If you were dirt-poor and had no job, would you get “free gas” from a leaking tank truck?  That’s what thousands of people tried to do this weekend in Kenya. Then it exploded.

Some time this week, the TV journalists will be interviewing experts who will tell us we should never approach leaking fuel.  Some time this year, the Boy Scouts will be adding this to the booklet for the Safety merit badge.  And next fall, it could well be one more thing in lesson plans for elementary school teachers.  Right after “stop, drop, & roll.”

History shows that “common sense” is formed by seeing someone get sued or killed for not having it.

A teacher and mother reported recently on FLTEACH that she “texted” her son to tell him to not walk home in bitter cold.  Though the phone was in his backpack, his teacher heard the beep and confiscated it per school policy.  He walked home with wind chill making the effective temperature 23¬∞F.

Neither persuasion nor confrontation could sway the principal from the “common sense” of following school policy‚Äîthey get the phone back after three school days (“first offense”), with a three-day week-end between.

What would you do?