I missed last weekend, so maybe you've already freaked out over some of these headlines from the worlds of science, education, health, and parenting? Let's rip that scab off and freak out all over again!
- You walk out that door, buddy, and your little girl's gonna hit puberty early. And you don't have to be from Wasilla to know what that means. [eurekalert via jezebel thanks dt reader jj daddy-o]
- Advertisers on kids' websites are stalking your kids 30% more than advertisers on regular websites, which is already a helluvalot. [wsj via jj daddy-o]
- Until this week, Pedo-bear was the international web critics' symbol for "WTF inappropriate, dude!" But now police in San Diego, and then Oklahoma suddenly got it into their heads that it means the exact opposite. In fact, by reading the word Pedo-bear--twice--you are now a registered sex offender in Oklahoma. One more strike, and you're done, pal. [gawker]
- Some mom flogging a freakout book says you should stop worrying about school snipers already, and just focus on your kid's chances of getting murdered by someone he knows. At a Borders near you! [npr via dt reader dt]
- Wait, so is announcing the Bugaboo Donkey seven months before it hits stores just their way to tell you to get started on that next kid right now? Perhaps your mother is running the company?
- A spoonful of sugar does not, in fact, help the pain of being jabbed in the heel with a lance go down in the most delightful way, it just looks a little like it does. [eurekalert]
- A researcher in the midwest thinks it's somehow exotic for kids to eat fish, but that they need to do it sooner. But not at all so that the salmon baby food she's helping to develop will sell better. [eurekalert]
- Good preschool helps reduce middle school problems for poor kids. [eurekalert]
- Holy crap, we have prewar plaster, but this toxic Chinese drywall epidemic is freaking me out. [nyt]
- Finally, just in time for pertussis season, a straightforward 100,000-word blog post about exactly how much vaccines don't cause autism. [sciencebasedmedicine via kottke]
AND WTF IS THIS RECALL STORY??
Albee Baby, the venerable Upper West Side baby store, issued a recall for 130 Sorelle Prescott fixed side cribs sold online between July and October 2009. As one consumer who peeled off the Sorelle sticker discovered in April 2010, the cribs turned out to be relabeled Simplicity cribs, which are basically the shittiest, deadliest, most-recalled cribs from the bankruptedest, fly-by-nightiest, accountability-dodgingest, Republican vulture fund-revivingest baby company of the decade.
The Simplicity recalls, the shady bankruptcy and buyout and reincarnation of Simplicity For Children as SFCA, and then the subsequent disappearance the company, was all covered extensively on Daddy Types in 2008-9. In fact, it was May 2009, just a couple of months before these relabeled Simplicity cribs started turning up,when I confirmed that I confirmed SFCA had, in fact, completely gone out of business.
So has Sorelle, which is owned by C&T International, given any explanation at all for how Simplicity cribs ended up with Sorelle labels? I guess it kind of doesn't matter, since Sorelle/C&T itself faced a huge recall in May 2010: 170,000 dropside cribs sold since 2000 were being recalled after more than 100 reports of strangulation and entrapment.
