And you wonder why there a f*&k all male teachers

I know this would have been plastered all over the news back home - but I can not let this go without comment. From The Herald:

Air New Zealand and Qantas have banned men from sitting next to unaccompanied children on flights, sparking accusations of discrimination.

The airlines have come under fire for the policy that critics say is political correctness gone mad after a man revealed he was ordered to change seats during a Qantas flight because he was sitting next to a young boy travelling alone.

I seriously can not believe it. Without being too melodramatic, this is one of the reasons I left home.

I put it in the same category of the 'cultural cringe' and angst that seems to pervade NZ at the moment. Is it a result of being so young? So small? So isolated? I have no idea - but god it grates. DPF sums it up nicely (and he don't swear often!):

But nevertheless how fucking offensive, and yes I mean fucking. Think if Air NZ banned Muslims from sitting within the front ten rows of a plane, just to protect the pilots? I mean after all it is true that just as a man is more likely to be a paedophile, a Muslim is more likely to be a terrorist? Never mind that 99.xxx% of men are not paedophiles just as much the same percentage of Muslims are not terrorist?

When the wet blanket that is ex Children's Commissioner Roger McLay comes out and says that this has gone too far - you know it is off the planet.