When your home isn't safe, where does your pet go?
The vital work of Pet Refuge
Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend, highlighting the best journalism from The Spinoff and the rest of the internet. And today one of those pieces is something I wrote! I usually don’t put my pieces in here because I don’t want it to seem like I’m biased towards my own work, probably because of some reverse tall poppy syndrome I should work on in my own time. However, I’ve been working on a story about international students since August last year and I went to India to report it and I am so so glad I never have to read it again but would quite like it if you did because writing stories like this is incredibly rewarding and special.
-Shanti Mathias, staff writer
Why Pet Refuge is so important
Pet Refuge is a national charity that looks after pets removed from domestic violence situations. Alice Hayward is one of its caseworkers. Alex Casey told me about their conversation: “Hayward told me that not only is this happening almost every day, but the problem is only getting worse. As she explains it, abusers can often use pets as pawns to keep their victims around, and taking the pets away to a safe place can take back the control. She was extremely honest about what she is seeing out there on the frontline and how her own life experiences have influenced her work, while also divulging some of her most memorable and challenging rescues. Just a total legend.”
Lessons from California’s housing crisis
New Zealand has a well-acknowledged housing crisis — one reason that Kiwi Sarah Hoffman felt at home when she moved to the famously unaffordable San Francisco Bay area. Overbearing regulations around building new housing makes density building hard, and has created huge amounts of urban sprawl, making the city atrociously expensive to live in and creating severe issues with homelessness. Slowly — reluctantly — the city has made it easier to build new housing. New Zealand can learn from this, Hoffman argues. “Unless [New Zealand] pursues bold housing policies it will continue towards the scenario San Francisco is trying to remedy today: many people born here simply cannot afford to stay.
When The Facts Change: How big does Chris Bishop want us to be?
Number of the week: one of thousands of students
In 2017, I moved to New Zealand from India to study; I went from bright green trees glowing from monsoon humidity to the dark blue water of Wellington harbour. I was one of the thousands of students who cross the ocean to come to New Zealand’s tertiary sector each year, and I wanted to write something that could survey the whole of this system. For individuals, studying overseas is an economic proposition as much as a social one: spend this money for the possibility that you’ll be able to make more afterwards. But at scale, what values is international education selling? And who stands to gain the most?
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Jen Cloher finds their wai
Australian musician Jen Cloher has whakapapa in Aotearoa. After a tour here in 2019, they realised they wanted to learn more about their heritage and tūrangawaewae in the Far North. Alice Webb-Liddall talks to Cloher about their new album, I am the River, the River is Me. “Māori have to seek out their culture and their language wherever they are, but when you’re in another country, and you’re not on your lands, and you’re not around whānau, and you’re not part of things like going out to your marae, you have to work that a little bit harder,” says Cloher. As they’ve learned more about reo and waiata Māori, it’s fed into their musical work. It’s a beautiful profile that made me want to spend more time with Cloher’s songs.
There’s nothing on linear TV any more
“I start every week with this sense that maybe this is the week when finally the holidays are over and programming will return to normal,” writes Paula Harris. She just wants to watch something half decent on TV: the news, sure, but then something worthy of primetime. Not a reality show. Not a forgettable movie. She chronicles a week in her life of TV watching. By Friday, things seem hopeless. “It always used to feel that Friday was the slightly bland, quiet night in TV content, since anyone with a life was out having dinner / drinks / partying. But now it’s the same slightly bland, quiet night in content every night.” What’s happened, she wonders, to good-enough telly?
How Balu Brigada is finding their sound
Signing to an international record label gave the brothers behind New Zealand duo Balu Brigada the opportunity to spread their wings. Now, from New York City, they are staying digitally connected with home, their label and their fans all over the globe.
Find out more about how Balu Brigada is making the most of their digital nous to keep up this connection, on The Spinoff now.
This piece was sponsored by One New Zealand.
Everything else
"You are not serious people”: a recap of the week in politics
In the month with the most reported ram raids, they made up only 0.36% of crimes — amazing data journalism (paywalled) about how different NZ governments have treated crime
Can you handle five more months of sausage roll politics?
The “porn wars” are back — and the debate is anchored in a 40-year feminist schism
What is deep sea mining? Imagine a robotic machine looking for phosphorus in some of the strangest and most vulnerable parts of the planet.
Some really important reporting about the experiences of refugees arriving in Christchurch
What could happen if Jan Tinetti is found in contempt by the Privileges Committee?
The hospitality sector has gotten a green light to negotiate a Fair Pay Agreement
How do you repair New Zealand’s biggest pool complex?
Does Hollywood have a “fake band” problem?
Shanti’s podcast corner: really great two-part podcast series on how ADHD is talked about online, and what that means for the psychiatric services necessary to diagnose ADHD
How it felt to be an elite athlete as a young woman — when athletes today still face scrutiny over the shape of their bodies
“Rehanging” pieces in museums can be deeply contested, but it’s still necessary
Lots of people have allergies but what even causes them?
On the subject of allergies: why do cafes charge extra for alternative milks?
And finally, because it’s a long weekend, here is a special treat: one of the most thrilling YouTube videos I’ve ever discovered, of a man solving a (nearly) impossible sudoku with two numbers. Duncan Greive is so right about YouTube and the writer’s strike — I haven’t watched many 20 minute TV episodes that are this compelling.
