Are electronic media destroying literacy? Will no one ever read a book again? Are the youth slipping away and society perpetually decaying in a bleak…blah, blah, blah, blah. This VERY GOOD ARTICLE explains why that is all BULLSHIT.

Today, an angry home schooling mother berated me for the price of the tickets that she had already bought (fully understanding the price of the tickets at that time). Home schooling parents tend to be a snappish lot – afraid and even hateful of the world around them. That’s why they throw their children into a whole and cover it in sand, trying to protect them, trying to stop time. Great strategy guys…force your children to go through the social awkwardness and terror of the opposite sex (that we all go through in high school) while they are in their 20’s. Very healthy.

I recall, when I visited the Mandinka village in The Gambia, during the Eureka/Africa trip a few years back, that Mandinka boys don’t just grow up. They are tested at manhood. They are then ritually scarred. They are then, not just adults, but Mandinka Warriors. Adulthood is not something that one just falls into, but a privilege and a responsibility.

I recall this and now I know the lesson the home schooling parent had not learnt.

Yeah…there are scars we should have at 21.

Speaking of conservative fears, I think back now of all the brimstone dusted things my Grandma used to warn us kids about and…now…well…I guess Jimmy Buffette said it best when he sang, “We are the people our parents warned us about.”

And now to bed.
Tomorrow I go back to Eureka.
Back to friends.
Back to a home one step in time removed.