Disney is offering refunds to parents who feel duped by its Baby Einstein videos, and parents and researchers alike are questioning brain-boosting tools for kids. So you might be surprised to learn that 60% of the 25 top-selling smart phone apps in the education section of iTunes are aimed at under five set.

Researchers are now finding that something as simple as a smart phone app might help little kids learn. The apps claim to teach children to recognize symbols and encourage kids’ interaction with the natural environment. With us to talk about whether smart phones are the next big teaching tool is Neil Swidey. He wrote about smart phones for toddlers for The Boston Globe Magazine

Boston Globe Magazine: Why an iPhone could actually be good for your 3-year-old

(Photo by Genta Masuda via Flickr/Creative Commons)

In September, former senate majority leader Tom Daschle spoke at The New School in New York City. He described a health care town hall meeting that was nothing like the shrill, hostile meetings then leading the news. “The next morning,” Daschle says, “I read the newspaper and I’d say 95% of the coverage in the paper was about the demonstrators and quotes that they had, either about me, or about health care that were completely off base. Nothing about the thoughtful, substantive discussion that occurred for an hour and a half in that hall.”

The headlines generated by gun-toting protesters, people decrying “socialized medicine” and “death panels” have faded, but the health care debate continues. This week, Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives are expected to vote on their versions of the health care reform bill, bills that are quite different from the Senate’s version.

If you find yourself getting lost in the process, you are not alone. Trudy Lieberman has been following health care and the media’s coverage of the issue for the Columbia Journalism Review. She also teaches health and medicine reporting at the City University of New York and joins us to grade the media coverage of the health care debate.

Columbia Journalism Review: Truth Emerges about the Public Option

L.A. Times: Media needs to deepen coverage of healthcare reform

Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism: Health News Coverage in the U.S. Media

(Photo by Truthout.org via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Among the horror film formulas of gothic monsters, aliens, slashers and the undead is one that now stands out as unfeeling: the insane asylum.

Little wonder, given that these mysterious architectural giants loomed behind iron gates in dozens of American towns. Hollywood brought us inside, painting mental institutions as places of misery and despair. Think of Shock Corridor, The Snake Pit, or the more recent thriller Session 9.

Hollywood trumped up the terror of insane asylums, but they were originally built for healing, as places of safety as well as madness. Among the earliest of the mental hospitals was the New Hampshire Asylum for the Insane in Concord.

An acute psychiatric care facility and a children’s unit still operate there. About half of the old buildings have been converted to state offices or storage units, while the rest sit empty. Word or Mouth producer Avishay Artsy went to unlock the history of this decaying institution.