Poor babies, life doesn't come with a trigger warning. If it had, mine would have read like a bad soap opera plot line, without the perfect hair and teeth.

I would really love to hear one of these delicate flowers explain why on the one hand they demand to be treated as equals to their male counterparts, for instance, women in the military fighting on the front lines, yet on the other hand their itty-bitty little psyche can be crushed by a line in a book or movie.

Maybe some enterprising individual will find a way to make money off of this, maybe a resort where the rooms are padded cells and the inmates/tourists can spend the whole time wrapped in mental bubble wrap. It would give new meaning to the term "Mental health day".

Consider the 15 page pamphlets included with all products these days. They include helpful information such as "do not put this device into a microwave or use while bathing or showering".

That is a serious, costly system of trigger warnings. Every warning comes from a lawsuit.

It can happen here, and has.

This morning I heard a story on one of the news programs about how the government is about to impose "tough new regulations" (that's the phrase they always use) on airlines and travel sites to disclose all fees that the traveler will or might have to pay when they fly. Now, it's definitely true that the airlines could do a better job of explaining the fare class rules (although there are lots of third-party sites, such as this handy chart from cwsi.net that neatly explains all of the Delta fare codes. And, on Delta's Web site at least, the fare code for every ticket is shown right in the box when you're selecting flights from the search page. And you can tell if a flight is mainline or a code-sharing regional by the flight number, usually.

So a smart traveler can suss out the info on additional fees. Admittedly, this can take some work, and it should be easier. However, I can already tell you what the effect of the regulations will be... it won't be any easier. What will happen is that there will be a bunch of "disclosure" pages with paragraph after paragraph of densely worded legalase, that everyone will click through without reading it. It will cost the airlines money to chase the ever-changing rules for what the right magic words have to be, and the public will gain absolutely no benefit from it. It will, on the other hand, create a lot of work for government regulators and litigators.

Trigger warnings. It seems like some students would feel more comfortable if their college or university was more like a psychiatric hospital. Maybe their fellow students should kindly suggest that they return to the hospital until they're ready for college instead of trying to convert the college into a psychiatric hospital.

The late, great Ira Levin addressed a dystopia where daily meds are mandated in "This Perfect World"; it's a quiet place until one day the protagonist decided to quit taking his medication.

The title of the Levin novel is actually "This Perfect Day." Excellent book. Haven't read it in years, but now you've made me want to dig it out of storage.

"It seems like some students would feel more comfortable if their college or university was more like a psychiatric hospital. "

Yep. Preferably one that dispenses lots of free recreational drugs.

Here's another op-ed:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/05/21/trigger-warnings-dangerous-idea-campus/ercxPOCUtzvMJTUl4Es32I/story.html

By Renée Loth. 50-plus comments.

Last three paragraphs:

"...Much of the focus on content warnings grows out of a concern for marginalized groups, whether minorities, the disabled, or anyone not in the 'dominant culture.' Feminist studies in particular have promoted them as a way to make women feel safer in a sometimes hostile campus environment, which can and does include sexual assault. But there are as many potential triggers as there are students. It’s a practical impossibility to protect against all of them.

"Nor should we try. Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge and professor at Harvard Law School, says students have asked her to disclose whether an exam in her criminal law course would contain any triggers for rape victims. She has refused. 'I have a feminist objection to the notion that women need to be inoculated against certain issues,' she said. 'Women need to engage, to come to grips with these issues.' The university should prepare students for the rest of life. 'There are no more trigger warnings the minute they graduate,' she said.

"Abetted by the Internet, Americans have been drawn deeper into like-minded communities of interest, where being confronted by challenging or contrary ideas is increasingly rare. Of course these subjects are painful. But exposure to society’s horrors is what wakes up our compassion and humanity. Students — all of us — need to learn about evil before we can ever hope to defeat it."

Trigger warning!

"May cause hilarity at the Instant Karma aspect of the events"

Don't forget the incest.

God, one more generation and we're going to have a world full of pussies.

My bid for world domination keeps getting easier and easier...

God, one more generation and we're going to have a world full of pussies. -- Daghain at May 21, 2014 5:28 PM

Don't worry. You can have your own enclave once the collapse happens. There are enough sheeple that you can rule over.

Can I get trigger warnings like this: "Contains idiotic belief in a free lunch" or "Internally contradictory beliefs" or "Warning: post-modernist cr*p"????
gotta watch my blood pressure...