Jul 07
The noises sound hostile and angry to me. I see arms and legs shattering the bodies of people I know in every red, white, and blue explosion. I don’t try to hide from them, I just start to weep.
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More on Veterans
Jul 07
My prediction was not based on any inside knowledge, but an understanding of how free agents think.
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Jul 07
As wildfires escalate year by year, fire prevention is becoming even more important. And prevention doesn’t always mean Smokey Bear PSAs. In fact, the lumber industry has developed a symbiotic relationship with the very material feeding many of the fires.
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Jul 07
Would you believe these collectors buy serial killer’s autographed photos, artwork and handwritten letters sent to people outside prison walls? Even an envelope bearing a handwritten return address commands a pretty penny.
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Jul 07
Kids and Tech: Is It Going Too Far?
Posted in: Today's ChiliWhen I was a kid, I was obsessed with technology. Any product I could get my hands on, I would use. And when I had a chance to pick up a game console, you can bet I was rushing to the stores to get one. Technology ruled much of my childhood.
Still, I was able to handle the real world. I could converse with both kids and adults, and I was engaged enough in school to know that there was a time and place for my technology. I also understood that getting too obsessed with tech could make me socially awkward, which prompted me to question how much time I should be spending around it.
In other words, as tech-obsessed as I might have been, I think I had a healthy relationship with gadgets.
At a July 4 party, however, I came to realize that kids today have a much different experience with technology. When I was a kid, having a cell phone in high school was unheard of. At this recent party, which was attended by kids of all ages, even the 4-year-old was holding an iPod touch and texting her sister.
Every kid at the party was holding a smartphone or iPod rouch, and they were either playing games on it or texting their friends. At no point did they look up to see what was happening at the party, and when asked a question, they would wait to finish their text message before answering it. The adults in the room were understandably displeased by the behavior, but as the parents put it – “it’s their generation.”
If that’s the case, I’m worried about that generation. During dinner, we were all sitting at the table, having a nice discussion. I look over and see two of the older kids laughing with their phones in their hand. I asked what was up, and they promptly told me that they were texting each other from across the table. Rather than have a real conversation, they opted to type it from five feet apart.
“In the old days, if a kid was bullied, it wasn’t recorded”
Of course, it’s not just the kids who were at that party. A quick search on YouTube reveals countless videos of kids taking videos in school. An overwhelming number of those videos shows kids being ridiculed or bullied in some way. In the old days, if a kid was bullied, it wasn’t recorded. Now, the whole school sees what’s happening.
And since most devices today contain cameras and the ability to capture video, students are finding themselves in compromising positions when they send photos of themselves to others that are quickly sent around the school to fellow students.
Unfortunately, I think we’ve taken a hands-off approach to this growing, dangerous relationship between technology and kids. Most device makers realize that children are a key revenue generator, and parents are content today to placate their kids, rather than explain to them that having real conversations and acting like a human being is actually a better thing.
When I was a kid, the only time you saw a child with that zoned-out look on his or her face, they were playing a video game. And in many cases, parents were alarmed by it and told them it was time to go outside and play.
Nowadays, I see it wherever I go. And parents, shockingly enough, have the same look on their faces.
After all, if you want to talk to your kids nowadays, the best way is to text them, right?
IMAGE Summer Skyes 11
Kids and Tech: Is It Going Too Far? is written by Don Reisinger & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jul 07
There are few things more lovely than a long weekend filled with fireworks, friends, families and, most importantly, so much food.
But what else made you smile today?
We asked the awesome HuffPost Teen Twitter and Pheed followers to share ONE thing that made them happy this weekend. Click through the slideshow below for 20 of their responses, then share yours with us in the comments below or by tweeting #onethingthatmakesmehappy @HuffPostTeen!
Jul 07
BOSTON — Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, is in critical but stable condition in a hospital in Nantucket, Mass.
Heinz Kerry, 74, was admitted into the emergency room at Nantucket Cottage Hospital after 3:30 p.m. Sunday, hospital spokesman Noah Brown said
Jul 07
After the downfall of Mubarak, and then the Brotherhood, whoever will hold the reins of power in Egypt, the military included, will have to realize that the new player in town, the Egyptian people, cannot and will not be taken for granted anymore.
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More on Egypt
Jul 07
John Brown: Foreign Service Exam Question: What to Do With Edward Snowden on the Fourth of July in Moscow?
Posted in: Today's Chili Good luck with your exam, but don’t expect USG employment until you pass the security clearance!
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More on Fourth Of July
Jul 07
Sue Rapp And Vera Scroggins, Fracking Opponents, Lead Movement Against Drillers
Posted in: Today's ChiliVESTAL, N.Y. (AP) — Big energy companies have been trying for five years to tap the riches of the Marcellus Shale in southern New York, promising thousands of new jobs, economic salvation for a depressed region, and a cheap, abundant, clean-burning source of fuel close to power-hungry cities. But for all its political clout and financial prowess, the industry hasn’t been able to get its foot in the door.
One reason: Folks like Sue Rapp and Vera Scroggins are standing in the way.
Rapp, a family counselor in the Broome County town of Vestal, in the prime shale gas region near the Pennsylvania border, is intense and unrelenting in pressing her petitions. Scroggins — a retiree and grandmother who lives across the border in hilly northwestern Pennsylvania, where intensive gas development has been going on for five years — is gleefully confrontational. She happily posts videos of her skirmishes.
Who's in charge here?
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