Posts by dyan campbell
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A smack, even as part of good parental correction, is now a crime. And it was not before.
This is incorrect; it has always been illegal to smack your child.
Section 59 of the Crimes Act meant that when a paediatrician notified the police about an assault and if this resulted in a charge being laid and a case going to court, the defendant could successfully argue "reasonable force", which was what Section 59 of the Crimes act provided in those instances.
Because no such provision exists to excuse the assault of anyone else - intractable drunks, the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped -there was seen to be a need to repeal a section of the crimes act that amounted to a loophole exclusively for those who stand trial for assaulting a child.
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David, this is such a sad story, and you've written about this so beautifully, thank you.
I'm struck by the empathy and thoughtfulness of small children - people are fond of saying children can be cruel, but it has struck me that they are even more capable of being kind. Mary-Margaret's questions, her anxious desire to somehow be of comfort, to not make the grief more acute really choked me up.
When I first moved here and was teaching gymnastics, one of the 6 year olds in our class lost both her parents in a car accident. She was back in classes only a few days later, but reeling from grief and not yet processing anything. She was like a sleepwalker, or somebody underwater - almost catatonic. None of us coaches really knew how to make her feel comfortable or what exactly to do with her in the class, as she was clearly not up to participating, or communicationg. We were conferring among ourselves if one of us should sit out the whole class and just sit on the sidelines keeping her company, when one of the other children came to the rescue.
A usually terrible ADHD kid (also 6) suprised us all by simply walking over to her and taking her hand, saying "here Pearl, you come and stand with us in my group" and as he led her over to the gaggle of children I could see several of them reach out and give her a tentative pat though no hugs, no words. Pearl still seemed quite unengaged with her world, but her classmates kind of... just stepped in and took care of her.
Whenever anyone utters the cliched like about children being cruel, I instantly think of that instinctive gesture of kindness and quietly disagree.
Mary Margaret sounds like a very kind hearted, compassionate child. I'm always astonished at how great a character can reside is such a small person.
My sympathies to everyone, especially the parents for their loss, and to Mary Margaret, who has lost her friend.
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The minute men have to decide whether or not to support another life inside their own bodies, with the accompanying discomfort and medical risks, then I'd be the first to stand up for their rights to choose.
If the hepatic vein of the father is diverted to the caecum, and the waste matter of the father is diverted with a temporary colostemy, I understand it's possible (in theory) for a man's body to carry an embryo transferred from the mother, though I don't think this has actually been done. Don't ask me, I don't have a whole degree in anything, only parts of degrees in things.
If this proceedure is perfected, I'm guessing men who wish to see their unborn children carried to term would... shut up.
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Annoying little twat. I just want to swat him and say " look bro dont be such an arrogant condescending little know it all cunt cos it alienates people."
I don't get that at all. In fact, I was struck by his authentic good nature in Making Tracks.
Me too, I enjoyed the show enormously, and was very impressed at how well he connected with everyone, how enthusiastic he was, and how well informed he was about the musicians he was meeting, the places they lived and how this influenced their music. He was very warmly received by everyone on the show, that was evident and a big part of what made the show so enjoyable.
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The waist sizes of actresses in the past are consistent with changes in the average waist size in the general population. The average height has not increased that that much in the past generation (less than an inch) but the average girth has increased dramatically. In 1950 the average woman's waist measurement was 27 1/2 inches, today the average measurement is 34 inches. We are growing wider much faster than we are growing taller. We are also getting weaker.
The assumption that the increasing weights of children and young people is a sign that we are much better nourished or stronger than previous generations is incorrect. Diets in the developed world have never been as calorie dense or nutrient poor as they are today.
We are seeing adult onset diseases in children as young as nine or ten. Adult onset diabetes - never seen in a child until the 1980s - is now no longer called "adult onset diabetes" as it is commonly seen in teenagers and even in prepubescent children.
The heights of playgrounds have shrunk dramatically as the height of past equipment is too dangerous for how heavy and how weak children are today. Injuries resulting from falls are essentially a formula of weight over splat and as children are much, much heavier and much, much weaker than their parents; it has become too dangerous to have the higher climbing equipment available. The drop in upper body strength, core strength, flexibility, endurance and recovery time from anaerobic activity is cause for alarm . Children are reaching school age without the motor skills expected of toddlers .
I've worked on two sci/med conferences on obesity and obesity related disease - which is probably why Graham Reid describes me as an "obesity expert" on his recipes website - but my past experience in public health has been working with HIV/AIDS - when I wasn't working on public health campaigns (before the scource of expensive, ad agency driven "social marketing") I was developing recipes that delivered nutrient/calorie dense foods for people with wasting diseases, people who were genuinely too thin.
In determining whether someone is healthy or not actual weight is not really the most important indicator. You need to look at waist to hip ratio - male, female, adult, child, if your waist the same size or bigger than your hip or chest measurement, then your health is at risk. It would be a good idea to know 1) triglycerides 2) serum cholesterol 3) glucose tolerance 4) (i) resting heart rate (ii) heart rate after exertion (iii) recovery time, i.e. length of time it takes your heart to return to R/hr. This data will give you a much better idea of your health that BMI, which is a tool developed for measuring large populations, not individuals.
If you have excess belly fat, this can be a result of stress - high levels of cortisol will cause fat to be deposited in the most dangerous place, around your middle. That adipose tissue, once in place around a person's middle will go on to behave like a sinister pancreas, causing everything from insulin resistance to heart disease, certain cancers and depression (HPA axis - or hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenals axis). Belly fat is caused by stress and in turn causes stress and depression. Fat is not a feminist issue, it's a public health issue.
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Sorry, but I just don't get people who find the likes of Kate Moss attractive -- because she looks like a child, and a damn sick one at that. What the hell kind of pathology is at work there, and why is pandering to it a multi-billion dollar industry?
Kate Moss was a junkie, and at the height of her career and she looked like a junkie. That junkie look is far more disturbing than her size. Kate Moss is a veritable moose next to Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi or fashion icon Audrey Hepburn.
If you actually look at Kate Moss's size and stats (size 4 US 34 1/2-26-34) she is not very thin compared to fashion icons of the past. Kate Moss's waist at 26 inches is 5 inches bigger than Katherine Hepburn's was, 6 inches bigger than Audrey Hepburn's. Her measurements are bigger than most actresses and models of previous generations.
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I don't mind the cafe style familiarity thing.
You might feel different if you wre in my sister-in-law's shoes, and being lectured by a waiter half her age about how "fattening" her dessert was. I though she was going to get up and kill the little guy.
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this is not a reflection on NZ service culture .... it is the result of the unintelligent transplanting of lean production techniques.
i dunno aeh... culture is a way of being, not just of doing. even in nzl-owned places here in wellington you get the same "she'll be right" attitude to service and complaints. it's lazy, haphazard, and undermines the entire industry.
I think it's a combination of the "she'll be right" attitude and what David Slack said about over-familiarity.
I tried to order a steak well done at VBG I was told point blank to "No" and told to "order something else because our chef doesn't like preparing meat well-done".
I'd eaten at VBG dozens of times before and been given my meal as I ordered it but none of us who were there that night ever went back. There are lots of other places you can spend your money and not be lectured by the staff. My NZer companions kept apologising to me about how crappy the service is in NZ restaurants.
I've done one too many dissections to enjoy eating flesh rare - and as I enjoy distance running (which chews up red blood cells), I have to eat red meat. I like it really well done and don't want to argue with the staff, I want to talk to my friends over dinner.
I come from a long like meat eaters who battle vegetarianism all their lives... as children we would happily eat vegetables, but meat was a struggle. This goes back to my Dad's generation (and probably before) and has recently been observed in my cousn's son Theoren, who, when presented with a piece of beef when he was three years old asked "what was it before it died?" and on being told it was a cow, asked "was it scared when it died?" This kid's 10 now, and will still eat brocolli with more enthusiasm than meat. But he absolutely loves brocolli and is not that big on any kind of meat.
One of the things lacking NZ restaurants is vegetables on the dinner plate. If you're lucky they will have them on the menu, to be ordered as a side dish, but they are invariably overdone and swimming in butter or something greasy and salty.
I kind of miss the regional Schechwan, Canton chinese food that use vegetables unknown here. And good Italian food, with pasta and bread made on the premises, using the type of tomatoes and herbs and cheese that are specific to the regional dishes.
But the service is sometimes pretty irritating, once at a restaurant (years ago, it wouldn't be fair to name them now) where the waiter actually commented on my sister-in-law's weight when she ordered her dessert.
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My family lost my sister in law, Mahinaarangi Tocker, today. Sad, sad, sad loss to NZ music, and to us all. She is precious, and irreplaceable. One less good person in this cold world.
Jackie, I am so sorry to hear this - I never met her but I have certainly heard her music - NZ is such a small place, the loss seems to resonate all the more.
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Maillard reaction: Here comes the chemistry. I have a book at home that gets into that kind of detail about baking.
Ben, rather than take the space arguing I'm just going to assert that I find culinary, economic and lifestyle sense in occasional pickling. You don't understaaand!
I have a book like that, on the chemistry of cooking, by a guy called Harold McGee. Very useful.
I don't have a microwave - don't like the effect on most foods and they take up a lot of room. Now a toaster oven I would use if I could find a reliable one (they die). They are useful for toasting that small pan of croutons/pumpkin seeds/blue cheese rusks/bulbs of garlic/stringbeans & red peppers with olives, garlic and balsamic/almonds/pinenuts/sunflowerseeds/hazelnuts/brazilnuts and especially for heating up things like croissants and hot cross buns. They're great if you don't want to heat up the whole oven for one garnish, and usually it's a garnish or side dish that absolutely makes a meal. Like ovendried tomatoes - I don't want to put my whole oven on for 1.5 hours to dry some tomatoes for a dish, but it's worth it in an toaster oven, and they are so crucial to so many dishes.
Having said that I don't have/don't want a microwave, I can imagine they could produce a particularly good jam, as cooking time would be reduced and I think you lose a lot of flavour there, certainly the kitchen smells good. But like Kyle said, there's just something wrong about the whole thing, when applied to jam.
Jam making, yes I love jam making. Here I just make boring old whatever-berries-I-can-buy jam, or strawberry-rhubarb, (3/4:1/4 - the rhubarb freshens up the flavour of the berries, which tends to be drowned out by the amount of sugar you have to put in to make it set. Even when you reduce the sugar by 1/2 or 2/3 the jam is still plenty sweet, and much more berry tasting.
In Vancouver just out of the city the woods are full of the best jam making berries - salal berries, salmonberries, blackberries (not the muscular, sour things they sell here, but fat sweet ones) and my favourite, the bright orange-red huckleberries, almost too delicious to make it home with the others, but crucial to the ideal jam.
The salal berries are delicious but they have a kind of furry, slightly fibrous velvet centre which is not ideal to eat but which has the magical property of being a super-source of pectin and will set your jam without any having to add any. The fibres disappear into a gelatinous jam texture. The mixture only needs sugar and lemon juice, which activates the thickening properties of the pectin. It is possibly the best tasting jam in the world, and now I am dissatisfied with my boring strawberry rhubarb or raspberry (__expensive__ to make raspberrry) jams.
Gathering the berries is very pleasant but good to take a dog as you don't want to surprise a bear with a cub while you're gathering fruit to make jam.