Win a baby via lottery?

Check out this story at Britain's Telegraph online, about a charity that's selling lottery tickets for fertility services. For your £20 ticket, you get a chance at £25,000 in fertility services...ranging from in vitro fertilization to donor eggs (in case the mom-to-be is over 45) to surrogacy (in case the parent-to-be is a man, or elderly, or simply cannot carry a fetus to term).

The desperation many people feel to become parents, coupled with the often-prohibitive cost of accessing the technology to overcome infertility, may mean that there are folks willing to gamble the equivalent of $32 on the chance to "win a baby." But what does this mean?

It means we're allowing people to win medical treatment in the same way they might win $2 in a lottery scratch-off game at the Kum 'n' Go (I know that access to medical treatment is already a game of winners and losers...but this is worse). It means some children will grow up knowing that their parents obtained them in this way (and something about it feels tawdry and crass, doesn't it?). One commenter to the Telegraph article noted that it means, for some women struggling with infertility, two monthly disappointments. Most importantly to me, it means that a private decision that should be left to a patient, a family, and a doctor about (a) whether to bring a child into the world and (b) how to accomplish that will become a reality-television type circus. Because you know it will.

Found via Gawker.

[Update: Coincidentally, Trent at the Simple Dollar blogged today about why winning the lottery isn't the answer to your problems.]

Apparently, I once made nachos while on ecstasy.

You too can find out what your favorite 80s band says about you! McSweeney's will tell you.

And no, I didn't.

Help Wanted: Social Media Director

Many companies now have people in charge of their social media efforts.

That person should be always aware of what is going on in the news. (h/t my wife).

Of Wimbledon, Evil Pandas, And Drunk Puppy Buying

You've probably guessed that I'm a political news junkie. Many folks spend hours scanning the Internet for juicy tidbits. Some days, the news is just simply dull--and repetitiously dull, at that.

Hey, can we all admit that candidates make verbal and factual mistakes under the media microscope every once in while? No? Because that means we'd have nothing to talk about, some days...

So what has my interest today?

NBC made it perfectly clear on Sunday that they'd no longer be covering Wimbledon. But, scanning the Internet that day, I couldn't find out who is getting the coverage. Today, we know: ESPN.

Pandas are not cute, they are a menace to society.

And in Greenwich Village, you can get in trouble for PWI (puppy-buying while intoxicated).

The Most Quotable Movies

Tara and I have a poster in our family room that features the top 100 movie quotes as selected by the American Film Institute. But this column is not about that. It's about the movies that people quote in their daily conversations.

Just this past weekend, our youngest daughter rolled her eyes and told Tara and me that she "doesn't even know what you guys are talking about!" That's because we quote movies to each other constantly. Movies that, often, daughter Lauren hasn't seen...although she's definitely able to work in a "Ferris Bueller" or "Bill And Ted" quote here and there.

Will Ferrell movies are ripe with everyday dialogue...I probably quote "Anchorman" most often ("OH! I immediately regret this decision!"/"Do you really love the lamp?") but am not above getting someone's attention by repeating "Bueller....Bueller...Bueller..."