The Softening Of America
One thing that's been grating on me over the past few years is how overly safety-conscious everyone's become the past few years. There's a line between being safe, and being paranoid...and it seems like lately that line's getting more and more blurred.
I didn't realize that a handful of Chicago suburbs have banned sparklers, and Palatine joined that list last night. The killjoys there say that sparklers CAN reach temperatures approaching 1800 degrees, and CAN cause fires if they come in contact with flammable materials.
Back in the Big Scary 1980s, before kids played baseball with soft-core balls and every garage had a set of Jarts in it, me and the other kids in the 'hood got to play with sparklers every Fourth Of July. No one ever got burned, and no one's house ever got burned down. Our parents kept a close eye on us, and told us that sparklers were NOT TOYS, and NOT SOMETHING TO GOOF AROUND WITH.
But nowadays, seems like Mommy and Daddy Suburbanite don't want to teach their kids right and wrong and safe and unsafe anymore. So instead they just ban stuff.
One thing that's been grating on me over the past few years is how overly safety-conscious everyone's become the past few years. There's a line between being safe, and being paranoid...and it seems like lately that line's getting more and more blurred.
I didn't realize that a handful of Chicago suburbs have banned sparklers, and Palatine joined that list last night. The killjoys there say that sparklers CAN reach temperatures approaching 1800 degrees, and CAN cause fires if they come in contact with flammable materials.
Back in the Big Scary 1980s, before kids played baseball with soft-core balls and every garage had a set of Jarts in it, me and the other kids in the 'hood got to play with sparklers every Fourth Of July. No one ever got burned, and no one's house ever got burned down. Our parents kept a close eye on us, and told us that sparklers were NOT TOYS, and NOT SOMETHING TO GOOF AROUND WITH.
But nowadays, seems like Mommy and Daddy Suburbanite don't want to teach their kids right and wrong and safe and unsafe anymore. So instead they just ban stuff.
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