The interwebs have spent the day trying to parse out whether Silvio Berlusconi knew the true age of Karima el Mahrough, a 17-year-old girl going by the name Ruby Heartbreaker. The Italian leader allegedly paid the teen for sex last year. Italians have the right to be grossed out -- and cranky.

But the whole debate is just a reminder that Italy has bigger problems than a prime minister who can't keep his pants zipped. Like the legal loophole that has put their prime minister in this mess. It turns out it's not illegal to hire a prostitute in Italy. Nor is it illegal to have sex with a child age 14 or older. See, Berlusconi is only in trouble because Ruby Heartbreaker was 17 and (allegedly) taking money for sex.

Sex with child prostitutes is against Italian law. Is this not confusing? And hypocritical? The Italian law allows for children as young as 14 to take control of their sexuality and allows for women to take control of their bodies. But not both. Confused? Me too. Italy is teaching its girls to hurry up and wait.

I'm not condoning child prostitution, but make up your minds Italy! Either they're old enough to determine what's appropriate to do with their bodies or they're not. And if it's not -- please, please, Italy -- let's get back to the drawing boards and do a little "re-drawing" of the laws.

Because when Jets' quarterback Mark Sanchez was caught (maybe, possibly) sleeping with a 17-year-old named Eliza Kruger last week, I let it pass. He was in his 20s. She's 17. It's not only legal but within the realm of possibility. Their age difference is less than a decade.

But that between the 74-year-old Berlusconi and Ruby Heartbreaker was more than 50. Between Berlusconi and a 14-year-old, it's 60. Put in that context, a man like Berlusconi ceases to be a partner and becomes an elder, a person in the position of authority, a person who can exert undue influence. Essentially, he (or she if it's a much older woman with a child) takes on the power of a rapist.

Hence the reason the bulk of American consent laws push the "start" age for legal sex to a minimum of 16 and put a capper on the age difference between a teen and his or her sexual partner.

Italy has had a hard time pinning their slippery leader down on charges a multitude of times in the past. This may be their one chance to get him out of office and into a jail cell. But it shouldn't take a loophole in the law to nail him. A rapist is a rapist, and the law should provide for their prosecution.

Should Italy shore up its sex acts with minors laws?

Image via CiuPix/Flickr

There's an art form to the Facebook pregnancy announcement, and Jessica Alba just nailed it. The actress revealed on her official page today that she's expecting her second baby with husband Cash Warren. And she managed to avoid the pitfalls of your average Facebook status. 

Not too self-involved. No STFU Parents-worthy overshares. In fact, Alba may have managed the most normal status update I've seen from a star in months. Take a look:

It's been a while since I've been on FB & I thought I'd drop by to let you all in on some exciting news>Honor is going to be a Big Sister! Cash and I are thrilled and wanted to share the news directly with you so you didn't hear about it somewhere else. I appreciated all of the love and support you all gave me during my first pregnancy and will definitely appreciate it again this time around. Have a great day! Jess

So what's the takeaway here? First: A shout-out to the crowd always helps. Jessica's kind thanks to her readers is a little nod to the fact that she realizes this is Facebook, not her diary. She knows people can be genuinely excited for a pregnant woman but simultaneously appreciates their kind wishes. Your pregnancy is all about you, but your Facebook feed isn't. Let your friends know you appreciate them enough to realize your pregnancy isn't the be all and end all in life. 

Second: Stay positive! There's nothing that drags down a Facebook feed like the pregnant woman asking for constant pity with the "OMG, I'm throwing up all day" or "I am the size of an elephant, why did I do this to myself" updates. Honey, you wanted to get pregnant, don't blame us. Jessica kept it short, sweet, and upbeat.

Third: Keep it clean. Announcing "Honor is going to be a big sister" is eminently preferable to statements such as "I peed on a stick today and came out with two plus signs" or "there's a little wiener in my belly!" People love hearing you're pregnant; they don't need details about how it happened or what happens inside the OB/GYN's office.

Fourth: Make people feel special. The Facebook announcement is easy and quick and, in this day and age, inevitable. But that doesn't make it "personal." Noting something like "I didn't want you to hear it elsewhere" or "just wanted to include you" as Alba did takes your announcement from the "oh, she couldn't be bothered" to the "wow, she was thinking of meeee." It's classy.

This is one star whose pregnancy updates I can see myself following. How about you?

Image via Ashley Cooper/Flickr

The National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) has given breast cancer a deadline. The cure must come by January 1, 2020. Do the math, and we have about eight years, nine months, and 10 days to get it off our chests.

I'll admit I was skeptical. My first thoughts were somewhere along the lines of: Are they kidding? January 1, 2020 is too close. They'll never make it! But when I got all that "glass half empty" realism out of my system, I had to admit it. This is genius ... now where are the rest of the cancer folks? Yoohoo! Come on over to the pink side y'all!

The NBCC campaign is pretty simple: stop futzing around already and do something. Focus everything you have on this, and we can get it done.

It's a message the "let's cure cancer" community could use. We're a fractured lot. Even I have my heart in two places. I shave my head annually to fight childhood cancer in March, and in October I'm putting up money for breast cancer causes. I can't pick one because both pull at my heart strings.

In other corners we have the folks fighting bone cancers, bowel cancers, brain cancers. The list goes on. Sure, we have the American Cancer Society. And sure, we know now that each cancer is different. Curing one does not cure them all.

But we are all over the place these days. We want to cure different cancers. We want to address awareness. Treatment. Prevention. Oh yeah, and once again, don't forget we want a cure! What the NBCC deadline has done is strip that all away:

It’s time to move beyond awareness to action. It’s time to peel back the pink to see what’s really happening in breast cancer research, treatment, prevention, and cure.

The core programs are there now. There's awareness. There's prevention. There's treatment. It's time to let those programs run on their own (and yes, to keep funding them), and to put the focus back on the one thing that will make them all obsolete: a cure for cancer.

Because we can continue to sink money into awareness and education every year, and yes, it will help people, even save lives. But each year it requires more money. And more treatment. And more people suffer.

Or we can band together as a cancer-fighting community and say "enough is enough," we want to find a reason to not need these programs anymore. Deadlines tend to make people move. They give us something to shoot for. They make it feel possible. And when it comes to fighting cancer, the possible is what it's all about.

Do you think a finite deadline is the kick in the pants the cancer community needs?

Image via NBCC

You could almost have charted the path before it happened. News that Lara Logan, a CBS reporter, had been attacked and sexually assaulted while covering the celebrations of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation broke Tuesday night. Then came the sexual innuendo and the victim shaming, followed quickly by the criticism of her as a working mother away from her babies. Today, there's a scrambling to find assault details on the Internet.

This is the process, and we still have to ask why the American courts system grants sexual assault victims anonymity? Her bosses at CBS have been criticized for not coming out first with the story, indeed delaying reports until it became clear that other media outlets were going to cover it and CBS had to be ahead of the game. I say kudos to CBS for at least giving a fair shot to protecting a victim. Yup, a victim. Remember that word.

Because little about this process has afforded Logan that title. Instead she's been treated like a circus act, with everyone hungry for a glimpse.

Take journalist Nir Rosen, who hopped on Twitter to make jokes about the assault, claiming Logan was trying to "outdo" Anderson Cooper (who was physically but not sexually assaulted during his coverage of Egypt). He got on Cooper's show last night to backpedal on his misogyny. But he's maintaining it isn't fair that Logan is getting something out of this whole debacle:

Dozens of women suffered from this attack, and one of them is going to get all the attention because she's white and she's a celebrity correspondent. I'm not -- again, I'm not defending myself here or justifying it, but just explaining.

Getting all the attention? Is he serious? People are on the Internet today, trying to find out what a group of thugs did to her vagina. Did that word make you cringe? Vagina? Good.

Lara Logan was the victim of a horrendous assault and through no fault of her own. New details indicate she was targeted by members of the crowd screaming, "Jew! Jew!" That alone would be a disturbing reason to attack someone, but throw in the fact that Logan is not actually Jewish, and it's particularly chilling. 

She's not feeling like a "celebrity correspondent" this week, not celebrating that her company is getting the attention. If she's a typical sex assault victim, she's now:

Attention? Yes, Mr. Rosen, yes mediahounds, Lara Logan needs attention. From medical professionals who can help her through the traumatic aftermath of sexual assault. The way she's been treated by the American public this week may not be physical assault, but it's nearly as bad. Lara Logan has been treated like chattel. Like her most private body parts are not her own. She's been victimized all over again.

Can we put this story to rest yet?

Image via CBS

If you don't already dread having the sex talk with your kids, this will leave a knot in your stomach. A dad in Texas is facing criminal charges for talking about the birds and the bees with his 8- and 9-year-old daughters.

As always, there's more to the story. Jack Buckner screwed up. He was allegedly drunk when he showed his girls porn to illustrate his talk. He didn't touch them sexually. He didn't force them to do anything. He threw on a video and talked to them. His ex-wife freaked and called the cops.

But it's perfectly legal to show kids legal porn (it wasn't kiddie porn, folks) in the State of Texas, so Randall County District Attorney James Farren has gotten creative. He's charging Buckner with child endangerment, claiming what he did has put his children in danger of "mental impairment" by forcing them to view sexual images.

Wait, what? One guy is a jackass, and now parents have to worry about a DA subverting the law every time we pull out some illustrations for the sex talk? Land in a district with a prude for a district attorney, and some very good parents could be in some very big trouble if this gets through.

I was probably in fifth or sixth grade when my mom decided to have "the talk" with me. I don't remember much other than plastering my hands over my ears and refusing to listen. Literally. I was immature, yes, but I was just about Jack Buckner's daughters' age. And listening to my mother talk about the "dirty" things I'd learned about on the school bus was jarring and uncomfortable. I was feeling pretty darned mentally impaired at the moment, I must say.

My mom was frustrated because this was an important talk. So she did the best she could. She pulled out one of those "your body" books, threw a rubber band around the pages that detailed sexual encounters, and sent me off to my room to learn about masturbation and menstruation on my own. Of course the first thing I did was pull the rubber band off and pore through the naughty pages, then throw it in my bookbag and take it to school. I had already learned everything I needed to know about sex on the bus, I figured I'd return the favor.

Now compare the two instances. My mother wasn't drunk, but she also technically provided sexual materials to a minor child. How is it different? Because her heart was in the right place?

Playing with the law to charge this dad may feel right because he acted like a jerk with his kids, but it sets a dangerous precedent. If it's inappropriate for one dad to show his kids porn and talk about sex ed, how is it OK for another dad to do it?

The fact is, some kids are visual learners. And plenty of them get embarrassed hearing the dirty details from Mom and Dad. Can you imagine hearing words like "penis" and "thrust" from your Mom's mouth? Case closed.

Jack Buckner sounds like a bonehead. But should this make him a criminal?

Image via James Bowe/Flickr

Dear Miguel Cabrera,

Word has it you went all the way to Florida for spring training with the Tigers, but you're not having much fun in the sun. You spent about seven hours in jail, dealing with drunk driving charges this morning. Sucks to be you. 

But how do I know this already, you might ask? I'm freezing my butt off in New York, only dreaming of Port St. Lucie sunshine. I didn't see it happen. But Miguel, you made sure I'd know it was you in that cop car. 

Because you made sure the cops knew exactly who you were. In fact, when the cops asked you to submit to a breathalyzer, you asked them, "Do you know who I am?" Memory a little shoddy on that one? It was sometime before you (allegedly) picked up a bottle of Scotch in front of those fine officers and took a swig. Then you said it again, about the time you (allegedly) resisted being put in a cop car.

Oh, Miguel. It's a good thing you're a silver slugger, because the good people in Detroit certainly aren't coughing up $20 million for your brains. Perhaps you've taken a few too many balls to the head, so we'll explain this one slowly. Sports stars who make a point of telling the cops how much they're worth as they're arrested are the same sports stars who walk out of the precinct to find a bunch of reporters shoving tape recorders in their faces. Funny how that happens, huh?

We do know who you are, Miguel. Until this morning, you were a probable Hall of Famer second only to Albert Pujols in the guys to watch at spring training. You came out of alcohol rehab last year around this time all shiny and clean, and you wowed us with the league-leading on base percentage, and RBIs, with 38 homers and a .328 batting average.

Miguel, yesterday you were worth that $20 million. Today, you're your own worst enemy, a dude who cares more about who he is than what he brings to his team. You're not worth the bail money you posted to get back to spring training.

Do you think stars could quash some of their bad press if they were just more humble?

Image via Getty Images/Nick Laham/Staff

Ever wondered how to balance asking your kids to contribute to the family against leaning a little too much on your teens? A little advice -- don't follow this guy's path. A dad in England found out his girlfriend couldn't give him any babies. So he decided to use his teenage daughter for her womb.

He began raping the then 16-year-old, getting her pregnant. To make matters worse, he then threatened to kill her if she told the cops the truth about the baby's paternity. Not sick yet? The girl happened to have a mental handicap that put her cognitive abilities at that of a 7-year-old. She went along with dear old Dad until she found out he'd raped one of her friends.

The man is finally headed to prison to pay for his crimes, the rapes chief among them. But as bothered as I am by the sexual assault (and yes, it's horrible, despicable, and unquestionably wrong), I can see how this man looked at his teenage daughter and decide she was his answer to having more babies, as though she were his property. It happens all the time.

No, I've never met a parent who went to such extremes. But I have run into plenty of parents over the years who treat their kids more like servants than human beings. They seem to have a hard time differentiating between expecting a child to contribute to the household via chores and forcing the child to wait on them, calling the teen from the middle of their homework to clean out the dishwasher, expecting the teen to hand over their wages every week, etc.

These are the same parents who tend to complain about how awful their kids are, who claim their kids are lazy, no good layabouts. They're the same parents who haven't sat down in the last three years to just chat with their kids about their days, to get acquainted with who this person living in their house is, how they feel, and what makes them tick. Instead, they see their kids as a burden. It's no wonder they think they can order that burden around. They turn from members of the family to their parents' (figurative) whipping posts.

It's nothing like what the man in England did. And yet, it comes from the same place: treating your kids like they're property, not people.

Parenting is stressful, and parenting a teen is not for the faint of heart. But next time you just want to take a load off your feet and feel tempted to order your teenager into the kitchen to get you a cup of coffee, stop. Ask them about their day. Ask if they'd like a cup too. You might find out they're bringing more to the family than what meets the eye.

Do you ever feel like your kids don't do enough to help the family?

Image via orphanjones/Flickr

As if life wasn't scary enough! Grey's Anatomy was a hypochondriac's dream last night. The writers served up a not-so-gentle reminder that all it takes is one hour to take us from perfectly fine to dead as a doornail.

Meredith Grey called it "the golden hour, that magical window of time that can determine whether a patient lives or dies." Now is where I'm supposed to tell you that they were making it all up, so you can go back to Googling "sexy shoes" or whatever it is you planned to do today, right? Sorry!

Taking over the busy Seattle Grace/Mercy West emergency room at night was supposed to give Meredith a leg up on the competition for chief resident. But it put her in quite the pickle. She promises her patient with a little bit of chest pain that he'll get out soon to take his son to a basketball game.

Any guesses where this one's going? Young, thin, healthy-looking Dad's got an aortic dissection, which ruptures on the table, and less than 45 minutes later, Meredith Grey is calling his time of death.

This is not a silent killer. You do get a warning, but you have to heed it. Nice Daddy was willing to ignore his chest pain to go hang out with his son, but he needed to be at the ER. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), dissection can be managed with surgery, but only if done before the aorta ruptures: "Less than half of patients with ruptured aorta survive."

Lesson to be learned: Don't screw around with chest pain. If it comes on suddenly and it's "sharp, stabbing, tearing, or ripping" and it moves around your chest and arms, get thee to a hospital immediately! Although it's usually a problem for men over 40, it can happen to anyone -- about two out of every 10,000 people suffer from it.

Scared yet? We're just getting started! Little Grey's got a patient with a blazing headache, plus one in his head. Yes, his girlfriend is a raging bi-otch who doesn't want to miss her dinner reservations because of her guy's little bit of head pain. So Little Grey puts him through all the medical tests and sends the two on their way as fast as she can. But she forgets to take a look at his signature on the discharge forms.

From the time he was admitted with a nice, neat signature on his admission papers to the time he was discharged, it's gone to a lazy scrawl. It's not a headache. It's a CVA, aka a stroke. Meredith to the rescue! She grabs the guy in the parking lot and gets him moved back inside for treatment, and he's saved.

Lesson to be learned: Some people don't even know they're suffering from a stroke. But if you have a severe headache that starts suddenly, gets worse when you change positions, hurts even when you're lying flat, and is enough to keep you awake, get to the doctor. That kind of headache can indicate bleeding on the brain, and the NIH recommends treatment within three hours after symptoms begin for the best outcome.

So there it is. As Meredith Grey said last night, "An hour, one hour, can change everything." I went into an episode of Grey's Anatomy thinking I'd just get a taste of my favorite medical soap, and I walked out with some life-saving information.

Image via ABC

A teenage girl finally had her first kiss. Then she went home and died. It's almost too romantic for words, but this isn't a story about a kiss.

The story goes that Jemma Benjamin waited until she was 18 to feel a boy's lips on hers, and less than an hour later, she was dead. Technically, it wasn't the kiss itself. Benjamin suffered from "Sudden Adult Death Syndrome," a rare heart condition (it's also known as sudden arrhythmia death syndrome) that kills someone who looks completely healthy in something like six hours.

Kissed near the front door of her boyfriend's apartment, Benjamin went inside, lay down on the sofa, and collapsed. She was dead on arrival at the hospital.

I'm very happy for her that she won't have "never been kissed" on her grave, but I'm not going to romanticize that peck on the pucker. It's a heartbreaker -- no pun intended -- that Benjamin was just 18 years old. She leaves behind devastated parents, and she's missing out, quite literally, on a full life.

Recent data has claimed the first kiss is more or less the be all and end all of romance. People are more likely to remember it in detail than their first sexual experience. It's the stuff of poems and songs. But it's just one moment in time, folks. I remember in detail only two of my first kisses, neither of which counts as my official "first kiss." And let's not forget how many folks out there have never, ever had a smacker on the lips. Nuns. Priests. All doing just fine without it.

Maybe I'm simply a realist, but I had to take my rose-colored glasses off for this one and stick to the facts. A horrible disease killed a child, and it's one that might be preventable. So let's stop looking at the kiss, and focus on how to keep your kids safe from SADS.

Can we make sure Jemma Benjamin is more than one kiss? Spread the word about SADS, and we can.

Image via apdk/Flickr

If ESPN describes a kid as someone who can "hurl a baseball scary fast," you want him on your team, right? Of course you would. So why did Anthony Burruto's high school baseball coach cut him from the team? Oh, right, because 16-year-old Anthony Burruto has two prosthetic legs.

And after three seasons on his high school's fall squad, they've decided he isn't good enough for the spring team. The problem? He can't get down low to grab the bunted balls. This is where I'm supposed to say, "Hey, give the differently-abled kid a break!" Right?

Note the word "differently-abled." Because this isn't a story about Anthony Burruto's prosthetic legs. OK, it is a little bit. Because who doesn't want to root for a 16-year-old who had both legs amputated below the knee after birth but who has been kicking major ass ever since? If I had a cap, I'd doff it for him. He rocks.

But here's the thing, Burruto can't cover bunts. It's legitimate. When he was in Little League, an exception was made for him. The other teams agreed not to bunt out of respect for Burruto. But that doesn't provide a good enough reason to cut him.

Because every player on a baseball team brings something different to the table. In the case of Anthony Burruto, it's that "scary fast" arm. He's "differently-abled" because that's the most current term for someone with a handicap, but he's differently-abled because that's life. There are baseball players who hit. There are baseball players who field. There are baseball players who do both.

Looking to the major leagues, we have pitchers like Micah Owings, the Diamondbacks hurler who Arizona may use as a pinch hitter this year. He's that good. But the Diamondbacks once boasted the pitching skills of Daniel Cabrera too, a man infamous for just how bad he was in the batter's box rather than out in front of it.

Anthony Burruto doesn't need anyone to give him a spot on a baseball team because he's a kid with two prosthetic legs. He's earned it with his arm, with a history of pitching in an all-star league at 13, against varsity teams at 14, and on the highly competitive fall league for the past three years. He's that good.

Should he be back on the team?

Image via slgckgc/Flickr

Just when we were all ready to tell Mark Zuckerberg where he can stick his private-detail baring, breastfeeding-hating, oversharing website, up pops a light at the end of the tunnel! We can all continue on with our Facebook addicted ways and feel good about ourselves. We're supporting a site that's all-inclusive! Yup, Facebook is now gay family-friendly.

The site unveiled two new relationship status settings yesterday for users: civil unions and domestic partnerships. Aww. I knew Zuckerberg had bestie material somewhere in that litigious heart of his! We can be fag hags together. 

Add this to something I discovered just this week when I was screwing around on Facebook and "adopted" my daughter's 14- and 18-year-old babysitters: you can put up more than one "mother" and "father" in your relatives on Facebook. In fact, when I put "M" as my daughter, it automatically made me her "mother" on her page, even though she already had her real mom listed on there.

So -- two-mom-friendly and acknowledging the different ways that a family can come together all in one week? I think I can almost forgive the boys at Facebook for being grossed out by baby on boob. What? I said almost.

I'm cynical enough to see this as pure public relations. Facebook just became more inclusive to please us, and it will be happy to reap the benefits. Twenty years ago it was estimated that 6 to 14 million kids were growing up with a gay-head-of-household, and those kids -- gay and straight alike -- are now the adult population of Facecrack Facebook. Addicted to FarmVille and poking, they're trying to find something to justify all the time they waste spend on Zuckerberg's masterpiece. The site acknowledging their moms were really their moms certainly fits the bill.

So Facebook has simultaneously pleased groups like the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation -- which has lobbied for the extra statuses -- and opened the site up to more users. I'm willing to bet it will be the straights who support gay rights that will give Facebook just as much love for this move, if not more, than the gay folks who benefit. Why? Because it makes us feel good. I look no further than my own feed for proof: One lesbian friend already has "married" on her status, another gay couple simply has "in a relationship with X". The only person to grab "domestic partnership" on my feed today is a straight female with a boyfriend ... and a lesbian sister.

It's a way to show support. And if that benefits Facebook, what the hey. I'll be Zuckerberg's BFF if he'll give my gay friends some love.

Does this move shine a kinder light on Facebook's other issues?

Image via Facebook

The first thing you will want to do after you give birth is to get a good night's sleep. Scratch that. After you cuddle that beautiful bundle, deal with the hospital staff, breastfeed, deal with the relatives, etc. you will want to go to sleep. You probably won't get to. But you're getting the picture. Sleep. It's almost as beautiful as your newborn.

Which is why I understand how Zelia Blomfield fell asleep in the maternity ward, breastfeeding her newborn baby girl. I understand how she accidentally smothered little Bela Maddison Lee Heidrich to death. It was a tragic accident, but an understandable one.

So what don't I understand? Why Zelia Blomfield is suing the hospital for falling asleep.

See, Blomfield says it's the hospital's fault that her daughter is dead because a midwife positioned her with her baby at her breast and said it was OK to fall asleep. Blomfield says it was up to the hospital staff to check in on her to keep the baby safe.

I'm sorry, Ms. Blomfield, for your troubles. But the whole point of the "rooming in" movement is to have Mom go solo with her baby. The goal is for a mom to develop her own sense of "what works" as she bonds with her baby, to make her own decisions. If we had doctors and nurses in there all the time, it would defeat the purpose. 

They aren't going to go home with us and decide when we sleep and when we stay up. They won't tell us when baby is hungry or when baby needs to change boobs. Rooming in is our chance to see if we can swim, with the hospital staff a quick bang on the buzzer away. They shouldn't come in to see us unless we call.

Blomfield made the decision to cosleep with her daughter. By and large, breastfeeding moms have coslept successfully with their babies for centuries. But it remains one of those parenting issues that's intensely personal because it does have risks. It's up to a parent to decide how they feel about it, and then take the risks of deciding either way (because there are, indeed, drawbacks to not co-sleeping too). She fell asleep alone in a room with her daughter, and she took the onus off the hospital in doing so.

It would have taken round-the-clock intrusions from hospital staff to save this baby girl from the tragic accident that took her life. But they didn't need to do that. Because her mother had choices to make, and she made one. She picked rooming in and cosleeping.

If moms can't be expected to take care of their own kids when they room in, when will they ever be responsible for what happens to their kids?

Image via sdminor81/Flickr

Poor, poor teenagers. Pediatrics just announced parents shouldn't be giving their teens energy shot drinks, and the kids are mad. Don't you know our kids are exhausted?

They sleep until noon and slump on the couch playing video games all day. What's a teenager to do without their caffeine-loaded bottle of artificial crap? Er, yeah. The debate over whether these drinks are a safe option for tired kids has left me laughing this week because I am the working mother of a 5-year-old. What I wouldn't give to be as "tired" as I was when I was 15.

But the thing is, teens are tired. And it has more to do with their whacked out sleep schedules than it does with a need for more caffeine. Teenagers are like babies. They need more sleep than the average adult because they're at a critical phase in their growth. The average teen should be getting a good nine hours a night.

But when my daughter's 18-year-old babysitter, a senior in high school, was given a health class assignment that instructed her to average out how much sleep she gets a night, it came out at 4 1/2 hours on a good night.

She'd get more if it weren't for the homework. And the 5:30 a.m. start time in order to get up and moving and to school by the morning bell. And the weekend job to sock money away for college. And dance class to get exercise and blow off steam. And did she mention she has more homework to do? Any surprise she totes an energy shot to English class?

She's more the norm than the exception. In a 2006 National Sleep Foundation study, only 20 percent of teens get the recommended amount of sleep nightly. They also found that at least once a week:

Kids grabbing these energy shots is simply a symptom of the greater problem. Our kids are sleep deprived. And there's no easy fix for it. Least of all a caffeine-loaded bottle of artificial crap. So we can take away the energy shots, but that's not going to make our kids a whole lot healthier.

Do your teens ask for the energy drinks?

Image via [F]oxymoron/Flickr

I have a love/hate relationship with classic toy remakes. Bringing back my kiddie favorites so I, er, my daughter can play with them, I'm like a little kid after too many Pixy Stix. Pass me some AquaNet, mama's reliving the 80s!

But when a toy remake sucks, it really sucks. Take the new Monopoly Live. It's fast! It's got a computer! It's supposed to attract tweens who love video games and have no time for a three-hour Monopoly marathon. Excuse me? Hasbro? I haven't even played it yet, but I can already tell it sucks.

In putting a computer in charge of the whole game, they've made the rules iron clad. The little tower tells you what to do, and there's no negotiating. So they have made it impossible to screw the competition. No more landing on someone else's property and hoping they won't notice so you won't have to pay rent. No more hoarding money.

It's Monopoly without cheating. Which, and you can repeat after me Hasbro, sucks!

And in case you're one of those holier than thou folks who actually played by the rules when you were a kid (booooring), here's a little shot in the keester for you too. There's no more banker. Which means there's no more teaching your kid math by plunking down a pile of paper cash at their end of the table. Hasta la vista fun and bye bye education, all in one remake.

What were the folks at Hasbro thinking? Apparently that they could regain their sales. The sales of games and puzzles declined 9 percent last year. The introduction of the Family Game Night video game franchise has helped cut their losses -- Hasbro is a partner with EA on the project -- but classic toys like board games have been seeing much of their sales through remakes these days.

I guess it was Monopoly's turn, but I'm thanking my lucky stars I still have my trusty old Yankee-opoly (adding sports themes: technically a remake) in the playroom closet. My kid is going to learn the old-fashioned way. And she's going to have to keep track of her properties. Because this Mom doesn't like to pay rent.

Will you be spending the $50 when Monopoly Live comes out?

Image via HarshLight/Flickr

Want to insult a woman who just gave birth? Tell her that you don't care who she says fathered that sweet little dumpling. It's time for a state-mandated paternity test.

Welcome to today's addition of stupid laws proposed by state legislators! Today we're traveling to Kansas, where Democrat Melody McCray Miller thinks every child born in the state needs to be tested. Every single one.

And if a mom refuses, the proposed law would give the courts leave to intervene, demanding that a child be tested anyway. In other words, hey mom, we know you're married to this guy and you say you've never slept around on him. He believes you. But we don't.

I'm having a hard time accepting that this is a state issue. Kansas can't legislate what a woman says about her vaginal activities or what a man thinks about them.

Although "out-of-wedlock" births are skyrocketing in the U.S., the majority of babies are still born to married couples. If she's cheating on her husband, that's his problem, not the state's. Until he contests paternity, it's safe to say the mom knows better than anyone whose penis was in her vagina.

And let's talk about the non-married couples. Is it really fair to assume that a woman is automatically lying about the men she's slept with. Provided he is claiming the child as his own, this is again, the man's problem, not the state's.

And finally, what about cases where there is no father to be found? Should a woman who has been subject to domestic violence have to have her child swabbed in case her ex-boyfriend the creep shows up? If she's not asking for child support, she should retain the right to protect both herself and that child. How about moms who have used a sperm donor? Do they need to go through this too?

State Rep. McCray Miller may have had her heart in the right place with this one, but she might want to think about what she's said to the women of Kansas with this proposal. "Sorry, ladies, but we don't trust a damn thing you're saying."

Think she'll get the female vote in the next election?

Image via melissa clark/Flickr

Hey, hey, pinch me! I'm feeling like a sleepy Jeanne today, but I think I just read that The Monkees are going back on tour to celebrate their 45th anniversary. I wasn't sure whether to call my kid over to load up my iPod to prep the kid for the show or hang my head in shame that I even considered it.

Fortunately the mop-haired crew heard my "oh please God, don't make an aging dork choose" plea. They've decided to limit the love to screaming women of a certain age in England. The first show will be in Liverpool (home of the Beatles), the rest scattered throughout the U.K.

I was relieved for five seconds. Then I got mad. Hey you, Davy Jones, don't you care about the American fans who made you 45 years ago? Did The Monkees not get that they failed the first time they tried to mimic the Beatles?

I mean, sure, I'd hop on the "Last Train to Clarksville" with Davy Jones and co. any day of the week. They're one of the few to put my name to song in a way the playground crew couldn't warp too badly. But The Monkees share the portion of my heart also opened up for the likes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, Gossip Girl, Sugar Babies candy and Twilight. They remain the dessert of the music biz: that which is savored with the full knowledge that it will cause unpleasant growth in certain areas, but it tastes so good going down that it's worth it.

Not so pleasant that they're worth tickets over the pond to catch their tour, however. And so I demand that The Monkees pull up stakes and come home. Yes, home.

I wasn't yet born when they were created 45 years ago, but I remember clearly that despite Jones' British background, the band owes its start to Los Angeles, where the quartet came together for a TV show spin off of A Hard Days Night. They topped the musical charts, kept the show going then later become a Nick at Nite favorite.

Critics will say that floppy hair and musical success notwithstanding, they remained the poor man's version of John Lennon's crew. But whine all you want, critics. That's why we love them! The Fab Four are tiramisu. The Monkees are Pixy Stix. And man, I get a sugar rush from Pixy Stix.

Davy, you've got a whole lot of red-faced believers over here in America, so do us a favor. Step out of the Fab Four's shadow and come on home. If I see your face, I'm sure I'll be a believer again.

Are you a (slightly embarrassed) Monkees fan?

Image via John Beagle/Flickr

The first time the school called my house to tell me my kid had been marked absent, I laughed. She was lying, miserable, on a love seat across the living room. Yes, of course she'd been marked absent. Duh.

The next day, they called again. Absent. And again, I rolled my eyes. Now I'm re-thinking that whole scene. Because at least my school didn't clamp a GPS tracker on my kid for not showing up to school.

That's what they're doing at California's Anaheim Union High School District. Kids in the seventh and eighth grades with four or more unexcused absences are being assigned GPS trackers to carry. The kids get a phone call each morning from the school system reminding them to get their butts to school. AND throughout the day, they're required to enter a code tracking their location.

OK. OK. I get it. Truancy is bad. It's a direct warning sign that a kid is in danger of being a dropout. Figures from 2008 (the latest available from the U.S. Department of Education) show an estimated 8 percent of kids 16 and up are high school dropouts, with no diploma and no GED. So it's no wonder they're taking it very seriously in Anaheim.

But GPS trackers? This isn't Oz! The average seventh grader is just 12 or 13 years old. If they're skipping school, there is probably a bigger problem than their location at one particular time (which I should note Anaheim is also addressing with a counselor who calls the kids three times a week -- I wish they'd left it at that).

At the root of most of these GPS programs -- whether it's a school district slapping one on or the parent-purchased kiddie trackers out there on the market -- is a sign that the adults don't trust the kids. Is it warranted by the kids' actions? Absolutely. But it doesn't make the children more trustworthy, it lets them know you care more about their behavior than the reason behind it. It's a deconstructive way of getting kids to behave.

Look at it this way. You tell a kid you want them to brush their teeth. But instead of something constructive -- explaining to them why they need to brush, bribing them with rewards, taking them to the dentist for a look-see -- you hold them down and brush their teeth for them anyway. What did the kid learn? Nothing. And what did you learn about why they aren't brushing? Exactly!

Counseling truant kids is the right answer, not dehumanizing them.

Would you let the school track your child?

Image via Jimmy_Joe/Flickr

Anytime someone promises the "all-time greatest 100" anything, you know they're going to make some enemies. As it stands, TIME's reporter did the best she could with the greatest toys of all time. She mentioned my favorite wagon (Radio Flyer), my favorite mess maker (finger paint), and my favorite stuffed animal (sock monkey).

She managed to go both general and specific, highlighting great toy brands and some creations that are good in all their market varieties. But TIME had to know when the title is aimed that high, someone was going to come a-whining. So here I am! Don't take it personally. I know you could only fit in 100. But some of the toy choices are just plain odd.

The Flatsy doll, for example, comes from the 1960s ... explaining perhaps why not one person I've asked remembers it. And I've asked a lot of people of different ages. And the Plarail Toy Train? I never heard of it personally (although others had), but my real beef is that it seems a strange choice over, say, the classic Lionel. Not to mention the Bratz dolls, who get their spot on the list, are equal parts slutty and creepy (you remove their feet to change their shoes for crying out loud!).

So in case TIME is thinking of a little adjusting, here at The Stir, we thought we'd give them a crash course in classic toys that we'll never forget that they can add to their list:

1. Candy Land

2. Big Wheel

3. Swingset

4. Atari

5. Micro Machines

6. Strawberry Shortcake

7. Twiddly sticks

8. Breyer horses

9. Trouble

10. Fisher Price record player

11. Spirograph

12. Rainbow-Brite

13. Twister

14. Sit n Spin

15. Battleship

16. Crayons

17. Scooter

18. Ping pong

19. Skateboard

20. Paper dolls

21. Roller skates

22. Lionel trains

23. Foosball table

24. Bicycle

25. Tinker toys

26. Lincoln logs

27. Kite

28. The stick

29. The cardboard box

30. The rocking horse

31. Erector set

32. Teddy bear

33. Jacks

34. Marbles

35. Alphabet Blocks

36. Deck of cards

37. Nintendo

38. The Game of Life

39. Ouija Board

40. Jigsaw puzzle

41. Jump rope

42. Hess trucks

43. Wind-ups

OK, we KNOW we missed stuff here. So help us out. What else belongs on the best toy list of all time?

Image via meddygarnet/Flickr

There's nothing like a mention on The Colbert Report to get a politician all giddy. No matter what Stephen Colbert says about you, the rule that there's no such thing as bad publicity might as well be written in stone. Unless you're Rick Santorum.

Colbert announced last night that he sees the former Pennsylvania Senator as a definite contender for the 2012 presidential race. I know what you're thinking -- he's Colbert. There's no way he means it. You're right ... but you're even more right than usual. Studies have verified that appearing on The Colbert Report gets people mega-watt attention.

Using campaign contributions as a gauge, San Diego political science professor James Fowler determined back in 2008 that 30 days after the show, Democratic candidates who got the Colbert treatment earned about 44 percent more in campaign donations than counterparts who were not on the show. According to Fowler, Colbert is just as influential as he is sarcastic.

And last night he used that power for bad. By mentioning him on his show, Colbert made it clear he wants people to Google Rick Santorum, and Rick Santorum may be the first politician of this millennium who desperately wants to keep you off Google.

You might have heard that Rick Santorum has a Google problem? Go ahead, pull up another tab in your browser. Type his name into Google. Ignore the very top finding. Click on the second one. See that Wikipedia listing? You'll soon find that:

Santorum is a sexual neologism for a "frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex," and was proposed by American humorist and sex-advice columnist Dan Savage in 2003 to "memorialize" then-Republican U.S. Senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania due to the controversy over his statements on homosexuality.

Colbert pulled no punches, he brought up the Google problem on his show along with his tongue-in-cheek support -- although he said it was the "first" listing rather than the second:

Savage "Google bombed" the Internet, calling on supporters to help push that Wikipedia listing to the very top of the search results. But it looks like Stephen Colbert just Colberted the Internet. He explained for people what Savage had done, but he also shined a light on WHY Savage did it. And thanks to the Colbert influence, a mention on the show has all but guaranteed that frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter will remain forever linked to Rick Santorum. So much for no publicity is bad publicity, huh?

Did Colbert help Santorum last night or hurt him?

Justine Siegal just became the first woman to pitch in the major leagues. Yesterday, Siegal threw batting practice for the Cleveland Indians -- and in doing so, honored a little girl who also loved baseball. Siegal wore a patch in memory of Christina Taylor Green on her sleeve.

If you remember, Christina was the 9-year-old who captured America's heart earlier this year when she was gunned down at a grocery store meet-and-greet with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. Most people know by now that Christina was a Student Council member who was at the store to talk to Giffords about a possible future in politics. But there was another dream in Christina's heart.

To play baseball.

Christina -- the daughter of John Green, a Major League Baseball scout, and granddaughter of former Philadelphia Phillies manager Dallas Green -- was the only girl on her little league team. And according to her grandfather, she was headed places:

Christina was the star on her team, if you talk to her about it. She said she was going to be the first major league gal. That's nine years old. She was pretty good. I did see her swing the bat a couple times. John said that she's not a bad little player for nine years old.

Justine Siegal loves baseball too. And while yesterday, she beat all the little girls who dreamed of being first to the punch, she made sure we remembered Christina. Siegal pitched so well to the Indians yesterday that Manager Manny Acta admitted she'd made him look bad. (Siegal also boasts a record of being the first woman to coach first base in men's pro baseball for the Brockton Rox in 2009, and she spent three years as the only female college baseball coach in the country, as an assistant coach at Springfield College from 2007-10.)

Yup, she's got every right to scream her accomplishments from the rooftops, but Siegal remains humbled by the story of Green. Founder of Baseball for All, a non-profit that aims to destroy the notion that "baseball is for boys, and softball is for girls," she fielded a host of queries after the Arizona tragedy about how to appropriately memorialize the little girl's love of the game. That could have been enough to guarantee she'd carry the little girl with her to spring training.

But there's something more. The something that made us all sit up and pay attention when we heard a little girl had been shot. Siegal is a mom. And on her blog about her journey into the majors, she compared the 9-year-old to her own daughter, 13-year-old Jasmine:

How can I describe the sickness I feel in my stomach every time I think of her smile, her dreams, her youth? Should I share that my favorite part of my day is when I kiss my daughter goodnight because I know she is home safe?

Justine Siegal just gave the greatest reason of all to take what she's done and make it about someone other than herself. Because kids deserve the chance to grow up and live their dreams ... and this one couldn't.

She's my new hero; how about you?

Image via Getty Images/Norm Hall/Stringer