Posts by nzlemming
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Hard News: A weekend in a mad, lovely place, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
You took a cat for walks?
I see how it could be read that way ;-) Oddly enough, when we first got the dog and started walking her, the younger cat would follow us at least to the end of the street. Maybe he was hoping we wouldn't bring the dog back.
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Jeez, Nick, all breeds of dogs will kill cats, rabbits and such-like, given the right circumstances.
Official stats show Greyhounds in 2015 had a total population of 4,523 with 9 classed as menacing (could mean they growled at someone) and 0 as dangerous. Boxers, for comparison, have a population of 5,262 with 31 menacing and 11 dangerous. Of the 592 dangerous dogs, 0 were greyhounds.
They are not "bred and trained to chase and kill other animals", at least, not in NZ and Australia (dogs are often transferred trans-Tasman to diversify bloodlines). They are bred to run fast after an artificial lure. I understand in Ireland and Spain, they are still used to chase rabbits (coursing) but even that is about turning the hare rather than catching it (I'm told coursing used to happen in Otago as well, but not now). A pack of greyhounds in a field will run round the field at high speed without a lure. They really love to run.
You're taking one edge case and applying it to a whole breed. There have been no incidences of children being mauled by greyhounds, or faces torn off, or anything of that nature. My girl lived with 2 cats and everyone knew that the older cat was the boss. On walks, she would show interest in saying hello to a cat but never once tried to chase one.
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Hard News: A weekend in a mad, lovely place, in reply to Graham Dunster,
Damn, looks like I've missed the final Dick Smith markdown.
I think they all closed Monday last week.
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Hard News: A weekend in a mad, lovely place, in reply to Russell Brown,
I'd heard this about greyhounds, and a few weeks ago I went to a barbecue where there were a couple of pet greyhounds and it was all true. They were a lovely presence.
They are. We had her for 7 years and she was always quiet an placid (except for thunderstorms and fireworks). Even with other greyhounds they just lie down next to each other and watch the world go by. Unless they're in a paddock, and then they go hell for leather for 10 minutes and then lie down for twenty. Fabulous dogs. If anyone is looking for an excellent family pet, I recommend Greyhounds as Pets which rehomes dogs coming out of the racing "industry" - many are still put down when they reach the end of their "economic life", which is at about 4 years old. It's an "industry that I'd like to see put down.
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That kid up the pole in the selfie pic has some mad skillz - I could never get that high at her age. And the last shot with the greyhound in it near broke my heart. It's the spitting image of my hound who died (of old age) last year. Wonderful, wonderful pets.
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Hard News: How the years flew by ..., in reply to Alfie,
Steve Braunias' Secret Diary of Auckland housing boom. I love his characterisation of John Key.
The comments seem to indicate that the readers didn't percieve it as satire
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Hard News: The place where things happen…, in reply to BenWilson,
I don’t get this cause-effect thing you’re raising here. Very often the cause of us doing something is the effect that it will produce. I go to the shop and buy something nice to eat.
Then you understand nothing, Jon Snow. Cause and effect are separate things when related to one action. An effect may be a cause for a following action (and often is) but it is a result of the first action. You stated that the reason for pursuing homosexual law reform was not about harm minimisation (e.g. getting arrested, having no legal redress, being assaulted etc) but about attaining happiness. I'm telling you, as someone who was there, that wasn't why we did it, and some people were just as unhappy with their lives after the event as they were before it. You don't want to listen, preferring your own second-hand (and selective) narrative. And now you split hairs. You are so wrong, but I'm done with the 'conversation' and you. Enjoy your rose-tinted reality, Ben.
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Hard News: The place where things happen…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Hmmm ... but greater happiness was an outcome, and if you're measuring outcomes, you'd include it.
The discussion was about cause, not outcome.
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Hard News: The place where things happen…, in reply to BenWilson,
Even if it's not how you think, it's how I think, and I suggest that it's how a whole lot of people think.
Apology accepted, but it's not about what people think now - it's about what people thought then. That's where the cause comes from. Happiness was only an effect, and not the most important one, which was legal status and freedom from discrimination (still a work in progress, as with so many other minorities).
If I have a nail in my foot, I don't pull it out because it will make me happy, though that may indeed be an outcome of the removal. I pull it out because it doesn't belong there, it may cause the foot to go gangrenous and because it bloody hurts.
There were many gay people who would have said they were happy before reform and "best not to make a fuss", which is like Russian Jews not protesting the pogroms, or being forced to live within the Pale of Settlement. The reform activity was all about rocking the boat. In some countries, it might have backfired and caused greater issues, which is what boofheads like McCoskrie and Tamaki would like to see happen, but in NZ common decency prevailed.
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Hard News: The place where things happen…, in reply to BenWilson,
I was going to leave this, but you've made me very angry. Your paternalistic "straight boy knows best" attitude is insulting to my life experience and to the memory of those who never made it. I should accept your pronouncement because you're straight? Fuck off. That's the very bullshit we were fighting against - that people who weren't us were making the decisions that ruled our lives. That arrogance of straight entitlement is what drove us. The anger it generated fueled us, and the intransigence of "those who know best" is what we sought to, and to a degree, did break.
You presume to know what drove us to seek change - you can't know, because you weren't part of it. Not part of the drive and, more importantly, not part of the community that suffered under.
I was not too young to know homosexuals before and after the law reform, and they were markedly very happy about it.
Well, yes, of course we were happy. We had legal status. We didn't have to worry about policemen peeking through our bedroom windows or setting up entrapment in public toilets. Hell, we didn't need public toilets to meet strangers for furtive sex. We could seek redress in discrimination cases and not be laughed out of court. We could fight back with the tools of the establishment that were denied us as queers. But happiness, or the chance of it, was a product of success, it wasn't the driving force. The driving force was survival and getting basic human rights. The struggle isn't over. It's a lot better than it was, but there is still discrimination, there's still beatings, and deaths. But we're taken as seriously as straight people when we seek redress, and that is what we wanted. Were we happy when we got it? Of course, but that was an effect , not a cause.
Please don't presume to tell me how my life was lived.