52 Nights Unplugged is all about spending at least one night a week attached to your loved-ones rather than the internet, or the computer in general. And that means that the Laptop with wireless networking is out as well – it’s one of those intent over form things!
Do you check your email during dinner? Text while driving? Browse the web in bed? Ever feel like you need a little break? Join us as we take an evening a week away from our beloved technology.
We’ve got to say that if you are doing any of these things regularly, or in the case of texting and driving at all, you need help! You can also follow the founder’s, Ariel Meadow Stallings, efforts in meeting the challenge on her blog – electrolicious.com/unplugged [^].
Free Range Kids
About a year ago I posted a link to an article in Orion Magazine about getting children out into the great outdoors. Well I have just stumbled across a whole website devoted to the same topic, FreeRangeKids [^]. This site is written by another American, Lenore Skenazy, a New Yorker no less!
A furore erupted when Lenore wrote an article in The New York Sun about leaving her 9 year-old son in downtown New York to find his own way home in broad daylight:
As Lenore points out that in 2006 115 children were abducted in America, out of a population of 300 million! Now don’t get me wrong, the fact that 115 kids were abducted is still 115 too high; but there is a greater chance of being struck by lightning.
With almost continuous media coverage of these events, like the Madeliene McCann disappearance, this very small possibility remains at the top of everyone’s minds. We take precautions to avoid being struck by lightning, and we should look after out kids – but don’t wrap them in bubble-wrap! There needs to be a point where parental responsibility and independent thinking by the child meet.