Free-range.

Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” is getting a fair amount of attention, as Big Books by Big Authors tend to do in the days following their publication. In a nutshell, Haidt argues that smartphones — not Covid, not climate change, not mass shootings — are at the root of Gen Z’s well-covered tendency to be more depressed and less optimistic than older Americans. He talks mostly about the corrosive effects of social media, but it’s another part of the grinding-down aspect of smartphone life that interests me: Surveillance.

Haidt is friends with Lenore Skenazy, who made a big splash a few years back when she wrote about letting her 9-year-old find his way home from Bloomingdale’s (they live in New York City) alone. The kid had a $20 bill for emergencies, but no phone. He had been riding on public transit for years and knew the system. And he was fine. The piece splashed so big that Skenazy spun it into an organization, Free Range Kids, that advocates for loosening the tethers that worried parents place on their children, to give them age-appropriate freedom and independence. Let go, let God. It’s good for them. Etcetera.

I think this is a good idea, which is easy for me to say, as my own child is 27 now, but looking back, I reflect that life got easier when I did the same thing. We live in a safe community, but in conversation with Kate’s peers’ parents, I got the impression that few others think so. At least with regard to their own offspring.

Which I get. Your child is the most precious thing in the world, and you’d do anything to protect it. But around here, parents go to insane lengths to do so, and increasingly, the smartphone is key to everything. For instance, it’s commonplace for people around here to leave their phone’s location-sharing on all the time, and share with their family. So not only do parents know where their kids are, kids know where their parents are. Spouses track one another in real time.

This is always explained, and justified, as a matter of safety, trust and love. It’s a way of showing up for each other, to say “if you need me, this is where you can find me,” or “I worry about you, so it helps to know you’re safe.” Bad things happen to people. A couple years ago, a freshman went missing at Michigan State after a night of heavy drinking. Common sense would tell searchers where to look (the Red Cedar River, running through the middle of campus), but it took weeks to find him, and that’s exactly where his body was. The discussion afterward centered on improving security with more cameras (the one nearest where he fell in was out of service), not discouraging the blackout drinking that leads to these incidents.

Kate had a friend when she was young, who lived a block away. She liked to spend time over there — they had video games and better snacks — and by the time I’d call her home in wintertime, it would be dark outside. They never failed to drive her one block home, and when I suggested that was excessive, the reply was always, “If anything happened to her, I’d never forgive myself.” That nothing had happened to any child walking home in our community, that anyone could remember, meant nothing. There’s always a first time.

I think about the kids we see in Europe; we usually go during the school year and have seen uniformed children on the streets and squares of Paris and Barcelona and Morocco and Madrid. No adults are in evidence, and if they are, they keep their distance. These kids get on and off buses and trains and play freely with one another — a soccer ball seems to be all they need to have a good time. I don’t recall seeing any phones in a child’s hand in these street encounters. While I’m sure they have video games and their own anxieties, they don’t seem to be the American kind.

The night of Kate’s high-school graduation, her band played a gig in Hamtramck. They all surrounded me and begged to borrow my car, a Volvo station wagon at the time, for their upcoming tour. It would be two or three weeks on the road, all of them 18 years old. I thought about it for a while, considered that they had been playing unsupervised gigs all over one of the country’s most dangerous cities (according to the stats, anyway) for a couple years now, and finally said yes. And while I’m certain there was drinking and weed-smoking and other stupidity taking place over that fortnight, they came home safe. They were ready.

OK, getting to week’s end, have to finish a piece, so here’s some bloggage:

Neil Steinberg speaks for me when he suggests Ronna McDaniel’s betrayal of her own country shouldn’t be excused easily:

The former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee thought she could shed her Trump-coddling, election-denying, democracy-shredding raiment and simply rejoin polite society. And, sadly, the out-of-touch NBC brass hoped she could too, briefly. Imagined McDaniel might provide some of that good old fashioned Red State perspective, make the case for lies and delusion, maybe snag a few viewers drifting away from Fox News.

But legitimate NBC journalists rebelled, on air. Thank God. That’s how it should be. Some things cannot be forgiven. Maybe casting a ballot for Trump two or three times, in the privacy of the voting booth, can be reframed as a secret shame. But at some point, as you rise up the ladder in the pyramid of cowards, quisling and craven opportunists, you lose the chance to walk away from your treachery. At some point you end up in the dock in a plexiglas booth.

Yep. Also, Joe Lieberman is dead, and someone will mourn him, but it won’t be me:

Lieberman’s last term in the Senate was not one in which he shined. He played an absolutely critical role in making sure that the Affordable Care Act had no public option. He told Harry Reid he would filibuster any effort to create a public option. And while he wasn’t the only Democrat to torpedo a far better bill than what got passed, Lieberman has more than his share in the blame to make that happen. A lot of people were disgusted by his behavior in the 2006 election and he was only polling at a 31 percent approval rating in 2010, so he decided to retire at the end of his term. Chris Murphy replaced him and finally Connecticut Democrats had a real senator representing their interests.

…Lieberman may have theoretically supported Clinton in 2016, but he was happy to work with Trump. In fact, who did Betsy DeVos have introduce her to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee for her confirmation hearings as Secretary of Education but Holy Joe himself. Great that he was willing to vouch for such a lovely person. Lieberman always had a soft spot for Trump. Speculating that the latter could run for president in 2000, Lieberman said in 1999, “The Donald is quite a ladies’ man. He’s going to have, if elected, an all-female cabinet … Secretary of Energy Carmen Electra, Secretary of Defense Xena the Warrior Princess.” That’s some hot comedy from our favorite senator there! Trump nearly named him FBI director to replace James Comey, which would have been a total shitshow. I wonder if Lieberman would have toadied up to Trump in the required manner or whether his “look out for me and me alone” mentality would have let to a total blowup. I almost wish it happened just so we could have yet another reason to hate the man.

A good weekend to all. At the end of it, it’ll be April.

Posted at 11:47 am in Current events |
 

58 responses to “Free-range.”

  1. Jakash said on March 28, 2024 at 12:30 pm

    Well, since I don’t comment much anymore, it’s been a long time since I’ve been tripped up by the dreaded “last comment on the old thread” routine. This time, I managed to post 9 minutes AFTER Nancy’s new post went up. D’oh!

    It’s quite amazing to remember the free-range childhood that I had and to have witnessed the gradual evolution to where we are now. My parents were by no means risk-takers, but they certainly allowed me to go out and about from a relatively young age. The trouble I got into was not coming home for dinner at the right time and, justifiably, being reprimanded for that. Of course, it’s not like I had a phone that I could have taken out of my pocket and let them know I’d be late! (Uh, let’s not focus on the landlines at my friends’ houses that I could easily have used…)

    I read that Steinberg piece and, as those younger than me seem to like to phrase it: “10/10, No notes.”

    I know it’s poor form, but I’m going to re-post my earlier comment, because I think some might enjoy the video.

    From the nn.c Wayback Machine over to the right comes this clip of VOCES8 singing Lux Aeterna that Deborah posted in 2018. It’s six years later and the vocal ensemble seems to be going strong. We’ve listened to them a fair amount since then, but I believe this was our introduction, so thanks, Deborah!

    I wouldn’t have remembered that this was where we first became aware of them.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=IwdeqVmXlHk

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  2. Sherri said on March 28, 2024 at 1:34 pm

    I think smartphones have become the new video games, as a totem to blame all the ills of teenagers on, rather than look at the systemic issues. Leonore Skazy’s article about letting her child come home alone predates widespread adoption of smartphones by several years. Both Skazy’s article and the Apple iPhone came out around 2008, but it was 2013 before smartphones outsold regular cellphones.

    I find that Haidt is fond of simple answers that don’t upset the status quo. So, no need to do anything about mass shootings, those active shooter drills in schools aren’t harming our teenagers, it’s the smartphones! Don’t worry about all those bathroom bills and those parents bill of rights that make it harder for the most vulnerable kids to feel safe it school, it’s the smartphones! I don’t know anybody who lost close family due to COVID, so it must be the smartphones!

    To be fair, I haven’t read Haidt’s book, and won’t, because I only have so much time. But my experience from reading articles by him is that he has huge blinkers.

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  3. Jeff Borden said on March 28, 2024 at 1:53 pm

    We walked to and from school all our lives…unless we rode our bikes…all by ourselves starting in early elementary. I don’t recall any evidence of being in danger aside from the inevitable bullies found in every school. Were there fewer dangers then? Or, was there less coverage?

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  4. Sherri said on March 28, 2024 at 2:25 pm

    Meanwhile, this study of people considering college says that gun regulations is actually really important to a generation raised with mass shootings.

    https://www.luminafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Policies-and-Laws.pdf

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  5. nancy said on March 28, 2024 at 3:02 pm

    Sherri, I agree. Complex problems never have simple answers. But I think he’s on to something about them being *part* of the problem. And my point is that danger is oversold, and always has been. The last kid to die where I live was in his friend’s mom’s brand-new BMW. They hit a tree at around 100 mph.

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  6. Deborah said on March 28, 2024 at 3:17 pm

    Jakash, I remember posting that about VOCES8 singing Lux Aeterna when I was having horrible sciatica pain and the foot drop that it caused. That video was so comforting, I would watch and listen to it over and over as I walked in circles around our living area because it hurt so much to sit or lie down. I eventually had surgery and everything was repaired and I still watch that video about once a month or so, it reminds me of the peace it gave me when I needed it. I love watching the faces of the singers as they perform that piece.

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  7. Joe Kobiela said on March 28, 2024 at 3:29 pm

    Oldest daughter took piano lessons from Dave Latchshaw who lived down by south side high school in The Fort, we drove her down till she got her license then let her go on her own, some of our friends here in Auburn couldn’t believe it. We also use to have our two take turns finding our way thru airports when we traveled starting when they were probably 9-10 years old, we wanted them ready. Must have worked they could always navigate their way around and weren’t afraid of big city or bridges.
    Pilot Joe

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  8. alex said on March 28, 2024 at 3:42 pm

    So the cell phone has replaced the boob tube as America’s babysitter. I don’t know that Haidt’s argument holds water, but there’s no denying that people are all off in their own private Idaho instead of relating to one another or consuming real news.

    I was a free-range child and I had a fair idea, way back when people of my generation started parenting, why there was such a sea change even then. They, like me, knew just how much we’d had it over on our parents, all the fucking and drug-taking and whatnot that we got by with while they assumed we were playing kickball in the street or board games in some neighbor kid’s basement.

    I don’t know that kids today are any better or worse off than they ever were, but I do wonder how we ever lived without cell phones. For all of the ills they may cause, it sure beats having to use dictionaries, encyclopedias, calendars, needle jabs to check blood sugar, CB radios to be warned of speed traps, on and on.

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  9. Brandon said on March 28, 2024 at 4:09 pm

    I never knew Joe Lieberman was considered for director of the FBI.

    Politico: “Senate Democrats reject Lieberman for FBI director”

    Some Senate Democrats hold a grudge against Lieberman for his rightward turn and opposition to some of President Barack Obama’s agenda late in his Senate career. Others say even though they respect Lieberman, the job of FBI director should not go to a former politician. And all Democratic senators interviewed for this story said the former Connecticut senator lacks the kind of experience needed for the post.

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  10. 4DBIRDS said on March 28, 2024 at 4:24 pm

    After a horrible week of death, Joe Lieberman’s departure from this planet was welcome news.

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  11. Sherri said on March 28, 2024 at 4:26 pm

    The kids that die here tend to die from suicide. Is the smartphone to blame for that? Maybe, but when I lived in California twenty years ago, suicide was also a big factor. There was an at grade railroad crossing about a mile from my house where so many high school kids stepped in front of trains that parents started guarding the crossing at night.

    I agree that danger is oversold, but disagree that the smartphone is the cause. That same sense of danger was very prevalent among parents when my kid was growing up, and smartphones were just beginning to appear in kids hands.

    I remember being grossed out by how many people were Facebook friends with their college age kids, so they’d know what their kids were doing. I remember being at a friend’s house, and seeing her daughter’s class schedule on her refrigerator, from Stanford. And another friend who called the dean at her son’s college over a class he was taking. Plus the parents who talked to their kids away at college every day. Those were all kids older than my kid, who is 29 now.

    The idea of the helicopter parent is much older than the cellphone. Colleges had to invent whole programs around dropping kids off at college just to separate the parents from the kids.

    I told my daughter, you can go to college wherever you want, but you can’t live at home, because you need to practice being an adult, and I need to not watch it. We communicated mostly via text; I promised not to bug her, she promised to reply if I sent a text asking if she was still alive.

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  12. Sherri said on March 28, 2024 at 4:29 pm

    Speaking of irrational fear, who sees buses at an airport and thinks “INVADERS!”

    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/michigan-gop-lawmaker-claims-that-buses-carrying-march-madness-teams-are-illegal-invaders/

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  13. nancy said on March 28, 2024 at 6:01 pm

    Sherri, Matt Maddock. That’s who. MAGA to the marrow, and his wife is worse.

    (Hey, alliteration!)

    Alex, I hear you about always being able to look something up, instantly, but I kinda-sorta miss getting that info from real people. If I had a question about sports, especially baseball, I’d call my friend Kirk in Columbus. Anything about computers, J.C. I had sources all over the place, and it was great to get my question answered, then catch up about this and that. Now, it’s like, does Professor Google know that? And they always do.

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  14. David C said on March 28, 2024 at 6:36 pm

    My grandparents had about forty acres on our side of the street with about a third of that woods. We were allowed the run of it. We weren’t allowed to cross the street until we were about eight years old because it was a hilly, rural road and people hauled ass. After that we had the run of about forty more acres. They only time we were restricted was during deer season. Nobody in the family hunted but the neighbors had little respect for property lines during deer season and you didn’t want to be too close to a Maxim with a gun. I thought that was wise of my parents.

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  15. kayak woman said on March 28, 2024 at 6:46 pm

    I totally agree that a lot of parents have irrational fears about child abduction by strangers, etc. A judge I was friendly with in town once stated, “That NEVER happens!” Of course it does but what she meant was that it’s very rare. I believe that.

    That said, I cannot forget an experience I had at around 8 or 9. I had a weird OCD thing for a period of time in which I “had” to ride my bike around the block 20 times after dinner. We were friendly with everyone on the block and I was pretty free-range as most kids in small yooperland towns were.

    One night I got to the end of the block on one of my rounds. A male stranger screeched to a stop behind me and yelled, “Hey kid, do you want a ride to the funeral home?” Okay. He didn’t say “funeral home”. But there was a local funeral home called something like “Pictner Shoberg.” So I heard funeral home. MUCH later I realized he had probably said “picture show”.

    I made an instantaneous calculation, one I still remember making. My house is two houses down and I need to RUN with my bike, not ride it. So I jumped off and high-tailed it past the two houses and through my yard to our garage, which was on the back end of our house, with an alley behind it. I could hear him yelling, “Hey kid! Hey kid!”

    I made it into the house in time to see, out a back window, the car driving fast down our alley. What I will always regret is that I did not tell my parents about this. Well, not until I was an adult with kids of my own.

    I wouldn’t even want to try to disentangle how smart phones have changed people’s lives for better or worse. My kids are old enough (30-somethings) that although they had cell phones in high school, they were pretty rudimentary.

    I have always tried not to spam them but every once in a while there is a “mom” moment. Like hmmm, I haven’t heard from my kid in a while. Nowadays texting is our main method of communication but a lot of it is reporting word puzzle progress and I often think *that* is *their* way of checking up on *mom* 🙂

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  16. Sherri said on March 28, 2024 at 6:54 pm

    Parents hiring private security guards to patrol at UC Berkeley: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/us/uc-berkeley-private-security.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gE0.7GZD.ALcMYX7tR8Ds&smid=url-share

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  17. kayak woman said on March 28, 2024 at 7:57 pm

    One more. My eldest cousin (12 years older and I love her) and I grew up in Sault Ste. Siberia. The Michigan side. When she was about 12, she walked onto the ferry to Sault Ste. Siberia Ontario to take ballet lessons with someone on that side of the St. Marys River. No bridge then. Her teacher was a few blocks up the street from the river. That’s free range, letting your kid cross into a “foreign” country. Of course it was a lot easier to go to Canada then.

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  18. David C said on March 28, 2024 at 8:36 pm

    Sault Ste. Siberia. Love that. My wife was going to attend Michigan Tech. It started snowing before she took her first class. She decided Houghton wasn’t for her, withdrew, and went to Grand Valley.

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  19. kayak woman said on March 28, 2024 at 9:22 pm

    David C., my brother got a mechanical engineering degree from MI Tech. It is beautiful up there and a great school but it isn’t for everyone. I ended up at Moo-U (music) but was destined for The Planet Ann Arbor to live and raise my kids.

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  20. FDChief said on March 28, 2024 at 9:39 pm

    I’m going to throw the enshittification of “local” news plus the rise of cable “news” into the child-paranoia mixer.

    Let’s face it; if it bleeds it leads has been a newspaper maxim since the print press. But having to fill hours and hours of dead air meant repeating wire service copy of random crime to a faretheewell. When I “open” the digital version of the Oregonian (only daily “paper” in Portland) I know I’ll see a half dozen crime stories “above the fold”. Including any real juicy murders committed in West Jipip regardless of their value as actual “news” to Oregonians.

    The constant barrage of “crime” (and think of the ridiculous number of “true crime” crap on cable along with the gajillionth iteration of “CSI: Whatever”…) can’t help but fuel the notion that the random suburban street your kid walks is a nightmarish hellscape of murderous strangers.

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  21. LAMary said on March 28, 2024 at 10:00 pm

    I was pretty much free range in NJ and very much free range in the summer when I was at our house on Long Island. It was not at all a posh place. Our house was about 1100 sq feet and built for four boys who would probably be coming inside with sandy feet from the beach. There were woods on two sides of the house and across the narrow road, beach on the other, an outdoor sink and place to clean fish, open scallops and clams and oysters, and a swamp down the road. The village was 7 miles away. Every few days I rode my a bike, not mine but belonging to some older brother, into town to get the mail. I started being the mail fetcher when I was maybe 8. I walked in the woods a lot picking lady slippers in the spring and ferns in summer, took pictures with my Kodak Brownie camera of sea birds and sailboats and autumn leaves in the fall. I slept on a fold out bed (I wasn’t planned for when the house was built) and showered in the basement in the beach equivalent of a mud room. I loved it. Back in NJ I hung out with friends until the street lights came on. We spent a lot of time in the local park, an incredible place with ponds and tadpoles and lots of trees. Look it up: Goffle Brook Park. Overall I had a spectacularly free range childhood with no scary incidents. I attribute my freedom to being raised with four boys and being the only female in the house from age 7 on.

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  22. Deborah said on March 29, 2024 at 12:20 am

    Free range kid here too, in Miami, North Miami actually, in a blue collar neighborhood. Our dad would holler our names out for us to come home at the end of the day, all the dads did that. There were no street lights or sidewalks, we played in the streets or the back yards. I didn’t have a bicycle until I bought my own with baby sitting money when I was about 12. I already knew how to ride, don’t remember how I learned without a bike, but somehow I did.

    LB had more restrictions than I did, but less than some of her school mates. We lived in an iffy neighborhood in St. Louis then that later became gentrified.

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  23. Sherri said on March 29, 2024 at 12:26 am

    The other problem with the free range discussion is that it’s really only about white middle class kids. You really can’t generalize from that particular experience.

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  24. Dexter Friend said on March 29, 2024 at 6:16 am

    I was stationed in Nha Trang in 1970 and 1971. Men urinated alongside roads, “cowboys” (kids of 10 years of age who pickpocketed GIs ala Fagin’s Artful Dodger), and dope hawkers and prostitutes were there, but amongst the depravity, we would see groups of school girls all dressed in long white dresses walking to school. Such a contrast, so wonderful to see beauty in a war-torn country.
    Those girls were Catholic.
    “Official statistics from the 2019 census, also not categorizing folk religion, indicates that Catholicism is the largest (organized) religion in Vietnam, surpassing Buddhism. While some other surveys reported 45–50 millions Buddhist living in Vietnam, the government statistics counts for 6.8 millions.”
    But you can find stats saying Buddhism has 55% …take your pick.

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  25. Little Bird said on March 29, 2024 at 10:05 am

    Calling the neighborhood “iffy” is generous, there was a literal drug house across the street and a house of prostitutes down the block and around the corner. Most of my classmates (the ones I was actually friends with) had elder siblings or lived in better neighborhoods so running around was not as dangerous. Eventually I was allowed to ride my bike to certain friends homes that weren’t too far away (a mile or two) and hang out, or I could ride to the park to meet them. But St. Louis was pretty rough even then so I don’t think I was ever overly sheltered.

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  26. Deborah said on March 29, 2024 at 11:40 am

    Is it just me or is Trump getting worse and worse with every passing day? And by worse I mean he’s just a foul human being now. He goes to the wake of a policeman who died in the line of duty as if he cares, after he incited an insurrection that killed policemen and caused bodily harm to many others. He calls for a return to law and order after he himself has been indicted for many, many criminal offenses including being found liable for sexual assault (basically rape). He’s broken the law all of his life in his businesses with fraud and tax evasion etc.

    He has called out Judge Merchan’s daughter multiple times and by name, trawling for violence to intimidate those involved in the justice system. It’s beyond mind boggling how anyone could possibly vote for him or not even speak out against him like so many of the GOP legislators. How is this even happening?

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  27. David C said on March 29, 2024 at 2:30 pm

    The cult loves it and there are a lot of cops in the cult. I’d bet the police union invited him. Of course, he doesn’t care in anything but a transactional way for anyone but himself.

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  28. Jeff Borden said on March 29, 2024 at 4:25 pm

    A conservative commentator is being vilified by the MAGAts after he discussed our improving economy. Like their idol, they desperately need to believe we’re living in a flaming hellscape only Lumpy can defeat.

    I despised St. Ronald of Reagan, but his great gift was making the future look glorious. tRump sees a barren, fearful, angry, dystopian future…which we’ll probably get if he slithers back into office.

    Hillary Clinton was correct. They are deplorables.

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  29. Deborah said on March 29, 2024 at 5:34 pm

    A few posts ago we commented on Slab City, Niland, Salvation Mountain and the Salton Sea in California. This NYT article about Bombay Beach a place on shore of the Salton Sea about sums up what life is like around those parts, it’s a gift, no paywall https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/opinion/climate-art-salton-sea-bombay-beach.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gU0.307w.248NXzUiUC70&smid=url-share

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  30. Jeff Gill said on March 30, 2024 at 8:29 am

    A bright spot in my neighborhood:

    https://www.newarkadvocate.com/story/news/local/granville/2024/03/30/new-granville-intermediate-school-garden-club-aims-to-get-students-away-from-screens/73118893007/

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  31. Julie Robinson said on March 30, 2024 at 3:45 pm

    Jeff, the paper won’t let me in, but I’m always happy to know that kids are learning about gardening. The movement is growing here, too.

    Fort Wayners, I’ve been following the sad news of Mayor Henry’s death as best I can, and saw that Karl Bandemer says he won’t be in the running as a long-term replacement. Since the Dems get to choose without an election, I’ve been wondering who it will be. Then I realized I don’t know who’s around anymore and looked up Council members. Paddock? Lyons?
    Anyone have an idea?

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  32. Mark P said on March 30, 2024 at 4:53 pm

    I heard the tail end of an interview with Haidt on one of the SiriusXM stations. He is convinced that he has sufficiently documented the cause and effect of smart phones and teen angst, or, rather social media and female teen angst. Also, teen boys are spending all their time with porn and violent online games, so they aren’t dating any more. I remain skeptical, but then, I don’t have a dog in that fight.

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  33. alex said on March 30, 2024 at 7:40 pm

    Julie, the Dems will choose from whomever wishes to be considered. So far I’ve seen only one name, a gadfly who maybe got a fraction of a percent in a primary, who doesn’t stand a chance. I expect that we’ll be seeing some more serious people stepping forward but I think no one with any class is going to announce their candidacy while Henry’s body hasn’t even turned cold yet.

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  34. Dexter Friend said on March 31, 2024 at 5:48 am

    The Catholic Channel EWTN provides live Easter Mass from The Vatican. With translators we can follow the spoken word and the celebration of Easter is something to behold, while Christmas is more reverent and somber.
    Reared a Methodist, rebelling at 14, screaming atheist at 20, I now find comfort at times watching EWTN on Sundays in the wee dark hours. Hands on, all I really know is that man, the Catholics know how fry fish during Lent…I went 6 for 6, 6 straight Friday fish frys.
    I have feeling that in another incarnation, I was a Catholic. As I aged, I noticed some end-of-life agnostics starting coming to church.
    Donald John Trump will be busy today studying his many Bibles, not focussing on any special verses, chapters, or even versions, because he will be reading “them all”.

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  35. Jeff Gill said on March 31, 2024 at 8:13 am

    Hoping for joy, peace, and contentment to you all today. And ideally a little chocolate!

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  36. Mark P said on March 31, 2024 at 9:46 am

    I’m guessing that Trump will be worshipping today at the church of hit-five-write-down -three.

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  37. Jeff Borden said on March 31, 2024 at 1:44 pm

    Lumpy was in a loving Easter mood this morning, lambasting the cowards and weaklings within the QOP. Jebus wept.

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  38. Sherri said on March 31, 2024 at 2:34 pm

    A review of Haidt’s book, by someone in the field.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00902-2

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  39. Little Bird said on March 31, 2024 at 6:14 pm

    I always forget that, on Easter, many stores are closed around here. I also tend to forget when Easter is because a) I no longer go to church at all, and b) it’s never on the same day. I remember as a kid getting a new dress that I would probably only ever wear once (sorry Deborah for some of my dress choices). Said dress would get passed down to my cousins who between the three of them would last five or more years. As scrawny a kid as I was, they were even smaller.

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  40. Jeff Gill said on March 31, 2024 at 7:46 pm

    Haidt has a pretty comprehensive response here:

    https://x.com/JonHaidt/status/1774571680511508601?s=20

    Full disclosure: I am working hard at keeping an open mind on all of this. My strong suspicion is that the key factor is simply lack of sleep, by parents & school age youth, which connects but does not exactly correlate the two. I’m still short a couple of key factors myself, so new data is welcome.

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  41. Sherri said on March 31, 2024 at 8:48 pm

    danah boyd is a researcher who has been studying technology and young people for a long time. This post by her is not directly about Haidt, but is relevant. It’s about a deeply misguided bill in Congress intended to protect kids, but written by people who understand neither kids nor technology.

    https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2024/01/31/kosa-isnt-designed-to-help-kids.html

    She’s also written a book about teens and social media, but since it wasn’t telling a scary story that parents are primed to hear and she’s not as well known as Haidt, her book didn’t sell as many copies as Haidt’s will. Her’s is titled “It’s Complicated”.

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  42. Mark P said on March 31, 2024 at 9:19 pm

    I don’t expect a book called “It’s Complicated” to sell many at all. Everyone wants a simple answer, preferably one word, but in any case, as few as possible.

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  43. Jeff Gill said on April 1, 2024 at 7:09 am

    In honor of the day, I’m buying a condo at 1060 W. Addison in Chicago and getting into neighborhood chaplaincy. Time for a change.

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  44. LAMary said on April 1, 2024 at 8:48 am

    Donald Trump reading “them all,” reminded me of the Katie Couric/Sarah Palin interview. Katie asked which newspapers Sarah read and she replied,”them all.”

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  45. Deborah said on April 1, 2024 at 9:33 am

    You and the Blues Brothers, Jeff. April fools.

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  46. alex said on April 1, 2024 at 11:25 am

    Julie, it looks like Fort Wayne could have its first black mayor and female mayor: Michelle Chambers.

    https://www.wane.com/top-stories/councilwoman-announces-mayoral-candidacy-intends-to-honor-henrys-legacy/

    Michelle is very personable. She had an office in the building where I used to work and we often chatted in the elevator and lobby.

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  47. Bitter Scribe said on April 1, 2024 at 11:30 am

    Smartphones my ass. What’s making Gen Z kids depressed is the shitty world Boomers like me are leaving them. In every way—politically, economically, socially—things have gotten worse since we took over. It’s getting so that when I see a young person, especially a young woman, I have to fight down an urge to apologize.

    Of course it’s uncomfortable for my generation to deal with, say, the fact that the income inequality we allowed to happen has made it impossible for young people to buy a home and start a family. It’s much easier and more pleasant to blame Kids These Days on smartphones or video games or degenerate entertainment or poor socialization or any fucking thing other than what the problem so plainly is.

    Enough already. If we can’t do anything to help the kids, let us at least stop insulting them by telling them everything is their fault.

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  48. David C said on April 1, 2024 at 12:13 pm

    Damn right Bitter Scribe. Our generation as a whole sold our souls to the Republicans and the DLC for the promise of tax cuts that went to someone else. But those people who weren’t us got cut so we accepted that.

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  49. tajalli said on April 1, 2024 at 1:10 pm

    Got an email from my investment firm this morning stating that dividends were omitted or incorrectly listed on the March statement and to watch for the corrected info on the April statement or set up an online acct. The result for me:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Bd4AydIzg

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  50. Deborah said on April 1, 2024 at 3:16 pm

    Every year I try to get my husband or LB on April Fools Day, this year I got my husband by telling him that Trump chose DeSantis as his VP. He just said he hadn’t read that anyplace but that he wasn’t surprised. One year I told them that former VP Cheney had died and at least one of them fell for it, this was a few years ago. I always try something and I rarely get away with it. I usually do it first thing in the morning on April 1st before the date sinks in.

    There have been some good ones over the years by newspapers. I was reminded this morning of the one done by the Guardian in 1977 about the island of San Seriffe which was supposedly in the Indian Ocean that had cities on it called Bodoni etc. Mostly graphic designers would get it but since it was way before computers a lot of people were clueless that it was an April Fools Day prank.

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  51. Sherri said on April 1, 2024 at 5:31 pm

    I’m about ready for the NCAA to get out of women’s sports. Bring back the AIAW!

    After the debacle of not providing adequate training facilities for the women’s team during the bubble tournament of 2021, supposedly the NCAA made a stronger commitment to the women’s basketball tournament. Yet, in this year’s tournament, we’ve had a referee pulled from a game at halftime when it was discovered that she had a degree from one of the schools playing in the game, a team harassed in a town 30 miles from where they were playing because there was no room for them where they were playing (but there was room for the men), and now, the most ridiculous of all, a screwed up court.

    The court for the Portland regional had different lengths for the 3 pt line on the two halves. One was 9 inches too short. Four games were played on the court before a fan in the stands finally alerted the officials shortly before the fifth game, which was also played on with the incorrect line. There was a marked difference in 3 point percentage between the two, with the correct line seeing a significantly better shooting percentage.

    It’s things like this that make me roll my eyes when I hear transphobes talking about how they want to “save women’s sports.” Women’s sports are not under assault from trans athletes. They are and always have been under assault from people, mostly men, who treat women’s sports as something that just has to be done because the law says so, not something valuable in its own right.

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  52. Jeff Borden said on April 1, 2024 at 5:50 pm

    Bitter Scribe, I agree 100%. I’m ashamed to be a boomer these days for all the reasons you enumerate and more…particularly our insistence that the “only” good music was made when we were young…and I, too, feel apologetic towards people who may never enjoy the kind of life I embraced as my due. In fact, I used to apologize to my public speaking classes…only half-jokingly…for the sins of the Baby Boomers.

    When I stop to consider that boomers registered black voters in the south at great personal risk, marched against the stupid war in Vietnam, stood shoulder to shoulder with women supporting the ERA and now are the most reliable supporters of the steaming pile of rancid shit that pretends to be human, it makes my stomach hurt. What the hell happened to us?

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  53. Deborah said on April 1, 2024 at 9:47 pm

    Me too Jeff B, I wonder about that as well.

    We had quite the unexpected discovery at the condo in Santa Fe today, the landing on the outside stairs to the upper level is all rusted out and could have collapsed but thankfully hasn’t. Long story how it became apparent today but the handyman was able to quickly come up with a temporary fix and now we’re scratching our heads about how this will be permanently fixed while still allowing the folks who live on the upper level to be able to get up and down the stairs during the fixing. Not much has been done to the stairs during the 43 years of its life except for occasionally being painted, they’re made of steel and as I think it was David C said here recently “rust never sleeps”.

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  54. Dexter Friend said on April 1, 2024 at 11:57 pm

    It fooled Sen. Moynihan too.
    https://www.si.com/sports-illustrated/2020/04/01/sidd-finch-april-fools-article-george-plimpton-lane-stewart-joe-berton

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  55. alex said on April 2, 2024 at 9:05 am

    Julie, the mayoral floodgates are wide open: https://www.wane.com/top-stories/councilwoman-announces-mayoral-candidacy-intends-to-honor-henrys-legacy/

    Phil GiaQuinta has entered the race. He’s the sort of heavy hitter that people will view as a worthy successor to Tom Henry and I predict that he’s the one who’s gonna clinch it.

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  56. Deborah said on April 2, 2024 at 9:35 am

    This is a good read if you don’t get this in your email inbox already, by Brian Klaas https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-science-of-conspiracy-theories

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  57. Deborah said on April 2, 2024 at 12:12 pm

    Oops, sorry that Brian Klaas link has a paywall and I don’t think there’s a gift option. But you can sign up for a free trial, although I never do those free trials myself, so I’m not recommending that for anyone. He is worth paying for though, I think.

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  58. Julie Robinson said on April 2, 2024 at 12:37 pm

    Thanks, Alex. Would love to be a fly on the wall at that caucus!

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