The End of Personal Responsibility.

[greygirlbeast]

This from The Providence Journal (Saturday, August 12, 2006):

The town of Milford, Conn., has announced that three beautiful towering hickory trees on a street are being chopped down, because one child in the area is allergic to hickory nuts. The town was driven by fear of litigation spawned by a letter from Una Glennon, a grandmother of the child

Comments

[krasota]

As someone with life-threatening food allergies, I'm also sickened. Hickory nuts aren't related to any of the nuts the child allegedly has an allergy to. The family never provided proof of an allergy to hickory nuts. The grandmother previously petitioned (unsuccessfully) to have the trees removed because they were making a mess of her pool. Why the heck can't she build an awning if she's so darn concerned about her pool?

I don't have a problem with school bans on tree nut and peanut products--contact reactions to peanut residue can be life-threatening and every child has a right to an education. I do, however, think that removal of the trees was ridiculous.

[greygirlbeast]

I don't have a problem with school bans on tree nut and peanut products--contact reactions to peanut residue can be life-threatening and every child has a right to an education.

Follow this to its logical conclusion: if "tree nut and peanut products" are banned (and that's a pretty big class of products), then what about other common and not-so-common allergens? What about wheat? Many people have serious wheat allergies. And what about soy? And seafood? And tomatoes and strawberries? Dairy? And I'm sure that's only scratching the surface.

[krasota]

The key is contact/airborne. Peanut allergies are often incredibly severe, for reasons not well understood. The residue of PB is oily. It's very hard to scrub off with the cursory handwashing most children (and many adults) do. It's not an easily denatured protein, for whatever reasons. If a child doesn't have a contact allergy to peanut or a reaction to airborne vapors (which contain molecules of the allergenic protein), there's no reason to have a peanut ban

[greygirlbeast]

the life of a child is more important than a food choice.

That's debatable.

[sclerotic_rings]

And note that it's not the kid who's making the complaint, but his grandmother. Sadly, I deal with these sorts of dolts on a daily basis at work: the parents or grandparents want us to give special concessions to kids, usually by bellowing "they's got babies out there", because Will-Work-For-Food Junior thought that paying the meth bill was more important than paying the electric bill. "Whah cain't yew turn on the power? They's gawt thirtuh-three kids, and thaiy'll all freeze to death if they cain't watch Spongebob!" (Quite literally, I had one granny call up and threaten me personally if I didn't turn her grandkids' power back on solely so they could watch Spongebob Squarepants, and I get plenty of threats of legal action because Will-Work-For-Food Junior passed three bad checks in a row, found himself blocked from paying through our service, and now Granmaw has to take time away from callin' in the hawgs to bypass that fact.) Combine entitlement, arrogance, an expectation of being able to get away with anything by shrieking

[stsisyphus]

Dallas is full of entitlement brats of this sort who know what they're getting into when they move into a new neighborhood and then expect the rules to be changed permanently just for them. And it's always "about the children" and not "about a control freak who has one last shot at power before Hell reclaims its own."

Too true. Let's going drinking sometime & burn the city down. I want to exercise my god-given right to drink Mickey's tall boys & wield a can of gasoline.

[stardustgirl]

but Dallas is full of entitlement brats of this sort who know what they're getting into when they move into a new neighborhood and then expect the rules to be changed permanently just for them.

Not sure about the Dallas part or not (I've no idea where she's from), but you just spot-on described my neighbor who would also qualify for the "attention-whore/drama queen" crown.

[stsisyphus]

"The effort to shield the child here from the dangers of nuts might also be counterproductive. The child will have to learn to cope in a world full of nuts, if not in his grandmother’s backyard, then with the remaining hickory trees that line the street"

Or, more acutely, the nut living in his grandmother's house.

[cucumberseed]

Woo hoo. Connecticut, represent!

I've always held this image in my head of peanuts rising up a la the hunter-seekers in Dune to converge on the unsuspecting nut-allergy child kill for the kill. At least, that's what I imagine fills the heads of people like loony grandmother.

Scenic and important trees getting cut due to some fool's dislike of that tree in that place is pretty commonplace up here. Indeed in the more rural areas, people will sometimes wait until the owners of the property containing the offending tree are out of town and stage a chainsaw raid. The fact that this woman is using her grandson as a proxy in all of this is really a new level of asinine.

The poor kid's probably going to catch hell on the bus for this, too.

[setsuled]

The poor kid's probably going to catch hell on the bus for this, too.

Hell in the form of peanuts thrown from every direction, probably. It's going to be like the trail mix version of Carrie.

[greygirlbeast]

Hell in the form of peanuts thrown from every direction, probably. It's going to be like the trail mix version of Carrie.

Thank you. That's the first time I've laughed today.

[setsuled]

I'm glad I commented, then.

You're in the new Boschen and Nesuko again, by the way. Though you're wearing a veil.

[stardustgirl]

If all these tree-hating morons would build their own tree-free subdivision, we'd all be happier. They could have their little patch of concrete, or chemically-controlled lawn (maintained by someone else, of course). The rest of us can have those wonderfully messy, and occasionally unpredictable (limb crashing through your roof) trees.

I had one utility worker try to convince me a pine needed removing because "a keeeed maht hurt hisself climbin' it". I told him the little lard-asses around here never left their Playstations long enough to realize there was such a thing as climbing trees. That didn't make him happy. Neither did the Sheriff escort off our property. :-D The tree is still here.

The guy behind us hates trees because they shed leaves all over the place. Another neighbor hates them because they attract birds that poop on the car. I plant one every chance I get.