In my spare time I teach a course on writing memoirs. That's why I had several issues of Life magazine from 1965. I found them at camp, and took them into class to help spur memories.

One of the Life issues has a long article on Marshall McLuhan.

McLuhan is the guy created for the phrase The medium is the message. And if he didnt invent the term Global Village, he certainly talked a lot about it.

I wonder what he would say about the Internet, chat rooms, facebook, Second Life?

All of these things allow people to communicate with others around the world like they were next door. McLuhan was predicting these things less than 20 years after televisions arrived in North American living rooms.

I have lots of thoughts about this, particularly about people who spend too much time on the commuter and not enough in their First Life.

However, the point I want to make now is that McLuhan predicted credit cards for children. Now that was really radical 40 years ago, when most Canadian aduts didn't have Visas or Mastercards. Maybe they had an Eaton's card or one for Esso.

He suggested that children with the ability to learn so much about the world, and about consuming products thanks to television, would become mini adults.

They would start to want to consume for status, or whatever reason we consume things. And to to do that they would need credit cards.

As you know, there are credit cards for children. Parents load money on them and give them to their children "to teach them about responsible spending."

Every time I see that commerical about the teenager sitting in a baby carriage asking her father to buy her something, I scream. "Tell her to shut up."

I wonder what McLuhan would say.