I'll shoot your eye out

To start, let’s make one thing very clear: I’m all for ridiculing stupid children. People do dumb things all the time, and I usually end up thinking less of them for it. I’ve never really differentiated between children and adults, because most adults are just as dumb as children. But there’s a line between ridiculing a kid for doing something dumb and writing an article about it for some news channel’s website. That’s unnecessary.

Here’s the story, which I found at Keith Law's site: to summarize, a ten-year-old boy, on a dare, licked a frozen light pole. His tongue got stuck, and ambulance came, and the boy pulled his tongue off with a little bleeding. And, unfortunately, this all happened in the town that the town in A Christmas Story was based on.

Yeah, that this kid did this was pretty stupid. But seriously, why did someone decide that this was worthy of being reported as real news? Israelis are Palestinians are blowing each other up, a new President is being inaugurated in less than a week, Russia is probably doing something badass right now, and WKYC is reporting on a kid licking a light pole. Fuck them, that’s like the most base, common denominator garbage imaginable.

Of course, this article is listed in the Watercooler section of the site. Are they suggesting that working adults should stand around making fun of a ten year old? Is that what working people do, like is that regular practice? I mean, not to be a dick, but maybe if people in Cleveland focused more on their jobs and less on dumb kids licking light poles I wouldn’t have had to hear for months about how shitty Ohio’s economy is.

Also, here’s a unrelated bit of stupidity from between Contracts and Civil Procedure. Speaking about a kid who’s been absent all week, a dumbass, completely seriously, said, “What if Chavez was never here? What if he’s just a figment of our imagination?” Yeah, that’s more likely than him being sick.

EDIT: The Chicago Tribune has picked up this story now. I'm pretty sure it's decisions like this that have forced them to file for bankruptcy.