So, Rep. Patrick Kennedy thinks that people should be able to keep information about STDs and abortions out of their electronic health records, which are mandated for every American by 2014 under the stimulus law that was enacted in February. It skeeves me out a little that the government will have access to them “when authorized.” But if we’re going to have them, why is abortion special? And STDs? STDs can lead to cervical cancer and infertility. Isn’t that kind of important for a doctor to know?

Right now I cannot even imagine how the Polanski case will turn out, but since justice is meted out so unevenly anyway, I wonder if inherent in Scorcese et al.’s defense of Polanski isn’t the suggestion that there ought to be a genius exception to the rule of law—that is, if you are a great artist, what’s a little rape on the side?

KJ, I agree that the idea of having adults hover around playing kids to make sure their games are on track seems a touch overbearing—not for teachers, necessarily, but certainly for parents. But the part of Paul Tough’s New York Times Magazine article on the “Tools of the Mind” program that stood out to me wasn’t the image of micromanaging adults but the question of how, exactly, they’re supposed to regulate the kids given the rules of the program. In the “Tools of the Mind” classrooms, Tough writes, "There are no gold stars, no telling the class that they are all going to have to wait until Jimmy is quiet; even timeouts are discouraged." But what’s so bad about gold stars?