From George Washington, Lewis And Clark, And Davy Crocket To "You Need A Doctor's Note To Use Chapstick In Elementary School"
Not only that, it needs to be applied by the school nurse!
Welcome to Pussy Central, formerly known as the United States of America.
Bob Stuart writes at the News Virginian of the latest -- and perhaps the apex -- of "zero tolerance" idiocy: school policy in Craigsville, Virginia, prohibiting elementary school kids from having Chapstick.
Stuarts Draft fifth-grader Grace Karaffa appeared before the school board Thursday night, saying she had requested the substance while on the playground after suffering chapped lips."I was told I couldn't use it. Then later that day they (lips) started to bleed so I asked for Chapstick again and I was told that it was against the school policy for elementary kids to have Chapstick,'' Grace said.
...George Earhart, the assistant superintendent for administration with the Augusta County Schools, said Chapstick is considered an over-the-counter medication by the school board. The board has a policy regarding such medicines. He said Chapstick could be allowed if a physician asked for a student to use it, and it was administered by a school nurse.
via @jeffkatzshow
All I can say to this is "Fuck the USA" and "I am embarrassed to be a citizen of it sometimes, this is one of those times".
NakkiNyan at September 10, 2014 11:32 AM
Oh, heck. Back in my day, students used to eat the flavored Chapsticks as a tasty snack, AND NOT ONE OF THEM DIED!
Fayd at September 10, 2014 11:36 AM
[Obligatory Napoleon Dynamite joke.]
sofar at September 10, 2014 11:39 AM
Oh, heck. Back in my day, students used to eat the flavored Chapsticks as a tasty snack, AND NOT ONE OF THEM DIED!
Posted by: Fayd at September 10, 2014 11:36 AM
Chapstick was something that you might get in your Christmas stocking once a year, when I was a kid. The flavored kind didn't exist yet.
We had to make do with eating that white paste the school provided for sticking those cut and paste projects together.
Quite tasty though.
Isab at September 10, 2014 11:47 AM
I'll do you one worse: when my kids were much shorter and in Catholic School, the School Nurse was prohibited from administering pretty much anything. I think she was allowed to dial 911 though.
Fuck the RCC: I went to Child Safety training at my kids' school, and none of the zombie adults in the room with me blinked during the video testimony by the young woman who was molested by her Deacon and called a liar and slut by her own mother. The theme of the video was clear: the RCC will gladly throw anyone under the bus as long as the good name of the church is preserved. Normally I would have gone Medieval on whomever led that abomination of a "class", but by then I think I was too Catholicized to object.
Strangely, being Catholic has not even mildly fucked up my kids' heads, apart from the fact that they worship a bloodthirsty monster (God, not the Pope).
DaveG at September 10, 2014 11:54 AM
I think of us being consumed in our weakened state, metaphorically, by outsiders, and I think of a predator eating roadkill then barfing.
Who would want us?
DaveG at September 10, 2014 12:06 PM
*Crockett
Radwaste at September 10, 2014 12:07 PM
" The theme of the video was clear: the RCC will gladly throw anyone under the bus as long as the good name of the church is preserved. Normally I would have gone Medieval on whomever led that abomination of a "class", but by then I think I was too Catholicized to object."
And if the lesson you learned from this was *religion is evil*and not that any powerful organization or person, political, religious or otherwise will throw anyone under the bus, for power, money, or to preserve their own skin, their ideology, or their reputation, you learned the wrong lesson.
(And yes those self interested people, and organizations includes atheists, and libertarians)
Isab at September 10, 2014 12:09 PM
The less intelligent someone is the more likely they are to overestimate their intelligence relative to others and underestimate someone else's intelligence relative to their own. Dumb people are too dumb to know how dumb they are or how smart someone else is.
There might be some in the teaching profession for whom the purpose, risks, benefits and administration of Chapstick are overwhelming; who can't imagine someone else without a medical credential knowing more about it than someone as educated and credentialed as they are; and who would be apprehensive about using it themselves without the guidance of a healthcare professional - let alone allowing a 10-year-old to self-administer it. I mean, you wouldn't allow a 10-year-old to self-administer insulin or an inhaler...
Would you?
(Correct answer: Outside of a government school, of course you would, after you show her how).
Ken R at September 10, 2014 2:29 PM
Two words. Lip gloss. Burt's Bees has several different kinds that are also quite nice moisturizers. They are makeup, not 'medicine'. I'd be willing to bet lots of little girls in her school wear lip gloss.
Kat at September 10, 2014 3:06 PM
Isab, your point is a good one, it doesn't diminish how much religion sucks.
DaveG at September 10, 2014 3:46 PM
... since it not only falls short of its mission to improve human life, but damages it in so many ways.
DaveG at September 10, 2014 3:48 PM
DaveG you remind me of a bitter woman who got slammed in a divorce, only to recover and despise all men forever and ever. ALL of them. No good, I tell you!!
gooseegg at September 10, 2014 4:23 PM
Isab, your point is a good one, it doesn't diminish how much religion sucks.
Posted by: DaveG at September 10, 2014 3:46 PM
Religion doesn't suck. People suck, and religion is a people created value system, with a set of rules.
Flawed people use religious and other institutions as an organizing structure to bend people psychologically to see their groups values and goals, as innately superior to any other group.
From there, it is a very short hop to looking the other way, or outright denial that bad people will pay lip service to the values of the organization, while they violate them behind closed doors.
You tend to believe and support people you know and trust when others attack them.
Therefore you have the mother attacking the daughter who was molested by the Deacon, and if it had been her father or another male relative, the mother would have defended him too.
We kid ourselves all the time that we can judge someone's character by what we see during casual social interaction.
It just isn't so. .
Isab at September 10, 2014 4:49 PM
gooseegg, you've gotten through to me, and I'll consider what Isab just wrote.
Regardless of where it comes from, the bullshit has to stop.
Ben was going on at length in another thread about sources of morality. I didn't understand what he was getting at.
I'm an atheist, and unless I sustain brain damage or huge duress, I'll forever be incapable of the cosmically evil hypocrisy exemplified by the woman's mother.
Are you saying my loathing should be isolated to the mother, not the social system she was part of? Oh, she's just human, people do evil shit, get over it? I can't get there from here.
DaveG at September 10, 2014 5:55 PM
"Regardless of where it comes from, the bullshit has to stop.
Bullshit, both believing it, and spreading it is a part of being human.
Your bullshit, it another person's most closely held values.
It will stop when there are no more people.
Until then, why don't you just be as nice as you can, and stop worrying that a lot of other people don't either believe or value the same things you do?
This is one of those tilting at windmill things, that can be so self destructive. It sounds like you are the one, who is being most hurt by it.
Isab at September 10, 2014 6:23 PM
-It sounds like you are the one, who is being most hurt by it -
I was thinking this too. Hatred for people who embrace religion is not gonna have you winning any converts. Like the woman scorned by a man who then demonizes them all, she's only hurting herself. That said, with the instance you describe with the RCC, I only have experience with the Protestant church, and I can only say that people are people and people suck. I have seen that and worse, from folks who should know better and should be doing better. I have seen what you describe from other women who blame their daughters. I have also seen organizations (I read manuscripts dating back 60 years with the Boy Scouts) whose priority was first covering their ass and then to those kids (like Penn State for instance). I'm sorry that this happened under the heading of a church where protection from abuse should be priority. That's just shameful.
gooseegg at September 10, 2014 7:02 PM
Thank you both.
DaveG at September 10, 2014 7:08 PM
*Crockett
Radwaste at September 11, 2014 10:30 AM
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