The question offered.. Who invented the odometer?

The answers offered.. A. Ben Franklin, B. Henry Ford, C. Thomas Edison and D. I forgot who..

Of course you have to wait until after the commercials to find out the answer and apparently some more news. It took very little for me to decide that Henry Ford invented the odometer. After all, he did build a car. I have heard that he started out making a clock. Judging by how many vehicles I've been in that had the correct time something tells me, Henry Ford did a much better job with the car.

Ben Franklin invented it, originally for use on horses and carriages. There's your trivia for the day.

One of the news topics was the use of blogs by teenagers. Not so much the use of them but the content. I am at odds with myself on this topic.

Blogs, by their very nature, are not at all very private. Add pictures and believe me, not all of them are appropriate, not all of the topics are appropriate but... they ARE writing. If they visit their friend's blogs they are reading too. We may not like what they have to say but reading and writing are subjects our children certainly can benefit from.

That said, I am grateful my children are now grown because I don't exactly have to decide this anymore. You see, I believe there are topics that are appropriate for public forum. We as adults use blogs and have some clue as to the possible ramifications of anything we put on our blog for the world to see. In that world, we must remember that not all people have the best of intentions. Our children don't necessarily even consider what other people are thinking when they read their blogs.

That babbling kindof brings me to another question. What IF.. the same child kept his/her writing into a pen and paper type journal that nobody had access to? Truth be told I wouldn't care in that case. Putting your words, your thoughts, your feelings to paper seems safer. John Q. Public can't get ahold of it and if you decide a year later that you regret what you wrote you can destroy it with nobody ever having seen it. Just because you delete a post, even an entire blog doesn't mean it's not out there somewhere.

Wouldn't it be just so much easier if we didn't have to worry about the other guy.. and what he/she might do with information gleened from a child's blog. Because all said and done, I am all for children of all ages reading and writing anything they want to because it makes for a far more literate person to do so.