Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Having stuffed up one relationship in my life
Only one? C'mon, that's a bit slack.
Luckily, I've carried some of your load for you, no need for thanks.
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Sally Lunn was what the South Islanders called them, like the crib/bach divide.
No, definitely the other way around. According to me (grew up in Auckland) and Dr Hay, linked to by Amy.
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It also assumes that prosecutions are the desired outcome, not prevention of the violence in the first place. Prevention saves victimisation, rather than creating prisoners.
Actually one of the primary ways to prevent domestic violence, is to prevent people doing it again. Domestic violence offenders are very repetitive in their behaviour, they will repeat offend against their partners and their children, and they will carry their behaviour into new relationships and situations.
It's one of the reasons that as much as possible, an environment is created where every incident is reported. That puts people in front of the court system which can order them to do various courses, puts victims in touch with victim support, womens refuge and other support organisations.
It's about breaking the cycle. So absolutely getting more prosecutions is a desired outcome, we know there's a lot more domestic violence going on than is reported to the police, that gap needs to be reduced from both ends.
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I once saw a Sally Lung - at least that was what it was labelled as - in a cake shop window in Petone. About 16cm in diameter, to the best of my recollection, with pink icing, detailed with the regulation dessicated coconut.
Sally Lunn is one of those terms that breaks the country, though I can't remember exactly what it is. It's a northern term, which doesn't appear south of Christchurch or something?
I maintain that Sally Lunns only have white icing, red icing is something entirely different.
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While we are on the subject of "ineffectual" PC campaigns, am I the only person who has suddenly realised he has not seen one child smacked in public since the section 59 repeal?
I saw a man smack a kid - probably 2 or 3 - on the interisland ferry a couple of weeks ago. Or my girlfriend saw it, I happened to be looking the other way and saw the aftereffects. He slapped her across the face.
We debated whether to say something among ourselves, but the moment passed and we lost the opportunity.
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And to refresh our memory, here is the central advertisement in question. Remarkably non-gender specific, and addressing all areas of society.
On viewing it again, Ralston is definitely talking out his butt, and needs to watch the advert again.
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all Aussie cops are armed, all the time (even off-duty)
Well that's not correct.
In WA at least, cops only carry their weapons when on active duty. The ones that I interacted with at the state headquarters weren't armed at all.
Perhaps some of them take their weapons home with them, but by no means all of them do.
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Fair enough, but it sounded like you were throwing down for an academic face-off. And without wanting to come across as a recent immigrant from Philistia, appeals to authority have their own risks.
No, not academic, though it certainly wouldn't hurt. But I'd welcome as much, or more, informed opinion from police, womens refuge, people running Living without Violence courses, survivors, perpertrators etc. Or qualified researchers looking from the outside in.
Those people all have a story to tell. I'm just not aware that Ralston fits any of those descriptions, so I'm not sure that he does.
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As for the credentials bit, since when do columnists need credential? And Ralston didn't exactly fall off a tree, he's been around a few times and has had visible and important roles in the media.
I don't begrudge him his column at all. I do think that if you're going to write a column and comment for and against relatively specialised things like domestic violence and the effectiveness of campaigns around them, you should have a reasonable idea of what you're talking about.
If the column was about politics, then often that's just a difference of opinion. However as Russell has proven, this column is just bad. Which makes me wonder if he's at all qualified to write it.
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What are Bill Ralston's qualifications? The only information I can find on him talks about his job career, but did he study at all? Has he worked in jobs that have required research over above reporter/commentator/tv host/news editor?