Strollerderby : CBS

Attack of the Strippers

Brett Singer — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

During a children's golf tournament in Broomfield, Colorado, the children were exposed to -- and I hope you are sitting down as you read this -- strippers. That's right. They actually saw women who dance and take their clothes off while men throw money at them.

Were the women naked? No. Were they -- again, stay seated, this is a bombshell that could shake you to the very core of your being -- scantily clad? Yes, dear reader, they were. Undies. According to CBSNews.com, the children wanted to know why "the men joining the strippers had water guns and why the women wore only their underwear." (That must have been a fun conversation.) Evelyn Koch, the manager of the golf course, apologized for the fact that the "children were present when the strippers arrived."

As you may have guessed, I don't think this is a very big deal. I mean, who cares? The thing about kids and certain things that people have problems with is that oftentimes the kids don't really notice or care. This, methinks, is one of those times. Maybe its because I live in Manhattan, and walk past a strip club every morning when I walk my youngest son to school. Granted, it's early in the morning and there's not any activity going on. But, like, who cares?

For the record, the barely naked ladies were participating in a charity golf outing to benefit a breast cancer organization. The kids weren't raising money for anything. Take that, moral majority!

image: golflogic

Watermelon the same as Viagra – maybe

Brett Singer — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:30:00 GMT

I can see the commercial now: Bob Dole staggers in, explaining to America that he, too, has had issues with E.D. "Bob Dole is all man. But sometimes even Bob Dole has trouble with E.D. That's why Bob Dole eats lots and lots of watermelon! That's why on this July 4th, Bob Dole is going to pitch a tent!" He winks. "And Bob Dole ain't talking about camping…"

Bhimu Patil, a researcher at the hilariously named "Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center" at Texas A&M University, says that "Watermelon has more citrulline in the edible part than previously believed." (I wonder if he spent time gnawing on the rind before he figured this out.) Citrulline is an amino acid that can become arginine, which is another amino acid. "This is a precursor for nitric oxide, and the nitric oxide will help in blood vessel dilation." In other words, BOING!

(Or you could just look at pictures of boobs. Whatever works.)

Of course, Patil doesn't know quite how much watermelon one should eat. Scarfing down 10 watermelon balls (heh heh – Beavis, he said "balls") would give a person "about 150 milligrams of citrulline," but Roger Clemens, a professor of pharmacology at USC, cites one study that found "volunteers who drank three 8-ounce glasses of watermelon juice daily for three weeks boosted their arginine levels by 11%." (Roger Clemens, the former major league pitcher who is well versed in both drugs and erections, was not interviewed for this article.)

Bottom line? It appears to be much ado about melon. There's not much to back up this theory other than, you know, it's the sort of news that can get attention near July 4th. Still, even the naysaying researchers agree that it's fine to enjoy as much watermelon as you like, as long as you don't think it's going to, you know, get you going down there. But it couldn't hurt, right?

image: thestandingroom.com

Parent/Kid: 10 July 4th Activity Ideas

Kitchenista: Red, White and Cool

Political Nanny: Boobs for Obama and (Un)Covering the Body Politic

Your baby is ugly

Brett Singer — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:30:00 GMT

CBS News sent correspondent Steve Hartman into the field to ask people if they thought his baby was cute. But Steve did something tricky: he used a distorted image of his offspring (not the image at the right; that's Baby-faced Finster from Bugs Bunny). The idea was to see if anyone would say, "Dude, what an ugly kid."

Of course, no one did. That's generally not the way polite folks behave, especially not on camera. Steve's not-exactly-Earth-shaking conclusion: "cuteness is relative ... if the baby's your relative, it's cute." (Maybe CBS' abysmal news ratings aren't all Katie Couric's fault, hm?)

What would have been more interesting would be to have two sets of parents explain why they found their baby to be cuter than someone else's. Personally, I prefer my children to other people's children, and I think most parents feel the same way. That said, some kids, like some people, are cuter than others. Angelina Jolie is more attractive than, say, Bea Arthur. It would therefore stand to reason that some babies are cuter than others.

But when it's your kid, you think they're beautiful. Which is the way it should be. The only time this belief becomes potentially problematic is when you force that opinion on other people, ad nauseum. There are times when parental worshipping at the altar of adorableness can become utterly unbearable.

This might just be me, or maybe not. Have you ever wanted to tell someone to just shut the hell up about their baby? Does "aw, isn't my Susie gorgeous?" ever start to sound like "isn't my Susie way more gorgeous than that little monster you have?"

(For the record, I find my children cute -- most of the time, anyway -- but I try to keep that to myself as much as possible, at least when there are other people around. Do I pull out photos for folks to admire? Of course. But that's only because MY children are OBJECTIVELY cute. Ba-dum-bum.)

image: heo.com

New CBS Kid's Reality Show: "Lord of the Flies" in Action?

Karen Murphy — Mon, 21 May 2007 13:06:00 GMT

Everyone who made it past the eighth grade in my town was forced to read William Golding's Lord of the Flies, the story of planewrecked and stranded English schoolboys who eschew British niceties when attempting to govern themselves and instead turn to savagery and murder. The formula for upcoming CBS reality show Kid Nation, on the other hand, is forty kids ages eight to fifteen stranded alone in a ghost town for forty days, tasked with creating a workable society, and all without modern conveniences.

Though kids on the show won't be voted off, some will be nominated to be part of the "Upper Class", and occasional winners, or Gold Star Kids (a designation worth $20,000) will be declared by the town council every few days. It's hard to say whether the backbiting and intrigue of other reality shows (Survivor) will be a part of Kid Nation, but early reports indicate that it may actually show some depth while portraying kids earnestly attempting to work together and create something worthwhile. Which means that maybe I can use it as a tool to help my kids let go of their constant fighting. It's worth a try.