The continued pussification of America...

It's late here, but I have to rant after noting that they're closing the schools AGAIN tomorrow around most of the city here, in spite of the fact that there ain't a damn thing wrong with the roads!  Okay, it was like 0°F this morning, thus why they closed the schools today, even though most of the roads were clear and passable, yet it took me ten minutes less to get home from work today than it normally does.  Meantime, tomorrow morning's forecast isn't quite as cold, and the high is supposed to be ABOVE freezing tomorrow, yet many of the area's school districts are closing anyway! In the words of Col. Potter on "M*A*S*H", "Mule fritters!"

At the risk of this sounding like sour grapes, it took a fucking act of Congress to get them to close the schools 30 years ago when I was a student!  As much as I used to love pining to hear "Raytown Consolidated School District #2" mentioned on the radio at 4AM on the official school closing list when I was 13, I now find it rather repugnant that they seemingly close the freakin' schools nowadays every time a dark cloud hovers overhead.  And I certainly don't remember them EVER closing the schools because it was too cold out—WE were expected to suck it up and freeze to death at the bus stop.  Sadly, the school districts are now so paranoid about potential lawsuits in the event a bus full of kids goes off in a ditch in the snow, etc., they evidently have no choice but to close the schools at the drop of a hat.

Hell, in early 1977, the Raytown school district dilly-dallied during a freezing-rain event (as they call them on the Weather Channel now) and waited until the last minute to call off school.  My Dad and I were totally unaware of this fact, thus he drove me to school that day, and I waited and waited for the janitor to unlock the door to let me in.  When he finally did, he informed me that school had been called off for the day.  Thus, I wound up walking—er uh, sliding—the 1.5 miles back home, falling on my ass twice in the process.  It was more than a tad ironical (pun intended) that the big hit song on the charts that week was Paul Simon's "Slip Slidin' Away"...