kids-these-days

Texas Schools Just Suspending Everyone on Principle

Hamilton Nolan · 07/19/11 04:10PM

If we didn't have statistical research on educational techniques, we'd never make breakthroughs like "Maybe we should stop beating children." And if we didn't have the state of Texas, we'd never have angry internet commenters passionately arguing that their state is about much more than dying while raping elderly women. Put these two dynamics together, and what do you get? A new report on how maybe Texas' "expel everyone" discipline plan should be re-examined.

The Year's Very Best Pedophile Ad

Hamilton Nolan · 07/01/11 08:14AM

The top 684,392 advertisements of the past year have now been honored with "Cannes Lions" awards. We've already shown you one of this year's winners in the "pedophile" category; but edgy ad guru Copyranter argues that the ad above (click to enlarge), out of Poland—in which an ad agency placed cards touting a "child safety foundation" inside children's underwear on sale at a kids' clothing store—is the single most disturbing Cannes Lion 2011 winner.

Brooks Brothers Inadvertently Reveals America's Whitest Colleges

Hamilton Nolan · 06/27/11 02:21PM

Brooks Brothers does not make the type of "College apparel" worn by Southeastern Conference country animals on "game day" that serves as little more than a bib for copious amounts of spilled beer and barbecue sauce. That is not what Brooks Brothers does. Brooks Brothers makes dignified casual apparel for American winners.

Shut Up, Katie Roiphe

Hamilton Nolan · 06/24/11 09:37AM

Katie Roiphe, one of the leading sex-opinion-havers of American letters, is the upper crust version of crazy cat woman Andrea Peyser. While Andrea only broadcasts her psychologically-fraught Victorian sexual shame to tabloid readers, Katie Roiphe gets to publish hers in all the favorite news outlets of East Coast Ivy Leaguers. She calls male novelists fey pussies in the NYT Book Review! She told women how to do divorce right in the pages of New York magazine! She pooh-poohed the notion of date rape all over the place! And now, she's taken to Slate—the Gawker of bored academics—to reveal how jokey children's book "Go The Fuck to Sleep" reveals that "yuppie" parents (unlike Katie Roiphe) are doing sex wrong.

How To Handle Rowdy Teens Without Shooting Them

Hamilton Nolan · 06/21/11 11:32AM

Thomas Dunikowski of Marine Park, Brooklyn, has become a folk hero of sorts among the "I really loved that movie Falling Down" demographic for leaning out of his window with a rifle and opening fire on a group of rowdy teenagers who were raising a ruckus outside his house. (See "purported" video of the shooting here.) Completely unnecessary! It is, in fact, possible to deal with the depths of teen awfulness without resorting to gunshots.

Catholic U Dorms Brace for More Gay Orgies

Hamilton Nolan · 06/15/11 10:36AM

Is Catholic-filled Catholic University a "den of sin," infested with more STDs than your average koala bear? One can scarcely draw any other conclusion, based on the fact that the school's president now believes he must forcefully segregate students of opposite genders from one another, lest all this hot, hot sexxx continue unabated.

The New Path to Success: From Summer School to Community College

Hamilton Nolan · 06/14/11 04:28PM

Schools these days: what are they even doing? It used to be that the American school system was little more than a warehouse where we shoved our youngest and therefore most criminal citizens until they reached the age of 18, at which time we sent the cockiest of them off to college to be enslaved by debt for the rest of their lives, and sent the rest off to menial jobs, where they'd keep our capitalist system running with their very souls for very little reward, and be tricked into voting Republican, while doing so.

Texas Teachers Are Basically Prison Wardens

Hamilton Nolan · 06/13/11 04:44PM

Sure, bleeding heart PC types killed a bill earlier this year that would have allowed guns on college campuses in Texas. Consolation prize: Texas is "close to enacting" a new bill that will give school teachers detailed criminal histories of all their students. Because you never know when the next six-year-old will shoot up the school, or which kid's birthday party is actually cover for a cockfighting ring. Down in Texas, the legislators are armed, the merest whiff of lawbreaking gets you jailed, and prisoners get put down like dogs. You never know when one of these public school kids might get brainwashed by a Muslim textbook and start some serious jee-had. If our teachers can't have guns, well, at least we can "arm" them with the precise knowledge of just how evil these felons-to-be lurking in their classroom are. And also, maybe arm them with a knife?

Be a Hero: Go Into Local News

Hamilton Nolan · 06/09/11 09:30AM

Ah, the luxuries of life in a world with more media outlets than ever. A world where any ambitious young aspiring journalist can... move to New York, and work for a blog. Hmm.

Grownups Are Worried About The Chronic

Hamilton Nolan · 06/08/11 11:58AM

In the olden days, your parents used to smoke weed that was not chemically distinguishable from banana peels, which gave them a "hippy dippy" feeling, the most dangerous side effect of which was an affinity for neo-folk tunes. Today, you kids smoke chronic and shoot each other, or at least make up "freestyle raps" about same.