Imagine this. It's 2086. An earnest young graduate student in anthropology turns on his camera, and turns to the stooped, white-haired gentleman sitting across from him.

"Tell me more about this game 'tag' -- how was it played exactly?"

Like one of the last speakers of some obscure tribal language, the old man is a living relic of a dead culture. This one was wiped out by lawyers and those who fear them, well-meaning principals and teachers, insurance companies, anxious and ambitious parents, and school reformers with no patience for playtime.

Dodgeball has been under assault for years. This past school year, my son's elementary school principal banned tag and all its variations from recess, on the grounds it encourages aggressive behavior. And I just saw a USA Today story indicating that she is part of a national movement, with games like tag, socccer, and touch football being banned at schools across the country.

Thankfully, there's been an outcry from some in the educational community, who argue that these kinds of games, organized by kids themselves, are part of how kids learn to get along with each other, work together, and deal with losing and sometimes getting hurt. Active play at recess is also important for fighting off childhood obesity.

I agree with those arguments, but I'd like to add another: playground games are a big part of kids' culture, that little space they find for themselves out of sight of the confines of the grown-up culture that rules their days.

Tag. Sardines. Beckons. Kick the can. Freeze tag. Capture the flag. Dodgeball. Crack the whip...Just some of the ways that kids, left more or less to their own devices, have come up with through the generations to find out who can run fastest, throw hardest, take a joke, skin their knee without crying, lose gracefully. Who's tough, who's trustworthy, who peaks through their fingers and who doesn't really count all the way to 100.

You don't learn those lessons without the occasional trip to the emergency room, bloody nose, or rude awakening. But think how scary it would be to arrive at adulthood without ever having learned them.

Are you going to the Fourth of July parade? Well, Congress has already rained on it. Here's how:

As of July 1 students starting out for college, and many of those still paying off those college loans, will have to pay much higher interest rates, thanks to the budget deal Congress made to cut spending for student aid while expanding tax cuts for investments.

Here's another one:
To accommodate federal spending cuts for Medicaid for low-income patients and children, Congress passed amendments requiring families to show documents verifying their citizenship status. According to the Child Welfare League of America, recent guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services could mean the denial of medical and mental health services to children in foster care.

And while the Senate had to take time out from their busy schedule to debate an amendment to protect our flag, there has been precious little debate over how to protect our planet from the winds and rains of global warming, which the National Academcy of Sciences has just proclaimed is really, really real.

We have a crisis on our hands. And it involves our lovely 5 month-old daughter. Her health and happiness could be affected by a nasty habit of yours: smoking.

You know the facts. You’ve always known. You know that smoking can cause certain cancers, lead to death, and cost thousands of dollars a year. And a recent report issued by the U.S. Surgeon General revealed that nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at home or work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25 to 30 percent and lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent.

You see, even though you cautiously step outside to smoke, or sneak into your office at home, shut the door, open a window and light up, the particles from the cigarette stay with you. They cling to your shirt, your hair, and beard. You bring them with you while you carry or hug our daughter and nestle her to your chest or sit her on your lap. Maybe you don’t know that studies have found that children whose parents smoke outdoors take twice the amount of nicotine into their bodies as children whose parents don’t smoke. When you go inside, the cigarette particles that have attached to you are absorbed by anything or anyone you come into contact with.

You tell me you’re not addicted. But I wonder when you tell me you’re going to take the dog out, and grab the keys and the shiny pack of cigarettes and lighter from the dresser.

You tell me you’re going to quit. “The is the last one,” you say as a cigarette dangles from your lips.

I will not be like my mother, who let her sister, my aunt, smoke in our house when I was a kid. I will not admonish anyone—friends, relatives, or strangers—who tell you to quit.

What does this mean for our daughter? Nicotine has grave effects on the body. The U.S. Surgeon General’s report said that even brief exposure to secondhand smoke has immediate adverse effects on the cardiovascular system. And, because the bodies of infants and children are still developing, they are particularly vulnerable to the toxic chemicals in secondhand smoke. Children, whose parents smoke, outdoors or not, have a good chance of becoming smokers themselves.

It is with great love and courage that I give you this letter. And with great love and courage, you can, and hopefully will, quit.

I remember my first Fluffernutter. Jiff Creamy Style peanut butter, carefully spread on Wonder Bread (because Wonder Bread just can't stand up to crunchy) topped with a layer of Marshmallow Fluff and another slice of squishy bread. This sweet nutritional black hole, a symphonic conglomeration of the emptiest calories in the universe, was packed into my lunchbox -- the one shaped like a barn with space for a thermos under the roof. And I knew it was going to be a good day.

My children have never, to my knowledge, eaten a Fluffernutter. But I think maybe I'll serve some up one day this summer, maybe make one for myself. Set up a little table on the sidewalk outside my house and give them away.

Yes, Fluffernutters are silly and nutritionally void. But they don't pretend to be anything else. Unlike the powers that be in the U.S. Senate, who wasted a whole precious day spouting silly, nutritionally void rhetoric about the need -- or not -- to pass a Constitutional Amendment banning flag burning. While Iraq burns, and the border simmers, and the ranks of poor children in America continue to grow (by more than a million in the past 4 years, according to the latest Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.)

Then there's the empty rhetorical calories emerging from the Massachusetts State House, where legislators spent a week wrangling over a proposed bill to ban Fluffernutters from elementary school cafeterias. Fluff isn't friendless in the halls of power, especially in Massachusetts, where it was invented and is still manufactured by the Durkee-Mower company. So, borrowing a page from the U.S. Congress manual on "How To Do Nothing While Talking a Lot," the proposed ban on Fluff was quietly withdrawn this week.

At least the stuff that comes in a jar has no pretensions.

Update: This just in--the Senate has postponed the scheduled June 29 vote on reducing the estate tax.

In explaining his decision to give away most of his money through the Gates Foundation, Warren Buffett says his children have had more privileges and advantages than more than 99 percent of the rest of the children in America. His heirs don't need to inherit every last cent of his billions as well. Buffett says he hopes his gift will serve as a model for others.

Contrast that with Buffett's peers who are fighting to reduce the estate tax so their heirs are spared paying taxes on the millions they inherit. Those who oppose the estate tax say it's only fair. I say it's only greed.

The Senate has scheduled a June 29 vote on another ‘motion to proceed’ with alternative estate tax legislation that could cost $800 billion during the first decade in which the cut would be fully in effect--a cost that will be borne by the rest of us who don't qualify for the estate tax, especially our children.

As a poor college student, I often wish there was a little help to cover my mounting living expenses. It seems, every success adds a new responsibility: entry level retail job: $120 worth of presentable attire; exciting opportunity to intern at prestigious hospital: $25 per week in gas money; field placement in DC for six weeks learning valuable career skills: cost of DC transit. These are significant expenses on the typical student budget and have often left me pondering the benefits of government assistance. Until now.

The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) shows just how hard it is to get ahead if you are a family depending on public assistance. Because design of eligibility and exit criteria is not well harmonized, many people are exposed to dramatic decreases in benefits for any menial addition to their income. According to NCCP calculations, a single parent with two children making $16,600 per year and utilizing public assistance is no better off then if they found a way to double their income to 33,200 per year, which would make them ineligible for benefits. Actually, doubling the initial income leaves the family worse off than before because this calculation is assuming the parent has health insurance through an employer.

This is, to me, a recipe for struggle. Low wages and insufficient work skills perpetuate the need for public assistance just to fill basic needs. While tax payers bellyache about the dollars being spent to help low income families simultaneous efforts are being made to cut job training and the federal minimum wage has not been increased in ten years. Perhaps a wiser approach would be to orchestrate these issues toward the goal of reducing poverty across the nation. As for me.......I can struggle all by myself.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that since January, when Georgia began requiring families to produce documents of their income (pay stub, W-2 form, income tax return), many Hispanic children in Georgia have been denied Medicaid coverage because their parents cannot provide the required documentation.

Under the previous system, Georgians applying for Medicaid self-declared their income status to begin receiving benefits while the state verified their eligibility. The new policy does not apply to pregnant women and newborns, who can receive immediate prenatal and postnatal care without waiting for eligibility verification.

Diane Dunston, a pediatrician who practices at the Athens Neighborhood Health Center, said, "Many of the families are very afraid and confused," adding, "They end up not getting preventive care and waiting until the person gets very sick" (Augusta Chronicle, 6/19).

On July 1 another new Medicaid rule goes into effect -- for the entire nation. Eligible beneficiaries will be required to show a passport or birth certificate to verify their status. Note, when I renewed my passport recently it cost me $15 for the photos and $67 for the renewal fee. Can Medicaid families afford that? A National Mental Health Association action alert says 49 million people could be adversely affected, and many could lose Medicaid coverage because they cannot produce a passport or birth certificate.

The House Republican leadership has announced it will postpone indefinitely a vote to extend critical sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act for 25 years. Congressional reporters say the decision was in response to intense protest from rank-and-file House Republicans at a closed-door conference meeting.

Can't get a vote on making sure provisions of the voting rights act continue? It kind of puts a crimp in any plans to celebrate during the upcoming Fourth of July, doesn't it?

The National Education Association urges calls to 1-866-808-0065 (toll free) to urge Representatives to bring the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 (H.R. 9) to the floor before the July 4 recess.

Update: If you want to get follow-up materials and a notice when Chiu's paper is released, email jan@connectforkids.org. A summary of this conference call is posted as a field report on Connect for Kids.

Tina Chiu, Senior Program Associate at the Vera Institute of Justice, will be presenting her findings from her forthcoming paper, “Not Just Talk: Incorporating Youth Voice into Juvenile Justice Reform and Practice” on a Connect for Kids conference call at 3 pm EASTERN, Wednesday June 21.

Chiu will address the unique concerns and challenges to government officials presented by engaging young people in agenda setting and decision making about the juvenile justice system, and offer practical suggestions for promoting youth participation in these endeavors. The call’s panel will also include Steve Eiseman, Deputy Chief Probation Officer at the Juvenile Court of Cook County, and one or two youth representatives from the Cook County program. After the panel presentation, we will have time for questions and answers.

I have just learned of Emily Fenichel's tragic death on June 8 in a traffic accident in Washington, DC. Emily was one of the first people I met with when I moved to Washington in 1994. She was smart, passionate and dedicated to her very important work at Zero to Three -- educating parents, providers and policymakers about the developmental needs of children in their earliest years.

Eileen Sweeney succumbed to cancer on June 13. Eileen was another smart, passionate advocate for children. She spent a distinguished career working to improve the lives of families in need and those with disabilities.

We mourn the loss of these outstanding colleagues, who worked tirelessly on behalf of children and families who never knew them. Our deepest sympathies go to those who knew them well, and to their families and loved ones.