Well, I discovered New Zealand's censored books list, today. Having lived my whole life in the Usa, the idea of a government completely banning literature is a new one to me.

The NZ office of censorship is here.

And this is a direct link to the Excel .xls spreadsheet they have on their website listing the banned and regulated books: banned books in New Zealand

Because it is a published list, I'm sure everyone who feels like it goes out and gets the books and reads them. So maybe it's not a big problem. But I think that banning books (and for that matter, films and music) is a very dark and filthy part of New Zealand's culture. You folks have much more serious problems with your youth getting out of hand, than we have in the States. You have a phenonomon we haven't seen since the 1950s - "boy racers" - where teens go out and antagonise the neighborhood... or organise a trip to Dunedin (The Undy-500) where college folks start burning cars in the streets. In contrast, our teens and young adults in the States get into mischief by opening a book, or going out to look at dirty internet sites. This is a much better situation.

The problems for a society which evolve out of vulgarity have to do with mass media - not with niche media.

I think it's good for a nation to control air pollution, so to speak - in the sense that it's damaging for a country to have the kind of mass media we have in the States - where organisations like Rupert Murdoch's Fox News poison people's minds. Whenever there is an imbalance where certain people have more power to convey their ideas than other people do, it's wise to regulate those media outets.

But free expression of outside-the-box ideas is centrally important to guarantee free thought. I was learning the New Zealand national anthem, today, and all those wonderful values which your nation aspires to can only be met in a nation where there is free thought. Thinking about foul things does not make you a bad person.

I hope that you folks, facing the reality of the days of anonymous interent communication, will come to see the futility of censorship in this, the 21st century.

Censorship is a blight on what I see as otherwise the best english speaking society in the world.

I was just chuckling tonight listening to this interview with a big name television morning show host in New Zealand - Oliver Driver.

You would never see a person who is as professional as this, hired for a morning show program in the Usa. This guy has a background of a theatre person. And here, he's talking about a project where he's talking about putting actors on salary.

• Listen to the interview "Boutique theatre" at Radio New Zealand (4 megabyte mp3)

You can watch Oliver Driver's morning show here.

Recently, I've been watching the parliamentary proceedings in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada over the internet.

I see a very stark difference in the way people talk and promote policy changes in the various countries. Overall, I see very little difference between the main left and right wing parties in any given country. However, there is a very big difference between legislators in one country, as compared to the next. So what does it mean to have a perceived competition between left and right wing parties? Well... it seems to me that the minority party in the legislature tends to champion the cause of dissidents in the society. How do we see this in the Usa? Here, the democrats were the ones to offer a venue for dissent about the war over the last eight years. And the republicans today are the ones to offer a venue for dissent about financial imprudence. In both cases in the States, these gestures seem to not be undertaken honestly by the legislators. They are merely "pandering to their base" - trying to leverage support for the next election. However, there is slow progress over time, as the public themselves start weeding out those in the party who support the old policies, and replacing them with those that support the new policies. A presidential election in the Usa gives folks the chance to make a lot of headway all at once, because the one person, if elected to the office, will tend to mold the character of the party into the future.

Now, there seems to be a social disease in many legislatures where folks from various parties don't feel that they can be fair-minded about discussions regarding laws that are proposed. It seems as if they believe that the imperative is to get that majority vote on behalf of the law. And this imperative means that they steel themselves in the competition.

One country seems to have achieved a different social dynamic. New Zealand instituted Mixed Member Proportional Representation 12 years ago, and that means that there are more voices in parliament. Imagine if we in the Usa had a significant number of seats given to a "Native American" party, and another number of seats given to a "Green Party," and a Libertarian party. Once you have that multipolar environment, it seems as if the imperative becomes cooperation rather than competition. You can't get anything done without the cooperation of legislators from all the different interest groups.

Each of these countries has a parliamentary proceedings internet stream that can be viewed with windows media player.

You can watch the Australian parliament in Canberra here:

http://webcast.aph.gov.au/livebroadcasting/asx1/hms1v_100K.asx

You can watch the New Zealand parliament in Wellington here:

http://www1.streaming.net.nz/meta/parlserv-house384.asx

You can watch a 24 hour station which is very much like a Canadian version of CSPAN, in covering events in Ottawa:

http://www.cpac.ca/asx/cpac1eh.asx

And of course, you can watch CSPAN's coverage of Washington DC, here:

http://play.rbn.com/play.asx?url=cspan/cspan/wmlive/cspan1v.asf&proto=mms?mswmext=.asx

This is a very interesting interview with a New Zealand educator in a secondary school who is talking about a way in which he deals with bullies in the classroom. Basically, he gets a team together which involves two of the worst bullies, and two of the more popular kids who hadn't been doing anything about the problem before that point. Those four people are an "undercover" team which is instituted to resolve the problem of bullying in the classroom.

He's had a 100% success rate with 27 teams which he has set up like this, over the years.

The reason this is something that's on the news in New Zealand, is because New Zealanders don't have this belief that is prevalent in the Usa where it's thought that there are a group of bad and irredeemable people out there, who are genetically predisposed to bad behavior.

New Zealand has a much tamer frame of reference which says that people may have bad character, but that character can change over time.

• Listen to the interview (8 megabyte mp3 audio)

I was listening over the web today to this segment on Radio New Zealand. Searching through and trying to find the meat of the interaction, and the attitudes behind both the interviewer and the interviewees gave me some really intriguing food for thought.

I look for these kinds of controversies and for points of weakness in famous people's lives, because it offers a great opportunity to learn about the person's character, and about the culture that these things happen in.

To understand these interviews, you'll have to know a couple words from the New Zealand lingo. Paheka (emphasis on the first syllable) is "white people." The word that sounds like "Modee" is "Maori" (the native new zealand people). "MP" means "Member of Parliament."

Listen to the interviews streamed from the Radio New Zealand website:

• First interview (1.3mb mp3)
• Second interview (3.7mb mp3)

This has been a big to do over the last several days in the New Zealand mass media. There was this incident, and a similar incident where another minority party member - Rodney Hide - decided to use taxpayer money to fund several international trips for himself and his wife. Rodney Hide when he was found out immediately apologised publicly and committed to paying back the $10,000 he had spent. This mea culpa was applauded by someone on one of the Radio New Zealand's panels that day. It's fascinating to see a society which understands that mea culpas are good - and that they mean that a person with public responsibilities will be successful at reforming his actions. In the Usa, the attitude is the opposite. Public figures here (for instance George Bush the 43rd) never apologise. Because once you apologise, rancourous people latch onto the sin, and rub it in your face, and bring you down with it. It's prudent in the Usa to never ever admit to wrongdoing if you are in the public eye. So, in this regard, New Zealand is a much more mature and friendly society.

However, with this other incident with a member of parliament not adhering to what he said he would do... I see a less admirable side of New Zealand. It was surreal to figure out what was happening. The interviewer has a blind spot.

• He should be seeing that the Maori MP is pointing out a couple very important things - one is that a person needs to maintain a good work/life balance - this is important even in order to keep being effective at whatever tasks he is given to do on the job.

• He should be seeing that it's important to offer people some measure of flexibility with their work. I insist on this, myself, whenever I'm involved in some project at the behest of someone. Sometimes you can't keep your word, because of extraneous circumstances, or because what you had originally agreed to wasn't the best way to approach the project.

• Thirdly, the interviewer should be seeing that the Maori MP was making salient points in his reply - even if he was a bit rough around the edges in how he stated these things.

  • Using the phrase "puritanical bullshit" is a way of saying that there are differences between Maori culture and ethnic european culture. It's more important to be effective at what you do, than it is to do it in the manner you were told to do it in. The Maori apparently recognise this fact in a way that ethnic europeans in New Zealand do not.

  • Talking about the renegging on treaty obligations was not intended as a way of logically justifying the trip to Paris. Instead, it was a way of pointing out that there is a difference between substantive and non-substantive things. Taking care of business in Brussels by scheduling a meeting with an important person, and then being footloose and fancy-free by taking off to Paris the next day is relatively speaking a non substantive thing. I wasn't following the NZ news about the offshore rights thing which is brought up - but it sounds to me that it is an incredibly substantive thing. The europeans who settled in New Zealand have certain agreements with those people who were there first... and those have been ignored, and land and rights have been stolen - just like they were in Australia, Canada, and the Usa.

In his blindspot, the interviewer didn't see these things I speak of, but instead saw "bad character" - which to him, was a very palpable object in his world which he felt he could reach out and grasp. The thing that was so surreal to me when listening to these interviews was that I recognised that believing in "bad character" is the same sort of intellectual poison as the other similar conception, which is more common in the Usa - believing that someone is an irredeemable "bad person." It certainly is more benign to believe in "bad character" than it is to believe in "bad people."

Yet and still, it leads to grievous errors in judgement. Unlike the "bad people" idea, the belief in "bad character" would tend to allow for the fact that people are not static - they change and develop over time. However, as I have illustrated here, even the more tame belief tends to lead to blindspots - where you can't rightly assess motivation, and cultural differences, and differences in ways of thinking between two people.

I am adamant that it's proper to believe in "bad actions" - but to believe in "bad character" or "bad people," is only a manner of chasing after a mirage. Actions can be weighed against other actions, in a very reasoned way.

So today I learned that there are a couple things that New Zealanders really value - the idea of "a person's word is his bond" - and perhaps in certain cases, they also really expect obedience to authority.

I've heard that bullying at the workplace is a very big complaint of expats in New Zealand. I see how certain uncivilised bosses might have internalised this cultural value of "the word being the bond" - but they also might give slack to the expat, and when that employee seeks to use the flexibility he thinks he has, he might end up at the brunt of a lot of abuse. This is how things work with poor ethnically european people in the States anyway - they tend to internalise certain values from their society, but then they openly criticise other values - and then when they get drunk, they might end up acting in a way that doesn't make sense because of this "cognitive dissonance."

I am also beginning to recognise why the NZ immigration point system represents such a difficult set of hurdles in my estimation - because it only caters to those who have played by the rules their whole lives. It doesn't work for people who have lived unconventional lives. Thankfully, there is a back door where if you get permanent residency in Australia, you can also live and work in New Zealand.

I was listening to this discussion about the new zealand economy today.

• Radio New Zealand interview with Don Brash (8 megabyte mp3)

I really like the way that Kiwi academics think. It's wonderfully sensible. But I think, in this case, I see that these people are not seeing the forest for the trees.

First of all, I think it's good to think more broadly about raising the standard of living. One shouldn't narrow the discussion to macroeconomic theory. "Catching up with the economy of Australia," isn't the whole story. And if you stand back and take a broader look at things, you will all of a sudden see that there are many areas you can focus on, here.

One thing that I would suggest is that your parliament and government would consider what constructive policies they could institute which would would require no taxpayer moneys. I'm consistently saddened to read of unsafe business practices in New Zealand, even in the food sector. In places like the Usa, businesses are fastiduous with safety practices - and that's because of the threat of the lawsuit. I think that New Zealand would do well to encourage victims of poor business practices, or poor labour practices, to sue those companies.

I've also seen a lot of stories about poorly constructed or badly insulated buildings - no central heating, no double glazing. There's a free way to resolve this problem too - and that's to create better building codes. Everyone who builds a structure needs to abide by a set of regulations, which might include a central heating system, insulation, and double glazing.

Maybe you can also give certain tax incentives to the types of companies you want to set up shop in your region or in your country.

In regards to the specific things discussed, these are my suggestions, if I may be so bold:

First of all, yes, freeing up land use for industrial applications, even if that means more pollution and other things, is important if you want to develop your industry. There are costs and benefits to these things...and if you want the benefits, you'll have to pay the costs. Look at Norway for a way forward, there.

A common idea running through this interview seems to be the idea that a trade surplus is equivalent to a healthy national economy, and leads to a high standard of living. I think there's an error here. The Usa shows us how a large trade deficit - where you are the consumers of goods made around the world - is a position of power in the world. The worldwide economy just faltered in 2008 and 2009 when the usa consumer stopped spending. Also, when you have a lot of inexpensive goods coming into the country, that is in itself, an influx of wealth. Those goods raise your standard of living. So perhaps, it's better to work towards a strong NZ dollar rather than a weak one.

Finally, social programs should be drawn up so that they are secure and so that people can count on them. I am shocked that your public pension plan - the "superannuation fund" - is a thing which is set up in such an ad hoc way that an incoming administration can just gut the thing. ACC also seems to be an ad hoc system. Look to Canada for a way forward with these things - or the Usa. You have to reliably take care of the poor and needy. This gives them the ability to get their feet under themselves, and go forward and strive to become members of the middle class. The middle class - that wonderful and important block of people which makes an economy sustainable - is in my opinion, forged out of reliable social programs which assist the poor.

One thing I've seen when studying other countries like Canada and New Zealand is that censorship is a very central part of their society. And I find it interesting that when talking to people from these countries on the internet - and debating the issue - they seem unaware that there is no censorship in countries like the Usa. Yes, librarians might be instructed to remove a book from the library shelves of a school. But there's no government department dedicated to deciding universally what books are inappropriate for anyone to read, ever. There are those kinds of government offices in Canada and New Zealand.

I admire both of those two countries, and I believe that they have a more sensible public discourse about all the issues affecting their countries than the Usa, the UK or Australia have. However, I also think that in a core way, it would be very damaging to a society to have a government censor. People need to think freely about the world around them. And so you need both the information, and also the freedom to state opinions publicly about matters. And one has to work hardest to preserve this right when it comes to matters which are controversial or taboo.

On the other hand, I think that censorship is good when it cuts out noise pollution. I think that a censor board should consider of a piece of intellectual material in relation to the size of the pool of information which the public is drawing on. Censorship should be specific to the venue. When there are four or five radio stations in a city, or three television stations, or one newspaper - because the pool of options is very small, you have to preserve civility and truthfulness of those media organisations. On the other hand, with the internet - there's no reason that anything should ever be censored. In like manner there's no reason to prevent the distribution of a DVD video, or a book. The wonderful thing about the internet is that when there is a controversial issue being debated - a simple google search will immediately bring up passionate opinions on both sides of the matter, and so it's impossible to deceive people or to produce a bad social trend in a society.

This is an excellent extended interview which shows a glimpse into the daily life of this man.

Go to 3news site to watch the video

• A link to a 3news video (adobe flash) about this name change.

New Zealand is a very unique kind of place. There is a big debate right now about changing the name of a city so that it's more faithful to the original native name which was used. The city is Wanganui... and the decision has been to change it to Whanganui. The extra "h" is significant because it effectively should change the pronunciation from a "W" sound to an "F" sound (although apparently it won't, for now).

There was a 77% vote of the citizens of the town in favor of keeping the original name. However, apparently the edict has come down from on high, that the name will be changed.

Imagine if the government of the state of Washington or the federal government of the Usa would order the city of Seattle to change its name to "Sealth" so that it is more faithful to the native name of the chief for whom the city was named.

The mayor of Wanganui (Michael Laws) has been adamantly opposed to the name change. New Zealand government policies seem to involve a lot of power vested in the federal goverment which tends to override the right for communities to have self-determination. For example, another big event happening currently is that Auckland is extending its boundaries to encompass a lot of outlying areas. Again, the citizens of those districts are not allowed to choose whether they will join Auckland or not. The federal government is making the decision for them.

I think a name change from Wanganui to Whanganui is really irrelevant when it comes to the interests of the Maori being served. If they honestly want to honour the treaty of Waitangi, the best way to do that in my view, would be to give a portion of land back to the Maori and make a separate nation - independent of New Zealand. But if you aren't going all the way and doing what needs to be done when it comes to righting the wrong of the europeans having stolen the land - I think that you need to generally honour the right of self-determination of the people who populate that area, today.

Roses have thorns, and shining waters mud
And cancer lurks deep in the sweetest bud
Clouds and eclipses stain the moon and the sun
And history reeks of the wrongs we have done
...poem by Sting

Well, it appears that my worry about how children are raised in New Zealand was well founded after all.

Here is an article about the recent vote.

Another country I've been eyeing fondly recently has been Sweden. Sweden outlawed corporal punishment thirty years ago. Here is a response from a member of parliament in Sweden to the news of the New Zealand initiative.

Amazing how adults have the audacity to want this latitude. Reminds me of laws about slavery in the Usa a century and a half ago. In a democracy, people do not have the right to vote to abuse those who do not have that same right to vote. It's really that simple. Even enfranchised minority groups need to be given special treatment in democracies, to ensure that their interests and rights are given their proper place. Give children the right to vote, and then see if they would vote for or against being beaten.