We hear all the time about how foods are dangerous, but this one is definitely a new one. Last week, a boy was suspended from school for two days - because he chewed a pop-tart into the shape of a gun. Not only that, but the other students were offered counseling for the event as well.
This event is the subject of the article, School offers counseling for traumatized students who saw classmate chew pastry into shape of gun, by Doug Powers.
The majority of the article is simply a list of the happenings. At the end, he offers a few comments that, on the surface, appear to be simply funny.
While the article is posted on a conservative blog, I think that, by making broad and humorous comments, the author is trying to appeal to a wider audience. I think that he does this well; I certainly found the article to be amusing.
I think that the author is definitely trying to make an argument, and it's the obvious one. He's saying that this is ridiculous. He is doing this with his commentary and wording throughout the article, especially the comments at the end.
His comments, which mostly focus on what seem like silly extensions of this event (calling it a "loaded" gun because there was filling in the pop-tart, and a mandatory cooling period before pop-tarts can be eaten), are really meant to be thought-provoking, and perhaps a little bit scary.
The comments are about things that could happen in the future. Yes, we see them as ridiculous right now, but, he is saying, if we've gone this far, what is to stop us form going even farther, down even darker paths?
I think that he is right. We have already gone too far with our ridiculous zero-tolerance policies in schools, and we need to stop and re-examine them before we move even more into ridiculousness.
Also, the title of his article is way too long.
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