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Tuesday 13 December 2011

LOWE'S: ALL-AMERICAN BIGOTS


Lowe’s – a home improvement store in the United States that will never get my business – has just pulled its advertising from a new television show on the TLC network called ‘All American Muslim.” TLC – for those of you not watching the news, as this story is everywhere - began as a learning channel with the aim of educating the public. We'll come back to this little gem of information later.
It is also important to note that on this same network, and ones like it, are shows about chefs, bigamists, polygamists, vertically challenged individuals (what is the correct term these days?), geeks, addicts and of course just plain and simple reality-based programming demonstrating your garden-variety idiot. And yet, and this is a big YET, Lowe’s has a problem with All-American Muslim because it is about just that, Muslims.

According to their spokesperson, and I quote: "Lowe's has received a significant amount of communication on this program, from every perspective possible. Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance."

Okay then. So clearly my first question is what about the Muslim community? Don’t they deserve Lowe’s deference? (I know the answer to that one. A chimp knows the answer to that one). The main bringer of heat – shall we say – that is urging companies that bought ad space on this program to reconsider is The Conservative Florida Family Association. This lovely ‘family friendly’ bunch of bigots (sorry are my feelings showing?) called 'All-American Muslim' "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values." Cause the conservative Florida Family Association holds my liberal, unmarried, multi-racial child-producing, pro-choice liberties in high regard.  Ahem, I don’t think SO.

So despite the show’s very intention and aim – to educate the nation about the lives of an average Muslim family - it is frighteningly evident that many in America are still impervious to education. And we wonder why we have problems around the globe. And to cement this point into forever more, Lowe’s feels compelled to bow down to their equally ignorant and bigoted public and pull their advertising because the pressure from the uneducated masses is just too great.

Let me explain this in terms everyone can understand; the show is NOT called All-American Jihadist or All-American Terrorist. The show is called All-American Muslim [they are NOT, I repeat, NOT one in the same]. It is like an American who happens to be Jewish, or Catholic or Baptist - and god knows there are plenty of those in our country trying to undercut my liberties and inflict their religion upon me. Are you following me on this, cause I can slow down? The show is in fact following several American families who are just that, American citizens (for those of you griping about that, you may want to go look up the history of our country in a book somewhere) who are proud and hardworking, and trying to show the rest of the country that Muslims are just like you and me. They just happen follow a different faith. To confuse these families with fundamentalists or subversives trying to undercut our value system is just plain moronic....come to think of it, I have an idea for a show that Lowe’s can sponsor, how about All-American bigoted uninformed idiots? Now that may fit their advertising slate.

Happily – cause it's important to end on a positive isn't it – as I post this, Russell Simmons (a philanthropic, multimillionaire, business magnate and voice of reason) has just announced that he has bought up all the ad space Lowe’s dropped. Stuff it Lowe’s. I’m going to Home Depot with Russell Simmons.

Monday 12 December 2011

RICH CAT


Last month an Italian woman, Marisa Assunta, died of old age at 94 years old. Not an earth-shattering headline I realize. The hook, this woman left her entire estate, worth 13 million dollars, to her cat. Yes, you heard me. Mr. Fuzzykins, a stray that this woman took in and clearly was besotted with, is now the wealthiest cat in the world (fine, the cat’s name is actually Tommaso, but that just didn’t have the same ring to it).

The problem is, in Italy, like the good old US of A, you are not allowed to leave your estate to a pet. The woman in question had no living relatives and clearly no friends she felt deserved such a fortune, so I’m thinking she did what any person in her position would do…leave it to an animal that loved her unconditionally…and has very little purchasing power.

Okay, I get it, humans suck for the most part, so why not set your pet up for life instead. The problem is most cats live on average from 14-16 years so that is one hell of a lot of cat food that cat will have to consume until it drops dead (from overeating I’m thinking). Then again, maybe we’re just not thinking big enough. If it were Puff Daddy’s cat (is that what he’s going by these days?), that thing would be head to toe in diamond-encrusted bling with baby Gucci cat shoes and a carrying case made of solid gold. Not to mention its own employee hired simply to brush it’s tiny cat hair with a yellow canary diamond encrusted brush. Now that’s how you start burning through 13 million dollars my friends.

The estate attorneys (who are clearly frothing at the bit for a piece of this pie) decided that both the cat and the money are now going to the nurse who looked after Ms. Assunta. My question however is this, if this elderly woman liked her nurse so much and thought she was doing a bang up job looking after her, why didn’t she leave the money to her in the first place? In fact, maybe she detested the sight of her because the nurse sat around all day neglecting her, eating tiramisu and watching Italian soap operas. (This is just conjecture, I’m sure the woman was a wonderful nurse).

However, it does give one pause does it not? Apparently the nurse had NO idea the woman was in fact so wealthy which makes me wonder how the heck Ms. Assunta was sitting on 13 million dollars and no one knew about it. I’ll bet you 13 million dollars that the cat knew. Cats are so damn smart that way.

PROJECTILE PEAS AND CORN



I took my first trip to the emergency room the other day with the King. It wasn’t serious – well at the time it sure felt like it – but it was enough to send me running like a crazy person down one of the busiest streets in London with the King in tow as I tried to get to the hospital. Calmness in crisis apparently is not my strong suit. Like most toddlers he started to run a high fever and suddenly went listless like a rag doll. Apparently this can happen when they run high fevers, but between you and I, no matter who tells you this gem of wisdom, seeing your child turn into a motionless mute is enough to send you..well, screaming down a busy street in a blind panic in search of your nearest hospital. Parenting is not always rational.

So there I was, a first time mother (with 16 months experience under her belt of course. I’m no novice damn it! :-) rushing into the A&E (as we call it over here) and hollering to anyone that would listen that my child was listless and hotter than a Texan summer day – [I like to reference Texas these days as much as possible]. The woman behind the counter, clearly having seen many a panicked mother in her time, moved at the pace of molasses and kept asking me, ‘so your child is restless.’ NO, I’d say, listless. ‘Restless?’ Listless!...Yes, it was like some bad comedy sketch. I finally used the magic word, which apparently is ‘unresponsive’ and started to cry and this of course got her full attention. Hey man, whatever it takes as far as I’m concerned.

In about two minutes we were whisked back to the children’s area. The King, who I was holding in my arms, groggily looked around him, looked at me, and then proceeded to projectile vomit all over the floor, himself, and of course me. Imagine an air rifle shooting peas, corn and liquid all over the place. I just stood there until he was finished, which felt like ages, and then looked at the nurses - who were actually speechless - and said, ‘my son doesn’t feel well.’ After they jokingly commended me on his healthy diet (which was all over the room at this point), they whisked us into a private room and proceeded to go to work on the King. At this point, he was very hot, moaning and glaring at me with that look that said why on earth did you bring me to this awful place, Mother!

Needless to say, we were there for about four hours. Four hours of poking, prodding, and peeing in little plastic cups (I have to say getting a male toddler to do it is shockingly easy in comparison to getting the aim right for yourself) to discover of course that he had a very high fever and a stomach bug. I know, shock horror. After medicating him to the hilt, within fifteen minutes of it hitting his bloodstream, the King was wandering around the room in clean dry clothes and was back to his babbling, laughing self as he watched his favorite program on TV. I meanwhile was covered in dried vomit with peas and corn stuck in my hair and had collapsed in the King’s hospital bed, whilst I ate some fruit bar my partner had bought for me. The phrase ‘by whatever means necessary’ seemed apropos for that very moment.

When I shared this little anecdote with my friends and sisters, who all have children of their own, from each and every one of them I got a smile. A smile of remembrance of their own first trip to the ER, and a smile to let me know that with children, this was my first of many trips to the ER ahead of me. I better stock up on fruit bars and clean clothes I can tell you that much.
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