1. Going home will never be the same again
Chessie Henry's family home in Clarence Valley before the earthquake. Photo: Supplied
“While so much of my sense of identity is based on shared experience and community, an equal part of me has been irrevocably shaped by landscapes. By the ground under my feet. By hills and mountains. By my beautiful Clarence River. By the curve of our driveway as you turn the corner, knowing that home is no longer far away.
When the earthquake hit on early on Monday morning I was in Wellington. I was scared, but I was also tired. I had work in the morning. I went back to sleep. Then I woke up to messages from my friends worried for my family. This was the first I’d heard of the quake being centered near my hometown.”
2. Popping pills to pass exams
“It doesn't make you more intelligent, it just makes you more focused so it’s not an unfair advantage," says one student. Photo: Unknown
“Some people take vitamins, some people knock back energy drinks, some people create a study schedule and some swallow prescription medicines like Ritalin, or as it’s known in New Zealand, Rubifen.”
3. Weapons of math destruction? The problem with algorithms
Photo: 123rf
“Increasingly, the decisions of people’s lives are made by algorithms. The information appearing in your Facebook feed, your eligibility for a certain class of mortgage, whether your children will be classified vulnerable by social services, what your chances are of re-offending or making a clean break after a crime."
4. Streeties #1: From prison to the pavement
Photo: Toby Morris
“I’ve been in and out of prison for the last 20 years. Have been out 5 years now, but it’s hard. Sometimes I wanna commit a crime just to go back in. It’s like in there, I’m somebody. I have what I need, I’m respected. I’m known and I know people.”
5. What it's like to walk from Cape Reinga to Bluff
Callum Barnes: "You’re just kind of there. You’re almost like a cow. If you’re thirsty you drink water and get on with life." Photo: Supplied
“When you walk alone for hundreds of kilometres it's OK to talk to yourself.
Over 168 days, Callum Barnes walked the length of New Zealand, following the 3000km Te Araroa Trail.”
6. The bystander effect: Breaking through the fear
Photo: Illustration: Pinky Fang
“We knew we’d witnessed racial abuse and not done anything about it. That made us complicit.
Why didn’t anyone step in? Was this a plain case of cowardice, or did we not know how speak up without making ourselves the next target?
The bystander effect is a phenomenon where people do not offer help to a victim when others are present, just like the situation on the bus. The theory is that the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that anyone will help.”
7. Why your Facebook friends are checking-in at Standing Rock
Protesters at the Standing Rock reservation. Photo: AFP
“At some point last night, your Facebook feed may have been gradually inundated with friends “checking in” to a remote part of North America.
No, your friends haven’t gone on the trip of a lifetime without you. The flood of check-ins is in solidarity with protesters at the Standing Rock reservation, and usually accompanied by a status accusing local police of social media surveillance: "The Morton County Sheriff's Department has been using Facebook check-ins to find out who is at Standing Rock in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps.”
Photo: AFP
“Media reports are already noting the slew of racism, sexism and Islamophobia gathering momentum in America and some are worried it might spill out of the borders into our own little country. Additionally, a Trump presidency doesn’t look good for businesses in New Zealand.
But the fact is, despite the economic or social impact it will have here, things have needed improvement in New Zealand long before Trump was elected and they’ll need improving after Trump.”
9. Streeties #2: Trying to hold it together - Jonathan Foster, Toby Morris
Photo: Toby Morris
“In an attempt to avoid sleeping rough, women can often be exploited in dodgy living situations. Katelyn would rather move on than let people take advantage.”
10. Homelessness is more complex than you think - Jonathan Foster
Photo: Toby Morris
“For most of us, these images may inspire a detached sympathy. A feeling of sadness that their life took a turn for the worst, but also an inability to fathom the ways in which our circumstances might be related, due to the incommensurable social distance between us. As a society we shower those who help the homeless with gratitude, but explanations for why people end up on the street in the first place usually boil down to a failure of personal responsibility, be it an individual’s bad decisions, poor attitude, addiction or mental health issues.”
