We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers

Wandering around, looking for an exit

If you find yourself here, you're probably doing it wrong. I sure was.

More about that elevator

Be sure to check out the article in The New Yorker about the elevator. It's unbelievable.

What would you do if you were trapped in an elevator for 40 hours?

If you were trapped in an elevator for 40 hours, it might look something like this.

A parent lets a nine-year-old find his way home on the NYC subway

A parent let her nine-year-old son ride the subway home by himself.

Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn’t strike me as that daring, either. Isn’t New York as safe now as it was in 1963? It’s not like we’re living in downtown Baghdad.

Anyway, for weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.

No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn’t want to lose it. And no, I didn’t trail him, like a mommy private eye. I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn’t do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, “Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I’ll abduct this adorable child instead.”

Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.

Long story longer, and analyzed, to boot: Half the people I’ve told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It’s not. It’s debilitating — for us and for them.

50 greatest comedy sketches of all time

If you have time, here's a list, with clips provided, of what Nerve and IFC think are the 50 greatest comedy sketches of all time.

Keep your brain free

Consider a new level of freedom to fight for, privacy in your brain.

Smoking Bans Kill

Never underestimate the law of unintended consequences.

The failure of carbon markets

This article is old but good, and explains very well why a cap-and-trade system just isn't working.

A cool, related solution to global warming is Pay Your Air Share.