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When I was 10, I founded an international organization known as the Black Cat Club. My friend Richard was the only other member. My younger brother, Hal, had "provisional status," which meant that he had to try out for full membership every other week. We told him we would consider his application if he jumped off the garage roof - about 8 feet from the ground. He had a moment of doubt as he looked over the edge, but we said it wouldn't hurt if he shouted the words "Fly like an eagle!" When he jumped, his knees came up...

A new guidebook reaffirms boyhood in all of its politically incorrect glory. The frontispiece in Conn and Hal Iggulden’s The Dangerous Book for Boys says it all—a skull and crossbones boldly heralds adventure, treasure, and unbridled boyish fun. According to its English authors, this is a book for boys who want to be “self-sufficient and find their way in the stars.” It’s a delightful compendium of knowledge, life tips, building projects, games, and hands-on invention. At its heart, the book unabashedly reaffirms and celebrates the traditional moral leather that has guided untold generations of men in their voyage through life. ...

When I had a son of my own six years ago, I looked around for the sort of books that would inspire him. I was able to find some, but none with the spirit and verve of those old titles. I wanted a single compendium of everything I'd ever wanted to know or do as a boy, and I decided to write my own. We began with everything we had done as kids, then added things we didn't want to see forgotten. History today is taught as a feeble thing, with all the adventure taken out of it. We wanted...

How children lost the right to roam in four generations http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462091 http://tinyurl.com/yt6geg By DAVID DERBYSHIRE Last updated at 01:03am on 15th June 2007 When George Thomas was eight he walked everywhere. It was 1926 and his parents were unable to afford the fare for a tram, let alone the cost of a bike and he regularly walked six miles to his favourite fishing haunt without adult supervision. Fast forward to 2007 and Mr Thomas's eight-year-old great-grandson Edward enjoys none of that freedom. He is driven the few minutes to school, is taken by car to a safe place to ride...

The Final Word: Maybe it's time to let boys be boys — outside http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/finalword/2007-05-01-final-word_N.htm http://tinyurl.com/ythtr3 By Craig Wilson, USA TODAY May 1, 2007 E-mail Craig Wilson at cwilson@usatoday.com

Parents' fears are robbing children of their childhood. ___ My three boys sprawl on the couch, fingering their Game Boys. I wish I could shoo them outside until dusk. I wish they could tromp to the marsh to search for polliwogs. I wish we didn't have to live in a fortress. But we don't let our children play in the front yard, because a sex offender lives two doors down. Instead, like other families in this neighborhood, we've built private playgrounds in the back. From my kitchen window, I see two wooden play structures, three trampolines, and four basketball hoops,...

JOSEPH GALLO, 10, of Santa Cruz, Calif., is well armed in the battle against childhood boredom, with a bedroom arsenal that includes a computer hooked to the Internet, a DVD player, two Game Boys, as well as an Xbox and GameCube. But in recent weeks, the hum of that war room of machinery has quieted because Joseph has acquired a new playtime obsession that would have seemed quaint even in his parents’ day: marbles. But lately, a number of educators like Mr. Cohill, as well as parents and child-development specialists are trying to spur a revival of traditional outdoor pastimes,...

First, there was the question of the title: "The Dangerous Book for Boys." HarperCollins Publishers' Chief Executive Jane Friedman just didn't understand what it meant. Sure, the book had been a hit in England and Australia, but that didn't mean it would work in the U.S. But the sales staff urged her to stick with it, and in just two weeks, "Dangerous" has become the breakout hit of the season. The News Corp. unit initially ordered up 91,000 copies. There are now 405,000 copies in print. One senior HarperCollins executive, extrapolating from overseas sales and population data, projects that "Dangerous,"...

The 'Dangerous' book puts girls on the side http://www.star-telegram.com/408/story/80188.html By JILL LAWLESS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON -- Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. In these frenzied, media-saturated times, the lure of a simpler past is more powerful than ever. That may explain the success of The Dangerous Book for Boys, a deliberately retro tome that has become the publishing sensation of the year in Britain. Exuding the brisk breeziness of Boy Scout manuals and Boy's Own annuals, The Dangerous Book is a childhood how-to guide that covers everything from paper airplanes to go-carts, skipping stones to skinning a rabbit....

Power lines in new link to childhood leukaemia By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 3:14am BST 21/04/2007 A leaked Government-commissioned report has raised fresh fears of a link between power lines and cancer. The Government has been urged to consider a ban on building new homes and schools near overhead high voltage power lines The draft paper urges ministers to consider banning the building of homes and schools close to overhead high voltage power cables to reduce significantly exposure to electromagnetic fields from the electricity grid. The Stakeholder Advisory Group on Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic Radiation (Sage) says a...

Shaped by different worlds, an outsider found ways to fit in... when Obama tells his life stories, they have a common theme: the quest to belong. ... a story line largely shaped by his own best-selling memoir, political speeches and interviews. But the reality of Obama's narrative is not that simple. More than 40 interviews with former classmates, teachers, friends and neighbors in his childhood homes of Hawaii and Indonesia, as well as a review of public records, show the arc of Obama's personal journey took him to places and situations far removed from the experience of most Americans. At...

U.S. Army Capt. Paul EberhardtU.S. Army Maj. Pete Eberhardt Aviation Brothers Share Childhood Dream By Spc. Bryanna Poulin25th Combat Aviation Brigade TIKRIT, Iraq, March 7, 2007 -- Being the "set of eyes" for future aviation units deploying, two brothers met at Contingency Operation Base Speicher, to learn and assist in the daily operational procedures for future mission plans. Capt. Paul B. Eberhardt, assault/cargo division, Directorial Evaluation of Standards (DES), along with 23 DES soldiers on a temporary duty assignment spent about one week at Speicher. The Captain spent time with his brother Maj. Pete Eberhardt, commander, C. Company, 3rd...

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry ordered today that schoolgirls in Texas must be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, making Texas the first state to require the shots. The girls will have to get Merck & Co.'s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass laws in state legislatures across the country mandating it Gardasil vaccine for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government,...

THIS column is for those of you old enough to remember a genuine American childhood when: Your parents kicked you out of the house to run around until dinner time - instead of letting you laze around in front of a TV. You had to "make your own fun" - instead of taking formal lessons for everything. It was a time when tag, touch football and other running games were played at school - instead of being banned because of "potential lawsuits" or "hurting someone's feelings." A time of skinned knees, bruises and learning from one's own mistakes - as...

A link: SWEET SOFT MEMORIES

Go outside and playhttp://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living/1158309564312510.xml&coll=2 http://tinyurl.com/pg6bd That's the advice nature educators have for increasingly reined-in kids and their very protective parents Friday, September 15, 2006 Susan Glaser Plain Dealer Reporter When Steve Cadwell was a kid, he had the North Chagrin Reservation in his back yard, and he used to disappear for hours. "My mom said, 'Go outside, and don't come back until the streetlights are on,' " said Cadwell, 47, now executive director of the Nature Center of Shaker Lakes. Rare is the mother who issues that directive these days. Thanks to everything from fears about stranger danger to video...

One day a few years ago, Khady Lusby's twins were 5 and playing by themselves in the park that abuts their Arlington house when another mother called her at home. "She said, 'Do you know your boys are at the playground playing?' And I said, 'Yes, I know,' " recalled Lusby, who is from Senegal. "She said, 'Oh, you know this is not the way we do things here,' meaning in America. I just made a joke: 'Well, I'm African -- wherever I go I take my African way,' and she said, 'Well you can be reported.' " Undaunted, Lusby...

IN THESE polarised and war-weary times, it’s good to know that Americans can agree on one thing: John Ramsey is a total creep. Ramsey is the 63-year-old software entrepreneur whose daughter, JonBenet Ramsey, was beaten and strangled to death in her own home ten years ago. Although neither John nor his wife Pasty were ever charged, he was widely blamed for JonBenet’s killing — and continues to be, even after the death of Patsy from ovarian cancer and last week’s arrest of the teacher John Karr, a child-porn connoisseur who claims that he broke into the Ramseys’ home and murdered...

Nature-deficit disorder is ruining our kidshttp://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20060816/OPINION/108160053 http://tinyurl.com/zchy3 by jim stiles August 16, 2006 No matter how old I live to be, there will never be a place so full of mystery and adventure as a place of my childhood called The Woods. The stories that grew out of those trees still kindle powerful feelings, even after all these years. My friends and I knew the place was haunted. It had no boundaries, and in our 10-year-old minds, it went on forever. Jump ahead a few decades to a familiar topic: the commercialization of wilderness. What created the demand for such...

Girl Scout leader Betsy Hambrick is outraged about a children's T-shirt that reads "Silly blonde. Brains are for brunettes.""We would never tolerate a T-shirt aimed at young kids that linked, say, skin color or some other physical attribute and intelligence," Hambrick said. "So why is it OK to print and sell this kind of thing?" Hambrick, who is a school social worker as well as the mother of a 10-year-old daughter, said she is sick and tired of a whole host of T-shirts aimed at girls that emphasize appearance and a mean, materialistic spirit. Some brands of boys T-shirts, aimed...