What's up? Let's call this the State of the Economy Edition.

What would you rather do after dinner? Watch TV or read white papers on the economy? The Washington Post ran a story on a family who is doing the latter, even having their 13-year-old and 11-year-old write their own white papers on the economy.

A friend in the labor movement sent along this interesting essay in the Huffington Post about the plight of workers today and the precarious position of labor unions. I agreed with the writer, Amy B. Dean, that we are at a crossroads in our economy, in which we must make it easier for information workers to unionize, but the unions also have to acclimate with the times. The next time I see a bumper sticker that reads, "If you like your weekends, thank the unions," I think I will scream. I don't know anyone -- blue collar, white collar, or otherwise -- who works only 40 hours a week, and automatically gets the weekends off. Anyways, this essay is good food for thought especially since we just celebrated labor day.

In somewhat related news, Timothy Noah over at Slate wrote about our growing income divide. The richest 1 percent of Americans now make 24 percent of our nation's income. Noah plans to write a series on this divide. Stay tuned...

Mamapedia Voices ran a story about the most common birth defect. Pop quiz: What is it?

What else is in the news? What's up with you?

One of my favorite groups during the 90's was Garbage. Shirley Manson was, and still is so very sexy. Here is one of my favorite Garbage songs that I believe I dedicated to more than a few ex-boyfriends.  ;-)

What else is going on?

This story was originally published on Advocates for Youth's Birds and Bees Blog

In a blog on Psychology Today’s website, Kathryn Stamoulis, a psychologist who specializes in adolescent sexuality and teens’ internet behaviors, suggests that it’s time we take the stigma out of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and start talking about them as a normal risk of a normal behavior. Her argument is quite logical: STDs are extremely prevalent in our society among both teens and adults, treating them like the ultimate social taboo does nothing to prevent teens from contracting them (years of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and fear-based education have not reduced teen sex or the transmission of STDs), and what it may actually do is prevent teens from taking important steps to protect and treat themselves (like seeking out regular STD screening).

She suggests that STDs are a normal risk of sexual contact similar to how contracting a cold or a flu is a natural risk of being in close contact with others during the winter.  “Just imagine what life would look like if people viewed STDs as a normal part of fooling around,”  she writes.  “Without fear of tarnishing his reputation, a teenage boy could tell his partner ‘you may not want to get too close to me this week; I'm clearing up a case of Chlamydia.’ Or a teen girl may view getting tested twice a year as routine as she does a teeth cleaning.”

She is absolutely right that stigma prevents many people from seeking the protective behaviors they need—be it buying condoms before having sex or getting tested for STDs afterwards.  We do have to change our tone when talking about STDs to get rid of the shame and blame.  STDs are a health issue; not a sign of poor morals or bad behavior.  

But normal, is that taking it too far?

As a sexuality educator, I have spent a lot of time criticizing abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for their use of fear and shame especially when it comes to STDs.  A common tactic of these programs is to show young people slides of STDs in their extremely advanced stages; cervixes that are dripping with pus or penises covered with cauliflower-sized warts.  I do not think these are appropriate teaching tools for a number of reasons.  First, they’re not particularly educational—these pictures represent late stages of STDs that in all honesty few people ever reach. If we do want to show young people pictures of STDs, at the very least we should be showing them those in the earliest stages in order to help them understand when to seek testing and treatment.

Second, the narration accompanying these slides often says things like “As a result of this Chlamydia infection, this young woman, even though she only had sex with one person, will never be able to have children.”   Not only do such statements gloss over important information—like the fact that Chlamydia is easily cured with antibiotics if caught early and that even if caught later infertility can be averted—they also seem to suggest that the owner of the cervix in the picture is to blame for her predicament and, worse, is now damaged goods.  Such message of fear and shame are always inappropriate.

Lastly, I think it is worth noting that those who support showing pictures of diseased genitals are the very same forces who try to censor any curriculum or book that shows pictures of naked people or healthy genitalia on the grounds that they are pornographic and not age-appropriate.  This just further underscores the messages that sex, and even our bodies, are sources of shame.

What's up?

First of all, my sincerest apologies to all my mom friends for talking smack about their daughters' princess outfits and fetishes. As you can see, I have my own princess in the making.

Actually, Eli is in an interesting phase. She has gone from being a papi's girl to being a mami's girl. It's like she discovered that we are both females, and now she wants to be my bff, dress like me, wear heels like me, and grow her hair out like mine. On the one hand, I am flattered as I was feeling neglected for a while. But sometimes it can be overwhelming especially when we are hiking and she demands that mami -- and only mami -- carry her up the mountain. Or go get her princess shoes. Or put on her earrings. So many demands. Ayayay! How do you mommas tame the princess in your preschool-aged girls? How long does this phase last?

Harvard fellow and sociologist Hilary Levey wrote an article about how the New York City Department of Education will begin testing students as young as 3 for spots in the city's gifted programs. Levey is predicting a wider achievement gap as the city's most affluent and competitive parents vie for spots for their kids.  

In somewhat related news, MSNBC wrote about the hidden costs and benefits of redshirting kids. In case you are not down with the lingo, "redshirting" is the act of holding back a preschooler from kindergarten in hopes of giving that child a one-year advantage.

Two new Sesame Street video games will be available for the Wii and Nintendo DS and PC in October.

What else is in the news? What's up with you?

Welcome to 90's week!

During the 90's, George Bush, Sr. was President, followed by two terms of William Jefferson Clinton, better known as Bill (or Hillary). Ross Perot also wanted to join the political arena. Who remembers Dana Carvey's impression of Ross Perot on Saturday Night Live??

There was body piercings, Beanie Babies, Beavis and Butthead, Teletubbies, and those annoying fanny packs.

We had the famous pairings of Ross and Rachel,  Will and Grace, and Big and Carrie.

We were also introduced to a different kind of music...

What else is going on?

(Picture by Elisa's iPhone: Ari and Eli hide out in a cave in Rock City on Mount Diablo, California.)

What are you up to this Labor Day weekend?

We are off to friends' barbecue today. But yesterday we got to spend the day together as a family at Mount Diablo in Clayton, California. It is in the Danville-Walnut Creek area in the Bay Area, and it is breathtaking. We are always amazed how in California you could live in the city and in no time get to mountains and hiking trails or the beach, if that is your preference.

We kicked off our trip -- only 20, 25 minutes away from home -- with a picnic. Then we drove up the winding roads of the mountain to a place called "Rock City." We hiked through some rocks, and the kids found a crevice or two to hide in. Here is another picture of the view:

Feel free to use this open thread for pictures of cool places you have visited. Happy Labor Day everyone!  

Good morning, MTs. It's good to be "back" after the US holiday and subsequent, necessary, recovery! We're all back, more or less, in the same time zone, although the girls are still sleeping oddly through the night. Time and some work together should do the trick, though  - like putting the girls back in their bed instead of having them all in ours and enduring a restless night together!

Anyway, here are some stories that are making news at my end of things:

Firstly, I'm devastated to see the fall-out after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in New Zealand. A new series of aftershocks have caused further damage to the South Island, with entire areas of downtown Christchurch cordoned off:

Christchurch is continuing to be rocked by aftershocks, as officials turn their attention to dangerous chemicals that could be leaking inside buildings damaged by Saturday's earthquake.  Police have just ordered a couple out of a block of shops on the corner of Westminster and Cranford Street in St Albans because of falling debris.  

The building is set to be demolished this afternoon.  

An aftershock of around 3 on the Richter scale struck around 12:20pm, but a much larger jolt of 4.5 occurred around 12:35.  

GNS Science said the latest quake occurred at a depth of 20 km, 20km south-east of Darfield, 20km north of Leeston, and 30km west of Christchurch.  

Environment Canterbury pollution prevention manager Don Chittock said people going in to business premises this morning were discovering spills of hazardous substances.

About half a dozen spills had been dealt with already.

The major concern was hazardous substances leaking into groundwater supplies or into stormwater systems.

''Contain it on site, if you can,'' he said.

I don't know if we have any lurking NZ MTs, but my thoughts are with our neighbors there.

Secondly, on a lighter note, we're a Wiggles family; the girls both love dancing and singing to the fab four in turtlenecks, and honestly, they're hard not to like. Well, they've released their latest round of DVD/CD offerings, and this time, they're collaborating with Australian New Age legends Mental As Anything. The songs, called Let's Eat will be about preparing and eating healthy foods, dovetailing neatly with a craze for all things culinary here in Australia.

Blue Wiggle Anthony Field describes the Mentals as an adult version of The Wiggles and says he is a fan from way back.

"They were our heroes when we were in the rock band The Cockroaches in the '80s, so it's brilliant to be able to work with them," Field said.

With Aussie kids now obsessed with cooking and eating healthy foods thanks to MasterChef and the upcoming Junior MasterChef, Field is certain Let's Eat will be a hit among kids, and some rock'n'roll-loving parents.

But even though The Wiggles are as popular as ever, years of entertaining wouldn't win them any dancing contests.

"We all really struggled with choreography. The guys are used to just singing and playing instruments so we struggled to get them wiggling in time," he laughed.

C'mon, sing it with me - Fruit Salad, yummy, yummy.

Finally, here's an interesting piece from Slate that I bookmarked awhile back about an American dad's experience taking paid paternity leave in Sweden. It's noteworthy because of the banality of it all - he learns to organize his kid's snackbox, he goes to playgroup, he juggles being the stay-at-home-parent.

In my part of greater Stockholm, these dads are often on their way to the open preschools, especially through the dreary Swedish winter. These are municipal-run play-places, complete with cheap coffee, helpful teachers, and lots of balls and blocks. On some days, the open preschools are crammed with groups of too-cool dudes lounging on the floor in trucker hats, designer T-shirts, and capri-length pants. Then there are the mousey guys alone in the corner—the equivalent of shy moms, I suppose—and usually a tattooed man or two in the kitchen smushing a bit of banana onto a spoon for his baby.

But here is the funny part: The dads act exactly like the moms. They talk about poop, whether their babies sleep, how tired they are, when their kid started crawling or walking or throwing a ball or whatever.

"So how old is your child?"

"Nine months. She just started crawling yesterday."

"Yes, Oscar started at eight months. But now he is not sleeping well. His teeth are coming in. Oscar, you have to share that toy. Oscar, I said give the toy back."

"How long are you going to be on paternity leave?"

"Three more months. Isn't open preschool great? Now, Oscar ..."

I don't mind the gee-whiz tone of the piece describing things that I - and millions of other SAHMs do every day without trumpeting. It is still noteworthy for most of us in the US and here in the UK to have a father doing the heavy work of raising young kids. I wish it was banal, but it isn't, yet. So from that perspective, this guy dares to be service-y and it's fine by me.

And finally, I need your help. I'm volunteering in Jess's pre-k class this Friday and I need an activity to do with the kids for an hour. They're 10 4 and 5 year olds. Any suggestions?

What's up?

It's the LONG weekend, y'all! I kicked mine off by volunteering in my daughter's classroom for the very first time. My job: to supervise two groups of 5 kids each, tasked with tracing shapes on a school bus drawing, coloring it in, writing "BUS" on the side of it then cutting it out. The groups rotated through periodically. Some random impressions, in no particular order:

Kindergarten teachers are SAINTS. They do. Not. Stop. They are referees, disciplinarians, nurturers, nurses, clerks and educators. And they listen patiently to the ramblings of 5-year-olds (including my daughter, who regaled her teacher with a long summation of a SpongeBob plot).

Kindergarten classrooms are LOUD, especially when they are filled with 30 kids-- goodbye, Class Size Reduction, hello draconian budget cuts!

Kindergarteners are impulsive, chatty, hard to wrangle, eager to please, and utterly adorable.

Kindergarten has changed since I was a kid- no school nurse to bandage up playground owies, and no "quiet time" resting on the floor after recess. Teacher is now nurse, and nap time nonexistent.

Kindergarten is exhausting, even for a parent pulling a 2.5 hour volunteer shift.

Volunteering is a blast, if only because of the look of happiness on my kid's face when I walked through the door.

I'm so glad my reduced work hours made it possible for me to do this. It's a balancing act for sure, but so worth it!

Have you volunteered in your child's classroom? Do you have any other regular volunteer gigs? Any past volunteerism that you remember fondly? Tell us about it!

What's everyone up to this weekend? Chat away!

You know I couldn't end the week without adding the most iconic band of the era, The Smiths. I must have warped my tape that featured this song from playing it over and over and over again, with the obligatory black tears streaming out of my overly made up raccoon eyes.

No one felt or understood teenage pain and angst quite like Steven Patrick Morrissey.

What else is going on?

This story was originally published on Advocates for Youth's Birds and Bees Blog.

In June, as teens across the country were trading in their backpacks and books for bathing suits and beach towels, two different divisions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released surveys on teens’ sexual behavior. These surveys, which are conducted at regular intervals, provide a snapshot of what today’s teens are doing and a way of tracking trends over time.

The first of the studies, the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Summaries (YRBS) conducted by the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH), surveys high school students every two years. The results released last month were from the 2009 survey; it found that 46% of all high school students report ever having had sexual intercourse.

The second study, released by the National Center for Health Statistics, is a report on teens 15–19 who participated in the most recent National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). The NSFG surveys women and men ages 15–44 and asks questions regarding “family life, marriage and divorce, pregnancy, infertility, use of contraception, and men’s and women’s health.” The report, Teenagers in the United States: Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Childbearing, National Survey of Family Growth 2006–2008, is among the first bits of data to be released from the most current survey. This study found that 42% of never-married females and 43% of never-married males ages 15–19 reported having ever had sexual intercourse.

Educators and public health professionals rely on these surveys to plan programs aimed at preventing both pregnancy and STDs, including HIV. And, though as parents, we obviously care more about a few select teens than the “cohort” as a group, I think these surveys include some interesting information for us as well.

Misperceptions About Teen Sex

I believe that adults, with a great deal of help from the media (both in the form of news stories about  rampant teen oral sex and television shows like Gossip Girl that make teen sex seem, well, rampant), tend to overestimate and catastrophize when it comes to this subject.  Some of the information in these surveys can actually correct misperceptions about teen sex and as such should be reassuring to parents.

It’s Not the Youngest Ones

One of the problems when we talk about teen sex is that our minds automatically turn to the youngest of teenagers; those 13 and 14 year olds whose playground days are not far behind. I would venture to guess that most, if not all, adults agree that these teens are too young to be having sex.

Okay ladies, here we go!! You can guess in the comments, and I will provide answers in an updated diary later today...

P.S.  There will be no clues, just look into the baby's eyes. They will speak to you.  :-)

UPDATE: A suggestion from the comments - here is a list of MT participants in alphabetical order: 1plain1peanut, Aussieyank, Cereal Lurking, Cynmill, Erika, Expat, Frogwife, Gigi, Gloria, Happy Clam, Lisa in Austin, Martinet, Rachel, Round Peg, Sister Q, Sue in Queens.

HAVE FUN!!

1.  2.    

3.    4.  

One of my favorite instruments is the Xylophone. I just LOVE the way it sounds.

My 16-year-old niece, Ryan, is a very talented musician. She has taught herself how to play drums, piano, ukelele, harmonica, and accordion - all by ear! Next on the list? I want her to master the xylophone. I just think it makes everything sound better...

What else is going on?

Over the break, I had the pleasure of reading a book by our very own Katy Farber. I always get a thrill reading books by people who I know and admire.

Katy, who not only parents two girls and writes for MotherTalkers and Non-Toxic Kids, but she is also an elementary school science teacher. (Where do you find the time, girl?)

In her first book, Why Great Teachers Quit And How We Might Stop the Exodus, Katy examines just that: why are so many young, smart and idealistic people exiting the field in droves within the first five years? While she did examine the obvious reasons of low pay and crazy hours, which left me convinced that teaching is not a family-friendly profession, her answer was much more nuanced.

For example, according to the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, the No. 1 reason teachers left high poverty, urban public schools was because of poor administrative support (50 percent) and not poor salary (26.9 percent). A lack of faculty influence (42.5 percent) was the second biggest reason teachers left poor urban public schools. As for teachers in low poverty, suburban public schools, they left due to poor salary (51 percent) followed by poor administrative support (30 percent). Notice that their reasons for leaving had nothing to do with the students.

Which leads me to one of the biggest factors driving out teachers: politics. Legislation like No Child Left Behind and standardized testing is decreasing student morale and forcing out teachers, who must take even more time from their busy schedules to supervise students during the test rather than teach or grade papers. Also, they have not been trained to supervise such tests in a way that would please legislators, often non-educators, mandating such testing.

What surprised me was that, while well-intentioned, these tests have not increased student achievement.

In some cases, when it looks as though test scores are going up, one must read the back story to understand whether all students were assessed, how the dropout rate plays into it, and how much quality teaching is happening. Houston, Texas, was touted nationally as a success story for raising the test scores of all of its students. The district claimed a low 1.5 percent dropout rate, but at Sharpston High School, 463 of 1,700 students left during the school year; none were reported as dropping out. Instead, they were assigned a code that meant they had changed schools, gone back to a native country, or gone for their GED, when many of them never reported these reasons to the school (Meier et al., 2004). The real story is that a new correlation has arisen from frequent standardized testing: falling graduation rates as standardized testing increases (Meier et al., 2004).

Interesting, eh? Another aspect of Katy's book that I liked was that it wasn't simply a whiny tome on the state of education today, rather it offered educators solutions to implement best practices. She visited schools all across the country and interviewed dozens of teachers both online and offline. She gave examples of schools that were actually implementing these practices, like, the Sherman Oaks Community Charter School in California, which allows teachers and staff 90 minutes daily of uninterrupted time to collaborate.

Here is a great example of how parents can partner with teachers to give children the best possible education:

Happy Thursday!

I wanted to let you all know that I will be posting everyone's baby pictures tomorrow morning so there is still time to look for your thinking caps - and still time to send me your baby picture if you still want to participate! If you haven't sent me a picture, or if you've been having trouble sending me a picture through gloria@mothertalkers.com, you can send me your picture at glo821@aol.com. C'mon! Don't be a party pooper! Should be fun!!

What are you up to this fine Thursday morning? Me? I'm going to pop another pain pill and jump back into bed. Migraines can SUCK IT!

About 10 years ago, I walked into my niece Candace's bedroom. Her walls were covered with posters of bands that I had seen in concert back in the 80's. I pointed at The Cure and said, "I saw them in concert - not great." I pointed at The Smiths and said, "Saw them too, they were AWESOME!" Pointed at her U2 poster and said, "Saw them about six times, they were amazing!" But I think she was the most shocked when I pointed at her Siouxsie and the Banshees poster and said, "Siouxsie was awesome! One of the best concerts EVER!" She stared at me with wonder and amazement and said, "Gloria! I didn't know you were cool!"

Two weeks later, her praise would prove to haunt me. I got a phone call from Candace. Siouxsie and the Banshees was going to be in concert at the Hollywood Palladium and did I want to go? Sure, I said! And off we went! Yeah, the first time around was fun. The second time around - - not so much! When the mosh pit started, my heartbeat doubled, I had a cold sweat, I didn't know which way to run, and my life flashed before my eyes! I turned to my niece and said, "I'm sorry Candace, this time around I have kids that I want to live to see grow up! I'll wait for you at the Denny's across the street!"

And that's what this old fogey did. Sigh...

I did wait until after Siouxsie sang my all time favorite song...before I ordered from the senior citizen menu.

P.S.  You should hear Erika's story of when I tried to do her make-up like Siouxsie.  Hee, hee!

What else is going on?

One of our content partners, Advocates for Youth, just pointed me to a mother-daughter article, defending sex education and multicultural courses on college campuses. They were responding to an op-ed in the Washington Times by a conservative Christian mom who wanted to shield her daughter from such topics.

Without further ado, I will present their rebuttal here:

By Leah Reis-Dennis

Leah Reis-Dennis is a sophomore at Harvard University.  She is a campus organizer with Advocates for Youth.


In her recent Washington Times piece, "Values a vaccine for poisoned Ivy," Rebecca Hagelin cautions parents with presumably frightening "snapshots of what your child might encounter" at college. Hagelin cites such supposedly alarming campus occurrences as summer reading on multiculturalism, course offerings on feminist theory, and access to condoms. Although Hagelin fears for the preservation of her daughter's Christian and conservative values, she rests assured that the strength of her family's faith and its determination to resist the dominant "liberal Orthodoxy" will prevail.



As a college student about to start my second year at Harvard (an institution which Hagelin would likely label a "poisoned Ivy"), I can vividly recall my college selection process. As I visited campuses, perused pamphlets, and spoke with students, I, like Hagelin's daughter, took time to "investigate the college landscape." In my case, however, a course offering in feminist theory got a thumbs up. Free condom access on campus? All the better! In fact, one might imagine that my mother and I, devoted advocates for feminism and women's rights, are direct opposites of Hagelin and her daughter. Still, if Hagelin's daughter and I were to attend the same college and meet, we would surely learn a lot from each other. She might teach me something about the Bible. I might teach her how to use a condom, even if she chooses to wait until marriage to put that knowledge into practice. But what Hagelin misses in her article is the understanding that college is not, as she implies, about meeting friends who will corroborate your existing beliefs. Rather, college should expand your mind. The people you meet should challenge your convictions and force you to question what you take for granted. Having lived my whole life in a liberal enclave in Oregon, I came to Harvard with a bundle of strong opinions that I had never before been forced to defend. At Harvard, some of my most valuable and memorable moments have been those in which my peers have disagreed with me and prompted me to consider their point of view and scrutinize my own. Hagelin's thinly veiled fear of difference puts her daughter at a disadvantage by attempting to confine her growth within the comfortable bubble of the known and the safe. She would do better to encourage her daughter to venture outside of her comfort zone and strengthen her faith by challenging it.



Perhaps most jarring, though, is Hagelin's unbridled fear of college sexuality. The "graphic 'safe sex' discussions" that Hagelin warns of, would, in a perfect world, be redundant: safe sex discussions should already be happening throughout high school (and earlier!). Hagelin need not fear the "corruption" of her daughter's mind or body: time and time again, studies have shown that comprehensive sex education does not accelerate the start of students' sexual activity. Rather, it increases the percentage of those sexually active youth who practice safer sex, using condoms, birth control, and healthy communication.



In another exclamation of disbelief, Hagelin laments Yale's distribution of 14,000 free condoms this year. "Impressive!" was my first thought upon hearing Yale's statistic. As part of the Great American Condom Campaign (sponsored by DC-based Advocates for Youth), I distributed 500 free Trojan condoms to my peers, mostly freshmen, this year. The peer health educators at Harvard, and probably at Yale too, are at students' disposal to answer any question they have about sex. Why keep sex in the dark on college campuses? In our modern society, Hagelin's approach of withholding sexual education and resources from college students is akin to presenting them with cars without Driver's Ed or seatbelts. Simply put, it's absurd. Some students may feel unprepared to "drive," or may choose to abstain for environmental or other moral reasons. But many, the majority, will take the wheel, and we should encourage them to do so safely. This same philosophy applies to sex. Receiving or having access to campus tools for safe sex, including mandatory education, protection, and sustained dialogue does not harm students who choose abstinence. Just like anything else at college, sex education should be a learning experience. Maybe it will come in handy in college, or maybe not until marriage—which brings up the issue of spouse-seeking.



As she justifies the importance of selecting a college with like-minded students, Hagelin cites a finding that many recently married couples met through college. Finding a husband should not be a factor in the college decision process. Never. Not in the slightest. What is this, the 1940s? College is not for meeting a husband. College is for meeting new people and learning new things—things that probably will and should include multiculturalism, feminism, immigration issues, environmental studies, and yes: sex—all elements that factor prominently into a complete understanding of the country and the world that we live in. Whether this learning remains purely theoretical or is put to the test in the dorms is up to each student. But let's hope that students at Hagelin's so-called "Poisoned Ivies" and beyond continue to be given school-supported resources with which to make informed decisions, have fun, and experience college life to the fullest, whether it's focused at the campus ministry or in the bedroom. Or both.


What's up?

Here are my two preciouses on their first day of school yesterday. Ari is cholco, which in Salvadoran Spanish means he is missing his teeth. He lost two or three teeth in New Hampshire.

Miss Independent Eli demanded to dress herself, hence the princess dress. When we arrived to school, I whispered in her teacher's ear that the change of clothes was in the back pack.

How did her day go? As I predicted -- fantastic! She ran up to me and Markos, who were eager to hear about her first day, and told us in great detail everything that she did, including taking a nap. (I had to have her teacher confirm this as Miss Eli has not napped with me in over a year. She sure did.) Ari said he spotted his sister in the hallway, and she was happily walking in line with the rest of the kids. I was relieved to hear she did not push or boss anyone around. LOL!

In other news: I am glad I am not a college student today. When I was in school 10 years ago, I couldn't afford any unpaid internships, but was fortunate to find paid work in my field. Nowadays, students are paying companies to guarantee themselves a spot as an unpaid intern, according to the Washington Post. What?

Other college students fighting to achieve their dreams: those who would benefit from the DREAM Act, which would grant temporary residence to undocumented college students. The good people at Citizen Orange are profiling the plight of a student who was arrested for sitting in at Sen. John McCain's office.

What else is in the news? What's up with you?