Social Issues

The Manawatu Standard editorial yesterday talked about the plague of domestic violence:

Perpetrators of domestic abuse have been shielded by silence, but that’s changing. Fewer people are averting their eyes and saying “It’s not my business”; more people are having the courage to speak up and say it is not acceptable in any circumstances to inflict violence on another person.

There has been a cultural shift in our society and, while there is still a long distance to travel, we are heading in the right direction.

We should also hold those who keep silent to account. While it is acceptable to remain silent on domestic violence women and children will continue to suffer. If you know of someone who has committed domestic violence look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you should do something about it.

In many instances our courts system protects the abusers with the shield of name suppression. Many domestic violence issues remain hidden by the use of the Family Court to resolve issues and the resulting blanket name suppression meaning abusers get off scot free leaving the wreckage behind them, and it isn’t just children and spouses that are affected either, in some case it affect their pets.

If you know others who have remained silent sit them down and tell them silence is not good enough. The “It’s Not Ok” campaign should be extended to say “It’s Not Ok to remain silent”.

Here is a short doco from SBS about Portugal decriminalising the use of all drugs, from marijuana to heroin, but has it worked in tackling the country’s drug problem?

A decade ago, Portugal took the bold step of completely decriminalising the use of all drugs. At the time, the country was suffering the highest instance of drug-related AIDS deaths in all of Europe. Drastic action needed to be taken to reach out to the addicts. But opponents warned the course that Portugal took would turn the country into a drug abuser’s paradise and that usage would soar. 10 years on, how well has the policy worked?

There is a push in the US to further regulate the porn industry by applying stringent health and safety requirements including insisting all performers wear condoms:

Rick Santorum’s daughter is claiming Santorum has gay friends, Dan Savage says present the poofs:

When someone who seeks to write anti-gay bigotry into the US Constitution, ban adoptions by gay couples, ensure that gays and lesbians are barred from their partners’ bedsides during medical emergencies, deport gay and lesbian foreign nationals legally married to US citizens, reinstate DADT, etc., claims to have gay friends and supporters, the burden of proof rests squarely on the anti-gay bigot’s shoulders. As I said yesterday in my response to Elizabeth Santorum: Claims by anti-gay bigots of gay friends and supporters should not be reported as fact, political reporters, unless the bigots are able to present them. The proof is in the poofs.

Apparently some genius German workers have cut a deal with their bosses to stop getting management emails on their Blackberrys after hours:

The tyranny of the out-of-hours email from the boss has plagued workers the world over ever since the introduction of the BlackBerry.

Now, after years of subjugation, one group of workers has struck a blow for freedom: 1000 employees of the German car giant Volkswagen.

In a move designed to restore the sacred Teutonic concept of “feierabend” – strictly no work out of factory hours – the vehicle maker’s works council, backed by its most powerful trade union, this year struck an agreement with the company that from now on email will be disabled for the selected BlackBerry-equipped staff when they are not in the office.

These employees now receive emails only from half an hour before the start of working hours and half an hour after they end. They can still receive and make phone calls.

Hans-Joachim Thust, a workers’ spokesman, suggested that mobile phones and BlackBerry handsets could disrupt family life and lead to employee burn-out. “The new possibilities of communication also contain inherent dangers.”

Volkswagen staff were said to have become fed up with being treated as if they were permanently available to their bosses. There were reports of employees having romantic evenings or a relaxing bath disrupted by infuriating management messages.

As is usual from a race of people who don’t even have a word for fluffy, they have over engineered the solution. Why couldn’t these cunning German workers simply have turned off the phone?

Rappers are giving up on homophobia.

[I]t’s not just hip-hop veterans with impeccable street cred and catalogs of platinum hits who are speaking out against homophobia. Even up-and-coming artists such as Harlem rapper A$AP Rocky are voicing discontent with anti-gay attitudes. Never mind that back in the day, such a public stance would have been a professional liability. “I used to be homophobic, but that’s fucked up,” A$AP Rocky told the influential music site Pitchfork in October. “I had to look in the mirror and say, ‘All the designers I’m wearing are gay.’”

If hard core rappers can give up on homophobia then maybe the Labour party can say “gay marriage” instead of nervously skirting around the issue.

Unbelievable! The lawyer for the mother who systematically tortured her children has basically said the kid was asking for it:

“That little girl was a timebomb waiting to explode and was put back into the care of her mother.”

She said that at one point her client wrote to the Prime Minister about her daughter’s problems and received a letter from Social Development Minister Paula Bennett promising six additional counselling sessions and sporting programmes.

“Sports activities are not what this child needed.”

No quite right sports activities weren’t appropriate at all, no, what was really needed clearly was:

…assaulting the girl with a machete and hammer, kicking her in the crotch while wearing workboots, tearing off her toenail and pouring salt and boiling water on wound, and writing abusive comments on the girl’s body.

The woman’s husband has pleaded guilty to three charges of assaulting the girl, two of which involve the use of a vacuum cleaner pipe and a broomstick.

The girl was 9 years old FFS and the boy was 7! Trying to blame authorities for treating their own children like animals makes me seriously question some of my beliefs about redemption and forgiveness. Seven years prison hardly seems fair tot eh children for the reprehensible crimes performed against them.

via Boing Boing

This is why it is ridiculous to die in a ditch opposing gay marriage and gay adoption. Family First should be embracing families not opposing them. These are certainly not type pf person about to put their kids in a dryer or thrown them on the roof or beat them to death.

As one commenter said on Reddit

“Those pesky gays, ruining the family structure what with all the genuine, unconditional love and affection they shower on their kids/grandkids.”

In the comments section of this post on Shearer’s proposal to link the minimum wage to the average wage, Thor 42 noted:

“I’ll be watching bloody closely to see if Shearer pushes to increase our annual intake of refugees. If he pushes for that, that will no doubt be on the orders of his puppetmaster.”

Conveniently, Shearer has been asked this question.  As usual, his answer is less than clear. But it seems the answer is yes, he supports more refugees.  It fits alongside policies to decriminalise and regulate cannabis, change the flag, and link the minimum wage to the average wage.

via Andrew Sullivan

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand holds a sex toy as he visits the ‘Sex in the City’ fair during the World AIDS Day on December 1, 2011.

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