Won't Someone Please Think of the Billionaires?

Dear Beyonce, Part Two.

Ok. We probably all owe you one for the patented butt-shake maneuver in the "Crazy in Love" video. But imagine how much more disturbing this video would be if the 7 year-old were in your stupid Dereon costumes.



As is, she's just a total badass. And I like how her mom seems to be chopping onions or something around the 1:25 mark.

Dear Beyonce

To be clear: although I find this kind of thing funny because I am mostly indifferent to children, I very harshly disapprove of their objectification -- sometimes, because it's deeply unsettling; sometimes, because it's just fucking gross.

I know, I know: But Miley Cyrus is always gross. True. Gross, and trendy.

Not to be exclusionary of pre-teens, adolescent pole dancing classes were immediately supplemented by a pole dancing doll.


What. The. Hell. Women are dolls? Children are sexy? Toddler empowerment? I don't even know what message I'm being sold. The best possible excuse for this is an attempt to combat childhood obesity -- and NAAFA is not amused.

Abercrombie thought it was a good idea to sell size 6x thongs, and 13 year-olds could, for a time, mail their birthday party invitations on Playboy stationery, so I don't really know why I reacted to this picture by telling Facebook Friend X that I would be calling Child Protective Services as soon as I was done retching.

Sure, it's a baby. But, after seeing this and this, I really should have expected that stupid onesie.

You know what though, Beyonce? I really expected more from you.

Toddlers don't need a freakum dress, ok? And why is the dark-skinned kid in the background?

But thanks, Beyonce, for devoting half of your ad space to the Asian fetish -- which is, apparently, a new and newsworthy thing. Gross, and trendy.

I'm no pundit.

I would have probably just called Wilson a knuckle-dragging asshat and moved on, naively assuming no one could possibly be taking this guy seriously -- and that's why I don't have a TV show. But Keith Olbermann really laid the smack in a nearly-unparalleled way.



"Of course your comments were 'inappropriate' and 'regrettable.' You are a Republican trying to de-legitimize the elected president of the United States. That's all you do, and that's all you've got."

"Look, Congressman: all capital letters! For the benefit of the factually-challenged."

"If, whether through stupidity or a willful attempt to mislead the gullible, you decided to spend whatever credibility remained to you on a position in which you are utterly, inarguably, and in a manner obvious to newborns and the more sophisticated of farm animals -- WRONG -- you apologize for your lack of 'civility,' when are you going to apologize for your lack of being right?"

"I was almost too fearful of using that word, 'impregnably,' because of the prospect that Governor Palin would go after me the way she went after David Letterman."

"The time has come to rise up and take this country back -- to again make it safe for people who actually completed the seventh grade."

I'm so smitten.

Charm City Shoot.

I bet I just fooled you because this is not about gunfire.

SMF and I went here earlier in the week and, while waiting for our food, this crew showed up.


The Hipster is wearing scrubs and eavesdropping on Guy's heartbeat with a stethoscope while he eats some sort of pulled meat sandwich covered in what I hope was the Kansas City Sweet sauce. Hat looks on while Bald shoots. No explanation needed. This makes perfect sense.


Of course, no mention of Baltimore would be complete without an allusion to crime, poverty, and despair. Oh, by the way, please enjoy these dancing Crackheads:





On a completely unrelated note -- because I do not work in Baltimore, nor do I evoke inferences -- one of my students told me I was "funny as a motherfucker" today. It was so sweet I decided to include the same high praise in any recommendation letters he might later request.

Children come (to the gym for indefinite holding periods) first.

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Quandary: What should you do when it's August 23, you are a guidance counselor in a public school system, and 8,000 of the 41,000 high school students in your county still don't have class schedules?

Apparently, if you work for PGCPS, the answer is 'nothing at all.' Even if school starts on August 24. Chillax, baby!

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And then, when it's September 1, and the problem hasn't magically fixed itself over the course of several nights while you're at home watching Everybody Hates Chris -- give yourself the day off.

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And on September 2 -- leave work early. I don't mean 'early' like 4:00. School's over at 2:30, so go ahead and leave at noon. You're worth it. Who wouldn't agree that after waiting the entire summer to address a known problem that has prevented you from completing the most important part of your job -- which should have been done months ago, with or without "flaws in the new computer system --" and then making minimal progress over the course of almost two full weeks, that you've earned this time off?

And while we're on the subject -- what does 'new' really mean, anyway? Because SchoolMax, the demonized computer program you've been publicly blaming for the total exposure of your stunning incompetence, has been up and running for over a year. A year. I mean, is a one year-old still a newborn, then? I feel like we're not even speaking the same language.

And should you even bother to tell the teachers what's going on? Fuck, no! They're only the most important people in the school -- keep them on a need-to-know basis, because it's not like they need to know anything about, you know, students or classes. Continually stall them in the weeks before school with ambiguous half-answers and glaring omissions when they express concern over the obvious red flags popping up everywhere.

Remember all those times last year when you demanded they block out instructional time so you could come in and talk to their classes about various items of banal minutiae -- and then didn't show up at all? These people love surprises. Remember their looks of unadulterated joy when they walked into work on August 24 and gazed upon a sea of pissed off adolescents herded into the gym like cattle?

It was like Christmas for them. The only thing better was when you started putting 50 freshmen in 11th grade history classrooms with 35 desks just to get a few kids out of the gym. What the hell? I mean, they'd get to 11th grade eventually, right? Standing against cinderblock walls in poorly-ventilated rooms for 90 minutes at a time like Jews at Dachau will improve everyone's posture. And maybe they'll learn about that this year.