"Steve Pope" > wrote in message
...
> Dave Smith > wrote:
>
>>Now the woman is whinging that in a a free, civilized society we should
>>be able to voice our opinions and make our requests to elected officials
>>without fear of reprisal, ridicule, or regret. While I agree with the
>>general idea of that, it does not protect you in cases were your
>>requests are ridiculous and unwarranted. We reserve the right not to
>>take people seriously when they are being ridiculous. There was
>>absolutely no reason for her to even be concerned about oak trees and
>>acorns, but that didn't stop her little brain from looking for some
>>cheap celebrity.
>
> We have a few allergic-tree-moving requests in process here in Berkeley.
> There's merit to it in that many allergies are caused by stuff that
> blows off plants... in Berkeley you can only plant approved species
> of trees from a master list kept by the city. The problem being
> litigated is whether certain trees on that list are still a problem.

Stuff like this drives me nuts! You could never make a school truly nut
free. Even if people don't bring in obvious sources of nuts, something like
a piece of bread or a cupcake from a bakery is likely to be cross
contaminated by nuts. And IMO, something like this is more of a danger to a
nut allergic person than the out right nuts themselves! Because if they see
the nuts they are going to stay away.

People who do not have nut allergies do not understand. At my daughter's
dance studio, they often sell candy grams backstage. Because there were
several nut allergic students one year, they advertised that the candy grams
would have no nuts in them. And then as my daughter was eating hers, she
freaked when she bit into an M & M which clearly has a peanut warning on the
package. Luckily it didn't case a problem for her. She is not allergic but
intolerant. She gets sick and gets weird watery seeping nosebleeds from
peanuts. So it is best for her to avoid them but they won't kill her.
But... Those candies could have killed someone else. We bought assumed
they were Skittles which are safe for those with a nut allergy. She has
also been forced to touch M & Ms in math because they were using them to
teach some point.

So you see how difficult it would be to keep a school truly nut free and
people who do not have to avoid nuts are just not going to read every single
package or think about each food that they buy to decide whether or not it
might be cross contaminated.

My health food store has a warning on the door asking us not to wear scented
products when we shop there because some people are allergic. My friend
said there was a similar note on the door where she was going for physical
therapy. This angers me too! I always wear perfume. I like it. And I use
scent in my laundry. I am always going to have scent in my laundry. If I
go early enough in the day and if I remember not to use perfume before I
shop there, I will go in with somewhat less scent than usual. But I also
have packs of lavender in my drawers.

I do understand how hard it can be to have allergies. I have them myself.
And the food intolerances. But I don't expect the whole rest of the world
to stop eating or doing things that might set *my* allergies off. That's
just wrong.