There are a number of factors in play which affect shrinking recess, looking at my childrens' school and the pressures I know they're under.

We have an overcrowded school with about 12 portable classrooms outside. That means that the "common" areas of the school can't cope--the cafeteria, gym, library, playground, etc. were designed for far fewer students. So they cycle the kids through the lunchroom at top speed. Each grade gets a shift in the cafeteria, then a shift on the playground, then back inside so the next grade gets a chance.

For my first grader last year, it meant that lunch started at 10:40 a.m. and they had a grand total of 20 minutes to eat, 15-20 minutes on the playground, then back inside. My kid is a dawdler when it comes to food... I had to start packing lunches that could survive a trip to school and back, so she could eat them when she got home.

My kids get gym about once every three or four days, and it's based on space in the gym and teachers. We have 600+ kids and one (1) gym teacher. I'm glad we have one at all, and she's great, but she can't work miracles.

The school is a good one, and is doing the best they can with the facilities available. This is a "good" neighborhood (meaning solidly middle class, highly educated parents, in the burbs). Everyone wants a house in the burbs, no one wants to pay for more schools.

The kids start getting tested by the state in THIRD GRADE (and the school does an excellent job of getting the kids freaked out about tests starting at age 8 in the beginning of 3rd grade, thanks a bunch). It seems they spent the whole 3rd grade year practicing to take standardized tests. Don't even get me started. But those standardized tests give our local school a state-wide ranking, and eager home buying parents pore over the school rating details like they were picking stocks, so here we are.

If this school lost that superior ranking there would be hell to pay with the administration. That's dollars and cents on home values all around, and in the end, that counts more than recess. So the test scores are great. Recess, not so much.

Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood.

OK, it's fiction, but not hard to follow how we could go there. It's Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale" applied to genetic engineering.

How many of those years was she an elected official?

How many of those was she a first lady... of Arkansas, and then of the US?

She's a smart woman, no doubt. She undoubtedly picked up quite a lot about how to run a state or a country by osmosis. However, she was not an appointed or elected official for a good many of the 35 years she is claiming as her experience. She was the SPOUSE of an elected official.

My husband is a nurse. I'd say I know quite a lot about nursing from listening to him talk, and from editing his papers through nursing school. I could even write a decent letter to the editor about problems in health care, due to living in a house with a nurse. But I am NOT a nurse. Being married to one and being one ain't the same thing.

Have done, off and on, since high school. Yes, I masquerade as a parent, a homeowner, a lawn-mowing, voting, grocery-shopping soccer mom. I play D&D with a group that includes my husband and several good friends. Our kids love D&D night--their chance to hang with their friends and watch movies until very late.

My son is learning to read the small print in Gygax's first edition Monster Manual, which appeared out of the bottom of a closet the other day. The line continues.

Gygax, you will be missed.

they're discovering the same thing when it comes to elderly brains--aerobic exercise is worth a whole lot more to memory function than a week of Sudoku puzzles.

When will cubicle-land corporations start having mandatory recess? I'm serious. Time plopped in a chair, showing the boss you are present does NOT equal productivity.

I'm with you on phys ed. I'm also a solo act, minus any kind of flying object. My favorite sport is cross-country skiing. No ball, no team, no noise, just me and the snow.

My kids' elementary school gym teacher has been remarkable at making PE fun for all types of kids. My daughter is like me, didn't like soccer or basketball or much in the way of team sports, but she loves school PE.

They do "scootertown"... basically learning traffic rules on scooters (while exercising). They do jump-rope games. They do all sorts of bizarre and fun obstacle courses. They have a climbing wall.

My only complaint is that they only get PE about once every four days. Due to budget cuts and school crowding, of course.

Remember Walt Kelly?

We have done this to ourselves, on so many levels, not just the manufacturing of solar panels. We want our people to have a living wage, to not pollute the rivers/soil/air/oceans, and so we legislate it. So all our manufacturing moves offshore, so that other people, somewhere else, work for pennies on the dollar and dump the gunk wherever they please. But then we still buy the stuff. Out of sight, out of mind.

We don't have to see it. It's not on our soil. It's not our people working for near starvation wages, for so many hours we'd think of it as slavery. It's not our kids who have to breathe the air that rivals Dickens' London.

But hey! We got some cheap stuff! Wanna come over to my house and see my new cheap stuff? Just got it this weekend at Best Buy/Costco/Circuit City/Target and isn't it neat?