KCET interviews Jaime Hernandez, Johnny Ryan and other LA cartoonists

KCET has a series of fantastic video interviews with LA cartoonists, including Jaime Hernandez (shown here), Johnny Ryan, Carol Lay, Esther Pearl Watson, and Mark Todd. Link

New York Sun column: "Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone"

Lenore Skenazy wrote a piece for the April 4 edition of the New York Sun about letting her 9-year-old son find his way home from downtown NYC using the subway system. Many people were upset with her.

Isn't New York as safe now as it was in 1963? It's not like we're living in downtown Baghdad.

Anyway, for weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.

No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn't want to lose it. And no, I didn't trail him, like a mommy private eye. I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn't do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, "Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I'll abduct this adorable child instead."

Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.

Long story longer, and analyzed, to boot: Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It's not. It's debilitating — for us and for them.

Link

Orlando-area people raise monkey as surrogate kids -- "monkids"

The Orlando Sentinel has an article and video about empty-nesters who buy monkeys and raise them as surrogate children.

Many self-described "monkey people" don't dare call them pets. They are playfully referred to as "monkids" and reared in a world of pierced ears, monogrammed clothes, a seat at the dinner table and their own bedrooms.

At Gemini Springs in DeBary recently, Johnson pushed "Jessy" around in a toy-filled red stroller, a sight that drew attention. "Hey, it's a real monkey," hollered one youngster, who did a double take.

Johnson replied with a grin: "That's not a monkey; that's my kid."

Link

Psychonalyst finger puppets

This delightful set of psychonalyst finger puppets features Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Carl Jung, and, naturally, a shrink's couch. What perfect props for playing mind games! The set is $20 from UncommonGoods.
Link (via Mind Hacks)