OK, I'll bite.

I live in the burbs. You know, the place where every kid plays soccer, all the children are above average, yadda yadda. Here's what I see.

My son is in the FOURTH grade. He's 10. When I was 10, in the fourth grade, I had my own paper route after school. I had a lot of autonomy (and responsibility) to ride my bike alone, unsupervised, to cross streets, to find my way around my own neighborhood, to understand how far was too far away from home to go without going back to ask for permission.

Being a kid involved a lot of exercise then. If I wanted to go to my friend's house, I had to walk or ride my bike. My mom didn't work, but she sure wasn't going to drive me somewhere I could go on my own. She had her own things to do.

Fast forward to today. My son is allowed to ride his bike on his own (in part of the neighborhood). He rides his scooter on his own. He can go to friend's houses on his own if he knows the way. And I am an absolute MAVERICK for allowing this. I have parents I know who drive their kids three blocks to our house, because it's "too far" for the kids to go on their own (and the parents won't walk either). A mom walked her son one block to our house last week, and we dutifully walked him home, because I knew the mom expected that. This is the "It's not safe" crowd in full force. The world is full of predators, rapists, bad guys, boogeymen, and if you drive your child everywhere and watch their every move until they're 18, they'll be "safe."

So my son goes out to ride his bike after school, and for the most part he's all alone. There aren't any other kids out there unless we arranged it ahead of time. The other kids all in organized sports (and my son does some sports, just not all year, all the time), or at day care, or not allowed out without constant parent supervision.

So lots of kids play organized sports in my neck of the woods, but very few of them just go outside and play. I refuse to believe that the world is full of predators. Yes, they exist. But they are not on every street corner out here in the happy housing-tract burbs. But far too many parents live their lives and raise their children as if their house is a castle with a moat around it. That causes a whole lot of overweight kids, who can only exercise under strict supervision.

None of this peak oil discussion is addressing the real problem. The problem is not SUVs and Hummers, or even Minis and Priuses. The problem is, how will we feed ourselves when (not if) oil reaches $300/barrel?

We've had this discussion several times, here in the letters section of HTWW. But what about the Wall Street Journal?

I'm less interested in the personal car, and more interested in my supper. When oil gets to $300/barrel, we will find a way to get around, one way or another. We'll move closer to work, we'll carpool, we'll telecommute, we'll bike, we'll demand a bus system and use it. But how are we going to feed people who live in, say, metropolitan Phoenix, where there isn't much of a prayer of growing things locally, and everything currently arrives there by truck, courtesy of oil-based fertilizers, thousands of miles away?

Last I looked, basketball wasn't a felony. I can feel for the LW a few months back who complained about the foul-mouthed neighbor who perpetually fixed cars in the shared parking lot. That's something to get worried about. But the teen outside playing basketball? Get over it. Get some headphones, or move somewhere else.

My pet peeve? My over the back fence neighbor who installed a LOUD TV next to his hot tub so he can watch while soaking. In the summer. When our windows are open at night for the breeze. It's annoying. Luckily he doesn't use it much, so we deal with it.

My neighbor on one side cooks aromatic Vietnamese food on a barbeque in his garage, every night. The neighbor on the other side has a front yard vegetable garden which pisses off the Martha Stewart wannabe across the street. I haven't pulled the weeds in my roses yet. Somehow we all manage to get along, and chat about the weather over the mailbox.

Go and do likewise.

Until It's Time to Pay the Bill.

I hope Mr. POW We Support The Troops gets his hiney handed to him in the fall. This is excellent, to see his true colors on display.

So let me get this logic straight. We don't want to send the troops to college, because then they won't re-enlist. Hmm. We'd rather keep them poor, uneducated, and dependent on us for their next paycheck. Kinda like barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. We'd rather have our soldiers economically helpless than truly reimburse them in some meaningful way for their service.

Nice.