Times Magazine's Breast Feeding Cover

The cover isn't "devolving" in itself, but the article is interesting. Apparently there are some mothers who will go on breast feeding their children - at least, their sons - until they are four or five, long past the time when they are capable of holding a spoon to eat solid food and holding a sippy cup to drink liquids.

What does this tell these three year old boys, who already think they are the lords of creation and that their mother exists only to service them? Pretty much that that's how they should look at all women - as creatures to provide them with sensual gratification, and no need to concern yourself about them as human beings at all - no need to pay attention to their feelings - it's nagging and it's alright to ignore it!

Sad state of affairs when there are women who will actually buy into this claptrap, just as there have been women since the dawn of time who keep their sons tied to their apron strings.

Goodwill - commercial

Watching KGWN - perhaps a local Colorado channel. 10.30 pm, just before the abysmal Two and a Half Men started.

Woman standing in front of some kind of a store, wearing a wig kinda like Uma Thurman in one of the Kill Bill segments. She rushes into the store and rushes out again carrying a dress or something. A "getaway" car stops by her, she gets in, and it zooms off.

The slogan: "Goodwill. Prices so low, you'll think you're stealing."

Then a clerk comes out holding a couple of dollars, saying "Ma'am, you forgot your change."

What kind of a revolting commercial is this? How many people actually go into stores and do some shoplifting - teen girls usually, but still... do we really want to glorify the thrill of stealing something - which is what this totally offensive commercial does?

Men at Work - sitcom trailer

1.55 pm, watching Everybody Loves Raymond on TBS, just saw the trailer for the upcoming sitcom, Men At Work. Best as I can figure out from from the trailer, the show consists of 4 men who act like pre-pubescent teenagers.

They're in a restaurant or somewhere, beautiful blond gives someone, supposedly the main character, a tray or something, and behind him these three guys are doing pelvic thrusts or other forms of celebration that he apparently got a date.

It's one thing to go throughout your life enjoying collecting model trains and ships, and maintaining a child-like demeanor, it's another to go through your life being childish, which is apparently what is being celebrated in this particular show - men's obsession with women as sex objects, not people.

Shelldon - cartoon

Just came across Shelldon today, a cartoon for very young kids. Features some kind of creatures in shells, snails I believe.

Shelldon, the lead, is a boy, of course. Has a bucktoothed crab friend named Herman (Herman the Hermit Crab) and a female snail friend whose name I don't remember.

So I'm watching, and the lead characters are going to school, and they get to go on a field trip - a turtle being their bus.

The class teacher, a squid, asks, "Can you guess where we're going on our field trip?"

And of course a girl character says excitedly, "The beauty salon?"

And a boy character says, "To have adventures hunting sharks?"

Typical.

Herman wants to follow a character named Cranky Crab for no good reason, and Shelldon won't let him go alone. The girl doesn't want them to go off on their own, but rather than calling a grownup to stop them, she just goes following after them. So then they all get lost.

They are washed up onto a beach. Shelldon goes for help while the girl stays behind to protect Hermit, who has gotten stuck in some branches, while a big bird menaces them. At least this shows that girls can be brave and not abandon their friends...

Finally Shelldon returns with someone bigger to rescue them - having had to blackmail first Cranky and then this big fish, because they won't help just because someone needs help. That's a rather disturbing lesson to teach little kids, I thought.

At the end of the show some character comes on and tells the audience always to carry their address with them, and to know their phone number, but most important, never to wander away from their teacher or parents.

Merry Melodies - Cartoon Network

I stopped my channel surfing at 11 am on Merry Melodies today. It starts with a baby Yosemite Sam, wearing a diaper but complete with bright red mustache, etc. He gets up and starts singing a rap song about blowing his top whenever he gets angry- complete with those stupid hand gestures that rappers make. But that wasn't all. He had three backup singers - human females, dressed skimpily. Not as skimpily as if they were showgirls in Las Vegas, but pretty damn skimpy for a cartoon being shown, presumably to kids, at 11 o'clock in the morning. And of course they were thrusting their hips one way and their bosoms the other way as they sang.

That's disgusting at any age, but isn't Merry Melodies aimed at children - it's a show with Bugs, Daffy, Porky Pig, etc. Do they really need to learn at an early age how to look like a rapping fool, and of course, using women as sexual props which is what rappers do? (Along with professional cheerleaders at football games to name only one other business that continues to perpetuate the woman as eye candy theme.)

The Pirates - claymation movie

I've only seen the trailer for this on TV... but what are we shown?

It's an all male crew.

Apparently there is one female pirate. We see her from the back. Her buttocks are curved in pneumatic fashion, and she wears her pants down so low that we see her butt-crack.

And she walks in a seductive way past a group of pirates.

One of them tries to cop a feel, and she slaps his hand away.

What message does this send little girls, and little boys?

Why, that it is a woman's function to dress provacatively to be eye candy for boys, and it's perfectly all right for boys to cop a feel. The girl will good-naturedly slap his hand away and won't feel violated at all. After all, why would she, since she's dressed that way for that specific purpose?

No, I'm not saying every female character (or every female, come to that) should go around wearing a burkha. But wearing pants so low that they show off a butt crack (if show off is the right word) and buttocks tilted up invitingly?

Wearing shirts that are little more than bras to show off the belly button, not to mention the breasts that have been augmented and are just a leeetle too big for the bra and the tight shirt?

And then women wonder why they get no respect?

Dress a guy in that kind of clothing, and first off you know he's gay, and second you know he's a rent-boy. And that same subliminal message goes to guys looking at girls dressed like that.

What's up with daughters and their dads on crime-series TV?

There's no doubt that there's a lack of originality coming out of TV shows - there always has been.

The latest that I've noticed - in those TV series with a female cop lead, they always seem to have a dad who is a con-man or a crook. (Well, in NCIS it was Tony DiNozzo's father who was the con-man, but that's just one guy. Most of 'em...women.)

Bones - originally Bones' mother and father had disappeared. Turns out they had been spies or something. Ryan O'Neal is introduced to the series as Bones' father, who is a conman/killer.

Rizzoli and Isles - Isles character was, at one point, similar to Bones's, but now they've debased the character a bit. In any event, her dad is a con man.

Psych - Juliet O'Hara's father (as played by William Shatner) is a con man

In Plain Sight - Mary Shannon's father is a con man.

(All this begs the question, how can these people pass security checks to get jobs in law enforcement when they have dads who are crooks?)