I have been swamped with a work project, which has kept me from from blogging and enjoying the beautiful Washington spring weather. But, at least, I want to express my support for the this week’s […]
Category: Responsibility
No Finder Keeper
My daughter and I fled the house today, down the road to the 7-Eleven. My wife had gone out for the afternoon—and left to fend for our own lunch, we opted for convenience. My daughter got a turkey and cheese sub, while I went for a burrito. But on the way to the convenience store, there was adventure: A lost cell phone.
As we cut across a parking lot towards the 7-Eleven, I spotted a clamshell on the pavement. Well, well, finder’s keepers? Not in my family. Lost is returned. We hoofed over to the building adjacent to the parking lot, asking if someone had lost a cell phone. The folks inside weren’t exactly helpful. I called myself using the lost phone, hoping to get some caller ID. None, except a number with 206 area code, which I recognized as Washington State.
Nuclear
This morning, as my daughter and I sat in our aging Volvo stopped in traffic, I saw that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had moved its headquarters to Rockville, Md. The facility is on a section of Rockville Pike (MD 355) that I don’t normally drive. But I do recall construction going on in that area for years. Now I know who is the tenant.
Anyway, the NRC headquarters prompted a discussion with my daughter about nuclear power plants and radiation and the role the regulatory agency plays in trying to ensure nuclear facilities are safe. I gave her the example of Chernobyl and what bad things can happen because of radiation contamination.
Be Better Neighbors
Yesterday, I wore my Alienware T-Shirt, with the company’s logo on the front—an alien, of course. For some reason, I got several questions about it. So I said: “Well, this is my illegal alien. He’s afraid of getting sent back to his home planet, and I’m protesting with him.”
There’s truth to what I said. I’m unfavorable to the hardline US legislators are taking with this immigration bill. I just don’t see turning all these immigrants into criminals, or turning them away. As one of the sixth graders pointed out today in the Sunday school class I teach, most Americans are immigrants. And to the Native Americans here 400 hundred years ago, the off-continent settlers were the illegals and, as it turned out, invaders, too.
MySpace Isn’t the Problem
Shoot, will people lay off poor MySpace. Today the company hired a new Chief Security Officer, in response to a bunch of news stories about kids online safety. Yesterday, my mom called to make sure that I didn’t miss a Dateline story about the dangers of MySpace. Sorry, Ma. I spent time with my daughter rather than watch about parents that weren’t looking after their kids.
The problem isn’t social networking sites, but unmonitored kids and their uninvolved parents. In December I warned of kids risky, online behavior. But the greater risk is from the parents. C’mon, if kids are posting on public blogs, why should predators be reading them and not the parents?
Way to Go, Kids
Now this is what social networking should be for: High school students use MySpace to organize a walkout over proposed immigration changes. The kids are right. It’s wrong to make illegal immigration a felony. The […]
Be Responsible for Your Kids Online
Over the last couple days, I’ve seen an awfully good AP story, by reporter Matt Apuzzo, stir quite a flurry of fallout about kids online safety at blogsites. Matt focuses on MySpace.com, but the problems of too much information disclosure are persistent.
In December posts What Kids Reveal Online and Minimizing Kids’ Online Risks, I explored the dangers of teen blogging and what kids foolishly reveal.
‘Live 8’ or Death
Two Saturdays ago, the family hauled off to Tysons Corner Center, so that my wife could shop at the New Balance store and my daughter at the Sketchers there. On a giant flat-panel monitor at the back of the Sketchers played Live 8, particularly Richard Ashcroft’s performance, with Coldplay, of The Verve staple “Bittersweet Symphony”.
The performance stuck with me, as did vague memories of Live 8, which I mostly missed. I certainly shouldn’t have overlooked the concert as much as I did. During summer 2005, I struggled through some logistical problems at work, which greatly distracted from many things that should have been greater priority. Events like Live 8 come `round maybe once in 20 years, if Live AID is any indication.
Theory Isn’t Fact
I find the ongoing debate about evolution versus creationism to be quite exhausting. Neither perspective really makes any sense, but strong philosophical and cultural biases play to favor one position or the other. The creationist’s biases are clear:
The Biblical seven-day account of the world’s creation; there are writings, supposedly inspired by God, which by their divine inspiration are indisputable. Evolutionists offer plenty evidence of dispute, such as the universe being more than 6,000 years old (I don’t doubt a much longer period of existence).
Where Kids Fly Safe Online?
I simply couldn’t find time to blog this week, on my personal site. Busy week at the office, with the Consumer Electronics Show—and I didn’t even attend! I feel for my boss, who traveled to Las Vegas and soon goes onto San Francisco for Macworld.
My first catchup post is followup to my two posts, “What Kids Reveal Online” and “Minimizing Kids’ Online Risks“. Jan. 16, 2006, Business Week has a story about new online social network, Yfly.com, which opens on February 1. Apparently, Jessica Simpson’s soon-to-be ex-spouse Nick Lachey is behind the venture, which seeks to provide teens a safe place to socialize online.
What Kids Reveal Online
Yesterday, a friend asked me to check out her eldest daughter’s Xanga site, to look for privacy or security problems. The teenager hadn’t posted anything compromising her identity. But her friends were another matter. Many of the teenagers revealed quite a bit of personal information, such as IM handles, that could be misused by predators.
The Right Choice
My wife hauls me off to church every Sunday (and that’s not a bad thing). I teach Sunday school, which gets me out of the service. But last week, older kids organized a scavenger hunt for fourth through sixth graders (I teach the middleschoolers), so I had opportunity to sit in the service. Lucky, too.
The pastor announced she would step down at the end of December. After two-and-a-half years, she felt it was time to make room for new blood and a new way of doing things. I thought: “This is how it’s supposed to be”.