Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Message To The Media: Report, Don't Incite

Those who read me regularly know that I always have CNN on in the background of my day. Whether folding laundry or working at the computer, I like staying informed.

So it goes without saying that I have watched every interview, every piece of footage, recorded and live, coming out of the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

And CNN, like the other major news networks, sent in their big guns, stationing them across the region as the storm approached. Of course for the usual bullshit, like reporters leaning into the rain and wind while they report - the classic look-at-how-committed-I-am-to-the-story move - and to have immediate coverage of the aftermath once the storm moved out.

And that is fine. The world needs to see what has happened in these areas and the news crews are the eyes for the world. The international community, helped by the United States, since the beginning of the United States needs to see New Orleans underwater. They need to see the devastation that harks back to the tsunami earlier this year. They need to see, so they can care and send aid THIS direction for once.

But what I just witnessed on CNN, during an interview done by highly respected journalist Anderson Cooper with Director of FEMA, Mike Brown, infuriates me and makes me question the geographical freedom and spin these reporters are enjoying.

You see, just prior to his live interview, was a piece done by a fellow correspondent in Bay St. Louis - one of the hardest hit areas on the Gulf. She had spent the day filming people who have lost everything and are desperate for some sign that the world even knows what has happened. Of course they are angry. Of course they are hungry and thirsty. Of course they are acutely aware of their own personal tragedies, not knowing how bad it is so many other places. So of course, all her interviews were spliced to include their outbursts, their accusations that the government doesn’t care, that FEMA isn’t coming fast enough.

Hell, one woman, who is currently sleeping on the porch of her brother’s house, looked into the lens and demanded a trailer for herself.

Uh, hel-lo?  Your porch bedroom is a Four Seasons Resort compared to the complete displacement of so very, very many.  But again, she doesn't know that and these reporters don't seem eager to lend them any perspective.

Now, Anderson has been making his way throughout the region, looking for the worst and bringing it to us live. Today, he spent time with a FEMA rescue unit in Biloxi as they went about their grim task. That, and his colleague’s piece, set up his interview with Mike Brown.

Immediately, Cooper launched into a diatribe about how aid is so slow in coming, and why isn’t FEMA already there waving their magic wand. And doesn’t Brown know how bad it is?

It was a shameful, slanted, unfair interview - worthy of the National Enquirer, The Star, not CNN, and certainly not Anderson Cooper.

But then Mike Brown ripped Cooper a new asshole and laid it all out for him, how uncalled for, sensationalistic and misrepresented the entire preceding piece and Anderson’s diatribe were.  That to even intimate his people are intentionally neglecting those in need or moving slower than they are able, is reprehensible.

FEMA is mobilizing and moving as quickly as they possibly can. They are ACUTELY aware of how extensive is the devastation, how many lives hang in the balance. They are facing down a catastrophe previously unseen on American soil. That they cannot pull a trailer out of their ass and hand it to that woman is just too damned bad.

Again, I have been in their shoes. I get their desperation. But I have waited for FEMA to arrive ON AN ISLAND, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN.

There are no roads in the Pacific Ocean. We were on our own for days before our situation was even seen and understood by the outside world, much less before assistance was mobilized and arrived.

I wish to remind these people that they knew this storm was coming. They had plenty of notice and were told to get the hell out of Dodge. And many, many, many of them had the wherewithal to do so.

They. Chose. To. Stay.

So to Anderson Cooper I say, stick to balanced reporting. The situation is bad enough on its own without you spinning it to make it worse. Tell these people you meet what you do know: How bad it is everywhere. That the government does hear them, see them, and is coming to help them. But don’t you dare look into the camera again and repudiate a process you obviously don’t understand, and castigate the very people who are doing more than talking suavely into a camera every hour while looking incongruously fresh and clean.

Oh, and since you don't appear to be suffering as you travel faster than the aid, why don’t you share some of your water, food and hair gel?

After all, these people lost everything, remember?  THAT'S the story. 

Not your shameful search for an Edward R. Murrow award or Pulitzer prize.

Surreality TV: Survivor, Hurricane Katrina

With New Orleans quickly becoming a 21st century Atlantis, the situation - viewed yesterday as devastating, is today moving to a level of total incomprehension.

And around the world, we watch this riveting, gut wrenching, nonstop program of human drama.  This isn't reality TV. 

This is surreality TV 

With levees continuing to annex New Orleans into Lake Pontchartrain, hundreds are still trapped on top of their homes, untold numbers dead inside them. There is no running water, electricity won’t return for months, sanitation is nonexistent, and the imminent threat of disease outbreaks such as West Nile from mosquitoes and Hepatitis from contaminated water is very real indeed.

Given the facts, given the complete horror of the surreality in which the people of New Orleans are trapped, it is sadly understandable that a Survivor mindset has taken hold. These people have been stripped of all belongings, they have no food, they have no water - they have only the will to survive. Couple this with intense emotional shock and what you have is a society ready to implode on itself.

Enter the looters.

While every compromised situation is viewed as potential booty to a segment of the population, in this case, they are far outnumbered by the people who are being forced to go against every moral, ethical code they have followed all their lives.

Their children are hungry, wet, frightened. Many have infants or elderly who are at serious risk due to their ages. And so they are entering flooded stores and establishments in search of anything to help ease their current situation. Formula and diapers for their babies, medicine for their elderly, clothing and food for their families.

I have been in their shoes. I have been in their heat, their shock, their desperation, their single pair of underwear. It is for that reason that I do not consider these people thieves or criminals. Not even the folks in neighboring Biloxi who have been prying open slot machines they find lying in the street near the destroyed casinos.

They are simply desperate human beings. They are simply seeking items they may use to survive. And I would rather see them succeed in finding food that is still edible and staples that have not yet been ruined by floodwaters, than suffer even more than they already have.

Then there are the truly criminal looters, the pathetic, opportunistic, violent pieces of trash seen in broad daylight, carting off flat screen TVs, computers, DVDs and stereos. The ones carrying guns, adding the potential for violent death, as if the already very grim possibilities that exist aren’t enough.

They are soulless, they are uncaring, they are the ones who should have been swallowed up whole by this natural disaster.

Not the grandmother who recently had surgery and could not evacuate her home. Not the wife who struggled to hold onto her husband’s hand and was divorced from him by the violent waters that swept her away. Not the elderly hospital patients, so frail they could not bear the move from their flooded hospital to the shelter and died along the way, and not the man overcome with grief and desperation who jumped to his death inside the Superdome yesterday.

Good, decent, loving people have perished and low life, despicable, oxygen stealing parasites run free.

And will for some time. The authorities are stretched thin trying to rescue survivors and plan for the seemingly impossible task of evacuating the entire city of New Orleans. There is no one to stop them.

My message for these pieces of shit? Sit on your roof and enjoy that plasma television set. High five your cronies over those four laptops you scored. Brag about the five DVD players and two Tivo boxes you ripped off. Hell, even admire how your stolen bling sparkles on your fingers.

Because eventually, even r-tards like you will figure out that you can’t eat the wiring and that without electricity, all that booty is as worthless as you are.

Now THAT is must-see TV - we'll be watching.

Hurricane Katrina’s Dead - So Many Were Victims Of Stupidity Long Before They Were Victims Of The Storm

This morning, as sunlight crept over the states affected by Katrina, the level of devastation became all too clear.

I want to pause a moment to comment on the sunlight part.

Having lived through Iniki in ‘92, I can tell you from experience that one of the most damning things about a hurricane is that it personifies that inane Annie song: “The sun will come out tomorrow.” Inevitably, the day that follows the destruction, when the shell shocked emerge to survey what does or does not remain of their lives’ work, dawns with crystal clear skies and the kind of sunlight you see in a Tropicana commercial.

While perfect weather obviously helps in assessing damage, psychologically it is offensive, almost crippling. There you stand, in conditions that resemble a bomb aftermath, and the weather seems to taunt you. Ha, ha, ha - look what I did!

Honestly, it would be an easier transition from the fear and shock if there were at least a slight drizzle.

That being said, rescue and aid workers will need every second of the offensive sunlight to access and aid those who chose to ignore evacuation warnings and stayed in their homes.

And the number of those people is feared to be high. Already, reports of bodies floating down the flooded streets of New Orleans, are coming in, and aerial assessments show that much of what remains in a large residential portion of the city, are roofs. The houses have disappeared under the waters which continue flowing through the broken levee.

Rescue teams worked throughout the night, in boats, and managed to save hundreds from their rooftops. Untold numbers are still out there. Authorities are loathe to even speculate on the number who may have perished.

The death toll in neighboring Biloxi, Mississippi continues to climb, with at least 50 confirmed dead. Over 30 of those died when Katrina & The Waves roared ashore and demolished their waterfront condominium complex.

Why? Why did so many refuse to heed the mandatory evacuation orders to get out of town or into an approved shelter?

Sadly, they are victims of their own stupidity coupled with the Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome.

Living in the areas they do, “STORM!”, “HURRICANE” and “EVACUATE!” are words they hear too often. And the times when the feared storm has actually delivered the goods, as it were, have thankfully been few. So, many of these people have become inured to “potential” threats, ignoring orders, warnings, and the like, since they have come through so many storms relatively unscathed.

Unfortunately, like the boy who cried wolf, there actually was one this time and it has eaten these cities whole.  At this writing, the cities of Bay St. Louis and Slidell, where the eye came ashore, have not even been heard from.

Silence, in this case, is feared to be deadly, not golden.

As for the number of folks in New Orleans who decided to ride it out in their homes? While stupidity still ruled the day in the majority of those cases, I will cut minimal slack. New Orleans is a beautiful jumble of big city mixed with old residential areas - meaning many people don’t even own cars, a choice made either by the proximity to everything they need or by the proximity of poverty to their lives.

The Superdome, the largest evacuation shelter in New Orleans, could have held thousands upon thousands more, yet they did not come, stupidly choosing to stay with their TV sets, their computers, their lazyboys. Entire families risked the lives of innocent children who were not given a choice.

While it is too late for them, I have advice for anyone who ever faces the choice to stay or leave as a storm of this magnitude approaches: GET YOUR ASS OUT.

F*ck your TV set. F*ck your set of Star Wars shot glasses. F*ck that nice new couch from Rent-a-center. When death is howling at your door and tearing your home apart around you, you will care about one thing and one thing only: LIFE.

I cannot stress that enough. If time allows before you evacuate, take water, take food you can carry and open easily, take important papers. That‘s it. Get out.

I have stood in the middle of my house, knowing that it might all be gone when I return, and I promise you, nothing you lose is the least bit important if you have your life. You can rebuild. You can buy another TV set. You cannot buy a child, a husband, a wife.

Thirteen years ago, this September 11th, I walked out of my house carrying my baby, a bag full of diapers and baby formula, and a plastic trash bag full of tax papers, birth certificates, my marriage license and a photo album full of baby pictures. With my husband at my side, we evacuated.

We lost everything.

But because we were not stupid, in fact, we lost nothing at all. We had each other.

How sad it is that so many in the south cannot say that today.  My thoughts and prayers are with them.

Donations to the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina aid effort may be made directly through their website at RedCross.org 

The Winds of Change

September 11, 1992.They looked around the tiny plantation house they had rented for two years. Memories abounded in picture frames, nic nacs, art. But what to take? The storm was coming soon and they had to get out. A Category 4-5 hurricane, the single wall construction and tin roof of the sweet shack would offer little protection or resistance. Grabbing their four month old daughter, important papers, diapers, formula, bottles, baby clothing and her favorite toy, they left the house and headed for safer shelter . . . but not before the woman vacuumed the entire house . . .

That was my family roughly 13 years ago, living on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. And that crazy woman vacuuming the house? That was yours truly. You see, the day Hurricane Iniki came along, my parents were on an airplane coming to visit. They had yet to see our new baby or the "sweet shack" in which we were raising her.

Truth be told, my husband and I actually referred to our domicile as the "shit shack", but that was meant with love and affection.

Seriously.

Anyway, I was determined that our humble hut would be presentable. So I vacuumed, just in case the storm was "not so bad".

I did not catch everything my husband mumbled, but over the roar of the Hoover I caught "neurotic.....Type A.....madwoman....". Looking back, he was right on one count. The Type A in me was simply struggling to have some control over the uncontrollable.

As I have watched the coverage of Hurricane Katrina, all of the memories have come flooding back. Not that they have far to flood. When you have gone through the trauma of losing everything but your toilet, the thoughts are always fairly close at hand.

I recognize the denial of how bad it can possibly be, the shock when it begins to arrive as bad it possibly can be, and I can remember the taste of the first tears.

As opposed to the folks in Florida who endure this type of flogging annually, or those currently under the gun in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, we had no where to run. As the only roads off an island are those big ones that the airplanes use, heading out of town was not an option. So I feel for those stranded in the path of Katrina with no where to run and their only options being to pray and hide behind a cement wall.

Our hurricane was bad - it was a Category 4, then 5 with winds of 175mph - the worst they get, however, coming right on the heels of Hurricane Andrew in Florida, our island did not garner as much media attention. After all, it’s harder to get to, and most people don’t even consider Hawaii to actually be a part of the United States - not being attached and all. Regardless of media attention or widespread geographical ignorance, Iniki left 14,350 damaged or destroyed homes on Kauai. The number of homes that were completely destroyed was 1,421. Electric power and telephone service were lost throughout the island and only 20 percent of power had been restored four weeks after the storm.

Yet, again, most people have never heard of this hurricane, for as I’ve often said, the level that people care about a tragedy is in direct proportion to their proximity to it.

One of my favorite memories - yes, you can have favorite memories about things like this - are the number of people who thought we had lost our minds. You see, we had weathered the storm at the hotel my husband managed and had gone back to see our shack the next day.

After viewing destruction equivalent to a warzone and our neighborhood that could only be described as "matchsticks", we finally found the slab that used to be our shit shack - a moniker that was finally, thoroughly apropos. All that remained was debris and the toilet, still anchored to the cement. We returned to his hotel and as we related what we had found, we were still smiling.

People began to walk wide circles around us.

Were we on the brink of insanity? Were we ready for some straight jackets and padded walls?

Not even close.

You know, you go through life hoping you have pretty good priorities, and that you know what is really important. While the hurricane had ripped everything else from our lives, we found that the important things were set in immoveable stone.

WE HAD EACH OTHER. WE WERE ALIVE.

Conversely, some people just have no clue.

There we were, the day after a hurricane, the island devastated, people’s lives forever changed, no running water, no electricity, no contact with the outside world, and a guest actually berated my husband about not being able to get a teetime.

I am not kidding.

There she was in her visor, plaid shorts and pom pom socks, screaming about being inconvenienced on her vacation.

To his credit, my husband kept his cool. He simply held up our daughter, and said, "Do you see this child? She has no home, no crib, she just lost everything. Now, what was your complaint?"

The woman turned on her pom-pommed heels and walked away. (Personally, if I had been him, she would have walked away with her nine iron wrapped around her visor.)

Luckily those self absorbed people are the minority during crisis' such as this.

You see, once Katrina has blown away, leaving behind not much more than destruction and shock, we will begin seeing and hearing the same positive things from those now experiencing this type of natural disaster as we uttered in 1992. I promise you, the resounding theme will be, "We are alive. We have each other."

And they will not be alone.

While we tend to go about our day to day lives thinking pretty much about ourselves, when something like this happens, the best part of human nature takes over us all. Donations will pour in. The Red Cross is already in place and ready to go to work, doing what they do best - providing a touchstone for those whose rug of life has been yanked out from under them.

Those who still have will open their doors and hearts to those who have not. And while our government leaves a lot to be desired in many areas, spending $4,000 on a hammer and $10,000 on a stepstool, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be there to help people get back on their feet.

As I said, it has been almost thirteen years since our hurricane. So much was forever altered on that day when the winds of change came calling. We lost some items we can never replace and we are literally in FEMA’s debt for another 9 years. But we also had it hammered home with 175-200 mile per hour winds that we have always known what is important.

And that carpet? Ripped clean off the foundation.

Notice I said CLEAN.

This Contest Has Gone To The Dogs

While trolling the underbelly of the news today, as I do everyday when looking for something to share with you, I found this particularly intriguing piece of lint.

It does several things for me:

1. Reinforces that every category of person, place or thing does indeed have some sort of contest in which gold medals can be awarded.

2. Makes me believe in human goodness

and 3. Validates that I have a really hot pet.

Allow me to explain. It seems that each year at the fair in Petaluma, California, in addition to prizes being awarded for best pie, biggest hog and driest Chardonnay, there is a highly competitive dog show.

But don’t look for these pooches to be coming to Westminster or appearing on a can of Alpo anytime soon. Rather, these contestants line up to be judged as the World’s Ugliest Dog.

Yes, you read that right. Forget grooming and breed standards. The more inbred, unkempt, mange laden, slobber spewing, the better. So if your dog has only one eye, half a back leg, a chunk bitten out of its left ear and a spastic colon, book your plane ticket to Petaluma now.

Moving onto point #2...

Human goodness is the only thing that comes to mind when I see this year’s winner. I can think of no other reason that this animal has a roof over its head. Someone not only owns it, but loves it. And actually this dog, Sam, a 14 year old Chinese crested has won three years in a row. But then he does have the advantage of looking like something from a Wes Craven movie.

But again, he is someone’s pet. And that someone must have a heart the size of Hong Kong, or be equally as blind as old Sam.

I now understand why I love my dog. I’m shallow.

Which brings me to point #3.

Sam makes my Oreo look like Miss Universe. She is 8 pounds of fluff, big eyes, and adorable personality that I love to snuggle up with in bed. Sam on the other hand, has milky blind eyes, snaggled teeth that protrude from his face, is basically bald and covered with warts, and were I to let him on my bed, I would sleep with one eye open and a meat cleaver in my hand.

But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. You decide. For me, screw 1,000 words.  Only one keeps coming to mind: DAMN.

Was Doctor Wrong For Telling Obese Patient The Truth? Fat Chance.

I truly thought personal responsibility had pulled an Elvis and left the building for good when the lawsuit was filed against McDonald's a couple years ago. 

No, not the one about the old lady who sued and won over her coffee being hot and it having the audacity to burn her when she spilled it on herself.  I was wrong.

Rather the one I'm referring to stemmed from the poor victims who ate at Mickey D's everyday for years  and - I hope you're sitting down - GOT FAT. 

It must have come as a great relief to the millions of overweight, fast food chomping Americans that their ever expanding girth was not their fault.  That they had been unwitting pawns in a corporate game of Cheeseburger Chess. 

And as for those elastic waisted pants they had been forced into wearing?  I do believe there should have been an accompanying lawsuit directed at the garment manufacturers of the world over their obvious lack of concern for the self esteem of the French Fry impaired. 

How nice to be absolved of all guilt for lo those many times I had supersized those ounces of deep fried delicacies.  And how comforting it was to realize that should my children grow zaftig, it would be neither their fault, nor mine, that they would simply be Happy Meal Handicapped.

Cripes, talk about victim mentality.

I said it then and I repeat it now - if you are fat, and want to blame someone, go file a lawsuit against the person in the mirror.  With the exception of a very minimal number of people who carry extra weight due to physiological/medical issues, being fat is a choice - and a very poor one at that.  It is the fault of the fat person - no one else.  No one ever holds a gun to your head making you eat a gut bombing Big Mac.  No one holds your family hostage until you finish that giant size bag of Cheetos.  And no one is standing by threatening to detonate an IED unless you find the bottom of that Ben & Jerry's container in less than ten minutes.

Well, those lawsuits are all regulars compared to the supersized story of Dr. Terry Bennett of New Hampshire.

You see, he told a fat patient that she was obese, and she in turn waddled out and filed a formal complaint with the medical board who in turn involved the Attorney General.

Because a doctor told his patient the truth.

Someone needs to smack them all upside their fat heads and wake them up.

Has this country gone so completely PC that a physician, charged with maintaining a person's health, cannot point out the obvious to them?  Should they just hope the obese person figures it out on their own?  What's that?  Your joints ache and your feet hurt all the time?  Oh, well, um, maybe you need a different pair of shoes?  You say your heart feels like it is coming out of your chest when you walk up a flight of stairs? Oh well, no worries there.  Just take the elevator from now on.  And you're depressed because you haven't been asked out on a date in ten years?  Oh my dear, chins up.  I hear they are starting a Speed Dating Night at Krispy Kreme.

Someone has to be able to tell you the truth.  And the truth is not always what you want to hear, often times it is what you need to hear.   

And with a full 25% of Americans weighing in as obese, there's a lot of truth that needs to be told.

Faced with her litany of health complaints, Dr. Bennett explained to her all the risks associated with her weight, from the straight forward clinical complications to the more intangible, like a diminished lovelife. "I told her, 'You need to get on a program, join a group of like-minded people and peel off the weight that is going to kill you.' "

If her only response is to get pissed off and drown her fat sorrows in a box of Twinkies while dialing the medical board, she deserves what she gets.  And if what she gets is an early death and a coffin that strains at the seams, so be it.

Dr. Terry Bennett does not need disciplined by the medical profession or charged by the Attorney General, he needs a commendation for caring enough to use tough love with his patients.

Mindy Haney, a formerly obese  patient who has lost 150 pounds with Dr. Bennett's help, defends his actions.  "What really makes me angry is he told the truth.  How can you punish somebody for that?"

She does, however, acknowledge that she initially didn't want to listen.

"I have been in this lady's shoes. I've been angry and left his practice. I mean, in-my-car-taking-off angry, but once you think about it, you're angry at yourself, not Doctor Bennett. He's the messenger. He's telling you what you already know."

Sadly, for many overweight people, that is a Whopper just too hard to swallow. 

Instead, apparently they just eat the messenger.

Television: Portal or Pothole For The Mind?

So much is written about the detrimental effects of television viewing on children. Experts, scientists, pediatricians, and people without kids all pontificate, log, journal and rant about how we are allowing our offspring to turn into couch potatoes and their brains into mashed potatoes.

Now while I have a great deal of respect for those in the scientific and medical communities, I have to point the remote control at them on this one and firmly push the MUTE button. I simply do not agree. And since I have a half hour between my Sopranos rerun and a new episode of Entourage, I’ll tell you why.

Television was created as the ultimate communicator. In a world where you could only find out the News From Around The Globe in the movie theaters on Saturdays before the new Lone Ranger feature, these magic boxes began to bring the world into your living room. Along came game shows, a fun, fantasy filled escape from the tedium of your boring life in Dustbowl, OH. Then before you could say Ovaltine, the screens were filled with Leave It To Beaver and The Mickey Mouse Club!

Television viewing became a family oriented escape.

Now as TV became more and more prominent, did the great American pasttime of baseball die out? No. Kids still played, ran, Hula Hooped, Slinkied and Kicked-The-Can through the streets and backyards across the land. Just as they do today. The only "frequency" that had to change to accommodate the growing popularity of television was, and is, the "volume" at which parents control the viewing.

I have always allowed my children to watch TV. To do differently would 1.) Make me the biggest hypocrite to walk the Earth, and 2.) Deny them the joy (and me the private bathroom time) that can be found in front of the rectangular nanny.

The hypocrisy would be that I have called first dibs on the TV each Sunday night for almost 5 years. I revel in the adult escape offered by Six Feet Under (death has never been so hilarious), Deadwood (over 2,000,000 F*ucks uttered), The Comeback (Lisa Kudrow rocks) and yes, Entourage (one of the most tightly written shows on TV today). Before that, it was Must See TV on Thursdays. I admit it. I enjoyed Friends, Frasier, Seinfeld and Will & Grace, and woe betide to anyone who got between me and my television.

Thank God Tivo came along - my family is much less afraid of me since I am able to pause and/or record my faves.

As to the joy part? When our oldest child was less than a year old, we welcomed Barney into our home daily. YES, it drove me nuts. YES, I heard that inane song in my sleep. YES, it made her happy to dance, sing and kiss the screen each morning.

As our family has expanded and the children have grown, we have added their favorites to the list of allowable shows. (Key word: ALLOWABLE. We do not just plant them like tulip bulbs in front of Nickelodeon and walk away.) Believe it or not, thanks to the people at some of these stations, their favorites are actually reruns of Full House, The Brady Bunch, Little House On The Prairie and The Cosby Show.

Yes, they are aware of the pop culture in their young generation, shows like Teen Titans, Ed, Edd & Eddy and Catscratch, but they are rated R in our house (for retarded and a really big waste of time).

I remember several years back when I read an interview with music icon, Madonna. As a mother of two young children, she was sharing her parenting beliefs, including the one where her oldest child, then 7, had never been allowed to watch TV in her life. She believed and still does believe that it stifles a child’s imagination.

Obviously Mama Madonna has not seen the imagination that is sparked by a good Disney movie. Case in point, the month long siege of Princessdom when my daughters were entranced with Cinderella, or the homemade loin clothes inspired by Pocohontas .

Another fine example: Eavesdropping once on my 4 year old while she played with four brightly colored sponges on the side of my bathtub. Each one represented a different Veggie Tales character in the play she was performing for herself. Stifled imagination? More like a Ray of Light, Madonna.

The point is, TV alone does not have the capacity to rot the brains of our youth any more than a bag of sugar can rot their teeth on its own. Passive parenting will take care of that.

Controlled, monitored and discussed however, television can allow a child to experience laughter, relaxation and in some formats, contemplation. The same things we parents experience when we watch our favorite shows. They may even learn something or reinforce something they are learning at school. Fresh off studying the secrets of the Solar System in her class, my nine year old once amazed us all when she answered the $250,000 question on the syndicated version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. My final answer? No clue.

Now you’ll have to excuse me, it’s time for me to contemplate who gets wacked next on The Sopranos. Where did I put that remote??

Old Lady Really Gets Robber’s Scrote - er, Goat.

It’s often said that one should never judge a book by its cover. In literal terms this is very apt. Some of the greatest tomes have the most boring facades. Take the Bible - not much to look at with its plain black cover, but it (not the Da Vinci code as you might have thought) is the world’s most read book.

In terms of food, it still amazes me that anyone ever got past appearances to attempt not only finding the choke, but figuring out how to prepare the damned artichoke around it. And many a person will never stick a piece of raw tuna in their yaps, but that’s ok with those of us who love it and don’t want to share.

Then there are people.

Admit it, we all are constantly judging those around us, underestimating, taking for granted, discounting, looking right through them. Which brings us to today’s story of Soja Popova of Klaipeda, Lithuania.

Ahh, dear sweet, old Soja. At 93, not exactly the type who springs to mind when you hear of someone fending off an attacker with their bare hands.

Hand, actually.

You see, quiet, wrinkly Soja was in her home minding her own knitting, as it were, when the doorbell rang. She opened the door to find two young men standing on her doorstep. Shoving her to the ground, it became quickly apparent that they were not selling magazines or cookies.

Now most of us in that position, outnumbered and presumably overpowered, would cower in fear or begin to simultaneously shit our pants while begging for our lives.

Not Soja.

A lifetime of goat milking was hidden in the floppy sleeves of her housecoat and with one swift movement she reached up and grabbed one of the men by his testicles, clamping down with the kung foo grip she usually reserved for the most belligerent of livestock.

In fact, to quote Soja, “"He started screaming like an animal and his friend was trying to pull him free, but I have a grip like iron."

He fell to the floor in probably the most pain he has yet experienced in his pathetic life. His crookish companion tried in vain to release her hand from his friend’s scrotum, which much like Soja’s last name, was threatening to “pop all ova” his pants.

His screams of pain and his partner’s screams for her to let the guy go resonated into the street and were heard by her neighbors who immediately called the police.

Soja let him go, but the damage had been done - the man could barely breathe, let alone crawl. The pair were caught while they attempted to slither out a bedroom window. As they saw the police waiting outside, the injured man seemed relieved to see them.

According to a police spokeperson, "They would not have got far. One of them could hardly walk and he actually seemed pleased when he saw the police car. He demanded he be taken to hospital because he was in so much pain.”

I can only imagine that what hospital workers encountered when he dropped his pants, gives a whole new meaning to the term “blue balls”.

So the moral of our story, children, is this: Choose your reading material, food and crime victims wisely. You never know what incredible stories, culinary pleasures or goat milking ball grips are hidden behind an unlikely cover.

Ahhhhh...Soja Popova, my new hero.

Burying Six Feet Under

Dearly Beloved - we are gathered together today to mourn the loss of one of the most groundbreaking, innovative, perversely addicting shows on cable TV - HBO’s Six Feet Under.

A show that not only lived with death, but laughed at it as well. A show that reveled in boiling diverse humanity down to its single commonality: We are all going to die.

With last night’s series finale, I am today feeling the loss. Although I came to the series in its second season, I quickly realized that Six Feet Under was taking television in a direction rarely seen in today’s glut of reality show programming. They were actually making a show with characters as hateable as they were relatable.

Set in the Fisher Family Funeral Home, which also served as the family’s longtime domestic dwelling, we met people who are or could easily be us, or are someone or who could be someone we might love as much as we hate.

Widowed and repressed matriarch Ruth, who was forever caught in a 1950s time warp, exhibited as much in her dress as in her attitudes. Oldest son Nate, for whom life was a constant series of compromises and unfulfilled desires. Good son David, who dutifully not only went into the family business (eschewing his dreams of studying law), but took over when dear old Dad was run over by a bus. And Clair, who we met as a teenager and watched as she ran the gamut of personal growth, all the while constantly undermined by her seriously dysfunctional home life. (Go figure they were all screwed up - they were raised above the room where Dad prepared the bodies for viewing.)

Now on paper, those characters, and the thread of death that ran through their lives, might not sound like the basis for a compelling, and often hysterical series, but in the hands of creator Alan Ball and his team of superior writers, this was so much more than the sum of its parts.

Each episode opened with a death. Not funny? Think again. Ranging from the natural deaths of old folks (favorite was the woman who died on the toilet while straining to poop), tragic drug overdoses in which the teen believed he could fly off a roof, husband and wife arguments that turned deadly (all time favorite, the woman whose husband was berating her on and on at the kitchen table - she slammed him in the head with a cast iron skillet), to wrong place, wrong time deaths (the jogger who stopped to admire the canyon view and got eaten by a mountain lion), and the farcical (the woman who walked outside while talking on the phone and got hit in the head with a falling block of frozen airplane waste), death was shown for what it is, the great equalizer.

As the personal lives of the characters played out, we got the voyeuristic thrill of watching gay David look for love in some very wrong places before finally finding it with ex-cop Keith. These two straight actors were amazing. They created characters of such depth and compassion and emotion, the fact they were gay was as much a nonissue as it was an afterthought for the viewer.

Nate was the soul of the show, the voice of reason as much as the voice of rebellion. Trapped into working in the very place he left home to get away from, his life spiraled from one compromise to another. Joined for the ride by the sex addicted and completely warped herself, Brenda, Nate struggled with his lot in life in every episode, wringing the humanity out of each scene like a soaked washcloth.

But even in the midst of their emotional roller coaster, the writers threw us moments of true hilarity. Gold medal moment: Ruth walking in while Nate was on his knees - um - servicing Brenda in the funeral parlor.

Nate was a touchstone - We cheered him, we scolded him, we felt sorry for him as life continually forced him to eat shit and poor Nate tried to make the best of it and the best of himself. More often than not, he failed, and in those failings, we could see ourselves and every situation where we have had to pick up the fork and knife and dig into our own buffet of fecal matter.

At 40, widowed and having suffered through a marriage he never wanted, saddled with a child he slowly came to want and caught in the never ending drama of sex vs. love with Brenda, Nate had finally figured out what he wanted in life when his life was snuffed out by a brain hemorrhage, leaving Brenda with not only his young daughter Maya, but one on the way as well.

Federico, not a Fisher, but a partner in the funeral home, was as flawed as he was earnest. Sweet, family oriented and an artist in recreating even the most destroyed of dead visages, Rico let us all down when he cheated on his wife with a stripper and then continued the dalliance until he was caught and kicked out, left to sleep at night on the very tables where his “clients” lay during the day.

Clair’s ride through the series was the most frustrating, yet most invigorating. Truly a teen lost and trying to find her way, she struggled with drugs, betrayal, lousy boyfriends, career ambivalence and the constant awareness of death and how it cares not whether you have figured life out or even enjoyed the ride. Her ride, the hideous green, late model hearse, finally got buried when she totaled it in a drug/drink stupor.

And Ruth, God love her, she is everyone’s mother. Mine, yours, you, me. Her family is her world and she knows only how to care for others, not ever really caring for herself. As her family members die and move on, she is left to finally face herself and the fact that she has spent a life in which the word “settled” hovered through every waking moment. A life, while generationally correct, has left her completely unfulfilled.

Ruth’s is a life never truly lived. Which is thankfully reconciled in the finale as she moves out, moves on and begins to breathe for the first time in her adult life.

There is much discussion today, as there always is when a series winds down. Did the finale live up to the series? Did the finale sell out? Did the finale fall flat?

I think Alan Ball and his team of writers presented not only a cathartic finale for the viewers, but one that never felt “pat” or unrealistic. With the pivotal death of Nate several weeks back, all the wheels had been set in motion for the changes that came to fruition last night.

Claire has found love and the strength to pursue her artistic passions in New York, with Ruth’s blessing, “I wish that you hang onto hope as long as you can.”

David has exorcised his demons - the biggest one being himself - and he and Keith are happily together, raising their two adopted sons, in the Fisher home which they have redone in stainless steel and decorator colors.

Rico, wiser and forever repentant, has reconciled with his wife, and together they open their own funeral home, complete with an espresso bar - an addition David had always shot down as “tacky and disrespectful”.

Brenda, whose mother will never be featured in a Hallmark card, has found her own maternal soul and strength thanks to Ruth telling her that “Motherhood is the loneliest thing in the world” and that Nate did love her as much as her could but that she needed more than he knew how to give.

And instead of leaving us to hang, wondering what will become of them all, they gifted us with, appropriately, the deaths of each character. As Clair drives off to New York in her new Prius, we see how each character finally leaves this world. Ruth as an old woman; Keith - a Brink’s guard - gunned down many years hence; David as an old man at a family picnic; Federico while enjoying a senior’s cruise with his wife; Brenda, old and fulfilled, yet literally talked to death by her aged brother, the bipolar treat Billy; and finally Clair, in the year 2085, in a room full of her photography, full of photos of those she loved.

Six Feet Under, like many premium programs today, was a gem - and reason enough to cough up the cash each month for dish or cable service. And like a dearly departed loved one, it will leave a hole, it will be missed.

Thankfully, as opposed to the flesh and blood relatives who leave us, the magic of DVD and Tivo insures that we can resurrect the Fishers anytime and visit with these fabulous, flawed friends who taught us that life is tenuous and death, while tragic, is simply a part of it.

Milk of Human Kindness or Simple Greed?

I am constantly amazed at how I am constantly amazed at the things people will do. Just when I think "I done seen about everything", I find out how naive I actually am. But with what I learned today, I do believe that damned elephant is going to fly by my window anytime and I will have officially seen it all.

Apparently you can buy breast milk on the Internet.

Now that in itself should not be earth shattering to me, after all, you can get damn near everything online. Whether it's a live video porn feed from Amsterdam, hand dipped chocolates from Belgium or Viagra to enhance watching that Amsterdam porn, it's all out there. Heck, one quick look on eBay reveals I can currently bid not only on fifty-three used iPods, but an old wooden oar, a used blow up doll (ICK) and a ten pack of extra large jockstraps.

So the fact that people are out there offering the ability to "pay at the pump" for their breast milk does not surprise me. If there is a way to make money, people will find it. What blows me away is that there are women who are actually buying the stuff.

Breast milk. From total strangers.

I mean, come on, would you go shopping online for blood for an upcoming surgery? Sperm for a do-it-yourself insemination? Oh lookee! If you order now it comes with a free turkey baster! Give me a break.

It's bad enough that there are truly are no checks and balances available to insure the normal products you can order online - cookies, flowers, shampoo, supplements - are sanitary, safe or even legal. We're talking about trusting your infant's health to some stranger seven states away. Concerns like disease, bacteria and sanitation aside - how the hell do you even know that what you are getting is actually breast milk? Let alone from a human being?

Anyone, with rudimentary mouse skills, can design a reputable looking website and have it up and running, selling whatever their heart desires in fifteen minutes. I could be selling dirty underwear in less than that. I'm tech proficient and have piles of it laying around. And God knows, someone weird f**k out in this universe of ours would drain their Paypal account to buy it all.

Now, I understand the desire to do what's best for your child. I have three. I nursed all of them. I also realize I was lucky. Nursing came easily - I produced, they sucked, life moved on. It's not that way for some women, I know that. Whether the baby rejects the process, the mother has little milk production or perhaps has had a mastectomy, there are myriad reasons why a woman may not be able to nurse no matter how much she wishes she could.

But to turn to strangers? Come on. If you are that brainwashed on the merits of breast feeding, contact one of the seven actual breast milk banks run by actual hospitals in the United States. They are run by healthcare professionals, with strict sanitation and handling procedures, including pasteurization, not to mention rigid screening of donors for hepatitis and HIV- both are transmittable through breast milk.

And you did read that right. I said brainwashed.

While, yes, there is plenty of data to back up the La Leche League's grandstanding that breast milk is best, women need to realize it is not the only viable option for their baby. Remember, I was in the hospital three times and can tell you that each time, I was visited by a LLL priestess who covered my bed with literature and filled the room with veiled accusations of bad mothering should I choose to bottle feed over breast.

My ultimate choice was my own and not the product of her chanting.

But, I nursed for periods that varied from twoish months to one year and can tell you that my oldest daughter, who nursed the least, is smart as a whip and healthy as a horse. (My thanks to Carnation. Their formula stepped in and took over just fine.)

Now I realize that sharing breast milk goes back to the days of the wet nurse, but those were face to face transactions. Not a set up like the one created by Jenn Connel called FeedMyBaby.com. A double mastectomy patient, Jenn, convinced anything less would be "letting her child down, actually solicited total strangers in order to obtain breast milk.

It's just unbelievable to me that with her objective being the health of her baby, she would risk it all and turn that health over to strangers.

And what of the people selling it? When there is a dollar sign attached to something, pure philanthropy is not the object. The lion’s share of men who donate sperm don’t do it “for all those people who cannot conceive naturally”. They do it for the money. And I guarantee you, within a stone’s throw of every college student union in this country is a Plasma Donation Center. I well remember the one near my own college - there was never a shortage of donors, including myself - that $35 beer/pizza/lip gloss money being the object, not some deep sense of self sacrifice.

Listen, I am online all the time. I am a huge advocate of the web. I have made incredible friendships, advanced a writing career by leaps and bounds, and do most of my holiday shopping with my mouse. I know what a great tool it is. But common sense has got to play a part in how it is used.

And when it comes to a baby, the risks are just too great. A child needs nourishment and love. Whether it comes from your breast or a bottle doesn't matter, it just shouldn't come from the Internet.

This is simply one puddle of spilled milk you could end up crying over for the rest of your life.