MMMM # 372 -- The Milk Box Specter

       The odds of a child being abducted are small. The odds of a chiuld being abducted by a stranger are so small as to be incalculable. And those numbers have stayed the same for decades. But big headlines have the usual media microscope effect: we think there is a significant danger of children being snatched off the street, and pay less attention to the actual danger of our children being killed in a car accident (though that stat is improving!)
     Yet parents' fear of the former is so real that it has changed the very nature of childhood.

The sandlots and creek beds, the alleys and woodlands have been abandoned in favor of a system of reservations—Chuck E. Cheese, the Jungle, the Discovery Zone: jolly internment centers mapped and planned by adults with no blank spots aside from doors marked staff only. When children roller-skate or ride their bikes, they go forth armored as for battle, and their parents typically stand nearby.

                                                                        Michael Chabon, writing in
                                                                        The NY Review of Books
    
     My childhood in New York City included bike rides alone or with friends to vast urban parks dozens of blocks from our homes. I would ride my bike to elementary school alone, and later, take bus and/or subway rides into "the city", by which we meant Manhattan. Queens is as much a part of New York City as 5th Avenue, but even we kids knew that place to the West across the East River was the real city.
     In the city were places like Lou Tannen's, a genuine magic shop where I spent too much of the allowance and earnings from snow shoveling and errands.
     I don't remember ever feeling in danger. I don't remember any abductions.

 In my neighborhood, kids still swarm the block at Halloween, but they do so under the careful

watchful eyes of their parents, watching from the car or sidewalk. Just as I would.
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ALSO: One of the most famous men in the world has canceled his newspaper delivery. And he did it himself. The new Pope called the delivery boy himself to explain he would no longer be needed the paper sent to his apartment in Argentina. After all, he'll bein Rome for the rest of his life.
      Needless to say, the guy was shocked! The Pope calling from Rome? He thought it was a joke at first, but no, In the middle of taking over a billion plus church beset by scandal, he had enough time to call home.
      I still have The Montgomery Advertiser delivered on Sundays, which also provides me with access to their online product. Four months have passed since the pay wall went into effect. Half a year has passed since the three largest papers in the state went to a three day a week, handing the largest daily newspaper in the state crown to The Advertiser. No word on whether the change is working for those papers, though they've put their respective newsroom buildings up for sale.

[PLUS: CBS wins praise for restrained coverage after Louisville player breaks leg on court in NCAA play.]

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of www.TimLennox.com]