My son keeps asking me to play that Mr Mom song by the country band Lonestar, so I re-checked Billboard magazine?s Hot Country Singles & Tracks , and it popped up to # 7 after hitting the top spot in recent weeks. A University of Minnesota college student, Nick Woomer, also checked out the song and wrote this neat piece on it in his college rag. After he offers these lyrics: ?There?s bubble gum in the baby?s hair/ Sweet potatoes in my lazy chair.? he notes, By the song?s end, our narrator realizes he?s been a little too cavalier about jobs traditionally done by women ?Baby, now I know how you feel/ What I don?t know is how you do it.? He then writes:

What can we learn from this dumb little ditty? A lot, although two particular points stick out: First, ?red staters? recognize there is high social value in unpaid labor (homemaking, coaching your child?s baseball team, generic volunteer work, etc.). Second, ?red staters? love to spend quality time with their children ? in fact, it?s probably their cardinal value..... What this suggests is that ?radical? ideas ? correctly packaged and effectively communicated ? could potentially seem very appealing to ?red staters.?

Take Universal Basic Income: The proposal that every person in the United States (from Bill Gates to the homeless guys begging for change outside the liquor store) should receive an unconditional income ? regardless of whether he or she works. What kind of person would buy into a crazy idea like this? The kind of person who can relate to a song like ?Mr. Mom,? that?s who ? and a lot of academics (as you?ll see if you visit the United States Basic Income, Group?s Web site at www.usbig.net.)

He argues that although there would be freeloaders in the system (they would be sitting around and smoking pot all day)

1.Universal Basic Income would be at a low enough rate so that people who wanted a more comfortable lifestyle would have to work for it.

2. Almost everyone would have a lot more quality time to spend time with family and friends.

3. Would create Massive pressure on employers to make their employees? lives easier.

This is indeed a modest proposal, and although I don't see the "Woomer Bill" passing any time soon it's great to hear this voice of the future. Stay tuned, I'll let you know if it passes in 2030.

Parents on strike update: As of This morning, those striking parents from Florida are still camped out in their yard till the kids clean their rooms. Erin Ailworth of the Sun Sentinel gets this latest statement from mom and dad, "We'll be fine unless it goes down to 20 below," said Cat Barnard, 45, who, along with her husband, has spent the week camped out on the driveway in protest of their two messy kids, Ben and Kit. After all, 56-year-old Harlan Barnard said, he and his wife have four things to keep them warm: their orange and green Ozark Trail tent with its wind shield, their snug sleeping bags, a comfy air mattress and each other. Instead they joked, "Welcome to 'Lifestyles of Those at the End of Their Rope.' "