Duck and Cover

Found this on Wisebread.com:

Amount of fireworks sold to individuals for personal celebrations in 2006: 252 million pounds

Amount of fireworks sold to individuals for personal celebrations in 2000: 102 million pounds

Total dollar amount spent on fireworks in 2007: 900 million dollars

Total dollar amount spent on fireworks in 2000: 350 million dollars


And according to a report by the Consumer Products Safety Commission:

CPSC staff has reports of 11 fireworks-related deaths during 2007. Five people were killed in incidents involving aerial and display fireworks. Three people died in fires where fireworks were the ignition source. Three people were killed as a result of manufacturing or storing illegal fireworks. CPSC staff has reports of 11 fireworks-related deaths in 2006.

Fireworks were involved in an estimated 9,800 injuries treated in U. S. hospital emergency departments during calendar year 2007 (95 percent confidence interval 7,700 – 11,800). CPSC staff estimated that there were 9,200 fireworks-related injuries during 2006.

An estimated 6,300 fireworks-related injuries (or 64 percent of the total fireworks-related injuries) were treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments during the one-month special study period between June 22, 2007 and July 22, 2007 (95 percent confidence interval 4,500 – 8,100). CPSC staff estimated that there were 6,400 fireworks-related injuries (70 percent of the total) during the 2006 special study period.

Emergency department-treated fireworks-related injuries display a statistically significant upward trend from 1996 to 2007.
Results from the special study include the following:

Of the injuries sustained, 70 percent were to males and 30 percent were to females.

Injuries to children were a major component of total fireworks-related injuries with children under 15 accounting for 42 percent of the estimated injuries. Children and young adults under 20 had 54 percent of the estimated injuries.


Among different types of fireworks, sparklers were associated with the greatest number of estimated injuries at 1,100. There were 1,000 injuries associated with firecrackers and 900 associated with rockets.

The parts of the body most often injured were hands (estimated 2,000 injuries), eyes (1,400 injuries) and legs (1,200 injuries).

More than half of the injuries were burns. Burns were the most common injury to all parts of the body except the eyes and head area, where contusions, lacerations, and foreign bodies in the eye occurred more frequently.

Most patients were treated at the emergency department and then released. An estimated 5 percent of patients were treated and transferred to another hospital or admitted to the hospital.

"What's causing all this patriotic mayhem", you ask? Well, according to Yahoo News:
Last year, July 4th was the biggest beer-selling holiday of the year, with beer sales at supermarkets across the country topping 23 million cases during the holiday period, according to The Nielsen Company.

And I think pretty much all of that happened within a two block radius of my house.

In case you've forgotten, I think private fireworks should be banned.

Pet Peeves, Part Deux

I put that in French, because I am a snob. An UnAmerican, Culture Loving SNOB.

I don't watch reality tv. (Except for The Biggest Loser which I got kind of hooked into and it made me cry).

I only listen to NPR on the radio.

And I have had it UP TO HERE already with the f#$in' FIREWORKS.

It's not even the Fourth! It's been going on for a week here, because it's legal the week before the 4th, and my neighbors like things to blow up GOOD.

So it's like a war zone here. I swore last year that we'd be gone this week, but because we have a vacation coming up soon after, we are here, with our helmets on and buckets of water at the ready.

I feel like such a dork - my neighbors all love this stuff. Every other time of the year, I feel so grateful to have the neighbors I have, but this time of year, I just feel so out of place. They spend literally hundreds of dollars to light it on fire and listen to it go boom. If it were just for one night, I might love it too. But DEAR SWEET JESUS IN HEAVEN - EVERY DAY AND NIGHT FOR A WEEK? I think they do it to try to send us back to California. I have news for you - WE'RE NOT GOING. We live here now, and watch out, because we will find others like us, and we will change these stupid laws that let people blow shit up for days and nights on end.

I am such a pussy. But luckily, the rest of my family is too. Joe-Henry said tonight as he was trying so hard to go to sleep, "Fireworks just steal PEACE!"

The thing is, I LOVE the real stuff that happens on the 4th. I love the big, beautiful community fireworks and the giant ones that don't make any sound and then do that huge BOOM that you feel in your stomach. Those make me "oooooooh" and "aaaaaaahhhhh" with the rest of the patriotic goofballs that think that once a year dressing in red white and blue will make up for the fact that we're not paying attention to what's going on in our country.

I even like sparklers, and I had lots of fireworks as a kid. I loved them, and I hope that Joe-Henry will too. I don't want him to be a grumpy old man before, say, age eight. But if he's too tired to stay up on the 4th because he hasn't been able to get to sleep before 11:00 p.m. for a week because every goddamn whistling pete ever made is going off right outside his window every goddamn night, I am going to be one angry mama.

Like I'm not already. And yes, I STILL have pms.

Can you tell?