This week’s recommended reading from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Every now and then SNL really gets it spot-on.
• Ford and the CDC share some crisis communications lessons.
• 60 percent of Americans engage in couch potato multi-tasking.
• Seth Godin makes the case for spending five minutes each day doing truly worthwhile work.
• Donna Fenn explains why “Gen Y” is more accurately called the “Entrepreneurial Generation.”

Sunday night, I was watching the HBO World War II mini-series, Pacific, with my 15-year-old son. My brain wandered, as brains often do, especially mine. I thought about the fact that my son never really played war when he was young.

When I was a kid, we would spend entire days running through the neighborhood shooting each other with toy machine guns. I remember the arguments when one boy would claim he “killed” another boy, but that boy would argue back that, “no, I was just wounded.” Today, kids don’t play war. I’m not sure when it went away. I doubt my generation was the last to play war. But I don’t think it lasted much beyond when I was a kid. Because then came the worst of Vietnam, and our culture’s entire view of war changed.

And now, I find it extremely sad, a tragic indictment on our culture that we need advertising and government programs trying to get kids off the couch and outside to play.

Maybe political correctness killed the boyhood game of war. That, and parents unfounded fears of ever letting their children out of their sight. But maybe that was the beginning of the end of childhood as we knew it.

My 15-year-old twins have their learner’s permits. The other day I taught my son a very important driving lesson.

He’s driving. We pull up to a stop light, next to a mini-van. We are stopped just a bit further back than the mini-van, so while I can see the driver of the mini-van, I can really only see her from behind. My son then makes the turn and pulls up to another traffic light.

Me: You really made a serious mistake back there.

My son (looking very worried): What? What did I do?

Me: We pulled up next to another car. I couldn’t tell but there might have been a good-looking woman driving. But you didn’t pull up far enough for me to check her out. Don’t make that mistake again.

My son: (Quietly looks and shakes his head.)

Me: I’m serious. When I’m in the car get this right. Or I’ll never allow you to get your license.

Too many kids are left to learn these things for themselves. I’m going to make sure my kids are taught all of the keys to being a good driver.

Last night, at a dinner opening my son’s high school lacrosse season, I was asked to say a few words because I am co-chair of the Booster Club. I started with: “I speak in front of a lot of groups, but I’m probably most nervous when I speak to this group. That’s because I know my son is back there praying, ‘Please God, don’t let him say anything stupid.’”

On the way home I asked my son what he thought of my funny opening line. “What did you say? I didn’t hear it,” he responded. “I wasn’t listening. I was just thinking, ‘Please don’t say anything stupid.’”

Ever since my teenage daughter got a job, my wallet has lost control. Now that she doesn’t need my money (at least not for the necessities, like clothes — tuition, for example, is just a luxury) I have little if any influence in her life.

My daughter, for example, has expressed interest in photography. That’s my hobby. I’ve encouraged her to join the photography club at school. She is very creative and I think would be very good at it, plus it would give us something to do together besides our occasional father-daughter trips to the mall. She hadn’t followed up yet so the other day I told that, if she wants, I’ll buy her a very good camera and I would teach her.

“Maybe,” was her thoughtful response.

Nothing. I’ve got nothing anymore now that she has her own money.

So I tried again. “I’d even share my lenses with you,” I said.

“We’ll see.”

I got desperate enough to offer to share my lenses. Do you know what it takes for a man to share his lenses? But it all means nothing to my teenage daughter. Because she’s got a job.
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Here’s a handy home and garden tip from Blogenberg. When your 70-pound dog decides to try to “dig” through the carpet to get after a mouse (or some other critter) she saw, the result is not, shall we say, Martha Stewart-like.

This week’s recommended reading (and viewing) from your friends at Blogenberg…

• Jess3 put together this great and useful compilation of web stats.
• The Onion wonders what effect the death of newspapers will have on people.
• The Economists asks how we can manage the vast amounts of information.
• From the cool music video file, OK Go knows how to do it right.
• Yesterday’s story about the imminent retirement of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts demonstrates the pitfalls of online exclusives and the importance of confirming information gathered by sources.
• Dallas Lawrence shares three good tips for surviving a crisis in a social media world.

I bought the novel A Reliable Wife. I told my wife it’s a how-to manual.
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I keep getting Facebook friend requests from really good-looking young women. I’m sure it’s not a scam. I’m sure it must be my Blogen-peal.
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My teenage daughter gets a job. She gets money. I get to be her car service. Gee, this worked out great.
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I talk a lot, often to people I don’t know (perhaps because people I know are tired of talking to me.) I can’t remember a time when people were so angry — in a non-partisan way — at Washington. People are convinced that members of Congress, especially, have no clue how to fix the economy and aren’t telling the public the truth.
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Regular visitors to Blogenberg know that the blogosphere revolves around Blogenberg. A couple weeks ago I reported on a very cool new award program for young social entrepreneurs (disclosure: it’s run by The Hitachi Foundation, a client). Check this out at Inc.com.
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