YOUTH WILL BE SERVED

Remember the good old 20th Century . . . when adults ruled the world?

Grandfather used to say, "Children should be seen and not heard."

Mother said, "Children don't have good judgment."

Juvenile law advocates claimed children needed special courts and judges because children's brains weren't capable of comprehending the consequences of their actions. (Actually, you could say the same thing about Bush, Cheney, Wolfewitz and Rumsfeld. Perhaps they should be tried in Juvenile Court instead of in the International Criminal Court, as some demand.)

In the 20th Century, adults were supposed to have better functioning brains than children.

But is this still true? In the 21st Century?

The rise of high-tech seems to have turned the world  .

• Back in the 20th Century, a college student named Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard because, "My professors don't know as much as I do." He went on to prove the boast by founding Microsoft and being anointed by Forbes as the richest man in the world.
  
  
• Hewlett Packard really got things rolling when it started a mentoring program for its executives. The shocking part was that young junior execs were mentoring older senior execs. As one outspoken junior said, "Our old guys don't even know how to program their VCRs." The program sent shock waves through the entire business community. The young mentoring the old? Astounding.
  
  
• Israel helped institute the shift to youth when it tested its newly conscripted soldiers for math and science aptitudes. The best were bundled off to college for four years. Upon returning, the young soldiers were given seed money to create high-tech start-ups. The program has been so successful that Israel, with a population of barely 7 million, is now the second largest arms supplier to India, a country of 1.2 billion people.
  
  
• But India is no slouch in recognizing the power of youth. It leads the world in back office and technical outsourcing capabilities. Recently a group of engineering students in southern India invented a robot that sniffs out, then diffuses, land mines and bombs from more than 60 miles away. The cost? A mere $300 per. Compare that to the $100,000 price the Pentagon pays for the American-made bomb-detecting and defusing devices currently used in Iraq. (Then again, this is the same Pentagon that used to buy toilet seats for over $70.)
  
  
• A 17-year-old American high school student has created a low-cost spectrograph which can identify the "fingerprints" of different molecules. Her model cost only $1,000. Comparable commercial devices cost over $100,000. In order to design her wonder machine, Mary Masterman had to develop an incredible grasp of physics, one which easily overshadows the accomplishments of physicists two and three times her age.
  
  
• A college student in England has created a solar-powered scooter system. He zips around town and shire on his scooter. At night, he recharges it in a shed that contains a solar-electric system. No gas. No CO2.

In the near future, our young game players will eliminate the need for the United States Air Force. With the adoption of Israel-designed drones for surveillance and launching rockets, the need for piloted aircraft is sharply diminished. Air Force pilots now complain about having to sit on the ground operating consoles. But do you believe that 25- and 35-year-old Air Force pilots can match the hand/speed and eye/hand coordination of the average 12-year-old game player? "Grand Theft Auto" could easily be transposed into "Grand Kill Enemy." (No Air Force and no Air Force Academy, and we eliminate all the sex scandals and assaults on female cadets that keep coming out of that place.)

Those over 30 had better watch out.

As we move deeper into the 21st Century, the old expression "Youth will be served" will become more and more a reality.

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