Strange but true, as I write over at Let Grow:
The students were evacuated to the football field as Hazmat teams rushed to the scene. The local prosecutor was alerted, so were the police. Responders entered the building and investigated room by room. What calamity beset Haddon Township High School in New Jersey’s Camden County on Friday? A bomb threat? A gas leak? Anthrax?
Worse. Dinnerware.
Specifically, Fiestaware, the colorful plates that took America by storm during the Depression. A sophomore had brought a quarter-size piece to his science class, because some of the plates were originally glazed with a red color that contained uranium oxide (at least until our WWII war effort required uranium for the atom bomb, at which point the government confiscated Fiestaware’s stash). The student had received a Geiger counter for Christmas and was going to do a little experiment in class.
I guess it ended up being an experiment in how little it takes to create a nuclear reaction…of fear. Read the rest here (including the sophomore’s wise assessment of the situation). And if you have heard any other strange stories of overkill lately, please drop a line here, or over on Facebook at Raising Independent Kids (voila).
2 Comments
Everyone has to justify the money they get and the power they have by inventing emergencies the prove they are needed. If people’s lives and reputations are ruined during this that’s just too bad,they should have been cowering on the ground instead,waiting for their betters to tell them what to do then obeying instantly. They need to prove they own your children,you don’t and because they are exoerts and you are just a peon. This has been going on since the first chief of the tribe said stay close to the cave or the lions will get you, it will continue to go on until we as a group say lions? What lions?we don’t see any lions.
I hope no one tells them the oxygen they are breathing is a potential fire hazard.