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On Tuesday, the New York State Health Department released a list of dangerous games for children that included kickball, dodgeball, tag, and capture the flag. If any summer programs featured one of these activities, it would be considered a summer camp and subject to more regulations and fees. After much criticism and their friends probably calling them idiots, the Health Dept. said they would review the list and did what anybody else would do: blame the blind guy, as in former Gov. Dave Patterson. The people in the Health Dept. obviously were never asked to play games as kids and are now trying to take their childhood rage out on 10-year-olds.
Really, how dangerous is capture the flag? You look for the flag, you find it, and try to run it back to your side. Is that more dangerous than going up a flight of stairs? Maybe all summer programs should be conducted in one-story bulldings (with all the walls padded of course). This is why our society is becoming so wimpy. Let kids fall. Let them get tough. Then, if they lose their job or a girl breaks their heart, they won’t become an whiny alcoholic who brings a gun into work. Life isn’t all candy canes and hundred-dollar bills, sweetheart. Sometimes you have to just get some balls in your face.
Rainman Suite 