The Machinery of Night

A Message for the Kiddies

Toughen up, you little marshmallows. Life is not for the weak.

This friendly reminder is inspired by an article in Canada's National Post:

Education experts have apparently coined a term, "ecophobia," for the dread and helplessness children feel when confronted with apocalyptic forecasts. According to a recent British survey, half of the children between the ages of seven and 11 are anxious about the effects of global warming and often lose sleep over it.

When I was the age of these tender young things, we knew that those of us unlucky enough to survive the first nuclear exchange were going to die slowly and horribly of radiation poisoning, and the alternative to that was to freeze in the dark as the oil ran out and the inevitable man-made Ice Age consumed us all. Either one meant a poor, nasty, brutish, and short existence scrabbling for food while dodging roving packs of hungry mutants.

And then there were the Reds under the beds. Booga-booga-booga!

And through all of that we slept like logs, sprang from our beds, and played with our Jarts and our Thingmakers[1] and our real chemistry sets containing actual dangerous, disfiguring chemicals. So suck it up, you little pantywaists.

Be sure and check out the first page of the article, in which Canada's own eco-ogre, David Suzuki, forces little children to go through bizarre, Soviet-style ritual denunciations.

The real shame (and, of course, hilarity) is that little children are going to say something useless and moppety, like, "I want to save the Mommy and Daddy polar bears so the baby polar bears don't cry." I can imagine Suzuki making a presentation to Parliament. "There," he says with satisfaction as the lights go up. "We must keep the baby polar bears from crying. Even a child can see it."

Child endangerment dobbed in by Tim Blair. Mark C. of Daimnation wonders if this sort of thing is going to affect the Suzuki Foundation's tax status.

[1]These were molds into which you poured nasty plastic goop and baked on a hot plate. Once cooled, they formed a toy which wasn't very much fun to play with. Hurray! I had the Fun Flowers. Almost burned down the house with it! I can still smell the stench of baking goop.

Labels: Fools of Our Planet