No Law Against Too Much Legislation
But, that's one of the few things there isn't a law against in the UK. An English bishop says the excessive number of new laws in the UK has created a climate of fear. Richard Savill writes in the Telegraph:
Rt Rev Peter Price, Bishop of Bath and Wells, said that many well meaning laws were destroying society and that while individual rights had increased, equivalent responsibility has decreased...."The effect of many of these new laws is to place responsibility for cleaning up the mess of society upon educationalists, doctors and health workers, social services, the police and other institutions and structure.
..."There is always someone or something to blame, whether it is background, social status or environment," he said. "Fault and accountability for one's own actions has been significantly diminished.
"Rights are no longer an individual's defence against the state; they have become a claim by the individual on the state."
The bishop said that much of what created community was in the practice of social virtues: giving to people in need, visiting the sick, comforting the bereaved, offering solace and help to a neighbour who has lost a job, respecting the dignity of the 'other.'
"Historically, churches, synagogues, mosques, gurdwaras provided places where simple human virtues of support, care, as well as conversation, shared standards, civility and politeness were practiced," he said.
"These are under threat today from much well meant, but ultimately communally destructive legislation that has seen risk in every human activity from home made sandwiches being served in village halls, to the somewhat ludicrous training day I heard of recently for police officers of teaching them to climb a small step ladder.
"When churches, where smoking has not been a major issue are defaced with notices stating 'It is illegal to smoke in this building', and where wine served to 'gladden the heart' can no longer be served without licence at a village function, we have to wonder what we are doing to ourselves."
Oh, and it isn't just the Brits. In New York, there's now the bake sale Gestapo. Pam Lobley writes on NewJerseyNewsroom.com:
A New York City board is about to vote on a regulation that will basically outlaw bake sales in the schools. You can't bake a bunch of brownies or cupcakes any more to try to raise money for your classroom. Forget about selling home-baked goodness.You can, however, sell Doritos! Those are much healthier than your dumb old cookies!
The regulation is designed to curb obesity among children, a known epidemic. However, the city board imposing the regulation realizes that alot money is raised through bake sales, and many field trips and book lists are paid for on the backs of chocolate chip cookies. So as not to damage the fundraising efforts, you can still sell food, it just has to be healthy food. Like Doritos.
To be fair, it's not all Doritos, it's just two varieties of the lower fat types of Doritos. The rules also allow one type of Pop Tart, because the serving size has just 200 calories.
All food for these sales must be in marked, single serving packages with less than 35 percent of the items' total calories coming from sugars or fat. They must also have at least 2 grams of fiber and no artificial sweeteners. Doesn't that sound like a fun bake sale?
The kids are also allowed to sell fresh fruits and vegetables. Hm. In response to that I can only quote my nine year old son: "A banana? That's not a snack!"
My New Jersey town also has rules limiting bake sales and food brought in for class parties. No store-bought stuff where the first ingredient is sugar; you can bring in some homemade stuff, like cupcakes, but they can't have frosting. No frosting? That's not a cupcake. That's a muffin.
When the rules in our town went into effect a couple of years ago, all of our mothers just rolled our eyes. Yes, there is way too much snacking going on. But do you really think you're going to change that by serving mini bagels and fruit cup at the class Halloween party?
"...to the somewhat ludicrous training day I heard of recently for police officers of teaching them to climb a small step ladder."
At Savannah River Site, two individuals engaged in horseplay hit a parked vehicle with a golf cart. The excuse was that the passenger's foot was on the accelerator.
The golf cart is governed to less than 15 MPH, BTW.
The "fix" was to require golf cart driver training of everyone, and to buy new carts with a custom feature: a "foot dam", a divider that keeps the passenger's feet on their own side of the cart.
Mental illness is epidemic. I hope I survive the crap piling up as a result.
Radwaste at March 23, 2010 2:40 AM
No bake sales. Frostingless cupcakes. Good grief! Anybody can see that children's health is the farthest thing from these busybodies' minds. I'm convinced that there's a certain strain of humanity that lives to remove the joy from everyone's life. Somehow, we let them serve on school boards.
But it's not just the schools. About a year ago, I talked to a lady from L.A. who had worked in a daycare center during her undergrad years. They had one little boy whose mother was a bit of a food fanatic. On the day when the other children were sharing pizza, he got to eat the raw asparagus his mother sent with him, seasoned with parmesan cheese. He shared a birthday with one other child. Both their mothers sent cupcakes to share with the other kids. The other child's were the gooey, frosty kind, which everyone loved. The little boy's mother sent him in with unfrosted cupcakes made with applesauce. They didn't go over well at all. I wonder what will become of that boy when he leaves home -- will he wind up becoming some kind of Hostess Cupcake fiend?
old rpm daddy at March 23, 2010 5:41 AM
Bake sales are rare occasions. I can see banning junk food from school lunches and vending machines, things that will develop a daily habit. But I'm not sure that a cupcake a month is going to have a long-term detrimental effect.
And what the hell is in the lowfat doritos instead of fat? I bet the sugar and fat from the cupcake is probably less harmful than the weird tripped out chemicals in the chips are...
NicoleK at March 23, 2010 6:32 AM
Wait... if less than 35% of the calories are from sugars or fat, then by definition doesn't that mean that 65% of them have to come from protein? I mean, don't all calories come from sugar, fat or protein?
So instead of bake sales they will have steak sales!!!
NicoleK at March 23, 2010 6:33 AM
Mmmmm, steak sales - now there's a great idea NicoleK! I don't have much of a sweet tooth so cupcakes etc are a bit 'meh' for me, but a couple of steaks with a heap of salad and a baked potato or two is heaven...
With lashings of butter and salt of course!
Ltw at March 23, 2010 7:12 AM
Do you suppose the community colleges will offer adult ed classes in goose-stepping?
irlandes at March 23, 2010 7:54 AM
the Right Rev is eloquent on this topic:
"Rights are no longer an individual's defence against the state; they have become a claim by the individual on the state."
not just the state but society in general... perhaps the reason is that it's subtle, asking for the unreasonable thing in a reasonable way...
SwissArmyD at March 23, 2010 9:44 AM
"...that many well meaning laws were destroying society and that while individual rights had increased..."
Actually, I would claim that, in any meaningful sense, individual rights have substantially decreased. When the law becomes a morass that the average citizen cannot untangle (and common-sense morals don't work as a guide), then the natural reaction is the fear one, of only doing the minimum necessary to survive. And, having found a pattern of survival that doesn't get one prosecuted, one is then very reluctant to set foot off of the well-worn path. Good obedient sheep are we all. Yes, we have all kinds of claims on the wealth and attention of others. But what good is that, when they have the same claims upon us? Aren't we, at best, merely jugging our resources from hand to hand (with attendant damage when a resource-vase slips and shatters on the ground, not to mention the occasional chain saw that takes off a wayward hand or foot)?
No, it's what I call the "exchange of freedoms", in which we give up meaningful rights in exchange for meaningless ones. You have the right to get your ass tattooed and walk down the middle of Sixth Avenue butt-naked, but you don't have the right to criticize the government. And we all become infantalized, squabbling over who gets the biggest piece of pie from Daddy Prez and Mommy Speaker, while failing to notice that there's an entire grocery store around the corner where we could just go get the ingredients and make our own damn pies.
Cousin Dave at March 23, 2010 11:26 AM
That reminds me of this. Look for a surprise at the end, for those who don't know!
2000 James Beard Foundation Journalism Award Winner Magazine Writing on Diet, Nutrition, and Health Gourmet, November 1999
The Lunch Box as Battlefield
By Perri Klass
Once, in my older son's day-care class, a little boy traded away his winter coat (in Massachusetts, in midwinter, with snow on the ground) for an Oreo cookie. He was being raised in a white-sugar-free zone, so he monitored the contents of the other three-year-olds' lunch boxes
with an attention bordering on obsession. He made his successful trade, and, of course, immediately ate the Oreo. At the end of the day, when the situation was discovered, the other child refused to return the coat. ("We traded, he wanted to trade, and he already ate my cookie!") And, needless to say, the white-sugar-free mother had nothing in her bag that would pass as legal tender with any self-respecting child. Eventually, after some intense parental pressure, the coat was repatriated. ("I promise we'll go to the store right away, darling, and get a whole bag of Oreos if you'll only tell us where you hid his coat!")
So the day-care center, prodded by Mrs. No-White-Sugar, came up with an idea: "Unhealthy" foods should be banned from all lunch boxes, thus
removing temptation from those children being raised along nutritionally correct guidelines. No more cookies, no candy, no cake, and, heaven forbid, non of those packaged things like potato chips.
I think things have eased up a little over the past few years. My younger son, who's four, now attends a day-care center that actually allows "unhealthy" foods (or, as we call them, treats), though there is a rule, my son tells me righteously, that you have to eat your "healthy" food first. I don't have a problem with that; it is essentially the same rule we have at home, after all, and it can easily be gotten around by any child with a reasonable salting of sense and
slyness.
Still, Halloween can be a problem. I knew a set of parents who waited until their little girl was asleep on Halloween night and then went through her trick-or-treat bag and substituted carob candies and granola bars for everything good - and guest what? She noticed! She complained about it to her friends, and these public-spirited parents suggested that the rest of us might want to practice a similar policy of substitution so all the kids could have healthy stuff together.
I have a message for you all: Stay out of my child's lunch box; stay away from his plate! You are, of course, free to take the whole-grains-and-lentils route, or to raise your children to think that anything highly spiced is strange and icky and likely to lead to immoral behavior. It may turn out to be an extremely clever strategy,
for which you'll pat yourselves on the back someday when you realize you've created adolescents who can act out full-scale rebellions merely by scarfing down Mounds bars. But you can't remove temptation from your child's path by legislating what mine can eat.
It's a misguided idea anyway. The food choices that children will grow up to make have to be choices - if there is a food you don't want
your child to eat, she has to be able to watch someone else eating it without going into a frenzy. She may, if a food allergy is involved,
even have to be able to say, "No, thank you" to certain things.
But this is not really about nutrition. As with so much else along that fine line between child-rearing and child-interfering, we are really
talking about manners. Yes, of course we have to teach our children about food, about the rich and varied experiences of eating, and, yes, about balance and health and sense, as well as about sensation and sensibility. But there are other important lessons to be learned over the lunch boxes, lessons about eating as a social activity and meals as high spots in the day (not to mention the true value of an Oreo). And as far as I'm concerned, one primary lesson for kids and parents alike is this: It's rude to comment on what someone else is eating.
(end)
Perri Klass is a famous pediatrician/novelist. I'm a bit surprised that, as recently as 1999, she doesn't mention the awful obesity rates in children, but then the mother in question is clearly an arrogant control freak anyway.
lenona at March 23, 2010 2:45 PM
When the rules in our town went into effect a couple of years ago, all of our mothers just rolled our eyes.
Yeah, and then what? Did they fight it? Did they just hold the bakesale like usual and challenge the board to do something about it?
Did they do anything?
No clue from the article.
ErikZ at March 23, 2010 9:02 PM
My daughter's school has gone completely food-Nazi. For their Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's parties (OOOPS that's Fall Festival Winter Carnival and Valentine's Day Party--what, St. Valentine is less of a religious figure than a jack-o'lantern?) they served carrot sticks and bottled water. That's it. No outside food of any sort was allowed. Children are not allowed to bring any food treats for birthdays, either.
Now I'm all for protecting the children with life-threatening food allergies from being exposed, and there are a rather large number of them in her year. HOWEVER, I must protest that children who are deprived of choice do not learn to make good food choices, children who are educated and offered reasonable choices learn to make good food choices. And good choices in general, I might add.
twan at March 25, 2010 3:55 PM
Now I'm all for protecting the children with life-threatening food allergies from being exposed, and there are a rather large number of them in her year. HOWEVER, I must protest that children who are deprived of choice do not learn to make good food choices, children who are educated and offered reasonable choices learn to make good food choices. And good choices in general, I might add.
___________________________
Um, don't kids get enough "choices" in their own lunchboxes? Or by trading desserts with other kids? Hint: It's a long-running joke/fact - for the last 30 years or so - that kids who are given fruit as dessert throw it out if they can't trade it.
One might just as well argue that schools that don't give kids the option of playing video games instead of playing outdoors during recess aren't helping THEM make learn to make good choices either, since they have no choice. Ridiculous!
lenona at March 25, 2010 6:38 PM
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