Wes, as sad as it is to have to admit it, I'm afraid that the summer experience for the majority of kids now isn't the same as it was as it was when we were kids. I don't think it's the same magical memory generating experience it was back then. Lots of kids aren't getting the creativity and independence building experiences during the summer now that we were. Kids today are more likely to be wasting that two months spending all day in the house in front of a video game than they are to be spending it out exploring nature. They are more likely to spend all day watching cartoons that to be allowed to be out roaming the streets on their bicycles.

It's sad to see kids today either choosing to not spend the summers the way we did or not being allowed the freedom we were allowed or the world changing in ways that makes the way grew up not feasible or safe anymore. But the changes have made it so that summer isn't as valuable anymore. Kids would be better off in school nowdays.

I don't see why kids are still getting such a big summer break to start with. It made sense when many children were farm kids who needed to be out working the family farm in the summer and before most schools had air-conditioning so that the summer was just too sweltering for the students to concentrate. In this modern era,though, I don't see why the schools close for months in the summer anymore. Would a couple of weeks vacation time not be sufficient?

Our nation's children could definitely benefit from some extra instructional time. It seems silly to have a couple of months being wasted instead of used for learning.

Plus, it would be more convenient for a lot of modern families. Many mothers used to be at home year round anyway,so it used to not make much of a difference if the children were at school or at home. Now most parents work outside of the home and many kids live in single parent homes, so having the kids out of school during the day for a couple months puts an extra stress and expense on those parents.

I don't understand why schools are stuck on doing things in such antiquated ways. Schools should be on the cutting edge. They should lead the way in modernization, rather still than follow traditions that were outdated decades ago.

I think it's not something that work for every family's situation, but for some people, I could see it being a viable option.

The trouble I've seen lately is that the whole site gets hijacked by an ad. Like this weekend, the whole site redirected to Wal-Mart.com. Today it was to another site.

@gothsinhotweather-
Yes, you're free to post it.
I wish I had pics for you. It looked ridiculous.

When I was in metal band, once we were talked into playing an outdoor festival show in the day time in the summer here in Arkansas. I was wearing my signature very punk/metal/goth glam, ultra skimpy outfit as usual. What I didn't think about was how long I'd be on stage in the direct sun, and my absolutely victorian pale skin was burned to a crisp. The pain of the sunburn on all but the covered (maybe a foot and half square) area of my body wasn't the worst part,though. It was that I was wearing fishnet stockings and the sunburn left a fishnet sunburn! It looked absolutely ridiculous, even after the red burn healed, the tan left behind was still in the fishnet pattern.

Where I live, the community is not laid out tightly enough and the jobs and shops aren't close enough to the homes to make it work very well for most people. Car free would work in tightly packed communities,like urban areas or places that are very close to a source of a bunch of jobs, like next to a couple of big factories.

Cake

and having a job that is WAY better than I deserve.

I'm surprised by the majority of the holdings not being exhibited. I wonder what's happening to them. Are they just being stored? Are they just sort of being warehoused, or are they sort of a "by request only" type of thing, where if you wanted to see certain objects you could see them? If you're a researcher or a writer or historian or something could you make an appointment and be shown to something that isn't normally included in the big public displays?

Seems to me, it might be a good idea for them to loan a lot of their undisplayed holdings to other museums and learning institutions around the country. I understand that they can't possibly display as much stuff as they have all of the time. But I bet there's a lot of worthy institutions that would love to have the chance to borrow some of that stuff and put it on display. Things that may not be "A-list" content for a huge museum like the Smithsonian, might be still be big draws and real treasures at a smaller museum. Especially like the stuff that's a little too specialized to find a mass appeal at the Smithsonian might be really appreciated at a smaller more specialized museum somewhere. And I don't think it would keep anyone from wanting to visit the Smithsonian,either. Having visited those smaller and more far-flung museums and seeing some Smithsonian owned treasures there isn't going to deter anyone from wanting to see the Smithsonian, in fact, it might even encourage it. If you love the Smithsonian "B-List" or "C or D-List" items you've seen at the local museum, it might really stoke your interest in seeing the "A-list" items at their home in DC.

Plus lending wouldn't require the Smithsonian to relinquish any items. They could just loan them, then if they ever wanted to put the item on display at their location, they could take it back.

The people and organizations and government agencys that donated the items to the Smithsonian wanted the items to be preserved and appreciated. It wasn't necessarily that they wanted them to be on display in DC as much as they wanted them in the custody of a respected institution and cared for and kept where the public could enjoy them. Lending would really help meet the spirit of those donors' intent.

Cowards. Horrible, useless,cowards that should be ashamed to ever look at themselves in the mirror again.

Whether it's in your job description or not, if another human being is in danger and you have a chance of stopping it, if you're any kind of decent person at all, you do what you can to help. And in many cases, you don't even have to physically fend off an attacker, just making it known that you're there and you see them and you're prepared to stop them and that the police are on their way is enough to scare off the criminal. Not even trying is sick.

Those two should be locked up as accessories to the crime. If you do absolutely nothing when you see a crime, especially a violent crime, in progress, you're actively helping it happen and should be held responsible,too.

This sounds like something that would work great for parents that can be stay-at-home parents or for full-time nannies. But if you have to put your little one in daycare, it's unlikely that the daycare is going to go along with it. Most daycares in this area are unwilling to accomodate even using cloth diapers instead of throw-away ones. I can't imagine being able to find one that would be willing to make all the extra effort to use the diaper-free method.

I think a lot of other jobs that the governments don't have the resources or funds to get done should be offered for corporate sponsorship. From big things like libraries and buses to things like parks and playgrounds and school improvements to even little things like garbage bins, bus stops, and porta-potties. I know in my community, people would rather have a really great library called the Coca-Cola library than a mediocre library called the city library. People would rather have covered bus-stops with benches that said McDonalds on them than just having to wait standing near a sign in the weather like they do know. We'd rather have our kids be able to use a state of the art computer lab in every school called the Best Buy Computer lab than try and share the way too few and too out-dated computers they use now. Businesses are going to pay to advertise, why not let the people get something useful in return?

I think it's a great idea. If the city's not able to get the problem fixed and a private company has the means and wants to do it, they should be allowed to. And it's not as if there's never an overlap between the government and private corporations. Lots of city bus systems allow advertising on the buses. Why not the road? As long as they make sure that the adds have to be a certain color that's not associated with road safety messages (like blue or green or red or something instead of the white and yellow that are usually pavement markers for safety things like crosswalks), and not incredibly huge (like maybe 3 ft square max?) I think it's a great idea.

And I like Edward's idea posted above about having to use temporary paint. That way the company would get the advertising, but it would eventually wear off. That way the roads wouldn't be cluttered over the years with bunches of signs painted over signs painted over signs ,signs for companies that have been defunct for years, or signs that are old and faded eyesores.

Elmyr De Hory should have definitely made the list.

Regardless of her stance on animal rights, a weird will like that just makes things harder on her family and friends during the already difficult time after her death. Final requests like that are horrific and/or heartbreaking for the folks that she'll leave behind. I understand wanting to make a bold statement after she passes. But even if her family agrees with her stance on animal issues, asking them to do such things is really way too much. A human barbeque? Seriously? Does she really want the people she cares about to have to arrange or witness that? Accessories made from her skin? How could she ask her loved ones to do that? It's totally insensitive. Plus it's silly. If she wants her legacy to genuinely help animals, there's got to be more effective ways that will draw more support to her cause without putting unfair stress on her grieving family.