Has it been a month already?

Tom Friedman is back and he's on fire.

It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

Read his column -- it'll take all of five minutes and you'll be glad you did.

In other news it turns out teenage boys today -- as in right now, spring 2008 -- listen to the same exact music teenage boys listened to in 1988. And probably 1978 for that matter. If you'll think back to this post here, you'll remember that I took a group of our young men to Conference.

It's a 12-hour drive one way and so, as you can imagine, we listened to a lot of music. We outlawed headphones in the car so that we could all have the same experience driving there and back. And we each brought music to share.

Anyone want to guess what the boys brought? That's right, Boston, Journey, Guns 'n' Roses, Foreigner and Weird Al. I think there was .38 Special and Blue Oyster Cult in there as well. And Billy Squire.



The point is, this is the same exact stuff I was listening to when I was in junior high. And a little bit in high school. Which reminded me of an arguement I've made many times before. As a teenager, I had terrible taste in music. I'm not saying that there's anything really wrong with schlock rock bands like Journey and Boston -- well, yes I am.

The point is, it's nice to know that as quickly and greatly as times seem to change, so many things remain so very much the same. It's like the wheel in the sky keeps on turning and we don't know where we'll be tomorrow.

Or something.

Mofo

Reading, my friends, is power.

Becky was at the park a couple days ago with a friend. They both had their kids with them, which meant Claire was with her two pals, Jason and Tyler. They were playing in a tube slide on the playground equipment, crawling up inside, laughing and talking.

Now, keep in mind the three of them are seven-year-olds, in second grade. They all read really well, but because they've only been reading for a couple years and, at that, reading proficiently really for only a year, their language skills are still, well, pretty elementary.

The tube slide itself acts like a mega phone, so even though they were just laughing and talking among themselves, the moms sitting at a bench across the playground could comfortably hear them. Listening in, Becky's friend hears the boys begin to curse like sailors. Shocking, given that none of the parents swear. It quickly dawns on her that the three kids are reading graffitti etched into the tube.

She kind of chuckles, given the absurdity of the situation. And then she hears her son say, "Ha ha, this one says 'Joe is a mother father.'"

And then she hears Claire laugh and say, "And they spelled 'father' wrong." All three of them laughed at that.

And we laughed, too. Really hard. Spelled 'father' wrong indeed.


You want another laugh? Becky's sister Steph has great little tale over at her blog, complete with visual aids. Check it out.