Archive for May 20th, 2008

You’ve heard of The Flip, check out Darth Vado.. from Creative.

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Janet Jackson told Ellen this week she’s hitting the road in September. It will be her first tour in 7 years, and just like last time she’s starting in Vancouver.

The 42-year-old singer, set to tackle her first tour in seven years, will perform across North America beginning Sept. 10 in Vancouver, she revealed in an appearance Monday on the television talk show Ellen.

Jackson’s event promoter, Live Nation, has so far only announced a few dates for her Rock Witchu tour, including concerts set for New York and Washington. A full itinerary is still pending.[source]

Janet is, without a doubt, one of the best interviews I have ever had.. let’s dial the clock back to August 1998 when she was out on the Velvet Rope tour.

The Rock Witchu adventure promises to be a greatest hits tour, Janet has set up a phone number, 1-323-622-8139, where fans can dial in and get their favourite track added to the set list.

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Nat and Drew interviewed Lenore Skenazy from Free Range Kids last week. Lenore stirred up headlines and debates around the world when she let her 9 yr old son ride the New York subway system on his own.

Here’s the full chat:

 

 nat and drew with lenore skenazy of free range kids: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lenore’s on to something. It may be a little extreme in presentation, but the underlying theme is bang on - we need to let go.

When I was in elementary school, I road my bike to school, on my own, and came home every day for lunch. That was more than 3 km of back and forth commuting each day that I did - on my own. This was in the early 80s, while the likes of Clifford Robert Olson was crawling Richmond, yet I still went to school by myself.

When I was 11 years old, I was babysitting my 8 yr old brother and 5 yr old sister. When I was 12 I was taking the public bus to high school in Vancouver.

Lenore’s assertion that things today are not any worse than they were decades ago is bang on. We may perceive more mayhem and restlessness on the streets, but it’s really the media’s desire to play up drama that makes it so. The 6 oclock News is less about news and more about emotion. When Natalee Holloway goes missing in Aruba, it’s not a mention on the cast, its a series of sensational reports that runs for months.

To get us involved and loyal to the newscasts, they purport to act “on our side.” They’re constantly taking major headline stories and spinning them into a local or personal angle. Just this week, a story on collapsing schools in China turned into a cry for analysis on our own schools and their earthquake safety.

We can be forgiven if we think things are crazy out there for kids, it’s all we’re fed when we turn on the tv. However, if you look at the statistics, things haven’t changed in 20 yrs.

Olympian Silken Laumann heads up an initiative with similar ideals. She wants us to get back to encouraging kids to be kids.

To energize families and neighbourhoods through play and to help parents create the opportunities for their children to play freely and safely together – to recreate in a modern context the neighbourhoods we grew up in and to redefine for our kids the play time we enjoyed and took for granted would always be available to them [source]

By driving our kids everywhere, and keeping them constantly under a watchful eye, we give in to a sort of terrorism. We’re so afraid of something bad happening, we change our behaviour. It’s turning us into a generation of overparenters. I’m guilty of it as well, just look at how I lash out when I don’t think Z is getting all he deserves at daycare.

But I’m going to try and change that. Mellow out a bit. Let Z be Z and just be there for when he needs me, not for when I need him.

Responsive parenting means just that: we respond to children’s needs. It’s not the same as over-parenting, in which we anticipate, preempt, or take control of our children’s needs and developmental tasks.

…

While there have always been obsessive, overbearing parents, they used to be the exception, rather than the norm. [source]

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

I just got the hot press release in my mail box this second:

The Apple Store Pacific Centre will open to the public on Saturday, May 24, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. PDT.

I’ll see you in line.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?