It never ceases to boggle me the perfectness (and ideological) standards to which popular culture holds parents.

Expecting parents to not insult and otherwise hurt their children is not holding parents to a standard of perfection.

No, indeed, and that's not a an assertion I have made. I was responding to the general track of Cindy's notions about parenting, and have remained blissfully ignorant of the influence of Baldwins on all aspects of life. It's best not to take a tangential comment in the general flow of conversation as intended to reflect directly on your own experience, because misinterpretation is bound to occur. I think if you were not in such high dudgeon, you would not have accused me of "making excuses" for somebody I don't know from a hole in the wall.

In other news, it looks like Joe Francis is having some zillion-dollar chickens come home to roost. Power to the chickens!

I've seen plenty of children hit by their parents in public, with nobody calling the cops. I've also seen plenty of children yelled at by their parents in public, with nobody calling the cops. Disapproving frowns, yes, but if Baldwin butt-smacked or roughly grabbed his daughter and got arrested, the only reason would be because of his fame.

What's interesting to me is that Baldwin's rant is about how abused HE feels by the situation in the family. My understanding is that the divorce (still ongoing?) has been incredibly messy; he's probably as responsible for that as anyone, but still sees himself as a victim. Perhaps his daughter is deliberately manipulating him - certainly possible, even for an 11 year old NOT raised by immature and volatile adults. But even if she is yanking his chain, it's his job to be the parent, realize that she's yanking, and deal with it. He failed this time, and the way he's failing makes it likely that it's a problem for him in general.

I don't know many good parents who haven't sucked out loud at some (isolated) points in their kids lives.

It's just that sucking out loud, whether isolated or not, is on a continuum, I suppose. Snapping at your kid, calling them selfish, swearing at them -- it all seems way lower on the Sucking Out Loud scale if it's a sentence or two, compared with Alec Baldwin's rant, which was 3 paragraphs.

This is how I see it: "Johnny, you little shit, stop being so goddamned selfish," is insulting, but it's the verbal equivalent of a swat on the bottom. Baldwin's rant is like a punch in the face, followed by a good hard kick in the ribs.

Maybe it was an isolated incident for Baldwin, maybe we'll never know if it was, but in terms of sucking out loud, he's over on the Abusive Fuck side of the Sucking Out Loud scale.

I heard the whole thing, and I see it the same way Teppy does.

Yes, Tep. And everything I said in the post that prompted you to respond was in context of things I said earlier (that I was horrified by the 'pig' line; couldn't believe how long and hard he ranted, etc.). I'm not trying to excuse his behavior, at all. I listened and read with my mouth hanging open, feeling terribly for that little girl, and half hoping she'd be taken from both parents (if the mother did leak the recording).

that's not a an assertion I have made.

It's a good thing that I didn't say that you did, then.

I think if you were not in such high dudgeon, you would not have accused me of "making excuses" for somebody I don't know from a hole in the wall.

I didn't accuse you of anything. Nor did I intend to. Nor am I in "high dudgeon." True, I *do* have a problem with people who make excuses for abusers. But that doesn't equal being in high dudgeon.

Grr. My Tivo is aggravating the shit out of me. I'm trying to set it to record the debates, but I don't want it to cancel Survivor. Problem is, I can't remember if there are two things scheduled at that time, and I don't think you can pick which thing gets canceled.

To add insult to injury (huh, maybe shouldn't use that phrase right now?), the site keeps saying "you can check the status of your requests by BLAH BLAH BLAH. Where BLAH is equal to look it up on your Tivo. Which would mean I'm at home. Which would mean I wouldn't need to do the damn online scheduling in the first place. Grrr.

The problem may be, where do words cross the line from Strong to Inappropriate to Abusive? Not so much with Alec Baldwin -- I think there's general agreement thathe was Abusive or else very close to it. But I've heard any criticism at all of a child labeled as Abusive. And that can't be good, either -- if nothing else, kids can't learn from their mistakes if nobody points out the mistakes to them.

Steph, it's relatively obvious to me that you're het up about the topic, and it seems to me that you are responding to calm comments with emotional and judgemental language. That's -- my definition of high dudgeon. If that's not how you're feeling, okay, but that's how you're coming across to me.

I didn't accuse you of anything. Nor did I intend to.

I guess your not-accusingness wasn't clear to me from how you phrased it: It never ceases to boggle me that people would [...] [make] excuses for him when he verbally damages his child. Since the previous graf had been a direct response to me, this seemed like a direct response to me as well. And so it looked like an accusation, especially when it was couched in such obviously angry language. If that's not what you intended, then thank you for saying so; I'll retract my saying that you accused me of anything.

But, like, you don't seem to be coming across as clearly as you might wish, at this moment, if I've ministerpreted you twice in a single post.

And now, a thorough change of topic: [link]

Japanese people who bought "poodles" over the internet (apparently poodles are rare in Japan) and did not realize for quite a while that they'd been swindled into buying lambs, not dogs.

Hint #1: lambs don't eat dog food.

That lamb-poodle story is very funny. I wonder at what point they figured it out?

ION, people in my office have the craziest ring tones and it drives me nuts. Crazy laughter, creepy little kids saying the Lord's prayer, screaming, and so on. Does vibrate not work for any of you???