SCHOOL CLOSED Due To... Lack Of Sun?

I am a resident of the great state of NJ- Where ‎the tomatoes grow fat, and Camden, Trenton, and Paterson are mentioned in any list of "The Worst US Cities To Live"

Luckily, I do not live in either Camden, Trenton, or Paterson, so I don't have a ton to complain about, but I found something nonetheless… And it has to do with solar eclipses.

First, some background… We will have a total solar eclipse on April 8th, that will cross North America, passing over Mexico, the United States, and Canada. 

I'll go further back… A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the Sun.  Weather permitting, people along "the path of totality" will see the Sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, which is obscured at all other times by the bright face of the Sun.

But such a sight does not come without risks, and NASA.org warns that "except during the brief total phase of a total solar eclipse, when the Moon completely blocks the Sun’s bright face, it is not safe to look directly at the Sun without specialized eye protection for solar viewing. Viewing any part of the bright Sun through a camera lens, binoculars, or a telescope without a special-purpose solar filter secured over the front of the optics will instantly cause severe eye injury."

According to me, you can avoid injury in three ways…

1) Purchasing safe solar viewing glasses.

2) Using an indirect viewing method, such as a pinhole projector, which has a small opening and projects an image of the Sun onto a nearby surface… With the Sun at your back, you can then safely view the projected image. 

Ron Miller/Stocktrek Images. Getty Images.

or 3) Just don't look up, asshole.

The potential damage is not as dire as NASA will have you believe, and the toughest American I know proved that you can ignore all warnings and look directly into an eclipse with little-to-no damage to anything but your reputation.

So… I just gave you all you need to know about eclipses.  And with this teaspoon of knowledge, you should make it through that perilous hour on April 8th unscathed and fully sighted.

But a county in New Jersey feels differently.  This county feels that the future of our great state is too stupid to heed any warnings, so they are acting (in their opinion) accordingly.

Livingston Public Schools Superintendent Matthew Block announced in a letter to parents, that the local elementary and high school will dismiss at noon on April 8th while the middle schools will dismiss at 12:45 p.m.

Block said they are concerned unsupervised children might be drawn to look at the eclipse, damaging their eyes. Concerns over driving during the eclipse also factored into the early dismissal, Block said. 

What the fuck is happening to this country?

British children were sent to school during the Blitzkrieg in 1941, and now our kids are being sent home early because of an eclipse?

Single-parent and 2-working-parent households have to scramble to find coverage for their liabilities whenever a snow day is awarded, and now those same parents have to leave work early because their town has decided it is too risky for their pre-teen to leave class under the cover of temporary darkness.

And it is not only pre-teens that they are coddling… As the article clearly states, this is happening at the local high school as well.

Keep elementary schoolers home because they are stupid, but young adults… Some old enough to vote, serve on a jury, marry, get sued, buy a house, go to prison, and/or enlist in the military… Are not being trusted to avoid looking directly at the sun?

You can help us decide who the next leader of the free world is. You can pick up a weapon, fly to a faraway land, and help defend our country. Despite all this, you're too stupid not purposefully to blind yourself. 

I recently burnt my hand on the handle of a cast iron pan that I threw into the oven to finish a NY strip… 

Hakase_. Getty Images.

Does that mean I should ban stoves in my house?  Fuck, no.  It means I shouldn't cook when I am drunk.

Similar to ovens, children of all ages will have to exist with solar eclipses (there's another scheduled to occur in August of this year), so shielding them from this semi-annual-and-always-boring astronomical event is probably not the way to go.

Compared to my father's generation, I am a gigantic pussy… I am fully aware of that fact.  I can only imagine how much softer this next generation will be, and I am generally excited for all the cultures who are streaming into this country with fully-developed backbones that will be eating their cheese.

Take a report.

-Large