Wednesday 8 March 2006

Concreting over fun

Jimi Kumara has some thoughts and some memories on the plans by Waitakere City Council to concrete over a popular West Auckland swimming hole with "1600 truck loads of concrete" in order to "reduce the risks":
Why is it the f**king swimming holes fault? It seems that in our society we believe that rules and regulation will solve any problem. But doesn’t that kind of circumvent any personal responsibility?

If a four year old kid drowns in a swimming hole isn’t it probably the parents fault?

Clearly something’s gone mad, but is it political correctness? Or is it the contemporary need for everything surrounding children to be safe, sanitised and padded to a maddening degree.

Political Correctness hasn’t gone mad – bureaucracy and parenting has. When I think back on my childhood growing up in West Auckland I cant help but feel that they would want to concrete the whole of that in too, or have it shut down by OSH. We were in almost constant peril...
In constant peril, and better for it too: "Because we did that stuff we learned a lot of lessons. We learned all about consequences. We explored boundaries. We became self-reliant."
Scraped knees and various wounds and bruises were de rigueur. If my son Harry doesn’t come home with similar when he grows up I will wont to know why.
“Go outside and hurt yourself you bloody sook.” I will say.
Quite right. We've become a nation of sooks, a flock of easily-cowed sheeple happy to be pushed around, waiting to be led, and eager to get ourselves fleeced. No wonder Chris Carter thinks he can get away with his dictatorial "I-am-the-final-decision-maker" grand-standing at Whangamata.

LINKS: Gimme danger - Jimi Kumara

TAGS: Political Correctness, Auckland, New Zealand.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm thinking the safest place for kids to learn is far, far away from a state school and state child- and health-care services.

Back when ~men~ actually taught kids at primary school and over-saw the playground at interval (rather than drinking tea in the break room and letting the kids run around unsupervised), games of rugby, tag, bull-rush and scrag were played on the play-ground.

When was the last time you saw a male primary school teacher? Let alone a teacher organising after-school sports and things?

Anonymous said...

Don't worry PC, just object to the concrete constructing project under the RMA ... it'll never get through.

Anonymous said...

Women are having children later in life in a lot of cases right at the last minute. No room for risks.

Anonymous said...

1600 trucks of concrete,jesus thats 1.6 million dollars worth