Classic case of ferals breeding for business while the children go hungry. Not due to any shortage of money, but a shortage of humanity, responsibility and any sense of basic parenthood.
More alcohol than food was found in a Lower Hutt house where four children suffered from scabies while their parents and friends drank.
The children, aged four, three, two and seven months, were removed from the house after six days and hospitalised on the advice of a paediatrician.
A 25-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman have now pleaded guilty to four charges of failing to get medical care and adequate food and nutrition for their children. Read more »
A number of us that visit Whaleoil have identified with Cam’s struggles over the years. It’s because a lot of us have similar ones. Be they alcoholism, depression, personality disorders, brain chemistry issues, addictions, or what have you.
Some of us have won some battles, some of us slip back again only to fight the same battles again.
What makes Cameron’s struggle so valuable is that it has been in public, and we’ve all been able to root for someone that is deeply flawed. Just like us.
The last time I thought about taking heroin was yesterday. I had received ‘an inconvenient truth’ from a beautiful woman. It wasn’t about climate change (I’m not that ecologically switched on). She told me she was pregnant and it wasn’t mine.
I had to take immediate action. I put Morrissey on in my car and as I wound my way through the neurotic Hollywood hills my misery burgeoned. Soon I could no longer see where I ended and the pain began. So now I had a choice.
I cannot accurately convey to you the efficiency of heroin in neutralising pain. It transforms a tight white fist into a gentle brown wave, and from my first inhalation 15 years ago it fumigated my private hell. A bathroom floor in Hackney embraced me like a womb, and now whenever I am dislodged from comfort my focus falls there.
It is ten years since I used drugs or drank alcohol and my life has immeasurably improved. I have a job, a house, a cat, good friendships and generally a bright outlook. Read more »
Five inmates at the Idaho State Correctional Institution are suing national beer and wine companies for $1 billion, claiming that alcohol was responsible for their crimes.
The civil suit alleges that they were not sufficiently warned about alcohol’s addictive properties.
The inmates, who do not yet have an attorney, drafted the litigation themselves.
It’s a great start.
Next, Tobacco, TV, Playstation, the Internet and Apple.
Keith Allan Brown, who pleaded guilty in 2010 to voluntary manslaughter, filed the suit on Dec. 10, according to the Kansas City Star. The 52-year-old wrote that over the course of his life, he has spent almost 30 years in prison, and that alcohol has “played a major role” in most of the situations that landed him there.
Kids in South Auckland can afford to buy twice as much alcohol as “less deprived” areas but it is not their fault – or the fault of their parents. The children HAVE to do it. According to a public health worker on alcohol issues for Otara Health, Poutoa Papali’i:
“Young people in New Zealand already didn’t need a reason to drink but South Auckland family dysfunction, neglect, not being in school or having a job, poor health, binge drinking parents, sub-standard housing were issues that drove drinking.”
“Poverty is what we’re really talking about,” he said.
New Zealanders are dying and being seriously injured in crashes that could have been avoided with a lower drink-drive limit.
The Government has refused to move on a lower blood alcohol limit until it has proof it would make a difference – but the whole time that evidence has been available from the Ministry of Transport and Cabinet refuses to consider it.
Statistics obtained by the Herald on Sunday under the Official Information Act show in the last four years 20 people have been killed in road accidents involving drinking drivers just below the legal limit.
Another 281 people have been seriously injured in crashes where a drink-driver was also tested and found to be just under the limit.
That is all well and good, but their hypothesis is flawed. If the stats are as they say..and since they haven’t released them then we can’t know for sure, that these people died with a blood alcohol level of just under the current limit, then they would still be dead if the limit was reduced..except now they would have been over it.
To blame the government for poor decision making and driving skills of drunk drivers is pathetic.
The Herald on Sunday cannot claim that those 20 people would have still been alive if the limit had been lowered.
Russian athletes might have to be sneaky if they want to celebrate a medal with a traditional vodka at this year’s Olympics.
The Russian government announced today that alcohol will be banned during all receptions involving officials and athletes at the London Games.
Russian newspaper Kommersant reported the story under the headline ‘Stone Cold Sober’.
“Olympic values are not commensurate with the consumption of alcohol,” a spokeswoman for Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak told the newspaper, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Poor performances at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 has been cited as a reason behind the booze ban.
The article raises more questions than it answers.
Awanui is a small place and the street where Hone Harawira lives is even smaller…my sources tell me that the accident occurred less than 1km from his house, where a pre-wedding party was in full swing and had been all day. The article supports the distance being short from the party:
Members of the Harawira family, who were partying at home ahead of a family wedding, ran to help in the aftermath of the accident.
Is it really believable that Joseph “Reti” Nathan was never at Hone’s house during the day. Hone Harawira is adamant that he was “never” at his house….a Mana party activist, in Awanui where a party is being held full of Mana party people and he was “never” there….yet smashed his car just 1km away necessitating Mana party people to run to the scene…not to save Joseph or assist in the rescue of the poor bastards he drove into…no instead they ran to retrieve a flag:
…Mana Party members were waiting at the cordon wanting to retrieve a flag in the back of Nathan’s car but were restrained by police.
So, let’s get this straight…Hone says Nathan wasnt at the party or his house at all yet moments after the accident Mana party people and Hone’s family are running towards the accident…to retrieve a flag…How did they know there was a flag in the car of the person who was never there, or that the person who was never there had been involved in an accident less than 1km from the house he was never at.
My local sources also tell me that the reason this story has taken a month to get out was because of a culture of intimidation. The local media initially ran a story but have been told to remain silent. People are now all singing from the same song sheet in a Kahui style culture of silence.
Which is all in stark contrast from Hone Harawira’s public stance on the evils of alcohol:
Mr Speaker, today is Armistice Day – the day we remember the deaths of soldiers and civilians sacrificed on the altar of war and greed.
And today we also remember the deaths of soldiers and civilians sacrificed on the altar of ignorance, drunkenness, profit, greed, and government’s ongoing unwillingness to put an end to the destruction visited upon our communities by alcohol in all its pernicious and evil forms.
And today we remember the families who bear the scars of lives lost to cirrhosis of the liver, cancer, depression, alcoholism and heart disease, and those families suffering the lasting effects of drunk driving, and alcohol-related falls, drownings, poisoning, assault, injury, and foetal alcohol syndrome.
There is more to this story, and I suspect that the Herald on Sunday has withheld some information because there is now a wall of silence from all involved. Hone Harawira needs to come clean on what happened that day.
Why didn’t someone stop a mate from driving drunk…no legends up North apparently:
Drinking a lot of water is the biggest and most obvious preventative measure and cure. That’s because the main thing happening in your body when you have a hangover is that you’re dehydrated. Alcohol, as we’ve established, is a diuretic, and most of what you lose when you pee is water. In fact, that George Mason article contains this terrifying little gem about where that hangover headache comes from: “The body’s organs will attempt to replenish their own water, usually by stealing water from the brain, which causes it to decrease in size and pull on the membranes which connect it to the skull, which in turn results in a headache.” Shudder. So outside of drinking water, and sports drinks, a good option comes in soup broth, which will also replentish your sodium intake.
