The schoolchildren respond.

Employing their critical-thinking skills, some students evaluate the much-anticipated Obama school speech:

"It was more geared toward kids who are likely to drop out," said 15-year-old Michael Trimble, a sophomore at Dwyer High School in Jupiter. "Most of us are already doing what he said."

Other students in Michael's Advanced Placement world history class offered similar comments, saying the speech was monotonous and uninspiring.

"He just said what everyone expected him to say," added Zacharay Jacobson, 15.

Some also felt that Obama was putting too much pressure on them to fix the world's problems — problems that they didn't create. *

"We're supposed to fix what you guys broke," Michael said. "Like he was saying, 'You guys have to fix our problems and become the greatest generation.'"

Soft bigotry of low expectations, or merely defining down student accomplishment?

(ie/ for some, just graduating is not success, nor is merely obtaining a college degree. It's what you learn, and sadly, what used to be taught at the high school level is now what's necessarily taking place in too many colleges. Watch President Reagan's 1988 speech to high school students -- he talks "up", not down, to them -- and tell me that educational expectations haven't declined in our technological age. Substance, baby.)

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* I hope young Michael and his cohorts tune in for Wednesday night's speech to hear the President explain how we can afford a bloated healthcare mandate in these times. So much, of course, will fall to Michael's generation to pay the bills that these politicians -- D and R -- continue to rack up. These young voices are the ones not currently being heard, and yet they are the ones whom we intend to pass the big bill to ...

Related: Maybe she could do as so many other creative, determined, and organized friends and family do in these circumstances: hold a private fundraiser, and invite all the public you can! Donated prizes, silent auctions, hamburger and hotdog sales, soliciting help and donations. True friends take action: they don't stand by and let their friends suffer from poor healthcare because of lack of funds, if they themselves can contribute to the cause.

You might not like the idea of "charity" help for the uninsured. But welcome to reality. There's a flyer posted almost every weekend up here for folks in the same situation as Ms. Estrich's friend: "Yes You Can" take a turn at the grill, flipping burgers and dogs. "Yes You Can" take stock of your own finances, and be as generous to that final tally as you can.

A friend's husband was just diagnosed with prostate cancer. They are American citizens. They both work. But neither of their jobs provides health insurance. They make too much money for Medicaid and way too little to afford the $12,000 it would have cost them to insure the family with a private insurer. Now, of course, no one would take them.

He went to Harbor, the public hospital, the public option. He sat there for about 14 hours, which wasn't so bad, and finally saw a doctor, who is ordering more tests, hopefully soon, and then they will see. At my hot dog stand, he would have had the tests already, and would have been examined by a surgeon skilled in the latest robotic techniques. He's not asking for that. He just doesn't want to die of something they routinely cure a few miles away.

So the conservatives win a round. Until they can answer the question of who is going to take care of my friend's husband, who cares?

Uninsured shouldn't mean hopeless, and friends are there in hard times, when bureacracies are able to turn away. It's easy to imagine you're powerless in the face of illness and lack of cash: put on "It's a Wonderful Life" and learn to count your blessings and have faith in people, not policies? Seems to me that's always a better payout, when you're thinking long-term and not quick cash gains ...