Meranda Watling, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier, brings us an article highlighting our collective fear for our children’s safety in and around school.

Safety and security in and around schools continue to grow tighter in response to tragedies and threats that weren’t as prevalent a decade ago. Schools require visitor sign-ins and badges, outfit students and staff with IDs and have officers walk the halls on a regular basis.

. . .

“The necessity for this is a sign of the times,” Francis said. “Since Columbine, it has increased every year. Our purpose is to try and do everything we can reasonably do” to protect students.

“Tragedies and threats that weren’t as prevalent a decade ago.” “Sign of the times” — It’s in the newspaper, so I guess it has to be true, but still I wonder. Are tragedies and threats really all that much more prevalent than in the hallowed days of yore? Certainly our perception of risk is greater than it was; but I have my doubts whether the risk is actually any greater. And, yet, statements asserting the increased risk probably aren’t even fact-checked. They’re taken for granted.

I tend to agree with the statement of Ian Green, quoted in the article:

For parent Ian Green, like his daughter, he said he feels safe and thinks schools do enough. He’d rather children not feel needlessly concerned all the time by unnecessary measures.

“If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. Nothing will stop it,” Green said. “But how far do you want to go?”

For my part, I get a little irritated with this unstated idea that humanity is progressively deteriorating from some mythic state of grace. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. With respect to safety in schools, there has to be some balance. Yes, we want our kids to be very safe. But, we don’t want our kids growing up in a miniature police state, becoming accustomed to subject themselves to the will of the government in the absence of a specific need.

Hash House Harriers is a drinking club with a running problem. In this organization, “hares” are sent out to mark a trail for fellow route runners – the trail will have some dead ends, false leads, and shortcuts and almost always ends in some sort of beer consumption.

In Connecticut, two hares sprinkled flour in a shopping center parking lot to mark the trail. Apparently, this is a felony.

New Haven ophthalmologist Daniel Salchow, 36, and his sister, Dorothee, 31, who is visiting from Hamburg, Germany, were both charged with first-degree breach of peace, a felony.

. . .

“You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know,” she said. “It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We’re thankful it wasn’t, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out.”

They should probably also round up this guy:

Another example of the consequences of governing through crime. We’re turning ourselves into cowards, essentially. If we get ourselves worked up into a panic over every potential threat, we’re not going to be much of a country. Sure, the potential threats are out there, but you have to weigh them against their actual likelihood. At times, our perception of risk far outpaces the actual risk (and, at times, we underestimate our risk — say, getting in a car, eating frankenfoods, or (probably) doing nothing about global warming.)

Not to discount the tragedy of the Minnesota bridge collapse, but I was amused at the flurry of “Bridges in our area are safe” stories:
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Louisville Courier Journal

Lafayette Journal and Courier

Muncie Star Press

Indianapolis Star

Evansville Courier Press

I am launching a new category here at Masson’s Blog – Be Afraid. We’ll see if I maintain it, but it seems to me that media of various stripes specialize in a kind of fear porn where lurking dangers in society are “exposed.” Fear is a useful and powerful emotion that can be hijacked by commercial interests. For a good discussion of some of this, I recommend Douglas Rushkoff’s “Coercion: Why we listen to what “they” say.”

Today’s installment is relatively mild. The Indianapolis Star has an article entitled “Online video games can become a virtual obsession.”

Though not officially recognized as a medical condition, game addiction has fostered a tidal wave of anecdotal evidence about people who shun families and careers to devote huge chunks of their lives to games. More academic evidence is cropping up, as well as clinical treatment programs.

As a kid, I spent five years working at our local country club. Perhaps I could recommend a new story to the Star, because there is plenty of family shunning going on at golf courses all over the state.

The article describes a guy who spent an inordinate amount of time playing World of Warcraft, then gave it up when he had a kid. Now he limits himself to less time intensive video games but admits that he’d like to go back to playing. The whole article is cast in the language of addiction. But, to me, it sounds like a guy who was having fun with his hobby to the exclusion of some more sensible undertakings. When the big responsibility came along, however, he stepped up to the plate and started doing what needed to be done instead of what would have been more fun.

The article goes on to talk about those nefarious game designers who make their virtual worlds as addictive as possible. You mean they want to make their product as entertaining as possible? No kidding? Presumably the Star will be following up with tales of book addiction and movie addiction and addiction to escapist fiction in any other media that comes along.

Seems like my entire life, whenever something new comes along, there is some expert breathlessly proclaiming how the new thing means doom . . . DOOOM! I’m pretty sure that damn rock and roll music was going to ruin the Boomers. Before that, presumably, it was color movies and talking movies and the radio and God knows what else.