Word: plasticity
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...consumer electronics, trendy video games, PC software and the Internet. The notion that kids are growing more sophisticated and tech savvy, a trend called age compression, has bedeviled toy companies for at least a decade. While young children still role-play with dollhouses and Tonka trucks (and cheap plastic toys will always play their pacifying role on shopping trips), the market for action figures, for instance, used to be considered healthy for boys up to age 12. Now, the items are mainly marketed to boys 4 to 6, says Chris Byrne, an independent toy-industry consultant. And "boys...
...celebrated author-illustrator Carle triumphs again with a gorgeous undersea narrative. After Mrs. Seahorse lays her eggs in her husband's pouch for safekeeping, Mr. Seahorse drifts through a series of dazzling scenes. Clear plastic overlays bearing paintings of reeds, a coral reef, seaweed and a rock can be lifted away and--ta-da!--riotously colorful fish emerge. Mr. Seahorse meets other fish tending their eggs--a stickleback, a tilapia, a Kurtus nurseryfish, a pipe and a bullhead catfish. What they all have in common is that they are males, and Mr. Seahorse offers each a comradely word of praise...
Pursell has not only recalibrated her celebration, but she also helps others do the same. Last year she started a "simplicity circle" that gets into high gear during the holiday season. A woman in her group, a Buddhist, has eliminated toys with batteries or ones made of plastic from her secular celebration in an attempt to introduce her children to simpler pleasures. Another, an environmentalist, won't give any gifts that aren't made from recycled or natural sources. Others, following Pursell's example, have cut back on the tonnage of tinsel and toys...
...know about Hollywood celebrities who get plastic surgery to extend their careers. (You want to see performance enhancement in sports, look courtside at a Lakers game.) But plastic surgery has become positively democratic. Businessmen get nipped and tucked to win promotions; other people, just to look hot. And there are plenty of other ways that we augment nature, medically, technologically and financially. The elderly can extend their sex lives beyond what God and their grandchildren imagined. Kids take expensive prep courses to ace tests that are supposed to measure inborn aptitude. Short but healthy children are given human growth hormone...
...least is an adult; teen athletes, however, have started using the same drugs the pros do. Again, setting a good example for kids is a noble argument--but one that society hardly heeds otherwise. If steroid scold John McCain were a woman, he might be pushing laws against plastic surgery among pop starlets, the better to save girls from deadly eating disorders. President George W. Bush denounced steroid use in the State of the Union. "It sends the wrong message--that there are shortcuts to accomplishment," said the Yale legacy student...