Wiretap: Ruining kids with coddling and thanking Fred Phelps for the ugliness

 
Hanna Rosin writes in the Atlantic that we’re overprotecting our kids, and to no good purpose. What would seem paranoid, she says, in the 70s — like walking third-graders to school, forbidding your kid to play ball in the street, going down the slide with your child in your lap — is routine now. The story: “A preoccupation with safety has stripped childhood of independence, risk taking, and discovery—without making it safer. A new kind of playground points to a better solution.”

Jay Michaelson writes that if Fred Phelps didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him. In the end, the ugliness of Phelps marginalized those who opposed gay rights. Via the Daily Beast.

The two Freds: When Fred Phelps protested at Mr. Rogers’ funeral. Via the New Yorker.

Colorado 3rd District Republican Congressman Scott Tipton has drawn a primary challenger. The Chieftain: “David L. Cox, a peach farmer from Palisade, came to the Pueblo County Republican Assembly last Saturday and made his pitch — that Congress needs to do away with the Federal Reserve System, impeach President Barack Obama and shrink the federal government…”

In the era of spy satellites, the disappearance of Flight 370 shows the limits of our technology. Via the Washington Post.

According to Brent Budowsky, the Democrats can still win the war on Obamacare. It just has to keep the war going past the deadline. Via the Hill.

Lawrence Walsh, the Iran-contra prosecutor, dies at 102. Obituary via the New York Times.

[ Image by Dierdre. ]

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