Saturday February 24, 2007

Child-Safety Experts Call For Restrictions On Childhood Imagination

WASHINGTON, DC — The Department of Health and Human Services issued a series of guidelines Monday designed to help parents curtail their children’s boundless imaginations, which child-safety advocates say have the potential to rival motor vehicle accidents and congenital diseases as a leading cause of disability and death among youths ages 3 to 14.

“Defuse the ticking time-bomb known as your child’s imagination before it explodes and destroys her completely,” said child-safety expert Kenneth McMillan, who advised the HHS in composing the guidelines. “New data shows a disturbing correlation between serious accidents and the ability of children to envision a world full of exciting possibility.”

The guidelines, titled “Boundless Imagination, Boundless Hazards: Ways To Keep Your Kids Safe From A World Of Wonder,” are posted on the HHS website, and will also be available in brochure form in pediatricians’ offices across the country.

According to McMillan, children can suffer broken bones, head trauma, and even fatal injuries from unsupervised exposure to childlike awe. “If your children are allowed to unlock their imaginations, anything from a backyard swing set to a child’s own bedroom can be transformed into a dangerous undersea castle or dragon’s lair,” McMillan said. “But by encouraging your kids to think linearly and literally, and constantly reminding them they can never be anything but human children with no extraordinary characteristics, you can better ensure that they will lead prolonged lives.”

Although the exact number of child fatalities connected to an active imagination is unknown, experts say the danger is very real. According to a 2006 estimate, children who regularly engage in imagination are 10 times more likely to suffer injuries such as skinned knees from mythical quests, or bruises and serious falls from the peak of Bookcase Mountain.

One of the HHS recommendations emphasizes increased communication between parents and children about the truths behind outlandish fantasies. “Speak with your children about the absolute impossibility of time travel, magical powers, and animals and toys that talk when adults are not around,” reads one excerpt. “If this fails to quell their imaginations, encourage them to stare at household objects and think clearly and objectively about their actual, physical characteristics.”

The HHS also discourages aimless playtime activities that lack a rigid, repetitive structure: “Opt instead for safe activities like untying knots, sticking and unsticking two pieces of Velcro, drawing straight lines of successively longer lengths, and quietly humming a single note for two to three hours.”

But even these relatively safe activities can become imaginative, experts warn, without proper precautions. “Do not let children know that, for example, sailors and pirates untie knots,” McMillan said.

Although no cure has yet been developed for childhood imagination, preventative measures can deter children from potentially hazardous bouts of make-believe.

“Many of the suggestions are really quite simple, like breaking down cardboard boxes or sewing cushions to couches so they cannot be converted into forts or playhouses,” McMillan said. “Blank pieces of paper, which can inspire non-reality-based drawings, should be discarded unless they are used in one of our recommended diagonal folding and unfolding activities. And all loose sticks left lying in the yard should be carefully labeled ‘Not a Sword.’”

Unfortunately, removing everything from a child’s field of view that could stimulate his active young mind is extremely time-consuming, and infeasible as a long-term solution, McMillan acknowledges. “To truly protect your children, you must go to great lengths to completely eliminate their curiosity, crush their spirit of amazement, and eradicate their childlike glee. Watch for the danger signs: faraway expressions, giggle fits, and a general air of carefree contentment.”

Added McMillan: “Remember, if you see a single sparkle of excitement in their eyes, you haven’t done enough.”

Friday February 16, 2007

Keith Foulke, closer for the 2004 Red Sox and a key piece of the Indians’ rebuilt bullpen, has abruptly retired before throwing a single pitch. As a blogger put it, “Apparently the Indians’ closer woke up this morning, looked at the uniform they wanted him to wear as pitchers and catchers reported to spring training, and saw a very bad word: Cleveland. So he retired…. [It's not] an in-depth story. It’s as simple as this — Keith Foulke didn’t want to pitch for a team that God hates.” Basically, Mr. Foulke has undone a great deal of the outstanding work that the Indians’ front office did in the offseason.

Can you blame him though? This comes in the wake of the Browns’ key acquisition of last year, center LeCharles Bentley, promptly snapping his knee in half in the first practice of training camp to the point of perhaps never being able to play again. Then there’s Juan Gonzalez, who managed to tear his hamstring in 2005 on his first and only at-bat of the season … and never play again. And Dave Burba breaking his arm in the 1999 playoffs to start a precipitous choke job against Boston. And Jack McDowell snapping every ligament in his elbow in 1997. Chris Spielman. Jim Chones. Seemingly every single Browns draft pick. Seemingly every single Cavaliers draft pick (except one … for now).

And yet, for some reason, the delusional among those who were unfortunate enough to have been raised in Cleveland still believe. Law of averages, right? Forty-three years without a sports title … and counting. Oh well. They’ll all just have to leave town before they ever win … just like everyone else in Cleveland.

Wednesday February 14, 2007

From Wired News:

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill last week that could require all Internet service providers to save data on their customers — anything from a user’s name and address to emails, instant messages and information about every website you choose to visit in the dead of night.

Here’s a piece on the legislation by the Washington Post that gets into the practical difficulties of implementing the bill.

Called the SAFETY Act, the bill is intended to help law enforcement stop online sexual predators. It would levy heavy fines on ISPs failing to report child pornography and force owners of commercial websites that carry sexually explicit content to use warning labels. But the legislation would also give the attorney general carte blanche in determining what kind of information ISPs would be required to store and for how long.

Civil libertarians don’t much like the idea of Alberto Gonzalez, who has gained a reputation for shiftiness in congressional hearings, having the final say on a privacy issue as weighty as this one. Here’s what Marvin Johnson, a legislative counsel for the ACLU in D.C., worries about in a statement today:

“There is no limit to the amount of information that Attorney General Gonzales can require ISPs to keep, from instant messages to private emails to web searches, and he can require that they be kept forever. This represents an incredible invasion into our privacy and freedom to use the Internet without the government reading over our shoulders.”

Well then … don’t you just love Republicans’ tendency to give laws thoroughly Orwellian names? My God. I don’t even need to comment here, do I?

Tuesday February 13, 2007

It’s hard to get stoked for baseball with an apocalyptic ice storm on the way tonight … and it’s only pitchers and catchers for two teams, but still … Spring Training!

The Indians’ last World Series title was in 1948. The Tribe and the Cubbies are the only teams of the original 16 who haven’t won in the expansion era (after 1960). But I’m feelin’ it this year … we’ve signed help for the bullpen, which was the big issue last year, two legitimate MVP candidates … we might have a repeat of the 2005 late-season collapse!

Tuesday February 13, 2007

Identify the author of the following quote:

“The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state…. A goal of taxation should be to ‘remedy inequality of riches as much as possible, by relieving the poor and burdening the rich.’”

Would you believe … Mr. Adam Smith?

From, y’know, The Wealth of Nations?

Sunday February 11, 2007

I’ve just realized that my world view is seriously different from almost everyone else in the world: I’m not attached to a place.

The cord will finally be cut completely when my parents move away from my hometown, purchasing two smaller condominiums (one down south for my father to go golfing in the winter). I spent almost my entire formative years in that town, from one year old until shipping off for college, but I don’t see myself ever going back once my parents leave. (Except, perhaps, for the high school reunions at some point down the road. There are some people that I suspect saw their lives peak at age 18 … and the petty part of me would like to laugh at them.) The town where I live now, is a fine town — middle-class, compact, and with roughness around the edges that makes it feel authentic — but I don’t feel like I’m actually a part of it in any sense.

I just watched a documentary on Bay St. Louis, Mississippi — which was almost entirely wiped off the map in Hurricane Katrina. I was somewhat amazed by the determination of people to rebuild their town. It was moving, certainly, but part of me was being all cold and rational, questioning why on earth anyone would want to stick around when everything could easily be swept away by another hurricane. (The Mississippi coast was devastated by Camille in 1969, after all.) The answer, of course, is that they have an attachment to the place, a sense of community. And honestly, I wouldn’t know what to do with that. It’s almost disturbing to me because it seems, to me, that a place is just … a place.

Is this generational? Locational? Or am I just missing the big picture?

Further, is this why whatever is left of our democracy is disintegrating?

Saturday February 10, 2007

We’ve got nothing on Portugal.

LISBON, Feb. 9 — Last week, children from two Roman Catholic day-care centers in the port city of Setubal were sent home with a most unusual note: a fictional letter from a fetus to the woman who conceived and aborted it.

“Mommy, how were you able to kill me?” the letter read. “How were you able to allow me to be cut up in pieces and thrown into a bucket?”

The Rev. Miguel Alves, the day-care center director who sent the letters, defended his action as perfectly normal, adding, “There’s no reason for indignation.”

The letter reflects one view in a passionate, raw campaign to sway voters before a referendum this Sunday on whether Portugal should decriminalize abortion.

Saturday February 10, 2007

So I was flipping around this afternoon and came across a movie that, without having actually watched it, I believe I can safely term an affront to mankind. So the plot summary for Carnosaur 3: Primal Species goes like this:

“While stealing uranium, terrorists unwittingly unleash formidable man-eating dinosaurs.”

Amazingly, this movie was actually made in 1996, before the post-9/11 era of hysteria.

It’s one thing for radioactivity to mutate something, but to raise it from the dead? Riiight.

Saturday February 10, 2007

Intelligence agencies indicate that a Mideast country, part of the Axis of Evil, is plotting attacks against us and aiding terrorists. It’s not 2002 Iraq. It’s 2007 Iran:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — The most lethal weapon directed against American troops in Iraq is an explosive-packed cylinder that United States intelligence asserts is being supplied by Iran.

The assertion of an Iranian role in supplying the device to Shiite militias reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies, although officials acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.

In interviews, civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies provided specific details to support what until now has been a more generally worded claim, in a new National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran is providing “lethal support” to Shiite militants in Iraq….

Any assertion of an Iranian contribution to attacks on Americans in Iraq is both politically and diplomatically volatile. The officials said they were willing to discuss the issue to respond to what they described as an increasingly worrisome threat to American forces in Iraq, and were not trying to lay the basis for an American attack on Iran.

The assessment was described in interviews over the past several weeks with American officials, including some whose agencies have previously been skeptical about the significance of Iran’s role in Iraq. Administration officials said they recognized that intelligence failures related to prewar American claims about Iraq’s weapons arsenal could make critics skeptical about the American claims.

The link that American intelligence has drawn to Iran is based on a number of factors, including an analysis of captured devices, examination of debris after attacks, and intelligence on training of Shiite militants in Iran and in Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and by Hezbollah militants believed to be working at the behest of Tehran.

The Bush administration is expected to make public this weekend some of what intelligence agencies regard as an increasing body of evidence pointing to an Iranian link, including information gleaned from Iranians and Iraqis captured in recent American raids on an Iranian office in Erbil and another site in Baghdad.

So this looks fun. Based on Bush’s rhetoric, if he really believes that Iraq is the central front in the Global War on an Abstract Noun, then it’s hard to see how he leaves office without sending an armada of bombers over Tehran. (If he doesn’t believe that, then … [expletives deleted].) At this point, how are we to believe anything that they say? They’re the boy who cried wolf at this point. Thing is, Iran really is a serious regional threat, as Ahmadinejad would have no particular qualms with nuking Tel Aviv (as he believes that it is his duty to bring about Armageddon to secure the return of the 12th Imam, the Messiah of Shi’a Islam), but we can’t possibly confront them militarily without a war that would make Iraq look like a tea party. Brilliant!

The world is going to get a lot worse. Buckle your seat belts.

Friday February 9, 2007

Check out predictions as written by the science editor of the NY Times in the February 1950 of Popular Mechanics.