Comments on: Nota Bene #65

By: Mike Sheehan

Mike Sheehan — Sat, 16 May 2009 08:26:03 +0000

Don’t forget Gacy and Wayne Williams too… they really did a number on the American psyche.

By: Russ Wellen

Russ Wellen — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:05:57 +0000

To be more exact about free-range kids, I think, without reading the book, that what killed them off — the practice, that is, not the kids — was when the murders of John Walsh’s son and, in New York City, Etan Patz, got so much publicity. It further fueled the already existing national hysteria about crime.

Panic about child-care centers abusing kids was another symptom of that hysteria.

By: Russ Wellen

Russ Wellen — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:30:16 +0000

What a diverse (note how I sidestepped that overused adjective “eclectic”) set of links.

Re the Lenore Skenazy interview: Yeah, those free-range days we grew up in seem so long ago. She writes:

But it feels so completely different, and we’re told that it’s completely different, and frankly, when I tell people that it’s the same, nobody believes me. We’re living in really safe times, and it’s hard to believe.

I think it was those milk cartons what did it.