On a similar note to young people rocking the vote, I think we should lower the voting age to 16. It's not really about more young people voting, but just increasing the turnout overall.

When the government decided that people needed to wear their seat belts, they used their tiny army of minions to do the dirty work for them. Convince children to wear their seatbelts, and let THEM nag Mommy and Daddy! Schoolchildren are a massive captive audience for any message the government wants to distribute.

Schools already educate kids about their civic duty, hold mock elections, yadda yadda yadda. But what would be more effective than a field trip to the polls? In many cases, voting booths are already in school buildings. If we lowered the voting age to 16, almost every high school student would have the opportunity to vote in either a midterm or presidential election as part of their education. And, maybe, once people saw how easy it was to vote, how little time it actually took, they would continue to do so after graduation.

Also, a big shout out to ANNE! who is going to email me links to recipes, so we might all benefit from her culinary genius (or at least her dedicated reading of the Dining In/Dining Out section of the NYTimes.) Best submissions will be posted. Email blog at preshie.com.