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Currently on hiatus :-(
 S&W in German/auf DeutschGaia (my fantasy comic) Scarlet (my science fantasy comic) |
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![[0640] Roundabout II](/comics/2014-12-08-0640-roundabout-ii.png "[0640] Roundabout II")
- Caption: One week later.
- Yuna: This is boring. Faster, mommy!!
- Ye Thuza: I’m trying, but it isn’t working!
- Yuna: Why not?
- Ye Thuza: I don’t kn–
- Sign: This playground now fulfills all requirements of the new playground equipment safety law!
- Yuna: BWAAAAAAAAAH {SOB}
- Ye Thuza: There’s nothing worse in life than when your attacker laughs in your face.
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Sandra and Woo by Oliver Knörzer is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. See the About page for details.
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@ Luke:
I have found you
[img]http://i.ytimg.com/vi/00hq6S4BZvA/maxresdefault.jpg[/img]
All-Purpose Guru wrote:
So this, some of us just seek death.
I was wrapped in pillows per day, so when I knew how to drive I went drifting because I was invincible.
I am lucky I almost died
This is the same “logic” that replaces jackknives with those cheap plastic things. I remember getting my first real blade quite young. Did I cut myself? Yes because I didn’t listen to adults who knew better not because the knife was dangerous. A knife is a tool and if used correctly has many uses. The real problem with things that can be dangerous is they require education and some supervision which is actually sadly lacking in a child’s life today. Easier to just ban anything that might be even slightly dangerous.
“I don´t want to be alive! I want to live!”
Captain of BnL mothership Axion.
@ Amaroq Dricaldari:
What makes you think they will let you?
@ Mew:
But remember, it is for your own good, and you are now safer. Stop questioning your nanny overlords.
@ Lukkai:
A central registry has been tried several times in many countries. And each time it has been misused in the usurpation of power. Pre-WWII Germany, pre-Fidel Castro Cuba, and others.
I had super strict parents and because of that when I went to college I didn’t know what to do without guidance and so I ended up making some seriously bad desiscions
Ok, by the time I was Luna’s age, my twin brother and built flash-bang landmines around our clubhouse, been thrown to the ground and stepped on by angry livestock, knocked to the ground by firing large caliber weapons, not to mention just the general Rough and Tumble of having a Twin competing with you in EVERYTHING. We’ve had both fractured our skulls in falls, cuts, bruises, hell I damn near broke his neck in a fight! And yet we’re both here, moderately healthy and able to handle things that pretty much no “Nanny-stater” kid will ever survive.
The solution is simple: strap some rockets on that baby!
@ Steven:
*Jungle Gym
I misinterpreted this as saying they had been there for a full week 24/7. Silly me.
I agree that slowing down the merry go round is ridiculous, but some of the comments seems to be on the other extreme on the “exposing your child to dangers” issue.
When I was a small child, I did not get to use knives more dangerous then fruit knives. Then as I got older, I was allowed to use larger and sharper knives. Guess what, I knew knives were dangerous despite not having a history of cutting myself. I have a brain, I had seen knives cut things and I could use my imagination to visualize the knife cutting trough my flesh. You do indeed need some personal experience with dangers to learn about them, but not every danger must be explicitly experienced. We humans are gifted with imagination for a reason.
Sheltering your child too much will increase the chance that it later injures itself. However, exposing your child to danger increases the chance that it injures itself now. At some point of exposure, the increased chance of the child getting injured now exceeds the decreased chance of the child later in life getting injured. Some of the commenters here described a childhood which was past that point.
On another note, seen the Mythbusters episode with the Merry go Round? Maybe a Merry go Round “enhanced” similar to what the Mythbusters did with one would be more fun.
Challenges make life interesting, overcoming them make it meaningful – even when the challenge is something as simple as a spin on a park ride. We all have to start somewhere. But, these days, what with everyone worried about law suits, anything that is even remotely hazardous has been…. “sanitized”. Such a pity.
This actually makes me want to cry. Going around on the marry-go-round at dangerous speeds is one of my most cherished childhood memories.
@ Lukkai:
Readers may not be conscious of how free speech is attacked in the US.
Watch what happens if a conservative is invited to speak at most US university campuses. The results is protests and sometimes even disruption of the actual event. Opponents use their “free speech” to attempt to suppress free speech with which they disagree. My understanding is these disruptions commonly go unpunished.
Many in the US news media have left of center politics and it shows in their reporting. headlines and articles make sure you are reminded that Mike Brown was an “unarmed teen”, which, while literally true, spins, rather than reports, the story.
We have a Global Warming scientist suing newspapers that carried stories critical of his now-famous “hockey stick” graph. His isn’t the only lawsuit attacking people critical of Global Warming either.
Under the current Lef-leaning US government, the Justice Department has moved from Law Enforcment to a position of advocacy, the IRS has been used to harass conservative groups, just for starters.
If free speech isn’t just for the US Left, it isn’t for lack of the US Left trying.
@ Xezlec:
to be fair, I fail to see how it’s any of the doctor’s business.
@ Vorlonagent:
a) disruption of the actual event is bad, but protesting it is fine. just like conservatives are free to protest a liberal speaker.
b) There certainly is a bias in any news media. That doesn’t make news media bad- oh, and the reason they reported Michael Brown as an unarmed teen is because that was the story. At the time, Wilson had made no claim that brown attacked him.
c) considering that a lot of climate change skeptics distort the truth ( climategate, for example, was about data that was used in a grant application- aka, data that they wanted to find out more about NOT data used to back up a final conclusion. yet skeptics used it to argue all climate change data was made up. Not true.) I’m hardly surprised.
d) the IRS issue- IIRC, it later turned out that either it was simply that more conservative groups had applied in the first place, or that it was only one office- that was doing it on it’s own, not with orders from higher up.
Oh, and Obama’s actually not left-wing at all- he’s actually mostly right-wing. He just appears left-wing because both parties have become more right-Wing over the years.
So isn’t it ironic that we become safety conscious after infant mortality had dropped down (plus stop pushing the teenagers to have children and considering 14 years old as adult age)?
like
– William Marshal even ordered his son to be used as ammunition, which he can use “hammer and anvil” to make more sons.
As for the actual comic, while SENSIBLE restrictions should probably be in place- Ye Thurza was doing it fast enough that Yuna would probably have been killed if she fell off- making it go so slowly you don’t feel it at all is going too far. I’d say restrict it to a speed where you have to hold on, but would probably just get a sore ass if you fell off.
In short, safety restrictions should be for situations where there is a real risk of death or crippling injury. When the danger is something like a broken bone, then warn of the danger, but if they insist…
Looks like Ye Thuza is gonna have to make some people vanish again.
Van wrote:
If you search a little bit longer, you’ll find that that’s wrong actually. Not to forget here that the whole European Union has now central registers in its member states. Granted, some of them were not fully implemented it until the last few years. But in Germany for example, the system even before was networked well enough, that police and registry offices could work with it.
In Switzerland, to quickly mention my situation, we don’t have a central register for the whole country. But have had state-(or Kanton as we call them)wide ones for quite a while now. That do allow for communication between them.
Another example for a country with a central register, and longer than most of the EU, would be Australia. And I could probably have found more if I weren’t hungry and stopped to eat now.
tl,dr-version: The “always has been misused” point is absolutely wrong and untenable. Whoever told you about it either didn’t care to actually check the facts or deliberately lied to you.
@ Ladybug:
If they just banned guns (because of all gun related injuries) too, the world would be a much better place…
@ Gamesman:
One day they’ll ban water due to every drowning person.
demarion wrote:
And in Denmark, we spend 90% of the time facepalming over that.
Vorlonagent wrote:
I’m not sure whether you didn’t think that argument through or just have some very strange ideas about what free speech is.
Free speech guarantees you that you may voice your opinion freely without being persecuted by the state. (Within certain boundaries, like appealing for mass murder for example being illegal.)
It does not force others to set up the stage for you or invite you to share your opinions on their grounds.
It does not protect you from others voicing a different opinion, including them completely rejecting yours. Rather it guarantees that they may do so if ever they wish.
It is however quite effective to claim (completely fake) unjust restrictions of your free speech rights by *insert rival political group here* to create an “us versus them” mentality and setting yourself up as the innocent and wronged victim in it. That has to be supported and helped to prevail just for that injustice. One advantage of this tactic is that you don’t even have to bring up anything to back up your political views. The fact that you’re the unjustly wronged party makes you automatically right. Well, at least that’s how it is usually played.
And it’s not as if right wing politicians would be the only ones using this tactic, heavens no! It is popular with all kinds of people and whereever enough of the general public prefer to mindlessly follow only a selected few sources of information instead of thinking for themselves and doing their own research at least once in a while.
@ Lukkai:
Mind you: I’m not saying that there aren’t unjust infringements on the right of free speech sometimes. But the vast majority of complaints are just people either bitter about not everyone sharing their views or using the aforementioned tactic.
Invenblocker wrote:
Blaming guns is simple but not constructive. If I look at the number of guns in my country, then at the number of gun related deaths and accidents, the amount by what the world would be better and/or safer would hardly be noticeable and only really to hardcore statisticians. Even more if I count in how many of them would simply happen with a kitchen knife or other possible instruments instead. The availability of guns alone does not yet make for an unsafe environment. Comparing the “guns to death ratio” (if I may call it that way) of different countries makes that much obvious. There’s other causes at work here. And if you really want to make a difference, those are the ones you’ve got to identify and then take action against.
@ Vorlonagent:
Strangely enough, my observations of the U.S. indicate that it was the right that was suppressing free speech. And I would be skeptical of anyone trying to claim the U.S. government on a federal level was left leaning.
@ Lukkai:
You might want to compare the author of that argument with the one that immediately follows it…suggesting banning water.
In short. You appear to be arguing with the choir.
@ Roborat:
Because, each of us, in our own eyes, stands in the middle of the political spectrum. Anyone to the left of us is left. Anyone to the right of us is right.
Whirlwound wrote:
I have followed this comic for quite a while and I assure you I have never seen a comment this good.
But yeah, I think we’re going to have either one safety nut of a woman or a majority of a town council vanish without a trace soon.
Just a thought here, but instead of getting mad at the playground for not wanting to be sued when people like Ye inevitably get their kid hurt, maybe she should build her own playground where she can risk her child on her own dime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7vq3AC6Ezo
Her fun dreams flew into a fire…
@ Xezlec:
Not Just Florida.
I’m pretty sure that was one of the laws ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) was passing around all over the country on behalf of the NRA.
Finest Legislature Money can buy. Except they aren’t actually very “Fine” when you take a close look. Some of them don’t even have the grace to “Stay Bought”.
Roborat wrote:
Trust me. There’s a much stronger liberal presence than conservative. It’s the unwritten regulation. Liberals typically make more mistakes, conservatives typically have a much louder voice when making their own. (“Lack of action” is itself one, by the way. Conservatives DO take action, but the most vocal conservatives who actively DO hinder progress often don’t.) Overall, the result of this is that a vocal minority (conservative politicians that are particularly loud and obnoxious) become the public face of America.
Ideally, we’d have a system where the two wings work together, because an eagle can’t fly on only one wing. (A fact people seem to forget.) Liberals would come up with ideas, and conservatives would take their time to make an informed decision on which ideas will actually work and which will not have the desired effect. Ideally.
Problem is, they don’t. They actively compete against one another. Whenever they DO work together, they do so in such a convoluted, contrived way that the result is a compromise that leaves nobody happy.
@ yellow103:That’s called a centrifugal or ” Bendix” clutch.
You know, we kinda need more people like that mother, who actually care. The thing is, if the playground isn’t safe, if it were YOUR kid who got hurt… wouldn’t YOU want the piece of equipment dismantled, destroyed and banned? We might not want safety shoved down our throat, but it’s easier to remove the implement of injury, than to remove the stupidity that caused it.
Sorry, don’t mean to call any specific kids stupid… but a lot of us were, when we lookback now, right? Myself as an example.
This comic and the comments makes one question ethics.
Jon wrote:
One particular incident from when I was a teenager still make me blush over my stupidity when I contemplate it over 40 years later.
It seems that Sandra and Woo is starting to become the anti-Sinfest. Maybe I’m interpretting things differently than some people might, but it seems to me that Knorzer and Powree are starting to take a more political stance in their comics, one that seems to stand opposed to the kind of stuff you’d find in Sinfest.
@ NotASpy:
Except Sinfest’ current stance is becoming moronic to some degree (like the pornographic made Liberty from “misuse of idealism” to a “prude, helpless woman who bullied her husband’s idea for their sex”.
Don’t start with Sisterhood.
“You realize, of course, that this means war.”
@ Invenblocker:
IIRC A Senator introduced a bill to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide with a long list of reasons including: ” it causes HUNDREDS of deaths a year! It’s a HIGHLY CORROSIVE SUBSTANCE!!! Etc Etc. And the idiots were in the midst of passing it! Until one of their colleagues stood up and pointed them out that Dihydrogen Monoxide is H2O=WATER! The entire exercise was to point out that many Lawmakers don’t bother to actually READ the things they were to vote on.
Once again, we have lots of stories of injuries recovered from and lessons learned. However, children are (about 30 a year in the US) maimed or killed on playgrounds.
No-one seems to have the bravery they are asking of an administrator, who, unless choosing to remain purposefully ignorant, must make a clear, conscious decision to favor the needs of the vast, vast majority over the fact that some children *will* be killed or crippled by playground equipment challenging enough to be interesting.
Why expect more of an administrator than we’re willing to do ourselves? After all, we can’t even admit the danger when we bear no risk, while the administrator risks his or her career deliberately choosing to risk serious injury to children for a more intangible benefit to the huge majority.
It doesn’t require a nanny state or an evil parent. It just requires us.
@ Tom West:
because people basically don’t know when to stop. They try to remove all risk of pain or injury and it flat out CANNOT be done. Or to put it another way. Some people try to wrap their kids in Bubble Wrap, you can suffocate that way.
@ Adamas:
Agreed, but my point is that no-one here is willing to acknowledge that there is an acceptable level of death and maiming of children on playgrounds, ye (And notice, as with the others, your reply talks about “pain or injury”, not death or crippling injury, which is the concern of many playground nerfers.)
And because we refuse to address the central point – challenging playgrounds will cause death and permanent injury (in statistically small numbers), then we inevitably lose any challenges when the facts are on the table.
So far it looks like the playground nerfers are the reality-based side, and that bothers me like anything.
Solution? Simple. Split it into pieces, remove the annoying parts, put it back together.
I think Ye Thuza has sufficient technical skills to do it.
Next is a nationwide ban on anything with sharp edges. If a child is raised while never experiencing pain, disappointment, losing, sorrow, making mistakes and being responsible for their actions, they will cave in when confronted with them as adults. Wrapping our kids in cotton wool makes them weak and emotionally stunted.
There was a comment on another site about ‘Nannies’, which I’m sure includes over stepping government and busy bodies that stick their nose in everyone’s business.
The basic problem is that a Nanny is condescending and generally arrogant. “Oh no, you can’t decide for yourself to do something, you are far too stupid to make such important decisions. Just do what I tell you to do. I’m smarter and better than you, I know what’s best for you.”
I tend to be a moderate and acknowledge that some regulation is a good idea, but I also acknowledge that its easy to go too far, and that should be watched out for. This ‘who will think of the childreeeeeen?’ bubble wrap the world nonsense is too far.
My mother said once that the desire to bubble wrap the world and protect your children from everything desire is understandable, but it is also impractical, futile, and counterproductive. The world cannot be made perfectly safe, and trying to make it that way probably does more harm through stunting the learning of consequences and responsibility for ones owns actions, and simply limiting socialization and fun, than the limited benefits of reducing the chance of injury from some activities.
By modern standards none of the kids born before 1990 should have lived to reach adulthood. But guess what? The overwhelming majority of us did. And the scrapes, cuts, bruises, and even the odd break is all part of growing and learning.