Fine examples of both types in the SST this morning. The Labour examples are hangovers from their last time in power:
Case 1. "The menace of the humble pie." Not online, but is basically a duplicate of this article from back in February (activist journalism, much?). It's essentially a beat-up about how removing restrictions on what school tuck shops can sell means children are (gasp!) eating pies for lunch. Apparently, they should be eating sandwiches, muffins, chips, fruit and muesli bars instead - ie, carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs and carbs. For fuck's sake, at least the pie has a bit of protein in it. What we could really do with is a regulation banning food activist nutcases from inflicting their mental problems on the nation's children.
Case 2. "Jurors stand by their disputed cruelty verdict." Again not online, but again basically a duplicate of last week's misnamed Smacking acquittal outrage. In this case, a hand-wringer declares "there were no circumstances under which washing a child's mouth out with soap as a punishment was acceptable." No shit, Sherlock? It's also the case that giving other drivers the fingers when they annoy you isn't acceptable behaviour, the question is whether a particular "unacceptable behaviour" warrants you being arrested, run through the court system and given a criminal record and quite possibly a jail term, with the added bonus of an onging CYF nightmare for good measure. The jurors, as was the intention of jury trials, have displayed some good sense in this case and reached the correct decision.
Then there's National's contribution. The National Party seems to hold a lot of attraction for conservative stuffed shirts who'd like to see conservative stuffed-shirtdom enforced by law - witness most of their MPs. Said stuffed shirts have taken the opportunity to appoint like-minded individuals to the Broadcasting Standards Authority, with predictably stupid results:
Case 3: "TV fights to show sex scenes."
The Hung incident involved an episode where a woman's genital area was shown before she put her legs over a man's shoulders.
New Plymouth's Beth West complained, concluding: "I like to watch things that promote mankind's dignity rather than depravity." The authority upheld the complaint.
Where to start? For one thing, if Beth thinks oral sex constitutes "depravity" and that sex is about maintaining your dignity, one can only feel deep pity for her husband. For another, if Beth doesn't like to watch this kind of thing, maybe she shouldn't be up late at night tuning in to a programme about a male prostitute? You think? I mean, how unforeseeable is it for a conservative stuffed shirt to figure out that a programme like that is going to involve sex? National's appointees on the BSA, however, are obviously Beth's soulmates and feel that her personal assessment of what she'd like to watch must be treated as some kind of holy writ by the TV companies. Thanks, National - you're doing great.