Nation of Lawyers and Victims

PLAYGROUNDS on public school property might soon no longer be necessary. There is a growing movement across the fruited plain to prohibit any and all activity which might possibly result in student injury. There's an elementary school out west which has banned baseball, softball, dodgeball, football, kickball, hide and go seek, chase, tag, maybe hopscotch, and heaven only knows what else. Is this the end of fun recess in America? What, exactly, on God's green earth do we expect our children to do during recess? Hold hands and sing "kumbaya"? Meditate? Are we forgetting about the looming threat of finger cramps? Does this spell the end of recess? The tragic part is,there might be a good reason for it. Nowadays when a child is injured on a school playground, there is a heightened chance that the parents will file a negligence lawsuit against the school, the school district, and heaven only knows who else. One must cover one's butt. In the land of ligigation, one must always be wary. It is not reasonable to conclude that we modern folk have a heightened awareness of the dangers of child's play, or more compassion than our bruised and bloodied ancestors. But we do have a complex culture in which our legalistic tendencies are running amok, with all matters having legal implications.In other words, there wa a time when a child coming home from school with a playground bruise or bloody nose would not move the parents to blame the school. We are a nation of victims, and criminals! At the University of Texas at Arlington, an economist did a study which revealed to him that the more time kids spend playing violent video games, the less likely they are to commit violent crimes in the "real" world. He'll have to prove it to the rest of us, and he hasn't yet, not with only one study conducted by one person. Maybe video games really do vicariously siphon off anger and violent urges, and maybe they foment violence, as most of us tend to believe. But one thing is for certain; kids need exercise, they need it while at school, and they need to be free to choose their own games, not confined to some boring adult's version of what good games are. If anything foments vioent individual behavior, its an unhealthy individual, and health has spiritual, mental, and physical components. Are all the balls still in the closet, locked up? Does anyone have the key?