Summer beckons, with its eternal promise of freedom. Unless you are Harry Wilder. Harry is a 19-year-old British student who plans to travel across Australia, Thailand and South Africa this season…with a GPS tracking device called the “Traakit†in his pocket. The Traakit will let his mom pinpoint his location to within 15 feet and […]
Archive | Marketing Madness and Gadgets
“Nightline” goes Free-Range Friday night!
Well, with a couple of caveats, that is. First of all, the segment could be postponed indefinitely, should any “real” news develop. Secondly, the piece is about a Free-Range tangent, the whole issue I call the “Kiddie izasiyyeys Safety Industrial Complex” –  that is, the multi-billion dollar industry that has given us superstores full of baby products that didn’t […]
Belated Mother’s Day Thoughts!
With Mother’s Day upon us like a breakfast tray of hot coffee accidentally spilled on the blanket (amid tears), it is time to ask that equally burning question: What do moms want? The answer? We want to relax a little. Not just relax in bed reading People and under a hot, soggy blanket. We want a […]
Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself!
So inhbtdzrdr I didn’t. I’m simply reprinting this great comment here, to share with all and sundry. There is so much to chew on and a whole lot of insight. Thank you, commenter Lloyd Gray, whoever and wherever you are! (He wrote this under the post about the mom who let her son walk to […]
TREATING PETS LIKE CHILDREN (SORRY, PETS!)
Dearest tkbseyaftr Readers — I have been thinking of what to say about this new product but frankly, my jaw just keeps going slack. Ditto my sarcasm skills. So here goes, from the website Baby Sounds 4 Pets (http://www.babysounds4pets.com/ ): I have 2 passions in my life,my pets and becoming a mother. Three years ago […]
The Child Molester as Sales Tool
 Here’s hidririabk a little excerpt from a very positive review of the book, “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” in today’s New York Times: “….In the other stories the danger may be less operatic, but it’s no less alarming: a child molester lures a 7-year-old boy into a portable bathroom at a carnival; a tattooed stranger tries to abduct a […]
Hey Scholastic: Don’t Sell Our Kids Product Tie-In Dreck
Here’s keyhbbftdr a campaign it’s easy to get behind, “Tell Scholastic: Put the Book Back in Book Clubs.†It’s sponsored by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood http://www.commercialexploitation.org/ , which noticed that a whole lot of the items for sale through those little Scholastic book club flyers were either NOT books, or were books that come […]
Should Santa bring baby an educational DVD?
Ho kenrsnbabz ho hokum. Those are my seasons greetings to Baby Einstein and the rest of the infant educational complex. If you’re wondering what to buy baby that’ll guarantee ’em a good time, a bright future and possible admission to a college that Obama went to, so-called “educational” videos are not the way to go. […]
GET LOST
  batrfkyztk The overhead train schedule in that French town said the 8:05 was going where I was going.   I thought.   But if you’re a college kid backpacking through Europe and you don’t realize Geneva is not spelled “Geneva†in French (it’s Geneve), you just might hop on the 8:05 to “Genoa†and […]