Susie Wants A Pole Dancer Doll!

With Christmas fast approaching (there's only 113 shopping days left!), you probably need some helpful ideas on what to buy your little girl. In past years, Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids have been big hits. This year, however, I believe I've found the new "it" toy (via Gizmodo):

The Pole Dancer Doll!

The description on the box tells us "style, interesting, music, flash, up and down, go round and round." No, I don't know if it comes with Miley Cyrus's endorsement or not. I also haven't been able to find a store carrying this self-esteem building doll, but I'm sure that's because they're all completely sold out already. Good luck getting yours.

Of course, you won't be able to get your little princess a stripper pole either because Tesco took it off the market 3 years ago. But check out this description: "Unleash the sex kitten inside...simply extend the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go! Soon you'll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars."


Don't have a daughter old enough for this doll or the now non-existent stripper pole? That's okay. Little Merry Sunshine has your toddler covered too. For her, we've got a t-shirt with pasties and tassles thanks to Twisted Twee! Not to worry, it comes in a variety of colors and sizes.

I Don't Have to Apologize to Sarah Palin

It's no secret that I'm not exactly a fan of Sarah Palin. You can do a search for her on LMS and read some of what I had to say last fall.

That said, I have politely kept my mouth shut during the last week while she took offense at David Letterman's jokes about her and her family because I'm working on the whole "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything" philosophy. But I can't stay quiet anymore.

I'm not actually going to defend David Letterman here. You can decide for yourself whether or not he was out of line. I will say, however, that I don't think he should have given his "apology" last week and I truly can't believe he's giving a true one tonight (I just heard about it on the news). I hate that he was bullied into apologizing to her and her family.

No one ever apologized to President Clinton (the actual President, as opposed to the losing VP candidate who won't let go of her 15 minutes), Hillary Clinton or their daughter Chelsea when the Republicans were making fun of her looks. Every teenager goes through that awkward stage. Chelsea was younger than either Willow or Bristol Palin, the Clintons had taken careful steps to keep her out of the spotlight (unlike the way the Palins paraded their kids all over the country to every campaign stop), and Chelsea had not done anything that would warrant the "dog" or "Janet Reno is her father" comments by Rush Limbaugh and John McCain respectively (again, unlike Bristol who became pregnant as a teenager in spite of Sarah Palin's staunch pro-life anti-pre-marital sex stance). If kids should be off limits, then all children of politicians should be off-limits, not just select ones.

But that's not even my real beef. My real beef is that she should be consistent in her outrage. Where was Sarah Palin's rant about how jokes about sex with underage girls is what causes them to have low self-esteem last fall when the late night comedians were making fun of Bristol? To me, this "outrage" just comes off as Sarah Palin trying desperately to stay relevent and extend her 15 minutes of fame.

I could go on, but Shannyn Moore said it best in The Huffington Post today with her brilliant post "Top 10 Reasons Sarah Palin's 'Outrage' is Misplaced and A Little Late . . . "

10) Last September, a skit on Saturday Night Live suggested incest in the Palin family. "What about the husband?" asked a mock Times reporter. "You know he's doing those daughters. I mean, come on. It's Alaska!" No outrage. Sarah Palin appeared on the show one month later in late October.

9) Days after the announcement of Bristol's pregnancy, Conan O'Brien joked, "It's true, John McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has revealed that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Palin said, 'We should never have introduced her to John Edwards.'" Where was the outrage? Was Conan promoting infidelity with an underage girl?

8 ) From two different Tonight Shows: "Governor Palin announced over the weekend that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. Oh, boy, you thought John Edwards was in trouble before, now he's really done it!" AND..."All the Republicans are heaping praise on Governor Palin. Fred Thompson said, as an actor, he could see them making a movie about Sarah Palin and her family. Didn't they already make that movie? I think it was called 'Knocked Up!'"--Jay Leno

7) Craig Ferguson's skit of "Larry King vs Levi Johnston" asks about "kinky sex" with the drapes open. Craig Ferguson's honorary Alaska citizenship, granted by Governor Palin wasn't rescinded.

6) "According to expense reports, Sarah Palin charged the state of Alaska over $21,000 for her children to travel with her on official business. In fairness to Gov. Palin, when she leaves them home alone they get pregnant." --Seth Meyers (SNL). Sarah Palin was in a sketch with Meyers a week earlier.

5) On October 8, 2008, Sarah Palin walked out on the ice with six year old Piper and 13 year old Willow, before the game, Conan O'Brien said, "Saturday night, Sarah Palin is going to drop the first puck at the Philadelphia Flyers' hockey game. Then Palin will spend the rest of the game trying to keep the hockey players out of her daughter's penalty box."
Oh, yes he did. You get the outrage...but not a peep then. According to the new "logic", O'Brien was advocating for some really sick stuff.

4) Rush Limbaugh: "Everyone knows the Clintons have a cat. Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is a White House dog?" Limbaugh put up a picture of Chelsea Clinton. At the time, Chelsea Clinton was 13 years old. Rush also said, "In last year's campaign, the most prominent, articulate voice for standard run-of-the-mill good old-fashioned American conservatism was Sarah Palin." Calling a young teenager a "dog" can't be helpful to her "self-esteem." Where is the apology from the leader of the GOP?

3) "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."--John McCain, Sarah Palin's running mate. Should McCain apologize to every young woman in America?

2) Palin's friend, political defender and informer of the David Letterman comments, John Ziegler, was fired from his radio show for using the "n-word" online and on air in 1997. In 2000, he was fired for spelling the "n-word" on the air. How much does that word affect the psychological health of America's youth, regardless of their race? Now he is pimping his film about how mean the "liberal media" was to Sarah Palin.

AND...The NUMBER 1 REASON Sarah Palin's Outrage is Misplaced and A Little Late...

1) The "candidate who must be obeyed" was talking about Palin's family when he said, "Kids are off limits." Jake Tapper of ABC News interviewed then Candidate Obama, and asked, "Governor Palin and her husband issued a statement today saying their 17-year-old daughter Bristol, who is unmarried, is five months pregnant. Do you have any reaction?"

OBAMA: "I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people's families are off-limits. And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Governor Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know, my mother had me when she was 18. And, you know, how family deals with issues and -- and, you know, teenaged children, that shouldn't be the topic of -- of our politics."

The Palin children have been fodder for comedians since they were brought to the national stage. Incest isn't funny. Ugly kid jokes aren't funny. Many of the things said about public figures are just flat wrong. Being "knocked up" isn't much fun. Racist comments hurt all of us. I exhausted the top 10 list before I ran out of outrageous instances ignored by the Palins.

The National Organization for Women named David Letterman to their Hall of Shame. Will Letterman be joining Jay Leno? Conan O'Brien? Craig Ferguson? Seth Myers? Rush Limbaugh? Or John McCain? Of course not! I guess N.O.W. didn't bother checking Sarah Palin's "feminist" credentials. All across America, right wing radio and television talk show hosts feigned outrage in perfect synchronicity. The same people who back up Palin's high drama assertions against Letterman ignored the connections between Bill O'Reilly's irresponsible incitement and the murder of Dr. George Tiller. David Letterman, a late night entertainer, apologized. Fox New's Bill O'Reilly has not.

As a parent, I understand being defensive. I just wonder what took so long. Why now?

I'm Rubber, You're Glue. Whatever You Say Bounces Off Me and Sticks to You.

Growing up, I wasn't the most popular girl in school. In fact, I was far from it. I developed much earlier than everyone else and some girls were just nasty spreading all kinds of rumors about me - because certainly having large breasts in 5th grade of course meant I was doing all kinds of things with boys that I most definitely wasn't doing (and mostly didn't know anything about!). Sure, the boys paid a lot of attention to me, but they were just curious and I didn't pay any attention to them. The girls, however, were vicious. I was teased and taunted everyday at least all the way through junior high. The rumors that made their way back to me were horrible and entirely untrue.

At the time, I would come home from school crying most days and not wanting to return. What I couldn't understand was why they were so mean to me. Just like the girls from the movie Mean Girls. Almost 28 years later, I understand that they were mostly jealous and the only way they could deal with it was to make fun of me. What I also know now, as an adult, is that many people, both men and women, have to tear others down in order to build themselves up. Their egos are so fragile that they must feel they are superior and the only way to do that is to make everyone else inferior.

About 5 years ago, I dated a guy who was a constant jokester. Sometimes he was witty, but mostly his jokes were mean in nature and belittling. And I was often the butt of them. I had asked him repeatedly not to make such biting comments about me (and others) because they simply weren't funny and they really hurt my feelings. I remember one day we were making plans to go out that night via instant messenger. In the course of the IM, he said something to me that was rude and completely condescending. When I called him out on it, he said he was joking, but I'd had enough. I wrote that I couldn't date him anymore because I was tired of him thinking it was okay to tear me down in order to feel better about himself. He told me my skin simply wasn't thick enough, but I didn't see it that way. For me, it was about respect, both my own self-respect and his respect of me. I was done and I've never looked back. I've also never let anyone speak to me that way again.

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with a friend who has recently become the target of some "mean girl" behavior. I know my friend to be one of the most integrity filled women I know and the lies that have been spread by people who don't even know her are vile. I reminded my friend that the person spreading rumors is really telling the world "I think I'm worthless and the only way I know to feel better is to attempt to tear an innocent woman apart."

It makes me sad to see adults acting the way 12-year old girls act. 12-year olds act that way because they don't know any better, but there's simply no excuse for it as an adult. The fact is that "mean girl" behavior says more about perpetrator than the victim. At some point, I always thought "mean girl" behavior would just go away because we'd all grow up and grow out of it. Unfortunately, it's probably been my biggest shock about being an adult - some of the "mean girls" never grow up.

Luckily for me, I know who I am and I'm comfortable in my own skin. I'm proud of my accomplishments and I'm even proud of most of my failings. I know who I love and who loves me. My feeling is that if someone needs to build themselves up by tearing me down, go right ahead. It doesn't really bother me one bit and it says far more about them than it ever will about me anyway. But I choose not to tolerate "mean girl" behavior by ignoring it and surrounding myself with people who are secure enough in their own right to celebrate the successes of others around them without feeling threatened.