My father was suspended from middle school back in the 40's because when the teacher tried to hit him over his knuckles with a ruler he flipped his hand over, caught the ruler, and cracked it in half. When he was sent to the principal's office to be paddled because of that, he walked out the front door instead. When his mother asked why he left school, he told her. She went to the principal's office, took the paddle, threw it out the second story window, and told him in broken English, "no one hit's my family".

Any teacher (or anyone else) ever hits one of my kids because of some infraction on school grounds -- well, they will have to deal me.

Gaining kids' respect and attention requires a good educator, not a paddle. Problems go away when children understand why they are being taught and are treated respectfully themselves.

The problem overall is the educational system, not the kids. I hated being locked up in a classroom 8 hours per day -- and mind you I was a great student who attended an Ivy League college and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. It is an unnatural existence for a 10 year old boy to be cooped up all day. But the history of education in America owes to a system that needed to create a working class in the late 19th century... thus the school bell (created so that kids would learn about factory bells).

The system is outmoded and broken. Paddles won't fix it.

I saw this in Chicago... my wife thought it would be nice for the kids. It was the WORST piece of theater EVER... schlocky, boring, trite, and frankly the cats didn't do much relative to the dogs that were also on stage. But the handlers and clowns were the most annoying people on earth.

The WORST I tell you.

There are many other reasons that owning beats renting. A few:

-- if you appreciate quality and discerning design, owning a home allows for improvements that would be wasted money in a rental. Thus, you can live better by owning (esp. if you have discretionary income).

-- tax implications were not considered in the article. Again, if you make good money you are certainly better off owning... the govt. ends up subsidizing a portion of your purchase, essentially.

-- Control.... you can decide exactly where to live and when to move. No, a landlord can't simply kick you out whenever they want, but they can make your life miserable or raise rents substantially at the end of a lease period to get you out.

I can think of many others... that said, I have owned 4 personal properties over the past 15 years and all have appreciated except my most recent which is down about 20%. Stocks during the same period are down further.... If you look over 200 years, stocks might be better -- but like everything in life it is about the timing of your buy-in and sell-out that matter.

Channeling David Byrne, Mr. David Byrne

While cool, I saw this on the street in London many, many years ago... then again in Paris several times, New York, Chicago, etc.

This is not new or unique, regardless of how interesting it may be.

Perhaps the child should avoid the catholic church altogether... skip the indoctrination and the creepy priests in one shot. they may even learn to think.

Another example of this: The Alinea Cookbook. Not coming out until Fall, 2008 the book "team" cooked up this video for promotion: www.alinea-book.com .