Kommissar Daly’s “jokes” are particularly UNFUNNY, insensitive and demeaning to women and those 5% (reported) of male victims of domestic violence and battery. I am personally repulsed by his remarks on behalf of my late mother, herself a victim of my late father’s brutality for many years. In her case, the “boys network” of State Troopers bluntly told her that “she probably had it coming.” The fear of “retaliation” also kept her from pursuing assault charges. The memory of her being dragged by her scalp down a concrete driveway in front of my sister and myself, at no more than 4 years, while this “monster” kicked and punched her remains a vivid and horrid recollection. The neighbors peeking through window blinds but never calling the police or offering any assistance is enough to make any decent person vomit, as are the words of Daly. These same neighbors who claimed to have seen or heard nothing, however, gossiped about the Hauses “fight” the next day and even delighted in tormenting my siblings and laughing about it!
This latest display of insensitivity by Daly is nothing less than repugnant. His lame apology and transparent justification that he was just joking MUST NOT BE ALLOWED to dissipate as were his other illegal acts during his term of office, such as allegations of his accepting unsealed bids from his contractor friends in public restaurants several years ago.
Daly is clearly UNFIT for public office and I would eagerly add my signature to any petition to recall him from office.
For the good of his party, he should be asked to withdraw his name from the November ballot. For the good of his constituency and the re-victimized victims of domestic brutality, battery and assault, he should receive not one single vote in November!
Of the 3 Deschutes County Commissioners, only Tammy Baney Melton is worthy of our respect and trust. I agree with the Source that Dennis Luke failed, once more, to speak up strongly enough. His own remarks demonstrate a desire for those “good old days” that any honest person living through that period knows were not all that great especially given the bigotry, violence and racism of that time.
I can only hope that the people of Deschutes County will join me in encouraging career and professional politicians Daly and Luke to return to the private sector where they will do far less harm to the safety of the populace, the economy and the environment.
Returning Daly and Luke, both career politicians, to the private sector with personal outrage and disgust,
Bill Hause, Bend
This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2008.
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Bill, your “5% (reported) of male victims of domestic violence and battery” is pure bullshit. There is a plethora of research and documentation out there demonstrating that domestic violence is about fifty-fifty, and women are as likely to be abusers as men.
Why don’t don’t you use the Internet for something other than your fifteen seconds of fame?
“There is a plethora of research and documentation out there demonstrating that domestic violence is about fifty-fifty …”
Got a link to that, Bears? It would surprise me very much if it were true.
As usual, Ten Bears not only missed the boat, he fell off the dock. According to Murray A. Straus, a researcher of the Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH., the ratio of family violence is 90% by men against women, 10% by women against men.
Just Google the question, it all comes up…
It probably is 50-50 in Bend.
What part of “there is a plethora of research and documentation OUT THERE” is it that you didn’t understand?
Bill, Thank you for writing this. And Ten Bears? Try again. You’re wrong.
Most studies/statistics are at least a few years old but I do subscribe to #’s demonstrating a higher ratio of men than 5 or 10%.
Approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States.
(Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep’t of Just., NCJ 183781, Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, at iv (2000), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/183781.htm)
I also think that the statistical arguments take the focus off of what one of our commissioners said in a public meeting. It’s his antiquated opinion that we should be talking about, not what the gender split is on domestic violence.