Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: A good soldier dies

Craig Young

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 16:21:19 +1300

Having updated my own blog on the issue, I can only agree with you, namesake. Apparently, two of Cpl Hughes' straight colleagues ended their lives during the same tour of duty- which leads one to consider that indeed, there obviously are some urgent general operational issues that need to be…

Craig Ranapia

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 11:23:20 +1300

According to a recent article on Gay Star News, LGBT military suicide appears to be a serious problem in the United States:

Military suicides and service-related mental illness are a serious problem, full stop and period. I throw down some links, but tracking them down would not only be depressing…

Craig Young

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 09:49:28 +1300

According to a recent article on Gay Star News, LGBT military suicide appears to be a serious problem in the United States:

“Closeted gay soldiers more likely to attempt suicide” Gay Star News: 01.03.2013: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/closeted-gay-soldiers-more-likely-commit-suicide010313

Granted, we officially ended military service discrimination twenty years ago, back in 1993, but do…

Islander

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:10:57 +1300

MC&redir_esc=y
Yeah, interesting link – got most of that stuff in my library (along with material on how difficult it is for humans to make *other* animals to kill on their behalf- )
-point remains?

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:33:17 +1300

… armed forces around the world are set up in ways that deliberately intensify certain social dynamics.

Sure – and they also build in an awful lot of culture shock because this isn’t Sparta, and we’ve had an volunteer military for a long time. I have an American acquaintance who,…

George Darroch

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:11:39 +1300

And there is harrassment of the different- and, o George? I know another asexual who is also in the Armed forces – but she is female-

... armed forces around the world are set up in ways that deliberately intensify certain social dynamics. Men don't find a aggression completely unnatural,…

Islander

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:18:02 +1300

I feel reluctant to drag out the old cliché about whether this chain of events, from the confrontation to the coroner, would have unfolded the way that it has if Corporal Hughes had been straight. But I have.

Kia ora Bob – I second George's welcome.

I have an odd…

George Darroch

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:43:56 +1300

Hi Bob, welcome to the PAS hivemind.

Militaries are deliberately strange environments, as they have to be able to send men to do unusual and awful things. That works for certain purposes, but when it exacts costs on men they tend to be severe.

George Darroch

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:38:30 +1300

They usually make sensible recommendations. Where there is a identifiable risk and a clear policy response that would reduce or eliminate this risk, they make a statement to that effect. Eric Crampton has helpfully compiled a list (for the purpose of saying saving lives is too burdensome).

They're not experts…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:50:08 +1300

I know that's the official story, but can you provide an instance where a coroner has made a sensible recommendation which was acted on and produced a significant reduction in the death rate from the cause in question?

George Darroch

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:02:41 +1300

Fortunately, we don’t really.

The Ministry of Justice seem to think they do, stating on their website

A coroner speaks for the dead to protect the living. and The role of the Coroner is to establish when, where, how and why the death happened, and also to work out whether…

Bob Williams

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:53:13 +1300

Corporal Hughes' story is uncomfortably similar the plot of the 1968 Rod Steiger movie "The Sergeant" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sergeant_(film). It was the days of A and B movies and I'd gone along to see something else. As a teenager still several years away from coming out to himself let alone anyone else,…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:54:28 +1300

we rely on coroners to understand deaths and thus prevent future ones

Fortunately, we don't really. Various medical, social and regulatory authorities do their own research and enquires, and the coroner is a bit of a ceremonial: they died of doing X. X must be banned forthwith!

I'd…

Russell Brown

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:21:24 +1300

If you mean Jim Anderton, hasn’t he also had a chilling effect on the drugs legislation?

Anderton gets a bit of a bad rap on the drugs thing. Like Dunne, he was a drug warrior who got somewhat colonised by the weight of evidence.

Once he'd been persuaded in 2002…

Graham Dunster

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:58:37 +1300

If you mean Jim Anderton, hasn't he also had a chilling effect on the drugs legislation?

George Darroch

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:51:30 +1300

It's up there with the largest killers in NZ, and for those under 60 is the leading cause of death. These graphs are illustrative (Thanks to Mike Dickison and Siouxie Wiles). As a cause of years of potential life lost (YPLL), it's almost certainly at or near the top.

I…

Raymond A Francis

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:46:57 +1300

I agree, that method hasn't worked let's try something else but the shadow (of I believe Jim Anderson) looms over any changes

Sacha

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:55:39 +1300

Late last year, Chief Coroner Judge Neil MacLean commented that “we need to gently bring the issue of suicide from out of the shadows”

Not 'gently' – let's deal with suicide like the major preventable social harm that it is. Right now. Not once some silly old fools are sent…

Bart Janssen

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:53:14 +1300

New Zealand has one of the world's toughest regimes on media reporting of individual suicides. Despite this our suicide rates (particularly youth) are amongst the highest in the developed world.

Clearly this approach is not working. We should stop doing what isn't working and try doing something else. No guarantees…

Sacha

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:53:12 +1300

I posted this a few minutes ago at WhaleOil – forgive me

Just this once. :)

Sacha

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:52:05 +1300

raises questions about his judgement

A tweeter observed:

Re: Gordon Matenga's submission. Should someone with such stunningly poor logic skills even be a Coroner?

Joe Bloggs

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:30:49 +1300

I posted this a few minutes ago at WhaleOil – forgive me for repeating my comments here but there are some profound issues here relating to the Coroner's Act and media reporting of suicides in New Zealand.

I studied the effects of media reporting on suicide last year and in…

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:28:56 +1300

The coroner’s submission to the select committee considering the marriage equality bill – as a Mormon, he is strongly opposed to same-sex marriage, and his language in the submission is harsh – raises questions about his judgement, and perhaps about his handling of this case.

And while Chris Finlayson has…

Public Address

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:28:56 +1300

Discussion from blog post.