The Nanny and the Playground

Cripes -- glad I don't live in Portland Oregon. It is a gorgeous city and home to Powell's but this latest bit is too much. From KATU TV/ABC:

Is litigation taking the 'play' out of kids' playgrounds?
Most adults can remember the carefree days of childhood, climbing trees and jumping from swings, often on schoolyard playgrounds.

Climbing, swinging and sliding was once a rite of passage during recess, a time for adventure, to see how high, how far and how fast we could go as a kid.

Today, kids find themselves grounded, victims of a culture of fear and injury litigation.

A growing number of school districts are going so far as to ban the game of tag and are even posting signs that read "no running on the playground."

Is there real danger on the modern playground?

Safety advocates say yes and want to eliminate it.

Their first target: swing sets.

They've convinced Portland Public Schools to remove all swings from elementary schools playgrounds.

Christ on a corn--dog... The article talks about similar nanny-ism in other cities but also gives up this voice of hope:

But at Catlin Gabel, a private school, there's an entirely different philosophy at work on the playground. One where monkey bars, slides and other playground favorites are used daily by a roiling mass of youngsters, some who come away with skinned knees or other minor boo-boos.

Kids there are taking chances, even jumping from swings, and it's all encouraged.

Of course, statistics are brought up:

One child psychologist points to the rising trend of childhood obesity in defense of letting kids play like kids.

National statistics indicate 34 percent of kids are overweight, with obesity projected to be nearly 50 percent in the year 2010.

But safety advocates point to different numbers, saying playground accidents cause 200,000 injuries nationwide each year, and 17 deaths.

Emphasis mine -- the statistics for kids falling into a five-gallon bucket and drowning point to 58 children drowned in the years from 1996 through 1999 (14.5 FATALITIES from BUCKETS EACH YEAR!!!) Citation here (PDF) Sure, a few kids die each year and this is tragic but to limit the expression of sixty million children (ages zero through fourteen years) is even more tragic and a perfect example of the Marxist statism that is creeping into our nation. Citation here -- first three rows of data for 2000 I thought that we were a Sovereign Nation -- a Federation of States. Exactly what the @#$% is happening here?