April 23, 2004 by s.z.

"Gnawing at their bits of dried bread" By my calculations, it's Friday, and time to check in on America's Worst Mother™ (trademark of TboggCo, the world's largest exporter of Pegaloons).  We do it out of concern for the Gurdonettes (Allegra, Propecia, FloNase, and Midol).  And also because we are starting a pool to guess the day when Meghan announces that Mr. Meghan has been having an affair with Gnat's Mommy, and that the lovers are up in a tree in Central Park, protesting something. But mainly we do it because Tbogg, our hero, makes it all seem so fun in pieces like My son, the Towelhead (one of the best Fever Snot adventures EVER).  But, as always, there is a dimension, not only of sight and sound, but of children who always mind.  So, let's visit that dimension for the REST of the story. Well, actually, there's not much more to say -- Tbogg has pretty much told you all you need to know: Propecia wants to be Lawrence of Arabia.   The only two Muslims in Washington happen to be on the street that morning, and they rejoice at the sight of  the youngest American jihadist.   Mr. Meghan pops by fulfill his "marital agreement" -- which doesn't involve sex so much as pushing the stroller up the hills on the way to church; however, giants have changed the D.C. topography so that there are no uphill portions of the trek, leaving the horribly ineffectual Meghan to push the empty stroller HERSELF.   Meghan teaches the kiddies that God is an Anglophile American who hates the heathens found in all other lands.  But here are a few other bits that you might have missed: 1.  It's "the wrong time in history" for ten-year-olds to wear towels on their heads and driftwood in their belts to Catholic [or more probably Epicopalian, like Msully pointed out] services in ritzsy neighborhoods in Washington, D.C.  But three or four years ago, nobody would have given it a second glance. 2.  Little FloNase and Midol, taking a tip from Hansel and Gretel, drop bread crumbs along the way to church so they can find their way home in case their parents "forget" and leave them there again this week.  Next time: Meghan is told that her missing tequila bottle is in the oven, and when she puts her head inside to look, hilarity ensues. 3.  Under secret orders from John Ashcroft, Meghan visited a "left wing bookstore" to spy on the customers.  She reports on a "balding groover" who was cooing at a "fat baby."  Those kind of people make Meghan sick.  Happily, she also got a column title out of her eavesdropping. 4.   Eldest daughter Allegra, who has always seemed rather bright in other Snot Fever adventures (usually she is the one who turns Meghan on her side so she won't aspirate her own vomit, and keeps Meghan from punching out anyone who fails to admire the hyperactive antics of young master Propecia), this week thinks that the Founding Fathers worshipped a Supreme Bee (which would probably be something like the queen of the giant space bees we saw on that episode of "Futurama").  It all goes back to a remark made by a Competent Mother who actually accompanied her kid on a field trip to Mount Vernon.  Meghan explains to her suddenly stupid preteen the Supreme Bee is just a cheap, generic version of God, and that the Competent Mother is just a weak-minded liberal (and her daughter is a spoiled brat who probably gets to watch Disney movies).  Allegra is relieved -- or so Meghan claims.  Actually, Allegra decides that when she gets a little older, she will (a la L. Ron Hubbard) start her own religion -- one which involves worshipping giant space bees. 5. Once again, son Propecia is the star of the column.  Meghan writes about him "biffing and pfwaahing," and describes him as "our small swashbuckling sheik."  Again, we think of T.E. Lawrence, and exercise great restraint by failing to make any of the obvious remarks that come to mind.  6.  Meghan hopes that the Muslim women who see Propecia biffing and pfwaahing aren't thinking what SHE would be thinking if she "happened to be strolling through Riyadh and saw a local boy in G.I. camouflage, firing off a wooden M-249, which would be, roughly, 'Huzzah!'"  I'm pretty sure that's not what the women were thinking.  However, I wonder if Rumsfeld has considered dressing young master Propecia in G.I. Joe pajamas, giving him a toy machine gun, and dropping him off in Riyad.   You know, as a way to win some of those hearts and minds. 7.  Tbogg has applied for a trademark on the phrase "America's Most Disturbing Family" -- we wish we had thought of it first.  But we are going to try to trademark "America's Most Pwecious Larva."  Let me know if anybody else thought of THAT one first. 4:08:52 PM

New York: Entertainment Capital of the World From a NY Times story called "Couple Takes Protest Up Tree in Central Park": Two people took off most of their clothes and climbed to the top of a tree in Central Park yesterday, drawing hundreds of onlookers and keeping dozens of police officers and rescue workers busy for four hours. The couple, one clad in a thong and the other in boxer shorts, climbed up 35 feet into a pine tree, just north of the Wollman Rink, at about 4:20 p.m. The two people, identified by the police as a 32-year-old man with feminine breasts and a 17-year-old boy, shouted threats at rescue workers and drank soft drinks. They also had oral sex, witnesses told the police.  [...] Inspector William Callahan said the two people were taken to New York Weill Cornell Center for psychiatric evaluation, and charges were pending. Onlookers in the park were transfixed. A woman visiting from Geneva said she watched for two hours. "I live in Switzerland, which is uneventful," said Katerina Usvitsky, 23, a graphic designer. "Things like this don't happen there." She's right -- when I was in Geneva some years ago, NOBODY had oral sex.  And nobody climbed any trees either. But the Times clearly missed the boat with their boring headline and failure to get to the tree sex until the end of the second graf.  Here, NY Newsday will show you how it's done: Gay Lovers Climb Tree, Then Have Sex The two unidentified gay lovers protested their families' lack of understanding for their relationship by climbing the Central Park tree, having sex in front of the crowd that gathered, and refusing to come down for hours. Two gay lovers - a man in a black dress and a boy in only a pair of shorts - protested their families' lack of understanding for their relationship by climbing a Central Park tree on Thursday, stripping, performing lewd acts in front of onlookers and refusing to come down for hours. [...] Police negotiators who went up the tree to talk the couple down gave them soft drinks and water. A crowd of about 100 onlookers stood nearby. After about five hours, police put harnesses on the lovers and began to lure them down. Wow, the couple kept a crowd of 100 entertained for five hours!  Get me the programmers at Fox ASAP -- have I got a reality TV idea for them! 4:01:56 AM

O'Dodge Bill And speaking of journalistic fraud, Bill O'Reilly's latest column is about a troubling new trend in politics: that trend where Donald Rumsfeld won't appear on "The O'Reilly Factor."  And it really rankles Bill that politicans will go on "entertainment venues" like Leno or "The Daily Show" instead of a hard-hitting program where Bill can hit them hard (and cut their mic if they try to hit back). Thus, a politician can seem accessible to the public because they appear on Oprah or Leno or The Daily Show. But these forums are purely entertainment and rarely is the politician put on the spot. They can pretty much say what they want to say. And that is WRONG, because Bill should get to decide what they get to say. But maybe you were thinking that Bill's show, while not entertaining by any means, is also not a "hard news" program.  (Maybe you recalled the segment from last week called Selling Sex at School -- "Eighteen-year-old September Harness, a freshman at Indiana University, runs an X-rated Web site from her dorm room.")  If so, Bill has a response for you (and the Ted Koppel you rode in on): Speaking before the Hollywood Radio and Television Society, Ted Koppel said: "I have no problem whatsoever with entertainers and comedians pretending to be journalists; my problem is with journalists pretending to be entertainers." With all due respect to Mr. Koppel, whom I do respect, most electronic journalists must have an entertainment component these days, or they are out of business. We can't all work for PBS. Yeah, while Koppel gets to work in the ivory tower of PBS (where anything entertaining is banned by law), some electronic journalists are forced to work for Fox News, where they are required to devote a certain amount of programming time every hour to sexy coeds and dead celebrities, or Rupert Murdoch orders their deaths.  It is the rise of ideological entertainers doing quasi-news programs on cable and talk radio that has changed the playing field. Politicians now have many more sympathetic ears in the media than ever before.So a calculation is made: Avoid the tough guys and gals who have been trained to ask incisive questions, and meander on over to the cozy little studio on the prairie. So politicans should be FORCED to appear on programs with tough guys who were trained by "Hard Copy" (which has won two Peabody awards, the most prestigious award in journalism, you know).   This is a big issue for our Republic. Pay attention to it. Okay, okay -- Rumsfeld should be ordered to do the "O'Reilly Factor" instead of getting softball questions lobbed to him by a wimpy syncophant on that travesty of a news show featured on that tabloid network.  You know the program . . . Hannity & Stooge. 3:33:24 AM

Jack Kelley, Grim Reaper From the USA Today story about the investigation into Jack Kelley's work, which showed that Kelley made up parts of 20 stories, copied at least 100 passages from stories in other publications, and billed the company for thousands of dollars in expenses for translators and drivers who never got reimbursed.  In at least 13 stories, Kelley wrote that he watched someone die. And now he just watches the careers of USA Today editors die, and Gannett stock go down. Anyway, Kelley, through his lawyer, has finally admitted that mistakes were made and people were "let down."  But the mystery (per USA Today) is why Kelley committed fraud and deception for at least 12 years. Why Kelley — a devout Christian who once told a magazine that he was drawn to journalism because 'God has called me to proclaim truth' — perpetrated such frauds remains a mystery. In his statement e-mailed to the newspaper Wednesday, he seemed mystified himself." "I am now committed to taking the time to try to understand how I came to violate the principles I hold dear," his statement continues. "At the end of this process, I hope that I will be able to talk about all of this at greater length, in a way that may help others avoid making the mistakes I made." Like how convicted Watergate felon Chuck Colson began a prison ministry, maybe Kelley can start a ministry for discredited journalists.  You know, whenever he figures out what the heck made him do bad things when he's such a good guy. Marvin Olasky, in a post at World Magazine Blog, offers Kelley's fall from grace (which Olasky minimizes by calling it "exaggerating and plagiarizing stories over many years"), and Kelley's wishy-washy mea culpa as A Cautionary Tale.  (You will recall that Olasky is the cofounder of the World Journalism Institute, where Kelley was going to teach Christian journalism after being asked to resign from USA Today for getting a translator to lie for him, in an attempt to mislead the reporter who was investigating his suspected fabrications.  But somehow, after the scope of Kelley's crimes came out, Kelley was disappeared from the WJI faculty page.)  Anyway, Marvin says: Christians should be sobered by this story and pray to be kept from temptation. Well, more importantly, they should pray for the strength to RESIST temptation.  Unless what Marvin is actually saying is that Christians should pray to be kept out of journalism.  Anyway, there are only four comments (so far) from World Mag blog readers on this item.  A couple didn't have much sympathy for Kelley (who didn't slip once, see the error of his ways, and repent of his sins; but who instead kept up the lying and deceiving for over a decade, steadfastly denying any problems with his reporting until being majorly busted this week).  But another two felt that Kelley's crimes weren't all that bad -- you know, in comparison with other crimes. God bless Jack Kelly for stepping up like a man and calling it what it was. Reality is, there are far worse double life decisions going on out there. Plagarism isn't adultery. Ok, sin is sin yeah yeah, but you know what I mean. Because anything involving sex is way worse than fabricating stories about blood-thirsty Jews and barbaric Muslims (stories which undoubtedly inflamed a volatile situation).  And getting a blow job from an intern is probably the worst sin there could ever be. And Kelley did step up like a man, by having his attorney send an email to his former employer saying that he was sorry if his "mistakes" took away from all the stories he didn't fabricate or steal over the course of 21 years in journalism.  Oh, and that he wouldn't be answering any questions.  You know, it's like how Rush bravely stepped up and admitted his addiction after being exposed in the tabloids and being informed that the police were investigating him. Sobering indeed. But I am encouraged by his response. It is quite different from the way Jayson Blair handled his own case. Jayson Blair being black, and all. 2:46:33 AM