‘Bravo’ to those three brave pilots

As I write this, (5.45pm Tuesday) I have to say well done, hats off to the three wonderful chopper pilots who have been tirelessly flying back and forth fighting our local fire, raging between Cass Bay and Corsair Bay.

They have been toiling non-stop, for over four hours, back and forth, back and forth – transporting water from the harbour to a fire being relentlessly fed by high nor’westers.

Obviously, these winds make for very difficult flying conditions for them, quite apart from fuelling the fire, so again I say, hats off! Job well done!

Liz Hales, Cass Bay

Old phone scans

Regarding the article yesterday about the inability of older phones to scan, we have an old iPhone 5 that is running on iSO10, the highest it can upgrade to.

It scans the QR code without difficulty. It cannot, however, support the Bluetooth Tracing function, for which iSO11 and above is required.

John Williams, Timaru

Sign in?

We cannot all afford a $1000 phone, or are interested in paying so much money just to keep in touch with friends and family, so where is our app to register our QR when we enter a property, or do we need to sign in full details as required? Robert White, Tai Tapu

Crown monitor

So Dr Levy, the Crown monitor appointed by the Government to oversee the CDHB during its deficit recovery period, is to remain for a second term, with Board member Aaron Keown saying that the CDHB still has a deficit, and that Dr Levy will be here until the deficit is either gone or lower (Jan 20).

On that basis, he is going to be here for a very long time. Dr Levy was previously simultaneously the chair of Auckland, Counties Manukau and Waitemata DHBs, and in the first full year following his mass resignation on 24 January 2018 (for which he gave different reasons) the three DHBs produced aggregate operating deficits of $511.5 million, and aggregate comprehensive income deficits totalling $325.6m. None of those DHBs produced surpluses at either level in 2019. What then does Dr Levy hope to achieve at the

CDHB, given the legacy he left behind up north?

Michael Gousmett, Rangiora

Learning opportunities

I was a little shocked to read Jamie Beaton’s Education must act on lockdown advances (Jan 20), promoting online learning. He has a vested interest in doing so. He’s the CEO of a new online high school apparently.

Beaton refers to research on student retention online (25 per cent to 60 per cent) vs student retention in the classroom (8 per cent to 10 per cent). I spent six years studying how two things, the number of learning opportunities and the gaps between learning opportunities, affected student retention at high school.

In 11 experiments involving students from Year 7 to Year 13 we found that, with a sufficient number of learning opportunities and gaps of often several days between each learning opportunity, almost all students could recall 85 per cent or more of what they had been taught in the classroom.

Not a single device was used during any of the 11 experiments.

Brett Clark, Head of Learning Support, St Andrew’s College, Christchurch

Cannabis operations

It is pleasing to see that the police have abandoned their policy of searching out and destroying cannabis plantations (Press, Jan 20). As they note, such resources will be far better diverted to combating methamphetamine use.

The police justified their cannabis operation by stating that cannabis use caused ‘‘hundreds of millions of dollars of socioeconomic harm’’. I should be most interested to hear how this figure was calculated.

Steve Krenek, St Albans

Public’s the word

I’m not sure whether I just don’t understand Jonathan Barrett’s argument (Jan 20) that government, whether it be central or local, is free to use public money as it thinks, regardless of public opinion, or that I simply disagree.

I regard public money, whether it be rates or taxes, as being held by government in trust. There has to be accountability and transparency and in a democracy, the right of the plebiscites to have an opinion on expenditure.

Similarly I don’t regard the Prime Minister as our leader but simply the most senior public servant in the land. Nor do I regard the conservation estate as ‘‘DOC land’’. It is public land.

Public is the operative word in public interest, public property and the right of the public to comment.

Tony Orman, Blenheim

Context important

I am no fan of religion either, Mr Bruce (Jan 19). I agree with your sentiments about the harms religions pose.

The context of words is important. For example, ‘‘Where are you from?’’ can be polite and genuinely inquisitive. ‘‘Where are you from?’’ can take on a different meaning. I would guess Mr Riach’s (Jan 16) wife’s experience was not an example of polite conversation. Being told to go home is certainly not.

I am sorry to hear, and sympathise with Mr Bruce’s telling of his family member’s experience overseas. I think then that he understands what it is like to be an outsider in a foreign land, and to be made to feel targeted and unwelcome.

There is a difference between genuine, healthy debate and conversation about religions, nations and cultures; and marginalising and targeting individuals based on one’s own assumptions and prejudices. This is what can be discouraged by carefully legislated hatespeech laws, while still allowing for healthy conversation and debate.

R J K Franks, Christchurch Central

Model outdated

Calling up images of a civil rebellion hides the real worries of Republicanvoting Americans. The American model of capitalism, forged during the Civil War years, of ever cheaper raw materials being fed to large production centres, is outdated and unsustainable.

Natural resources can no longer be treated by producers taking destructive short-cuts, as the ecological damage they have caused has become intense and unavoidable.

Simon Rolleston, Bromley

Sad comparison

With the current narrative by the media of Trump apparently being the worst person to have ever walked the earth, on par with Adolf Hitler himself, we love to quickly forget that for decades each and every administration has started wars, but not this one, which brought troops home to loved ones and family. No-one has been able to construct major peace deals in the Middle East, apart from this one. If Biden achieved even half of this, we would hail him Saint Biden, Nobel peace prizes a given.

But we can’t stop for a moment and give even a nod of gratitude to these great achievements, which few have been able to accomplish. No, Hitler is apparently a far more fitting equivalent with all of his warmongering and evil. I find it sad. Andy Mcdonald, Sockburn

Cheque it out

I couldn’t understand Ian Badger’s letter (Jan 20) until I looked up Wikipedia for the meaning of ’cheque’. It was a written instruction to your banker requiring him (never a ‘her’) to pay a certain amount of money to a named person. I started to reminisce, remembering when steam trains were fuelled by coal, when personal transport was by horse and trap, a journey to our nearest neighbour took three days by boat. Ah yes Ian, those were the days.

Bruce Newburgh, Shirley