Bob CollinsNext to Christmas week, this may be the slowest news week of the year, prompting companies and organizations to pump out an unusually high number of press releases. News organizations are hungry for the faint aroma of “news,” so there’s a pretty good chance that an organization’s “story” — and name — will get on TV, the radio, or printed in a newspaper. Or a blog.
Sometimes the release involves things your parents never had to tell you, because they calculated at an early age that even you, for example, wouldn’t be dumb enough to eat a glow stick. And if they did think you were dumb enough to eat a glow stick, they wouldn’t buy you one in the first place.
Says Minnesota’s Poison Control System:
A Glow Stick consists of a small fragile glass vial containing a chemical activator housed inside a larger plastic vial containing the dye solution. When the inactivated Glow Stick is bent, the glass vial breaks allowing the previously separated chemicals to mix. The resulting chemical reaction causes a non-heat generating light emission. While these chemicals are not very poisonous, the chemicals can irritate the skin and eyes. If swallowed, the chemicals can cause a burning sensation.
In other “news”….
Oh, by the way kids, don’t do that, either.
