The Kitchen Think

Plastic Purgatory

I'm a deadbeat.  At least, that's how my credit card holders see me.  And while being a deadbeat sounds like a bad thing, it's actually something millions of Americans hope, wish and even pray they were.

A deadbeat, in credit card company lingo, is a person who fully pays off their credit card debt every month...thus making no or very little money for the credit card company.  But there are frighteningly very few of us deadbeats, which is why the credit card industry is raking in record profits every year.

Some 115 million Americans, using 641 million credit cards, are in plastic purgatory.  As The Consumers Union reports on its website, Americans are ringing up an average of $1.8 trillion of goods on their credit cards per year.  Nearly 60 percent of them carry a constant balance on their bills...which averages out to about a $9,000 balance per card carrying family. 

And if you still don't think Americans are in hock up to their eyeballs in credit card debt - sit down for this startling statistic:  credit card holders in this country are currently carrying $2.4 trillion (with a "T") of nonmortgage debt.

It's obvious that millions of us use plastic money without a second thought.  But very few of us, including me, know how the credit card industry works.  It turns out that probably what you suspect is true - there's a lot of smoke, mirrors and tricks which many believe border on criminal.  That's why, after a series of recent hearings on Capitol Hill, Congress is on the verge of of enacting new reforms and oversights on the credit card industry.

During those hearings in March, which you can hear about in this NPR All Things Considered, Congress heard some frightening facts and stories not only from people being crushed by credit card debt - but also from experts and industry watchdogs who revealed some of the tricks the credit card industry has been using to hide fees and manipulate other charges. 

To anyone out there who has a credit card, it's no secret that fees have been increasing.  A recent report by The Government Accounting Office (GAO) found that "annual finance charges" have tripled over the past ten years.  But that's not how these companies are raking in the dough.  They do it in a much more underhanded way.

I learned the dirty details by listening to this Talk of the Nation interview on NPR with one of the people who testified before Congress, Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren. Warren tells how credit card companies bury consumer information in such legal mumbo-jumbo small print, that even her graduating class of lawyers can't figure it out.  Which means average card holders like you and me don't stand a chance when questioning a bill or confirming the interest rate we've been promised.

Which is another way they've got you.  Have you ever tried to question, change or get a refund from a credit card company?  Good luck - because the voice mail systems most credit card companies use are actually designed to be soooo frustrating that you'll give up - leaving some undeserved money in the pockets of those credit card companies. 

Also - have you ever really checked to see where exactly you are sending your payment in those pre-addressed envelopes?  Some credit card companies make sure your payment goes to a post office box in a small town located waaaaaay across the country from you - so that your payment is guaranteed to be late by the time it actually reaches the credit card comptroller's office.  Cha-Ching!  You're paying a late fee. 

However, "even consumers who always pay on time cannot avoid the price abuses," Michael Donovan, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center told USA Today. This is because of a common credit card industry practice called universal default, which allows them to raise your card's interest rate automatically, if you're late on payments elsewhere like on another credit card - or a phone, car or house payment.   

It's possible that when Congress acts on credit card industry oversight, universal default will disappear.  But while all this focus on the industry has raised some awareness among credit card holders that things aren't always as they seem - it ultimately is up to us to educate ourselves and be more vigilant about our use of plastic.

There are loads of great places on the web to get caught up.  One way is to watch - on line - this award winning PBS Frontline program called "the Secret History of the Credit Card." In this report by Lowell Bergman, the producer who helped blow the whistle on the tobacco industry, you'll learn "the techniques used by the industry to earn record profits and get consumers to take on more debt."

You can listen to tips on navigating the plastic maze by listening to Curtis Arnold, the founder of CardRatings.com, on this All Things Considered interview. And you can always go to any number of consumer websites and search for information on credit cards.

My suggestion?  Get a pair of scissors and a handful of your credit cards and start cutting.  It's easier to track, slow or even stop plastic money from flying out of your account if you're just using fewer cards.

Or you can pray - which according to this Sunday's NYTimes, an increasing number of people coping with crushing credit card debt are doing. 

But I wouldn't count on any miracles.  I think the "higher-up's" have their hands full with other issues right now.

now you been maxing out my card
give me bad credit,buying gifts with my own ends
haven't paid the first bill
but you steady heading to the mall
going on shopping sprees
peprpetrating to your friends that you be ballin' 'bout
you can pay my bills, bills, bills
can you pay my telephone bills
can you pay my automo'bills
then maybe we can chill
I don't think you do
so you and me are through

Do you have a credit card nightmare story to tell...or a tip on dealing with card companies?  Click below on "Comments" and join the conversation.

Ed in '08! SOS! (Save Our Schools!)

My third grader - like all other California public school kids - has been wielding a No.2 pencil all week filling in those tiny little circles with the hope that enough right answers will translate into $$$ for his school.

To be honest - my son is blissfully ignorant of the financial specter that hangs over his head as he answers all those multiple choice questions - which are then treated by the federal government as the sole measuring stick of the progress he is making in school. 

California's STAR Testing scores, like those of similar tests conducted at public school across the country - are tied to federal funding for individual school districts and schools under the No Child Left Behind program, which is up for renewal this year. 

Just this week, President Bush was at a Harlem charter school pushing for Congress to renew and broaden NCLB (WaPost/APOnline).  Meantime, teachers and other educators are calling for Congress to fix the controversial (yet bipartisan) plan, and some states including Arizona (Arizona Daily Star) are considering opting out of NCLB altogether, at the risk of loosing hundreds of millions in federal funding.

Meantime, America's decrepit public school system grows worse and worse.  And America's kids suffer.

Considering how many people/voters this issue affects...you'd think fixing the nation's public schools would be among the top topics in the '08 president race.  But have you heard anything, from any candidate of any party, about solutions to our country's public education crisis?  I thought not.  Neither have I. 

But that may be about to change...thanks to a couple of billionaires who are pouring $60 million into a campaign supporting "Ed in '08." 

Ed is short for Education.  And the billionaires ponying up the dough via their foundations, are Bill and Melinda Gates and Eli Broad.  But if you missed the story this week, you are not alone.  It was buried in the nation's newspapers this week - which is part of the problem.  Here is a link to the Washington Post's article on the story, which is actually a copy of an AP story, and was entombed deep within the paper's National News section.

However, Ed in '08, also known as the Strong American Schools program, plans to use the media as its messenger by blitzing battleground states with its own massive TV and radio ad campaign - therefore forcing presidential candidates to make it part of their agendas. You can see an Ed TV ad and hear two radio spots, by clicking on this story in The NYTimes. A drive on the Internet for volunteers, and a national network of operatives within both parties is also planned.

As Melinda Gates told ABC's Good Morning America, "We hope [that in] all those town hall meetings there are people in there raising hands saying, 'What are you going to do about education?' We need an inspiring leader in this country that says education is important," Gates said.  You can also read more about the Strong American Schools campaign in the new TIME Magazine.

Ed's first test market was South Carolina, where the first democratic presidential debate was held last night.  According to ABC7 Education reporter Lyanne Melendez, Ed in '08's TV and radio spots began running there a few days ago in advance of the debate.  But it appears a few days of Ed just isn't enough.  The topic was completely absent from last night's 90-minute scrimmage, which you can watch in total on line at MSNBC.com, the network which hosted it. 

In fact, the only time education even entered the picture last night, was when a sign saying "I'd rather teach to the child than teach to the test" literally entered the TV picture behind MSNBC's commentators as they rehashed the performances of the candidates following the debate. 

Sad.  But the campaign has a loooooong way to go. 

What's clear right now is that Americans are so consumed and exhausted by the war debate...that all the other issues, including education, are getting short shift by the men and woman seeking the presidency.  And in the months to come, it will be interesting to see if even millions of dollars and the influence of Bill Gates are enough able to combat the runaway train that is Iraq. 

Here's hoping we can follow the Gateses and Mr. Broad lead, put education on our front burners, and get us to a point where we can leave No Child Left Behind behind!

Be true to your school,
just like you would to your girl or guy.

Beyond Taking Your Kids to Work

It's Take Your Child to Work Day.  But I can guarantee you that I didn't keep my kids out of school today to sit here at the kitchen table with me while I write.  Nor will they be assisting me a little later in vacuuming the stairs, grocery shopping and dropping a load off at the recycling center.

They know what I do.  They don't need to watch me do it.  Besides - I can get it all done much faster without a 6 and 9 year old breathing down my neck whispering (loudly) "I'm bored," and "I'd rather be at school."

It was a different world back in 1993, when the Ms. Foundation for Women created the Take Your Daughter to Work program as a way to combat stereotypes and create new role models for girls, who were just beginning to understand that a whole wide world of career opportunities was waiting for them when they became young women.   

Ten years later in 2003, Ms. added "sons" to the program in an attempt to give the Bobbies, Jimmies and Billies of this country a new respect for their mothers as independent, smart, self-sufficient, fulfilled women - rather than playing the role of on-demand parent which they saw every other day of the year. 

But that was then.  And this is now.  The era of "having it all" is over.  Welcome to the age of "finding balance."

The Ms. Foundation agrees.  This is the final Take Your Daughter/Son/Children to Work Day the group will sponsor.  "We've gone as far as we could trying to influence this particular discussion in this particular way," foundation President Sara Gould says in today's SFChronicle.  And while the so-called "glass ceiling" still hovers above many working women, millions of others, including me, have found creative ways to work around those barriers and make "work" work for them. (not a typo!)

This "Eureka!" moment comes from years of reading all the research and studies which have been conducted to tell us what we already know:  that when a woman chooses to remain in or return to the workforce following the birth of a child(ren), she faces a whole new set of issues at her paying job - while the responsibilities of her "home" work change little, if at all. 

The latest study, "Trends in Labor Force Participation of Married Mothers of Infants" from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows that women are increasingly choosing to opt out of the labor force to stay at home with their young child(ren). This is either

a)  a startling trend that needs to be reversed, as Linda Hirshman argues in yesterday's NYTimes Op-Ed section --- or

b)  a return to a society that embraces motherhood and children, as Caitlin Flanagan maintains in her book "To Hell with all That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife" (read the Times Book Review here) or

c)  a mix of the two

Whatever your opinion on the matter, all this has resulted in a heated, ongoing debate over "balance," which you can follow all over the blogs (The WaPost's On Balance, WSJ's The Juggle for instance), and in a whole new genre of books called (infuriatingly) "Mommy Lit" by the idiots inside the publishing industry.   These books - which are flacked incessantly on talk shows, spend hundreds of pages telling us why we moms are either angry, satisfied, confused or crazy. 

And as it turns out, women aren't buying it, according to this article in yesterday's NYTimes.  To which we all say - DUH!  Not only don't we need to read a book telling us what we ought to think about our lives....we also don't have time for it. We can barely get through a blog like this one without one of our "employers" needing us for something, whether it be "send your report to me as an attachment" or "mommy, get me breakfast."

Please don't mistake my sarcastic tone as anger or martyrdom.  Call it acceptance.  We make our choices for whatever reason, and we live with our choices.  We "working" moms (and any way you look at it, we ALL are "working" moms) constantly tell our children not to whine - that if they don't like their situation, they need to find a way to deal with it, or work to change it. 

We women need to take our own advice.

Though she was born a long, long time ago
Your mother should know (Your mother should...)
Your mother should know (...know.)
Sing it again.....

What are your thoughts on Take Your Children to Work Day?  Do you struggle with balance, or have you mastered your work/life juggling act?  Share your thoughts and stories by clicking below on "Comments" and joining the conversation.

Footnote:  While doing my chores, I've been listening to an NPR Talk of the Nation discussion with kids and parents about Take Your Child to Work Day...and it reminded me of the value of a child going to work with their parent(s) every now and again.  As one mom said, 'It allows kids to see their parents as someone other than "mommy" or "daddy.'"  Plus, kids just like spending extra time with their parents.  But you don't need a special day set aside to do that.....

Charitable Idol Update

We laughed, we cried, we gave back. 

Idol Gives Back had me and my 9-year old in tears last night, during at least one of the pre-produced segments on poverty, AIDS orphans and the malaria crisis in Africa.  The stories about American kids in poverty was a real eye-opener for my son as well, which for me was worth the huge effort producer Simon Fuller put into the show.  And boy, does that guy know how to put on a smaltzy show!

Here's The WaPost's On TV review - which I agree with from a viewer's perspective (hated the white suits!), but you can't argue with the $30 million clams the show has raised so far to fight poverty worldwide. 

A record 70 million people "voted" Tuesday night on the remaining 6 contestants, as reported here on the LATimes Show Tracker...but, disappointingly to me, no one got voted off last night, in the name of charity.  We'll have to wait until next week, when two finalists will get the boot.

Get the latest from E! Online or from any other Idol Tracker site ......

Charitible Idols Give Back

Whether you think Idol Gives Back is "a corporate shakedown" (PhillyBurbs blogs), or has caused the show to veer "wildly off brand" (WaPost OnTV blog), you can't deny it's a brilliant TV marketing move that will also raise awareness and money about poverty.

The show's other Simon, creator Simon Fuller (read a profile about him on BBC News), is no idiot. This is Season 6 after all, of the show the other networks refer to as "The Death Star." And although Idol continues to cream the Tuesday and Wednesday network competition, ratings have been sagging slightly compared to previous seasons. 

However, if you think Fox was overjoyed to hear Fuller's idea to change things up a bit this season and add a charitable element...you don't know network executives.  As TIME Magazine reported a few weeks ago, "when Simon Fuller...told Fox executives he wanted to give one week of his prime-time, never-fail, hit making show over to fund raising--to make it a sort of telethon--he knew what they were thinking, and it was a word you can't say on TV."

As the Time article explains, Idol Gives Back came about when British screenwriter/director and fund raiser Richard Curtis came up with the charity idea and pitched it to Fuller...who had been trying - and failing - to sell tone-deaf U.S. network execs on a telethon-type one-night show which he would produce. (You can read more about this in today's 'USA Today)

But the Fuller/Curtis plan to wrap a telethon-type event in the already established American Idol franchise was an offer Fox couldn't refuse. As Time reports, "Fuller's aim is much more ambitious than making Idol a fund-raising juggernaut. He wants to launch a whole new TV genre, using America's most popular show as his springboard. 'These things can be fantastically innovative and dynamic and not just ploddy old telethons,'" Fuller tells Time.

We'll find out tonight, when host Ryan Seacrest gives the voting/fund raising results of last night's show...and co-hosts tonight's two-hour 21st century telethon with - you knew it was going to happen - Bono as mentor.

If you cruise around the blogs today, there are people who are gushing about Idol Gives Back, like Jason at IdolStalker.com who writes "I really feel this is going to be an amazingly huge fund raising event and effort."  Or the blogger at GiveMeMyRemote.co who says "Good job Idol - I like that you’re taking your world domination and using it for good rather than evil (and by evil I mean those cheesy Ford commercials)." 

Then there are those cynics who don't believe Simon (Cowell, this time) could be moved by dying children in Africa.  "Am I to believe Simon actually gave a crap about those African kids he is seen talking to in Idol Gives Back???? Yeah...sure," writes Michele H on her YahooTV blog.

Bloggers at RealityBlurred.com think it's terrific that Idol is giving back $5 million (as Seacrest said last night) to fight poverty, "but is not that much relative to how much cash the show is pulling in," which Fortune estimates to be some $30.5 million per week.  "Nice, but not exactly bank-breaking" says RealityBlurred. 

Those who expect Idol Gives Back to give its viewers an in depth understanding of poverty around the world have it all wrong.  Last night's short snippets of Simon and Ryan in Africa, Ryan in Atlanta among the homeless, and videos of other hungry American children on a Navajo reservation and in Appalachia, were intended to inform, but not to preach or bore Idol's audience.  For at its core, those millions of Idol viewers come from a generation with short attention spans, limited world views, and quick texting fingers.

Any information Idol can impart about poverty, AIDS, homelessness and the like is more than many of its viewers had before.  And getting them to take action, even if it's part of their "voting" process, is itself a lesson in how to engage and become involved in both the political and social process. 

It's straight out of the Bono book of humanitarian activism, dawg. Check it out. 

You say
One love
One life
When its one need
In the night
Its one love
We get to share it
It leaves you baby
If you don't care for it

Turn Off Your TV, Log On Your Laptop!

It's National TV Turn-Off Week.  Don't those people know that the tube is soooo last year?

Anyone who actually complies with this annual call to pull the plug has my greatest admiration AND deepest sympathies.  One of my questions has always been, does anyone actually comply?  (SFChronicle TV critic Tim Goodman thinks the "war on TV" is so silly, he protests by keeping his ON 24/7)

The TV Turn-Off people cite plenty of statistics about how watching TV hurts us.  It "cuts into family time, harms our children's ability to read and succeed in school, and contributes to unhealthy lifestyles and obesity."  Yes, these are all good arguments. 

I'd take that a step or two further and say that TV also turns kids into dialog-spouting little people whose hero is a talking sponge with a starfish sidekick, and who tend to develop 'tudes far beyond their tender years.  Not to mention what it does to the average husband, who either becomes a zombie, or an idiot who thinks that all women should look like the Mensa models in the Victoria Secret ads.

I'm sure there are countless people out there who will make the attempt to turn off the beast and keep it off.  But let's get real.  In this day and age, TV is old school.  Even my 6 and 9 year olds are smart enough to know that there's another screen far more entertaining and addictive to glue their eyes and mind to.

Those TV Turn-Off people need to wake up and smell the Starbucks.  The screen that's really sucking us all in these days, is the one I'm looking at this very second. 

Case in point.  A few months ago when I told the kids to turn the TV off and find something else to do, they did so - uncharacteristically - without a fight.  I found both of them a few minutes later glued to my laptop watching episodes and clips from their favorite cartoons on  CartoonNetwork.com's JetStream and Nick.com's TurboNick.  In your face, mom!

But it's not just the juicebox generation.

I started converting my TV time over to my laptop more than a year ago by watching clips of the 21st Century "news of record," The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, on ComedyCentral.com's MotherLoad.  The networks soon caught on, and I now watch webcasts of all their evening newscasts, or clips of the stories I'm interested in.

This relic of a NYTimes article, written two years ago about the dawn of the TV-to-Web migration, shows just how slow television executives and the entertainment industry were to catch up with their audience's viewing habits.  However, the Times writer, along with industry bosses, didn't even begin to foresee the lure user-created content would have. 

Who ever dreamed that a 33-second YouTube video clip of an anonymous baby boy laughing hysterically could get more than 13.5 million viewers in a few months.  Or that a couple of budding sitcom writers could create a character like Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager and serialize it on the web.

A year ago, comScore Media Metrix, a company that measures digital media, found that the number of people watching video content on line had increased 18 percent between 2005 and 2006.  Over the past year, those numbers are expected to at least double. 

Entertainment TV is rushing to take advantage of those numbers.  Just click onto a network's or cable channel's website and search for videos - and you'll be surprised what they're offering up. Full episodes of Lost, Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty are available at ABC.com.  Over at NBC.com you can watch Medium and Heroes among others. 

Even TV Turn-Off types who claim to only have a set in order to watch PBS can find some of their shows on line - Frontline being a prime example.  To help video clip rookies, a number of websites like PeekVid have popped up, featuring menus of TV series, movies, comedy, cartoons and anime offered on line, and providing links you can click through so you can instantly see the episodes you want to watch. 

So, sure, TV Turn-off people - we'll turn off the TV in our house for the week.  But I can guarantee you that we'll be logged onto our laptops....sneaking peeks at all the video that has been freed from the relic in the family room, and started a new life on the Internet.

I work and I sleep and I dance and I'm dead
I'm eatin, I'm laughin and I'm lovin myself
I Never watch TV except when I'm stoned,
Like humans do....

Do you watch TV or video on the Internet?  Do you find yourself spending more time on your laptop or computer than on the couch?  Share your experiences by clicking below on "Comments" and joining the conversation.

FOLLOW UP: "FCC Seeks To Rein In Violent TV Shows" from today's Washington Post.  Told you so.  You read it about it right here last month in "Forget About Sex..It's All About Violence." It just goes to show that reading "The Think" can keep you ahead of the rest of the pack.

The Bully's Pulpit

In schools across the country today, it's a day like any other.  Classes, learning, lunch, recess/free period, socializing, and more classes and learning. But for nearly a third of middle and high school students, school has turned into their own personal hell because they are the victims of bullying.

Last week as we all sought to find someone or something to blame for the Virginia Tech massacre - we learned that Cho Seung-Hui had been the target of incessant bullying during his public school years.  A number of stories, like this AP article in the SFChronicle, told of a South Korean immigrant who was taunted mercilessly in class. 

"Classmates in Virginia, where Cho grew up, said he was teased and picked on, apparently because of shyness and his strange, mumbly way of speaking.  Once, in English class at Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., when the teacher had the students read aloud, Cho looked down when it was his turn, said Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior and high school classmate. After the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho began reading in a strange, deep voice that sounded 'like he had something in his mouth,' Davids said.  'The whole class started laughing and pointing and saying,`Go back to China.'"

"Bully Rage," as this piece in the The Huffington Post reminds us, played a role in more than 40 school shootings in this country in the past decade.  The HuffPost piece was written by Jessie Klein, a sociology/criminology professor at Adelphi University who is currently working on her second book titled "The Bully Society."   

Klein writes that in every school shooting in the past 10 years, "boys targeted girls who rejected them, boys who called them gay or otherwise belittled them, and other students at the top of the school's hierarchy--white, wealthy, and athletic--and then shot down other students in an effort to reinstate their injured masculinity." 

And while only a tiny handful of bully victims act out with a gun...Klein says that "these are not random, unprovoked acts of violence but rather a common grievance among many American students. Most react more quietly with suicide, depression, anxiety, truancy, and other more self-destructive responses."

In fact, seven years ago, the U.S. Secret Service, in association with the Department of Education, released a "threat assessment" linking school shootings with bullying.  Among it's findings:  more than 75 percent of the shooters held a grievance at the time of the attack and that more than half had revenge as a motive.  You can read the report by clicking here.

There has been bullying in schools probably since there have been schools, which is likely why the "it's part of life" attitude is so prevalent among parents, teachers and administrators.  But statistics show that bullying has become a widespread problem in our nation's schools. 

A 2001 National Institute of Child Health and Developments  study found that 16 percent of all kids, all ages, say they have been bullied by other kids.  However, among middle and high schoolers, the numbers are much more startling.  A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that nearly 30 percent of students in grades 6 through 12 have been victimized by a bully. 

We can't just blame bullies for the tragedies visited upon a handful of our nation's schools.  As this insightful TIME Magazine essay by David Von Drehle points out, while most school shooters were bullied, had access to weapons and were exposed to violence through cultural influences...the one thing they all had in common was a huge narcissism streak.

But we can't deny the impact bullies are having on our kids and society. 

This NPR story not only examines this issue, but also provides a number of links for parents and others to follow for more information about bullying, and more importantly, strategies for prevention and intervention.   If you have the time, need and inclination, you can read this extensive study on bullying from the US Department of Education called "Exploring the Nature and Prevention of Bullying."

One of my most upsetting days as a parent occurred when my then 7-year old son came home from school to tell me about a run-in he'd had that day with "the school bully."  "I tried to just walk away, like they tell us to do" my son told me, "but he followed me and wouldn't let me go."

They ended up in a shoving match - which landed both of them in the principal's office.  My son wisely learned just to steer entirely clear of this boy, a troubled kid from a broken family who ultimately ended up in another school because of continual disciplinary problems.

Since then, and in other small brushes with bullies, my son has learned to recognize that most of the bullies he's come in contact with have sad lives and are acting out against classmates because it's probably the only time in which they feel any sense of control. 

But my son is only in third grade.  He can still steer clear and walk away, just like they teach at school.  I fear for the day "walking away" ceases to be a solution.

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I know how to save a life....

Have you or your children ever had to deal with a bully?  How has it impacted you, and how have you intervened or solved the problem?  Take time to click below on "Comments" and share your story, or just comment on this one.

News Overload!

This has been the kind of week that leaves you almost wishing that Sanjaya's vote-off had been the big story.  (As USA Today put it, "our long national nightmare/American dream is over,"...but Sanjaya lives on thanks to his fan website and YouTube.)

While we criticize the mainstream media for its over-coverage of our celebrity culture, an emotionally draining real news story like that which occurred this week, makes you actually miss the carefree days of 24/7 Anna Nicole, Brittany....or more recently, the Kim Basinger/Alec Baldwin voicemail dust-up...which you can read about right here on the ABC7 Front Page, in The LATimes, or if you want a more tabloid slant, from TMZ.com.

I probably get wrapped up in news stories more than the average person, due to my news background.  But I'm not nearly as impacted by this week's events as Marty Kaplan, who writes in The Huffington Post, "have the past few weeks of eyeball-grabbing overload left you feeling as sick as I do? I don't mean meta-sick; I'm talking about the very real nausea that culture (to use a kind word for it) can cause."

Hey Marty, be happy you're not Alberto Gonzales! (you can read details about the bi-partisan pummeling from today's WaPost, along more pointed reviews of Gonzales's performance from columnist Dana Milbank and in Slate)

The massacre at Virginia Tech seems to have opened a crack in the nation's psyche.  As we speak, a gunman is being sought in a NASA building at the Johnson Space Center in Houston (you can follow the story at ABC, CNN, or any other news outlet).

But we ALL have been impacted by this weeks events, as two mental health professional discussed this afternoon on NPR's Talk of the Nation.  And we need to recognize that.

One simple solution to such sensational news over-load is to unplug.  Disengage.  Log off, turn off and tune out. 

Return to the real world that is your life, and focus instead on the weekend's Little League games, piano recital, dinner out with the spouse for a belated birthday dinner, visit from sister-in-law, and the small environmental gesture of taking the family out to the beach to collect trash on Earth Day (Sunday, April 22nd, FYI).

Hug your kids.  Hug your family.  Hug a tree.  Heck, hug a stranger.  It seems everyone could use a little emotional lift these days.

I'll plug in again Monday.  Have a good weekend.

And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
You can only take so much
Walk on
Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind

Virtual Victims

What are we to make of our connected world now?

If the stunningly sad and shocking developments which have swiftly unfolded in the past 24 hours have left me, a lifelong newsie 2,800 miles away, reeling...I can't even begin to imagine how the people left in Cho Seung Hui's twisted wake are feeling.

The tragedy at Virginia Tech will not only go down as the deadliest mass shooting in American history to date...but also as one of the first major news stories to be covered and communicated to the masses not only by the mainstream news media, but by witnesses and other citizen journalists on scene who used the Internet and other technologies like cell phones and text messaging to tell the story.   

Technology, which we all now know, that was also bizarrely employed by the perpetrator himself (you can watch, read and listen to it at MSNBC.com), in what NBC's Brian Williams called "a multimedia manifesto." 

But what Cho's manifesto has done, is turned us all into virtual victims of his demented act.  NBC debated over whether or not to air excerpts of the disturbing ramblings, as you can read in today's NYTimes, and the debate has spread to other news outlets, and of course, to the blogs.  You can follow it at The WaPost's Media Notes blog, which will provide you with a number of other links. And in fact, any news organization website you log onto today has ongoing votes, polls and discussions on this issue.

However, while a killer used technology to intensify his crime and spread his sick message...the same tools are being used to bring people together and enhance the healing process. 

The "media unit" of PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer (click on "Connecting Through Technology" to listen) did an excellent in depth piece last night explaining the emerging and frankly, leading role technology and the Internet is playing in the VT case. 

Get used to it.  You are watching the future of news gathering and dissemination happening right before your eyes. 

Although our instant Internet connection to tragedy brings us closer to the real victims and survivors, it also erases the buffer of time and space we had with the old medium of television.  And with no time or space to absorb what we're witnessing on line and no context to put things in, millions could conceivably end up as shell-shocked and dazed as survivors of the real event, again becoming virtual victims. 

Washington Post writer Philip Kennicott broached the subject this morning, when he wrote "We are fascinated by our technologies of self expression, our brave new world of internet journals and virtual romance and digital communities. These images are a shocking new thing to process in a world that seems to be figuring ways to communicate without actual presence, without intimacy or touch, faster than we can quite make sense of how they change our world."

A complete support system has enveloped the Virginia Tech community to help it cope with the short and long-term impact of their experience.  But what about the rest of us?

With progress comes consequences. How we, the Internet community, handle the VT massacre will be telling of how emotionally connected - or disconnected - technology has made us. 

And as a tragic 23-year old has shown us -- such technology can cut both ways. 

Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad world

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Slipping Through the Cracks

Just for a moment, forget about the questions over gun control, campus security, time lines, red flags, and think about what - or rather who - is at ground zero of the Virginia Tech massacre.

A depressed, disturbed, disconnected young man...with the emphasis on "young." 

If you look behind the glasses and emotionless stare of the worst mass murderer in American history, like in this series of photographs in Time Magazine - you can see the boy this 23-year old still was. The new photographs, received by NBC News today, are much more sinister and upsetting. 

When you send a child off to college, he or she doesn't instantly become an adult.  Just because someone turns 21, doesn't mean they suddenly have the skills to survive the ride on life's emotional roller coaster.

College kids are closer to being adolescents than they are adults.  In fact neuoroscientists believe that the brain, especially those of boys, are still developing important circuitry until age 25 (you can hear a discussion of this on KQED's Forum). 

Although parents often blame hormones for making teens seem like someone from another planet....this Frontline program called "Inside the Teenaged Brain" explains that "when adolescents' brains are studied through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we see that they actually work differently than adult brains."  More to the point, a young person will handle anger and isolation much differently than an adult would. 

In our socially disconnected, too busy, two-income, single parent, blended family, cross cultural society --  school psychologists, counselors, teachers and administrators are playing an increasingly  important role in the lives of our young people.  This is particularly the case on college campuses...where parents no longer see their kids on a regular basis.

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention notes that suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students, and the third leading cause of death among 15 to 24 year olds.

If a parent is unaware or unable to help a college kid on the edge of an emotional or psychological break -- friends, teachers and counselors are the last line of defense. Whether or not they are prepared for that responsibility is a crap shoot. 

In the Virginia Tech tragedy, two former roommates of Cho Seung-Hui gave CNN a chilling portrait of the young man who called himself "Question Mark" (go to "Most Watched Video and click on "Roommates").  At least one professor, creative writing teacher Lucinda Roy, was deeply troubled by the shooter's disturbing writings and reported him to campus police.  As Roy told  NBC's Today Show, "their hands were tied because he had not made a direct threat."  And as you can read in this ABCNews story, police and mental health officials had dealings with Cho in 2005 when he stalked two female classmates and an acquaintence had reported him to authorities as possibility suicidal.

The warning signs were there, sadly punctuated late this afternoon by news of the pictures and notes sent to NBC News.  What pushes a young person to act out against others, or do harm to himself, is anyone's guess. Just listen to NPR's Talk of the Nation today and you'll understand how complex the issue of mental illnesses, treatment and risk assessment is. 

As we all struggle for meaning in the wake of this tragedy, we ask "could this have been prevented?"

There is no answer to that.  What we do know is that there will always be disturbed, depressed and disconnected young people in our world.  Some will slip through society's cracks.  And others will be guided through by someone who noticed, took an interest, and took the time to help.   

And that "someone" could be anyone of us.   

Oh can't you see what love has done to every broken heart
Oh can't you see what love has done for every heart that cries
Love left a window in the skies
And to love I rhapsodize
Oh can't you see

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