All the police officers I know try their hardest to be friendly with kids.  There always seem to be shithead parents out there who think it's funny to tell a cop "go ahead, scare the crap out of 'em" and the parent usually gets a talking-to.  You don't want that, they're told.  You want kids to trust that a police officer can be their best source of help when they're in trouble and a parent isn't nearby.

Yes, there are asshole cops.  But to teach kids that all police are bad is a recipe for disaster.

I agree I.G., but I am not saying that, exactly.  It would seem that things have blown up beyond a point where you can paint a black or white situation with a run in with the law (no pun intended).

I understand the militarization of the police, but I think (it) stems from some sort of fear that was at the tail end of my childhood that I just have not figured out yet.  

He is a hipster.

ah, in the US you don't have ISDN?

yea, the infrastructure is being given the boot over here too - I've been told later this year by telecom employees. You usually terminate it at fritzboxes nowadays, which translate it to voip.

but why do you then only have "one landline" ?

That's the standard setup in the US.  Since we went directly from POTS to broadband, pretty much skipping ISDN in the consumer market, no one ever got used to having more than one simultaneous call path.

It's ok, we have unlimited calling on that line, so he can use it all day if he wants to.

heh, yes. once you get used to have more than one person phoning... its hard to think about what else.

but, to be honest, I don't use phones very much, and only have ISDN since my Eurit 30 ISDN phone is still around.

My 13 year old is on the phone all the time when he's home. Usually while he's playing Minecraft, and he's talking to the same boy he is chatting with. 
I am applying to high schools for him now, he doesn't even seem to care where he goes, as long as it's not far away like his older brother, because if he can't come home every night, it would really cut into his playing time. 

Honestly I don't mind him using the phone all the time.  He doesn't play Minecraft, but my daughter does.  She's just about 11 years old.  And she's a hormonal psychopath right now.

My daughter is 15.  Fun times.  They boy (now 13) has no concept of how to call a friend.  If plans to do something are not discussed at the lunch table at school, it won't happen.  It might not even happen in that case either as they don't know how to change a plan if school is not in session.

So it's not just my kids that are boneheads?

 I think I learned my best friends phone number about the age of 15 or 16, so no, not too far from my experience I am afraid.

While growing up did you experience any social experiments by the public school system?  The other day I was watching a video and the guy talked about how the desks in one grade's classroom were not arranged in rows but were in groups.  Six desks next to each other, and three desks faces those desks. I remember this as a kid but I thought it was one teacher's idea.  I had also heard about open room classrooms where there were some kid of dividers but not a wall between the classes, other wise it was a large open room.

I remember taking these tests were we poke each other and a testing sheet about what we liked.  It was one of those we are going to find out what you want to do when you grow up by giving you choices as a child.   I remember vague questions such as "Would you rather be outside or in an office?"  

What strange ideas do you remember from public education?

At one time they said we would need to learn this strange and odd thing called "The metric system" because we would be switching over to it.  We had to start learning it, and then that idea just stopped.  They changed a few signs on the thruway from miles to kilometers around the same time.  I don't remember the reason why they stopped teaching it.