Really? The Cover?

Remember when Time magazine used to be awesome?  OK, maybe I'm exaggerating just a tad with the use of the word "awesome".  But it did used to be a great source of comprehensive news stories from around the globe.  The journalism was good and the topics were good.  Oh, but that Time seems to have come and gone.  And in its place, we are left with the sort of Time magazine that has this on its cover.  Behold!

Now, if you're like me, you took one look at that and your brain came up with the omnipresent "Oh, what the hell is that?" inquiry.  And I really wish that I could go into a lot of detail about what the article was actually about, but I'm not about to subscribe to Time.com in order to do that.  Besides, I highly doubt that anything in the article is going to sway me away from what I have to say about their cover.  And just for the record, the picture depicts a one Jamie Lynne Gurnet as she breast feeds her four-year old son.  Good Lord...

First of all, I'm not against breastfeeding.  You want to breast feed, have at it!  You want to breast feed in public, I'd prefer it if you'd be discreet, but again, have at it!  You want to put a picture on the cover of Time magazine of yourself breast feeding your kid who is almost five, I'm going to recoil in horror.  And it has nothing to do with partially seeing a breast!  Breasts are simply lovely!  It's really hard to get around that fact.  Breasts are gooooooood.  But to me, if you're putting that sort of picture out for all the world to see, you're about something more than just how you want to nourish your child.  You're looking for some sort of attention and you've chosen what I feel is a highly inappropriate way to get said attention. 

Speaking of attention, what about the attention that your kid is going to get out of this?  I'm sure that he'll be thrilled, just thrilled, when he's a teenager and his friends find out about this (and they will) and then the picture of him suckling on his mother when he's a four-year old, like a newborn calf, is going to cause some problems for him.  It might even be causing some problems now for him.  Why would you put your son in a position like that?  Why would you place your small child in such a vulnerable position?  I can't agree with that choice on any level. 

Something about this whole mode/style of parenting doesn't sit well with me.  It seems to be more about a certain group of people who are intent on pushing their particular lifestyle down the throats (no pun intended) of others.  I will never understand that part of humans.  Why, if they like something and someone else doesn't, the former will feel the need to make sure to flaunt the thing that the other person doesn't like right in front of them?  I don't get that.  And breast feeding your kid when they're no longer an infant seems to fall right along that line. 

I understand that there's the whole bonding issue thing.  But you can bond with your kid without breast feeding them.  I promise.  It's been done gazillions of times before and people seem to be just fine! And if it's really just about the nutrients that the kid can get from breast milk, can't you just pump and have the kid drink it after it's out of your body?  I seriously think that if you have some "need" or "desire" to have your kid breast feed after the kid is no longer a baby, you need to take a long, hard look at what your real motives are.  And if you're not willing to do that, what say you stop trying to actively push that sort of "parenting method" upon other people.  (Have you ever noticed that when people are doing something that is "controversial" (eg, crazy as a fruit bat) that all they want to do is tell you what a terrible person you are for not doing it?)  And if you're not willing to do that, what say you just take a baby step and not have a picture of you breast feeding your school-aged child on the cover of a national publication, eh? 

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Picture This

Not a whole lot going on right now. Everyone is totally burned out on Casey Anthony musings (and none too soon if you're asking me). There's the pedantic bickering going on in Congress, but other than that, it's a little slow. So I'm just going to get right into this. What we have here are twin brothers in Texas who, according to the NY Daily News, were charged with murder "...after they let their mother die on the floor after a fall and lived with her corpse for three months". OK, then. Do I need to say much more? I don't think that I do. But I do think that a picture would be in order. Tell you what. Picture the kind of 48-year old twins (named Edwin and Edward Berndt, by the way) that would be "...watching the NCAA college football championship game" on January 1oth when their mom came in and slipped fell on the floor. But don't stop the visual there. No, you have to still picture those same guys, but now picture that they LEFT HER on the floor for three days even though she was "conscious and talking". Now keep going and picture these same guys doing the same things described above right up until the time that their mother died on the floor. And remember, they left her there for three months. That's right. Left her lying on the floor. Dead as can be. OK? Got the picture in your head. Good. Now, does it look anything like the picture below? Behold!

Uh, yeah. I'm sure that your mental image of these two dolts was pretty darned close to what they actually look like. How could it not have been? What a couple of losers. The only thing that I'm surprised about is that they didn't have a couple of more bodies in their basement.

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Mr. T. Says Happy Mother's Day In Song

Happy Mother's Day. Look, if I had some poignant words of wisdom for this day, I'd tell ya. I swear! I would. But I got nothin'. Not a thing. And I can admit that. No problem. Others, however, seem to not be able to come to terms with the fact that they don't have much to say. No, instead of admitting it and sticking with "Happy Mother's Day", they go on ahead and try to painstakingly compose an inspiring and tearjerking Mother's Day message, which ends up being not so much of any of those things. Who do we blame for this? Why, Mr. T., of course.

That's right. Mr. T. Mr. T of the A-Team. (Is everything in this man's life about initials?) In what would to be somewhere amidst the 1980s (judging from the techno/disco/transition-to-80s-music beat), Mr. T. of the A-Team starred in and voiced the words in a song that I suppose was intended to be a tribute to mother's, as well as an instructional piece for children who are arguing with their peers (and using rather humorous, childish, 1980s insults). The insults are all fine and in good jest, but then someone drags the other one's mother into it and suddenly, this little public service announcement or whatever we thought it was before that, turns into a musical number with great educational value after the disagreement between the kids is intervened by Mr. T.

The choice of actors for the bickering peers is an interesting one. There is a small black boy who appears to be quite short. Apparently, if something works in one situation, it's necessary that it be added to every other situation, regardless as to whether or not it makes sense. 80s TV, as you may or may not care to remember, seemed to think that the way to a show's success was the addition of a small black actor. Gary Coleman. Emmanuel Lewis. Benson. It's the same sort of theory that dominates any sort of reality competition show these days. Only instead of a short black actor, there is an acerbic, British judge.

Anyway, in addition to that actor, there is a large female to serve as the bitchy peer. If there was ever a short male actor in 80s TV, it was almost guaranteed that there would be an obnoxious, rotund, female who always spoke her mind and who always thought she was beautiful (even though she looked like she had just eaten an entire racetrack). She has the typical large bitchy female, short frizzy hair with a hairband of sorts and large, white, round, plastic earrings. She has a round full face and is frequently seen with her hands on her hips, looking down as she towers over her antagonist and hurls insults at the little, little man.

It goes something like this:

Big Girl: Well, you couldn't be more than five.

Gary Coleman: Oh, yeah? You're so fat, they have to jack you up to take off your shoes.

Big Girl: Yeah? Well, you're so skinny, you're eyes are in single file.

Webster: Well you're so ugly your EARS stick out to get away from your FACE!

Big Girl: Well your Mama is so.....

Mr. T.: Wait a minute! Wait a minute! (Missss-ter T to savethedaaaaaaayyy!!) Don't bring anyone's mother into this. She ain't here. (Oh, sure. If she were there, THEN it would be perfectly OK to get out those 'Yo Mama' jokes? I kinda wish he had let her get off just ONE. Maybe it would have been my favorite! "Yo Mama'sso fat they had to paint a line around her so you could tell if she was walking or rolling. He-hee. Still funny.)

Mr. T.: And if it wasn't for your mother, you wouldn't be here. So remember, when you put down one mother, you're putting down mother's all over the world. (He got that from not having her be there when the insults were about to fly? Huh. Interesting)

Of course, right after that last word of wisdom, the boy and the girl look at each other with that Scooby-Doo head tilt and a look on their faces as if they have just heard the most magical words ever. They nod in agreement at his sage wisdom which shoots out from those glittering gold chains and medallions (the purpose of which I don't believe has ever been disclosed, other than perhaps to draw one's attention away from the mohawk) and then they exit stage left, the girl with her hand on the boy's shoulder and a smile on her face, as she's going to eat him for lunch when they're out of the camera shot.

We get this great shot at the beginning, right when the beat starts to be heard. There's Mr. T. in his denim shorts that are so short I'm pretty sure he must have come straight to this studio directly from shooting a Nair commercial. He also has the knee high, striped sweat socks, large tennis shoes and the traditional sleeveless black shirt or sweater vest (it's really hard to tell with all of those chains on). In the background are his do-wop girls. Only they appear to have been recruited from a temp agency that hires out secretaries. What the hell is that? There's a long skirt with a shiny belt. There are women's Dockers with the long sleeve shirt which sports the puffy lace cuffs and the velour collar. You know the kind. And then there's the dark slacks, dark jacket ensemble. All are sporting comfortable flats and a hairdo which involves feathering and/or a perm. They're doing the two step white man's shuffle and hand/arm gestures that they have clearly remembered from the days when they were on the cheerleading squad back in high school. . And because there's three of them there are naturally only two microphones on stands. I don't know why they just don't spring for the third mike. What does that accomplish? Having velour-collar go back and forth? Is it a guy thing? Two girls that close together, guys think they're going to kiss? Is that it? It must be. There's no other explanation for it.Just as there is no explanation for this whole video.

And it begins with the cheerleaders singing the chorus, "Treat her right. Treat your mother right." That melodic composition is repeated in that typical 1980s chorus/backup singer tune.(Trust me, you'll know it when you hear it.) Meanwhile, Mr. T., completely unaware that people all across the globe will be able to see this atrocity years in the future thanks to an as-then uninvented technology called 'The Internet', tries to stay with the beat, mimic the cheerleaders moves and then 'sing'. I've quoted 'sing' because it's Mr. T., for cryin' out loud! I don't really know what to call it, it's barely grunting to music, but it's definitely NOT singing, I know that.

The video of this musical number is below, but I just have to spell out the lyrics here so that you get the full effect of what an odd Mother's Day tribute this little ditty really is.

Mother. There is no other. Like mother. So treat her right.
Mother. I'll always love her. My mother. So treat her right. Treat her right.

M is for the moans and the miserable groans
from the pain that she felt when I was bone (that's the Mr. T. way of saying 'born' so that it rhymes with 'groans and moans'. Clever, eh? Good Lord...)

O is for the oven with the burning heat
Where she stood making sure I had something to eat (So now his mother is slaving away in a kitchen. Nice.)

T is for the time when she stayed up at night
and took my temperature when I wasn't feeling right.

H is for the hard earned money she spent
to put clothes on my back and tries to pay da rent. (I'm not so sure it was the 'clothes' that she bought for you that made it hard to 'pay da rent' as much as it was all of those gold chains.)

E is every wrinkle I put on her face
and every worry that I caused when I stayed up late. (Now you've withered the woman into the likeness of a Shar-pei.)

The last letter R is that you taught me respect
and for the room up in heaven that I know she will get. (Good way to end the song about your mother! By throwing out the reminder that she's gonna die one day. Yep, she'll be dead!)

She's agreeing second to none
Take care of mother, you only get one.

Then as the chorus is repeated a few times, the camera shows several different scenarios which are supposed to represent the typical ways that kids interact with their moms. There's the giving her the fake box of candy that a big snake jumps out of when she opens it. There's the tandem bike ride through the park. And opening the door to Mom's convertible for her. There's the kissing her on the cheek with your mouth full of food. And helping Mom carry in the groceries. And who could forget giving Mom a shoulder rub while still wearing your batting gloves from baseball practice earlier in the day? Not me, that's for sure!

And the final shot is of someone (I can't tell if it's a guy or a girl. There's too much big hair. There's too much big headband. There's too much one long dangly earring. And there's too much looking like New Kids on the Block which kids in the 80s did regardless as to whether they were male or female. I just don't know.) who clearly is on the way to join in a Jane Fonda workout video shoot (just as soon as they find their missing Reeboks and striped leg warners). This person looks into the camera and suggestively says (with this sly, all knowing look), "Be somebody!" Huh?

Be somebody? Like who? I thought this was about mothers! Are we supposed to be mothers?! I don't wanna! No, serioiusly, I do NOT! Besides, this is geared to be directed at children. You can't be suggesting that children 'be somebody' by being mothers! I don't care if it is Mother's Day! It's just not right!

See? That's why, if you can't think of anything poignant to say on Mother's Day, you're better off either saying nothing or just getting a card. If you try to piece a bunch of words together, who knows how it could come out? You might end up just like Mr.T. did there and start suggesting that children get pregnant. What a PR nightmare that must have been. No wonder he didn't go farther in his career!

Happy Mother's Day.

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John McCain's Mother Is ALIVE?!

Oh, relax. I'll chill out on McCain and his hot, hot, hot pick for Vice President in a little while. (Seriously, Sarah Palin is a different kind of smokin' hot. She almost makes me say, "Obama Girl who?" Almost. She's Obama Girl, for cryin' out loud, don't go expecting miracles or anything.) Actually, how about now? Well, not totally. But partially!

Look, I like John McCain's sense of humor just as much as the next person who can actually bring themselves to admit that the guy is freaking funny. (I'm not on the McCain bandwagon. I'm not on any wagon. Wagons are uncomfortable. I'm just saying the guy is funny.) Like before he announced he had chosen Gov. Palin to be his running mate and some reporter asked him who he had chosen. McCain deadpans back to the reporter, "Wilford Brimley." Come on, that is funny!

But I have to draw the line somewhere. And I'm drawing it here. This is something, no matter how funny he might think it is, that John McCain should never, ever do: fake a heart attack while you're out campaigning or shaking hands or doing anything, really. DON'T DO IT. Behold! The guy that might be the oldest President of the United States ever elected pretending as if he's having a heart attack!

Seriously. That's not good. And it's not good for several reasons. Some (most) of which are obvious. The most blatantly obvious one being that Grandpa John McCain is old. But come on, people, it's not like he's Methuselah or anything like that. The man just turned 72, not 102! Is 72 really thought of as that old? I mean, everyone is doing all of the "old jokes", so I guess it must seem old to a lot of people, but I guess it just doesn't seem like it's that old to me. (My Dad lived to be 82 and that didn't seem old at all. Then again, he's my Dad, so it could have been 102 and it wouldn't have been long enough for me.)

Maybe it's just perspective. Well, no, that can't be it because David Letterman (who has crafted some of the finest "He looks like the guy who...." jokes in all the land) is 61. 61 is a lot closer to 72 than it's, um, not closer to 72. Now, eleven years younger than 61 is 50 and that age difference sounds about the same as the difference between 61 and 72. But Jay Leno is 58. See, 58, which is 14 less than 72, sounds a heck of a lot younger than 72. And if you go 14 years younger than 58 and compare 44 years old to 58 years old, it still sounds a heck of a lot younger than 58. So I'm OK with Jay and anyone younger than him making the McCain-is-old jokes. But you're 61, Dave, so 72 is not THAT old. The two of you could call each other up to remind the other one that Wheel of Fortune is coming on, your ages seem that close together. (What am I talking about? Those "He looks like the guy who...." jokes are hil-arious. Keep making those, just knock off the other ones, maybe? Geez. Sorry about that. Lost my head there.)

If McCain wants to get rid of his old image, I have a suggestion or two for him. The first of which would be to stop making that old man sigh/grunt at the end of sentences. You know what I mean. It's the sound that old men make and it doesn't matter what they've just said, the old-man-sentence-ender completely negates any feeling that you were trying to convey with what you've just said and instantly transforms your spoken word into something that feels oddly hopeless. It's like this: "And we will WIN this war on TERROR! (pause 1 second) (low mumble, going slowly from a medium pitch to a lower pitch that trails off at the end) nnneeehhhhhhh......" It's very Grandpa Simpson-esque. And it's not good. All it does is scream, "I'm old! Get off of my lawn!"

But here's the clincher. Show a picture of John McCain next to his mother. Oh, stop it! His mother is still ALIVE! Yes! I swear. Roberta McCain is alive and well and seems to be doing just fine. Oh, and she's ninety freaking five, by the way. Behold! The ninety five year old mother of John McCain who was born in (Holy cow!) 1913!

Holy American Gothic. Really, is she what you picture when you think of someone who is ninety five? Of course she isn't. You're picturing someone like Mark Felt:

Or Senator Robert Byrd:

Or even the beloved Grandpa Simpson:

You're not picturing Roberta McCain:

John McCain might be 72, but I have a feeling that he isn't going to be going anywhere for a while. Especially not if his Mom is any indication of how things go in that family. (Holy canoli, 95? Are we sure about that?) Oh, and by the way...Wilford Brimley? Seventy THREE. McCain isn't looking so old NOW is he? I didn't think so. But Obama Girl is still looking pretty hot.

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For Sale: 5,000 Extra Calendars

So let's say you live in rural Spain (Yes, apparently there are rural areas in Europe. Think chalets and yodelers if it helps you.) in a little village called Serradilla del Arroyo. And in this village all of the kids in the village are crammed into the one classroom that the elementary school in the village has. It's probably worth noting that there are seven students in this school. Yes. 7. (I don't know if that's entirely relevant, but it is interesting.) Clearly, your seven students need room to learn. What to do? What to do? I know! A bunch (well, 7 at the most) of the student's mothers will have "semi-erotic", suggestive photos of themselves taken in various garb and poses use them to create a calendar to sell in order to raise funds for the school. Um, OK. What could possibly go wrong?

Three words. Behold! Miss October:

Above is one Itziar Zamarreno, a 40-year town counselor in the village. She is sporting a lovely pelt of fox fur and brandishing weaponry borrowed from one of the local townfolk (as she does not like to hunt). Sweet Fancy Moses, if I was an elementary school aged child and that was my mother wearing animal hide, holding a weapon and straddling, well, anything, the point of trying to raise money to help out my school would be meaningless to me. That's because I'd be spending the majority of my time memorizing bus schedules so that I could get the hell out of there as quick as I could.

Now, it may surprise you that the calendar isn't doing very well. Then again, it may not surprise you. At first, the $8 calendar sold very well. Then, it stopped selling very well. Then it stopped selling. (I certainly hope that they were marketing the thing outside of their town that only has seven children in the entire elementary school. You're not going to make a whole lot after you've sold then one calendar to each of the seven families, I'll tell you that right now.) And while they fully admit that their marketing techniques could have been better and that they did miss Christmas shopping season (hard to say if that would have made a difference in this case), they still owe the printer $16,000. Hmmm...$8 each...owe the printer $16,000....So, I'd have to guess that they were expecting sales of over 2,000 calendars to make a profit. That seems like a stretch, given their location and, well, Miss October, for starters. Oh, wait, they have five thousand copies left. Wow. Did someone not see Miss October before this went to press? Again, seems like a bit of a stretch.

Some other photos in the calendar include a woman with what is described as "discreetly placed Christmas tinsel" and another one where the woman is covering her body with just a red umbrella on a picnic table. (Hey! I bet that one guy would buy some of these! He seemed to love his picnic table. Has anyone called him?) Sure, it sounds good in theory, but in reality? You decide. Here:

OK, personally, I'm all for two semi-nude (or totally nude) women posing together. (And they don't even have to be "posing"! That's not a requirement for me to be OK with it. Hell, they don't even have to be in the same room for it to be OK with me. Unclothed women are very, very good.) But the photo above just doesn't have that "semi-erotic" feel (pun definitely intended) that I think the women were going/hoping for. The woman clutching the umbrella looks painfully surprised and a little bit afraid. And that tie-dyed parasol isn't exactly conveying the "free love" feeling. Not with that one woman looking as if she is trying to convey the message, "I've been abducted. Please send help."

Yeah, I don't know if this whole things was such a good idea in this situation. Apparently, the women got the idea from a similar venture by a group of women in England who were in their mid-50s to their early 70s. They did the "discreet nude" calendar bit of with photos of themselves in order to raise money for research for cancer (a noble cause). Theose were the women who were the inspiration for the movie "Calendar Girls". They were also the women who raised $2.55 million dollars after they sold over 800,000 calendars and got a movie and got a book deal. I guess that's what these ladies thought would happen. They might not have actually seen the other women's calendars, though. Maybe that's why they thought they could pull it off. Here are some of the English women (fully clothed. And not in fox pelts, either.):

Don't they seem pleasant? (How they got Bea Arthur, 2nd on the right there, to agree to that, I'll never know.) See, they seem a bit different than, oh, say, this:

Yeah, those two pictures seem awfully different to me. Both in theory and content. But don't worry. Thanks to some recent publicity about this poorly thought out, but very well intentioned venture (through the printer who let everyone know that the ladies were behind on their payments), people are stepping forward and buying calendars once again. (It's a Christmas calendar miracle!) I have the feeling that this is going to turn out just fine. The printer will get paid, the kids will have more room in their school and the women above will be able to put on some real clothes. Yep, that sounds like the optimal solution for everyone involved. Or wearing tinsel.

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