I have great sympathy for kids today as they negotiate their way into our strange and sometimes dangerous world. Often the childhood years are intertwined with horrors - ask the kids growing up in Haiti or Ethiopia who face nothing less than starvation and slavery.
And last night I took note of two kids who's lives appear to be part of a bad American novel. Named Prince and Paris, the children of Michael Jackson spoke briefly to the crowd at the Grammy Awards when the group handed out a Lifetime Achievement honor to Jackson. Their lives are going to be tough and likely gain a visage too weird to predict. Might be different if Prince were named, say, Bill or Frank. (And who can blame the child named Blanket for not making an appearance. Blanket?)
---
Kids in school in one California school district must be attempting to puzzle out just what the deal with adults is.
One week, adults ban a dictionary because one could learn a definition of "oral sex" in said dictionary. Now, the dictionary is back on the shelf, but students must have a parent's permission slip to look at the dictionary.
A couple of points here - if the dictionary is dangerous, then the Internet must be the center of Hell itself.
And why just ban a dictionary? Every dirty word and perverted idea is usually expressed by just a few letters in the alphabet, so why not ban them too?
---
One blogger has created a task few would dare -- put weird things in coffee and see how it tastes.
This is Putting Weird Things In Coffee.
Recent entries include: Eggspresso, Bacon in the Coffee, and putting Salmon in Coffee.
The blogger says "The only rule is that the things I put in coffee must be things that I would tolerate eating on their own. So no, I will not put dog poop in coffee, but you’re right that it would be very weird."
Young and vibrant, this blogger is a big fan of playing peek-a-boo and singing songs and watching birds fly. And she has a near-daily chronicle of her many experiences, which are well worth reading for their insight and in inherent adorableness.
She is Tessaroo and her blog is A Day In Her Life.
And please send her a happy birthday wish, as today is her birthday.
I am delighted to be a near-relative and to send her hopes for the very happiest birthday wishes.
BONUS: Here is recent image of Tessaroo in a pumpkin patch as part of the celebration of the season.
Somewhere in a giant underground bajillion-dollar complex, agents and officers of the Federal Department of Secret Taping of All Phone Calls and Emails in America there is an entire division of recordings labeled Bad Parents.
A casual perusal of said recordings shows that every day in every location imaginable a parent says hateful, mean and nasty things to their kids. An Operative in the FDSTAPCEA, who was hired - I mean appointed - by the Office of Proving Actors Are Evil Liberals (OPAAEL) sent one of those highly classified Blue Letters (which denote Emergency News Releases) out this week because they had a tape with Alec Baldwin being mean to his daughter.
Quicker than lightning, the network and cable news broke the story played copies of the tape every fifteen minutes as mandated by the OPAAED Guidelines. A congressional hearing is planned to create a new law that all celebrity children and parents be forced to wear microphones and cameras, part of the No Celebrity Is A Patriot Act. Additional congressional conference reports will recommend that every parent in the country have implants which can supply remote-controlled taser blasts if they don't check a child's homework.
Yeah, that all sounds pretty stupid and paranoid, doesn't it?
Of equal stupidity is the story about Alec Baldwin berating his own child. Of equal stupidity is the unholy mess it has made for Baldwin and his child. Far less reported was the fact that a judge in the custody case between Baldwin and (Oscar winner) Kim Basinger had heard the tape days before and barred Baldwin from having contact with his daughter. If anything, the non-news story here was that Baldwin got slapped with a judicial order based on Baldwin's behavior.
Here's another fact -- parents from every level of society will say something mean and hateful to their children on a regular basis. I hear it in grocery stores and malls and restaurants constantly.
Every flippin' day, people.
Such parental exclamations are usually followed by the parent jerking the child's arm up to the level of the adult's chin and, usually, swinging the child back and forth like a sack of diseased potatoes. Comments like:
"I told you not to touch that! Are you stupid or deaf?"
"As soon as we get back in the car, I'm going to beat you within an inch of your life!"
"I told you to be quiet but you wouldn't listen. Now I'm going to leave you in the street so anyone who wants you can have you!"
"Once we get home, I'm going to see how hard I can really make you cry, you stupid baby!"
"I don't care what you want -- I want a lot of things and never get them because of you, you spoiled monster!"
"I hate you! You're so stupid! I wish you had never been born."
And remember, only Baldwin and Britney Spears are bad parents.
