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Remember ‘go outside and play?’

In March, Lenore Skenazy, a New York City mother, gave her 9-year-old son, Izzy, a MetroCard, a subway map, a $20 bill and some quarters for pay phones. Then she let him make his own way home from Bloomingdale’s department store — by subway and bus.

Izzy survived unscathed. He wasn’t abducted by a perverted stranger or pushed under an oncoming train by a homicidal maniac. He didn’t even get lost. According to Skenazy, who wrote about it in a New York Sun column, he arrived home “ecstatic with independence.”

His mother wasn’t so lucky. Her column generated as much outrage as if she’d suggested that mothers make extra cash by hiring their kids out as child prostitutes.

But it also reinvigorated an important debate about children, safety and independence.

Reader, if you’re much over 30, you probably remember what it used to be like for the typical American kid. Remember how there used to be this thing called “going out to play”?

Ah, I remember going outside to play…sort of. I had limited access as well. I could only go from here to there, and I could go to houses x,y,z, but no others.
On the other hand, I could ride my bike wherever I wanted as long as I told my parents where I was going, or was with a friend. After school, I wandered around and hung out on corners with friends.

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Going too far: Proposed rule affects contraceptive information
“But this proposed rule goes far beyond the abortion issue. It could mean a woman who visits a federally funded clinic might not receive information about contraceptive options, including emergency contraceptives that could prevent a rape victim from becoming pregnant. That is medically indefensible.
Some people’s religions or personal principles dictate that abortion and surgical sterilization are always wrong, and some belief systems extend that abhorance to contraceptives. But the reality is that contraception, for most people, is a health issue, not a moral issue.
If an emergency room doctor does not explain all options available to a woman after she has been raped, that doctor is derelict in his or her duty to the patient. The same goes for doctors who won’t help a woman who simply wants to prevent a pregnancy for any reason.”

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T-shirt gets Van Nuys woman kicked out of federal building

“A routine trip to the Social Security office Monday turned into 30 minutes of shock, disbelief and irritation for Lapriss Gilbert, who was forced to leave the federal building by a guard who objected to her “lesbian.com” T-shirt.

As she headed for a line to pick up a Social Security card for her son, Gilbert was stopped by a guard who said her T-shirt, naming an educational and resource Web site for gay women, was offensive.

She said the guard, who works for a private company hired by the Department of Homeland Security, demanded that she leave the building or face arrest.

“A routine trip to the Social Security office Monday turned into 30 minutes of shock, disbelief and irritation for Lapriss Gilbert, who was forced to leave the federal building by a guard who objected to her “lesbian.com” T-shirt.

As she headed for a line to pick up a Social Security card for her son, Gilbert was stopped by a guard who said her T-shirt, naming an educational and resource Web site for gay women, was offensive.

She said the guard, who works for a private company hired by the Department of Homeland Security, demanded that she leave the building or face arrest.

A routine trip to the Social Security office Monday turned into 30 minutes of shock, disbelief and irritation for Lapriss Gilbert, who was forced to leave the federal building by a guard who objected to her “lesbian.com” T-shirt.

As she headed for a line to pick up a Social Security card for her son, Gilbert was stopped by a guard who said her T-shirt, naming an educational and resource Web site for gay women, was offensive.

She said the guard, who works for a private company hired by the Department of Homeland Security, demanded that she leave the building or face arrest.

A routine trip to the Social Security office Monday turned into 30 minutes of shock, disbelief and irritation for Lapriss Gilbert, who was forced to leave the federal building by a guard who objected to her “lesbian.com” T-shirt.

As she headed for a line to pick up a Social Security card for her son, Gilbert was stopped by a guard who said her T-shirt, naming an educational and resource Web site for gay women, was offensive.

She said the guard, who works for a private company hired by the Department of Homeland Security, demanded that she leave the building or face arrest. “