Public Address - Cracker (Home)

The Harvard Centre for Self Evident Studies | Apr 04, 2007 11:43

Attuned as I am to the plight of new mothers, it was with some interest I recently read about a study carried out by Harvard Medical School.

The study looked at factors that would help (or hinder) new mothers from losing their post-baby pounds. And it came to four starting conclusions:

1. The more time you spend on the couch watching TV, the less likely you are to lose weight.

2. On the other hand, if you exercise every day, you are more likely to lose weight.

3. The more fatty food you consume… the more weight you lose. Nah, just kidding – the study shows that eating fatty foods will actually hinder your ability to lose weight gained during pregnancy!

4. The effects of these activities are cumulative. Therefore by consuming fewer fatty foods, exercising regularly and not sitting on your arse all day watching telly, you'll lose even more weight than just doing one of those things!

Harvard Medical School. I shit you not. Diet 'n' Exercise eh, who'd have thunk it?

Now I'm no scientician, but I'm going to take a huge leap here and say that the same logic could be applied to, guess what… almost all weight loss! Don't tell study author Dr Emily Oken, but I reckon other people might already be on to this too. I'll ask around tonight when I'm at the gym.

I'm wondering how much funding the good Dr Oken got to carry out this study, and whether the likes of you and I could get a bit of cash thrown at us for similarly studies. I have a few hypotheses I'd like to test below:

1. Being really good looking and uber-rich increases your chance of getting laid.

2. Fast runners have a better chance of winning athletics events than slow runners.

3. Fundamentalist Christians really aren't very bright.

4. JFK was killed by... a bullet.

5. There may not be life on other planets, but there almost certainly are other planets.

6. Most bloggers need to get out more.

…and of course your submissions are welcome over at the System.

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Harder | Mar 15, 2007 17:42

Wide-ranging discussions followed on from yesterday's post on Sue Bradford's anti-smacking bill. It was nice to see some lively debate on PublicAddressSystem, especially when contrasted with the name-calling, hair-pulling, cussing and general potty mouthed behaviour across the road. I have a lot of respect for David P Farrar, but some of the company he keeps, jeez…

One emailer raised a point I had hitherto not considered however, and I think it's one all MPs should consider when casting their votes.

What effect will this Bill have on spanking fetishists, both now and in the future?

Having spent a fair amount of time considering the issue (during my lunch hour), vox popping members of the public and ringing around all my ex-girlfriends, I've arrived at a couple of conclusions.

Let's face it. Sex is great when it's naughty. Forget all the "it's best when you're doing it with the person you love" rubbish; that's up there with "when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much..." for explaining to a kid where they came from. (I'm going to tell my kids the truth: Mummy and daddy met in a bar, where mummy had too much to drink and daddy was in fine form…")

Anyway, whether it's naughty with someone you love (hotels on holiday, a "sick day" spent in bed) or just naughty with someone you feel like getting down with (alleyway, Speaker's Chair), that's your call. But naughty is better.

So if smacking is suddenly against the law, won't that make an already kinda kinky act (and I'm talking about the whole spectrum here, from a quick slap on the arse, to an Ian Wishart-style paddling) even hotter? I think it just might. Spanking will become the new, well, I don't know, whatever the hip sex act is right now.

Generationally though, I suspect things will change. If you were never smacked as a child, never equated physical discipline with 'being naughty', wouldn't the whole thing just be a bit foreign? In a world where being smacked was just a completely alien concept, wouldn't it be more like "What the hell? Did you just strike me on my bottom with your open hand? What's that all about?"

I'm not just concerned about what effect this might have in the bedrooms of New Zealand circa 2030, but on the BDSM industry in general. It would appear that the whole spanking thing will go through a boom for a while, as it becomes even naughtier, but then suddenly drop off as the now nascent generation reaches sexual maturity.

I'm no investment analyst, but I'd be checking your diversified portfolio if I were you. If it includes any of the following – rubber, leather or latex manufacturers, producers of restraining devices and other such goods, you'd be well advised to keep the above in mind.

As you were.

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Smack Your Kids Up | Mar 13, 2007 18:00

As Parliament prepares to pass Sue Bradford's "anti-smacking" bill, the only thing that seems to be clear is that absolutely nothing is clear.

I'm not a parent, and from this position I find it a little difficult to predict exactly how I would raise my children. I would like to think I could do so without ever laying a hand on them, but the 'unruly child in the supermarket' model provides a scenario where many people could if not understand, then forgive the parent who gives their child a light smack to get them moving.

What I consider unacceptable is the 'wait 'til your father gets home' punishment, where the child has done something wrong and physical discipline is metered out in a cold, clinical manner. I had such discipline on occasion, and while "it did me no harm" I wouldn't wish it on my kids.

But I don't accept Bradford saying that we should pass a law making something –even light smacking– illegal and rely on police and the judiciary to act reasonably in applying it. This is the same judiciary, is it not, who have failed to act responsibly in applying the "reasonable force" test that currently stands, failing to convict parents guilty of what any "reasonable" person would surely call child abuse?

I find it even less palatable to leave such discretion to the police.

Bradford's Bill has been further watered down –or at least further confused– in the select committee process. The original idea of removing "reasonable force" as a defence has gone, and the Bill instead now allows reasonable force in a number of situations. Most vague is where such force is for the purpose of "performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting," as long as it is not "for the purpose of correction". Good, that's so much clearer.

"Reasonable force" remains undefined, which, need I remind you, was the whole problem the Bill was meant to address in the first place.

If the Bill and associated argument seems confused it could be because underlying it are separate aims. One is ideological. Parents shouldn't smack children, full stop. There's no need, parents can use time outs and so forth. The second is to stop the situation where the law (or at least its interpretation from time to time) has allowed some parents to beat their children with weapons.

No-one will criticise the second aim, but New Zealanders are clearly divided on the first – although it wouldn't be unheard of for Parliament to pass such a progressive law. But this is an entirely different discussion to the one now being had, and Bradford's "I'm not trying to make a criminal out of ordinary parents" line doesn't wash. She is; the Bill does, the only question is whether the police choose to prosecute. It's the same as marijuana smoking – the police might confiscate your joint and tell you to piss off, but you've still committed a criminal act.

I don't know what the answer is – defining reasonable force to allow a light smack but not a beating would make sense, but by all accounts this too is fraught with legal issues. Perhaps we go back to the philosophical drawing board, debate whether a smack is ever appropriate and lead by example, as Governments have done with the various anti-smoking laws passed since 1990. You wouldn't dream of sparking up in a department store these days, yet I remember working in a shop with those big floor ashtrays scattered all over the place, vacuuming up random ash at the end of each day.

What Parliament shouldn't do is pass a law that criminalises many thousands of parents every day, and just kinda sorta assume that it'll all work itself out somehow. Cos it won't.

(Read the Bill and its amendments yourself if you haven't already.)

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