April 9, 2008

Still Breathing

I was, apparently, a good baby. (I know, what happened, right?) As the first-born, of course, my parents had no real idea what they were getting themselves into, and like all new parents, they thought I probably cried too much. I was put on the very healthy soy formula, since that was the thing at the time. Apparently I was congested so much of the time as an infant, my mother was just certain that I would be claimed by SIDS. Part of that fear was "just" the paranoia of a new mom, part of it was my congestion. But it wasn't long before I settled into a fairly quiet routine. I'd play in my crib, gurgling and goofy in the morning until Mom was ready to get up - a note in my baby book says that it was a great way for Mom to wake up in the morning, greeted by baby's smile.

Despite my determination to play no matter how I felt, by the time I was three, it was obvious that something wasn't right. After a myriad of tests you don't want to give to a three year old in 1971, I was diagnosed with both allergies and asthma.

A partial list of allergies:
Foods: soy, tomatoes, green beans, peanuts, peas, broccoli, most every green vegetable and I believe every legume -- luckily I do not get the anaphylactic shock reaction, so I can tolerate some amount of these things
Outside: grass of multiple varieties, ragweed, pine trees, cedar trees, cottonwood trees, most flowers - pretty much everything that grows outside, I think
Animals: cats and dogs and bird feathers
Inside/Misc.: mold, mildew, dust mites, cockroaches, ampicillin

The asthma could be triggered by humidity, cold, smoke, and "excessive" activity. Yeah. What's excessive activity to a three year old?

The doctor told my mom the bad news: she needed to keep not just a clean house, but an ultra-clean house. My parents needed to stop smoking. And they'd have to watch me carefully outside. And, of course, I'd have to start getting allergy shots.

I started allergy shots.
Mom covered my box springs in a plastic allergy bag. And my mattress. I think we tried the pillows, but I couldn't sleep for the noise it made.
Mom gathered every single stuffed animal and doll that I owned, put them in bags and into the car. I thought Mom and I and my toys were going for a car ride - we did - straight to the Salvation Army. Stuffed animals and dolls were dust catchers. (Try explaining this to a heart-broken, screaming three year old. Doesn't work very well. Obviously, as I'm still whining about it.)
Mom began a cleaning regime which developed into a full-fledged OCD drama. Vacuum on Mondays and Fridays. All clothes, including the bedding, washed on Thursdays. I don't recall a specific day for the dusting, but it was also done often.
Mom was nervous every time I went outside, exhorting me to not run (didn't work).

Out of those two lists, what didn't get done?

I know it was the early 70s. Everyone smoked. Including my parents.

I can recall going clothes shopping (against my will) with Mom and everyone smoking in the mall. The clothing stores had ashtrays in the dressing rooms and I recall one time in particular when I was a bit older. Left alone in the dressing room while Mom went to hunt down another size (I was "saving" the dressing room so someone else couldn't take it), Mom left her lit cigarette in the little stall with me. Brave, I picked it up, surprised a bit at how warm it was, and I carefully stubbed it out, trying not to damage it, just to make it quit stinking up the place so bad. She came back, went for a drag, and was stunned to see that it had "gone out." She re-lit it, took a few puffs, tried on some stuff and again left me there while she went back out to find something else. This time I broke the cigarette and when Mom came back, I was really surprised, but she wasn't really mad. Just said she didn't realize it bothered me so much. That was the only time I ever held a lit cigarette.

So much of my childhood was structured around avoiding triggering my asthma and allergies - but the smoking was something that drove me crazy. I could feel the "dirt" in my lungs from it. The smell got up into my sinuses and drove me crazy. But it really started to get to me when other people assumed that I smoked simply because everything I owned smelled of it, and I smelled of it. The breaking point was the evening I went to babysit for a new client and the mother literally turned up her nose at me and said, "You smoke." I replied that I did not smoke and never had. She sighed dramatically and pointed to a remote location of the backyard. "Smoke over there, where the children can't see you. They are not allowed to see people smoking."

It didn't matter how I protested, I was a teenager, I smelled of smoke, and she was a judgmental woman. Of course, by then, the mid 80s, smoking was becoming a habit to restrict and to drop. I began a "quit smoking" campaign with my mother, but it wasn't until she decided to rejoin the workforce and was afraid that being a smoker was one strike against her too many, that she decided to quit smoking. And she did it, first time, with the help of the nicotine gum.

I know that in the early 70s, it was not easy to quit smoking. Hell, I realize that for most people, it's not easy to quit now, even with Zyban, the patch, the gum and all the rest of the quit smoking aids.

But it was truly one of the great frustrations of my childhood to know that I was expected to not run track, not join a swim team, have all of my stuffed animals given away in front of me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera - and still have my parents smoke in the house, the car - constantly.

It was a constant mixed message. We care so much about you we wrapped your bed in plastic and we restrict what you can do - just so you stay healthy. On the other hand, my food allergies were completely ignored and the most frequent household chores I had (besides doing dishes) was to dust and vacuum. Even though particularly dusting the house was prone to give me a terrible sneezing fit, clog my sinuses and irritate my eyes.

You have asthma, you can't run track. Go dust the house.
You have asthma, you don't need to be building a clubhouse. Go weed the front yard.
We want you to be healthy, as they blew smoke in my face.

Don't mistake me. I'm actually not trying to vilify them for this. I'm trying to understand it.

Mom once told me that when the doctor told her that she and my father needed to quit smoking, she knew that Dad never would. She made the decision at that time to do everything else possible. I told her, but the smoke wouldn't have been as bad if it had just been Dad. He was only home evenings and was outside most of the weekend during the warm months. Her unspoken answer was plain on her face: if he wouldn't give it up, it was unfair to ask her to give it up.

And to a certain extent, I get that. I can imagine how difficult the craving would be with no patch or gum, the moment Dad walked in the door with a lit cigarette. I have no doubt it would be maddening, and I am pretty certain that Mom simply didn't have the willpower at that time in her life to quit smoking under those conditions. I do get that.

But it doesn't really touch the double standard of how my allergies were handled.

Anything that impacted my parents in a serious way was ignored. Mom literally forgot that I had food allergies until I was digging through some paperwork one day and found the results of one of my old allergy tests. I was stunned at how many of the foods I really, really seriously hated were on that list. I tried to point this out to my mom, to point out how unfair it was that we bent over backwards to avoid using cow's milk because my sister was lactose intolerant - and yet I was told to eat food I was allergic to almost every day.

It was a few weeks after finding that paperwork, that I began to have a recurring dream, one that I would have until a few months after I moved out of my parents' house. In the dream, I was at my pediatrician's office (instead of my "grown-up" doctor) and he was listening to my lungs and tsk-ing. I just knew I was in trouble. I'd done something wrong, but I couldn't figure out what.

"She's got to stop breathing," the doctor told my mother. "It's going to kill her." Mom stood across the examining room and looked disapprovingly at me - as if I should have known better. As if she'd been telling me for years that breathing was bad for me and now I was making her waste precious time and money by having to go to the doctor - only to have him tell me to quit doing this.

In the dream, I am too shocked to say a word. How can breathing be killing me? Not breathing is what kills; not continuing to breathe! But they are both looking at me so seriously, so gravely.

The dream cuts to a return visit to the doctor. This time I'm attempting to hold my breath as the doctor examines me. To breathe on the sly, taking stolen tokes of oxygen. It's to no avail. He sighs, shakes his head and again ignores me to look at my mother. "She's been breathing again."

It's a pretty simple dream, really. Obviously by the time I was a teenager, I believed I was being held to impossible standards that other people were not held to. Some twenty years later, I can see that feeling was pretty accurate. I was expected to do everything exactly right, no matter how much that inconvenienced me, whereas my parents were very much allowed to take any shortcut they chose.

Of course, a portion of that is simply the difference between being an adult and being a teenager, but I can also see where my parents were simply not ready to take responsibility for their actions - to think through how what they did affected their children.

I see on a variety of blogs over at Cre8Buzz how different parents today are thinking through what they do and how it affects their kids. Of course, these parents are my age or younger. They've learned from their own mistakes and the mistakes their parents made. I've seen some amazing parents say, "Eh, ya know what? I'm spending too much time online. I'm going to take charge of my life and ration the time I allow myself to be online. I need to go play with my kids more." I've seen them discuss quitting bad habits, talking to their kids about serious issues, pulling their kids out of crappy schools and agonizing over whether to home school or take on an additional job to pay for private school.

I find that introspection and self-examination and honesty a breath of much-needed fresh air.

Ultimately, what many of these bloggers don't realize is that not only are they in conversation with other parents when they share a story about parenting or their kid. (Because by no means are all of these people "mommy bloggers" or "daddy bloggers" - many of them are "regular bloggers" who happen to include their family life in addition to everything else they write about.) They are also, in an odd way, helping those of us who did not have great parents or a great childhood to gain some perspective and attain some healing. Reading one parent say how they tackled a problem with their kid can lead to me thinking through how my parents handled a similar situation - and in spending time analyzing that it becomes easier to see what is a normal bump in the parenting road, and what was perhaps a freaking boulder from the sky.

I suppose, then, that this post is really a thank you to all the folks who brave the stigma of being branded a parent-blogger. You're not only helping out other parents with tips and techniques, you're not just making us laugh with you - you're also helping us to re-evaluate our own childhood and parents.

And that's a good thing.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:46 PM | Comments (0) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Struggles | Stumble

April 4, 2008

The Bottom Line

A legal entity known as a corporation, must, in its charter, protect the bottom line. Their legal charge is to make money for the shareholders.

After WWII, many companies and corporations began offering health insurance as an incentive to attract better workers - it sounded like a good idea at the time. Help the bottom line by attracting good workers and do a good thing for employees at the same time.

Today, in order to pad the bottom line - and to be quite frank, the pockets of the executives - there's a clause many companies and corporations are adding to their health insurance policies. It's a simple clause. If you are injured and you sue the party who injured you, the health insurance company wants the money that they paid out back. In some cases, this makes sense - why should you get "paid" by the insurance company and then paid again for medical expenses and pain and suffering.

However, as in the case of the Debbie Shank, sometimes this just means you get screwed again. Shank was hit by a semi and left with brain damage and the kinds of medical bills no one wants to think about. WalMart's insurance company paid her bills as they were supposed to do. Bully for them. The family sued the trucking company and received about $417,000. Enough to put money in trust for her long term care and make sure they had a house wheelchair accessible (instead of their 3 level home). The trucking company carried a maximum liability of a million bucks. Should be plenty, right? Yet somehow, after legal fees and everything else, the family only received $417,000. Well, okay. Accessible house, set up the trust for her continual care - of course, no more health insurance from Walmart since she wasn't working there anymore. They thought they'd be able to use the trust they set up to take care of her.

Three years after the fact, after they are starting to get some normal routine together, NOW Walmart & their health insurance provider wants their money back. The money they originally paid out for her immediate care - some $470,000. More than they'd received to begin with.

And then, as the court decides that Walmart can't have $470,000, but they can have all of the money left in the Shank's trust for her care. No job. No prospect of ever working again. And to top it off, their middle son was killed in Iraq - but with her short-term memory shot from the accident, Debbie Shank "learns" this fact anew every time she asks where he is.

Walmart "apologized" but essentially said, hey, the clause was there. We gotta protect the bottom line and we're required by law to enforce this clause or we set a bad precedent.

I wrote about this the day before Christmas last year. This week, after months of bloggers agitating on the web, and finally getting the main stream press to pick up the story in a serious way. Now, this week, Walmart finally says, "Oh, we guess you can keep the remaining money for her ongoing care."

"We wanted you to know that Wal-Mart will not seek any reimbursement for the money already spent on Ms. Shank's care, and we will work with you to ensure the remaining amounts in the trust can be used for her ongoing care," Curran said. "We are sorry for any additional stress this uncertainty has placed on you and your family."

Gee, how nice of you.

You see, while individuals at Walmart might have wanted to help, the corporation as an entity, simply wanted to protect its bottom line. And it's cheaper to let the Shanks keep their measly $275,000 than take the hit on their PR. Their reputation, it would seem, is worth a bit more than a quarter of a million dollars to them.

What sickens me is this: what IDIOT didn't realize this sooner? If we look just at the corporation's bottom line and ignore the human element as corporations are wont to do - why did they think they would get away without a smack to their reputation for pulling something that is sure to tug at people's heartstrings? Do they often do such things and get away with it? Does it happen often enough to work for them?

And, if we DO look at the human element, what is wrong with every person who touched the case and decided that it should go to court? Did any of them stand up and say, "if nothing else, our reputation is worth more than the money we might gain?"

I know, I know, I'm talking about Walmart's reputation, meh.

The bad thing is, how many people at Walmart who were involved in this case were too damn scared for their own jobs to question policy? How many of them did and were told to shut up?

Well, at least the Shanks have their trust fund to help care for her.

What about the cases we don't know about?

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:44 AM | Comments (1) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

March 14, 2008

Don't Feed the Trolls

My bedroom in high school and the first year of college, was, more often than not, pitch dark. It wasn't for the lack of trying to lighten it up - my mom bought the most sheer curtains she could find. And when I demanded "bed dressing" that matched my personality, Mom made matching curtains out of an extra set of the sheets. (White, with a stripe of rainbow down each long side ... yeah, I know. Early indicator?) Stark white walls, mostly white comforter, sheer curtains which let in the light from the street light at the corner of our front yard. But my favourite way to be was laying on my bedroom floor, all the lights out, just the glow of my "jambox"-stereo's equalizer dancing up and down. And that last year of high school when I scrounged together all of my money to buy my prized Magnavox Videowriter, I would sit at my desk, adding the amber glow of that cheesy word processor to the dim light of my room.

When my creative writing teacher first told us how he would go to an all-night Waffle House to immerse himself in the biomass (to borrow Stephenson's word), I was appalled. How could anyone write with all of the cacophony of activity and light around them? F.J. insisted that it was a valuable way to observe characters, to practice dialogue. Being far too much of an introvert, I could not really wrap my head around this enough to do it. That was about 1986 or 1987.

A few years earlier, my dad brought home a stunning new toy - a Commodore 64. He was amazed and gleeful like a little boy on Christmas morning discovering his new Red Ryder BB gun or Radio Flyer sled. He practically squealed as he opened up the package and pulled out that brick of a keyboard/computer. A whole 64k stored in this sucker! He explained to me, in one of our rare actual conversations, it used to take a machine the size of about half our house to do what this little sucker could do. I remembered one of those rooms - Dad took me to work with him once ... an icy air-conditioned room filled with huge metal cabinet-things. Punch cards. Later, rolls of paper tape.

Mom forbid the acquisition of a modem as efficiently as she'd forbidden cable television - but the boy across the street had a modem and I watched as one letter after another would pop onto the screen from some distant person. Heh, and watch those letters disappear as the person hit backspace to correct a typo.

But it wasn't until I was nearly done with my seven year stint at university before I discovered MUDdog and email and just how fascinating this online Waffle House could be. That was somewhere around 1992-4.

I've been hooked ever since.

This morning, once again, I've turned off all of the lights. I have the band Sick Puppies blaring on the stereo, though not as loudly as I'd like - my neighbors are still sleeping. The glow of my keyboard and laptop screen - and the blue glow of the stereo are all I want. I'm writing against the deadline of sunrise, remembering how easy it was for me to get lost in my introspection as a teenager and 20something in the dark. How much easier it was and is to reflect honestly on myself and my actions as well as the biomass I observe around me.

I recognize that I'm damaged
I sympathize that you are too
But I wanna breathe without feelin' so self-conscious
But it's hard when the world's starin' at you

To me, this is the most interesting thing about the internet. You have all of these people with their foibles and faults and strengths ... you have these intercies, these nodes, of common interest where this diverse mass of individuals pour their thoughts into shared pixel representations.

Why do we do this? Why do we strive to share our experiences and thoughts with everyone else? Why do we strive to get people to understand what we're thinking, feeling, wanting?

It seems to me that no matter how introverted or extroverted an individual is, we all are reaching for some connection beyond just our self - to know that we are not totally alone in our thought or experience or feeling. That someone groks at least a fraction of who and what we are.

What I constantly strive to understand, and I'm not sure I'm capable of really understanding it, is why some people are literally so lost in their own individuality that they cannot hear the experiences and feelings of others.

I can't even begin to recall how many times I have read the pixels of people who define their world by "I'm right" and you're either 100% with me or 100% against me. So when I see one of these people laying their pixels down in a frantic dance of light and dark dots, I'm sucked in by my own curiosity and confused fascination. When I watch as they blithely ignore the community around them and choose to take disagreement as attack; when they insist on reading a helping hand as condemnation.

And, then, of course, all of our shared human foibles come to the fore. The helping hand and the civil disagreement becomes frustration and anger - which does become attack and condemnation. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that leaves the outer edges of the community in confusion and often shock. It's like seeing the "perfect couple" have a real fight finally. You see sides of these people that you never suspected lurked beneath all the letters they've strung together on the internet.

And when the smoke clears and all the participants who are able to do so actually sit back and take a look at what happened and how they contributed to the explosion, they are left with this conundrum:
How do I both "protect" my self, ideas and beliefs ... and balance my emotional reaction ... and walk away from the trolls who only want a fight and to get everyone riled up?

How do we differentiate motive on the net without body language and tone of voice to help us decipher our pixelated world?

In my experience, it becomes about building a context. If one person's response to disagreement is to always either ignore or attack, with no middle ground attempting to bridge differences and create understanding, then that person is probably simply trolling for trouble. It's a subjective thing. And, in online communities, it's a dangerous field to walk across. Newer folk are going to tend to side with the troll when the old hands attempt to slap down the troll out of frustration. The old hands know the history and have often decided to take a stand to defend their community and hunt the troll until they've left the community. New people, not knowing that the troll may be currently presenting the mask of the maligned victim in order to garner support and thus keep the battle going on longer, may openly side with the troll in an effort to defend their new community from bullies.

The term troll is highly subjective. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. The term is often erroneously used to discredit an opposing position, or its proponent, by argument fallacy ad hominem.

Often, calling someone a troll makes assumptions about a writer's motives. Regardless of the circumstances, controversial posts may attract a particularly strong response from those unfamiliar with the robust dialogue found in some online, rather than physical, communities.

Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore him or her, because responding encourages a true troll to continue disruptive posts — hence the often-seen warning "Please do not feed the troll".

Frequently, someone who has been labelled a troll by a group may seek to redeem their reputation by discrediting their opponents, for example by claiming that other members of the group are closed-minded, conspirators, or trolls themselves.

No matter how even-handed ... how just ... we try to be, the fact of the matter is, we are not perfect. We snap. We jump to conclusions. We get tired and cranky. And what separates us from the trolls? We are able to step back and re-evaluate our behaviour, to try to learn from our mistakes, to learn when to stop reacting next time and walk away from what we feel is trollish behaviour.

To creatures who seem to intrinsically need to be understood, it's a hard thing to walk away from that chance at communication. But some battles are won only when they aren't fought at all ...

The light is beginning to make the curtains glow ... so now I leave you with this ...

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:26 AM | Comments (7) | Blog | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Sketches | Stumble

March 7, 2008

March Showers?

So, our shower has some issues. First, it's the only fixture in the bathroom which is an almond colour. And I don't think we can actually wrangle a new tub in through either the doorway OR the window. Bugger. So, we did the nice tub paint thing on it. Except the paint was a little "stiff" on the last coat ... and somehow we never got around to buying another can of it to finish up. Then, turns out, you're really not supposed to leave your wet shower curtain on that paint forever and ever in the corner. Cuz now all the paint in that corner has worn off.

Next, and more important on a day to day level ... is the showerhead. We were getting next to no water pressure for the last couple of weeks. And the hot water was just not wanting to get hot - but ONLY to the shower. No drippy pipes.

Today I decided I'd had enough. I carefully took the showerhead down. Easy fix, there's a pressure adjuster in there that we don't need since there's only adults in the house. And, it was gunked up a bit with some rust particles. Yank that sucker out and screw the showerhead back up.

Good news? We have hot water which is actually hot. We have water pressure. I fixed the showerhead.

Bad news? Then I broke the showerhead.

GAH! I had to take it off with a wrench, but I started putting it back on by hand. I pulled out the hand wrench to give it the infamous "last little twist" - trying to gauge the force correctly since I didn't want to --

Oops. I didn't want to break the damn plastic screw-on connection, but guess what? Literally one twist with the wrench and POP!

Dammit.

Now I have to go buy a new showerhead. Frankly, the other half is ecstatic as she didn't like that one anyway.

Just what I wanted to do today! WOOHOO!

(Maybe I'll go to Chipotles for dinner ... mmmm ... burritos and REAL guacamole.)

UPDATE: I didn't go to Chipotles ... wound up not on that side of town. And you know what? We're out of food now. I ate chicken fajitas tonight ... without any tortillas (or guacamole). Damn.

Anyhow, I installed the new showerhead shortly after getting home. Works like a charm. :)

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:04 PM | Comments (5) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

February 19, 2008

Nerf Sniper Rifle

My first Nerf basketball hoop, back around 1972 was not a whole lot more than a wire about the thickness of a coat hanger (a wire one, of course, not that plastic crap we have now), with some yo yo string to make a net. The foam was so lightweight you could hardly shoot with any kind of accuracy at all.

I loved it. A ball I could throw in the house!!

Soon thereafter, my dad brought home another Nerf product. This was a foam plane. Think paper airplane "grown up" a wee bit. Another toy I could throw in the house without getting into too much trouble, although my mom cringed every time, I think. I had friends who had the little Nerf "cars" as well.

Eventually there was the obligatory extra Nerf balls ... Nerf football ... and then Nerf got really cool. Nerf ping pong! You could set up the Nerf ping pong on ANY table and not damage it. Nerf pool! One of my all time favourite games ... and we had never had a pool table. Once again, you set it up on a regular table and played without damaging it. Nerf "air" hockey! Eventually there was even an outdoor set which included Nerf badminton, volleyball and "tennis." Nerf mini-golf.

Of course, there were then Nerf soccer balls, different kinds of Nerf basketballs, included correct weight ones to use outside.

So far as I was concerned, Nerf could do no wrong. Their toys were creative and fun.

Then came the Nerf bow and arrow set. Crossbow. These were also fun ... shooting darts at targets. And then Nerf "guns." Nerf tag. All good fun.

But over the last five years or so, it's gotten completely out of hand. Nerf has turned more and more to only weaponry, various styles of guns. This past year, in my opinion, given the number of school shootings the U.S. has experienced, Nerf has gone too far.

Their new N-Strike Longshot is, plain and simply, a sniper rifle for children.

I don't want to hear "we make what people buy." Children do not need play sniper rifles which actually fire 35 feet. Children do not need a play sniper rifle with a targeting scope to increase accuracy at 35 feet. Children do not need 2 quickload ammunition clips to increase their firepower.

Now look. If we're talking about adults playing with it ... I have somewhat less of a problem. I own two airsoft pistols and an airsoft "machine gun" (sadly, not an automatic, though). I enjoy playing target games. I have no issue with people who hunt and eat what they kill (or sell the meat to others).

But if we are serious about reducing gun violence in schools, then I'm not sure children should be practicing with toy weaponry which can hone rapid-fire skills.

A sniper rifle has one clear purpose. Long range assassination. I do not want my child on the ground, N-Strike Longshot set up on its fold-down bipod (for stability and better accuracy) and practicing sniping. Now, my kid grows up and goes into the armed forces and wants to be a sniper ... you know, I may not always agree with it, but there is a serious purpose for that. I'm fine with an adult making that decision. Police snipers ... there are damn good reasons for those. That's fine.

My 10 year old laying down in the backyard firing at the dog? No.

I know about Nerf Wars and Nerfers. As with airsoft wars and bb guns wars and paintball, there are fun war/shooting games you can play.

The difference is that airsoft guns, BB guns and paintball guns are all marketed in the sporting goods section ... there are restrictions and most parents (certainly not all ... and I've heard plenty of abuse of the system) but most parents treat the stuff as equipment that needs some rules. You really need safety gear to play paintball and while sure, your 15 year old can get away without it in the back lot, if the kid wants to go to a paintball tournament, the kid will have to wear the gear. It's a sport with protective gear. Got it. BB guns and airsoft are a little different, but most parents tend to treat them with some amount of respect.

Nerf guns are sold in toy stores and the toy aisles. Their name at one time meant Nerf basketball and safe indoor toys. Even some of the first dart weaponry was kind of a safe, indoor extension of squirt guns or cops-n-robbers.

Now they have gatling guns and automatic revolvers.

And a sniper rifle.

Look at the commercial. (Will pop up in new window)

Now, the Nerfers are modifiying their Nerf guns ... I've seen several people who have developed darts which are more accurate and fly further. There's a way to modify the guns to get better airflow to the darts so they will fly further and faster.

I do not have an issue with this. I love playing paintball, and Nerf Wars sounds like fun to me, too. It can be cathartic to play such games ... but they can also attract unstable people as well.

I do not have a problem with Hasbro/Nerf marketing directly to the Nerfers. Perhaps actually making Nerfer guns for the sport. But sell them in the sporting goods section. Sell them next to the paintball guns and the airsoft pistols. Because even though the modified guns are safer shooting darts than a paintball or airsoft weapon ... they are still weapons. Give parents that much of a reminder that the kid is not idly looking at some funny little foam version of a squirt gun. Shoot, develop a new logo for Nerfer Guns or Nerfer Wars. Something, anything to remind people that these are not the little foam balls we threw into a wire hoop. A new logo will help parents and kids differentiate between the inaccurate, low-powered toys that kind of throw darts around ... and the more accurate, more powerful guns which shoot darts.

A subtle difference, perhaps. But if we are going to squawk about our children shooting each other ... I feel it's a step we need to take. One that might remind us to look at ourselves and our lives and lifestyles ... and reflect on what we're really teaching our children - that we are paying attention to them and their interests ... and that we are teaching limits and boundaries ... and the morals we want them to espouse.

This, for me at least, is not about left-wing/right-wing. It's not about gun control. It's about taking responsibility for our actions on a personal level (really thinking about our children and their toys) ... and most especially, about corporate and marketing responsibility.

If you didn't view the commercial before, please take the 30 seconds to view it now. Do you want your child practicing to be a sniper?
Look at the commercial. (Will pop up in new window)

NOTE:
Okay, I'm tired of all of the comments from the 10-12 crowd defending their right to have a TOY sniper rifle. Particularly the illiterate bullshit.

So here's the deal, once more, with feeling:

I'm NOT saying these should never ever be made. I am saying they are a sporting goods item, NOT a freaking TOY. There's a difference in mind set. I agree they're kinda cool. I play airsoft, I play paintball. But unless it's under controlled circumstances, there is NO reason for a CHILD to have a sniper rifle. If you're a Nerfer playing a SPORT called Nerf Wars, there IS a reason. Fine.

But a toy is a different thing from a piece of sporting goods equipment.

Comments are now closed because I'm sick of whiny tweens and illiterate teenagers whining. Discussion is fine. My tolerance for whining, however, is negligible.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:41 AM | Comments (13) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Stumble

February 8, 2008

Crass Commercialism

I live in Northern Indiana. Home to the University of Notre Dame, St. Mary's University. There's a Catholic convent here. Retirement home for priests. In some areas, there's literally a Catholic Church on each of the four corners of an intersection. (Apparently so there could be a Hungarian Catholic Church and a Polish Catholic Church, and a regular one and who can remember which group the fourth is.)

AM General, a good-sized factory, serves fish every Friday, year round in the cafeteria. There are other food choices as well, but during the Catholic season of Lent, they only serve fish in the cafeteria.

Lent is a big deal around here. You see signs like this one on nearly every fast food joint - and even many larger restaurants:

So when I drove to the grocery store last night (sans camera phone, dammit), I could NOT stop laughing at the Arby's sign. You see, Ash Wednesday was this week. Lent has begun. Today is the first meatless Friday for those observing the practice.

And my Arby's had this sign up:

Yeah, I had to go back there today with the good camera (so I suppose it's lucky I didn't have the cell with me last night) just so I could snap this shot. I'm still snickering.

With everyone else catering to the Lenten practice of meatless Fridays, I'm sure the local manager thought it would be good to cater to the many people in the area who do not observe this practice. And while the absurdity of the entire situation - fish advertisement as well as free roast beef - still makes me chuckle ... in light of one of the online community explosions this past week, it also makes me sad that so many can boil down other people's fervently held beliefs into an opportunity to sell more crap.

But I still can't stop giggling, either. It's just all too surreal and absurd. Almost as if the fast food joints are now announcing at the drive-through window - "Hey, you want religion with that?" I know for a fact that one chain around here already offers politics with their food - they required all of their employees to wear shirts hawking the chain owner for local government in last fall's elections.

My issue is that I want my politics and religion separate from my retail experience. It's not that I think someone should put their religion in a box and leave it there - most faiths ask exactly the opposite of you - that you live your faith. But selling your faith - to me - simply cheapens it. Proselytizing tends to turn off a far greater number of people than it "helps" because it often (sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally) disrespects the beliefs or opinions of the person having to listen to it.

For example, I bought something off eBay quite a while back and received a little "business card" with my order. Only it was a Bible tract printed on it and an "invitation" to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. It pissed me off and I never ordered from that person again. Why? Because it implied that

1) I had not already done so
2) that I did not have my own faith
3) that their belief system was better than any I might already subscribe to

They may not have meant it that way. I don't know nor care. My brain ... oppositional as it often is ... immediately thought how offensive this would have been to me had I been Jewish.

To me, it's simply about respect. If I am conversing with someone and a topic or issue comes up which touches on faith beliefs or political beliefs, then we can discuss such things. Throwing a confetti of religious tracts around in the hopes of helping all the poor people who do not believe as you do ... it's arrogance. Discussion with mutual respect is one thing. Scattering your seed EVERYWHERE is something else entirely.

Ooops. I kind of strayed away from the original intent to post a funny sign. Meh, I think it's a better post for having opened up the field a bit.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:06 PM | Comments (9) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Vacations and Photos | Stumble