lounemeth.com

After watching my son burn through money like he earned any, my wife and I decided we had to teach him some fiscal discipline, to have financial goals and sacrifice to achieve them. So, we cut a deal: if he saved up $250, we would match it and buy him the Lego Star Wars Millenium Falcon -- the ultimate Lego, at least to a nine-year-old's eyes.

Our plan worked like a dream. My son spent a year and a half saving 98% of what he earned in allowance and from extra chores. Three weeks ago, he hit the magic number, and we placed our order with Amazon.

I'll admit it: I have iPhone envy. I want one with roughly the same passion I wanted the woman who would become my wife. Somehow, having an iPhone will make me smarter, more attractive, wittier and, of course, more effective and efficient.

Walter Cronkite's recent death reminds us how far broadcast journalism has fallen in the years since he ruled the airwaves. One needs only juxtapose the coverage of Cronkite's passing with that of Michael Jackson to realize that the medium by which most Americans consider themselves "informed" is sorely lacking not only perspective, but substance. Admittedly, Jackson's death was the more dramatic (read, "newsworthy"), but it's hard to argue that Jackson's contribution to society was, ultimately, the more important of the two.

Cable news, particularly, has become a morass of celebrity gawking (CNN) and vainglorious political combat (Fox and MSNBC), virtually devoid of the sort of meaningful examination of the day's events that might spur thoughtful consideration by a public so ill-informed that fewer than half can name a single Supreme Court justice.

The angry crowds confronting Congressional officials at town halls across the country this week mark the death knell of health reform. While it's still probable that some pathetic, half-baked measure will emerge from a Democratic caucus that has as much trouble recognizing its friends as its enemies, there is now virtually no hope that anything honestly approaching "reform" will come from the folly unfolding on Capitol Hill.

The fault lies squarely with President Obama, who announced his top legislative priority to much fanfare but little substance. Aides assured the press and the public that the President would enter the fray "when the time is right," but until then, would leave the details to his Congressional allies.

In the absence of any actual proposal, it was easy for the other side to paint health reform as a socialist makeover of health care, rather than a modest attempt to break the linkage between employment and insurance, and relieve hospitals and other providers of the costs of treating patients whose primary care physicians are whomever happens to be on duty at the ER when they fall ill.

News that a 16-year-old runaway was working – legally – as a stripper at a “gentlemen’s club” in Providence, R.I. sparked the to-be-expected outrage from a prurient public, and the even more to-be-expected denunciations from the same elected officials who had let a loophole allowing “indoor” prostitution to flourish in the state languish on the books for 30 years.

No one with even a loose grip on reality can pretend to be shocked that 16-year olds are dancing (and more) for dollars. The real issue is whether our youth are better off doing so within a legal framework, or being forsaken to the mercies of an underground economy that encompasses not only prostitution, but drugs, violence, and sex slavery, all feeding an apparently boundless appetite for young girls (and boys) around the globe.