You are viewing stuff tagged with safety.
So we thought we’d have to cover these in stickers to get Ess to wear them, but she loved them immediately: they’re for loud situations like wedding receptions or Fourth of July fireworks.
Riding my bike back from my workout, I thought I’d stop to buy some cereal from the local convenience store. But, as I was about to turn into the parking lot, I realized that both employees manning the store were standing outside the entrance, apparently in the midst of a showdown with a 40-something bear of a man. The thing that struck me most is that the proprietors had this guy facing them as he backed away; he did this until he was out of the parking lot. Then he turned and walked away.
Saint Thomas is situated in a very safe part of St. Paul—crime is low, and the safety measures in the dorms are high: keycard access and check-ins after hours. You start to take it for granted how safe it is to be on campus. In the past few years, however, we’ve had a marked increase of muggings only blocks from school. It’s usually dark, and the victim usually gets hit on the head. One guy was running with his iPod and didn’t even know what was coming because he couldn’t hear anything. Another guy was something like 6’5”, and he still got attacked.
Toddler headgear - I am hard-pressed to think of anything funnier than the pictures of these poor toddlers subjected to this padded neoprene protective headgear, all in the name of “safety.”
I’m fairly confident that the thousands of years of toddlers preceding the ones today did just fine without this sort of ridiculously overprotective hindrance to movement and dignity. I implore you not to buy one.
Occasionally, we get these “Public Safety Alerts” via the St. Thomas email system that outline some man making lewd comments on the corner of Cretin and Marshall or a 6’1” white guy acting suspiciously outside of the cafeteria. I, of course, made those up - but they should give you some impression of how low-key our public safety issues are. My sister lived in Minneapolis around the U of M for two years - a fatal shooting occurred right across the street from her. Now that’s real violence. Anyhow, in our little St. Paul haven public safety seems to be becoming more of a problem: