Summer beckons, with its eternal promise of freedom. Unless you are Harry Wilder. Harry is a 19-year-old British student who…

In the 1940s, women were working in factories, doing all the jobs men did — and earning their own keep. After the war, they were suddenly told: What on earth are you doing here? The outside world is too dangerous for you, you sweet, silly creatures! We’re only saying this for your own good. You can’t make it out here. Go home!

Which sounds remarkably like what we are telling kids today. Kids who, just a generation ago, were perfectly capable of making their way in the outside world — babysitting, playing in the park, walking to school — are now being told: What on earth are you doing our here? The world is too dangerous for you, you sweet, silly creatures! We’re only saying this for your own good. Go home! (Or, alternatively, “Go to soccer practice, which we will drive you to and pick you up from.”)

It’s nice when science takes the time to confirm one’s own sneaking (or even not so sneaking) suspicions. In this…

When my daughters turn eight, they’ll get their first Swiss Army knives, and not the tiny ones with a nail file and some scissors, but real ones, big enough to gut a fish with.

Quick alert (before everyone goes, “Enough already!”): As mentioned right below here, I’ll be on Nightline tonight talking about dumb…