Sometimes I can’t help but be amazed at the headlines in the newspaper. It seems to me sometimes that I may be the only one who looks at them and thinks, are we in complete denial or just stupid?
Case in point. Two headlines in a recent issue of USA Today.
Obese boomers face immobile future. And right under that Stacking cups hits the heights.
OK. The obese headline needs no explanation. As we get older and fatter the chances we are going to end up in a pride mobility scooter are ever increasing. And the generation of baby boomers is at most risk.
But the cup deal?
It seems that the latest competitive challenge in our world is something called sport stacking. The idea is you take these plastic cups and make a pyramid out of them and then take it down. Fastest stacker wins. That’s it. When I was a kid we had what was called in those days when dinosaurs had leathery wings and flew low over our heads recess. It involved things like running, jumping, dodge ball and other forms of exercise in the fresh air. If I had suggested to my teacher that we sit at our desks and stack cups I would have suffered what we called back then corporal punishment. You know, a crack across the dupa and be sent to the principals office.
Now here’s a quote from the teacher of the year in the fine state of Delaware whose motto is Liberty and Independence. Doesn’t mention smart.
The teacher of the year said “”It’s the perfect elementary activity, because you don’t have to be physically gifted to do it.”
Amen to that.
So we are teaching our kids at an early age that they don’t have to be physically gifted or even physical at all to be great at something. They can just sit there and make piles of cups and then unmake them. And we wonder why kids are becoming fatter, lazier and stupid.
I am just pointing at another one of those signposts on the slippery slope to the warm place. The slope seems to be getting steeper and more slippery all the time.
