Chris Pattison
Tauranga
Chemicals cause concern
While watching a television advertisement for chemical cleaning of windows, chemical wall cleaning, and chemical decking cleaning, it has occurred that we are now relying on an awful amount of chemicals to do what used to be done by elbow grease.
We try not to use chemicals in the garden rather hoping that nature will get on with it, but in the last two years, I have had to go around the feijoas with a little brush because there are few bees to pollinate things.
I put up insect homes all winter but there was little sign of occupancy.
Are we using too many chemicals; are we killing nature in our desire to save a little extra work for ourselves?
Almost a whole aisle in some local stores can be devoted to the sale of chemicals to clean, kill, and remove half of the natural elements in the Kiwi garden.
Frightening.
Jim Adams
Rotorua
Be aware of bullying
Sadly, according to the NZ Herald, a large percentage of 8-year-olds say they've been bullied within the last 12 months.
Bullying has always been. If we were able to see social interactions over past millennia, I feel sure we would see it through all human societies and all ages as it is about dominance, fear, differences, and intolerance and mainly stems from parenting ideals and practices.
Parents, we need to be secure in who we are as caring people with an awareness of the needs and shortcomings of those around us.
This in turn needs to be demonstrated naturally in our interactions within our own family group.
Consistent, firm discipline should be used, based on the Bible's overall picture of a prosperous, caring society with an emphasis on the stable future that our children should inherit.
We need to support and encourage the same aims, based on the same principles, in our schools and all preparatory institutions charged with the raising useful adults capable of contributing to a decent society.
That evil is an inherent part of human nature should be obvious to all careful and considered observation.
John Williams
Ngongotaha
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