Our National Security Neighborhoods

WHEN EISENHOWER WAS PRESIDENT, and I but a wee lad of, oh, five or so, in the middle class mid sized midwestern town into which I was born, I'd scoot out of the house and sally forth into the 'hood without bothering to inform my mother the registered nurse turned housewife where I was going or what my plans were when I got there. We knew the neighbors well enough to know their kids, and no matter who lived in the neighborhood, the kids played together, sans video games. It didn't matter which house we landed in for a cold drink; we were welcomed. Most folks didn't bother to lock their doors. You try that today, and you're in jail, parentally, foster care, offspringingly. Mon knew I'd be fine, or at lest she had a good enough notion of that to lack worry. I didn't even bother to take a dad gummed smart phone with me. Left it back at the crib. Those care free fear free days of the late fifties and early sixties. Our seat belts had vanished beneath the car seats, ignored and ridiculed. Nobody wore a helmet when riding a bicycle, and I don't remember quality control checking Halloween candy for razor blades and poison. Now, what? No seat belts'll land you in traffic court, and the bike helmets are cute, all brightly colored, styrofoamy and such. But we mustn't leave the house without the electronic gadget of the day, and a solemn promise to check back in, and we must beware of reentering our own homes so that we do not trigger the alarm and sentronic security system, after we make our way past the gate and the privacy fence, and buzz back in. The outdoor solar sensitive light comes on about dusk. When school, started, you could walk into any public school building without pushing a button outside, and flashing two types of identification. You didn't have to report to the security desk outside the main office and receive a "visitor" pass. The crime rate today is about the same as it was then, give or take a few tabloid true stories and a never ending stream of violent televised crime dramas. Are we crazy, or merely paranoid? One theory is that we bombard ourselves with so much gruesome vicarious news-otainment that we take it to heart, and respond accordingly, as if we were characters in an episode of Crime Scene Investigation, or whatever those shows are called. (I don't have a television.) What about ambiant artifiically generated electromagnetic radiation, like, say, microwaveable smart phones? Food preservatives, perhaps?