You may not have heard of Gina Rinehart before now, but I guarantee after reading this post you won't soon forget her name.
According to an article in the Digital Journal, the world's richest woman has incensed more than just her fellow Australians after she recently claimed that poor people that are just jealous of the rich. The mining magnate heiress is worth an estimated $30.1 billion.
"If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain," Rinehart apparently said. "Do something to make more money yourself—spend less time drinking or smoking and socializing, and more time working."
Pretty rich advice (no pun) coming from who a woman who likely hasn't lifted a finger a day in her life, except to hoist a glass of champers to her lips.
Rinehart further salted wounds by claiming the Australian government should reduce the minimum wage and give the wealthy tax breaks.
"These sorts of comments are an insult to the millions of Australian workers who go to work and slog it out to feed the kids and pay the bills," said Australia's deputy prime minister Wayne Swan.
Obviously not all of us inherit a fortune and have the luxury to wax lyrical from a horse as high as hers. Money doesn't buy you love, but someone should tell Rinehart it doesn't buy you brains, either.
I wonder if the Richest Woman has any heirs of her own. Willing to wager they're blinging it up on Instagram...
Do Rinehart's comments leave you seeing red, or does she have a valid point? Does hard work necessarily beget money and success?
In more administrative absurdity, a preschool in Nebraska wants a deaf three-year-old boy to change how he signs his name because it violates the school board's weapons policy.
According to an article in the Toronto Sun, the proper signage for the name Hunter involves making what appears to be shooting gestures with both hands and crossing fingers.
However, the Grand Island Public Schools board claims says its policy bans "any instrument ... that looks like a weapon." The school wants Little Hunter Spanjer to find a new way of signing his given name.
"It's a symbol," said Hunter's father, Brian Spanjer, in the article. "It's an actual sign, a registered sign."
The school board claims it's striving to reach a compromise, but Hunter's parents aren't interested. They've enlisted the help of National Association of the Deaf lawyers to fight for their son's right to sign his own name.
Policying gone mad? Is this the most ridiculous bit of school bureaucracy you've heard in a while, or at least since this incident?
Remember the Tots Vs. Foodies case that rocked the nation's capital not so long ago? Well, it seems the Tots emerged victorious after a human rights complaint was lodged against an Ottawa restaurant.
It all started when the trendy restau, Taylor’s Genuine Wine and Food Bar, expected a party to leave their three-month-old baby at home. When Ruth Gard and her sisters requested a chair for the car seat, the owner's reaction markedly changed.
Apparently Sylvia Taylor told the diners that children weren't welcome in the restaurant because "we don’t want that kind of environment.” Another employee added that though the family wouldn't be denied entry, the atmosphere would be inappropriate should the baby needed to be nursed, and that furthermore the establishment lacked change tables and room for strollers.
Although the details of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario settlement could not be disclosed, it's assumed that Gard was triumphant against Taylor.
Though the washrooms still aren't equipped with change tables, guests are reassured that children are now welcome at the restaurant.
I can't comment on Taylor's as a venue. But honestly, there are restaurants of a certain calibre to which I wouldn't take my child, and if I wouldn't, then I admit I would feel slightly affronted if other people did.
Should privately owned and run businesses be free to set their own terms, and leave it up to clients to choose where to dine and where to boycott? Do you think it's fair for restaurants to determine their clientele, or is it blatant discrimination to exclude children from eating there?
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