We're Thinking Option B, 'It's a Tragedy'
It's been a bad summer to be a kid in the New York area, as the Times points out today. So far:
• A ninth-grader was stabbed in the chest for his iPod.
• A flower girl in a wedding limousine was killed by a drunk driver.
• Three boys suffocated to death in a car trunk.
• An 11-year-old was killed by a 9-year-old in a fight over a ball.
• A carful of young dancers were killed in a car wreck in the Catskills.
• Two toddlers in Yonkers died locked in a bathroom with the hot water running.
• A 16-year-old New Jersey girl was hacked to pieces and stuffed in a trunk.
• A 7-year-old boy drowned in a ride at Rye Playland.
It is, on the other hand, an excellent time to be a children's advocate-cum-media critic, as the city's child welfare commissioner, John B. Mattingly, demonstrates by pointing out the vacuousness of standard-template newspaper articles.
Asked by the paper to "comment on the spate of deaths," he replied: "Which clich s would you like?"
