|
Luangwa Valley
Dispatch
By Jake da Motta
On an allergy website I
found the following question “My nephew who has a nut allergy, is
spending Christmas Day at my house. What’s your advice”. The
reply was lengthy and involved taking precautions ranging from not
putting out bowls of crisps and peanuts to replacing practically
every festive item on the menu (Christmas Cake, Christmas Pudding,
mince pies, chocolates, marzipan etc) with not merely nut free
substitutes but also products guaranteed free from the risk of
cross-contamination with nut products. It was also noted that severe
anaphylactic shock can occur in a nut allergic child from being
kissed by a person who is “nut contaminated” so to be aware of
guests who might be inconsiderate enough to eat a festive peanut and
then bestow a Yuletide kiss on the young sufferer. The final
sentence stated that “the safest thing to do is not to have any
nuts in the house when your nephew is there”
Bugger that! The safest
thing to do is to tell your brother or sister to have Xmas at their
house and if they are so worried about it to carry a syringe full of
adrenaline with them at all times. Not bring their drama into your
home and ruin everyone else’s Xmas! You’ll be doing the kid a favour
as he’s statistically much more likely to be hit by a Ford Transit
on the way to your house than he is to fall face down dead in the
chestnut stuffing.
 If
you have a medically documented peanut allergy in the US and the
airline you fly refuses your request to “stop serving nuts on the
flight” they are legally obliged to remove all passengers (who might
eat their nuts near you…damn their hides!) from your row of seats
and the rows immediately in front of and behind yours to create a
“nut free zone” (under a law passed in 1986 guaranteeing access to
planes for the disabled). Apparently flying on a commercial plane is
an inalienable human right so next time they try to stop you getting
on a plane because you cant afford a ticket you are being
discriminated against for being economically challenged. Stop
serving nuts on the flight? I agree….and tell them to take a bus
while you’re at it.
Complaints have been
raised from allergy support groups that it takes a nut allergic
person (0.5% of UK children most of whom outgrow the condition) 7
minutes longer to procure a shopping basket of 16 items because they
have to read the ingredients list so carefully. How much longer must
this kind of injustice go on!? Being one of 30% of the British
population who are myopic I take umbrage at the fact that I cant
read the signs telling me which aisle to find the contact lens
solution in unless I stand right underneath them….where’s my support
group?
All men are not born
equal. In fact about half of them are born women, which immediately
gives them a head start over the rest of us. All of us including
“identical” twins are born at least a little different to each other
and these differences make us better at some stuff and worse at
other stuff. In most species Natural Selection works on these
differences weeding out the unfit “Human selection” does the same
using man-made parameters rather than natural ones and this can go
horribly wrong when mixed with politics and/or religion (see Ethnic
Cleansing). In nature it’s kind of important to evolution that this
mechanism is allowed to work otherwise a species gets more and more
“unfit” and dies out. Person (formerly Man) as a species celebrates
the fittest individuals with sport, art and science and Pirelli
calendars and we boost the survival odds of the unfit individuals
with humanitarian legislation, modern medicine and care within
society and that is the luxury of our highly evolved state.
But surely 199 kids in
school of 200 shouldn’t be deprived of a peanut butter sandwich
because of 1 child who is allergic? Let’s have a show of solidarity
for the oppressed majority…..and buy Cilla’s Nuts! |
October
2006