Posts by Russell Brown
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A decline in the incidence of domestic violence would indicate success, not simply an increase in reporting - which, at first blush, suggests an increase in the acts themselves.
That's not really a reasonable measure. A key aim of a campaign like this is to encourage reporting. If reported family violence jumps by nearly a third after the campaign airs, either:
1. After the campaign airs, the actual incidence of family violence leaps by nearly a third in six months, absent any known trigger.
2. After the campaign airs, people are encouraged to report family violence (which we know to be notoriously under-reported), and the number of incidents reported jumps by nearly a third. The campaign would seem to have achieved one of its goals.
On balance, which is the more likely scenario? I'm fairly confident in saying that it's 2.
if prosecutions increase then the campaign can only be judged a failure - to alter behaviour and not just awareness or attitude.
See above. It has altered behaviour: it has reduced tolerance for family violence, reflected in a greater willingness to report (that is also, it should be noted, the view of the police).
If you think that a generational problem can be fixed in a year, you're setting the bar so high as to make it not worth bothering.
Whatever your ideology is it isn't ok to behave violently. But the spat between you and Ralston is hardly a beacon of pacific manners.
You must be of a particularly delicate disposition, or not read blogs a lot. I'm not interested in a "spat", but I have exercised my annoyance with the columnist's poor work by trying demonstrate what's wrong with it, and citing evidence to do so. I haven't even used any rude words.
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Sarah Hepola's story on Obama memorabilia for Salon is bloody funny:
The other day, curious how far the Obama madness had spread, I Googled the words "Obama sex toy."
God bless America: I was not disappointed.
"You love your candidate. Let him love you back!" gushes the Web site for Head O State, a 7-and-a-half-inch commemorative dildo. ("I bought two," reads a fake endorsement from George W. Bush, "emission accomplished.") The product comes in gold and blue -- not black, oddly enough -- and features the likeness of our president-elect grinning like a Cheshire. How about that for a stimulus package?
OK, so, the Obama dildo looks about as titillating as stuffing a carved zucchini up your cha-cha (who knows? could be grand!). But I have a funny feeling that whoever is actually shelling out $34.95 for this bad boy isn't investing in their sex life as much as their curio cabinet. It's a measure of the richness of our great nation that we can memorialize the election of our 44th president in such a multiplicity of ways ...
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And in all truth people who disagree with the general view do tend to get hammered
I can't deny that happens. But I like to think they get hammered in a relatively reasonable fashion.
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Add the fact he's a good writer, I don't begrudge him his column. He could and should be treating the job with a lot more respect, is my feeling. It's a privilege to have that kind of platform.
He is a good writer, and it's the slapdash nature of those columns that irks me. I realise not everyone is an op-ed nerd, but it's also the reason I get exercised about poorly-argued editorials in the Herald when hardly anyone else even reads the things.
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Well, haven't seen any dissent on this thread just yet. Is it OK to disagree with Uncle Rusty?
People disagree with me quite a lot. But I think the column in question is quite hard to defend, because its argument is so obviously flawed.
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except this was for people on P working out.
Hah!
But for me, pop music was the winner on the day.
Yes! I actually said to someone whilst watching the Ting Tings: "Isn't pop music great at the moment?"
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Took me a while to find it, but the real number (the equivalent of 16%) appears to be 3.9%. I'm surprised the article doesn't headline that a little more. When you're trying to discus the prevalence of domestic violence, it would be nice for the write-up in the medical journal to make a little more of the fact more than three-quarter of respondents reported that there was not a single act violence during their entire childhood, and over 80% that the most violent it ever got was a threat.
Thanks Graeme. You're right, of course.
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Wow. As recently as 2001 there were large numbers of arrests. 89 that year. Then a huge drop, to 28 in 2002.
Looking at the lineups, 2002 was the year of New Order -- another less frantic closing act for the main stages.
2001 is the one that freaks me out. Coldplay played? I don't even remember ...
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My first youtube upllode(sp ;-)
6:15 mins of Neil Young gloriousness, A day in the life/ Enjoy :-)That's a great clip!
Especially pleased that you got the very end. I loved the shot of him raising his fist then turning and walking off the stage.
(And I took the liberty of embedding the clip. To do that here you only need to paste in the URL, not any embed code or formatting.)
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Take away the pistol and the Taser (crouching and standing officers' visible arms, respectively) and that same photo with minor uniform differences could be repeated in NZ with ease.
It was actually the body language that shitted me. There's nothing worse than an over-excited policeman (okay, a few things) and that's what that picture looks like.
I like how our guys just stroll around in their visibility vests, keeping an eye on things and not creating trouble. Three arrests in an entire day is pretty amazing.
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