Today Show Accidently Proves NYC 11-Year-Old Totally Safe Without Parents

Kids on NYC subway, Flickr's Victor Shoup

New York City 11-year-old Kareem Granton ran away from home last spring and spent five days hanging out at Chuck E. Cheese and riding the subway before the police found him. The Today Show presented this as a HARROWING TALE of a near-teenager somehow surviving without a parent monitoring his every move, before giving us a "social experiment" that purported to prove how dangerous everyday life is for kids.

Today's implication was that Granton could've been murdered at any moment, even though half a million NYC students take the subway or bus to school every day, and no less of an authority than New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says it's perfectly safe for children ages 8 and up to ride the subway to school by themselves.

So to show how life is actually terribly risky in URBAN HELLHOLES like New York, The Today Show's Jeff Rossen sent an 11-year-old BY HIMSELF to extremely safe, busy public areas, then told bystanders they were history's greatest monsters for not immediately treating him like a kidnapping victim.



"At New York's famed Coney Island amusement park, Bjorn boarded ride after ride with no mom or dad in sight," reported Rossen, with absolutely no hint of self-awareness that he was actually describing an idyllic day for an 11-year-old of any previous generation. When Bjorn asked questions of strangers, they helpfully gave him whatever he needed.

Fortunately, Rossen was able to turn to John Walsh to inform people on the boardwalk that Bjorn was actually lucky to have survived the hour without being murdered by a lurking predator:

"Yeah, but he seemed comfortable and confident, self-assured," replied one. "He seemed old enough, it's broad daylight, lots of people around."

But Walsh pointed out: "They're not going to be crying or hysterical. And kids are so vulnerable, at that age particularly. They're so trusting, they're so innocent, and you don't want the bad guy to come up and say, 'I can help you.'"

Even if a child looks totally safe and secure, you must still treat them like they're terrified and in grave danger!

The experiment continued at a much quieter park where Bjorn walked through a group of adults, passed women pushing strollers, and listened to a musician. No one even looked twice. When the Rossen team had Bjorn sit alone on a bench for many minutes with no guardian in sight, no one said anything.

An 11-year-old sitting by himself with no one bothering him in a park filled with parents, and no one called the police? YOU SAVAGES.

The moral of the story: If we see an 11-year-old outdoors alone, we should be constantly asking him if he needs help. But having spent my entire childhood roaming the streets of Boston with friends with not one horror story but plenty of Kareem Granton-esque adventures, all I could conclude was:

• Bjorn had fun
• No one bothered him and he didn't hurt himself
• Whenever he needed help, there was always a grownup right there happy to assist him

What Today didn't say is that America's kids are as safe today as they've ever been, but there are real questions about how much harm we're doing by overprotecting our children and arresting parents for letting their go kids outside alone.

Minutes later, Today launched into a new warning to parents: "Kids hooked on the Internet can suffer from chronic sleep deprivation, poor nutrition and academic failure."

Might letting them out of the house once in a while by themselves ease that problem? Sorry, we'll have to leave it there!

NBC News Climate Change Special Airs Sunday Night (UPDATED)

UPDATE 4/8/14: A few quick reactions to Ann Curry's "Our Year of Extremes":

• Localizing impacts: Curry presented climate change as a current and concern for our communities. While it covered far-away melting glaciers, it spent much more time on the climate change-fueled wildfires, droughts, floods and superstorms threatening our homes, businesses and special places. 
• Solutions: Curry covered carbon-cutting options, which instantly made her special superior to CNN's. 
• Somber format: It told the story of climate change linearly, focusing on climate change impacts for most of the special, then closing with a segment on climate solutions. Starting with 50 minutes of constant crisis was a bit depressing - mixing impacts and solutions throughout might've made the mood more hopeful.
• Contrarian co-host: It was bad enough when Curry allowed a political scientist, the discredited climate contrarian Roger Pielke, Jr., to attack climate scientists. But Curry then went back to Pielke a second time, giving him a stand-alone slot as her ONLY non-scientist voice on climate solutions. Why didn't we get to hear from a strong climate action voice like Bill McKibben or Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse? 
• Ads suck: Watching documentaries on network TV is the worst. Just as you're starting to get into the flow of the program, everything comes to a screeching halt for a three-minute commercial break. But then again, it's good to see so many advertisers willing to support this kind of public service content.

UPDATE 4/7/14: You can watch the full special on Comcast on Demand or at NBCnews.com. Here's a clip:
  On Sunday at 7pm ET, NBC will air special by Ann Curry titled Our Year of Extremes - Did Climate Change just Hit Home?

One thing to watch for: A recent CNN special on climate change completely failed to mention the industrial carbon pollution that's causing climate change.

Considering that climate science deniers already have a bizarrely unhealthy hatred for Ann Curry, she might as well give America the whole story.

You Are Not Allowed to Make Fun of Big Oil CEOs on NBC

Don't believe the game is rigged in Washington in Big Oil's favor? WRC-TV, the NBC owned & operated affiliate in DC, has aired ads in support of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, but it refused to air this ad opposing it:

What's More Important, Global Warming or Louis Farrakhan's Endorsement?

Yesterday I wrote on Raising Kaine:

Voters don't care about global warming, so the candidates don't talk about it, so it doesn't come up at the debates.

Right? That's what the Conventional Wisdom is in Washington. And of course, the Conventional Wisdom is never wrong.

But what if it actually works the other way around? Let's try the conventional wisdom backwards. The coal industry sponsors the debates, so global warming doesn't come up. The candidates don't get a chance to talk about it, so it's not on the minds of voters.

There have been five presidential debates on CNN this year, all sponsored by the coal industry. Total number of climate questions asked? Zero. And the Sunday morning talk show hosts aren't doing much better. Sounds like the coal industry is getting what it's paid for.

Will tonight's debate on MSNBC be any different? We'll see.

Did Tim Russert and Brian Williams ask about global warming? Or renewable energy? Or anything even vaguely related to the environment?

No, no, and no. But they were busy talking about other critical issues of national importance, like who Louis Farrakhan endorsed.

So it was up to the candidates to sneak in a few planks from their climate action platforms. From Hillary Clinton:

I helped to pass legislation to begin a training program for green collar jobs. I want to see people throughout Ohio being trained to do the work that will put solar panels on roofs, install wind turbines, do geothermal, take advantage of biofuels, and I know that if we had put $5 billion into the stimulus package to really invest in the training and the tax incentives that would have created those jobs as the Democrats wanted, as I originally proposed, we would be on the way to creating those.

You know, take a country like Germany. They made a big bet on solar power. They have a smaller economy and population than ours.

They've created several hundred thousand new jobs, and these are jobs that can't be outsourced. These are jobs that have to be done in Youngstown, in Dayton, in Cincinnati. These are jobs that we can create here with the right combination of tax incentives, training, and a commitment to following through.

And from Barack Obama:

We have to look at energy and the potential for creating green jobs that can not just save on our energy costs but, more importantly, can create jobs in building windmills that will produce manufacturing jobs here in Ohio, can put rural communities back on their feet by working on alternative fuels, making buildings more energy efficient. We can hire young people who are out of work and put them to work in the trade.

But hey, I shouldn't be too hard on the mainstream media. If they did their jobs and properly covered the environment, why would you need to read The Green Miles? So in that case, thank you, Tim Russert and Brian Williams, for refusing to talk about global warming!