Ms.

The courtesy title, Ms. which began to be popularised in the 1970's has come to remove the need for people to refer to a woman as Miss or Mrs. Below is an excerpt from an interview with Alma Graham (the first lexicographer to put the courtesy title Ms. into a dictionary), with emphasies my own.

"Ms. Magazine, first published in 1972, was instrumental in popularizing Ms. Ultimately, it was widely adopted because it filled a real need in the language. More and more, as women claimed careers of their own, many resisted being labeled according to whether or not they were married. Originally used only when marital status was unknown, Ms. came to be used when such status was considered irrelevant. Some mistakenly thought it was to be used if a woman was divorced, but the whole point of Ms. is that it says nothing about a woman's marital status. The biggest faux pas is using it before a man's name as a substitute for Mrs., as in Ms. Frank Mitchell. Ms. should always be followed by a woman's name: first and last or last name only, as in Ms. Jo Gillikin, Ms. Gillikin. Informally, it may be followed by a woman's first name only, as in Ms. Jo."
- excerpt from All About "Ms.", from the Virginia Tech Library website

The commonly repeated reason given for the use of this title generally goes something like this, "As a courtesy title, Ms. serves exactly the same function that Mr. does for men.", which is a fair enough point to make. However, as we read above excerpt, we see that the real reason the Feminist movement was so determined to propogate the use of the title Ms. is that they decided that it was irrelevant whether a woman was married or unmarried.

This is precisely the reason that I object to the use of the title; it devalues the importance of marriage, and carries with it the sentiment, "Who cares whether I'm married or unmarried? Marriage is obsolete!".

Perhaps the reason the title Mr. (as used to refer to boys and men) never really stands out, is because the abbreviation has not been introduced into the English language as a means of furthering a cause. Even so, if we value the importance of distinguishing between Miss and Mrs, then we should also be sure to use Master and Mr. in their respective places.

Harpoon the Dolphins

After picking up a copy of the First Year Accounting Textbook from another student who had done the paper last semester, I turned around to head back up the stairs into the library, and lo and behold, in this most socialist heaven, was a few copies of the SAMIZDAT magazine sitting on a little table.

"Hah, Rick's been here"

I had a flick through, and it's the usual stuff, an alternative budget from the Libz, happy birthday to Ayn Rand's book "Atlas Shrugged", a bit of classic National-slamming, and of course, we can't let the Muslims off either, can we?  Anyway, one article which caught my eye, I thought I would share with you - checked out the Sense of Life Objectivists website, and sure enough they had a copy of the article...

"When Fisher & Paykel moved their manufacturing base offshore to source cheaper labour and production costs, ‘Foul!’ was the cry. The eeevil capitalists’ move was going to cost a significant number of people their jobs. This was terrible; how dare they? To be fair, I was disappointed with the move too—I’d much rather a productive business remained in New Zealand. But here’s the rub:

It’s not my company.
It’s not my money.
They’re a whiteware business, not a job factory.

To remain in business, they need profit; to remain profitable they need to lower production costs. Sue Bradford did not understand the move and claimed F&P were making “good money” and were betraying NZ workers. Well “good money” isn’t what keeps a company competitive and in business. The min/max game of production costs and profit is what keeps a company competitive and in business. Thailand is more conducive to lower production costs than New Zealand. We lose—too bad, so sad, moving on ...

Isn’t it funny though, with the announcement of the misguided protection measures for Hector and Maui dolphins, measures that do far more harm to fisheries than bestow benefits on dolphins, the Greens no longer give a flying fish about them poor workers: the estimated 300-odd who are going to lose their jobs, not just in fishing, but onshore processing, the supply industry and wider economy. In fact not only do the Greens not give a flying fish, they don’t think the measures go far enough. Despite Jim Banderton’s restrictions offering up human sacrifices to protect the lives of dolphins (which the restrictions actually have no impact on), the Greens would rather further measures were taken, measures that would see greater human sacrifices. (And all this at a time of rocketing food prices!) Damn the workers, the fishermen, and the wider industry—it’s the dolphins we must save!

Bollocks! If it comes down to even one human going hungry vs a dolphin dying, I say: “Save The Humans, Harpoon The Dolphins.”

By Lance Davey, May 30, 2008

Good, good.

don't do party pills

Stephen Bellingham was high on party pills on the night of Friday, 28 September 2007. He grabbed a hammer and went off down the street in Christchurch smashing up cars. Concerned neighbours rang the police who arrived on the scene. Confronting the crazed maniac with a pistol, the police officer told Stephen to drop his hammer. The drugged up criminal ran at the police officer with the hammer raised over his head. When Stephen was within a meter of him, the police officer stopped him in his tracks with a bullet to the chest and another to the leg.

If the police officer had had a tazer gun, then Stephen would not have died, and neither would the police officer. However if the police officer had only had a baton, then he would have likely been badly wounded or even killed. "Oh, the police officer should have retreated" you hear the bleeding hearts whine. Well as my friend Andrew so consisely put it, "It's not a good thing when a police-officer retreats, how does that look?". He's dead right. The principle of it is that we citizens should obey the law. If we don't, if we choose to run at a police officer holding a loaded weapon, then we suffer the consequences and rightly so.

The media are having a field day, making out that the police-officer and the police force are heartless thugs who use excessive force and abuse their power. As a matter of fact, when it is a matter of life or death as the police-officer obviously observed that it was in this case, the life of the police-officer is worth infinitely more. He has a wife and children who he is supporting, and why should he sacrifice his life just so that some drugged up punk can see what it feels like to stove another man's head in with an axe. I am sad that Stephen has died, however it was his own fault and as a country we should learn from this: give the Police the authority and tools they need to do their job well, and citizens, just do what the police tell you ok.


Stephen Bellingham

Below are 3 Letters to the Editor from The Press, 3 October 2007.

Lisa is a bit hard line, however in some situations it is necessary to stop criminal activity by some level of force, however wherever possible, fatalities should be avoided...

I suggest that all police weapons be withdrawn and that police be given feather dusters with which to defend themselves.
Police dogs should be fitted with sponge rubber teeth, and, to prevent any future dangerous high-speed vehicle pursuits, all Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore cars should be withdrawn from service and the police supplied with pedal cars.
There would then be no further claims of police brutality. We could all feel safe, couldn't we?

S. Kerr, Christchurch
There is something wrong with this country when the police have to justify their actions against the rubbish on the street.
No wonder we have an astronomical crime rate and drug problem, when the police are made to look like the villains and the criminal a victim.
As a law-abiding citizen with a young child, I want to feel safe and know that the police are protecting me and my family - that is, taking out the criminals in any way they have to. If shooting them is the only way to bring them down, so be it.
What kind of country is this going to be when my child grows up? The criminals will be running the country at this rate.
If somebody was smashing my car with a hammer, I would shoot him.
Keep up the good work, New Zealand police.

Lisa Leary, Christchurch
If Stephen Bellingham had been Tasered, he would still be alive today - deservedly shocked but still alive.
If blame must be apportioned in this case, perhaps we should start with the Green Party and the rest of the civil liberties bandwagon who opposed the use of Tasers for incidents such as this one.
We expect the police to protect us from an increasingly feral underclass, but what do we do to provide them with the tools they need to carry out their thankless task?
David Jones, Christchurch

The moral of the story would have to be: don't do party pills.

Heh, while I'm on the subject, ban party pills! Yeah, go crazy you libertarians. But it is generally accepted that such things as methanphetamine and murder are illegal, and so should party pills.

Liam

Liam we're going now. Liam, come on. Put the lion down Liam, we're going now. We have to go and meet Daddy, come on. Liam! All right, that's enough. Liam! I'm going to count to three. 1... 2... 3... Liam, come now. Put the lion back. Right! That's enough! We're going now Liam. That's it. Right! That's enough! 1... 2...

She doesn't get to 3. What's the point? Liam will come when he's ready thankyou very much. Liam wants to buy the soft-toy lion. Why can't he have it? Why does he have to leave the toy-shop now? He hears his Mum entreating him to obey her. Hahah, it's a fantastic game. He's loving it, he knows his mother can't make him do anything.

At three years old, young Liam is the ideal autonomous child. He is so happy and well-brought up. At the age of four months, he was entrusted into the caring hands of the local day-care institution. Receiving quality education and instruction from 8am til 6pm 5 days a week, Liam could never fully realise just how fortunate he was.
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I stood in the toyshop and observed. The desperation in the mother's voice was pitiful. She had gone to the trouble of bringing her son into the shop, he had had a good look around, and now it was time to go. Her voice was shrill as she remonstrated with her son. There were no warnings of consequences, no mentions of his privileges being removed. Only repeated pleas that he would follow his mum out of the shop.

It's sad, how many mums you hear - I'm going to count to three. - they never make it to three, because if they do, they don't know what they'll do. So they count 1, 2 very slowly and then ask the child again. The number of times this mother said "right, that's enough!" was ridiculous. Four or five times at least. Little Liam just ignored mummy. What the heck, what had she ever done for him?

When Liam finally decided to leave the shop, his mother praised him. I spoke to a man standing next to me. There's some badly behaved kids around aren't there. He told me that it was just human nature, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Well you know what sort of adults they make don't you. The other man didn't respond.

What can Mum and Dad do? If they haven't got anything with which to back up their instructions, what is going to happen? In New Zealand now, by removing their child to time-out or by giving their child a smack, no matter how light, parents are breaking the law and officially branded as child-abusers. Mum and Dad want to raise a well-adjusted, well-behaved son who will grow up to be a successful and considerate citizen. But the Government is systematically stripping away the parents right and ability to do this.
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The world is so blimmin politically correct.

We wouldn't dream of smacking the dear wee angel would we?

And in other news: "Police to politically correct to stop gay child abuse". English "couple", Ian Wathey, 40, and Craig Faunch, 32 have been allowed to foster 18 children despite allegations that they had abused the first two children. Eighteen? What a sad way for these children to be brought up. In what could only be a dysfunctional "family" where there's two dad's and no mum.

Kidscape director Michele Elliott said: “People have let political correctness get in the way of good practice and common sense and and children have been abused."

The beurocrats and socialists are so concerned about rights, homosexuality and child autonomy that they are exposing the kiddies to even more abuse.