Spanking, is it wrong or a necessary evil?

When I was young, I was soundly whacked every time I did something very (not just mildly)wrong. I now believe that those spankings I received as a child have helped me to become the person I am today. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" is an old saying which is now being wildly disregarded. Parents nowadays refuse to spank their kids and try to teach them right from wrong by talking to them. But does it actually work? I was never hit using a cane, (and I will never use a cane on one of my children) but I will certainly spank them. I believe that discipline is absolutely necessary for children. Learning right from wrong is always easier when you have a painful memory of what happens when you choose the wrong path. Also, I believe that pampering your kids and not punishing them when they do a truly wrong deed is equal to spoiling them. This will result in the upbringing of incredibly spoilt and selfish individuals who will be detrimental to society. Don't get me wrong, I'm not endorsing child abuse, I'm just saying that there are times when advising won't get you anywhere. It's always good to advise first, thereafter warn and if the misbehaviour still continues then the whacking should commence!

The other issue I would like to discuss related to spanking is whether it is ok for religious leaders such as buddhist monks and pastors to hit children during Sundays school in order to discipline them. I may be wrong, but I don't think that it's appropriate for monks and pastors to discipline children by hitting them. Giving advice and scolding is more suitable. After all, a monk is not supposed to harm living creatures. Hitting a child would fall into this category, whether it is ultimately for the child's own good or not.

I guess, hitting/spanking/caning is a widely debated issue. In some countries, hitting your own child would bring the child protection services upon you and you could lose your child due to "child abuse".

At the end of the day, I guess it depends on individual parenting styles. There are lots of great people who have been brought up without a single whack! I guess it depends on the child as well. There are some really saintly kids. I guess I did not fall into that category but I am so glad that I was disciplined then! :)


Summary

1. Is it ok to spank your kids in order to discipline them? - I think it's ok as long as you don't seriously hurt the kid.
2. Is it ok to spank kids who are not your own? - Definitely not. It's not up to you to discipline other parents' offspring. If their kids are not well-behaved, don't let your kids associate with them. Never interfere with other parents' parenting styles.
3. Is it ok for religious leaders to spank kids? - I don't think so.
4. What about school teachers? - I guess it's ok, as long as the child is not seriously hurt or scarred. (Personally I was never spanked in school, it was not allowed, thank god!)

2 Songs I'm crazy about!

I have finally found links to 2 of my FAVOURITE songs! Let me know what you think of them.

1. Brokenhearted - Eighteen Visions
2. In the Rough - Anna Nalick

Who's your favourite American Idol?

Out of everyone who made it on American Idol, which one is your favourite? Which one do you hate the most? The winners of AI are:
1. Kelly Clarkson
2. Ruben Studdard
3. Fantasia Barrino
4. Carrie Underwood
5. Taylor Hicks
6. Jordin Sparks

The other contestants who made it big are:
Bo Bice, Clay Aiken, Chris Daughtry, Jennifer Hudson, Katherine McPhee, Elliot Yamin, Kimberly Locke (yep, she's from AI too!)

Some contestants who are still popular but haven't yet made it are:
Blake Lewis, Elliot Yamin, Melinda Doolittle, Lakisha Jones, Stephanie Edwards, Sanjaya Malakkar (popular for other reasons), Kellie Pickler

So, my question to you is:
Who is your favourite and most hated AI contestants?

Some thoughts on the American Idol Finale

The finals of American Idol was a grand affair for which a lot of celebrities attended. On the whole, it was just 'ok' for me.

Good Points

1. I loved the presentation of awards to various contestants who didn't make it. I couldn't believe that the "bush baby" guy and his chubby friend actually attended the function and came up for the award. What great sports!!! Did you notice that Simon gave them a standing ovation for their great sportsmanship. The huge lady in yellow was a bit scary and I felt so bad for Ryan Seacrest for that long long kiss.

2. The beatboxing duet by Blake and Doug E. Fresh was great! I really enjoyed it because it brought some life to a show full of slow, old, relatively not-so-popular songs.

3. Loved Kelly Clarkson's performance! She still rocks!

4. The "African Children's Choir" was very sweet. The performance was quite cool considering the age of the performers.

5. Carrie Underwood's version of "Stand by you" was ok. She looked beautiful as usual but I hated what she was wearing. I wish she sang "Before he cheats" though. :(

Bad Points
1. Most of the songs sung were slow oldies! How boring! Even the fast paced ones weren't that great.

2. I hated Bette Midler's version of "Wing beneath my wings". It's beautiful melody was ruined by Midler's abrupt ending of song lyrics.

3. Taylor Hicks has yet to perform a song I know (maybe it's just 'cos I'm not into his kind of music).


Hmmm... no other points that I really hated about it. Hope that next year they get some good and popular songs for the finals! The songs performed this year were either old, or brand new (unknown) releases. Hope that next year one or two songs that are on the charts will be performed!

Oh by the way, Jordin won... ;) I'm sure she'll come up with a great album. So will Blake!

How many of you out there support the LTTE?

After hearing the news of today's bomb attack (and getting over the initial shock) I started thinking about the 24 year old war that has been raging in our country.

Do all Tamils support the LTTE? I remember jokingly asking a tamil friend in my degree class whether she supported Prabhakaran or Karuna and she quite seriously replied that they all supported Prabhakaran and that Karuna was just trying to create a dent in the LTTE. Needless to say I was shocked. It was then that I started thinking about the Tamil people's perspective of this whole war.

Hearing about a bomb attack or air strike in Colombo, we all get upset and go on and on about it. But it's quite normal in the North. What about the people there? Do they curse the Sri Lankan Forces or just focus on finding shelter and trying to survive? Do they actively support the LTTE and their cause?

What about the Tamils in Colombo? Do all of them believe in the LTTE and their cause? Should Sri Lanka be divided? If it comes to that in the end, would all of them be happy to go to their "country" leaving Colombo? I think not!

I have no hatred towards anyone (ok, maybe after a massive bombing like the Central Bank one, I got REALLY angry with Prabhakaran and wanted to personally go and .... - let's not get into that). I have a few Tamil friends and I went to a school which had a good mix of girls from all kinds of races. They're just like you and me and really wonderful people. But what is their perspective of this? If they do believe in the LTTE, they must be finding it really difficult to be around us after a bombing has taken place and listening to us blasting the LTTE and terrorists.

Finally, the questions I guess I'm asking are:
1) The LTTE and Prabhakaran - Freedom fighters or terrorists?
2) Do you support them, and if so, why? Explain the reasons, whatever they may be.

Thanx! :)

Reproducing without the involvement of a male

Before all you guys start biting my head off, I'm not writing this to insult anyone from the male gender (after all, I'm in love with a wonderful man :*)...

It's just that more and more animals are now reproducing without the help of the male species. Birds and Bees can do it and the latest animal to be added to this list is the Shark. A female hammerhead shark has just given birth to a baby shark without the help of a male. No paternal DNA has been found in the baby shark. Click here to read the full article.

Could a female dominant society actually exist in the future? Makes you wonder, doesn't it?!!!

p.s. Apologies to anyone who might be offended by this post...

Fairytales

All this hype about Shrek 3 and the fairytale characters that appear in it got me thinking about the fairytales i used to love to read when I was small. What I used to love about these stories were the princesses. Some of them are given below:

Sleeping Beauty

This is my all time favourite fairytale. It's so romantic and has so many different scenes in it.

Eg.

• * The christening and the gifts bestowed upon the baby Aurora by the fairies
  * The time spent away from the castle
• * The pricking of the finger on the spindle
• * Enter the prince and the fight to get to Sleeping Beauty
• * The Kiss (ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!) and the awakening.

Snow White

Loved the 7 dwarfs.

1. Doc

2. Happy

3. Sleepy
4. Bashful
5. Dopey
6. Sneezy

7. Grumpy (My favourite!)

Cinderella

Not one of my favourites (too much housework involved!!!) ;)

The Little Mermaid

This one is tooooooooooooo sad for me. I don't like it much because the prince chooses another girl over Ariel. Plus it has a lot of pain in it if I recall correctly (doesn't her feet hurt after she turns into a human?)

Aladdin

Beauty & the Beast

As usual, my thoughts are greatly influenced by various articles of Shrek 3. Click here to find out which article made me write this post. ;)

Let me know which characters and stories are your favourites!

Anonymous

"Anonymous Coward" is a term applied within some online communities to describe users who post without a screen name; it is a dummy name attributed to anonymous posts used by some weblogs that allow posting by people without registering for accounts. - Wikipedia

Growing up, it was always drilled into me that signing a letter as Anonymous is an act of cowardice and any letter which is anonymous should not be taken any notice of because the author of it doesn't have the guts to sign his/her name on it. However, bloggers frequently use the identity of Anonymous. I know it's normal, but I would respect it more if comments came with a name. Criticism is fine as long as it's constructive. Opinions are always welcome. But please, if i am to take any opinions or criticism seriously, don't put your name down as Anonymous. Thanks! :)

Some movie info and an idea for a good blog name!!!

Over the week-end I watched "Charlotte's Web". What a GREAT movie!!! For all animal lovers out there, and also for people who love animated movies. This movie is amazing!!! I laughed, I cried and I went "awwwwwwwwww!!!".... Wonderful, great, amazing!!!

I'll just give a brief outline of the plot of the movie. It's about a piglet who is about to get killed because he is a runt (I don't exactly know what that it, but it's a small-made pig i guess) and the daughter of the house rescues it and takes care of it. Anyway, it's put into her uncle's farm and the little piggy (his name's "Wilbur") tries to make friends with the animals there but they're not that friendly. However, a spider named Charlotte makes friends with him (spiders are the most despised creatures in the barn, by the way) and they have a lot of fun. Then the realisation comes that Wilbur will be killed during winter for pork (or ham or bacon or whatever). So from there on, the whole story is about how Charlotte comes up with a plan on how to save Wilbur from that cruel fate. Such a beautiful story.

The other movie I watched was "Little Miss Sunshine". Unfortunately, the DVD got stuck in the middle. Until then, the movie was pretty good. It's about a dysfunctional family. Very good plot.

I also watched "Epic Movie". Like the Scary Movie series it was funny in a crude kinda way. Main plot was from "The Lion, the witch and wardrobe" from the Narnia chronicals. It also had bits of Superman, Harry Potter, X-Men and Borat.

Ohhhh, by the way, "Shrek 3" has set an animated record with $122M!!! Cool!!! I'm very happy about it!!! Get more info about it by clicking here.

I also bought a movie called "Happily Never After" which is another fairy tale adaptation similar to Shrek. Didn't have time to watch it though...

Enough about movies... Over the week-end, I came up with a GREAT name for my boyfriend's blog. He's from Prince of Wales and is a bit (ok, a lot!) on the chubby side. So what better name than "Prince of Whales"?!!! Is that a smart name or what!!! Wonder why he wasn't that impressed with it?!!! Hmmm...

Some random links that might interest you!

A news item that might interest all you guys out there is "X-rated nude car wash gets police all-clear". Sorry to disappoint you but it's in Aussie, not SL... :))

This next link, "Why didn't Doolittle make it?" is for those out there who still cannot get over the shock of the exit of Melinda Doolittle from American Idol. I felt miserable seeing her taking the news so well and being such a great sport. Oh well, I don't care who wins now. I like both Blake and Jordin but Jordin is beginning to bug me just a bit. I don't like her being so hyper and all over the place. I know she's just 17 but maybe it's just sour grapes for me!!!

"Woman survives 'internal decapitation' " is a truly amazing story. It's about a woman who was in an accident and was left with her skull separated from her spine, although her skin, spinal cord and other internal organs remained intact. And she was not paralysed!!! Ouch!!! The amazing thing is that she survived. Here's what she has to say about her surgery "My skull slipped off my neck about five times," Malloy said. "Every time they tried to screw this to my head, I would slip." Man, that is just scary!!!

kalvee Highway Loony-Bin Lane 4 Confusion Lane 21 Study Hall 58 Tower of Commitment 106 Paintown 495 Please Drive Carefully

Username:

Where are you on the highway of life?

From Go-Quiz.com

kalvee may explode without warning

M EXPLOSIVE

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From Go-Quiz.com

Good Thought!!!

Check this one out!!! It's so true! You can really judge people by how they treat people who can't do anything for them!

Terrible News - Melinda exits from American Idol

Oh Wow!!! I'm completely devastated! :((

The contestant who was sure to win, who had never got a bad critique from any of the judges on any of the days, got voted off! Both other contestants have had their bad days, though they're both good. But Melinda was in a league of her own!

I guess I'll need some time to get over this. My boyfriend is rooting for Jordin (wow, wat a surprise, considering she's beautiful, young and sexy) and was always saying that Melinda looked like a horse. Helloooooooo!!! This is a singing competition!!! Oh well, what to do!!!

I'm now rooting for Blake!!! Go Blake!!!

Global Warming - going under water fast!!!

Scientists are just going crazy about the fact that glaciers are melting faster than they had estimated. Click here to view an article on how an area of western Antarctica that adds up to the size of California has melted in January 2005!!!

Islands like Sri Lanka and Maldives should start taking measures now. It's too late to start implementing methods of reducing global warming, what we should focus now is where can people be relocated when our shores go under water! Hill country better get ready for an invasion of coastliners!!!

More info about global warming and how it happens as well as various attitudes of world leaders towards it (ahem, i.e mainly Bush) can be found by clicking here.

Shrek 3

Haven't watched it yet, but dying to do so!!! But the reviews aren't that great. You can check out the comments on Yahoo News.

What I love about the Shrek series is the portrayal of the fairytale characters. Specially the gingerbread man, pinnocchio and the princesses!!!

Another great fairytale movie to watch is "Ella Enchanted". It's kinda old now but still a great movie to watch if you're into that kinda stuff!

Privacy of E-mail & Messenger Passwords

Ok, this is a HUGE issue for me. Why on EARTH do people have no qualms whatsoever about hacking into other people's e-mails and chat logs and checking out their personal stuff?

It's a total invasion of their privacy and a massive disregard for personal space. My aim is not to find out "why" this is done. The reasons are all too obvious.

1. Men (and some women) who like someone wants to find out everything about that person.

2. Men & women who get rejected or booted by their loved ones want to find out what's new in their ex-s life as well as take revenge.

3. Men and women want their loved ones password as an indication of trust. (which i believe is so stupid, as just requesting for the password indicates that you don't trust your boyfriend/girlfriend).

4. Some find it fun and a good prank.

5. Main reason I guess is revenge.

Ok, now that the reasons are out of the way, let's get back to my problem with this, which is "why does no-one think of this as a humongous offence/crime/wrongdoing?" In my opinion, it is WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!

You can do serious damage to another person's reputation by it, believe me it can lead to libel. It's sad to see people resorting to such underhand methods of revenge. I mean, there are so many other ways and means of hurting someone!!! :)) Why not use a open method of doing so! At least it'll be a way of honourable revenge!!!

I know lots of people will have different arguments for this. All I can ask them is "would you like this done to you?"

Harry Potter 7

Some thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
1. Will Harry Die? - Tough one... There are reasons for believing both views. Personally I don't believe that he will die.

2. Will Voldermort finally die, or will he have another method of evading death? - Voldermort will appear to have died, but my belief is that he will have a few more tricks up his sleeve.

3. Is Ginny the one for Harry? - I did not expect this match AT ALL!!! I still can't get used to the idea of both of them together. Yes, they do match, and Ginny has liked Harry from the beginning. I have a feeling that they might stay a couple.

4. Ron and Hermione, a good match? - They have indicated feelings for each other in several books and I think that it'll last. But why do I have a small feeling that J. K. Rowling might decide to bring out Ron's jealousy towards Harry and his fame and fortune in the last book. Could Harry and Hermione fall in love and would the tight friendship of the threesome finally break? I guess I'm playing the Devil's Advocate here!!!

5. Who will be the new headmaster of Hogwarts? - I can't seem to decide on this one. I love Prof. MacGonnagal, but I can't see her as the headmistress. But there is no-one else suitable for the position. I guess J. K. Rowling will surprise us in this regard (hope so anyway!!)

6. Draco, what will be his story? Will he resemble Snape in the end? - Another tough one. From the start I saw a resemblence between Draco and Snape. Draco has a definite evil streak in him but when it comes to acting upon it, he will always fail to do so. Not sure whether it's due to cowardice or some inherent instinct to do the right thing. But if pushed beyond endurance Draco will do Voldemart's bidding, so it won't be a good idea to have 100% faith in him.

7. Snape, good or evil? - In my opinion, Snape is in the good side but his job is to make everyone else believe he's in the dark side. He does have his dark side too, or else he will not be able to fool the death eaters.

8. I believe that Neville Longbottom has something very significant to do with the entire plot. Anyone else agrees with me?Would love to know your thoughts on this!

You can get more plot theories from www.mugglenet.com.