Two Rants - Jamie Lynn Spears and US Cellular

You know one thing I hate about AOL? The news on both the welcome page and aol.com is sooo outdated. I read about something Monday and find it on AOL on Wednesday, usually under some idiotic link in the form of a question that presumes you're going to be shocked and awed by the news. . . the very OLD news.

Someday soon AOL might get around to breaking the news that Truman beat Dewey.

Anyhow, I knew about the Jamie Lynn Spears pregnancy very early yesterday morning. Spears, the 16 year old sister of Britney and star of a Nickelodeon show "Zoey 101", is more than 12 weeks pregnant.

I have 4 kids, including 3 daughters,so I'm not going to judge too harshly while I knock on wood. Mind you, knowing their parent's sex drive, I've often said the minute they have their period the girls are going on the shot. Heck, I'd put Smiley on the shot if there was a male equivalent.

I don't want any grandbabies out of wedlock.

That being said, mistakes happen. Hard to believe in an age where condoms are cool and 8 dozen different methods of birth control are available, but then again some folks electrocute themselves watching TV in the bathtub.

So no, I'm not going to blast her or her family. And the 'redneck wh*re' comments that follow some news articles are living proof that allowing the public to instantly respond to hard news stories (see CNN.com) is idiotic.

But . . to quote the article:

"It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected," she said. "I was in complete and total shock and so was he."

This isn't The Blue Lagoon. She didn't grow up on a desert island without adults or the media. Presuming she isn't an utter and complete moron she is at least vaguely aware of how babies are made.

So all well and good that you decided to keep the baby even at the cost of your fledgling acting career. I admire your pluck. But don't sell me that crock of sh** explanation.

Let me be both blunt and crass, so anyone with sensitive ears walk away:

Jamie: : You [bleep]ed a guy without a rubber, he left a [bleep] behind and you got pregnant.

If you are going to face the music, might as well admit you helped pick the song.

But seriously, good luck and God bless to her. I hope they wind up happy and well adjusted.

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While I'm on a roll, let me say I'm disgusted by the current U.S. Cellular commercial.

In it a woman explains that her Dad is illiterate and that she worried about him when she went to college. Thank heavens for U.S. Cellular tho', because the helpful staff at their store is willing to read him his mail whenever he wants. 

It's almost beyond words. I want to vomit. I want to boycott them. I want to curse the ad agency who wrote it and the schmucks who signed off on it.

It is 2007. LEARN TO READ YOU BLEEPING BLEEP. And yes, some people fall behind and skate by in school and wind up screwed and illeterate as adults. In fact I know a man my father's age who is illiterate

.Tough s**t.

If it's a matter of pride, what's worse - having your daughter read you your mail or asking a tutor for help? What's worse - admitting you can't read or not being able to follow a menu? What's a better way to spend your time - watching the NFL network or trying to improve yourself?

Spare me.

Barring severe learning problems - no, even with them, although with more empathy - there is no excuse not to learn to read sometime in your life.

And shame on U.S. Cellular for pretending it's OK.

Maybe this civilization is on the way out after all.

 

The One about The ID Policy December 9th

I was buying cigarettes at the grocery store the other day when the clerk asked to see my ID.

Yes, I smoke. Get over it.

Now I'd heard about the new store policy that says clerks are required to look at the ID of anyone purchasing alcohol or tobacco. I knew that on paper their policy was to card everyone, regardless of age, rather than face the wrath of our litigious society. I just didn't believe that this 'ideal' would carry over into the real world, where common sense insists that the grandmother at the counter might just be old enough to tip one back.

But apparently, these people actually read the memos on the break room wall.

I must admit to being a little put out. I'm long past the point where being carded makes you feel cool and grownup, but I'm also too young to find it flattering. I can see questioning me over liquor, but cigarettes? I was old enough to buy them before the checkout girl was born.

And it's not like I don't look my age. I had two days worth of stubble - which for any other man would be a week's growth - and thinning hair. I had two kids in my cart. I wear a wedding ring. I was paying with a credit card. And if that wasn’t enough, the Eisenhower/Nixon T-shirt really should have been a tip-off.

In retrospect, it doesn't seem like they asked the world. But if you've ever tried to keep two toddlers quiet and happy at a grocery store, you can appreciate how desperate a thirty second delay can be. A weeks worth of cigarettes do less damage to my health and well being.

I understand that a company has to protect its financial well-being, but more and more it seems to be at the expense of logic and responsibility. If my kids purchased cigarettes illegally, but without gross negligence - in other words, if they didn’t manage to do it at age ten - then my beef wouldn’t be with the store, it’d be with my kids.

Alcohol is a different story. Unlike tobacco it has immediate consequences, not only for the consumer but for people on the road. It makes sense to tighten sales policy, although I don’t see how you can justify going to the extreme the store has.

Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. doesn’t see it that way.

In a column published in the December 9th Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel takes issue with the ribbing the policy has been taking.

Those who have hang-ups with [the] policy have apparently neither lost a child nor been at the scene of a violent crash involving alcohol . . . I don’t find anything funny about notifying a parent that their son or daughter is dead. . . . That cashier . . .may be saving your son or daughter’s life. Do you find that incontinent?

Well, Gosh, now I feel bad. I mean here I sit, without a single casualty (knock on wood) to use to score cheap points in a debate. And you know, maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s not all about liability and twisting common sense on its head. Maybe it’s a humanitarian effort. All those ideas about how the policy essentially forgoes enforcing a perfectly good law in favor of an overboard stance . . .

What can I say? I was wrong.

No one is in favor of underage drinking. So prevent it by doing your job and carding anyone twenty-five or even thirty. I’m fine with that.

Just leave the chain smoking grandma’s alone.