Silent Night

Oh dear:

The survey of 1,000 school children aged between five and seven years old reveals that 36 per cent don’t know whose birthday we celebrate on December 25 - with over one in five believing the festivities are in aid of Simon Cowell's birthday.

Read the piece. It gets worse:

In addition, the research by online retailer Woolworths.co.uk found 24 per cent of children believe that Brentwood in Essex, home to TOWIE stars favourite nightclub the Sugar Hut, was the location of Jesus' birth.

Another quarter think Jesus was born at 10 Downing Street or Buckingham Palace, with only 28 per cent of those polled able to name Bethlehem as the correct birth place...

...The confusion over festive traditions are not just confined to the nativity story with over a quarter of those polled thinking Lapland was the name of a London nightclub and 35 per cent could not even name Rudolph as one of Santa’s reindeer, despite his famous red nose.

Instead the average British child thinks the reindeer are named after celebrities, including Tulisa Contostavlos, David Beckham and Pippa Middleton...

'We’re not saying that celebrity culture has ruined the traditions of Christmas but from these results it certainly seems to have had an effect on how children think about the big day!'

They may not want to say it by I will.

Celebrity culture has ruined the traditions of Christmas and many other aspects of society.

-- Nora

Dazed And Confused

Wikileaker Bradley Manning prepares his court marshall defence:

Bradley Manning has “gender issues”

Oh I would say that 'gender' is not his only issue...

-- Nora

To Know, Know, Know Him...

Kevin Rudd flips the bird and drops F-word

Well that comes as no surprise to anyone who has had any connection with Queensland Government over the past 20 years. Rudd's foul temper and disgusting language is well known.

The only surprise is every time it happens the media appears 'shocked'. What's up with that?

-- Nora

Description: He's A Fab Dresser With A Penchant For Louis Vuitton

It is tempting to mock the ineptitude of our Queensland Bligh Labor Government in allowing a fraud of massive proportions go on under their nose and to laugh at our Premier's statewide BOLO for Joel Morehu-Barlow - but that man has solen $16 million of our money.

A pittance in government terms but let's see what $16 million could buy the state of Queensland:

It could pay for the fit out of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra's new headquaters, pay for the state's migrant settlement program, pay for the refurbishment of the Mackay Police Station and the Queensland natural disaster awareness campaign.

While Morehu-Barlow's current whereabouts are unknown, one can have a guess where he might show up in February.

-- Nora

UPATE: Monday, December 12. Caught!

And Away We Go

What did I say last week about polyamorists bucking for official sanction of their relationships in light of the ALP's change of policy on same sex marriage? Five years?

Try one week.

-- Nora

What Hurts More?

In to spare 'hurt feelings', a serious message that could spare actual hurt and harm gets dumped by squeamish do-gooders.

-- Nora

Fall For Anything

Quick! Bring out the smelling salts!

A Hervey Bay mother swoons when she discovers that her Year 8 daughter has brought home... a 32 year old boyfriend?... Drugs?... A busload of OWS protestors?... Syphillis?

Quelle horreur, what could possibly cause her to go on a "crusade" right up to Education Queensland's head office?

Birgette Linding said she was mortified when her daughter came home earlier this year and recounted how Gideons Bibles had been handed out to students at the end of a Year 8 assembly at Urangan State High School.

How shocking.

And how quickly the anti-religious haters come out in comments, but also adhering to the law of unintended consequences John of Townsville's comment is a revelation: "Good, religion and the bible have no place in Queensland schools." So it would seem.

"Religion (by which they mean Christianity) is unscientific," they cry - ignoring the fact that modern science owes a significant debt to Christianity which provided most of the founding principles of science with the acknowledgement that a rational God created the world rationally and that those rational principles could be observed, repeated and understood.

These anti-Christian bigots are equally as sanctimonious as the religiousfolk they decry, smug as they are in their rigid belief system that all life evolved from nothing and that the reason we're here is because 'gravity did it'.

"We're far to logical, smart, clever, rational to believe in a sky fairy," they argue.

And yet, unmoored by the Christian belief system to use as a framework for rationality or as a foundation for ethics, these same people become easy prey for other gods - particularly Gaia The Earth Fairy who got a shout out this week at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Durbin, South Africa at which our own Climate Change Minister Greg Combet attended (carbon-neutrally, of course).

From the conference manifesto:

Rights of mother earth
74. Ensure respect for the intrinsic laws of nature.
75. The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony
between humanity and nature, and that their will be no commodification of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose.

Compare this to the instruction given to man in Genesis to have dominion over the earth.

That not is to say that we trash the planet, anymore than a logical, rational human being would trash their own house. But what it does mean, as generations of people before us knew, we are to use the resources it contains to improve our lives and the lives of those around us.

This Gaia-mad, quasi-scientific, pseudo-religion demands the opposite. And if you're poor, and life is a today-to-today struggle keeping body and soul together, you're less likely to consider helping others or have the resources to do so even if you were inclined.

And any propensity to charity (particularly one which cannot be reciprocated) makes no sense within a Darwinian framework in which survival of the fittest is the only law.

So what purpose does it serve to condemn humanity to a hell it can avoid? There's a question for another day.

Such a world governed as the Gaian adherents would have it would not be a nice place to live - but get used to it folks, without the Christian world view and the compassion and grace it teaches, your world is about to get even uglier.

Oh, and a final comment to Our Lady of the Perpetually Offended, Birgette Linding - you are under no obligation to read the Bible yourself, neither is your daughter. If you don't like it, don't look.

And a few questions: Why are you so afraid of the Bible? Are you afraid that if your daughter reads it that she will find something wonderful and life changing? Are you usually so narrow minded?

-- Nora

Winding Up

Britain was battered by gales of up to 165mph yesterday, leaving a trail of destruction across the country.

In one spectacular incident a 300ft wind turbine exploded in flames as it was buffeted by the high winds.

Another wind turbine was completely blown down on Wednesday, raising questions about whether wind farms were simply unable to cope with the weather.

Oops, not a reliable form of power generation, eh?

Tim Blair rightly mocks.

::checks watch:: It's time for a cocktail. In a Hurricane Glass:

WINDY MILLER

2 Parts ABSOLUT CITRON
1 Part Absinthe
2 Parts Mandarines Liqueur
Lemon-Lime Soda
1 Slice Mandarin

Fill a shaker with ice cubes. Add absinthe, ABSOLUT Citron and mandarines liqueur. Shake and strain into a chilled highball glass filled with ice cubes. Topup with lemon-lime soda. Garnish with mandarin.

-- Nora

It Looks Like A Thingie

The Whiteadders show up for a salad during an Arab Spring...

CAIRO: An Islamic cleric residing in Europe said that women should not be close to bananas or cucumbers, in order to avoid any “sexual thoughts.”

The unnamed sheikh, who was featured in an article on el-Senousa news, was quoted saying that if women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve.

He said that these fruits and vegetables “resemble the male penis” and hence could arouse women or “make them think of sex.” Bikyamasr.com cannot independently verify the accuracy of the news item at time of writing.

He also added carrots and zucchini to the list of forbidden foods for women.

--Nora

Why Indeed?

"I don't know why but we're seeing a lot of teenage girls exposing themselves on web cameras...

Why? Here's Exhibit A:



UPDATE: It's interesting that a rethink of pop culture mores occurs when one becomes a parent.

This from renowned British actor Sir David Jason:

‘Take the adverts – I was watching SpongeBob, a favourite cartoon of ours, but suddenly a scent advert came on with this girl stripping off as she walks towards the camera. It’s done for mums but they forget a lot of girls are watching these powerful images.’

Packs A Punch

Mr Yanner, who is attending the ALP conference as a business observer to lobby ministers over uranium mining in the Gulf, said he confronted several MPs about the conscience vote.

"It's a cowardly act," he told The Courier-Mail. "It's political gay bashing.

Assault is something Mr Yanner has hands on experience in dealing out.

-- Nora

Femme's Fatal Flaw in Logic

As observed before, Nicky and I enjoy reading Saturday's opinion pieces, they're good for a laugh.

Like this piece from androgynously named Chris Wallace entitled Women will tire of taking the back seat.

Will they, I wondered? One finds it fascinating to read pieces that purport to speak for all of us with a double-X chromosome.

DO KEVIN Rudd's staff hate women or are they just nasty to everyone?

Rudd press secretary Lachlan Harris is rude to female journalists, according to reports last week, which supplied several examples.

As well, on an overseas prime ministerial trip recently male reporters sat together in a bloc on the VIP jet with all the female reporters seated in a bloc behind them.

Rudd and the boys had a long chat over drinks at one stop on the trip, with the female reporters apparently excluded off to the side, Prime Minister-less.

Whinge, whinge, bleat and whinge.

C'mon Chrissie, sweetheart, you've obviously grown up in the feminist era, what's stopping you from going over and joining in? I do, it's my job.

Kevin Rudd, prima facie, has some powerful positives working for him with women.

Therese Rein, Rudd's wife, is a powerful professional in her own right and lends the PM good credentials on his underlying attitude to women.

Right, so Rudd's fem-friendly credentials have to earned by his wife?

That's, y'know, a bit sexist isn't it?

And besides, Therese Rein has earned her money on the back of expansive government contracts so it couldn't have hurt to have had extensive party influence in the form of her husband.

It's just like lauding as independent achievements, the sales of a real estate agent whose husband is the property developer.

Rudd appointed the talented Tanya Plibersek Minister for the Status of Women, another plus. Down a dark alley at night confronted by a pack of marauding men - or in Cabinet confronted by a pack of marauding men - Plibersek is the kind of person you'd be thrilled to have fighting shoulder to shoulder with you.

Often confronted by a pack of marauding men are you Chrissie, or is that just your victim fantasy emerging again?

Rudd appointed four women to really meaty Cabinet jobs, including Julia Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister.

All good. So why did the story get any traction? Because it happened in this context.

Just four of Rudd's 18 Cabinet ministers are women - hardly benchmark-busting, and Plibersek isn't one of them.

The 2020 Summit got the symbolism on women wrong.

Oooh, do tell.

Julianne Schultz and Jackie Huggins' prominent roles alongside Cate Blanchett visibly saved the day in the end, but only just.

Right, just so long as women were visible it really didn't matter about their achievements.

There have been no "early wins" for women from Rudd's election. Yes, the Work Choices rollback helps, but that's not particular to women.

Contrast the treatment of the car industry and, say, parental leave since Rudd's election.

Let's, shall we?

Both got sent off for review - parental leave to the tough Productivity Commission, cars to the dinky Bracks Review.

The car industry gets prominent handouts even before Bracks has reported, but there'll be no parental leave initiative at least until the PC reports next year.

The definitive work on parental leave has already been done, UNSW academic Sarah Maddison points out - by the Human Rights & Equal Opportunities Commission a few years ago.

It may not have occurred to Chrissie that if (predominantly male) car workers lose their jobs, then the women and children those men support will be disadvantaged as well.

And another thing, women have been successfully raising children without the need for paid maternity leave for millennia, so tell me what the priority should be - ensuring there are jobs today or feel good tokenism?

While delighted about the Howard government's demise...

Yeah, what a surprise there.

...Maddison also points out that much backsliding on policies affecting women in the last decade happened under wall-to-wall state Labor governments.

Gee and one of those Labor Governments is headed by a woman too. Whatever happened to the sisterhood, sister?

I'm inclined to believe Lachlan Harris' defence - that he's rude to everyone, not just female journalists.

Well, that's magnanimous.

But the press gallery women's grief is part of a bigger pattern on women that Rudd ought to join the dots on. We had half the votes in 2007 and we've got half the votes in 2010 as well.

And how dare you assume that my opinions will fall lock-step into yours on gender lines, dearie?

We may be women, but we do have brains of our own.

-- Nora

Mobile Billboards

This week's bru-ha-ha over an obscene T-shirt made the local Gold Coast Hysterical postively orgasmic over the amount of traffic their web site generated:

RELIGION and politics may be taboo subjects at the dinner table but yesterday they yielded goldcoast.com.au its most read story of the year.

Yes, that was the intro.

Not that the issue is new. Similar arrest was made on the Gold Coast about 20 years ago in which a young man was arrested wearing another band T-shirt - this one was The Angels and the lyric at the front: "Am I ever gonna see your face again?" and carried the crowd sung drunken refrain on the back.

But no one at the Gold Coast Hysterical would know that because no one has worked there for that long. Seriously.

Our views on censorship have been articulated before. The bottomline is the kids was walking around as a profane mobile billboard, the content of which reveals the core of his immaturity and stupidity.

Yet typically the media and it seems many of the commenters miss the point - the issue has less to do with religious sensitivities and everything to do with screaming obscenities in public.

Fortunately there appear to be two at least who have got it right:

I agree with Ruth, as a Christian myself, everyone has the freedom to express their like and dislike but do it in a reasonable manner. I think it really was the last word on the shirt that was offensive, you could put jack, bill or john on it, it would still be offensive.

Posted by: Dean of brissy 10:53am Thursday
I am an atheist and still found the T shirt offensive. Not because of the reference to Jesus but because of the obscene word. Can you imagine a parent faced with a child learning to read asking "Mummy, what's a C***?" With rights comes responsiblilty and the need respect the rights of the public.

Posted by: Ruth Lievesley of Nerang 9:35am Thursday

Would that everyone else be so sensible.

-- Nora

Above Rubies

A wife - for a woman whose full time role is managing a household, what might her 'job description' include:

Running the household? Making sure there's enough food in the cupboard and ensuring the house is clean? Perhaps involvement with her husband's career - entertaining clients, acting as a personal assistant?

That doesn't sound so bad does it?

In one's own professional career, it is extremely common to encounter the husband and wife business owners where the wife's role in the business is bookkeeper, office manager and personal assistant in addition to managing a household.

That doesn't sound oppressive does it?

Well, it does in the bizarro world inhabited by feminists who have castigated a man who has give the label 'virtual wife' to a job advertisement as described above.

Domestic violence worker Chantal Eastwell, who is helping co-ordinate Brisbane's Feminist Conference, was shocked.

"What angers me is that some men do think they have the right to control women in this way," she said.

"It's terrible to have the attitude that women are subservient, and I hope no one wants to take this job."

Ms Eastwell obviously believes that a woman working in partnership with a man is the equivalent of servitude.

What would she rather women do? Just sit on their arses all day waiting for hubby to come home and shower them with jewels? Or live the Sex And The City self-indulgent and empty-headed neurosis first hand?

Stay angry Ms Eastwell, stew in your silly impotent rage - the rest of us women have work to do.

-- Nora

More Junk

Myth busted:

There is no solid evidence that drinking plenty of pure water is good for the skin, wards off weight gain or helps rid the body of toxins.

Instead, most of us get all the fluids we need to avoid dehydration from food and other drinks, including tea and coffee.

Surely not! 'The Water Health Report' reveals how:

How eight glasses a day keeps the weight off!

and Jennifer Thoden, author of How To Heal Your Adult Acne Naturally, tell us on about.com:

How 8 Glasses of Water a Day Can Keep Acne Away

The mythbusters note:

The idea that those who fail to drink enough water suffer health problems became widespread in the 1990s.

Gullible times, the '90s. Wonder what other junk science we were fed then?

-- Nick

Slow Service Killer Attracts No Time At All

A man complained about slow service in a restaurant. Witnesses had said he was "abrupt and rude" to the owner's wife:

When she told her husband about this exchange, he became upset and a fight erupted... (her husband) went to the kitchen and got a short-bladed paring knife... (and) swung at him (the complainer), stabbing him three times in the left side of the torso." (He) died the next day.

Justice Bell sentenced Vo to seven years in jail with a non-parole period of four years.

The moral of the tale might have been 'don't complain about poor service' but is actually 'if you're going to quite deliberately murder a person, do it in Australia'.

-- Nick

I See A Tall Dark Stranger

The Liberals' campaign to take control of the city gets nuttier than a fruitcake with their anointed 'deputy mayor' Keith Douglas consulting his live-in 'psychic' girlfriend, Zandra Marie de Vere.

Oddly enough Douglas describes their work in his now defunct web site as:

We specialised in business intelligence, market forecasting and risk assessment and built a very successful operation that became a resource for businesses, companies and entrepeneurs throughout Asia. Royalty, Government Ministers, Ambassadors, famous actors and performers became clients, friends or aquaintances.

Um okaaaaaay.

Pity she couldn't foresee the future when interviewed last August when Douglas announced his intention of standing for Gold Coast mayor:

THE parapsychologist partner of mayoral candidate Keith Douglas has delved into the future and says her man will win.

By January 10, 2008 Douglas announced he was joining the Liberal Party as candidate for Division 3.

Zandra Marie de Vere said: "If things stay the way they are he will get in.

Didn't she see that one coming?

"But I do feel that there could be two more men to enter the race, and possibly a woman which will make things more challenging."...

Calling Tom Tate a woman? Ouch. Tate stood down from a local Chamber of Commerce to campaign in December.

...Ms de Vere said she gained her powers after being struck by lightning as a six-year-old.

She was left temporarily blinded but claimed that within 24 hours she was
able to visualise the location of the bodies from the Moors Murders in England.

Really?

I'd have thought if she could do that there would be no need for another psychic muscling in on her turf in 1995.

She also claims to have helped the cops on the Yorkshire Ripper case, but according to Google there are no other references to it so one supposes we'll have to take her word for it.

So how good are her predictions? According to her she's brilliant. According to this report from The Skeptic she's a, well we'll let them put it in their words shall we?

Indeed it doesn't require extensive research to prove that Zandra-Marie has bungled nearly every prediction she has made.

That's gotta hurt.

...The pair live high above the city in their Main Beach penthouse overlooking The Spit but both are quick to point out that both have worked hard to amass their fortune...

I'll bet they have. On her web site Madam Zandra has a minimum charge of $175 for an e-mail, $150 for an MP3 (add $10 if you want it on CD), $150 for a 10 minute phone call ($10 per minute thereafter).

And these are the people that the Liberal Party want running the city of the Gold Coast - a booze 'n' bikini tout and a flake. Sheesh!

-- Nora

Tom Tate - Or Tom T'n'A?

Warning: Most links not work-safe.

IT'S hard to believe that the Australian Liberal Party - at least the one led until recently by John Howard - and the Queensland Liberal Party are parts of the same whole.

Howard led the Libs to a Federal election as a conservative party, espousing family values. (His loss was not necessarily a rejection of those values by the electorate generally - the Rudd victory was based on other issues.)

In Queensland, the State Libs are about to go to an election as the wild party, espousing Wicked Weasel values through the man they've chosen for the top job of all the top jobs they're going for in upcoming Local Government elections.

What exactly is going on between the ears of the State Libs' head honchos when they select a bloke best known for staging 'Australia’s hottest pool party' to run for the Mayor of the Gold Coast?

Tom Tate owns The Islander Resort in Surfers Paradise which hosts the annual finals of the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Australia bikini contest and mine host throws himself into the role with vigor:

Friday night saw the girls invited to a private function hosted by Tom Tate at the Outrigger Cafe!

... he has high standards:

Clubhouse Wildcard Final, Surfers, QLD
Wednesday 2 February 2005
In the past, Mr Tom Tate, the owner of The Islander Resort, The Clubhouse and The Troccadero Entertainment Centre has chosen the two models to represent his businesses through a photo line-up. However, this year Tom wanted to see the girls on stage before making a decision. So the call went out for the best of the best.

... and he's a man with ideas:

Beer and bikini babes - what else could you ask for? This was the idea behind the first ever Gold Coast Brewpub Calendar. The brainchild of Tom Tate, the owner of the Gold Coast Brewpub as well as the Islander Resort (the official Miss HT accommodation and venue...), the calendar was shot during the finalists’ stay in Surfers Paradise...

Note to Libs - it's 2008, not 1978. Bruce Small has been dead for years and the people of the Gold Coast deserve to be treated with a little more respect and a little less contempt these days.

The man the Libs would have as Gold Coast Mayor is described on his official Liberal Party web page as married with four children. Indeed, he was pictured with them in the Gold Coast Bulletin this week.

In another six or seven years, his daughter will be old enough to parade round daddy's pool while leering radio contest winners peer up from inflatable chairs in the water and others ogle and hoot from the sidelines.

If she wins, perhaps she'll get to pose for a pic with dad.

-- Nick

The Sins Of The Father

SITE OWNER'S NOTE: This post was originally conceived as a peg to hang images of the 1970s comic book edition of Cross And The Switchblade and scans of pulp fiction covers for Nifty Knick Knacks. However the events of this week turned what was supposed to be a light piece into this piece on youth behaviour and crime.

News of teenage violence today is as shocking as it is common.

There is almost daily news of young gangs holding entire neighbourhoods to ransom, violently drunk party-goers bashing someone whose equally drunken remark offended them, psychopathicly murderous females or simply opportunistic criminal activity.

At the same time, the media shakes itself out of its summer silly season news torpor to create a celebrity out of a smart-arsed teenager whose drunken, orgiastic riot masquerading as a party.

As many commentators begin to question 'what the hell has gone wrong with our teenagers?', Nick and Nora invite you to step into their way-back machine to give you a little insight into what's wrong with today's youth.

We'll rapidly rewind the 'Trust No 1' of the 1990s, the post apocalyptic 1980s, the seriously bummed out 1970s, the anarchic 1960s to take a pause in the 1950s.

Not the nostalgic-soaked Happy Days but an era when the headlines screamed 'Seven Teen Agers Murder Polio Victim'.

The crime was a brutal one, members of a gang called the Egyptian Kings, having lost a pay-per-player stick ball game with rival gang Jesters, decided to compound their welshing with vengeance.

One night they lay in wait for their foes to appear, two teenage boys wandered through the park.

They were beaten and stabbed. One of the boys, a 15 year old who suffered a limp as a result of polio was killed.

So sensational did that crime and associated trial become, it finally awakened people to the reality of street violence. It also happened 50 years ago.

The crime and trial did two things. It resonated with Broadway audiences:

ACTION
Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke,
You gotta understand,
It's just our bringin' up-ke
That gets us out of hand.
Our mothers all are junkies,
Our fathers all are drunks.
Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks!

ACTION AND JETS
Gee, Officer Krupke, we're very upset;
We never had the love that ev'ry child oughta get.
We ain't no delinquents,
We're misunderstood.
Deep down inside us there is good!

A powerful radio show about the Michael Farmer murder 50 years on is here. One of the commentators in the radio program is Nicky Cruz.

His story of transformation from criminal gang member to gospel preacher is told in part in The Cross And The Switchblade which became a best-selling book, a not-so-good movie and serialised here in comic book form.

The Cross And The Switchblade tells the story of a small town pastor, so shocked by the violence went to New York to share the gospel.

Admittedly naive, David Wilkinson's honest interest in the physical and spiritual welfare of gang members over five years of welfare and ministry won many of them over.

So was there anything particular about the 1950s that would cause a generation to run amok?

With the benefit of hindsight we can see some similarities - lack of spiritual direction, parents who are themselves dysfunctional to the point where the only familial connection their kids experience is in gangs.

But not all children involved in criminal activity or who find themselves victims of crime and violence are poor or ill-educated, indeed the Corey Worthingtons or the Matthew Stanleys of the world come from decidedly middle-class, relatively well off families.

So what went wrong?

For further insight, step back into the way-back machine for a trip past the 1940s when war ruled the world, the 1930s when the effects of the Great Depression bit hard to the Roaring 1920s, home to flappers, gangsters, wild parties and hedonistic wealth.

There is a scene the 1936 film My Man Godfrey in which the title character has it out with the brattish twentysomething daughter of his employer:

Cornelia Bullock: You can't go on like this forever. You really like me and you're afraid to admit it, aren't you?
Godfrey: You want me to tell you what I REALLY think of you?
Cornelia Bullock: Please do.
Godfrey: As Smith or as a butler?
Cornelia Bullock: Choose your own weapon.
Godfrey: You won't hold it against me?
Cornelia Bullock: It's your day off.
Godfrey: Very well. You belong to that unfortunate category that I would call the "Park Avenue brat". A spoiled child who's grown up in ease and luxury... who's always had her own way... and who's misdirected energies are so childish that they hardly deserve the comment, even of a butler on his off Thursday.
Cornelia Bullock: [hurt and angry] Thank you for a very lovely portrait.

Today there are a great deal of 'Park Avenue brats' who have grown up indulged with distractions and material possessions, wanting for nothing but consistent, effective discipline, the setting of boundaries and a realisation that the world doesn't revolve around them.

Gold Coast Bulletin columnist Robyn Wuth is on the right path when she wrote this week:

There you are, Australia. That's the youth of today -- aren't you proud?

Take a good look at the iGeneration and bear this frightening thought in mind -- this idiot and his stupid mates could be running the country in the next generation.

God help us all.

This is what the world is churning out these days and we have no one but ourselves to blame, us and the education system for turning out these ignorant little twits who are yet to have a thought, for teaching them more about their legal rights as horrid little brats instead of the three Rs.

Us, and the Government, and the legal system for making it harder and harder to discipline our children.

Us, and computer games, iPods and the internet for helping to turn out a generation of selfish little show-offs, publicity whores who want their 15 minutes of fame and then some.

Also, blame the parents of the 500 other kids who turned up and went wild. Where the hell were you? Did any one of them know where their kids were and what they were up to? I doubt it.

We can all feast on a sizeable portion of finger-pointing pie...

Long story, short: what's wrong with the kids of today? It's not just their parents, but also their grandparents, great grandparents and great, great grandparents.

The solution doesn't begin with government programs, police intervention or social workers. It begins with us.

What example do we set in our own behaviour and the standards we want to see in ourselves and others?

-- Nora

If Freddie Jumped Off A Bridge...

Learning nothing from the abject failure of such schemes elsewhere, the NSW Government proposes this:

WEEKEND and mid-week jail sentences will be scrapped under a plan to be considered by State Cabinet. Criminals could also be forced to look for a job and be subject to electronic monitoring, curfews and drug testing under the proposed Community Corrections Orders... despite (jail) inflicting a "short, sharp shock" to criminals... Under the plan, offenders sentenced for crimes attracting jail terms - excluding murder and other serious indictable offences - would be sentenced to a prison term that would then be suspended and replaced by a CCO.

The proposals are similar to weak-kneed approaches in other States and particularly in the UK where crime is now very nearly out of control.

-- Nick