA, and slightly more than the OECD average. This goes to show that legislated time off doesn’t hurt productivity. So, why is the USA lagging so far behind other OECD countries? Not that this is the only way the USA is behind other countries, of course. Like other issues, it all comes down to politics, and the lack of advocacy for ordinary workers.

Giving workers mandated time off is really a small thing, but it can make so much difference to people—their health, their commitment to their work, work/life balance, and so much more. The USA really needs to begin to catch up with the rest of the OECD, but we all know that won’t happen any time soon—ever?

Meanwhile, this coming Monday, June 3, is the Queen’s Birthday public holiday. We’re both off work that day. Of course.

Nothing has changed

A little over a month since the world decided to fight back against the brutality of the tiny country of Brunei’s plans to execute gay people for having sex, the country has backed down by announcing a “moratorium” on the death penalty for gay people and those convicted of “adultery”. So, hurray, right? It’s a victory, right? No. Absolutely nothing whatsoever has changed and the world needs to increase pressure, not ease up.

It’s always a good thing when a country’s government decides against murdering its LGBT+ people. No country can be considered civilised or part of the family of nations if it murders its own LGBT+ citizens simply for being fully human people, as Brunei planned to do. The “laws” or “reasons” Brunei claimed were justifications for planning to murder them were never acceptable, and they sort of got that message.

But only a week or so after the country ‘s ruler faced a boycott of his super luxury hotels, one of his officials told the world not to worry about the plans to murder LGBT+ people—no, he said, the world had it all wrong! It wasn’t really about murdering LGBT+ people, no! It was more about “prevention than punishment”. Apparently their laws don’t prevent government officials spouting utter bullshit.

Every autocratic regime knows that penalties mean absolutely nothing without enforcement: The victims of oppression must be so terrified that they won’t ever do whatever the regime doesn’t want them to do (or they’ll do what the regime demands, as the case may be), or they’ll leave the country. If such regimes don’t punish people for disobeying their dictates on one thing, people will get the idea they have free will on everything, and that can never be tolerated.

Such laws also invite corruption. A person could be “accused” of something the regime doesn’t like, even though it’s not true, and be forced to pay bribes to get out of trouble. An LGBT+ person—even if they fully comply with the brutal laws in that country—would always be open to blackmail and to violence from fanatics who take it upon themselves to do the regime’s enforcement.

So, having a “moratorium” will change absolutely nothing in the daily lives of most LGBT+ people who will have to remain deeply hidden, always on guard and on the watch, always subject to violence from fanatics, and always faking every tiny detail of their identity so as to avoid having their genuine selves discovered.

The fact that Brunei issued a “moratorium” (re-issued is probably more technically correct, since enforcement has been deferred for years) suggests that they felt the world’s pressure. With their backs freshly patted, the regime will wait until the world’s attention goes away, and then, instead of announcing it, they’ll just quietly lift the moratorium when the world isn’t watching. They’ll probably go farther and conduct the first executions in secret, too.

Brunei is not a place that respects individual rights and personal liberty, and having a “moratorium” on murdering its LGBT+ people doesn’t change that fact. The world needs to keep pushing until they finally act like responsible adults and repeal the law altogether.

There will be handwringers who will say that keeping up the pressure will cause them to become more brutal, but that’s inevitable, anyway. Neither will patting them on the back for not murdering their LGBT+ people make them any nicer to them—it will not make the regime treat them like human beings. Things will remain horrible for LGBT+ people in Brunei, but the world could help make things better, but only if it keeps the pressure on.

Clearly the world’s pressure—and the boycotts—were having an effect on the regime. The world needs to increase pressure, not ease up. But, I’m not expecting much. Last month I thought the response, especially from New Zealand, was far too weak. I’m not expecting anything better now.

The world should prove me wrong. That’s be a welcome change.

Paywall bad news

Newspapers are struggling to survive nearly everywhere. How they deal with the challenges varies, and among the solutions are paywalls, membership schemes, donations, and others. The New Zealand Herald has just launched a paywall, and not very well. There’s no compelling reason to subscribe to their “premium” service, and I won’t be doing so—yet.

The New Zealand Herald first tried a paywall a few years ago, and it failed miserably. The main problem was that they were the only one in New Zealand, and people could get the same news many other places for free, so the only thing they offered that couldn’t be seen elsewhere were their columnists, and, as I said at the time, “they’re just not that good”. Okay, that was a bit snotty, but nevertheless true: Many were grumpy, curmudgeonly, right-wing, irrelevant, or some combination of those. Sure, some people, probably the same ones who ring up talkback radio to whine about something or other, may have appreciated those, um, attributes, but neither I nor anyone I knew shared that viewpoint.

In more recent years the paper again started talking about launching a new paywall, but never quite seemed ready to do it, probably in part because, once again, they’d be the only major mainstream news site in New Zealand doing it.

In recent months, the talk started becoming more frequent, and then they started labelling content on their website as “Premium”, apparently to let people know what they’d be getting access to as subscribers—and what they’d lose access to if they weren’t. Unfortunately, that wasn’t obvious so I avoided everything marked “Premium” assuming one had to pay to see it.

Still, what they were showing were mostly in-depth journalism and investigations which was at least promising. Meanwhile, the rest of their home page included clickbait, often sourced from overseas papers, including the reprehensible Daily Mail in the UK.

I am told—because I didn’t see it myself—that when the new paywall launched, they had a click-baity story about Prince Harry and Meghan behind the paywall—not exactly the sort of thing that would entice someone who wants serious journalism. That’s the first thing they’ll need to fix: They can’t put clickbait behind their paywall if they want to be taken seriously.

The second thing is that they’ll need to prove that the money raised will actually go to journalism, and not just into the pockets of shareholders, here and overseas. So far, it seems that most people don’t think it’ll happen, and this is just about money for shareholders. They’ll need to make a big deal about hiring journalists, if indeed they do so.

Much of their content, they tell us, is still free, but that includes the stuff designed to promote radio personalities and programmes on the Herald’s NZME sibling radio stations. By and large, these “columnists” are absolutely terrible, promoting especially privileged and self-centred rightwing drivel. Still, at least they’re not behind the paywall at the moment, because that would be a strong disincentive to subscribe.

Their biggest problem is that their digital subscription rate (see graphic above) is way too high. At $5 per week, it works out to $260 per year, though if someone makes one annual payment it’s $199. They’re offering a special rate of $2.50 per week for the first 8 weeks, after which it goes up to the full rate.

For comparison, The Washington Post digital subscription is $100 per year, which is about NZ$150 (the Post currently has a promotion of $25 for the first year, which is NZ$37.60). The New York Times is currently $1 a week for a year (US$52 is NZ$78.13). Which means that a new subscriber could get both the Post and the NYT for not much more than half the price of the cheapest NZ Herald digital subscription. I know which option that I would choose.

Increasingly, the Herald has not been a good paper to read. Many of their articles have a strong rightward lean, either in tone or focus (or both), and many of the stories have been in the, “okay, but why is this ‘news’?” category. They haven’t done as much in-depth or investigative journalism as they used to, and they rely too much on foreign papers—like the Post, for example, and I already subscribe to the entire paper, not just what the NZ Herald wants to show me.

Their only drawcard is that they’re New Zealand-based and cover New Zealand stories. But the same thing can be said of any number of other news sites here in New Zealand that don’t have a paywall. If they expect people to pay for news they can get for free elsewhere, then the Herald will have to lift its game and offer news and features that people can’t get for free elsewhere. That may sound harsh or unfair, particularly to hard-working and overstretched journalists, but it is reality. In the news business as with every other business, the consumer is king.

When I first looked at overseas digital newspaper subscriptions in 2015, neither the NYT nor the Post were there yet (back then, the NYT had a pricing plans based on device rather than content). Now, they’ve become much more customer-focused, so much so that the Post won my business in July of last year. If the NZ Herald wants to make their paywall work, they’re going to have to learn from their examples.

I didn't like the NZ Herald we’ve had over the past few years, and I certainly wouldn’t pay to subscribe to that. But if they can put up good, solid journalism without click-bait or shallow columns by radio personalities, and if they can offer it at a much more sensible price—and reinvest that money into journalism—then people like me could be tempted in. That won’t happen right now, and probably not for a while, if ever. The jury’s still out.

Whether the new paywall will actually work or it will fail like the last one did will depend entirely on how the paper adapts to customer expectations and needs, and how much emphasis it places on content that’s worth subscribing to. The NYT learned and adapted, and so did the Post. The NZ Herald can certainly do the same—IF they want to. But, that’s news for the future.

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 346 now available

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 346, “Busy April” is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast.

The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.

Dumping unkindness

We humans are good at a great many things, including a great many that aren’t objectively “good”. For example, people seem to need to dump on other people about everything from the TV shows they like (or don’t like) to the choices they make in food, politics, and even charity. We’ve seen that in abundance lately in response to the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It hasn’t been our finest moment, even when critics have a point.

To oversimplify the criticism, the Left has been saying that the money pledged to rebuild the cathedral would have been better spent on any of the numerous problems facing the planet, from climate change, to abject poverty, to disease, to species extinction, to, well, anything, really. That view, while sincere, is also hopelessly naïve, both to reality and to what is even possible.

What most Americans apparently don’t know is that Notre Dame is owned by the French state, not the Catholic Church. That matters because the riches of the Catholic Church won’t be, and can’t be expected to be, used to rebuild the cathedral. So, that particular criticism is a non-starter.

The bigger and more relevant point is about French billionaires tripping all over themselves to donate to the rebuild. The suggestion that these billionaires could donate instead to make the world a better place is silly: When has the 1% ever cared about the needs of those at the bottom of society? When have they ever done anything to fix the problems of social and economic inequality? This matters because, sure, they could donate to fix social problems, but the record shows they never will.

That means that the bigger issue is, where they hell were they when they were needed before? “The billionaires’ donations will turn Notre Dame into a monument to hypocrisy”, according to Aditya Chakrabortty in The Guardian. He points out the numerous failures and self-interest of the richest of the rich, adding: “Keepers of the building had begged for more money, but neither the belt-tightening French government nor the wealthy grumbling about higher taxes gave enough.” And that is, of course, only the beginning of their sins (not generally reported is that French megarich donors can get a 60% rebate on their donations, which means French taxpayers could end up paying most of the “donation”.

So, criticism of French billionaires is fair, absolutely, as are demands that they seek no tax advantages for donating to the rebuild. After all, if they’re serious about the need to rebuild, and about the cultural significance of the cathedral, then donating to make the rebuild happen should be all the benefit they require.

However, much of the social media noise seems to be targeted at small donors—ordinary people—choosing to donate to the rebuild effort. Attacking them is pathetic. If people want to donate to the rebuild, that’s no one’s business but their own: Our opinion doesn’t matter in the least. Sure, I’m not donating to the rebuild, and yes, I don’t think ordinary people should, either, but, if they want to donate, they should go for it: It is their choice.

The thing I keep coming back to is how much the criticism is a failure of imagination, as if everything in life is nothing but a zero-sum game. We can rebuild Notre Dame AND solve the world’s problems. It’s not a lack of money that’s the problem, it’s a lack of imagination, and of resolve.

In my opinion, it’s obvious that the rich should be paying their fair share in taxes (for a change), which is also the only way to get them to spend any money on fixing the world’s problems. Ordinary people, who have far fewer choices about what charity they can spend their money on, should be free to spend their money on what they feel is important without any tut-tutting by those who are oh, so much more moral than the rest if us.

The world’s problems sometimes seem unsolvable. We actually may be able to agree about how many of them are more important than rebuilding Notre Dame, despite its historic and cultural significance to Western civilisation. But that does not mean that rebuilding the cathedral isn’t important, nor does it justify dumping on ordinary people who choose to make that rebuild one of their personal priorities. To each their own!

Instead of always dumping on others and tearing them down, maybe we should instead advocate for what we think is important. If our views and arguments are persuasive, others will agree with us. That’s the way it works in the real world. If we don’t like how others choose to allocate their donations, we need to shut up. We may be right, our criticism may have a good point, but we’ll never convince people of that by being a jerk about it.

We need to relax. Make our case, sure, but let people be. No matter how passionate we may feel, the fate of the world will not hinge on whether everyone else does as we think they should—and, by the may, people may not. Again, the best word is a simple one: Relax.

Related

"Native American activists: The fire at Notre Dame is devastating. So is the destruction of our sacred lands." – Vox
"Black churches in Louisiana see $1.3 million surge in donations after fire at Notre Dame Cathedral" – Vox
"Grieving for Notre Dame" – The Nation