How They Spent Their Summer & How I Spent Mine

As a person, I like President Barry. I don't think I can make a qualified assessment as to whether or not I like him as a President so far, since he's only been in office for nine months. Had he given birth at the end of these nine months, well then, that would be sayin' something! But he hasn't, so I'm holding off judgment on that aspect of the guy. But as a guy, he seems like a pleasant man. I think that's why he can say a lot of stuff that, if you stop to think about it (and many people are too busy either fuming or swooning that they don't) sounds really silly. I'll point to one example from President Barry's stop by David Letterman's The Late Show the other night.

President Barry was talking about what his kids did over the summer vacation. He said something to the effect of, "We decided there weren't going to be any fancy camps during the summer. They basically just goofed off during the summer . . . " And that seemed to go over perfectly fine. Dave didn't question him about it. I haven't seen it brought up anywhere else. Apparently, I have to do everything around here. ::: sigh ::: So be it. Here we go....Are you kidding me??

Fancy camps? Is that always an option? Is that how he thinks he's connecting to the commoners? By mentioning that his daughters won't be going to any fancy summer camps? The fanciest my summer camps got when I was a kid was a tent in the back yard. Sure, my Dad would come out in the morning and fire up the barbeque and cook us pancakes on a griddle, but that was about as fancy as our camp got. Besides, did anyone really expect that his daughters would be going to camp at all? Somehow, summer camp seems a little bit, I don't know, a little bit beneath the President, you know what I mean? Again, I'm not knocking summer camps, but you see what I'm saying, right? Good.

So he's trying to get us to buy that his daughters just "goofed off during the summer"? Again, I'll make a comparison to myself which seems more than appropriate since I'm not black, I don't have a sister and my father was never President. When I "goofed off during the summer" it was what it sounded like. Goofing off. Watch TV. Sleep in. Read a bunch of books. Go swimming. Play at friend's houses. Lots of sleepovers and staying up late. Dozens if not hundreds of Popsicles were consumed between June and September at my house. That's goofing off. So now let's look at how Sasha and Malia spent their summer "goofing off".

Here they are with their parents "goofing off" as they deplane Air Force One in Massachusetts on their way to Martha's Vineyard. Ah, the days of getting off of my parents chartered private plane that the government always supplied us as we arrived for our private vacation on a secluded island. Oh, wait. That never happened to me.

Here they are doing their best Carmen Sandiego impersonations as they tour the Kremlin in Russia. They're touring the Kremlin. The best I could have hoped for over one of my childhood summers would have been a tour in my uncle's Gremlin.

Here they are at Martha's Vineyard. I didn't have vineyards to vacation in when I was growing up. There were apricot and prune orchards around here. My brother and I did have a babysitter named Martha when we were younger. So I guess the best I could have done would have been Martha's Prune Orchard. It sounds delightful, but it's just not the same, you know?

Here they are checking out the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I think my family drove past the Sears Tower once on one of those God-awful cross country car trips. You know the ones. The ones where they put you in the car when you're still asleep at 4 in the morning and then by the time you wake up, you're three or four hours from home. You have no idea how to get back home if you should manage to escape! You're stuck ! (I'm convinced that is the real reason behind any family who ever leaves for family vacation at 4am. There's no other rational explanation for it other than to disorient the children.)

Here they are having fish and chips at the Audley Pub in London. Me? Well, I've read books by Jack London on my summer vacations. I've also had fish and chips, but only the kind batter dipped and cooked up by my aunt or my grandmother. No going to London for me!

In Rome, they went to the Colosseum...

and in France they went to the Pantheon

Maybe once or twice a summer, my brother and I would get to see an A's game at the Oakland Coliseum, but that's about as close as we came to the Obama girls going to the Colosseum.


They went to Ghana.

The closest my summer vacation's would ever come to even sliding in the word "Ghana" would be if I asked, "Where's Dad? Did he leave? Is he Ghana-ready?" (The answer to which was almost always, "No, he's still waiting, so git!")

They saw concerts by Beyonce and the Jonas Brothers.

I had a boombox.

So don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I don't think that the summer vacation that the Obama girls had was out of line or anything. I think it's great. I'm sure they learned a lot and had a blast in the meantime. ("Boy, Dad. I sure am glad you got to be President. This is great!") All I'm saying is you can hardly call it "goofing around", can you, President Barry? I didn't think so.

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Liar, Liar

(Side note: The next time you hear about a business failing "because of the economy" or "because of the recession", just realize that could easily be translated to "Too freaking stupid to have survived as long as they have and it's a miracle they didn't exit the economy, recessed or not, sooner." I say that because it just boggles my mind that an ISP provider which shall remain nameless (Covad. Covad. Covad. It's COVAD!!!) seems to be able to figure out how to get all of those tubes and pipes and things from house to house and make the Internet go like it's supposed to, but cannot fathom how to let people know when "scheduled maintenance" is going to be and instead simply surprise them with said "maintenance" at the most inopportune of times. You people could not be a "victim of the economy" too soon for me, thank you very much. Their logo over there reads "The Internet as it should be." Really? You guys don't seem to be doing a very good job up holding that motto because in my opinion, the way that the "Internet should be" is ON!! I should probably apologize to the tech from India, "Jimmy" (who sounded remarkably like Apu from "The Simpsons", for my slight conniption fit over the situation and the length of time said "maintenance" was going to take. But, then again, he kept insisting his name was "Jimmy" and he kept calling me "sir", neither of which is correct and thus, no apology. Whew! Well, that's out. I'm still pissed, but at least it's known why this post was late.)

In what is quite possibly the worst attempt ever at trying to discredit the obvious, the folks over there at TY are leading the pack. TY, as you may or may not choose to remember, is the maker of the Beanie Baby stuffed toys that were once a "must have" item for everyone in the country and now sit in bags, stowed away into attics across America. They have a new line of toys/dolls/Beanies out. And it's a change! (Do you not see where this is going? Really?)

TY has a line of dolls which they have called the TY Girlz. The "Z", of course, is to make sure that you know that they're cool AND so you don't mistake them with regular "girls". That would be just awkward. Well, there are two new additions to the Girlz line of must have toys. (Remember, those little Beanie Baby animal toy things turned people into lunatics. It was like the day after Thanksgiving sales and with all of the trampling to get these things when they came out. People paid hundreds of dollars for a single little cloth sack full of beans. Some even sold the family cow for a handful of beans. Wait. That was something different. Never mind. Carry on.) And contrary to what TY has said, I'm sure that they can't wait to be part of the newest fad sweeping the country. The fad....of change. Behold! The TY Marvelous Malia and Sweet Sasha Girlz dolls!

Huh. Interesting. So, they're obviously designed with the Obama girls in mind, right? Oh, no! No, no, no! Not according to TY! According to TY, Malia Obama and Sasha Obama had nothing to do with the inspiration for these two dolls which were just released. Really?? Uh, I kinda think that they did.

According to the folks over there at CNN (who are masters at stating the obvious, so they should have no trouble at all with this story) who talked to the spokeswoman for TY, they were told, "Information concerning the development of our products and how we come up with names, how we select them, how we trademark -- that's considered as proprietary. I can't go any further with that question." That is apparently what they were actually told that by a one Senior Vice President of Sales, Tania Lundeen. This is the point where the person from CNN presumably shouted, "Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!"

She continued to pull excuses out of her ass by saying, "Sasha and Malia are beautiful names that worked very well with the dolls we were making." Well, yes, of course they did. Sasha and Malia are very beautiful names and definitely do work very well with the dolls that you were making....to look like the Obama girls, Malia and Sasha! Funny how that worked out, eh?

She also said that "The dolls follow 'the exact patterns' used for the other Ty Girlz dolls, so we did not make the dolls to physically resemble either of the Obama girls." Um, wait. So you didn't do ANYTHING differently to these two dolls than you had done to the other dolls that you make? Nothing?? Nothing that would unintentionally mislead a consumer to believe that the dolls, Malia and Sasha, are intended to represent the other Malia and Sasha? Of the White House Malia and Sasha? Huh. Interesting. Let's compare, shall we?

Here are the Marvelous Malia Not Obama doll and the Sweet Sasha Not Obama doll:

Here are ten other TY Girlz dolls:

Yeah, they're the same all right. Can't see how anyone would get a crazy notion in their head that Marvelous Malia and Sweet Sasha were inspired by the Obama girls. Nope. You're right, Miss Vice President of Sales and Lying, we're all crazy. Let's look at some more of the Girlz dolls.

Yeah, we're nuts. WE the consumers are the ones that are reading too much into this whole thing. Any more dolls we can look at, just to make sure that our misinterpretation is etched in stone? Oh, good! More dolls! Behold!

She continued to spout forth falsehoods when she said that her, "...company avoids naming dolls for "any particular living individual" because it might interfere with how kids use their imaginations to play with them." Well, they certainly didn't avoid it this time! She also didn't avoid a slight slip up when she said, "Malia and Sasha are two adorable dolls, or Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia, forgive me." Forgive you for....calling the dolls by their names? Sans cutesy adjectives? I don't know if that's forgivable, ma'am. Perhaps if you stop lying we'll consider it.

What exactly does that mean? That they don't want to "...interfere with how kids use their imaginations to play with them?" Any doll is going to look like something. And that something is going to probably play a role in how the child plays with the doll. Any name that you give a doll could relate to a specific individual; it just depends on the child. But why is that a bad thing again? What are they afraid will happen with the Malia and Sasha dolls? That children will have the dolls watch their dad become the first half-white President of the United States? Yeah, that would be tragic, all right. What is wrong with people?

She also pointed out, "There's nothing on the dolls that refers to the Obama girls. It would not be fair to say they are exact replications of these girls. They are not." Um, your toys are made out of cloth and some sort of polyfiber filling which resemble small beans (hence, the name). How much of an "exact replication" do you expect to get with cloth and fiberfill? Not much! Does it HAVE to be an "exact replication" to know what you're implying? I don't think it does! Ma'am. And I'm getting a bit irritated with your insistence that one has nothing to do with the other when they both clearly do!

This is a blatant example of a disturbing and annoying trend that has become more and more prevalent in the past couple of years. It's the trend where a reason or an explanation is given for an occurrence and even though the reason is ridiculous, improbable, impossible or all three, it is expected that it will be accepted as how things are because "they said so". That doesn't cut it. There's a difference between "explaining" and "lying". But for some reason, if you're "lying" and trying to make it come across as "explaining", well then, that's OK. It's really not. Ever.

The Ty folks must be worried about litigation or something like that because I can't figure out why one would be so blatantly untruthful about the obvious. And if you're that worried about litigation, you probably shouldn't have done whatever it is that you did in the first place if your only defense against any sort of accusation is going to be "Nuh-uh!"

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