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The following is a direct lift from a comment I received today that came from a friend who is a teacher. Read it and weep.
A further sign of this cotton wool lunacy was made clear to me this week at my place of work. Children have been banned for some years now from playing the age old Autumn game of ‘conkers’ in school playgrounds because they may ‘hurt’ themselves. The glut of conkers, lying sadly unused on the floor at this time of year seems to have risen and in last week’s staff meeting it was brought to our attention that the children were ‘throwing’ them at each other and could get ‘hurt’. The proposal was to ask the local council for permission to cut down the offending trees on safety grounds, a move that most felt sure would be agreed.
I’m sorry, but I have gone completely off the rails on this story. Ask yourself if you really want to live and bring up your children in the same world as the brain-crippled arseholes who can make this sort of proposal. I know I’d rather not. Please… anyone… how the fuck do we get rid of them?
Well I’m glad someone else is screaming lunacy along with me Andy. There are some who still don’t understand why I got up and walked out of the meeting, yelling "What fresh hell is this?"
When it comes down to it, it’s all about the ‘legal’ issues. Accidents simply don’t happen these days, it’s always someone’s liability.
Solution? Well we could start by shooting all the lawyers that are getting fat off the back of this ludicrous development but I fear it’s too late for that. I remember some years back, seeing it from afar, coming like a malevolent tidal wave across the Atlantic and running in panic for a life belt. Maybe I should have strapped myself to the nearest horse chestnut tree.
BTW. I’m constantly singing Joni’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ as an ongoing soundtrack to ease my fury. I’m only ever moments away from taking a chainsaw to the big wigs these days.
I’m surprised the school hasn’t sent all the children home until the spring.
This is madness, the highlight of my year was collecting conkers and trying not to get my knuckles whacked in a game of conkers (that plus the goal of making my 5′er a 6′er)
Hi Drew & Jeni
Your’s may have been the last generation ‘allowed’ to do this at school although maybe it lasted a little longer. I recall the banning of ‘conkers’ being one of the earlier decisions that set us on this road.
Actually, you will both no from this site that I am against petty legislation but I would actually support laws to kill the compensation culture in it’s tracks.
Jeni,
Try fighting one stupid obsession with another….
Cutting down trees releases tonnes of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere…
Choose Low-Maintenance Trees to Maximize Carbon Absorption
Dave Nowak, a researcher at the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Research Station in Syracuse, New York has studied the use of trees for carbon sequestration in urban settings across the United States. A 2002 study he co-authored lists the Common Horse-chestnut, Black Walnut, American Sweetgum, Ponderosa Pine, Red Pine, White Pine, London Plane, Hispaniolan Pine, Douglas Fir, Scarlet Oak, Red Oak, Virginia Live Oak and Bald Cypress as examples of trees especially good at absorbing and storing CO2. Nowak advises urban land managers to avoid trees that require a lot of maintenance, as the burning of fossil fuels to power equipment like trucks and chainsaws will only erase the carbon absorption gains otherwise made.
Plant Any Tree Appropriate for Region and Climate to Offset Global Warming
Ultimately, trees of any shape, size or genetic origin help absorb CO2. Most scientists agree that the least expensive and perhaps easiest way for individuals to help offset the CO2 that they generate in their everyday lives is to plant a tree…any tree, as long as it is appropriate for the given region and climate.
Fundamentally, you should insist that a review be carried out, this would look into the risk of people being injured, against the clear and obvious environmental damage and global warming effects of cutting down the perfect tree to help cool the planet…. I’m sure that pointing out to the school governors or some similar bunch of do-gooders the damage to the school’s reputation that will entail when the press hear about the ‘un-green’ attitude of the school.
Malc..
ref http://environment.about.com/od/whatyoucando/a/best_trees.htm
There you go Jeni – Malc has offered the perfect solution.
Thanks chaps.
Well I doubt the local council will give permission to cut them down but as you can’t second guess anyone who thinks they wield the power in this PC/Compensation fueled climate, I’ll present this information as a power point presentation at the next meeting. If nothing else it will feel good to be the one droning on and on and not the one holding her eyelids open with sticky back plastic for a change. I just don’t understand how so many apparently sane people can be drawn into this nonsense. What happened to the great British backbone anyway?
What happened to the great British backbone anyway? probably got hit by a flying conker.
LOL – thanks Andy. First laugh I’ve had all week.
Ask yourself if you really want to live and bring up your children in the same world as the brain-crippled arseholes who can make this sort of proposal. I know I’d rather not. Please… anyone… how the fuck do we get rid of them?
How do we get rid of them? There is only one way mate! And, you know what it is.
Cutting down trees? Ha! ha! These pc tools are so stupid. Yeah, yeah, cut down a tree. They are a danger to children. ha! ha! No, no plant a tree. if we have no trees how will the world breathe?
Mate, these pc imbeciles just have to be the ones giving orders and "doing things" to save the rest of us from ourselves! ‘cos we don’t know how to look after ourselves like! Who made the proposal? Do you know? I would love to get their e-mail. I bet you any money it was some self-rightous, atheistic, anal retentive hippy!
It’s a wonder that mankind has survived as long as it has without these paragons of public safety monitoring every tiny little corner of our world and banning/prohibiting/legislating anything and everything that jeopardizes the health and well-being of the human species.
Thank you Governments of the World for making MY world just a little more…um…BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is turning our children into people who are no longer self-reliant or even resourceful. I really don’t see where it will end.
Oh Andy, I fear it will end when we are so hide-bound, so insulated, so terrified of stepping out our doors into the great Unknown that we DON’T…I can see a world populated by little hunched-over, bug-eyed moles who communicate solely by computer and live in sterlized, holes with padded walls, breathing triple-filtered air, eating pureed foodstuffs from which all potentially dangerous ingredients have been removed…all the joy, the wonder, the risk stripped from life…crap, I’d rather be dead!
But I know people like that NOW. And do parents in the average town let their kids play outside any more?
Poor Kids…… That caps it all.
You know I wouldn’t exchange my poverty stricken childhood where we had to play outside come rain, sleet, snow or sunshine, from 8:00am to 8:00pm, for the insulated existence they call childhood today.
A new pair of shoes was a once a year event, toys where for Christmas and lasted from one Christmas to the next and bloody noses, bruised arms and skint knees were part of every day living.
No…… you can keep this PC childhood and give me poverty ridden improvised fun anytime.
[...] “The following is a direct lift from a comment I received today that came from a friend who is a teacher. Read it and weep…… View Here [...]
RJi: Actually, regardless of whether impoverished or not, it was healthier both physically and mentally, helped you prepare for the world, boosted your immune system and got it working properly and ensured that the vast majority of kids didn’t grow up dysfunctional with the social and communication skills of a toddler in a tantrum.
Isn’t it always blamed on poverty though. Aren’t the PC brigade doing things to improve life for the poor?
Or it’s the health and safety issue. Well, I was run down by three cars and broke my arm, my leg and my jaw all before I was 16 and I still got to 6′1" with a 48" chest.
Humans are made to run, to fight for position and to adapt to dangerous situations. Weeding that out of us will only stunt the growth of the race and hold our development in the capitalist era.
No, today’s problem is a magnification of the requirement of the rich to maintain a steady flow of cheap labour and to make sure the cheap labour cannot think beyond the need to acquire the shiny junk that the rich produce.
Your kids are being groomed as cheap labour and unthinking consumers.