(un)Safety Seats

My grandson turned two and it's time for a sitting-up-and-facing-forward car set. Yay!  Big boy!

So, we went looking for one. Those things can be expensive, but if you shop around, you can get a good deal.
We found one at Kroger's for a bit more than $50.
Yay us, right?

You would think.

But the damn seat has no straps.
No child restraints.
Except for what is provided by a seat belt fitted into specific slots.

No child restraints?  No five point harness?
For a TWO YEAR OLD?
Are you kidding me?

Two year olds are escape artists. That's one of their main talents at that age. The only way to make them stay in one place is to make that a place they aren't supposed to go. Even that won't keep them in the place. They'll just run in and out if there's nothing to stop them.

I put Little Guy in this fancy rigged up strapped in properly car seat with no harness. He was throwing himself across the back seat before I reached the road.

Now, they want us to put our kids in these cumbersome, heavy, huge contraptions to the point of big-brother governing. They make laws for the parents and grandparents and anyone who transports a kid. You must do this and have that and it is such a complicated procedure that fire departments and police stations often have classes and inspections so parents can get it right.

But now the manufacturers are being allowed to market unsafe seats for 2 year olds.

No, I'm nor taking it back. The manufacturers are being allowed to promote and sell car seats that are unfit for their stated purpose.

Beware, Parents. When your monkey climbs out of his secured car seat and flies through the air, who do you think is going to be suffering the costs, physical, mental, and emotional? Who will be ticketed for not having the child secured, even though all instructions were followed?

It's not going to be the makers -- law makers or seat makers.

Parents, please do not buy car seats without harnesses for your active little monkeys.
Just  DO NOT BUY.
They are not safe.
They are ridiculously expensive.

I will note that with some of these car seats the safety harness can be purchased separately and self-installed.
Hell, I can hardly figure out the way to adjust existing straps, let alone put them in from scratch.
What a waste.
Of time and money.

For now, I purchased an old style sit up car seat at a yard sale. This isn't really a good option for very much longer, as these seats are usually used until the expiration rime. It's my hope that by the time it expires, Warren will be more car trained and can graduate to a seat belt only seat (although I still have doubts about the child safety)
If not, I may trust an expired with harness a lot more than brand new and unsafe from the box.

Bugging Your Trees, Part 2

Now for my opinion. My uneducated, unresearched, untested;trusted;verified opinion.

It doesn't matter.

What you do, what the government does, what the experts do. None of it matters.

Nature does what nature does.

Insects and other pests have been catching rides on driftwood or pine cones for millennia. The fact that more of them are migrating faster only means that we ourselves are going farther faster. Who are we to object to other species doing the same thing, just because we don't like it.


Seriously, look at the waves and ways these invaders are coming in and popping up. If it's not one thing, it's another. For some reason, Nature is devouring our hardwoods.

And look again at the locations of the problems. Here in the USA, the heaviest concentrations of invasive beetles and such are in the areas known loosely as the "Great Lakes Regions"

Doesn't that make anyone think "Hmmm?"

My opinion is that these insects have been sent from God, Mother Nature, Father Time, Mother Earth -- whatever -- to taste and test and winnow out the weakest of the hardwoods. The delicious of the deciduous.

Why would this happen?
Climate change, people. Climate change. The Great Lakes were carved by Great Glaciers, or so we've been told. Te glaciers contained the seeds and roots and things of the trees that grew once the ice retreated -- the Earth reseeding after receding.

But first, the trees that remain to be regrown must have survived. They must be the least tasty, the less weak, the best of the best. Surviving the Ice takes strength and stamina. What better way to show that than by surviving an infectious infestation?


Whether my speculation has any basis or not, the governments interference in what may well be nature's preparedness can still have disastrous results. As many areas of Massachusetts and Ohio and Illinois can show you, the government solution has mainly turned forests into swamps. Removing multiple varieties of trees for whatever reason has damaged the ecology of the ares, There are no tree leaves and branches to capture rainwater to hold snowfall above the ground. There are no root systems to hold the ground in place, and with each rain-shower or snow-melt, the dirt becomes mud, becomes mire, becomes a marsh.

Let nature take its course. Nature has been managing the ecosystems here for longer than we can imagine. Everything happens for a reason.
And the most spectacular ecological failures have been caused by our efforts to fix the unbroken, to make Nature to do our bidding.
As we ourselves are a part of creation -- same as the bugs, beetles, and bacteria -- we really aren't helping.
We may not be that much of a hindrance, in the long run.

Nature does as nature does.

But I would rather enjoy the trees while we can, before they go away naturally.