Cheating is as old as the sun. So the dispiriting results of Common Sense Media's June 2009 nationwide poll on cheating that surveyed middle and high school students didn't really shock me. Among the juicier tidbits: A third of students admit they've used their cell phones for something other than...

Dontcha just love the MPAA? The movie rating organization is famously mysterious. A group of anonymous people in Beverly Hills go to a dark room, watch a movie, and then they pronounce - like an oracle - the rating the film will carry. There are no published standards, no transparent...

This week Rockstar Games - those wonderful folks who have brought us the Grand Theft Auto Oeuvre - released Bully, a new T (for Teen) rated videogame. Its release is sure to generate a great deal of hand-wringing from parents and media watchdog groups. I guess I will be doing...

Last week, designer Giorgio Armani took aim at the media and fashion stylists. These two groups, he maintained, were responsible for the ultra-thin models now collapsing on runways around the world. My mother always told me to make sure I had on a pair of clean underpants in case I...

I don't want to scare you parents of the college-bound set, but chances are those kids you just dropped off will be graduating some years from now with more than an education: They will leave with credit card debts -- lots of them. College students' average credit card debt has...

A dear friend signed divorce papers yesterday. For many years she'd been married to a man who was a bit of a bully (hence the divorce). True to form, she hadn't stood up for her interests during the separation negotiation. She made, as they say, a bad deal. It was...