Woman in headscarf told to 'go back to your own country' in aggressive incident in New Lynn
A New Zealand-Palestinian family say they feel unsafe in public after one of them was shoved and told to "go back to your own country" by a stranger in an Auckland shopping mall. Saja Mahmoud, 17, said she was shopping with her mother Nadia Ali in Lynnmall this afternoon when they were approached by a middle-aged man. "He was swearing. And then he just started shouting at us 'Go back to your country'," Saja said.
The man then pushed Nadia, who was wearing a headscarf, with enough force to knock her off balance. "She was about to fall and I had to catch her," Saja said. Originally from Palestine, the family moved to New Zealand from Syria five years ago. It was the first time they had been racially abused in this country. The altercation lasted a matter of seconds, but left the family rattled. Saja said the incident was particularly hard after the Christchurch mosque shootings in March.
She believed her mother was targeted because of her headscarf.
"We just feel like what happened in Christchurch, it's just not fair. Losing 50 people here, and now nothing was done here. "I just find that racist. I can't be quiet about it. We don't actually feel safe." They were disappointed that police did not take stronger action against their abuser. A photograph taken of the alleged attacker by the family shows a man dressed in black, in a leather jacket, and wearing glasses. The Human Rights Commission said it had received 295 complaints in the last five years which it categorised as anti-Islamic, though it could not say with certainty whether such incidents were becoming more common. The complaints ranged from a student being called a "terrorist" by fellow students to women being barred from shops because they were wearing a hijab. The commission's figures did not cover the period after the attacks in Christchurch.
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Poll: Should drivers retake the theory test every 10 years?
Drivers get where they need to go, but sometimes it seems that we are all abiding by different road rules (for example, the varying ways drivers indicate around a roundabout).
Do you think drivers should be required to take a quick driving theory test every 10 years?
Vote in the poll and share any road rules that you've seen bent! 😱
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49.5% Yes
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48.6% No
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1.9% Other - I'll share below
Here's Thursday's thinker!
I am lighter than air, but a hundred people cannot lift me. What am I?
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Why make picking up reserved library books harder? What do you think? Challenge: Write the last stanza for the first poem attached below.
Once books are reserved in Auckland Libraries books, when they are available no longer go alphabetically by customer but instead go into a Holds pickup shelf number based presumably somehow on when each book needs to be picked up by.
I had two books reserved that arrived on two different days in the Blockhouse Bay Library and hence each book has a different shelf number. Hard to find unless you knew the shelf number in the notification email. Even if you knew the shelf number I found myself three books by the same author on the two shelf numbers.
More recently yesterday a book I reserved was on a different shelf number than was specified in my notification email (see image below).
Sadly it is clear from library staff that a numerical system for reserves is here to stay.
I suggest that so that all books for each person has the same shelf number, the shelf number becomes the last digit of a person's library card (0-9).
Within each shelf number a book is found under the day the reserve arrives in the library (01 to 31, hopefully the same date the email is sent).
Since a customer appears to have 10 days to pick up a book, ten days of the month would appear to be required at any time (for each digit 0-9).
Once there are 10 days used the next day's reserves could go back at the beginning of the shelf number after any remaining books not collected (hopefully none) are removed (along with the old day number and the new day number (01 to 31) inserted) after the last day available and future days' books remaining moved forward to make room.
Each day number (01-31) would appear once for each shelf number (0-9) before the first book on that day- perhaps cover an old withdrawn book with paper with each day number on the spine?
When a reserved book arrives in the library the last digit of the library card could be placed on a piece of paper in the book to be removed when it is put on the shelf, to be recycled the next day.
What do you think?
See the image below and page 3 below for a letter appearing in the Western Leader on 9 September:
www.neighbourly.co.nz...
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