From CBS:

Before 1991, “a Scout leader was being tossed out for child molestation at the rate of one every three days,” [lawyer Tim Kosnoff] said. “Post-1991, the rate was one every two days.” That includes people suspected of abuse.

(Kosnoff is the attorney for two men suing the Scouts because they were molested by an assistant scoutmaster for several years.)

In case you were wondering what happened to Michael Vick’s little brother Marcus: He’s not doing much of anything.

He did have a brief pro career, however.

Read the comments on the Al Sharpton parody blog here. (Note that it says “Fake Parody Blogs” in the title.)

My favorite is from “markwark”:

The comments so far have me wavering between 2 conclusions:
1. People who post comments on blogs are by and large dumb. I mean really dumb. Dumber than I thought they were.
2. Al Sharpton is such a joke, even reasonable people can’t tell the difference between his real opinions and an over the top parody.

What’s so funny about it is that it’s followed by more people attacking “Al,” still not getting that it’s a parody. [sigh]

Some parents in Georgia need a lesson in logic and reality. Take one Tina McCurley.

She’s the mother of a student at Westside Middle School in Georgia. Here’s what happened and why I say so.

Her daughter’s history class was shown the first five minutes of 300 as part of a history class. Five minutes. Got that?

Parents complained, as they tend to do about everything these days.

The executive director of assessment and accountability for the county’s schools looked into it. He said,

“I watched it with the principal (Stan Stewart). The clip had no profanity, no nudity, no violence,” he said. “It depicts a Spartan boy and the process he went through in attempting to attain manhood. We didn’t find it disturbing and thought it was appropriate to the lesson. There were no battle scenes. The clip starts with a boy as a baby and ends as he enters the army.”

Got that? Five minutes of the movie, no violence. (That’s better than most of the cartoons on TV these days — ever see Kim Possible?)

But Ms. McCurley weighed in thusly:

“From everything I’ve read, the previews and the trailer, I don’t feel the movie is appropriate for these students. If movie theaters can’t show rated-R movies without a parent present, how can they do this in the schools?”

Reminder: The movie wasn’t shown. Just five minutes of it. In fact, McCurley said (later in the article) that she saw “nothing wrong with the movie’s first five minutes.”

Still, she said, “I don’t care if it was one minute. ‘R’ movies have no place in our schools.”

So let’s look at her logic: Even though what the kids saw had “no profanity, no nudity, no violence,” because other parts of the movie had those things, the evil inherent in them must have seeped into those first five minutes even if you couldn’t see it.

Or, perhaps, having an R-rated DVD physically in the school building is dangerous.

That’s the only way to explain her comment.

I was in our local used book store yesterday. (There were about four copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows there, which the owner said she got within a day or two of the book coming out.)

Anyway, I went shopping for something to read (duh), and was going through the sci-fi and fiction sections. When I saw something that looked interesting, I found myself checking the copyright date. See, I have these rules about what I’m willing to read.

There’s a period between when a book is “current” and when it’s “period,” and I just can’t read anything in that time frame. Let me explain.

I can read a book that takes place in the ’60s or ’70s or ’80s no problem. But then it gets iffy. For example, a book written about the present-day that was penned before 9/11 will certainly be outdated. Ditto for one written before the Web. I remember thinking about The Pelican Brief, “Why doesn’t she just post the stuff online?”

Right now I’m reading Darwin’s Blade by Dan Simmons, a writer I usually like a lot. It was written in 2002 or 2003, I believe. And there are some things that make it so obviously dated. For example, the protagonist (Darwin Minor is his name) uses his laptop, and a big deal is made of the fact that he connects his cell phone as a modem — he’s supposed to have all sorts of high-end equipment. But in the age of Wi-Fi, it’s kinda silly.

A big deal is also made of his cell phone. Simmons refers to it as a Flip-Phone (with caps), as if a flip-open cell phone is a big deal. (And remember, this was written published only a few years ago.)

With some books — Harry Potter, for example — publication date doesn’t matter, although I wondered more than once why there wasn’t Web access at Hogwarts. But with thrillers and modern-day drama, anything more than about a year old seems clearly dated. The Web, the post-9/11 security nonsense, Caller ID, iPods, Wi-Fi — all those things are such a ubiquitous part of life now that it’s hard to read something that’s missing them… at least until it becomes a classic.

Google is trying something interesting this week: It’s going to allow the people involved in a story to add comments to it on the Google News home page. So if you’re a subject of a story (or otherwise involved — there don’t seem to be hard and fast rules yet about who will be considered “actual participants in the story in question”), you can add your perspective.

It could be an incredible idea. Journalists can never get the complete story; unlike in the movies there’s always way too much nuance to explain, even if you’re writing for the Web without space limitations. A reporter makes calls about what information is most important, and that’s what he puts in. But sources might not agree, of course, or they might want to explain things in more detail. Google is giving them the chance.

It’s a different twist on the kind of participatory journalism that’s become more popular. Professionals still provide the news, but instead of adding useless perspective from Joe or Jane On The Street, Google will be allowing the right people to weigh in.

Blogging has been light here lately as I’ve been working on another project. I mentioned it here before, and it’s sort of taken off: http://www.thisisroanoke.com.

Originally my plan was to make a site for getting local news here in Roanoke quickly; who needs to read how three random people feel about the new parking rates when all you need to know is how much you’ll have to pay?

But then I discovered how easy it was to aggregate news feeds from all sorts of local news sources — mainstream ones and bloggers. Suddenly (i.e., in about three days) I had built a pretty decent news site.

Then those local bloggers noticed, and started telling other people. And then I found myself getting e-mail from people asking to be included, or simply saying, “Cool site.”

At this point the site is 98 percent self-sustaining, although I can’t help but tweak it a bit. If nothing else it’s an experiment in viral advertising. No local news source will mention it, of course, even though I’m sending them traffic. So the only way people are finding it is when other people tell them.

* * *

At the heart of it, I’m amazed at what kinds of free software is available. Want to pull in feeds from all over? No problem! Want to merge 10 feeds into one? Easy! Want to integrate Craigslist classifieds? Simple!

I can certainly understand why local media companies are worried. Many of them are stuck using software that isn’t easily integrated with Web technology. Others can can use the stuff but can’t spare the staff-hours to implement it. Others have such large (or stodgy) bureaucracies that they can’t take advantage of it. Others have old-fashioned ideas about what people want or what the “new media” can do.

And, of course, there’s the competition angle. An aggregation site is happy to pull in content from wherever, and link people to anyone. But if you’re a TV station or newspaper you probably won’t bring yourself to work with you competitors that way.

So I put in a few days’ work, developed the site, and now I’m gonna sit back and see what happens.

“Half the nation’s families earn below the median family income of about $56,000.”

[sigh]

Little Green Footballs is shocked — shocked! — to find that someone working at or for the New York Times doesn’t like George W Bush. Could be the editor, could be a reporter, could be a janitor, a salesguy, someone in circulation, someone in HR, an artist, an accountant…

Nope, it’s “NYT Bias,” as if the entire paper was behind it. Mountains from molehills.

I got a note from a guy today asking me about some statistics on child abductions. (The vast majority are committed by family members; stranger abductions are rare.) He brought up the idea of unstructured play for kids, and that got me going.

I am a huge, huge fan on unstructured play — free play. Screw weekly soccer or fencing or gymnastics or whatever’s the rage these days. Let kids be kids. But parents can’t, of course. For some reason they’ve got it into their heads that only organized sports and activities are good, which is why so many suburban streets are empty in the afternoons and evenings when they should be filled with kids making up their own fun and games (at least until the streetlights come on — then it’s time to come in. :)

I am by far not the first person to bring this up. The rise of structured play in favor of just letting kids be kids is a horrible thing that many people have lamented.

In my reply to the note, I brought up an idea I have had for a long time: Local Freeplay groups. Just like there might be a local Mom’s Club or Freecycle group, I’d love to see a movement where people formed local Freeplay groups.

It might work like this:

Each time the group met (weekly, every Tuesday and Thursday, whatever), one or two parents would be responsible for bringing the Box of Stuff, while other parents would be the Grown Up in Charge.

The Box of Stuff would contain an ever-growing pile of things for kids to play with. Depending on the ages, it might contain balls and bats, walkie-talkies, digging equipment, maps and compasses, a volleyball net… you get the idea. Stuff. The kids could choose to use it or not.

The Grown Ups in Charge would be the ones who would hang out at a certain spot near wherever the kids were playing. They’d talk, read, and be available for any emergencies. But the rule would be “fix it, solve it, figure it out yourselves.”

The imaginary conversation I, er, imagined went something like this:

“What are you doing today, Mike?”
“I’m taking Junior to Smith Park for Freeplay.”
“What’s he gonna do?”
“I don’t know. But it’s Sue Jones’s turn to bring the equipment, and she always has interesting stuff.”

Obviously this is only a germ of an idea. Still, the thought of kids being allowed to be kids — to figure things out themselves, to expand (heck, to use) their imaginations, to solve their own disagreements — really makes me want to see this happen. Wide-open playdates. No rules. Imagine that.

I’ve been away for a few days — Dad had a heart attack, but is OK now — so it’s back to this stuff.

Today, the Logic Police once again make the rounds.

We’ll start with an article/column in the Chicago Sun-Times about how police there are apparently not enforcing the city’s ban on hands-free cell phone use while driving.

The writer, Monifa Thomas, talks about how she had a hands-free device for her phone but lost it “and never bothered to replace it.”

Translation: I’m Monifa Thomas, and I’m happy to tell you how I break the law and put other drivers at risk. Ha ha! Aren’t I cute?”

And then there’s the person she interviewed for the story, one Ernestine Funches, who said she thinks police should be enforcing the ban:

“I think they should,” Funches added, “because I know how distracted I get when I’m on the phone.”

Translation: “When I’m behind the wheel, I am not in control of my own actions! Stop me before I hurt myself!”

I hope everyone in Chicago clips the article. Then, if they’re ever in an accident involving either Ms. Thomas or Ms. Funches, they can produce it for the lawsuit.

Happy birthday to me,
I belong in a zoo,
I look like a monkey,
and I can’t rhyme worth a damn.

They know their priorities.

(Via Blah, Blah, Blahg.)

Every now and again I’ll take myself on a tour through some random Wikipedia entries and learn something new and, hopefully, odd.

Today, through a trail I couldn’t begin to recreate, I learned about a cool (but, sadly, recently discontinued) practice practise in the British Parliament.

Parliament’s sessions are open to the public, but a member can request that the debate be done in private. (Apparently this has only happened twice in recent years.) He does this by calling out, “I spy strangers!” which immediately leads to a vote of whether to close the proceedings to the public.

Sadly, in 1998 the Modernisation Committee changed the procedure, so now a member simply makes a motion “that the House sit in private.” Borrrrrrrring.

A member of Parliament suddenly standing and shouting ”I spy strangers!” — now that’s the way government ought to work. 

Apparently, some parents are considering boycotting Chinese-made toys in the wake of yet another recall of yet more made-in-China playthings. (Reality check: Only toward the end of the story do you learn that we’re talking about a single person the reporter found who said such a thing.)

Anyway, talk about a boycott of Chinese things is nonsense, and not because so much stuff is made in China these days. The fact is, Americans care about one thing over all: price. All that matters is how cheap they can get it.

Wal-Mart screws workers left and right and destroys mom-and-pop shops all over, but people still fight to have one in their town because it’s cheap.

I don’t care how many American flag stickers people paste on their cars, if you ask them whether they’d be willing to pay a little more for an American-made toy, they’ll enthusiastically say yes, but then they’ll rush out and buy the cheapest junk they can find at the nearest big-box store, wherever it’s made.

So please, spare me this hand-wringing about toys out of China. Americans measure their worth by how much stuff they have, and they want to buy that stuff cheap. So turning around and complaining that their cheap stuff really is junk is just, well, sad.

Via the Washington Post:

“Smudges of fudge showed up very well on her hands and white blouse,” Officer Hal Dalton said. “You don’t see something like that every day.”

Say it over and over. It’s fun. Smudges of fudge. Smudges of fudge. Smudges of fudge.

“This game may be inconvenient for children.”

If you listen closely, you can hear the world’s smallest violins playing.

…of never using the word “surprise” in the name of a food product.