matthew henry john bartlett

Dear Mr Power,

I am writing to ask you to reconsider your decision to close Te Hurihanga.

I understand that it has taken a long time to set up Te Hurihanga, to gain the support and involvement of its community, and that it is a world-class, evidence-based intervention.

The ostensible grounds for your decision – the circa six-hundred-thousand dollars per graduate – do not seem justified when one considers that these costs include the set up of the programme and provision of the intervention for a number of other young offenders who have not yet graduated. In fact the use of this figure seems downright misleading.

Moreover, although it appears expensive at this point, these costs surely pale in comparison not only to the cost of these young people’s likely future traverse of the justice system and imprisonment should they not take part in this programme, but in particular to the immense personal and financial toll their potential future crimes will take on their victims in the future. These are, after all, highly recidivist young people.

I realise that the Government says that they will be asking for tenders for a replacement, ‘more cost-effective’ programme. I don’t think it will be that simple considering Te Hurihanga took ten years to get off the ground.

Please reconsider your decision: it is expensive to properly treat young offenders; it’s more expensive not to.

Yours sincerely,

Eliza Bartlett

Stanley Fish on Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s new book Natural Reflections: Human Cognition at the Nexus of Science and Religion:

The assumption she challenges — or, rather, says we can do without — is that underlying it all is some foundation or nodal point or central truth or master procedure that, if identified, allows us to distinguish among ways of knowing and anoint one as the lodestar of inquiry. The desire, she explains, is to sift through the claims of those perspectives and methods that vie for “underneath-it-all status” (a wonderful phrase) and validate one of them so that we can proceed in the confidence that our measures, protocols, techniques and procedures are in harmony with the universe and perhaps with God.

What is the zeitgeist? What is it here in NZ? What are the best bits, the flames you would like to see fanned? Like in the 60s it was maybe folk music – that was the thing to be into, the good bleeding edge.

• There are lots of waxeyes hanging around our feijoa tree. The tree is in flower, so I wonder — are they drinking the nectar and helping pollinate it? There is a family of bumblebees who live in a brick wall at our place, but I don’t recall seeing them hanging around the feijoa. Can birds assist pollination?
• The flowers of the feijoa (Feijoa sellowiana) look a lot like pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa) flowers, though the leaves are quite different. Are they related?
• In a non-evolutionary framework, is there any such concept as species being related to one another?

10:10 is a campaign to get individuals, businesses and organisations to commit to reducing their carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. It was started in the UK by the excellent director of The Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong. Chris Laidlaw interviewed 10:10 manager Daniel Vockins a couple of Saturdays ago (download it here). 10:10 has had quite a bit of success in Britain, with about 50,000 committed so far, including celebrity-types, MPs and sports teams. Vockins said if 1,010 New Zealanders sign up on the 10:10 global website they’ll launch it here by Christmas. I have signed up, and I think you should to. If you sign up you’ll receive pointers on achieving the cuts. Although individual consumption choices dictate only a small percentage of total emissions (see graph below – as Alex Steffen says “the parts of our lives that actually fall within our direct control are the tips of systemic icebergs”), the campaign has the potential to build a movement that would show politicians and industry (who can actually make the necessary reductions), as well as the public itself, that there is widespread support for real change. There’s lots more guff about 10:10 on the Guardian website if you’re interested.

[ref]

… which is on December 17 (every year – though this one is particularly special as I’m turning 30), I would like vegetable seedlings, a baby bike seat for my bike (like this), a helmet for Elke, a beard trimmer and some books from my Amazon wishlist (wow, dig the potential erudition in that list).

Sermon for St Michael’s, Kelburn
Psalm 16:5-11; Daniel 12:1-3; Hebrews 10:11-14,18; Mark 13:24-32

Today I’m going to concentrate on the Gospel reading. It’s difficult material on more than one level. There is a lot of strange stuff about the sun and moon going dark, the stars falling out of the sky, and the Son of Man coming in the clouds – what, if anything, does this have to do with us, sophisticated city-dwellers, university students and graduates in the 21st century?
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The antibiotics didn’t work, but I have seen a humpback whale, two bottlenose dolphins, four dugite snakes (venomous but shy), some bluetounge and other lizards, hundreds of quokkas, pelicans, more than two ibises and many other birds besides.

Eliza asked everyone in our street to Sign On yesterday, and most of them did.

We’re off to Perth for a holiday from Thursday. My workmate leant me Dirt Music for the trip. I got up at 5.20. I have been cutting my hair. It looks about 6/10. I’ve had some toothaches. The antibiotic I’m on for an abscess above a tooth is responsible (via use by vets) for wiping out India’s vultures, wikipedia tells me. Land comes in huge tracts. Vegetation comes in vast swathes. Eliza found a large mirror in good condition in a skip.