Werner Herzog Reads Curious George
A must-watch deconstruction of the classic children’s text, as done by your favorite German art-house film director.
Why I Give My 9-Year-Old Pot
The title is provocative, but this piece from the site Double X is extremely moving. Here’s why you give a child in elementary school marijuana:
My son J has autism. He’s also had two serious surgeries for a spinal cord tumor and has an inflammatory bowel condition. For a time, anti-inflammatory medication seemed to control his pain. But in the last year, it stopped working.
J’s school called my husband and me in for a meeting. Since autistic children like J can’t exactly do talk therapy, this meant sedating, antipsychotic drugs like Risperdal—Thorazine for kids.
Last year, Risperdal was prescribed for more than 389,000 children—240,000 of them under the age of 12—for bipolar disorder, ADHD, autism, and other disorders. Yet the drug has never been tested for long-term safety in children and carries…
‘Wild Things’ Author Maurice Sendak To Concerned Parents: Go To Hell!
Great find from Charlie Jane Anders on io9.com:
If you’re worried about taking your kids to see Where The Wild Things Are after reports of crying children having to leave screenings of the rough cut, halfway through, then Maurice Sendak has a message for you: “Go to hell.”
A story in the Oct. 19 Newsweek contains this classic exchange:
What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?
Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.
Because kids can handle it?
Sendak: If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.
Jonze: Dave, you want to field that one?
Eggers: The part about kids wetting their pants? Should kids wear diapers when they go to the…
A Neo-Nazi Inventor’s Gift to Childhood: Sea Monkeys
I always thought these things were really odd. Check out this article from Tamar Brott in Los Angeles Times from October, 2000. Sea Monkeys inventor Harold von Braunhut died in 2003:
APART FROM THE FACT THAT THEY CAN HATCH WITHIN MINUTES AFTER contact with water, brine shrimp are unappealing creatures. They’re ant-sized and translucent and bear a striking resemblance to sperm. Yet brine shrimp packaged as “Sea Monkeys” are currently sold as children’s companions, and portrayed on their boxes as pink, pear-shaped simian creatures with spindly legs, paunches and coy smiles. They are one of the most impressive achievements in the annals of marketing.
Harold von Braunhut, a former manager of novelty acts, first packaged his patented hybrids in 1960, transforming the Sea Monkeys into American icons via millions of comic book ads. Von Braunhut also wrote the 32-page handbook that is included in most Sea Monkey kits to this day, which states that the creatures can be hypnotized, play baseball and rise from the dead. The tone of the handbook is florid and huckstery: “It seems that at mating time in the Animal Kingdom, the males engage in combat to win the fin, paw, flipper, hoof, wing or what-have-you, of their ‘lady love.’ …
