Terror Nuts!

Friends, forget anthrax and VX, here is the REAL face of terror, the real weapons of mass destruction: PEANUTS!

You laugh, eh? That smirk of yours will evaporate when you take a look at this chilling terror training film that the fiends have brought right into our classrooms, teaching our youngest how to mix the binary components of the deadly PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICH!.

Thank God someone is fighting back against this mortal threat! A good friend of mine has a toddler enrolled in one of those much-coveted get-on-a-waiting-list type day schools run by a liberal Temple on the Westside of Los Angeles. And the other day he got the emergency Neigborhood Security advisory that I am reproducing below. (And, no, I’m not making this up).

Dear Parents,

This year, our preschool community has 12 children enrolled who are allergic to peanuts. Unfortunately, more than half of them are severely allergic to peanuts.

Children with such allergies can have reactions so severe from touching just a trace of peanut oil, that they can go into anaphylactic shock, require medicine and emergency transport to a hospital, and can still die. Peanut allergies are on the rise, and schools across the country are facing this same issue.

After careful consideration, Temple [Name Deleted] Preschool has established a policy regarding these types of food allergies. We strongly encourage all parents in the pre-school, not just those in the children's classes, to refrain from bringing peanuts and peanut products to the preschool. To limit peanuts in just the classes with children with peanut allergies isn't enough. Our children move from class to class during the day, and come into contact with clothes that may have food spilled on them, and seats that may have been touched by a peanut-covered hand. We understand that this may be a real inconvenience to your family, but it can mean the health of one of your children's classmates.

Even with all that our community can do to keep our classrooms as safe as possible for all children, unfortunately Temple [Name Deleted] cannot guarantee that the preschool will be peanut-free. It would lend a false sense of security since our congregation is almost 900 strong, all whom are welcome into our building. As much as we would like to, Temple [Name Deleted] cannot ensure that no one will bring peanut products into the facility.

We appreciate the efforts that many of you have already made on behalf of these families. With the help and understanding of all of you, we can know that we are doing our best to provide a healthy learning environment for all of our Temple children.

My how the world has become SUCH a dangerous place in SUCH a short time. Back in the 60’s I went to a public junior high school with 2500 students and a high school of more than 3000 and then a state university with 30,000 students and the peanut threat went totally unrecognized! Guess we were all in mass denial because I can’t remember a single person claiming to be allergic to the little podded monsters let alone anyone dying from them. Glad we have awakened to this mottled sword hanging over our kids’ heads.

Comments

[Michael J. Totten]

Using the same logic, there should be a total ban on peanuts in the United States. There might be collateral benefits. Maybe someone could go down to Colombia and convince the FARC to make peanut butter instead of heroin.

[Marc Cooper]

Yeah, but did u every try to snort the stuff? Not to speak of trying to inject it!

[wil]

Have they found peanuts in Iraq?

[Marc Cooper]

I'll let u know in a Jiffy.

[MarkC]

I'm sorry to sound like a humorless wet blanket, but these kinds of food allergies, though rare, are real, and they make the lives of parents and children a living hell. There is a woman in our office whose kid can't touch wheat products at the risk of his life, and she has to follow him around endlessly to make sure he doesn't eat so much as a piece of birthday cake. The school's policy is probably hopeless, but I'm not sure it deserves total ridicule.

[rosedog]

This reminds me of the time, ten years ago, when my son, who is now 18, told me he had been punished for running on the playground of his upscale Southern California public elementary school. At first, I assumed he was exaggerating. What school would forbid running at recess? There had to be more to the story. But when I called to inquire, I was told that the school had recently instituted a no-running policy because, as the principal informed me in vaguely judgmental tones, “Kids could get hurt” — as if such an explanation should be unnecessary to the truly caring parent.

Later, I found this was the new lawsuit-phobic policy being instituted by many schools---both public and private--- in upper-middle and upper income areas.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, last night, I went to a parent-teacher open house at a large urban middle school in East Los Angeles. I went with a young inner city mom who works full time, has six kids, husband incarcerated, and is struggling like crazy to tread water a bit below the poverty line. A few days before the open house, she’d learned that her eldest son, a very sweet, bright 12-year old boy, who’s doing his damnedest to stay away from gangs, was getting all “F’s” That’s 100 percent “Fs” (“Hey, I think it stands for ‘fantastic,’” he told his mother, when the report card came home.) Prior to receiving the report card, the mom had no notification of any kind that her son was failing.

Frantic, she went to last night talk to the school counselor who told her not to worry, that her kid still would be moving up to the next grade under the “no child left behind” policy.

“But he hasn’t learned what he needs to learn,” protested the mom. “Why didn’t somebody call me so I could have done something?”

“Someone should have called,” admitted the counselor, a harried but sincere-seeming young woman who appeared genuinely distressed about the situation, at least once she stopped long enough to focus. “Some kids do slip through the cracks. It isn’t fair.”

When I inquired how many kids the counselor had on her caseload, she said she wasn’t sure. “But I'm positive it’s over 800."

[For the record: the recommended ratio of kids to counselors for "effective program delivery" is 250/1. CNN just did a report expressing alarm that nationally, the ratio has risen to 477/1. In California, the average is over 900/1.)

As we continued to talk, the woman told me she was worried because she expects her own job to be eliminated next year since, because of upcoming state budget cuts, the school is going to have to fire at least one counselor, and she’s the newest one, so is the most likely to get the ax.

“So does this mean that the counselor/kid ratio is about to get a lot worse, and more kids are likely to fall between the cracks?” I asked.

“Yeah. You could say that,” she replied.

But, hey, we've got billions to send to Iraq, and a damned healthy prison system.

[witheld by request]

I can see your point, Coop, but let's not be too glib about it. I know folks with allergies to ANY kind of seafood who always carry a kit with epinephrine and syringes whenever they go to restaurants, whatever the specialty. A trace of shrimp left in the grill where their steak's been cooked can cause anaphylactic shock.

Secondly, this case involves a private organization, which has the inherent right to set its own rules to protect the people they serve, especially if their health is severely threatened.

And now excuse me, but I've got something stuck to the roof of my mouth.

[Bonnie Spolin]

AAAHHHHHH......NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!
Meaning the school of course!

[Michael J. Totten]

I know these allergies are serious. I get seriously bent out of shape if I eat eggplant parmesan even after taking the eggplant out and eating around it. (This I discovered rather recently.) It won't kill me, but eating anything cooked in the same pot will mess me up. It would be a LOT freakier if my eggplant allergy were potentially fatal. But I wouldn't say that particular vegetable ought to be banned on my account.

The odds of getting killed in a car accident are very high compared to other things, but no serious person thinks cars ought to be banned. Cars may be more vital than peanut butter, but still. You'd save a lot more childrens' lives if you forced them all to walk to school with their parents. Doesn't mean it should happen.

It's a dangerous world. Always has been. Always will be.

[rosedog]

Sorry if I veered to far off course there. It's just that school insanities are on my mind this morning.

Back on Marc's subject: It appears that peanut allegies have increased tenfold in the US a generation, according to a 1997 PBS broadcast on the subject, then the numbers doubled again between 1997 to 2000. Nobody's exactly sure why---other than to speculate that more pregnant women were chowing down on more salted peanuts than in past generations. (That's all I know, and it ain't much.)

[steve]

Cars may be more vital than peanut butter, but still. You'd save a lot more childrens' lives if you forced them all to walk to school with their parents. Doesn't mean it should happen.

--don't most kids take school buses? at least in the school districts that can still afford to pay bus drivers?
-------------------------------

[Louis]

I think some kids just need to be home-schooled. There they can have rooms with padded walls, and can walk (not run) around with knee and elbow pads, and breath freely, with of course an air purifier, knowing they're safe and sound.

[Michael J. Totten]

Steve: "don't most kids take school buses?"

Should I have said "motorized vehicles" instead of cars? Anyway, school busses share roads with...cars.

[Marc Cooper]

A good debate so far (given that steve has not yet found a way to link peanuts to U.S. war crimes).
Rosedoggie: I know of what u speak. Both as a student and certainly as a father I have found no single class of greater invertebrates than scholl administrators/counselors. I could write several books about my experiences with the mollusks who run LAUSD (or run it into the ground). Of course, private school administrators are no better... often worse. They, more than oftren, are but glorified and usually unctuous small tradesmen and merchants, as we see boldly in the case of the peanut-banners.
As to the seriousness of peanut allergy... well, no doubt, there are some poor souls who can be knocked off by crunching an M & M. The allergy certainly exists. But I no more believe it has tripled than I believe that ADD is as rampant as some claim (In my USC classes I get an ENORMOUS amount of mooks who claim ADD-- I'm surprised their mommies or their lawyers don't send me notes saying little Duane has an allergic reaction to KNOWLEDGE,, make sure he doesnt come into contact even with a trace of it).
What revolts me about the peanut story is not that some claim they heve allergy. Undoubtedly true. It's rather the hysterical over-reaction. A trace of peanut matter can be found anywhere. Indeed, Im with Totten on this one.. ban the fuckin' cars first and make the mommies or better the nannies carry the precious little cargo into school on steady-cams. The memo reeks of self-satsified, over-protective, over-pedigreed, workaholic, over-ambitious, greedy, preposterously self-centered, self-obsessing, OVERLY-entitled fucks who raise their poor wretched kids as if they were some sort of show dog... which of course is exactly what they are. Other than that... I'm cool with it!

[steve]

well, yeah, but school buses are and public buses tend to compete with cars for space on the roads 1) and 2) school buses actually do save lives. When routes are cut back on thanks to the delerium of cut cut cut everything under the public sun, the risks to kids goes up actually.

BTW, didn't mention it, but the much excoriated Michael Moore has some interesting discussion of the politics of fear in his Columbine film, featuring a sociologist who specialises in the topic.

[steve]

(given that steve has not yet found a way to link peanuts to U.S. war crimes).

--heck no, i'm in as much a panic about peanuts as i am about hippie protestors spitting on vietnam veterans. well, ok, at least the concerns about peanuts are based on something real.i'm just enjoying watch you agree with moore on the politics of panic!

[GMRoper]

Anaphylactic Shock and other allergy related illnesses are serious stuff. My first wife died after a brave, but ultimately futile twenty five year battle with severe asthma. Having said that, the students at the Temple school are held hostage because of the allergies of a few. Being a parent of a child with allergies that severe would indicate home schooling at a minimum. Why send your child somewhere where you KNOW they are ultimately likely to come into contact with peanuts or peanut products?

[steve]

Why send your child somewhere where you KNOW they are ultimately likely to come into contact with peanuts or peanut products?

--there's just no way parents and teachers couldn't work out some kind of arrangement? the kid should be kept from public school education just because he has an allergy? hmmmm.

[tim]

Wonderful to see that people in the U.S. are concerned about cutting-edge issues. I suppose there will soon be an NGO formed to push for a ban of peanut imports into Iraq.

[steve]

I myself am in a fit about missing children. they're everywhere! i'm totally freaked out that thousands of children are on milk cartons and we need to boost FBI budgets to solve the crisis.
just something i learned to panic about while coming of age during Reagan's 80's.

[steve]

One of the best books on the politics of panic:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0813325692/103-7732732-7910206?v=glance&s=books

Interesting, this guy links much of it to the obsessive paranoia of anticommunism from the Palmer Raids era on... The marijuanna scares are but one classic example of a scare that was motivated by the fear of the influence red/anarchist organizers were having on the unwashed classes in the 20's and 30's. Now with the Soviet Union gone, we're just nervous about everything.

[Marc Cooper]

That's right, steve, we were just imagining that a bunch of religious fascists drove some planes into New York City skyscrapers trying to kill 50,000. Likewise with the bombings in Bali, Madrid etc. Nothing to be nervous about, nah. The Bush administration is just making it all up about Al Qaeda as part of a campaign ploy. If we stopped brutalizing fish the terrorists would stop hating us.Just to further upset you... "that guy," the sociologist who wrote the book that Michael Moore plagiarized for his "documentary," Barry Glassner, is also an excellent pal of mine. Fascinating how you and I can read the same material and come to completely different conclusions. One of us is very wrong.

[Michael J. Totten]

Steve: "this guy links much of it to the obsessive paranoia of anticommunism from the Palmer Raids era on"

I agree that anti-Communism in the US has often been hysterical. For God's sake, look at Joseph McCarthy and the Birchers. But, seriously, lets not compare peanut butter to Stalin's gulag, the Ukranian terror-famine, Mao's subjegation of Tibet, and Pol Pot's piles of skulls. Find another analogy.

[rosedog]

Screw peanuts. I wanna know more about toxic mold. Now there's a post Cold War nefarious terrorist plot if I ever saw one.

"...I'm surprised their mommies or their lawyers don't send me notes saying little Duane has an allergic reaction to KNOWLEDGE,, make sure he doesn’t come into contact even with a trace of it..." made me howl with laughter. (Either that or it was the good Spanish red [wine] I had with dinner.)

[Clare Quilty]

I never let Dolores come near a peanut in the glory days of the abduction and later at the Duk Duk Ranch.