And you are unable to grasp the concept of private property. Period.
Talking to you is like trying to have a debate with Elmer Fudd.
You don't understand that providing a service to some people doesn't have to mean that you have to provide that service to all people.
Legislation exists that prevents discrimination. Believe it or not laws apply on private property too. I can't commit murder and get away with it just because it happened on private property. Yes, a shop owner can decide not to serve a customer and ask them to leave. However if that shop owner does so on the basis of race or sex for instance, they fall afoul of the law. (Granted that it may be hard to prove, but my point is not about the specific crime, only that freedoms aren't absolute).
You are not free until you are free to be an ass hole and chose not to be nice to some people.
Am I not free because I'm not allowed to commit murder? Or is that sort of freedom undesirable? The moment your 'freedoms' impinge on others those freedoms need to be curtailed to find a happy medium that provides a safe and harmonious society for all.
You think you are being nice by forcing some 3rd parties to do as you wish. Well, you are not "nice". You are pro-tyranny. In 1776, you'd fighting on the side of King George. Your argument would have been that he takes care of us so we must submit to him.
I am most certainly not pro-tyranny because I think the law should be there to provide a safe place for us all.
Are you capable of doing anything but ranting? Seriously, you're now deciding for me what side I'd fight on in a civil war in a country that I never lived in that happened wel over 200 years ago? You must know me a lot better than I know myself.
I'll go ahead and laugh at you again.
Yes, you're a laughing fool.
Wow. I've been having an argument with someone who doesn't understand basic logic. Fine. I'll stop. You can go vote for the senators that decide to standardize the value of pi to be equal to 3 (for people's convenience) for all I care.
Wow. You put words in my mouth, I repeatedly state that is not my position, and _I'm_ the one that can't understand logic, because I won't agree with you? You're living in a fantasy.
Saying one thing and doing another... you know like everything you say... self-contradictions of the kind that you put forward are, by definition, hypocritical.
Nothing I've said is at all hypocritical. Your misrepresentations of my position may well be but I'm not responsible for your dillusions. You talk about freedom and civil war, but won't give anything up for for freedom (not even fucking peanut butter). You don't even understand the concept. To you freedom literally means you're allowed to do whatever you fucking please without any regard for anyone else. That's not freedom, that's anarchy, and the law of the jungle. Your model of freedom 'to be an asshole' is the ultimate contradiction because the moment that anyone is allowed to do whatever they fucking please there will be those that choose to oppress others.
Really laughing hard now.
Like I said, a laughing fool.
You little impish moron.
Ah the irony. I'm neither little nor impish. Your further assessment of me as a moron means nothing since I've already decided you're an idiot.
How do you not get that you do not get to support or not support this (in your role as a school administrator -- not as an internet twit)? You only get to support things which are within your control.
Control? You have more control than me over this? That's news to me. Unless you're a school administrator or legislator, last I checked we're both just commentators here. So what's your point? That neither of us should be allowed to comment? (In which case why are you commenting?) You're irrational to the point of gibbering.
Once the anonymity is asserted, supporting or not supporting it is beyond your
In Australia and the UK there are packs of chavs that dazzle drivers with lasers as they pull up to stop signs to amuse their friends. Sometimes those drivers get out of the car. Then if they're lucky they beat the shit out of the chavs, and if they're unlucky the chavs beat the shit out of them.
Here's a thought. Enforce the existing laws and bring these teenagers to justice. If you ban these things, they'll still be around for years and these kids won't care that there are harsh penalties. If these kids were throwing bricks at passing cars, you wouldn't try to ban or license the ownership of bricks.
There are legitimate uses for laser pointers, at least up to 5mW (class IIIa).
Would you ban rocks and bricks as well? If those kids didn't have a laser pointer they could just as easily thrown a rock or brick as some Australian teenage idiots have and you wouldn't have recovered from that.
There ARE legitimate uses for these lasers. Astronomy being a key one.
Completely wrong. A class IIIa laser outputs no more than 5mW. Class 2 tops out at 1mW. Some red laser pointers are class 2, but a lot of lasers are class IIIa.
Astronomy? No serious astronomer would use a device that further increases light pollution. They should be banned for this reason alone.
Shows how much you know. Green laser pointers are tool commonly used by astronomers to point out astronomical objects in the sky. The beam can be seen at night as it reflects off particles in the air.
Have you looked above you lately? Unless you live near a major airport I think you'll find the skies aren't that crowded that you're going to hit a random plane cockpit at 5km by accident.
5-10mW lasers are often used in astronomy as the beam can be seen against even suburban skies and can be used to point out features in the night sky. You are very very careful not to shine one in a person's eye, but unless you're being an idiot about it, it's not something that's hard to avoid. Only point it up.
It's a goddamn laser pointer, not a fucking rifle. Classifying it as a weapon is to say the least an extreme thing. You could do as much damage blinding pilots with a large searchlight, and if you're trying to blind pilots it isn't like you're going to give a shit that your laser has been classified as a weapon.
In other words YOU don't need one so YOU think it's fine.
I own a few telescopes, and have a laser pointer. I don't use the telescopes or the pointer as much as I'd like to but now I have to go home and check if it's class 2 or 3, and then work out if I have to get rid of it if it's class 3.
Astronomy education? Who needs it! Never mind that the criminal fucks that were trying to blind pilots were using more powerful lasers, lets ban the 5mW ones as well. Oh and lets classify it as a weapon so you need to store it in a locked cabinet and pay fees to get a permit.
Idiotic. As others have pointed out there are many many dangerous things in this world that could cause damage to a large number of people. Banning their legitimate use or regulating it such that it may as well be banned is yet another example of being too afraid to maintain our own freedoms.
Right back at ya, kid. Fly on your fucken planes and don't tell us what to do on ours. They are not you daddy's planes. You don't get to tell us how to fly... you selfish fuck.
You're an idiot, pure and simple. You rightly point out that it's not my plane to do with as I wish, but you're unwilling to acknowledge that a person's right to use the transport just might not be outweighed by other people's desire to consume fucking peanuts. If the airline refuses to accomodate an allergy sufferer they go and fly on an airline that does. If one does not exist, they don't fly. In contrast you give up a single food item, selfish moron.
Something it wouldn't be able to do if it stuck to its main mission -- education. As soon as it was allowed to prioritize egalitarianism over education, it was allowed to resort to hypocrisy. I believe you are now arguing my point for me.
I believe you're failing to comprehend because you're an idiot.
As a side note, you do pay taxes proportionate to your use of the roads. Roads are maintained with the excise tax on gasoline -- not with income taxes (as is commonly misinterpreted)
Where I come from it's a combination of income tax and excise that maintains the road. It's probably the same for you but you're too full of yourself arguing your selfishness to bother with reality. In any case I provided plenty of other examples that are paid for by income tax and are for the common good. Ignore them all you like. You just come across as a troll.
The concept that is otherwise known as "freedom is slavery".
That's a new level of stupidity even for/. George Orwell to justify eating an easily substituted food in a public place at the expense of the safety of others.
You can agree or disagree with it all you want. The anonymity was allowed and not discouraged because of the philosophy you purport
Garbage. I repeatedly stated taht I do NOT support the anonymity of the student in this case and that it's dangerous. You're just too feeble minded to comprehend what I've said no matter how much I repeat it. I wasn't on that school board and am not responsible for their philosophy or their interpretation of how to apply it.
And the reason for it is that people like you think that voicing an opinion or a judgment on something as being wrong is enough to make it impossible and not worth considering.
Buddy you don't know people like me. Apparently the only people you hang out with are self serving mean spirited misanthropes. When you're done putting those words in my mouth perhaps you can actually take the time to argue against the argument I actually presented instead of character assassination based on arguments I never made in the first place.
When the fact remains the impossibilities were created by non-negotiable nature of egalitarianism.
You're all about -isms and extremes of behaviour, all to justify your right to party with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You share the community with other people and your rights are curtailed by this, but you don't acknowledge it. You're an empty husk of a human being, willing to throw your fellow man on the scrap heap in a misguided attempt to ensure your rights are never infringed upon. To do this you're happy to ignore reality. We're all flawed and we all need to depend on each other at some point. A society where this doesn't happen is a harsh cruel one where people revert to the law of the jungle. Have fun with that.
You go on and on about hyprocrisy but you don't even understand the meaning of the word. You don't get that every time you use a public facility that isn't pay per use you are the one being the hypocrite.
But you and yours have done just that by insisting on egalitarianism.
You keep insisting I hold a point of view that I've repeatedly stated I don't hold. How do I even continue to discuss this with an irrational troll.
Most things work, but it's the annoying bugs (like the constant disk use which kills laptop battery life).
From personal experience: Don't even think about using Vista restore unless you're prepared to have your partitions wiped and nothing restored. Details: Dell Laptop, Vista and XP partitions dual boot.
I'm male but when I was 18 working my first IT job (before I went back and got a degree) I'd be asked to make the coffee when visitors came to our office. Fortunately I don't drink coffee and my coffee making skills are truly awful. So I learnt that if you make bad coffee you never get thought of as the coffee boy. Valuable lesson. Do it incompetently enough and you'll not be asked to do it ever again. Like I said I don't drink coffee but by all accounts man that was some undrinkable shit I served.
Used the same trick recently on a visiting priest that decided to drop by unannounced at 9:30pm and bible bash us while denouncing evolution in the usual way creationists do. Unfortunately he drank the coffee I made - filter coffee made as if it was instant (a genuine but convenient stuff up on my part).
he inconvenience of getting the school's population not to bring peanut products to school is trivial to absorb.
The case in question discussed the "inconvenience" of not being able to proceed with the normal class work in school. How convenient it must be to substitute a seemingly harmless example into your analogy.
I was unaware that the inability to bring and consume peanuts and peanut butter to school caused an inability for normal class work to proceed.
I think you mean "civil" rather than civilized.
The word you're looking for is pedantic misdirection.
. Egalitarianism is appropriate in certain settings. It is wildly inappropriate in others. The examples of peanuts on airplanes and latex in schools are precisely the times when it would be inappropriate.
I'm tempted to just respond with abuse, since you can't seem to distinguish between what is required for something to remain functional and what is not. A plane doesn't run on fucking peanut oil and banning it from airlines will be less inconvenient than the crap already banned in the name of security theatre. Buy and consume your peanuts elsewhere you selfish fuck.
As for the latex allergy I'll recap what's already been discussed here. 1) There are other alternatives to latex that can be used for gloves and that some hospitals have already started using. 2) Once the allergy gets to the point that it actually prevents the school from functioning, it's time to concede that the student can't be part of that community. 3) It really sounds like the school was using this for budget cuts.
I am not sure about whether it should exist on private property. Certainly forcing stores to have handicapped access smacks of taking away property rights.
Figures that you'd have that attitude....right up until the point that a disability affects you. See this right here is my problem. People think they have the right to be completely selfish at the expense of others. It doesn't work like that. You pay taxes proportionate to your income not your use of state roads, hospitals, schools and other facilities. This is a requirement to have those facilities at all. You do benefit indirectly. Less crime, better opporunties if you or those you care about have children etc. Your right to do what you wish to on your land has limits too. You can't build a nuclear reactor on your land. If its zoned residential you can't set up a shop. If it's zoned commercial you have obligations to those who use your facility. You have to provide toilets (even for those who can hold it in!). You have to make sure the place is safe for children even if your target audience is adults....and you have an obligation to provide disabled parking. Its not that big a concession and it isn't very costly when you look at the total cost of running a shopping center. That you find it onerous that you have to do this, just because it doesn't directly benefit the majority means you grossly misunderstand the ramifications of removing such protections. You'd end up in a minority group of some description at some point. More importantly everyone in the majority will belong to one or more minority groups - elderly, diabetic, pregnant mother...you name it. Making it impossible for these people to function in society eventually makes it impossible for the majority - death by a thousand cuts.
In this case, there was no approach that could allow school to fulfill it's educational mission and act egalitarian. It had to pick one or the other.
You're quite simply wrong as it turns out. There are alternatives to latex. However I've already repeatedly said that if the school literally can't function the child doesn't belong there. I've also repeatedly said banning peanuts is not the point at which to draw that line. I don't know what it is you don't understand about this.
The child (and presumably parents) insisted on anonymity.
Which is a double edged sword. That anonimity could cost the child
the episode where one child poisons another with peanuts (the second child has a peanut allergy) is quite realistic
Children don't usually stab each other to death just because a knife is left lying around. It comes down to education that about those consequences. Even children must be taught that life is precious - don't knife people to death, don't run in front of moving traffic, and don't poison your classmate with an allergen.
The school had to compromise its primary mission. All the arguments about what the parents or the children could have done are particulars that no longer matter. The point of that post was that it was the philosophy that lead to this failure
What nonsense is this? One approach fails, therefore it's a philosophical issue and so would all approaches? I haven't ever seen such defeatism. If at first you don't succeed you're destined to fail no matter how you try? What rubbish! There are plenty of schools successfully dealing with students that have life threatening allergies.
Had the school not tried to be egalitarian and insisted that the class proceed as usual, the child with latex allergy would be forced to do the reasonable thing (or risk harm) just by the nature of what was going on. But because the school decided to be egalitarian, everyone was disadvantaged.
By that logic we should never go out of our way for a person with a disability. Disabled parking shouldn't exist. There should be no support for disabled people in any way.
Sometimes in a civilized society, society as a whole takes a small hit to make a small minority's life manageable. That is as it should be. Such cooperation is a key reason why we have education in the first place. (I don't have children yet my taxes pay for a school system). Cooperation is a key reason we have a technological civilization.
Whether or not you accomodate an allergic child comes down to how large the concession is. The inconvenience of getting the school's population not to bring peanut products to school is trivial to absorb. An allergy to something required to educate or protect the children, for which there is no substitute is harder to work around and if there's no way to work around the situation, the whole school should not be disadvantaged. In that case the child's condition means they'll need to seek alternative arrangements outside the school community. Some attempt should be made to at least try to find a solution first, just as some attempt would be made to provide wheelchair access, at least in some schools.
Think about what options these children have if no one accomodates them. Do you really want a small horde of children growing up with little or no education, a life threatening allergy that can be triggered any moment and a resentment at society for disposing of them as something inconvenient? Could such a child do anything but become a criminal, if they survive?
Anaphylaxis refers to severe allergic reaction where the airway swells and the person stops breathing unless given medical aid. Usually the person has to use an epi-pen (adrenaline injector) which gets them through the immediate problem (basically makes makes their breathing and heart-rate powerful and fast so any gap in the airway will allow them to breath) until an ambulance arrives. In extreme cases an tracheotomy might be needed, but in most cases more adrenaline and powerful anti allergy drugs (antihystamines I think but couldn't tell you for sure) are given. The aim is to keep them breathing until the reaction subsides.
Thanks for the information. Not only is there a good alternative I didn't know about, but I also didn't know about latex dust being so much of an issue (though it does make sense).
Does your room-mate have full blown anaphylaxis or does she just get red/itchy/swollen? Did you have to make many concessions? I have no direct experience with anaphylactic reactions to either peanuts or synthetics like latex but I imagine it would be terrible. Every day would feel like a disaster waiting to happen.
My wife has anaphylaxis. She reacts to onions, garlic, capsicum, certain spices and a few other things. She use to have reactions every few weeks. Since we got together, I've given up all those foods. (You'd be suprised what onion and garlic is in!). Basically there are very limited things I would trust to have from a takeaway or fast food place. I do this even when I'm at work because I could slip up and kiss her when I get home. The rule we have is if I expect to see her within 24 hours I don't have anything she's allergic to. We also cook everything from scratch at home and are very very careful about our shopping. We've been living together over 4 years and I'm proud to say that since she moved in with me and we cleaned out the kitchen, she's only had one close call, and no epi-pens used (A lolly that contained spice extract she didn't spot in the ingredients made her lips swell up. She spat it out right away and went to the local medical centre).
I do sometimes miss my take away food, and the couple of times she's been away from me for a few days I've had massive takeout binges. Honestly though it's not that much to ask and I wouldn't give up my wife or refuse to date someone so wonderful in the first place just because I had to give up foods. It does place quite a burden on house chores not being able to grab takeout, but it's manageable.
One complication: If either of us ever becomes diabetic, or if we have a child with different allergies, our life could get a lot more complicated.
Some people are allergic to peanuts. Others are allergic to tree nuts. Milk and shellfish are other common food allergies where minute amounts can kill somebody. Eventually humans will develop enough allergies that all foods will be excluded from communal areas.
Only a handful of foods are aromatic. The smell of shellfish nuts and milk isn't going to kill a kid. Peanut butter is particularly bad. Even garlic and onion allergies are usually well tolerated if it's just smell whereas peanut oil is present in sufficient quantities in the air to trigger an anaphylactic reaction. Not that not all allergies cause anaphylaxis either.
What about the poor vegetarian kid whose only source of protein is nuts because he's allergic to milk? Can he just not go to the same school as the kid who's allergic to peanuts?
Vegetarian isn't a medical condition, but even so the kid can eat their peanuts at home by the bucket full.
Face it, denying me my favorite food just because some tiny fraction of the population has a chance to die if they're near me is ridiculous. That provides no benefit to me. OTOH, giving me an accessible web site just because a tiny fraction of the population can't use it otherwise is actually a good idea. I benefit from an accessible web site also. I can load it on a slow connection, use it without a mouse, print it, etc.
You directly don't use most of the roads in your area. That doesn't mean you shouldn't pay taxes to have them built. Should I even start on disabled parking facilities? Face it, you're a self centered asshole who has no concept of civilized society or community. A society in which each and every one of us is thrown aside if we develop any kind of imperfection would see us all cast aside by the time we're 30. Grow the fuck up.
That said, I don't have kids but if I did I'd be willing to take this one to the mats. It still hasn't been pointed out in any real way why the PERSON WITH THE PROBLEM is not the one required to modify their behavior.
Oh yes, fight for your right to have your hypothetical child much on peanut butter at school!!! We aren't talking about life and death for the children that get to eat their peanuts and peanut butter at home. We are talking life and death for the allergic child.
If you really think the child doesn't have to modify their behaviour you're ignorant. Children with this condition typically carry an epi-pen. Now dangerous things like needles aren't something you let a child walk around with, so they usually have to hand it to a teacher in the classroom or on duty and stay within sight of that teacher. When a reaction happens, and they do, that expensive needled gets used. It's no quick fix. It's just to keep them breathing until an ambulance arrives and administers more medication and gets them to a hospital where they'll stay for a few days while their body gets over the shock of not only the reaction and fighting for any air as your airway clogs up but also the cocktail of medications that had to be put through their body to keep them alive. That is of course if they get proper medical attention in a timely fashion. If they don't they could be dead. Speaking of modifying behaviour would you let any child with that kind of condition go anywhere out of reach of medical care? Hiking and camping is out of the question. Hell even a boat ride on the harbour or on a river might not be a good idea.
So you've got me, the kid who won't eat anything but peanut butter (seriously. nothing. fruit, pizza, you name it I spread it on) and the kid who has the alergy.
No, lets get it right. You've got the spoilt brat who won't eat anything but peanut butter, and the kid who has a serious life threatening medical condition.
For both of us to eat, the school has to put one of us aside and assign someone to watch over us. Which kid should be pushed to the side?
Dude get a fucking grip, the other kid can't simply suck it up and cope with your peanuts. It's a medical condition!!! To me it's fucking obvious which child.
My read on this (and this is actually what happened) is gimpy allergy kid doesn't take the field trip.
My take on this is that you're still a spoilt fucking brat and that it would have done you the world of good if your parents had banned peanut butter altogether as punishment for your behaviour. Perhaps if they had you wouldn't be referring to kids with medical conditions as "gimpy" and insisting your right to be spoilt outweighs their right to a safe education.
As a society, how shall we deal with short people? Should we lower all the shelves, or just make ladders conveniently available when needed?
Oh yeah that's the same thing isn't it. Not getting to the top shelf is more like not getting to eat your favourite food than a life threatening allergy. In this analogy you're not only proposing that we remove the ladders, but that to prevent law suits, we ban short people from the store and if they try to get in anyway we shoot them.
What if the short person would only eat whatever's on the top shelf? What if the peanut butter's on the top shelf.
I feel for your daughter, but there is a difference between the two situations. Peanut-oil/-butter/-etc is not a dangerous substance. Your daughter is allergic to a normally non dangerous substance.
First it's not my daughter. Second it's a matter of perspective. At what point would you classify it as a dangerous substance. When 10% of the school population is allergic? 20%? 50%?
Bringing really dangerous stuff, like weapons, is dangerous to every kid on the premises. Peanut butter is not. Imagine a kid that could not be in the same room as a loaf of bread. Would you ban the other schoolkids from bringing bread?
There does come a point at which an allergy means you can't function in a normal environment. That point is not when a single aromatic food is the trigger.
The problem here is not peanuts, but your daughters condition. I do understand you're worried about the whole thing, but consider this: next time you take her to the mall, there could be a promotional stand with someone serving peanut butter
Again, not my daughter. However if you actually take time to think about what you're saying you start to see how difficult life is for a kid with this condition, and what they struggle against every day. This isn't an adult and it isn't a child in a foreign country on the other side of the planet. This is someone that is part of our immediate community. To suggest that banning a couple of foods in a common place like a school is way too much of a burden on society is an insult to the child and shows complete disrespect for their worth as a member of the community PARTICULARLY since they have to face scenarios like the one you just described. It may be that the child has to avoid grocery stalls and be on the lookout at shopping malls, and even then expect that once in a blue moon they'll need adrenaline and medical attention and that if they don't act promptly that is the end of them.
The problem here is not peanuts, but your daughters condition. I do understand you're worried about the whole thing, but consider this: next time you take her to the mall, there could be a promotional stand with someone serving peanut butter.... or someone just ate lunch and didn't notice some peanut butter left on his hands and he happens to stand behind her in the line. You can easily imagine a dozen situation in which she'll be exposed to peanut butter. Not directly, after all, you claim she can get problems by just being in vicinity of it.
Again not my daughter.
Which is why you educate the children, get them washing their hands, and have a teacher looking out for them. They may slip up and the child may still be in danger from time to time and THAT is a burden that only the child and his/her parents can bear. However if you don't even institute a ban on the substance it becomes unworkable. The child will have reactions almost every day they're in school.
Fact is: your daughter is going to have a terrible life because of this disability. She'll be safe nowhere, with the possible exception of "at home". I feel for her, but you're not going to be able to protect her. You have to realise that a 100 years ago, your kid would have died at an early age and you wouldn't even have known that it was because of peanuts. Don't mistake me for saying that your daughter should die: I only want to put this in perspective for you.
Again not my daughter.
200 years ago (to be a little more accurate) do you have any idea what the risks of childbirth were? What life expectancy was? You could die of so many things and no one would know why you died. You could die of something as simple as an infection from a cut. That's the advantage of modern medicine and modern society. It's an advantage we all share. For that matter what were the odds that your child would even get an education?
The world is a dangerous place.... For everyone, but due to her condition, more to your daughter.
Its been said, but worth repeating: you keep bringing up guns, knives, and cyanide as dangerous substances. They are dangerous to every living creature on the planet. The peanuts? That's just your kid, dude. I'm sure the 100% removal of peanuts would solve her problem. But her problems aren't everyone else's.
Actually it's not my kid at all, dude. If you're part of a school community the safety of every kid should be the school's problem. If your kid doesn't have to cross the road to get to school do you refuse to support having crossing guards because your kid doesn't need them and it's not your problem? Knives and guns aren't dangerous. People using them is. So if you want to trust your kid with a knife or a gun, should I just let you pack one in your kid's lunch box?
I ask again, is there nothing else AT ALL that would keep her from dieing? Since we're discussing total bans and such, this is a serious question: are there any other options that would allow everyone else to march on as they are but keep your kid from dieing? Epi pins have come up and are obviously a last resort, "oh, shit!" sort of option. What about a gas mask or a plastic suit or something?
If the allergy is to something that doesn't spread through the air, just keeping that kid away from people is fine. Peanuts are special because the oil is airborne. The best and safest way to prevent a reaction is to keep the allergen out of the environment. The same people who suggest ineffective shit like gas masks, or your wonderful suggestion of an overpriced space suit would scream blue murder if it was their kid. Get a grip and keep in in perspective. We're not talking about a whole raft of foods, and we're not talking about your kid never getting to eat them. Just don't bring that shit to school. Is that really such a fucking big sacrifice to make for a classmate that you'd rather force them into a fucking space suit? I mean FUCK!
Considering the sweeping changes in the behavior of others you are pushing for (while its just a discussion here, I'm sure its got more vigor in your local school board meetings) I think it would be disingeniousness of you at best not to at least discuss other options.
Given the resistence you're seeing do you REALLY think this was just the first solution that came to someone in the middle of the night?
Perhaps we won't be able to make the school 100% safe for your kid, but maybe it shouldn't be a 100% peanut free for all for mine.
Your kid doesn't get peanut butter at school, there are only about 100,000 other foods to choose from. Your kid does and this kid isn't safe.
YOUR KID CAN EAT IT AT HOME. Easy. Give them peanuts and peanut butter for breakfast, on the weekend, or as an after dinner snack. No one is suggesting banning it from your supermarket.
Is there some solution that would make things, say, 75% safe for her (just pulling a number here) but maybe let kids eat peanut butter for lunch at, say, one end of the cafeteria?
Listen to yourself. Would you be sending your kid to school if there was a 25% chance each and every day that they'd have a life threatening allergic reaction?
Is this really what you want to teach your kid. Life's hard. It's your problem. No one cares about you and you should never give up anyone to help anyone else, even when their life is at risk???
Don't dismiss this as people wanting treats on occasion -- in my case, a total ban on peanut butter would have amounted to a total ban on lunch. Every. Single. Day.
You have a medical condition that I don't know about that means you can't eat anything but peanut butter? What you're saying is that you were a spoilt brat that wouldn't eat what you were given for lunch unless it was your one favourite food. Do you honestly think that if your parents had persisted you wouldn't have just once gotten hungry enough at lunch time to eat what you were goddamn given? You don't think you could have been encouraged, coaxed or bribed to eat
You're obviously unable to follow a thread (and I have a number of family members with anaphylactic allergies, so you can shove you assumptions somewhere else).
Oh I'm sorry, did I not read every message on the entire fucking thread? Did I miss one of yours? My humble apologies your royal magesty. If you'll excuse me I shall have myself whipped immediately.
Ah that's better. Now where was I. Oh yes. If you really do have members with such allergies, and if you understand why aromatic food allergies are particularly bad - ie you can be affected from across the room, might I suggest that you really are a moron, sire! Suggesting a child wear a fucking gas mask means you have zero no concept of how impractical it is to do that.
If a child is so allergic to peanuts that merely smelling them on someone's breath is enough to trigger thier allergy, then banning the sale of peanuts in a common area is not going to achieve anything.
You state that as a fact, but your arguments supporting the statement are piss weak and are contradicted by the fact that such practices have proven sufficient to protect these children in schools. In other words, instead of suggesting I shove something up my rectum how about you stop talking out of yours.
Even if you banned the sale or consumption of peanuts in your common area - how do you propose to keep people away from the child that have consumed peanuts recently outside of your common area?
Again, a complete demonstration of ignorance about the nature of peanuts and peanut butter. So long as a child doesn't walk through the door with the peanut butter smeared all over their hands and mouth, having it for breakfast 30 minutes ago shouldn't be an issue. There's this thing called saliva that coats and breaks down food. Once again how about you fucking educate yourself about how the world actually works before hurling abuse and making unsupportable fantasy statements like this one.
If you can't get a child with that severity of allergy to put on a mask when venturing out into an area accessible to the general public, how the hell do you expect to force every single person that child may ever come into contact with to make 100% sure they haven't eaten peanuts within the last few hours?
My wife works as a casual primary school teacher and has dealt with this. The policy in the school is simple. If a child walks in with food that's going to trigger a child they are asked to eat it outside as far away from the allergic child as possible, and a note is sent home to parents asking them not to give the child this food again. It isn't perfect and frankly I'd go much further by bringing the parents in and explaining and setting out consequences. As it happens the method used in schools at which my wife has taught has been sufficient to keep the children safe. At one large school she works at there are 5 or 6 kids with allergies and it's only peanuts that are a real issue. In any case it doesn't eliminate the possibility of a child requiring medical attention - these children give the teacher on duty their epi-pen and stay close at lunch time in case anything should happen. What it does do is make it possible for them to get a somewhat normal education without going to hospital every 3rd day because some idiot decides their child's right to eat peanut butter sandwiches at lunch time outweighs another kid's right to fucking breath or go to school. Giving something up to help out a class mate is a good lesson to teach them. You are suppose to be teaching children how to function in society, not how to be self centered assholes.
Ban and eradicate peanuts? Lock the child away? I eagerly await your magical solution that solves such a child's problem without going to either of these extremes...
No magical solution needed. It just requires a bit of thought, a bit of common courtesy, and to give up something. The same way you give up a couple of prime parking spots for disabled people in a shopping center car park.
Given that the gp said that the child was anonymous, the fact taht latex is not aromatic does not matter.
Given that this affects the whole school a more sensible approach would be to accommodate the child if they (or rather their parents) chose not to remain anonymous.
Frankly it sounds to me like they wanted to remove the latex gloves and used this as an excuse. I wonder if there was an allergic child. Most people with this kind of allergy want those around them to know what to do should they have a reaction. Of course this does imply some level of trust as it would be easy for another child to set off the allergy on purpose out of spite. It would really depend on how common violence was at the school as to wether withholding this information makes any sense.
Otherwise, you'd be a hypocrite right now for saying that people who won't give up luxuries for the sake others are inhuman.
Oh for pity sake. We're not talking about a starving child half a world away. We're talking about giving up that simple luxury to protect a classmate: someone who's an immediate part of the school community.
I've given up foods for someone with an allergy so I'm not being a hypocrite. If you want details you'll have to stop posting as A/C which is childish under the circumstances. What do you need the protection of anonymity for in this discussion?
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And you are unable to grasp the concept of private property. Period.
Talking to you is like trying to have a debate with Elmer Fudd.
You don't understand that providing a service to some people doesn't have to mean that you have to provide that service to all people.
Legislation exists that prevents discrimination. Believe it or not laws apply on private property too. I can't commit murder and get away with it just because it happened on private property. Yes, a shop owner can decide not to serve a customer and ask them to leave. However if that shop owner does so on the basis of race or sex for instance, they fall afoul of the law. (Granted that it may be hard to prove, but my point is not about the specific crime, only that freedoms aren't absolute).
You are not free until you are free to be an ass hole and chose not to be nice to some people.
Am I not free because I'm not allowed to commit murder? Or is that sort of freedom undesirable? The moment your 'freedoms' impinge on others those freedoms need to be curtailed to find a happy medium that provides a safe and harmonious society for all.
You think you are being nice by forcing some 3rd parties to do as you wish. Well, you are not "nice". You are pro-tyranny. In 1776, you'd fighting on the side of King George. Your argument would have been that he takes care of us so we must submit to him.
I am most certainly not pro-tyranny because I think the law should be there to provide a safe place for us all.
Are you capable of doing anything but ranting? Seriously, you're now deciding for me what side I'd fight on in a civil war in a country that I never lived in that happened wel over 200 years ago? You must know me a lot better than I know myself.
I'll go ahead and laugh at you again.
Yes, you're a laughing fool.
Wow. I've been having an argument with someone who doesn't understand basic logic. Fine. I'll stop. You can go vote for the senators that decide to standardize the value of pi to be equal to 3 (for people's convenience) for all I care.
Wow. You put words in my mouth, I repeatedly state that is not my position, and _I'm_ the one that can't understand logic, because I won't agree with you? You're living in a fantasy.
Saying one thing and doing another... you know like everything you say... self-contradictions of the kind that you put forward are, by definition, hypocritical.
Nothing I've said is at all hypocritical. Your misrepresentations of my position may well be but I'm not responsible for your dillusions. You talk about freedom and civil war, but won't give anything up for for freedom (not even fucking peanut butter). You don't even understand the concept. To you freedom literally means you're allowed to do whatever you fucking please without any regard for anyone else. That's not freedom, that's anarchy, and the law of the jungle. Your model of freedom 'to be an asshole' is the ultimate contradiction because the moment that anyone is allowed to do whatever they fucking please there will be those that choose to oppress others.
Really laughing hard now.
Like I said, a laughing fool.
You little impish moron.
Ah the irony. I'm neither little nor impish. Your further assessment of me as a moron means nothing since I've already decided you're an idiot.
How do you not get that you do not get to support or not support this (in your role as a school administrator -- not as an internet twit)? You only get to support things which are within your control.
Control? You have more control than me over this? That's news to me. Unless you're a school administrator or legislator, last I checked we're both just commentators here. So what's your point? That neither of us should be allowed to comment? (In which case why are you commenting?) You're irrational to the point of gibbering.
Once the anonymity is asserted, supporting or not supporting it is beyond your
...because co-ordinated groups of bored teenagers are going to respect the law and stop using them.
All this will do is prevent legitimate use.
In Australia and the UK there are packs of chavs that dazzle drivers with lasers as they pull up to stop signs to amuse their friends. Sometimes those drivers get out of the car. Then if they're lucky they beat the shit out of the chavs, and if they're unlucky the chavs beat the shit out of them.
Here's a thought. Enforce the existing laws and bring these teenagers to justice. If you ban these things, they'll still be around for years and these kids won't care that there are harsh penalties. If these kids were throwing bricks at passing cars, you wouldn't try to ban or license the ownership of bricks.
There are legitimate uses for laser pointers, at least up to 5mW (class IIIa).
Would you ban rocks and bricks as well? If those kids didn't have a laser pointer they could just as easily thrown a rock or brick as some Australian teenage idiots have and you wouldn't have recovered from that.
There ARE legitimate uses for these lasers. Astronomy being a key one.
Completely wrong. A class IIIa laser outputs no more than 5mW. Class 2 tops out at 1mW. Some red laser pointers are class 2, but a lot of lasers are class IIIa.
Astronomy? No serious astronomer would use a device that further increases light pollution. They should be banned for this reason alone.
Shows how much you know. Green laser pointers are tool commonly used by astronomers to point out astronomical objects in the sky. The beam can be seen at night as it reflects off particles in the air.
Point it up at the stars, not at planes.
Have you looked above you lately? Unless you live near a major airport I think you'll find the skies aren't that crowded that you're going to hit a random plane cockpit at 5km by accident.
No it's not about permanent eye damage, it's about bringing down the plane by distracting or blinding a pilot on final.
Class IIIa lasers aren't to be pointed into people's eyes but permanent damage from a quick flash is rare
http://ehs.uky.edu/radiation/laser_fs.html
IIIb is s a different story.
5-10mW lasers are often used in astronomy as the beam can be seen against even suburban skies and can be used to point out features in the night sky. You are very very careful not to shine one in a person's eye, but unless you're being an idiot about it, it's not something that's hard to avoid. Only point it up.
It's a goddamn laser pointer, not a fucking rifle. Classifying it as a weapon is to say the least an extreme thing. You could do as much damage blinding pilots with a large searchlight, and if you're trying to blind pilots it isn't like you're going to give a shit that your laser has been classified as a weapon.
In other words YOU don't need one so YOU think it's fine.
I own a few telescopes, and have a laser pointer. I don't use the telescopes or the pointer as much as I'd like to but now I have to go home and check if it's class 2 or 3, and then work out if I have to get rid of it if it's class 3.
Astronomy education? Who needs it! Never mind that the criminal fucks that were trying to blind pilots were using more powerful lasers, lets ban the 5mW ones as well. Oh and lets classify it as a weapon so you need to store it in a locked cabinet and pay fees to get a permit.
Idiotic. As others have pointed out there are many many dangerous things in this world that could cause damage to a large number of people. Banning their legitimate use or regulating it such that it may as well be banned is yet another example of being too afraid to maintain our own freedoms.
Right back at ya, kid. Fly on your fucken planes and don't tell us what to do on ours. They are not you daddy's planes. You don't get to tell us how to fly... you selfish fuck.
/. George Orwell to justify eating an easily substituted food in a public place at the expense of the safety of others.
You're an idiot, pure and simple. You rightly point out that it's not my plane to do with as I wish, but you're unwilling to acknowledge that a person's right to use the transport just might not be outweighed by other people's desire to consume fucking peanuts. If the airline refuses to accomodate an allergy sufferer they go and fly on an airline that does. If one does not exist, they don't fly. In contrast you give up a single food item, selfish moron.
Something it wouldn't be able to do if it stuck to its main mission -- education. As soon as it was allowed to prioritize egalitarianism over education, it was allowed to resort to hypocrisy. I believe you are now arguing my point for me.
I believe you're failing to comprehend because you're an idiot.
As a side note, you do pay taxes proportionate to your use of the roads. Roads are maintained with the excise tax on gasoline -- not with income taxes (as is commonly misinterpreted)
Where I come from it's a combination of income tax and excise that maintains the road. It's probably the same for you but you're too full of yourself arguing your selfishness to bother with reality. In any case I provided plenty of other examples that are paid for by income tax and are for the common good. Ignore them all you like. You just come across as a troll.
The concept that is otherwise known as "freedom is slavery".
That's a new level of stupidity even for
You can agree or disagree with it all you want. The anonymity was allowed and not discouraged because of the philosophy you purport
Garbage. I repeatedly stated taht I do NOT support the anonymity of the student in this case and that it's dangerous. You're just too feeble minded to comprehend what I've said no matter how much I repeat it. I wasn't on that school board and am not responsible for their philosophy or their interpretation of how to apply it.
And the reason for it is that people like you think that voicing an opinion or a judgment on something as being wrong is enough to make it impossible and not worth considering.
Buddy you don't know people like me. Apparently the only people you hang out with are self serving mean spirited misanthropes. When you're done putting those words in my mouth perhaps you can actually take the time to argue against the argument I actually presented instead of character assassination based on arguments I never made in the first place.
When the fact remains the impossibilities were created by non-negotiable nature of egalitarianism.
You're all about -isms and extremes of behaviour, all to justify your right to party with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You share the community with other people and your rights are curtailed by this, but you don't acknowledge it. You're an empty husk of a human being, willing to throw your fellow man on the scrap heap in a misguided attempt to ensure your rights are never infringed upon. To do this you're happy to ignore reality. We're all flawed and we all need to depend on each other at some point. A society where this doesn't happen is a harsh cruel one where people revert to the law of the jungle. Have fun with that.
You go on and on about hyprocrisy but you don't even understand the meaning of the word. You don't get that every time you use a public facility that isn't pay per use you are the one being the hypocrite.
But you and yours have done just that by insisting on egalitarianism.
You keep insisting I hold a point of view that I've repeatedly stated I don't hold. How do I even continue to discuss this with an irrational troll.
You must be a gem to live with.
Most things work, but it's the annoying bugs (like the constant disk use which kills laptop battery life).
From personal experience: Don't even think about using Vista restore unless you're prepared to have your partitions wiped and nothing restored. Details: Dell Laptop, Vista and XP partitions dual boot.
I'm male but when I was 18 working my first IT job (before I went back and got a degree) I'd be asked to make the coffee when visitors came to our office. Fortunately I don't drink coffee and my coffee making skills are truly awful. So I learnt that if you make bad coffee you never get thought of as the coffee boy. Valuable lesson. Do it incompetently enough and you'll not be asked to do it ever again. Like I said I don't drink coffee but by all accounts man that was some undrinkable shit I served.
Used the same trick recently on a visiting priest that decided to drop by unannounced at 9:30pm and bible bash us while denouncing evolution in the usual way creationists do. Unfortunately he drank the coffee I made - filter coffee made as if it was instant (a genuine but convenient stuff up on my part).
he inconvenience of getting the school's population not to bring peanut products to school is trivial to absorb.
The case in question discussed the "inconvenience" of not being able to proceed with the normal class work in school. How convenient it must be to substitute a seemingly harmless example into your analogy.
I was unaware that the inability to bring and consume peanuts and peanut butter to school caused an inability for normal class work to proceed.
I think you mean "civil" rather than civilized.
The word you're looking for is pedantic misdirection.
. Egalitarianism is appropriate in certain settings. It is wildly inappropriate in others. The examples of peanuts on airplanes and latex in schools are precisely the times when it would be inappropriate.
I'm tempted to just respond with abuse, since you can't seem to distinguish between what is required for something to remain functional and what is not. A plane doesn't run on fucking peanut oil and banning it from airlines will be less inconvenient than the crap already banned in the name of security theatre. Buy and consume your peanuts elsewhere you selfish fuck.
As for the latex allergy I'll recap what's already been discussed here.
1) There are other alternatives to latex that can be used for gloves and that some hospitals have already started using.
2) Once the allergy gets to the point that it actually prevents the school from functioning, it's time to concede that the student can't be part of that community.
3) It really sounds like the school was using this for budget cuts.
I am not sure about whether it should exist on private property. Certainly forcing stores to have handicapped access smacks of taking away property rights.
Figures that you'd have that attitude....right up until the point that a disability affects you. See this right here is my problem. People think they have the right to be completely selfish at the expense of others. It doesn't work like that. You pay taxes proportionate to your income not your use of state roads, hospitals, schools and other facilities. This is a requirement to have those facilities at all. You do benefit indirectly. Less crime, better opporunties if you or those you care about have children etc. Your right to do what you wish to on your land has limits too. You can't build a nuclear reactor on your land. If its zoned residential you can't set up a shop. If it's zoned commercial you have obligations to those who use your facility. You have to provide toilets (even for those who can hold it in!). You have to make sure the place is safe for children even if your target audience is adults....and you have an obligation to provide disabled parking. Its not that big a concession and it isn't very costly when you look at the total cost of running a shopping center. That you find it onerous that you have to do this, just because it doesn't directly benefit the majority means you grossly misunderstand the ramifications of removing such protections. You'd end up in a minority group of some description at some point. More importantly everyone in the majority will belong to one or more minority groups - elderly, diabetic, pregnant mother...you name it. Making it impossible for these people to function in society eventually makes it impossible for the majority - death by a thousand cuts.
In this case, there was no approach that could allow school to fulfill it's educational mission and act egalitarian. It had to pick one or the other.
You're quite simply wrong as it turns out. There are alternatives to latex. However I've already repeatedly said that if the school literally can't function the child doesn't belong there. I've also repeatedly said banning peanuts is not the point at which to draw that line. I don't know what it is you don't understand about this.
The child (and presumably parents) insisted on anonymity.
Which is a double edged sword. That anonimity could cost the child
the episode where one child poisons another with peanuts (the second child has a peanut allergy) is quite realistic
Children don't usually stab each other to death just because a knife is left lying around. It comes down to education that about those consequences. Even children must be taught that life is precious - don't knife people to death, don't run in front of moving traffic, and don't poison your classmate with an allergen.
The school had to compromise its primary mission. All the arguments about what the parents or the children could have done are particulars that no longer matter. The point of that post was that it was the philosophy that lead to this failure
What nonsense is this? One approach fails, therefore it's a philosophical issue and so would all approaches? I haven't ever seen such defeatism. If at first you don't succeed you're destined to fail no matter how you try? What rubbish! There are plenty of schools successfully dealing with students that have life threatening allergies.
Had the school not tried to be egalitarian and insisted that the class proceed as usual, the child with latex allergy would be forced to do the reasonable thing (or risk harm) just by the nature of what was going on. But because the school decided to be egalitarian, everyone was disadvantaged.
By that logic we should never go out of our way for a person with a disability. Disabled parking shouldn't exist. There should be no support for disabled people in any way.
Sometimes in a civilized society, society as a whole takes a small hit to make a small minority's life manageable. That is as it should be. Such cooperation is a key reason why we have education in the first place. (I don't have children yet my taxes pay for a school system). Cooperation is a key reason we have a technological civilization.
Whether or not you accomodate an allergic child comes down to how large the concession is. The inconvenience of getting the school's population not to bring peanut products to school is trivial to absorb. An allergy to something required to educate or protect the children, for which there is no substitute is harder to work around and if there's no way to work around the situation, the whole school should not be disadvantaged. In that case the child's condition means they'll need to seek alternative arrangements outside the school community. Some attempt should be made to at least try to find a solution first, just as some attempt would be made to provide wheelchair access, at least in some schools.
Think about what options these children have if no one accomodates them. Do you really want a small horde of children growing up with little or no education, a life threatening allergy that can be triggered any moment and a resentment at society for disposing of them as something inconvenient? Could such a child do anything but become a criminal, if they survive?
Anaphylaxis refers to severe allergic reaction where the airway swells and the person stops breathing unless given medical aid. Usually the person has to use an epi-pen (adrenaline injector) which gets them through the immediate problem (basically makes makes their breathing and heart-rate powerful and fast so any gap in the airway will allow them to breath) until an ambulance arrives. In extreme cases an tracheotomy might be needed, but in most cases more adrenaline and powerful anti allergy drugs (antihystamines I think but couldn't tell you for sure) are given. The aim is to keep them breathing until the reaction subsides.
Thanks for the information. Not only is there a good alternative I didn't know about, but I also didn't know about latex dust being so much of an issue (though it does make sense).
Does your room-mate have full blown anaphylaxis or does she just get red/itchy/swollen? Did you have to make many concessions? I have no direct experience with anaphylactic reactions to either peanuts or synthetics like latex but I imagine it would be terrible. Every day would feel like a disaster waiting to happen.
My wife has anaphylaxis. She reacts to onions, garlic, capsicum, certain spices and a few other things. She use to have reactions every few weeks. Since we got together, I've given up all those foods. (You'd be suprised what onion and garlic is in!). Basically there are very limited things I would trust to have from a takeaway or fast food place. I do this even when I'm at work because I could slip up and kiss her when I get home. The rule we have is if I expect to see her within 24 hours I don't have anything she's allergic to. We also cook everything from scratch at home and are very very careful about our shopping. We've been living together over 4 years and I'm proud to say that since she moved in with me and we cleaned out the kitchen, she's only had one close call, and no epi-pens used (A lolly that contained spice extract she didn't spot in the ingredients made her lips swell up. She spat it out right away and went to the local medical centre).
I do sometimes miss my take away food, and the couple of times she's been away from me for a few days I've had massive takeout binges. Honestly though it's not that much to ask and I wouldn't give up my wife or refuse to date someone so wonderful in the first place just because I had to give up foods. It does place quite a burden on house chores not being able to grab takeout, but it's manageable.
One complication: If either of us ever becomes diabetic, or if we have a child with different allergies, our life could get a lot more complicated.
Some people are allergic to peanuts. Others are allergic to tree nuts. Milk and shellfish are other common food allergies where minute amounts can kill somebody. Eventually humans will develop enough allergies that all foods will be excluded from communal areas.
Only a handful of foods are aromatic. The smell of shellfish nuts and milk isn't going to kill a kid. Peanut butter is particularly bad. Even garlic and onion allergies are usually well tolerated if it's just smell whereas peanut oil is present in sufficient quantities in the air to trigger an anaphylactic reaction. Not that not all allergies cause anaphylaxis either.
What about the poor vegetarian kid whose only source of protein is nuts because he's allergic to milk? Can he just not go to the same school as the kid who's allergic to peanuts?
Vegetarian isn't a medical condition, but even so the kid can eat their peanuts at home by the bucket full.
Face it, denying me my favorite food just because some tiny fraction of the population has a chance to die if they're near me is ridiculous. That provides no benefit to me. OTOH, giving me an accessible web site just because a tiny fraction of the population can't use it otherwise is actually a good idea. I benefit from an accessible web site also. I can load it on a slow connection, use it without a mouse, print it, etc.
You directly don't use most of the roads in your area. That doesn't mean you shouldn't pay taxes to have them built. Should I even start on disabled parking facilities? Face it, you're a self centered asshole who has no concept of civilized society or community. A society in which each and every one of us is thrown aside if we develop any kind of imperfection would see us all cast aside by the time we're 30. Grow the fuck up.
That said, I don't have kids but if I did I'd be willing to take this one to the mats. It still hasn't been pointed out in any real way why the PERSON WITH THE PROBLEM is not the one required to modify their behavior.
Oh yes, fight for your right to have your hypothetical child much on peanut butter at school!!! We aren't talking about life and death for the children that get to eat their peanuts and peanut butter at home. We are talking life and death for the allergic child.
If you really think the child doesn't have to modify their behaviour you're ignorant. Children with this condition typically carry an epi-pen. Now dangerous things like needles aren't something you let a child walk around with, so they usually have to hand it to a teacher in the classroom or on duty and stay within sight of that teacher. When a reaction happens, and they do, that expensive needled gets used. It's no quick fix. It's just to keep them breathing until an ambulance arrives and administers more medication and gets them to a hospital where they'll stay for a few days while their body gets over the shock of not only the reaction and fighting for any air as your airway clogs up but also the cocktail of medications that had to be put through their body to keep them alive. That is of course if they get proper medical attention in a timely fashion. If they don't they could be dead. Speaking of modifying behaviour would you let any child with that kind of condition go anywhere out of reach of medical care? Hiking and camping is out of the question. Hell even a boat ride on the harbour or on a river might not be a good idea.
So you've got me, the kid who won't eat anything but peanut butter (seriously. nothing. fruit, pizza, you name it I spread it on) and the kid who has the alergy.
No, lets get it right. You've got the spoilt brat who won't eat anything but peanut butter, and the kid who has a serious life threatening medical condition.
For both of us to eat, the school has to put one of us aside and assign someone to watch over us. Which kid should be pushed to the side?
Dude get a fucking grip, the other kid can't simply suck it up and cope with your peanuts. It's a medical condition!!! To me it's fucking obvious which child.
My read on this (and this is actually what happened) is gimpy allergy kid doesn't take the field trip.
My take on this is that you're still a spoilt fucking brat and that it would have done you the world of good if your parents had banned peanut butter altogether as punishment for your behaviour. Perhaps if they had you wouldn't be referring to kids with medical conditions as "gimpy" and insisting your right to be spoilt outweighs their right to a safe education.
As a society, how shall we deal with short people? Should we lower all the shelves, or just make ladders conveniently available when needed?
Oh yeah that's the same thing isn't it. Not getting to the top shelf is more like not getting to eat your favourite food than a life threatening allergy. In this analogy you're not only proposing that we remove the ladders, but that to prevent law suits, we ban short people from the store and if they try to get in anyway we shoot them.
What if the short person would only eat whatever's on the top shelf? What if the peanut butter's on the top shelf.
Fucking spoilt self centered asshole.
I feel for your daughter, but there is a difference between the two situations. Peanut-oil/-butter/-etc is not a dangerous substance. Your daughter is allergic to a normally non dangerous substance.
First it's not my daughter. Second it's a matter of perspective. At what point would you classify it as a dangerous substance. When 10% of the school population is allergic? 20%? 50%?
Bringing really dangerous stuff, like weapons, is dangerous to every kid on the premises. Peanut butter is not. Imagine a kid that could not be in the same room as a loaf of bread. Would you ban the other schoolkids from bringing bread?
There does come a point at which an allergy means you can't function in a normal environment. That point is not when a single aromatic food is the trigger.
The problem here is not peanuts, but your daughters condition. I do understand you're worried about the whole thing, but consider this: next time you take her to the mall, there could be a promotional stand with someone serving peanut butter
Again, not my daughter. However if you actually take time to think about what you're saying you start to see how difficult life is for a kid with this condition, and what they struggle against every day. This isn't an adult and it isn't a child in a foreign country on the other side of the planet. This is someone that is part of our immediate community. To suggest that banning a couple of foods in a common place like a school is way too much of a burden on society is an insult to the child and shows complete disrespect for their worth as a member of the community PARTICULARLY since they have to face scenarios like the one you just described. It may be that the child has to avoid grocery stalls and be on the lookout at shopping malls, and even then expect that once in a blue moon they'll need adrenaline and medical attention and that if they don't act promptly that is the end of them.
The problem here is not peanuts, but your daughters condition. I do understand you're worried about the whole thing, but consider this: next time you take her to the mall, there could be a promotional stand with someone serving peanut butter.... or someone just ate lunch and didn't notice some peanut butter left on his hands and he happens to stand behind her in the line. You can easily imagine a dozen situation in which she'll be exposed to peanut butter. Not directly, after all, you claim she can get problems by just being in vicinity of it.
Again not my daughter.
Which is why you educate the children, get them washing their hands, and have a teacher looking out for them. They may slip up and the child may still be in danger from time to time and THAT is a burden that only the child and his/her parents can bear. However if you don't even institute a ban on the substance it becomes unworkable. The child will have reactions almost every day they're in school.
Fact is: your daughter is going to have a terrible life because of this disability. She'll be safe nowhere, with the possible exception of "at home". I feel for her, but you're not going to be able to protect her. You have to realise that a 100 years ago, your kid would have died at an early age and you wouldn't even have known that it was because of peanuts. Don't mistake me for saying that your daughter should die: I only want to put this in perspective for you.
Again not my daughter.
200 years ago (to be a little more accurate) do you have any idea what the risks of childbirth were? What life expectancy was? You could die of so many things and no one would know why you died. You could die of something as simple as an infection from a cut. That's the advantage of modern medicine and modern society. It's an advantage we all share. For that matter what were the odds that your child would even get an education?
The world is a dangerous place.... For everyone, but due to her condition, more to your daughter.
Sir, I do not have a daughter. At least not yet.
Its been said, but worth repeating: you keep bringing up guns, knives, and cyanide as dangerous substances. They are dangerous to every living creature on the planet. The peanuts? That's just your kid, dude. I'm sure the 100% removal of peanuts would solve her problem. But her problems aren't everyone else's.
Actually it's not my kid at all, dude. If you're part of a school community the safety of every kid should be the school's problem. If your kid doesn't have to cross the road to get to school do you refuse to support having crossing guards because your kid doesn't need them and it's not your problem? Knives and guns aren't dangerous. People using them is. So if you want to trust your kid with a knife or a gun, should I just let you pack one in your kid's lunch box?
I ask again, is there nothing else AT ALL that would keep her from dieing? Since we're discussing total bans and such, this is a serious question: are there any other options that would allow everyone else to march on as they are but keep your kid from dieing? Epi pins have come up and are obviously a last resort, "oh, shit!" sort of option. What about a gas mask or a plastic suit or something?
If the allergy is to something that doesn't spread through the air, just keeping that kid away from people is fine. Peanuts are special because the oil is airborne. The best and safest way to prevent a reaction is to keep the allergen out of the environment. The same people who suggest ineffective shit like gas masks, or your wonderful suggestion of an overpriced space suit would scream blue murder if it was their kid. Get a grip and keep in in perspective. We're not talking about a whole raft of foods, and we're not talking about your kid never getting to eat them. Just don't bring that shit to school. Is that really such a fucking big sacrifice to make for a classmate that you'd rather force them into a fucking space suit? I mean FUCK!
Considering the sweeping changes in the behavior of others you are pushing for (while its just a discussion here, I'm sure its got more vigor in your local school board meetings) I think it would be disingeniousness of you at best not to at least discuss other options.
Given the resistence you're seeing do you REALLY think this was just the first solution that came to someone in the middle of the night?
Perhaps we won't be able to make the school 100% safe for your kid, but maybe it shouldn't be a 100% peanut free for all for mine.
Your kid doesn't get peanut butter at school, there are only about 100,000 other foods to choose from. Your kid does and this kid isn't safe.
YOUR KID CAN EAT IT AT HOME. Easy. Give them peanuts and peanut butter for breakfast, on the weekend, or as an after dinner snack. No one is suggesting banning it from your supermarket.
Is there some solution that would make things, say, 75% safe for her (just pulling a number here) but maybe let kids eat peanut butter for lunch at, say, one end of the cafeteria?
Listen to yourself. Would you be sending your kid to school if there was a 25% chance each and every day that they'd have a life threatening allergic reaction?
Is this really what you want to teach your kid. Life's hard. It's your problem. No one cares about you and you should never give up anyone to help anyone else, even when their life is at risk???
Don't dismiss this as people wanting treats on occasion -- in my case, a total ban on peanut butter would have amounted to a total ban on lunch. Every. Single. Day.
You have a medical condition that I don't know about that means you can't eat anything but peanut butter? What you're saying is that you were a spoilt brat that wouldn't eat what you were given for lunch unless it was your one favourite food. Do you honestly think that if your parents had persisted you wouldn't have just once gotten hungry enough at lunch time to eat what you were goddamn given? You don't think you could have been encouraged, coaxed or bribed to eat
You're obviously unable to follow a thread (and I have a number of family members with anaphylactic allergies, so you can shove you assumptions somewhere else).
Oh I'm sorry, did I not read every message on the entire fucking thread? Did I miss one of yours? My humble apologies your royal magesty. If you'll excuse me I shall have myself whipped immediately.
Ah that's better. Now where was I. Oh yes. If you really do have members with such allergies, and if you understand why aromatic food allergies are particularly bad - ie you can be affected from across the room, might I suggest that you really are a moron, sire! Suggesting a child wear a fucking gas mask means you have zero no concept of how impractical it is to do that.
If a child is so allergic to peanuts that merely smelling them on someone's breath is enough to trigger thier allergy, then banning the sale of peanuts in a common area is not going to achieve anything.
You state that as a fact, but your arguments supporting the statement are piss weak and are contradicted by the fact that such practices have proven sufficient to protect these children in schools. In other words, instead of suggesting I shove something up my rectum how about you stop talking out of yours.
Even if you banned the sale or consumption of peanuts in your common area - how do you propose to keep people away from the child that have consumed peanuts recently outside of your common area?
Again, a complete demonstration of ignorance about the nature of peanuts and peanut butter. So long as a child doesn't walk through the door with the peanut butter smeared all over their hands and mouth, having it for breakfast 30 minutes ago shouldn't be an issue. There's this thing called saliva that coats and breaks down food. Once again how about you fucking educate yourself about how the world actually works before hurling abuse and making unsupportable fantasy statements like this one.
If you can't get a child with that severity of allergy to put on a mask when venturing out into an area accessible to the general public, how the hell do you expect to force every single person that child may ever come into contact with to make 100% sure they haven't eaten peanuts within the last few hours?
My wife works as a casual primary school teacher and has dealt with this. The policy in the school is simple. If a child walks in with food that's going to trigger a child they are asked to eat it outside as far away from the allergic child as possible, and a note is sent home to parents asking them not to give the child this food again. It isn't perfect and frankly I'd go much further by bringing the parents in and explaining and setting out consequences. As it happens the method used in schools at which my wife has taught has been sufficient to keep the children safe. At one large school she works at there are 5 or 6 kids with allergies and it's only peanuts that are a real issue. In any case it doesn't eliminate the possibility of a child requiring medical attention - these children give the teacher on duty their epi-pen and stay close at lunch time in case anything should happen. What it does do is make it possible for them to get a somewhat normal education without going to hospital every 3rd day because some idiot decides their child's right to eat peanut butter sandwiches at lunch time outweighs another kid's right to fucking breath or go to school. Giving something up to help out a class mate is a good lesson to teach them. You are suppose to be teaching children how to function in society, not how to be self centered assholes.
Ban and eradicate peanuts? Lock the child away? I eagerly await your magical solution that solves such a child's problem without going to either of these extremes...
No magical solution needed. It just requires a bit of thought, a bit of common courtesy, and to give up something. The same way you give up a couple of prime parking spots for disabled people in a shopping center car park.
So quit your ignorant rambling.
Given that the gp said that the child was anonymous, the fact taht latex is not aromatic does not matter.
Given that this affects the whole school a more sensible approach would be to accommodate the child if they (or rather their parents) chose not to remain anonymous.
Frankly it sounds to me like they wanted to remove the latex gloves and used this as an excuse. I wonder if there was an allergic child. Most people with this kind of allergy want those around them to know what to do should they have a reaction. Of course this does imply some level of trust as it would be easy for another child to set off the allergy on purpose out of spite. It would really depend on how common violence was at the school as to wether withholding this information makes any sense.
Otherwise, you'd be a hypocrite right now for saying that people who won't give up luxuries for the sake others are inhuman.
Oh for pity sake. We're not talking about a starving child half a world away. We're talking about giving up that simple luxury to protect a classmate: someone who's an immediate part of the school community.
I've given up foods for someone with an allergy so I'm not being a hypocrite. If you want details you'll have to stop posting as A/C which is childish under the circumstances. What do you need the protection of anonymity for in this discussion?