The Root of All Something

Money is not necessarily the root of all evil.

In fact, money is the reason hunks of Australian gay fathers will bring up American (at least partly) children. Apparently, since the U.S. allows surrogate moms to rent our the wombs of their own, there's some commerce that is encouraged and conducted statesside that others countries frown upon.

And money is a tie entwined with love as Dads and offspring pull together in Arizona family businesses.

But anger over money issues is certainly the creator of the rift between the Herscus, an Aussie father and son who are slugging it out in a Los Angeles court, legally speaking. Emotionally speaking they are ambushing each other around the world.

And, at least as Oliver Stone imagines it in the forthcoming "W," money success was the mercury in the respect thermometer used by father George Bush when he took the current president's "temperature."

Even the simplest father-child financial exchange, allowance, is fraught with trouble. There's the "allow," of course and then there is the "ance," the unknown that either the adult or siring uses to surprise and challenge the other.