injaynesworld it's the "Sunday Recap..."

My favorite moment of the week…

And my least…

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In a week that saw Romney coin the new phrase “self-deportation," Gingrich announced his plan to build a colony on the moon by the end of his second term, Rick Santorum suggested that women who’ve been raped and become pregnant just “make the best of a bad situation,” Ron Paul had the best idea, which was to send them all to the moon.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be laughing just yet.  This is, after all, the country that elected GW twice.

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And this week's "You Can't Make This Shit Up" Award...

Trailing poll numbers did not stop Rick Santorum from soliciting donations with a new website:  “Conservatives Unite Moneybomb.”  Or CUM, for short.  

You'd think Santorum, of all people, would have given that more thought.

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If that left a bad taste in your mouth…

On Friday, the most obese nation in the world celebrated National Chocolate Cake Day.  

Maybe “celebrated” is the wrong word.  I don’t recall any parades and the post office was still open.    Chocolate cake to this day remains my number one choice for birthdays, so I don’t begrudge this popular treat its day in the spotlight.   Still, for a country that lusts for sugar while obsessing about thinness, it’s good to see that National Eating Disorders Week will be coming up soon.

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And the Oscars were in the news this week...

... continuing their tradition of nominating people no one ever heard of from films no one saw.     

Which fave of yours got snubbed?

It’s a good thing the always entertaining Billy Crystal will be hosting this year.

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And finally, if you missed the moment, here’s… The Hug.

Didn't Mom teach you to share?

injaynesworld "Show A Little Class..."

As a child, I recall a woman coming to our door one evening collecting for the poor.  I pushed my way in front of my mother who stood in the doorway.   Even at seven years old, the thought of someone not having enough to meet their basic needs was crushing to me.  I ran to my room, got my piggy bank, and would have handed over my entire savings of $3.00 had my mother not stopped me.   I don’t remember what she gave the person, but that memory is still very vivid in my mind.  That may have been the day I became a “bleeding-heart liberal.”

We were not well off by any means, but we had more than some.  There was a family in our neighborhood who we gave my school dresses to once I’d outgrown them.  They were really the only “poor” family I knew, but at least they had a house to live in.  

Ours was a pretty typical 1950s suburban neighborhood.  My step-father worked for the city public works department, which I suppose made us a blue-collar family.   Mom stayed home.   That’s how it was on my street.  

A Republican was in the White House, the highest tax rate was 90%, and the country had never been more prosperous.   Those folks in the 90% bracket were mostly the stuff of movies to the rest of us, but sometimes we’d pile into our 1957 Hudson and cruise the rich neighborhood to gaze at all the mansions.  Nobody begrudged them their wealth.   These days families like mine exist mostly only in memory.

Today the term “wealth inequality” is one we hear a lot.    The highest tax rate is supposed to be 35%, but if you’ve made your millions from investing, you only pay 15%, and if you’re Mitt Romney with an investment income of $57,000 a day that figure inexplicably drops to 13.9.   In contrast, my tax bracket is 25%.   

But who can really fault him?   The law is the law and he’s not breaking it.   Of course, having the tax laws written by a Congress bought and paid for by lobbyists protecting the same Wall Street interests from which Mitt and folks like him derive all that dough might just be the teensiest bit fucked up, but according to Romney the rest of us are just envious.

Hell, yeah!   

Although, when you think of it, why would anyone need so much money?  I recently came across an article that shows all the things one could buy with a billion dollars and still have change left over.    It’s a pretty fancy shopping list that includes 40 private islands at $24.5 mil a piece.   Okay, one private island you might be able to justify because really, who doesn’t want their own damn island?   But seriously, I don’t think I could be very happy there if I knew that because I wasn’t paying my fair share to the country that gave me the opportunities to acquire such vast wealth so many of my fellow citizens were struggling just to survive.  

I’m not suggesting we go back to the 90% tax rate of the 1950s because God forbid someone should have to try to get by on a paltry $100 million, but in his State of the Union address the President suggested a 30% figure and that seems reasonable to me.

Ours has always been a class-based society, until recently with extremes on both ends of the money spectrum and a vast middle where the majority of Americans comfortably resided.   It was a society where your birth status took a back seat to your dreams, and those “poor kids” who wore my hand-me-down dresses needed only a willingness to work for those dreams to achieve them.  

Today most of those mansion-filled neighborhoods, like the one my family drove through when I was a child, have gates around them, and a whole generation has given up on their dreams.

Is it really too much to ask the 1% among us to pay a bit more?   It would be the classy thing to do.

injaynesworld it's the "Sunday Recap..."

In a week that saw the captain of a sunken cruise ship claim he “tripped and fell” into a lifeboat, and Newt Gingrich’s second ex-wife make the “shocking” claim that Newt is less than honorable, perhaps the most disturbing news of the week was this…

The G spot does not exist.

After 60 years of scientific research trying to locate that mysterious orgasmic area, a team of Israeli/American scientists finally said fuck it, something they’d been trying to do for years.   In their findings, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine this week, they’ve concluded that the stuff-of-legends spot does not exist.  

Yes, guys.  All this time we were just messin’ with you. 

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Best New Job Category…

Concerned about the spread of STDs in the porn industry, the health conscious Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance this week that requires every actor in an erotic film to wear a condom, giving a whole new meaning to the term “getting it on.” 

How they’re going to actually enforce the law will be interesting, but one thing we’re sure of, there will be no shortage of applicants for the job.   Because really, who wouldn’t want “porn movie condom inspector” on their business card? 

Not to be a buzz kill, but I feel the need to point out that for the money it’s going to cost to fund this silly law, they could have put free-condom dispensers in every high school.

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In other health news…

 

Pride of the deep-fry south TV chef Paula Deen revealed this week that, while raking in millions urging her audience to whip up and consume fat-and-sugar laden concoctions by the truckload, for the past three years she’s actually been hiding her own diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes.   But not to worry.   She’s just signed a deal to make even more millions promoting a drug to treat the disease. 

Will Lipitor be far behind?

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While the nation celebrated Martin Luther King’s birthday this week…

Mitt Romney continued to decry the notion of income inequality.

Meanwhile, “family values” voters in South Carolina still chose serial cheater Newt Gingrich over the guy who tied the family dog to the roof of his car.  

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Finally, Betty White gets a 90^th birthday shout out from the president…

Like the Recap?  Spread it around.

injaynesworld I'll be "Leaving A Little Something Behind..."

Few of us think much about dying.  Sure, we all know our ticket will be punched someday, but when...   I’m often torn between wanting a “heads up” to get my things in order or being taken out by a meteor because really, that would be a cool way to go.   If there is an afterlife and you’re there tossing back celestial beer and swapping best-demise stories, “hit by a meteor” would have to be right up there.  

The quest for immortality has never been of much interest to me.  Of course, ask me that on my deathbed and I may be of another opinion but, by and large, I’m happy to have been born when I was, grown up when I did and, with any luck, I’ll get off the planet before the whole place turns to crap. 

Still, the notion of a part of me lingering, if only in a text or video, does have a certain appeal to my reverence for the bizarre and now there’s an app for that.   “If I die” is a new Facebook app that allows users to leave updates to be posted to their wall after their death.   Just because you’ve checked out of the physical world is now no reason to depart from the digital one.   And let’s face it, isn’t that where we all spend most of our time anyway?     

A user must pick three Facebook friends, called “trustees,” who will notify the website after their death and confirm the event.   Then Facebook will post his or her final pre-taped message.   Think of it.  That person who dumped you for another that you told you’d never let him forget about it – now you can literally never let him forget about it.   Want to profess your pent-up love for another that you could never have while alive?  This app gives the term “undying love” a whole new meaning.  “Knowing where the bodies are buried” becomes more than just a euphemism.   You might actually know where a body is buried and what better time to reveal yourself as a serial killer than after your own body is cold.

The possibilities are endless. 

I’ve given this serious thought and planned my video carefully according to how I wish to be remembered.    Since I’m renowned for my size 4 “assets,” let’s just say my video will be open to interpretation.  

Surely, there must be something you’d also like to leave behind.   

injaynesworld it's the "Sunday Recap..."

                                                                                                                                   Little Kristy McNichol turns 50!

 And gay.   Actually, she’s been gay for a long time, but this week she chose to go public in the hopes of helping young people struggling with their sexuality as she once did.   Bravo, Kristy.   But couldn’t you have lied about your age?   I can just feel the crypt keeper breathing down my neck.

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How is it possible to go broke selling snack food to Americans?   

We’re the fattest people on the planet.  Childhood obesity is at an all-time high.  Yet this week Hostess, the 80-year-old company that pretty much invented empty calories, filed for bankruptcy.   

The company, whose executives have clearly never heard of Paula Deen and her minions of followers, cited a trend toward healthier eating in this country as one of the reasons for its fiscal fiasco.  Also getting some of the blame the costs of medical benefits for its employees, but if you’re making foods specifically designed to cause diabetes and heart disease, shouldn’t you pick up part of the tab?

I say if you’re making a snack food that can outlast a 1962 VW Beetle and get a killer cleared of a murder rap and you’re still going broke, you’re just not trying hard enough

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Hostess should hire this kid…

Sam Tollison, a 10-year-old Colorado boy is being credited with the designation of January 8^th as the day to forever more to be known as Colorado Cinnamon Roll Day.  Likely while under the influence of copious amounts of sugar, the youth collected more than 100 signatures in his quest to have his beloved pasty honored.  Why cinnamon rolls?   “They have frosting and they’re sweet and yummy,” the tyke proclaimed.

For his efforts, the Tollison family received a free breakfast that of course included a cinnamon roll, along with cinnamon roll ice cream – must-haves on any health conscious person’s breakfast table – and Sam will get free cinnamon rolls for life.  For life!   Or until his blood sugar explodes out his ears. 

Tollison’s mom couldn’t have been more excited, “We feel like kings and queens,” while Sam’s proud papa added, “It’s a good thing when your kids have an idea to pay attention to that idea, because it might turn out just like this.”  

Yeah.   It would have been a real bummer if your kid had only won a stupid science fair.  

And yet, Hostess can’t make a buck.

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Romney dogged by Seamus scandal…

This is Seamus, the stately Irish Setter who was held hostage in a crate on the roof of the Romney family station wagon for a 12-hour ride from Boston to Ontario in the summer of 2007.   

It’s the story that’s had folks from Fox’s Chris Wallace to The Times’ Gail Collins uniting to slam the candidate whose best response so far has been, “Hey, he liked it up there.”  Someone needs to explain to Romney that dogs having a good time don’t usually shit themselves all over your car.    Even Newt Gingrich, best known for dumping his cancer-stricken wife while she was hospitalized, is slamming Romney for the canine cruelty – and you’ve got to go some to be looked down upon by Gingrich.   

Outraged dog owners have rallied at websites like dogsagainstromney.

Meanwhile, even a group of Texas evangelicals have endorsed Santorum, a man whose very name encompasses everything they find most icky in the world, rather than support a guy who’s mean to dogs.  

***

This Great Dane saved his owner’s life…

When a woman was being beaten with a hammer by her boyfriend, her dog leaped in front of her and took the blows.  Because of his bravery, a women’s shelter for victims of domestic violence in Kansas is leading the way in changing the rules allowing family pets to stay at such shelters. 

This is why we don’t strap the dogs that love us unconditionally and trust us to care for them to the roofs of our cars, Mr. Romney.

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Since it seems that this week’s Recap has already gone to the dogs, we might as well finish off with this groovin’ Golden Retriever…

                                                    Got book?

      

       

injaynesworld it's the "Sunday Recap..."

  

Yet another celebrity marriage tanks...

This time it’s Russell Brand and Katy Perry, the admitted sex/drug addict and the daughter of evangelical preachers.   Oh, yeah.  Couldn’t see that one coming. 

Rumors abound as to the cause of the split, including that the randy Russell wanted to have sex five times a day.  Being that during their one-year marriage the couple was rarely in the same country at the same time, much less the same room, were Mr. Brand to now be suffering from a nasty case of carpel tunnel syndrome it would come as no surprise. 

If the Christian "right" is so worried about threats to the sanctity of marriage, why aren’t they out fighting for a ban on celebrity nuptials instead of trying to restrict the civil rights of gays?

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Two stories of good deeds to start the New Year...

A Colorado man who found $10,000 in an envelope  before boarding a flight in Las Vegas says he returned the money to the owner because he wanted to show his children that it was “the right thing to do.”  The owner of the money had won it gambling and dropped it while running to catch a flight.  While in Ohio, a couple who lost $12,000 got lucky this week when their lost bag of bucks was found sitting in the middle of a road by a 63-year-old Akron woman out on a stroll.  The woman told police that her father was a minister who taught her to do the right thing. 

Let it be clear:  Since I do not have children for which I need to set a good example, nor a father or any other relative in the ministry, if I find a stash of cash I’ll be falling to the ground and shouting “Thank you, Jesus!”  I’ll worry about burning in hell later.  

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We do not eat “Mr. Mittens.”

In China, a billionaire businessman learned this the hard way when he died two days after eating a steaming bowl of slow-boiled cat-meat stew, considered a “regional delicacy” in some parts of that country.  As it turned out, it wasn’t the stew that killed him, but rather poison placed in it by a guy who didn’t like him so much.  Probably one of the Chinese  99%.                                                     
First of all, if you’re a billionaire and you’re eating cats, you deserve to die.  Unless you’re crawling to your grave from starvation and you just happen to stumble across a plate of freshly poached filet of feline…  Nah – not even then.

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What’s wrong with this photo ad for kids’ swimwear?   Go ahead.  Take your time…

I’m thinking having a naked guy in a photo touting kids’ fashions may not be the way you want to go – even in France.   I’m also thinking that the photo editor who didn’t catch this before publishing it on the website of French fashion chain La Redoute is now out looking for a new gig.

Perhaps he could run in the GOP primary.   

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Speaking of the GOP primary…

In Iowa last week, only 5.4% of the voting populace gave the tiniest crap about their choices for the Republican nominee for president. Not that I suppose anyone could blame them, but what a waste.   All the money spent, the endless media coverage and for what?  So the world could see Romney barely squeeze out Santorum.  And now on to New Hampshire where we get to do it all over again!

(Warning:  Do not Google “Santorum.”  And by that I mean Google Santorum.)

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Finally, oopsy…

Finally, fresh off “The Biggest Loser,” McCain speaking at a rally where he’s supposed to be endorsing Romney…

Nothing a nice, long rest in a facility serving green Jell-O couldn’t help.

If you enjoyed today’s Recap, please share my link on Internet bathroom walls everywhere.  Thank you.