Beware - and be Aware
Warning! This common consumer device should be handled with care. In the wrong hands (too young, too old, too ill, too irresponsible) its use can be deadly. Every time we purchase a tool or device, hand-cranked or electrical, the manufacturer includes a warning. The warning consisting of the most elemental common-sense cautions when using any item that might conceivably pose a danger when used.
Don't immerse this radio in water when using. Do not place the plastic wrapped around this item on your head; you may experience difficulty breathing. It's not that the manufacturers consider the general public to be idiots - not exactly; they're just taking sensible precautions to cover their asses. We do live in litigious times. Times when, just coincidentally, people feel entitled to anything and everything, and feel no personal responsibility for choices which they themselves make.
So perhaps on second thought people do have an inborn tendency to idiocy, if we can equate idiocy with an insouciant disregard for cause and effect, for self-determination, for the others with whom we are surrounded and with whom we share living space, be it in large households or cities with teeming roadways of vehicles making their way through suburb to city and back again.
People are living in good times in much of the world, where resources are shared nicely to a good extent, and medical science has greatly advanced the quality and length of lifespans. And wouldn't you think that a corollary to growing older would also mean growing wiser? In the sense that one's experiences through a life long lived in fairly good conditions propels one to feel a sense of gratitude in time and place?
Where is it written that individuals past the ripe age of three-score and ten have the right to drive their personal vehicles on public roadways untroubled by the certain knowledge that age has conferred a number of additional qualities upon them, none of which they have deliberately sought, but with which they have been saddled. Shorter attention spans, slower response times. Compromised eyesight, propensity to wandering minds, less limber limbs and extremities.
Older and wiser, health-impaired individuals should have gained sufficient knowledge over the course of their years to acknowledge the need to haul themselves out of their personal vehicles, off the roads and highways. To put a halt to practising the vain conceit that driving is a right, not a privilege; a necessity, not a selfish convenience; a familiar, comforting habit, not a deleterious deceit of old age inimical to driver and society at large.
Yes, there are additional tests required periodically of older people to ensure they are capable of driving and reacting well on the road. Somehow, too many incapable drivers seem to slip through, regardless. I'm a senior citizen, not yet a senior-senior citizen and I am appalled at the crumbling physical condition of aged drivers; creased and grey, barely able to haul themselves out of their vehicles and locomote.
They're white and trembling, overweight to morbidly obese, barely capable of walking a few steps unassisted yet they're behind the wheels of cars, vans and SUVs; the latter ensuring they survive in a crash while others be damned. Why don't concerned family members along with the family doctors break the news to granny and granpa that they've had their time behind the wheel and it's time to let go...?
Afraid of being written out of the will perhaps? Concern for the beloved elder's state of mind should this last vestige of past mobility-enhanced lifestyle and the independence it asserts be taken from them, leaving them more vulnerable to depression? Are they willing to take upon themselves the responsibility of their aged relatives' lack of responsiveness in critical situations?
Here's a nice one: a newspaper item, discreet but there all the same, with a photograph of a nice old geezer, 86 years of age and missing. Last seen several days earlier at his home: eyeglasses, balding grey hair, he drives a grey 1998 Buick Century with veterans' license plates. He suffers from Alzheimer's disease and numerous other physical conditions, the news item further revealed.
That Buick is a nice heavy car, he'll come out of a collision all right one guesses.
Don't immerse this radio in water when using. Do not place the plastic wrapped around this item on your head; you may experience difficulty breathing. It's not that the manufacturers consider the general public to be idiots - not exactly; they're just taking sensible precautions to cover their asses. We do live in litigious times. Times when, just coincidentally, people feel entitled to anything and everything, and feel no personal responsibility for choices which they themselves make.
So perhaps on second thought people do have an inborn tendency to idiocy, if we can equate idiocy with an insouciant disregard for cause and effect, for self-determination, for the others with whom we are surrounded and with whom we share living space, be it in large households or cities with teeming roadways of vehicles making their way through suburb to city and back again.
People are living in good times in much of the world, where resources are shared nicely to a good extent, and medical science has greatly advanced the quality and length of lifespans. And wouldn't you think that a corollary to growing older would also mean growing wiser? In the sense that one's experiences through a life long lived in fairly good conditions propels one to feel a sense of gratitude in time and place?
Where is it written that individuals past the ripe age of three-score and ten have the right to drive their personal vehicles on public roadways untroubled by the certain knowledge that age has conferred a number of additional qualities upon them, none of which they have deliberately sought, but with which they have been saddled. Shorter attention spans, slower response times. Compromised eyesight, propensity to wandering minds, less limber limbs and extremities.
Older and wiser, health-impaired individuals should have gained sufficient knowledge over the course of their years to acknowledge the need to haul themselves out of their personal vehicles, off the roads and highways. To put a halt to practising the vain conceit that driving is a right, not a privilege; a necessity, not a selfish convenience; a familiar, comforting habit, not a deleterious deceit of old age inimical to driver and society at large.
Yes, there are additional tests required periodically of older people to ensure they are capable of driving and reacting well on the road. Somehow, too many incapable drivers seem to slip through, regardless. I'm a senior citizen, not yet a senior-senior citizen and I am appalled at the crumbling physical condition of aged drivers; creased and grey, barely able to haul themselves out of their vehicles and locomote.
They're white and trembling, overweight to morbidly obese, barely capable of walking a few steps unassisted yet they're behind the wheels of cars, vans and SUVs; the latter ensuring they survive in a crash while others be damned. Why don't concerned family members along with the family doctors break the news to granny and granpa that they've had their time behind the wheel and it's time to let go...?
Afraid of being written out of the will perhaps? Concern for the beloved elder's state of mind should this last vestige of past mobility-enhanced lifestyle and the independence it asserts be taken from them, leaving them more vulnerable to depression? Are they willing to take upon themselves the responsibility of their aged relatives' lack of responsiveness in critical situations?
Here's a nice one: a newspaper item, discreet but there all the same, with a photograph of a nice old geezer, 86 years of age and missing. Last seen several days earlier at his home: eyeglasses, balding grey hair, he drives a grey 1998 Buick Century with veterans' license plates. He suffers from Alzheimer's disease and numerous other physical conditions, the news item further revealed.
That Buick is a nice heavy car, he'll come out of a collision all right one guesses.
posted by Pieface | 12:56 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home