There’s a disturbing new trend among teenagers. They call it “sexting.” For example, a girl decides to take pornographic pictures of herself and send them to her boyfriend in a text message. Of course–none of your kids have ever done that. But nearly 1 in 5 other girls have. And they’re not just naked pictures. New York City high school senior Juli Sacontreras says kids send pictures of things like “People using drugs, of people being drunk, maybe doing some other illegal activities,” all the time.

Most of these incredibly stupid messages reach the intended recipient–a boyfriend or girlfriend–but others have gone “viral.” When Jesse Logan and her boyfriend broke up, he forwarded some of her nude photos to some girls in the school. They gave her a hard time about them–such a hard time, in fact, that she killed herself. She was just 18. Other teens have lost college scholarships over such immature decisions. Potential employers scan the net now to review–and weed out–young candidates.

Stefanie Garcia is another high school student in New York. “Girls in underwear, guys completely naked, muscle pictures, stuff like that,” she claims take place commonly. Many people heard about the unfortunate case of Actress Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) who sent pictures of herself to her boyfriend. And you can guess what happened. The internet scandal nearly lost her a contract with Disney. In my opinion, Disney should have closed the deal. It would have sent a powerful message to all kids.

Because teenagers often have no concept of future consequences, some authorities took a bold step to crack down on the practice. Six 14- and 15-year old Pennsylvania teens were arrested on charges related to child pornography. The move has been controversial, of course. But how else to convince teenagers that this is such a foolish thing to do?

But lawmakers in Vermont decided that child porn charges are over-the-top. And the problem is so wide-spread…why not just make sexting legal? The state legislature is considering that move this week.

I’m not a legal scholar. And I know that some battles are not worth fighting. But I think this is one of the important ones. Exchanging explicit photos is irreversible. Nothing can be erased from the internet. This kind of thing can ruin a child’s life–even if she made the decision herself. Teenagers are too young, and their brains are literally not fully developed enough, to grasp the immense consequences of such an action. They need to be protected from themselves. But I don’t know if either extreme–child porn vs. legal status–is the answer.

As a teacher, I never had a discussion with my students specifically about sexting. But I have had many conversations about the kinds of things they say and post on MySpace. I don’t see many teens who have a real notion of the web being global and permanent. They just think that their friends will see and laugh about what they put out there. One girl even became pretty upset about how her parents had violated her privacy by reading her FaceBook page. When I told her there was no such thing as internet privacy–that the idea was an oxymoron–she disagreed.

Now, clearly, most kids aren’t whoring themselves on their cell phones or online. But posing nude for the camera–and then the world wide web–is pretty close. They’re just not getting paid for the pictures. And if you have a teenager, think about five of his or her friends. Which one is doing this?

I tend to think the best medicine for this is a reality check. That a real–and dangerous–child porn viewer can easily get those photos. That their colleges and bosses and even their grandparents can see these pictures forever. That their boyfriend today isn’t likely to even be a friend next year. That sexting is a really, really, REALLY bad idea.

What do you think should be done to stop this?

The cover of this week’s Life & Style Weekly magazine features Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and their six (and counting) children. The headline reads: “New home for the kids”.

This refers to the family’s new home in Lloyd Neck, NY, a tiny hamlet on Long Island. The home, called Sassafrass, is an English Tudor style 22,000 square foot house that’s worth $60 million.

The estate includes 48 acres with horse stables, two helicopter landing pads, woods with hiking paths, a formal garden to play in and its own barber shop. The house has eight bedrooms and 12 bathrooms. The guest house has six bedrooms and there is a house for staff, such as nannies and housekeepers, with 11 bedrooms.

The area looks quaint, with many nice parks and playgrounds as well as a cute town with nice little shops.

I understand that a couple in the limelight like Brad and Angelina need their privacy but certainly this can be obtained on fewer than 48 acres and with fewer than 22,000 square feet. The pair claims that the new home is “for the kids”. That’s great but I really don’t think that a large home is what children need in order to be happy. As long as a place feels like home; as long as it is where children feel safe, cared for and loved, they will thrive.

When I was a kid, we lived in a small house in Shorewood, Illinois for about five years. I remember this house fairly well. I didn’t think of it as being small or large…it was my home, which I shared with my family, ate my meals, slept at night and shared a bedroom with my two sisters. Several years ago, my sister returned to our former little cottage. She told me she couldn’t believe that we had lived there as kids; it was a tiny shack.

Sure, maybe the place got run down and even abandoned over the years, but she couldn’t get over how tiny it was. This hadn’t mattered to us when we lived there. I don’t even remember comparing the house to others.

Kids can be happy as long as they have a stable, loving home, be it an apartment in the city or house in the country. Pax, Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh and the baby twins could certainly be just as happy in a more modest home. It kind of makes me ill, thinking about their lavish lives in contrast to the many families facing foreclosures in our country right now. I just count myself and my family lucky to have a home, whatever the size.

In September 2006, the Centre for Health Governance, Law & Ethics in the Faculty of Law, University of Sydney hosted the symposium “Obesity: should there be a law against it?”. The papers presented at the conference expressed different perspectives on strategies that might help curb the obesity epidemic especially among children, from advertising regulation to taxation, to cash incentives. Australia, New Zealand and many European countries have already taken steps towards governmental interventions to address the problem.

In the US, one of the first and most controversial of these measures is the obesity tax proposal in New York. The proposal would place an extra 18% sales tax on fattening products such as non-diet soda and sweetened drinks which have less than 70% fruit juice content. Supporters of the tax proposal which include Governor Paterson and State Health Commissioner Richard Daines give the following reasons:

• It would discourage people from drinking soda and other fattening drinks.
• It will help fight obesity.
• It would help raise $400 million for the state and help balance the budget.

Mr. Daines even posted a video about the proposal on YouTube. (featured above)

Many reports claim the tobacco taxes are helping curb smoking. Obesity tax proponents hope that fattening drink consumption would follow the same pattern.

Opponents of the proposal, however, claim there are better ways of fighting obesity and that the obesity tax is not fair to the consumers.

So far, the proposal “did not pass muster with the legislature in the last session” according to Channel News 13.

So what is your take on the obesity tax proposal? As a parent? As a consumer? As a taxpayer?