What is something that really affects you?

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Networkn
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#2936540 30-Jun-2022 15:44

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/beaten-burnt-and-killed-woman-imprisoned-after-prolonged-abuse-killing-of-5yo-malachi-subecz/5THL3K4EMH6T755EDUX6ELYO2U/

I honestly can't comprehend violence against children. Well, if I am 100% honest, I mean nasty prolonged malicious stuff like this woman did, rather than a smack across the backside of a kid who keeps trying to touch the fireplace or whatever.

Eva888

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#2936552 30-Jun-2022 16:00

Can’t bear even reading about such things, the headlines are enough. Can’t understand violence against precious children. I suspect her incarceration will be rather uncomfortable with the other inmates inflicting karma.

networkn

Networkn
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#2936555 30-Jun-2022 16:06

Eva888: Can’t bear even reading about such things, the headlines are enough. Can’t understand violence against precious children. I suspect her incarceration will be rather uncomfortable with the other inmates inflicting karma.

Funny you mention this. I only read the headline too, couldn't bear to read the story, though I am aware of the case generally. I had to go and give my kids a cuddle.

MikeB4

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#2936564 30-Jun-2022 16:36

@networkn Even after working 25 + years in social services this still tears me apart and breaks my heart. I burnt out working on the front line and this was one of the causes and why I changed direction into IT working for social services. At least it didn't harden me. Sadly there is no easy answers and the causes are very complicated and generational. That does not mean that we should putting vastly more effort into finding answers so that Aotearoa is a safe place for kids.

Even writing this is making me very sad and tearful. As a society we all need to do better, be observant and not be afraid to if we suspect there is a problem. My son believe there is a link between the rise in violence against children and our terrible efforts in dealing with mental illness. I agree with him but it goes much much deeper.

networkn

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#3022370 16-Jan-2023 21:24

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/he-died-a-hero-family-in-shock-after-father-dies-trying-to-save-his-son-in-lake-wakatipu/R5DR7HSAWJHUHIX562WUZCQDCQ/

A lifetime of misery for this poor family.

afe66

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#3022824 17-Jan-2023 16:18

Seeing dead injured kids from Ukraine conflict, not the gory photos, just the class photo showing a happy kid who with a year or two is dead.

Struck me yesterday when showed picture of happy looking 14 girl smiling at camera who was killed last week, crushed after the Russian hit her apartment building with a cruise missile.

Probably because I have kids

Rikkitic

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#3022839 17-Jan-2023 16:39

The Russian leaders are absolute bastards who should burn in hell. The legacy of shame they are sowing will haunt ordinary Russians for generations. The only reason they are not already being manhandled before a war crimes tribunal is fear of the Russian nuclear arsenal and the psychopath in charge of it.

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Geektastic

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#3022917 17-Jan-2023 19:35

Eva888: Can’t bear even reading about such things, the headlines are enough. Can’t understand violence against precious children. I suspect her incarceration will be rather uncomfortable with the other inmates inflicting karma.

The downside is we have to pay the cost of feeding and housing such people. A more Thai style prison would be more instructive and cheaper to run.

frankv

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#3024904 20-Jan-2023 17:15

Rikkitic:

The Russian leaders are absolute bastards who should burn in hell. The legacy of shame they are sowing will haunt ordinary Russians for generations. The only reason they are not already being manhandled before a war crimes tribunal is fear of the Russian nuclear arsenal and the psychopath in charge of it.

I think a bigger reason Putin is still in power is that ordinary Russians actually do generally support him.

I think we are being fed a stream of "managed information" akin to, but diametrically opposed to, what the Russians are getting.

For example, very occasionally I've seen street interviews where apparently ordinary Russians apparently voice support for Putin. Once I even saw that some Ukrainians (in the Donbas) say they want to be part of Russia. I doubt that these were plants to subvert the Western news media. So, since Russians are no stupider than the rest of us, I think that they have some kind of a basis for that support, more than just a bunch of lies from the Kremlin. So (getting back to the subject) I think Putin is still in power because ordinary Russians actually do generally support him.

So there actually is an ethnic spectrum in Ukraine, with the Eastern areas tending towards Russian ethnicity, as you might expect. And, AFAICT, those Russo-Ukrainians were getting shafted by the Euro-Ukrainians... high unemployment, best jobs going to the Westerners (shades on Northern Ireland in the 60s), and endemic corruption with the gold flowing westward. Hence they have been running a civil war in the Donbas since 2014.

Yes, that separatism was promoted and supported by Russia. But, imagine for a moment that (say) China (or anyone else) came here and said to the South Islanders that they should declare independence from the North Island, and take up arms. I expect that Philip Alp and his loonies would grab that opportunity, and perhaps take up the offer and begin shooting and hanging people. However, I'd be astounded if it lasted a week, even if the Chinese provided tanks and Javelins and Stingers. By contrast, the Donbas war has been going on for 8+ years now, which I believe indicates that a fair majority of the Donbas population want to be Russian Federation citizens rather than Ukrainian. And that's because they have been getting screwed by their Western-Ukrainian-dominated government for years. Just like in Vietnam, the government will lose a civil war if (a) the citizenry generally want change, because (b) the current regime is corrupt and screwing the citizenry.

I strongly believe that forcing multiple ethnicities to cohabit a single country with arbitrarily drawn borders is a recipe for disaster. So, in reality, splitting Ukraine up into two (or more) new states is a sensible thing, just like it was with Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Which what Russia (says it) wants... the stupidity is that if they'd only held fair and open elections in 2014 (as opposed to the nonsense from last year), they would probably have won. Mind you, running a fair and open election in Ukraine would be pretty difficult.

So Russia's stated goal in the Donbas is the right thing, although attempting to achieve it militarily is never going to win friends. Yes, the new states would be puppets of the Kremlin, just like Georgia and Belorus and Chechnya and most of the former Soviet republics. But this is a crumbling empire, struggling to hold onto its vassals, just like the Soviet Union was in 1989. In another 34 years Belorus and Chechnya and Georgia will be where Latvia and Poland and Ukraine and so on are now. And so would the Donbas be within 68 years.

None of which means that I think that Putin isn't a psychopath or that Russian leaders aren't absolute bastards. Nor do I think that Putin's aim is to shore up his shaky edifice; he wants to expand the empire back to pre-Gorbechov days, and the food and industry and military of Ukraine at his beck and call would be instrumental. So the Donbas was never his goal; he wanted all of Ukraine, and ideally Moldova as well. And then Poland, yadda, yadda. So assisting Ukraine to fight back is absolutely the right thing to do. But, even if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, it will just move the timeline forward because Russia can't maintain what it has now, let alone taking on more problems.

Far too long a screed. I'll finish by asking people to refrain from the rhetoric that prompted this.

networkn

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#3032536 6-Feb-2023 18:04

75,000 Chickens killed by fire.

That is a lot of suffering.

Eva888

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#3032560 6-Feb-2023 19:09

Earthquake in Turkey midwinter. Can’t begin to imagine how scary and horrible it is to be woken at 4am with the walls toppling in.

tdgeek

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#3032562 6-Feb-2023 19:20

Eva888: Earthquake in Turkey midwinter. Can’t begin to imagine how scary and horrible it is to be woken at 4am with the walls toppling in.

The region has been shaped by more than a decade of war in Syria. Millions of Syrian refugees live in Turkey. The swath of Syria affected by the quake is divided between government-held and opposition-held areas.

Hopefully people take priority here.

Handle9

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#3032565 6-Feb-2023 19:30

frankv:

Yes, the new states would be puppets of the Kremlin, just like Georgia and Belorus and Chechnya and most of the former Soviet republics.

OT but Georgia isn't a puppet state. Parts of the country are occupied by Russia but it's cultivated a neutral stance and tried to stay out of the geopolitical stuff. Within the population Russians aren't popular and there is a lot of public support for Ukraine, having gone through similar problems with Russia 15 years ago.

Its alignment is far closer to China these days due to the Belt and Road initiatives. There is a huge amount of Chinese investment in Georgia at the moment, the Tblisii Batumi highway project is huge, financed by China and being built by Chinese contractors.

networkn

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#3036576 14-Feb-2023 19:18

The Firefighter who is missing after the landslide in Auckland.

Running toward the danger.

I hope there is a spare miracle left over for him and his family.

- Update - Unfortunately, no miracle, they have found his body. Such a sad situation. Gut Wrenching.

MadEngineer

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#3041379 24-Feb-2023 15:07

The repeat weather disasters are triggering my empathy more than expected.

It’d be bad enough to be flooded out the once but to have it occur again and again you’d just have nothing left in the tank.

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