The Glade 4.0

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/201 ... se_su.html

Really New York...nothing better to do?

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

What the heck is wrong with this generation?? Taking toys out of cracker jacks and cereal boxes, suing for choking on hot dogs, outlawing FREEZE TAG??
Good grief. **** happens. Kids get hurt. They break bones, they bleed, if they live they learn from it....but the stuff people are suing for and things that are being outlawed these days aren't even life threatening activities.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Yeah, I remember our deadly games of Freezetag.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Maybe someone took the freeze tag too far......what you don't play freeze tag with liquid nitrogen?

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I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil

Didn't you know? Anything that involves competition, and might leave a child with the notion that they aren't as good at an activity as somone else is bad. M'kay?

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Helen: Dash, this is the third time this year you've been sent to the office. We need to find a better outlet. A more constructive outlet.
Dash: [slyly] Maybe I could, if you'd let me go out for sports.
Helen: Honey, you know why we can't do that.
Dash: But I promise I'll slow up! I'll only be the best by a tiny bit!
Helen: Dashell Robert Parr, you are an incredibly competitive boy. And a bit of a showoff. The last thing you need is temptations.
Dash: You always say, "Do your best," but you don't really mean it. Why can't I do the best that I can do?
Helen: Right now, honey, the world just wants us to fit in, and to fit in, we just gotta be like everybody else.
Dash: Dad always said our powers were nothing to be ashamed of. Our powers made us special.
Helen: Everyone's special, Dash.
Dash: [sullenly] Which is another way of saying no one is.

Rynar:

Yeah, don't get me started on that.

I remember the end of year soccer trophy ceremonies and watching the other teams get the trophies. Made me want to play harder to win one myself.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

In fairness, on the last day of high school my friend ended up in the ER due to a game of freezetag. That said, an 18 year old running full tilt into another without any padding is far more likely to cause damage than a 10 year old.

NYDN Poll: Do you agree with the Health Department that Wiffle Ball, kickball and Red Rover are dangerous?

See the poll results? Yeesh.

Oh, and sorry about the ridiculous url

FTFY
-- Stathol

I've always had mixed feelings about that bit in the Incredibles. On the one hand, I'm all for healthy competition, but on the other hand, I think if your capabilities are vastly beyond those of the people you're playing against, it's not really a "competition" anymore. If there's no chance the other guy is going to even challenge (let alone defeat) you, I don't think it's healthy/positive/right to take satisfaction in winning. I think the Smallville episode where Clark joins the football team handles the issue better than the Incredibles did.

While it is certainly true that you should be in your own "class" for competition, at some level that is part of the problem.

When my parents went through highschool, there was a process called "Tracking" that was used, where those people who were really smart or good at certain subjects were advanced and put along with others who were similarly skilled so they could continue to advance and compete and improve.

Today, they are all lumped together by age, a dubiuos metric at best, and so the best and brightest are bored silly by the level of challenge they are presented.

While not specifically addressed in dialogue in the Incredibles, I think that is part of the message. That we hold back our best and brightest because everyone is supposed to be the same, is supposed to fit in.

Since High Schools rarely grade on a curve and grades are not shared or made public, I hardly think the purpose was competition. More likely it was simply directing the material at what people are capable of and challenged by.

Not all children react well to competition. You may well, but some people react negativly. The incentives to perform need to be tailored to the students, you can't cookie cutter people into a learning style.

Indeed, there are often significant gender differences too. I dont have a cite but from what I recall females tend to achieve higher when working in collaboration and males better by competition.

I didn't say the purpose was only competition.

Well, only when we try to play with the school bully and then we tell him he can't get frozen first.

Works every time.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

New York Health Officials Back Off Proposal to 'Legislate Fun'
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/19/cl ... -new-york/

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In time, this too shall pass.

First they came for the lawn darts, but I was not a lawn dart...

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Those things were wicked! Whoever thought adding fins to the head of spears and chucking them back and forth at each other was good clean fun deserves the lawsuit they undoubtedly had filed against them.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Heh. Yeah, I gotta say, lawn darts always struck me as frackin' crazy. And I say that as a guy who used to have rock fights with my cousins (yes, we would line up in ditches on opposite sides of the road and chuck rocks at each other). Ahhh, good times.

I still have an original set of lawn darts. They were great. My friends and I never once had a "close call." We always played with everybody throwing from the same side.

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The Dude abides.

Yeah. That seemed totally obvious to me too. The word "darts" seemed to imply that all opponents would be throwing at a single target from the same location. The addition of the word "lawn" did not make me and my friends want to turn it into "crazy dodge the projectile game". If I suggested to the guys I hang out with that we have a round of "Lawn Target Shooting", no one is gonna go running off to grab their catchers mit.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Damn government. Next they will make it illegal to hide legos up your butt.

o.O

I'm not a fan of stepping on Legos barefoot, and I have fairly tough feet.

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Don't forget BB gun wars!

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Along those lines, Ohio passed a law requiring people on bicycles to wear a helmet more than a few years ago. I wasn't aware of the law and when I noticed the sudden increase in helmeted riders I just quietly thought to myself, "Man who keeps giving these special needs people bikes?"

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It's odd. I ride a motorcyle, and generally feel that anyone not wearing a helmet is basically becoming an organ donor and an idiot. And while my state doesn't have a helmet law, I wouldn't be opposed to one.

Yet the idea of having to wear a helmet while on a bicycle just seems silly to me.