The Requisite Poison Toy Scare
Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
Of course it’s the Zhu Zhu "pets"….
Antimony was measured at 93 parts per million in the hamster’s fur and at 106 parts per million in its nose. Both readings exceed the allowable level of 60 parts per million, said O’Rourke, an associate professor of environmental science at the University of California, Berkeley.
And this is the story…. why?
Let’s play this one straight up the middle, ok?
A pet is a living thing. It breathes, it eats, it sleeps and it craps. You take care of it – thus, the term "pet" – because in the environment you keep it (whether in a house, in a cage, in an aquarium, etc) if you don’t, it dies.
"Zhu Zhu" things are not pets. They are mechanical. They are collections of synthetic and mineral non-living things. They run on batteries, not food. They crap nothing. And, unless you step on them or they break, they do not "die".
Caring for a pet is one of the things that children used to do. It is one of the means by which parents taught children that not all that glitters is gold, not all that you play with comes without cost. Indeed, pets come with a very real cost, not only monetarily to purchase them (in some cases) but in their upkeep and care, often including vet visits, vaccinations and the like. Due to the fact that they are living organisms you must provide them with sustenance and remove or manage their waste. These things become obligations when one takes on a pet. Further, when irritated some pets can cause some degree of harm. Hamsters, when provoked, do bite.
Who among us flushed "fishie" when he passed? Buried a cat or dog – or hamster? Took the dog for a walk (so it could relieve itself), cleaned a catbox, changed a fish tank filter (those are NASTY!) or cleaned the cage of a hamster, gerbil or parakeet?
What is wrong with us in this country? How can we equate those lessons of growing up with buying a cheap plastic piece of trash from China?
Never mind that the company that developed the toy, Cepia, said:
"None of these tests have failed over the many months we’ve been producing this product," Katz said.
Let’s be clear: Cepia, a US company, has not ACTUALLY produced these toys. None of them. They designed the toy, and then, like virtually every other toy company in the world sent the design off to some hellhole where people make $2/day to be produced.
Toys are produced in China because it is cheaper. Antimony is used in the manufacture of various electronic components. To be safe when used in a toy or other device that is used by people, especially children, care has to be taken to isolate the electronic assembly from the other parts of the assembly process so that contamination of the parts that come in contact with people does not occur.
This sort of care and concern, of course, costs money.
We, as Americans, demand the cheap way out. We want our kids to be able to throw away their toys when they tire of them, rather than have to deal with the obligation of an actual pet, so we buy them a plastic "pet" as a substitute for teaching responsibility. It is all about us, you see.
We demand a cheap plastic "pet" because $20 or $30 is too much. But $10 is fine, and if there’s a compromise or three in the process, well, that’s the breaks. After all, over in China they produce those toys (and other items) while making their rivers look like this:
No, I’m not going to bag on Cepia, the creator of the latest piece of idiocy to hit our store shelves as a means of turning our children into "consumers" and "plastic chinese crap junkies."
Rather I’m going to bag on we the adults – the parents.
Exactly when was it that we all decided to blow off the concept of teaching our children responsibility by acquiring an actual pet? When did we decide that it was ok to call a piece of plastic trash out of China a "pet", even though it is inanimate and requires nothing from us?
I think those are the better questions – not whether there is some violation of a rule regarding the level of a toxic agent in the toy itself.
After all, isn’t the real issue here poisoning your kids’ minds and turning them into vapid consumers of trash, rather than sending them outside to build things with their hands and employ their imagination?
I think so.
