“Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand? “

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Important child education tip: don’t make your kids clean toilets. It may be illegal in New Zealand!

In the Stuff.co.nz today:

Boy made to clean toilet as punishment

A five-year-old boy was made to clean toilets by a caregiver as punishment at a Child, Youth and Family-funded after-school care programme in Rotorua.

Now his mother is seeking legal advice on the punishment – dished out after the boy supposedly hit a girl in the face with a ball.

Oriwa Pehi-Livapulu said her son Noble could have become sick after the incident at the Chipmunks Centre last week.

He was only five and did not even clean the toilet at home, she said.

“My mana has been taken away from me. Noble’s spirit has been trampled on”, she told The New Zealand Herald.

She has complained to CYF, which funded the programme.

While I won’t be going around forcing kids to clean toilet, what the mother said was quite a jewel :)

No, seriously, in my childhood days having a 2-week period of twice-a-day cleaning the school toilet was a normal punishment for bad “school crimes”. Yes we did it, we were little kids with little hands on our big toilet brushes and mops, and we grew up healthy and well-behaved. I’ve never been an interest of CYF, I’ve never been sick from cleaning toilet, and I am now working successfully, owns a house of my own, a car, and a $25k motorcycle.

On the other hand, if the toilets had not been cleaned I might have contracted swine flu long time ago and dead by now.

Added 17/06/2009:

If this Stuff article is a barometer on New Zealand parental attitude, we really have to be worried.

Colin James in the Stuff.co.nz today:

The jury has spoken. But does it speak for anywhere other than Mt Albert? And does it speak on anything but Mt Albert’s particularities?

His writeup highlights the possibility that National’s Melissa Lee dramatic loss in the Mount Albert byelection last weekend (13 June 2009) is a possibilit that the public is starting to reject National after the 2008 election win. It went on to cite the Timaru example in 1970s.

However, questions remain to be asked. The item that is missed out of the  analysis is the voter turnout rate. How many of the expected votes actually eventuate? Is there a general apathy in the region? Is Mount Albert now really a unison of, Labour vote, or could there be a large disappointment on National candidate leading to a lot of abandoned votes (which did not quite go over to Labour)? Is it really Labour, or is it simply “nothing”?

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NZ Government could and should get us out of this recession.

NZ Herald article today highlighted that

Banks’ reluctance to pass official cash rate cuts on to borrowers is hitting businesses even harder than home buyers.

One key Reserve Bank measure of business borrowing costs has barely budged since the central bank began cutting less than a year ago.

The government commented

“Banks are crying they have to pay more for money they get overseas and that’s why rates have held up, but business rates have held up much higher than those for home owners and I don’t think that’s fair or right.”

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Miss California Carrie Prejean recently became the bombshell of the Miss USA pageant by saying gay couples should not be allowed to marry. Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who was one of the contest judges, has been busy slamming her ever since.

Similarly, one of the reason why she was slammed was “not for her beliefs but for her complete lack of social grace” Alicia Jacobs, a former Miss Nevada who was one of the judge in this contest, wrote on her blog.

Is it fair? Oh the humanity…
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This particular Joe Bennett wrote a brilliant column for The Dominion Post regarding today’s Political Correctness attitude that may have gone out of control in a lot of situation.

I spewed my coffee through my nose when I read the followings:

“Statistics from ACC have revealed a startling increase in pyjama-related injuries. Over the last year the number of men who have inserted both legs into the same leg of their pyjamas and then fallen over has skyrocketed by 100 per cent. About half of the victims were hospitalised. The other one recuperated at home.”

Joe Bennett, Sir, if you are reading this I would definitely vote for you in the next election!

If your business is stuck in a recession rut, you definitely need to do something drastic to get out before the road ends!

The primal instinct (especially if you come from accountancy) is to cut cost. But nothing could be worse than this. Why?

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One advice on getting your country out of recession: Spend!

Why Spend? Why not save? Income is scarce, jobs are being cut, we need to batten down the hatch and survive the storm! Really?

Let us examine first why the economy is in doom and gloom…

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NZ Shops and Supermarket are to charge for plastic bags. This has been done by Pak’n'Save since about 10 years ago although they never said anything about saving the planet. I was always under the assumption that they are only trying to help pushing the prices down.

Now suddenly all other supermarkets (FoodStuff ones) and The Warehouse decided to charge 10c per plastic bag, with the loud gong sound of “saving the planet”. Would you believe that?

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Read this morning about the US government veto on the investment bail out plan. We’re living in an interesting time.

Will it bring forth the economic destruction on us? Or just US?

Not sure of what to make out of this one, though….

Happy are they who have cash as they’ll be buying things in bulk soon when the price drops. Who said recession is all bad?