Now I get it.....

George Michael - I Want Your Sex

It’s a shame about Bristol Palin

Paying unwed teen mother Bristol Palin $262,500/year for promoting abstinence is like paying Jared Loughner to put on gun safety workshops.

It’s like paying John Boehner to teach you how to use cosmetics to look sun-kissed and natural.

It’s like paying John Hinckley Jr. to teach you how to appropriately express your love for Jodie Foster.

The web is abuzz with the news that Palin, who became a teen abstinence ambassador for the Candie's Foundation in 2009, was paid $262,500 for her “work.” (I’m not sure how a girl who gave birth to a seven-pound, seven-ounce baby boy at 5:30 a.m. on December 29, 2008 is qualified to promote abstinence.)

Thinkprogress.org examined the foundation’s 2009 tax form and found that the group spent $165,000 on advertising and disbursed only $35,000 in grants. It paid Bristol over seven times what it paid to actual teen pregnancy prevention groups and counseling clinics.

With that kind of money you could finance more than six preschool teachers in Flint, Michigan for a year and have money left over for crayons and coloring books.

You could buy five Jaguar XF mid-sized luxury cars and still have thousands of dollars left for gas.

You could stay in a five-star hotel for 2,187 nights as long as you didn’t go all Charlie Sheen on the place.

The official death toll in Japan has been raised to 12,341 and more than 15,000 people are missing. I bet the American Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders or the International Medicine Corps would love to get their hands on more than a quarter of a million dollars.

Apparently, Bristol’s “exploring a variety of options to cash in on the visibility provided by her successful, but not victorious, run on ABC’s hit show, ‘Dancing with the Stars.’” Sources have also reported Bristol saying she will “probably” run for office sometime “further down the road.” She reportedly said, “If I saw something that needed to be changed, then I would step up to the plate and do something about it.”

I would suggest she work to change how people idolize the greedy, nonsensical, selfish, embarrassing, shameless Palins and Kardashians and Hiltons and Lohans of America who contribute nothing to the world but – with the help of a cynical and lazy media – amass wealth and fame while reducing our standards of what’s acceptable and decent and artistic. They are not artists. They’re vultures and vampires and warpers of children’s minds. Do something to change that, willya, BP?

I heard that Mommy Sarah’s book publisher is putting out Bristol’s as-yet-untitled memoir this summer. (Why anyone would be interested in the barely-formed memories of a not-even-old-enough-to-drink daughter of a stupid former governor is beyond me. I’d rather peruse the phone book.) At more than 300 pages, the book is expected to sell for $17.

I’ll pay her twice that – in cash – if she’ll just shut up and go away.

Hey, in this economy $34 is nothing to sneeze at.



Sources: RedAlertlive.com, thinkprogress.org, New York Times

Aerosmith - Cryin'

Anita likes Obama more than me

Anita gave me an earful because I was critical of Barack Obama in yesterday’s post.

She reminded me of what the president’s up against in our nation’s cesspool, er, capital and thought I should be harder on Republicans and softer on him.

So let me be clear:

I understand the political situation in Washington, DC. I realize what Obama is up against.

I acknowledge that he’s achieved some victories and is a far cry better than the doddering Maverick from Phoenix would have been.

I agree that the ignorant, apathetic electorate deserves some blame for where we find ourselves today.

But when you violate a campaign promise to end war and in fact ramp it up and make a mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize,

And when you campaign on a promise to end tax cuts for the rich and violate that pledge by extending them,

And when you refuse to fight for a public option in health care reform but you’re okay with mandating that I buy insurance from private companies,

Then I’m going to be disgusted and disappointed and I’m going to say so.

I realize the guy doesn’t report to Patrick Diehl in Michigan and the job is pretty complex. I can overlook the objectionable decisions and failure to do what I would have liked in certain situations. I can even forgive and forget that the dude went on national television the day after the midterms and kowtowed to the pricks who only won the lower chamber of our two-house Congress, telegraphing weakness and further emboldening an already-cocky and prone-to-exaggerate group of *ssh*l*s.

But when you prove in word and deed that you’re not who you said you were and are in fact almost the exact opposite, then I’m not going to be all fired up about your re-election campaign announcement.

There’s no law prohibiting me from being critical.

Yet.

Staring at stairs

Jill Scott "The Real Thing" LIVE