Teen

Table talk

By TIMES STAFF
Published March 12, 2007

Table Talk

In the classroom or around the dinner table at home, here's a hot topic to serve up.

Too much progress?

Parade magazine recently posed this question to readers: Which modern devices would you most like to "uninvent"? Their responses helped form a list of the least-wanted inventions, including high heels, water scooters, leaf blowers, automated telephone assistance, television, video games, bass amplifiers, neckties, car alarms and, finally, the cell phone.

Classroom/living room debates

What inventions could you live without? Can you imagine living without the cell phone, or any of the other inventions on Parade's list, like television or video games? What would you put on a list of the greatest or worst inventions?

Talk Back

Go to blogs.tampabay.com/nie to read what students are saying and to share your views. You may see them published in the next Talk Back.

March is also Women's History Month. To celebrate, we would like to share the forward-thinking views of two local male students who posted at Talk Back after reading about inequities between men's and women's sports coverage in the newspaper.

Joshua Green blogged, "Most sports viewers are men, but it is pretty unfair that the women and the men don't get equal coverage in the sports section. What should matter is just respect . . ." D'aundric Echols told us, "I don't believe that women's sports get enough credit. The reason why men get more attention to their games is because people really just want to see more aggressiveness from athletes."

From the woman's point of view, Tenika Cowart agreed with D'aundric that the rougher the sport, the more coverage there is. "I think men get more attention because they are aggressive and have a lot of contact (in their sports). If women became more aggressive they would get the same attention men get. People don't support women's sports because they think we are too 'girly,' but I see it like this: 'Anything a man can do, we can do maybe even better . . .' "

[Last modified March 12, 2007, 06:54:52]