Quick Hits on Pop Culture & Politics: A Collapse, Unproven Rear Toning, A Disappearing Bra, Fresh 'Up All Night' & Sports Fans’ Sexism

Red Sox, A Collapse: Epic. Historic. Implosion. Angry. Heartache. Words are insufficient . . . Baseball is so over for 2011 . . . at least in this house.

Easy Tone’s Unproven Rear Toning Claim: What’s my take-away from the story about the fact that Reebok was forced to pay $25 million to the people who bought their EasyTone sneakers which Reebok claimed would firm up the wearer’s derriere but the Federal Trade Commission said there’s no proof for those claims? There’s no easy shortcut to a hard body.

‘Sleight of Hand’ & The Disappearing Bra at the School Board Meeting: In this day and age, what kind of person would ever think that it’s a good idea to do a magic trick at a public meeting where you pretend to pull off a woman’s bra? The chairman of the Massachusetts School Committee in Abington, that’s who.

The Brockton Enterprise reported that the committee chairman “performed a trick that made it appear as though he and high school teacher Steven Shannon had just ripped the bra off committee member Ellen Killian.”

Good. Lord.

Can you imagine what would’ve happened had a male student done this to a female student in front of a classroom? Or if a male teacher did this to a female teacher at a staff meeting? You’d say, “Unacceptable!” right? So why doesn’t the male chairman of the Abington school board realize that it’s just as unacceptable at his meetings, where they’re supposed to be setting the example for the entire school district?

Fresh Up All Night: It's three episodes into Up All Night, the new Christina Applegate/Will Arnett comedy and I'm hooked. They've managed to take issues facing new parents (exhaustion, lack of interest in sex, feeling uncool, work-home struggles, etc.) and make them seem fresh and new again. I've been reviewing it for CliqueClack TV. Check it out. You'll thank me.

Sexism Aimed at Yet Another Female Sports Scribe: Sportswriter Jennifer Gish wrote a column last week for the Albany Times Union poking fun of the fervent, ever hopeful Buffalo Bills fans and the response she got for her troubles wasn’t simply the kind of “you’re a big idiot” e-mails and comments that columnists typically receive. She was deluged with all manner of misogyny and horrific, personal attacks.

Gish wanted her readers to understand what kind of feedback she was receiving, so she wrote a column detailing some of it, including these comments:

“seen some photos of you and you are as ugly as your story about we bills fans.


we may lose, we may win but you will still be ugly either way.

in response to this story

GO TO HELL

and you may want to consider plastic surgery or something, you are one god awful ugly looking female.”

AND

“YOU SUCK DONKEY D***! That's why females shouldn't be allowed to write articles about sports. You better not write a good article about the Bills now because then everyone will know that you really just a dumb, bandwagon slut.”

AND

“Well great prediction! Maybe your article will help get women like you removed from sports media. You are incompetent and really offered no unique points that haven't already been beaten to death in the past ten years in your tirade against the bills. Glad they could prove a hack borderline blogger like you wrong.


Maybe you should stay in the kitchen next time.”

This vehemence and level of vitriol just doesn’t happen to male sportswriters. And it’s disgusting. But at least the commenters didn’t threaten to try to remove her bra as part of a magic trick at a public meeting.

Image credit: NBC.

Notes on Politics: In Snow & Sleet, Mass. Senate Race is Scalding Hot

With the exception of a few years of living in the Washington, D.C. area in the 1990s, I've lived in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the rest of the time. In all that time, I cannot recall a general election for the U.S. Senate or Congress being this close. It's Massachusetts for God's sake, one of the bluest states in the union. Sure, there was a lot of national attention paid to GOP Gov. Bill Weld's 1996 attempt to unseat U.S. Senator John Kerry (Kerry prevailed with 52 percent), as there was when Republican Mitt Romney took on Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1994 (Kennedy won 58 percent of the vote). But those races weren't nearly as close as is this current contest between Democrat Martha Coakley, the state's attorney general, and Republican Scott Brown, a state senator.

Amid all manner of nasty political ads which air once every five seconds on radio and TV (I adore politics and even I'm sick of them, never want to hear the word "lockstep" again) and the tongue-clucking about Coakley's assertion that Brown supporter Curt Schilling is a Yankees fan (in Red Sox Nation of all places!), this once sleepy campaign where the Democrat (any Democrat, didn't matter who) was considered a shoe-in, so much so that Coakley didn't really campaign much last month, is now too close to call. And it's serving as a proxy for all things Obama and is considered to hold the key to the health care vote. If Coakley, once the presumptive favorite, doesn't prevail, pundits everywhere are saying this is bad news for the president who visited Boston yesterday to try to help boost the campaign.

I still can't believe it. Take a gander at the political reporters from all the big media outlets on TV who have to do live stand-ups outside in this New England January chill, in front of cars coated in salt and sand. They seem surprised and almost giddy, to have something this volatile to report. I was astounded to see the front page of the New York Times today feature a woman who'd been holding a Brown sign in Marlborough, MA who I drove by twice on Saturday while driving my youngest kid to hockey.

Here are the covers of the two biggest papers in Massachusetts, indicating that the stakes are indeed high for tomorrow's vote from the Boston Herald (where I used to work and for whom I used to blog) and the Boston Globe.

'Desperate' Mondays: Rose's Turn

Maybe it's because I was spoiled by three consecutive days of thrilling baseball in the form of the Boston Red Sox kicking the New York Yankees' collective behinds. Ground rule doubles. Fastballs at 99 mph. A grand slam. STEALING HOME PLATE. What's better than that?

Maybe it's because HBO's In Treatment (which I'm going to write about in a separate blog item) is so gripping and exquisite, even when you're watching nothing but people talking.

Maybe it's because many other TV shows have been so good lately, such as Lost, Rescue Me, House, The Office, experiencing a rebirth of sorts with Michael's upstart company. (I'm currently irritated that Grey's Anatomy has become a showcase for dead and dying kid scenes. Seriously, as the mom of young kids, I can't take these kinds of scenes each week. I'm begging ya Shonda, please have Dr. Bailey get out of pediatrics, NOW!)

Whatever the cause, I do know that I've lost my Desperate Housewives' mojo. I've been writing about the show on this blog after each new episode but have been rapidly losing interest, despite the fact that the show's continuing to get good ratings. I, personally, don't find it a "must-see" anymore. Stories are becoming repetitive, characters too predictable.

How many times is Bree going to be betrayed by her husband/lover? (Rex cheated. The creepy pharmacist guy wooed Bree after killing Rex. Orson swooped in, knowing full well he'd already tried to kill Bree's neighbor Mike. I could go on and on here. Bree's unlucky in love. We've got it. But how many times are we going to see her go to war with the man who she once loved?)

How many episodes are going to feature the theme that people routinely hide things from one another? (Wasn't that the theme of the pilot episode, that Mary Alice was hiding her pain when her life looked pristine and perfect from the outside just before she committed suicide? Katherine "confessing" that she was hiding her desire for Mike to commit to her? Duh. Of course she'd want commitment. It would be out of character for her not to.)

How many times are we going to witness one spouse get jealous of another? (Tom getting upset that Lynette took a shower at the office? Like Lynette's really going to cheat on him with Carlos. Tom is feeling emasculated -- AGAIN -- because Lynette is working and comes home tired and uninterested in sex. Tom's looking to validate himself, make himself feel better. Why not have him buy a midlife crisis-mobile. Oh, wait. Already did that. How about have him join a rock band? Did that too. Flirt with a horny neighborhood housewife? Now he can check that off his list.)

Bah!

So now, if the heavy-handed foreshadowing at the end of this episode goes where I think it's going to go, we're going to see nutty, lying Dave try to kill Susan and Mike's son in order to pay Susan back for accidentally killing Dave's first wife and child? An injured or dead/dying kid, what is this, Grey's Anatomy? Good grief. Maybe they should just call an end to the season right now so the writers can re-group.

Image credit: ABC.

High Praise from Yahoo/Shine's 'Crazed Parent'

When I attended BlogHER-Boston recently, I had the pleasure of meeting a number of bloggers. Talked with them, face-to-face, which was a novelty for me considering that, as a work-from-home writer, most of the contacts I have with blogging folk is virtual.

One of the women with whom I met was Charlene Prince Birkeland, the parenting editor at Shine -- a women's Yahoo channel -- and parenting blogger who writes under the name Crazed Parent. At the conference, she gave an effective talk which provided bloggers valuable tips on how to boost traffic (many of her tips were implemented on this very site . . . check out the changes to the sidebar . . . my fingers are crossed on the boosting traffic part) which received good buzz. Charlene and I have crossed virtual paths on a number of occasions; we both wrote for AOL and DotMoms. But we hadn't met one another until BlogHER.

Nonetheless, it was a wonderful surprise to read today that she named this very blog, Suburban Mom, as one of the "four parenting blogs you should be reading." She also lavished praise upon yours truly calling me "smart and sassy (and also super nice)." (*blushing . . . demurely of course*)

'Twas very uplifting to read, particularly in the wake of last night's unspeakably tragic Red Sox loss (*pausing to weep into my latest caffeinated beverage, the 47th of the day following late night baseball*). Thanks for the boost Charlene.