Posts by Kyle Matthews
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OK, sure... but honour-worthy?
But you could say the same thing about any person who is listed as having made 'services to business'. I don't believe making craploads of money is worthy of having a sword waved near your heard and getting to put 'Sir' on your business cards, it seems to me that having craploads of money is reward enough.
But if that's your complaint then you could say that about any number of honour recipients. People were complaining about it in relation to making money via selling alcohol.
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Not surprising, no... but honour-worthy?
Well that's true, at least for me and you.
But if we're going to hand out honours for people who make craploads of money selling stuff (and we clearly do, and for some people, such as Faye/Richwhite, there are honours for making craploads of money by screwing over heaps of people and not selling shit), I fail to see why Doug Myers is any less worthy because he made money selling booze, rather than cows or widgets or bytes or movies. The country has said all these things are OK.
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I really don't think that's an equivalent position. It's possible to drink heavily without actually hurting other people. It's not really possible to smack your wife round without hurting her.
I feel bound to point out that last night's news reported on research suggesting that smacking led to better outcomes for kids. On 'incredibly fucked up once you take the wide view" scale, that comes in pretty highly for me.
We need to be aware how aggressively alcohol is being marketed to our young people and we cannot let the alcohol industry hijack the "rights for women" tag as the tobacco industry did a generation or two ago. This is criminal, and it is why it is offensive that someone like Doug Myers is recognised for "services to community".
I think my precise point is that it's not criminal. If we're going to legalise something, and let someone sell it in the capitalist marketplace in a relatively liberal way, then getting upset when someone turns out to be good at selling it and it causes heaps of harm... not surprising. If Doug Myers didn't do this, fifteen other liquor barons would (and did). There's only one parliament setting the laws however, that's the place to turn your wrath if you're unhappy about alcohol harm.
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while the other ran a successful billion dollar corporation that profited from people's propensity to drink large quantities of alcohol.
While like Russell, I'm pretty dubious about Myer's knighthood, I can't buy it as some sort of 'like tobacco', sold alcohol, poisoned our future type angle.
Tobacco companies knew they were killing millions and people and lied about it to make profit. I don't think there's any great debate about what alcohol does/doesn't do, which the alcohol companies knew the answers to but hid from us. Our modern history of alcohol use and abuse has all been state sanctioned and relatively transparent.
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I want to especially send warm fuzzies to Mrs Hindmarsh, Mrs Fellowes and the rest of the librarians I grew up with at Miramar Library.
I'm still bitter at this library from 1993, when I came 'home' from my first year at university - my parents had moved from Auckland to Wellington that year - and tried to sign up to the library, to be told that I needed a letter addressed to me at my new address - which having arrived at it the day before, I didn't have.
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EVEN SO, the editions sold in the USA are translated into American English. (The first example that comes to mind is that Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans come in 'booger'.)
And the first book was released in America as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone", because (Wikipedia):
Fearing that American readers would not associate the word "philosopher" with a magical theme (although the Philosopher's Stone is alchemy-related), Scholastic insisted that the book be given the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the American market.
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You keep saying this as if your wild speculation about selection against gay elite rugby players has any validity.
I can't comment on rugby, but in my sport, coming out at that age to your team mates... It probably wouldn't get you beaten up, but your sporting life would completely change. Some coaches and teams would select you, but I'm confident that others would be a lot less enlightened. And some of your team mates would sure as hell make your life a lot harder.
Particularly at the senior youth level. It's not very enlightened in those changing rooms at 14 - 18.
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The same goes for the average 8.8 players per year who join the All Blacks (1,100 players over 125 years). There is a probability of 0.125 of one of them being a gay player only if they are selected at random from the general population.
Yer assumptions are bunk again. The All Blacks first played in 1884. They then didn't play again until 1893. They didn't play from 1914 until 1920 or from 1938 until 1946. There's only about 100 years that the All Blacks actually played.
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What of the Waikato stereotype: a bunch of cow-cockies, dedicated to using up our dwindling oil stocks as quickly as possible?
Wait, I thought it was Aucklanders using up our dwindling oil stocks with their SUVs in hour long commutes? Clearly we need to tidy up our stereotypes.
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I know of gay and lesbian people playing amateur sport who have well and truly kept their sexuality out of the changing room. They'd be out to their friends, but in the closet to their team. I knew of a female sports team where almost half the team were lesbian, but weren't out to the other half as there was an open homophobe on the team.
Which is ironic, as some sports are still trying to stamp out 'hazing' and other initiation rituals, which tend to involve homeorotic rituals. The soggy biscuit, the rookie naked runs etc.
And that's just in the changing room, I'd hate to think of how the rugby or other sport loving public would react.
I'm not sure if your source on 'percentage of gays' is the best Hadyn. Self-recognition from a phone interview? Some won't know that they're gay/bi, and some won't admit it over the phone.