I'll put my school age kid on national television to get booed by a whole stadium full of drunk, rowdy hockey fans! What a great idea! Of course, she'll understand why they're booing, and her feelings won't be hurt in the least!

Just for grins, can you imagine the outcry in the media if Obama put his daughters in that kind of situation?

I'm a mom, and I feel so sorry for that poor kid. My own son is still self-conscious about his freckles because some kid at school made fun of them once two years ago. I can't imagine my child in a whole stadium full of booing fans.

She needs her head examined.

When Henry Ford both paid his workers and priced the Model T so they could afford it, he was onto something. Surprise! The working people of America were and still are his market.

In the long run, something's gotta give. Either wages rise, or we spend less on consumer goods we never needed anyway. We NEED food, but we don't NEED iPods, iPhones, game systems, granite countertops, dinners out, or trips to Disneyworld.

Once again, I find myself writing on behalf of kids who want to dress and act as the other gender. It's OK one way, not the other. The rules for girls are very different than the rules for boys.

How many of us know girls who are rough-and-tumble tomboys, who never don a dress from one year to the next, who play soccer, softball, legos, and race toy cars? In general our society supports that. I can think of two or three girls in our acquaintance who are like this. It's no big deal for a girl to dress, act, and even cut her hair as a boy's. The girl I'm thinking of doesn't use the boy's restroom, but at first glance I'd think she's a boy. She's dressed and acted this way since she was a toddler, as her own preference. Will this girl grow up to be gay or transgender? Who knows? Who cares? She's fine for now. She has parents who love her. Our society allows her to be who she is--a girl who would rather play football and has never owned a Barbie. While some girls have bike baskets with pink flowers, this girl has a thing on her bike that makes engine noises. In pre-adolescence, that's all that matters. In adolescence (coming soon for this girl), she'll have to work things out for herself and figure out who she's attracted to, but my guess is she'll come out fine. She seems like a well-adjusted, tomboyish kid.

However, turn the tables to a boy who wants to dress as a girl, and we all collectively freak out. All of a sudden you have therapy, worry about gayness, worry about transgenderism, and it has to be a deep dark secret. While the girl who dresses as a boy can do it in public and join the soccer team, the boy who dresses as a girl has to keep it secret, quiet, dark, and shameful.

If he wants a feather boa, he can't have one. If she wants a football, her dad will go out and buy it for her and teach her to throw it.

What gives? The answers are complex, deep, and very much based in our society. But how to explain that unfairness to the eight-year-old boy who wants pink sparkly nail polish?

When Joe the Banker would interview a potential buyer, and really wanted to know if they had a prayer of paying the loan back? Because it was JOE'S MONEY on the line? Joe the Banker, on the Main Street of old, had some significant skin in the game.

What about making those loan fees payable over a period of, say, five years? Ten years? Fifteen years? Add some language about the loan originator paying back the fees if the mortgage holder defaults. So Jack the Mortgage Broker has to dip into his own personal checking account and pay it back if Bob the Borrower defaults. So that our financial system begins thinking about the long term, not just the short term. The home buyer sure ought to be thinking about the long term, and so should everyone involved in the transaction.

... I am so looking forward to seeing Michelle and the Obama little girls in the White House.

It does my heart good on so many levels. The Obamas are a team, a dual-educated, dual-income family, raising kids who are about the same ages as my own kids. They understand things like the value of public education, the crushing burden of student loans, and the desire to give kids the best you can afford. They speak my language. They both came from modest backgrounds and achieved what they have through intelligence and hard work.

I am looking forward to banishing my memories of utter disconnect that I've felt from Bush I and II... people and a family who for many reasons have no connection at all to the world I live in. Ideological, financial, social, religious... no connection at all.

I have a laptop, but it's heavy, bulky, and it's plugged into a separate monitor upstairs.

I want to read the paper at the kitchen table, and I still do, every day, with the dead tree edition of my local daily.

I like the idea of the Kindle, but shelling out 300+ dollars for a gadget I can't play with in advance is a bit steep.

Plus, how do I give the comics to my kids while I read the editorials on a Kindle?