Are kids getting smarter?

Today, as I have for years and years, I will emcee the Herald's spelling bee. It is my annual lesson in humility. I watch these incredible elementary and middle school kids spell -- on stage, in front of a packed auditorium -- words I never use, words I've never heard and certain words I could never ever spell. They never fail to dazzle me with their brilliance and their poise.
It seems to me that, for all we complain about education these days, kids are smarter and know more about the world than I did at their age.

Home as landing strip

For those of us parents with college kids, March is the month when our prodigal children return home -- usually with friends -- for spring break. This does not mean we get to see them all that much, though. One of my sons is leaving again today and all I can recall of his visit is a blurred image of comings and goings. Basically we served as his landing strip as he took off for other locales to visit friends.
The pantry, by the way, is empty.

Test question: Fact or Opinion?

As any parent will tell you, a child is taught to tell the difference between fact and opinion sometime around elementary school. It's a skill that's tested in the classroom as well as on standardized tests.
Well, now we adults are being tested, too. Turns out that companies are using the Internet to post press releases as if they were real news stories. Infomercials resurrected as Netmercials. (Read http:///www.csmonitor.com/2006/0329/p01s01-ussc.html?s=hns.) While the Internet has done wonders to democratize the flow of information, those of us who use it are still trying to figure out the good, the bad and the ugly.

From the creators of Survivor and Parcheesi...

If you want to liven up the conversation at your next dinner party, bring up the subject of immigration. Like abortion and English-only mandates, this is one topic every guest has an opinion on. Watch how quickly people choose camps -- and how quickly they lose their tempers. Accusations will fly. Facts, verifiable and misconstrued, will be brandished.
The conversation will be especially timely now that Congress is looking at a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. (Check out the latest http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/front/14201417.htm)
I'm surprised no one in Hollywood has made a reality show featuring illegal immigrants. What about a game (like the popular "Risk") that features border patrol and smugglers?

That &*$%@!! cell phone

Considering what cell phone companies charge us for air time, you would think that cell phones would be more reliable. HA! I'm getting more dropped calls, more empty air and more pockets of no transmission. My 15-year-old son can rarely reach me by phone in the late afternoon when he needs to be picked up from off-season weight training. "Network busy" is the standard bleep he gets. This weekend my husband tried to phone me -- same deal.
I've called my service provider (Cingular) several times to complain and always get some strange suggestion. This last time the service rep told me to turn my phone off for two or three minutes each day to "reset" it. Huh?

Spritzing the way to manhood

If you ever doubted the ability of Madison Avenue to create a market or change attitudes, read my column today http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14174983.htm about how my youngest son uses the latest in men's grooming products -- the body spray. A generation ago, I bet no boy his age would've been caught dead spritzing that funny-smelling stuff on their bodies. Now such aerosol cologne/deodorents are the latest chick magnets.

Shame on us...

...for allowing a government bureaucrat to cut off life-sustaining nutritional supplements from more than a thousand severely disabled or chronically ill children. (Check out Carol Marbin Miller's story.) Sure, it resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings to the agency, but you can bet there's going to be a much greater loss in the future. Penny-wise and pound foolish.
Whose bright idea was this?

What makes a good husband?

Bought a very cute rug at Target the other day and spent a good part of the evening ordering my two younger sons and husband around as they moved furniture, adjusted coffee tables and tried out different ways to display my new purchase. When I finally decided on a placement "for now" -- the implication being that I might change my mind tomorrow -- my exasperated 12-year-old said, "Well, now I know what it means to be a husband!"
The kid learns fast, don't you think?

Multi-tasking is so ' 90s

I have this running argument with my 15-year-old niece, an honor roll student, about her study habits. When she does homework on the computer, she is constantly interrupted by the beep of IMs from her friends, which, of course, she has to immediately answer. As if that's not enough, she usually has music in the background and a phone stuck to her ear.
There is no way anyone can learn with so many distractions. But she scoffs at my suggestion to turn off, turn down, and focus. What's more she claims that everybody -- sound familiar? -- does it.
I don't believe that for a minute. Yet plenty of my friends complain that they must swoop down on their own kids for doing the same.
We need a campaign: Multi-tasking is bad for your health.

And they pay her for this?!!

Nicole Richie isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Yet, she's become a household name because of...well, I can't quite figure out why. Her latest entry into Get-Her-Off-the-Stage territory happened in Los Angeles during taping of The Simple Life. The Associated Press reports that she asked an 11-year-old boy, in graphic language, if she looked attractive.
The boy was playing basketball in the driveway of his home when Ms. Potty Mouth approached and questioned the youth about how she looked, using a profane word. The exchange was taped.
The boy's father complained to the show's production company.
The Simple Life, by the way, was dropped by Fox but was picked up somewhere else and renamed. Apparently, stars like Richie can always find a TV home with dubious standards because there are enough fools who will tune in.
What's wrong with us?

Shock and awe or stuck and divided?

And so we enter the fourth year of an ill-conceived and terribly executed war with a bang. This the latest news from the front: Insurgents marked the unhappy anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq with roadside bombings that killed at least seven policemen, and authorities reported finding 10 more bullet-riddled bodies dumped in the capital, one of them a 13-year-old girl. Apparently, the violence took up where it left off Sunday when at least 35 people died.
When will it stop? And does anybody in Washington have a plan?
As a mother of four sons, it's scary to look at the options because those in power seem blithely clueless or pathetically wrongheaded.I'm most worried about what my children will inherit in the mess we've made of the Middle East.
Meanwhile, back home the country continues bickering. We, the Red and the Blue, agree on nothing, especially on what Iraq has meant -- and will mean -- to our lives. Just the same the terminology of war has become part of everyday language.
Remember shock and awe? Teens now use it to describe certain moves while playing video games. "Weapons of mass destruction" can refer to a sibling's gas problem. And embedded -- isn't that what horny college boys hope for during spring break?

Shock and awe or stuck and divided?

And so we enter the fourth year of an ill-conceived and terribly executed war with a bang. This the latest news from the front: Insurgents marked the unhappy anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq with roadside bombings that killed at least seven policemen, and authorities reported finding 10 more bullet-riddled bodies dumped in the capital, one of them a 13-year-old girl. Apparently, the violence took up where it left off Sunday when at least 35 people died.
When will it stop? And does anybody in Washington have a plan?
As a mother of four sons, it's scary to look at the options because those in power seem blithely clueless or pathetically wrongheaded.I'm most worried about what my children will inherit in the mess we've made of the Middle East.
Meanwhile, back home the country continues bickering. We, the Red and the Blue, agree on nothing, especially on what Iraq has meant -- and will mean -- to our lives. Just the same the terminology of war has become part of everyday language.
Remember shock and awe? Teens now use it to describe certain moves while playing video games. "Weapons of mass destruction" can refer to a sibling's gas problem. And embedded -- isn't that what horny college boys hope for during spring break?

Will trade sex for room

Check out Nicole White's story in The Miami Herald today about classified ads offering to swap rent for sex. When I read it, I didn't know whether to laugh at the ingenuity or cringe at the very possibility that plenty of young, desperate women strapped for housing would answer. What then?
By the way, those who posted sexually explicit ads seeking women or other men were ...you guessed it, men. White found no ads by women making the same demands.
Think of it: Internet as pimp.
Back in the day, we called such arrangements prostitution. Trading a room for sex over the Internet, writes White, is relatively fresh terrain and law enforcement is still trying to figure things out. In fact, they didn't know it was happening.
There's a sliver of comforting news in all this, though. Users of the online ad services such as craigslist police their own. As one recently posted "What's wrong with you people?!!"
Yes, what's wrong with you people. Makes me wonder what type of person would so brazenly advertise for such requirements.

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