Sarah Palin, grandmother

Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, gave birth to a baby boy Saturday, said Lorenzo Benet in People.com. The child, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, weighed in at 7 pounds, 7 ounces. Tripp’s father, apprentice electrician Levi Johnston, has said he and Bristol plan to wed next year.

Congratulations to the new parents, said Robert Stacy McCain in The Other McCain, but also a note of “cultural criticism”—“What’s up with this ‘baby first, marriage later’ thing?” Would it have been so hard to organize “a private, hurry-up wedding” before Tripp’s birth? After all, “conservatives ought to support real traditional values,” such as shotgun weddings.

The news of Bristol’s pregnancy “shocked a lot of people” just as her mom became the GOP’s vice presidential candidate, said Andrew Malcolm in the Los Angeles Times online, but “the conservative crowd seemed to see the situation as a familiar family one.” And Grandma Palin got more good news than a first grandchild this weekend—she was also named the “nation’s second most-admired woman,” after Hillary Clinton, in a USA Today–Gallup poll.

Grandma Johnston’s news was decidedly more mixed, said Lisa Derrick in La Figa. Levi’s mom was busted “for peddling Oxycontin, aka hillbilly heroin, to state troopers” last week. Still, even that helped the new parents, as the arrest pushed up the bidding price for Tripp’s first photos—People reportedly paid $300,000 for the “snap-rights,” from a starting bid of $100,000.

Why teens are ‘sexting’

What happened

An online poll found that 20 percent of teens had sent X-rated photos or videos of themselves to a boyfriend or girlfriend, or posted them online. A third of young adults ages 20 to 26 said they had done it. (USA Today)

What the commentators said

This is nothing to panic about, said Tracy Clark-Flory in Salon. “Sexting”—sending nude photos by cell phone—raises legitimate concerns—especially when the images get shared with unintended viewers. But it doesn’t mean technology is turning kids into amateur porn stars. It just shows that sexual experimentation, like everything else, has “gone digital.”

So, said Erin Manning in BeliefNet, it’s OK for teens to trade X-rated photos and pornographic text messages as long as nobody gets hurt? Maybe if you see zero value in “such virtues as modesty, chastity, or restraint.” But, even in this day and age, there are people who object to this kind of behavior on moral grounds.

Yes, and some of them are called parents, said Stacey Garfinkle in The Washington Post online. But there are ways for moms and dads to discourage sexting, and they don't even have to ban camera phones. Just make sure your kids know messages and pictures they send over the Internet or on cell phones are never truly private. And go digital along with them, monitoring their behavior and friends in cyberspace the same way you do in “real life.”