The Worth of Children

Apparently children are worth about £30 billion. According to a recent survey the market in the UK alone pulls in this amount from sales targeted at children. The BBC reported that in the GfK NOP poll 89% of adults believe children are more materialistic than previous generations. The Children’s Society stated adults need to “take responsibility for the current level of marketing to children” because “Unless we question our own behaviour as a society we risk creating a generation who are left unfulfilled through chasing unattainable lifestyles.”

The study and the issues it addresses are quite interesting and bring up important questions: What is our societies obsession with materialism doing to our children? Is this increasing disease such as obesity in our young people? What kind of values are we instilling in our children?  What kind of attitudes are we encouraging? And finally, Will be teach by saying, or doing?

Sources:  BBC, GfK NPO survey

What’s in a name?

Today the BBC reports that the DUP has passed a motion stating that The Troubles was not a war. This has caused outrage on all sides of the fence. In what can certainly be classified as an untactful comment, the Democratic Unionist MLA, Mervyn Storey stated that:

“We know that the IRA did not fight a war – for they ignored the international conventions that govern warfare….We know too that they stand guilty of sectarian murder, ethnic or racial murder, and political assassination. So what exactly was their campaign about?…Mr Speaker, they fought a seedy, grubby, sectarian terrorist campaign – nothing more and nothing less.”

Sinn Fein’s speaker, Jennifer McCann responded:

“It wasn’t so long ago they were calling on the IRA to say the ‘war’ is over,”….When it suited their political interests they had no problem using the word ‘war’; now it seems to be a case of, like a scene from Fawlty Towers, ‘don’t mention the war’…To the relatives of those who lost a loved one in the conflict, war, troubles, call it what you will, their loss is the same.”

There’s much I’d like to express on this subject, but it seems for once words fail me.

Sources: BBC

 

Sugar Daddy

Today the BBC reports that Mr. Ian Paisley Jr. has been receiving payment from his father, Dr. Ian Paisley, since 1998 for “research”. This means that Paisley the younger has been working three jobs for the past 10 years…he must be quite tired.

Sources: BBC