Smoking isn’t that bad for you?  It takes a while for the effects to catch up with you?  I don’t think so. 

 (Getty Images photo)

Read this story I found (you can’t make this stuff up): 

Police: Man Shoots Self During Robbery

KOKOMO, Ind. (AP) — A man accidentally shot himself in the groin as he was robbing a convenience store Tuesday, police said.

A clerk told police a man carrying a semiautomatic handgun entered the Village Pantry demanding cash and a pack of cigarettes. The clerk put the cash in a bag and as she turned to get the cigarettes, she heard the gun discharge.

Police say surveillance video shows the man shooting himself as he placed the gun in the waistband of his pants. The clerk wasn’t injured.

A short time later, police found 25-year-old Derrick Kosch at a home with a gunshot wound to his right testicle and lower left leg.

Kosch was released from the hospital Tuesday and booked into the Howard County jail on a charge of armed robbery, criminal recklessness and battery. He is being held on a $100,000 cash bail.

If the guy hadn’t smoked, he might have gotten away with the cash.  In other words, smoking is nuts - or in this case, nut. 

• 	Posted by: Sarit Catz | 0 Comment(s)
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It’s been an odd time watching them grow older. 

There was a time when I was a writer on a show called the Mickey Mouse Club for the Disney Channel.  It was a fun two years (luckily no writer’s strikes during them) and people were always amazed when I talked about how amazing the Mouseketeers really were.  I thought they had tremendous talent, but I had no idea they would go on to what they went on to.  A quick run through some of the better known ones: Keri Russell, Ryan Gosling, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez and Britney Spears.  (Let me tell you, the others were just as good.)  Amazingly I always got the impression the show was cancelled because the network didn’t think the kids had enough talent.

These kids (and to me they will always be kids) have gone on to become extremely rich and famous adults, but they live in my memory as tweens and teens.  My office was the closest one to the school where they all went for tutoring.  As a result sometimes they would plop down as they waited for their class to begin and talk.  The thing that struck me was how normal they all seemed.  They had the same problems and hopes as all of the kids their age.  But they also had something else - fame.  I’ll never forget how sad they seemed at our final wrap party.  (Christina sticks out particularly.)  I sensed that the thing that some of them were most worried about was losing that fame or that chance to demonstrate what made them special.

Now, when we see them on television and I talk about them with my son (who wishes he had been born a couple of years earlier so that he could have known them), I stress the importance of talent.  Not show biz talent - any talent whether it’s singing, dancing, calculus or writing.  And I stress the importance of being happy with yourself.  That’s what has carried some.  (You couldn’t help but know that Christina was going to be a star the first time you heard her sing.)  I tell him that if you use your talent and you’re happy with yourself, you will find real success.  But I also stress the danger of fame.  (After all, isn’t fame just a broadband version of popularity.) 

I think it is the most dangerous drug of all.

Being well liked and loved is incredibly addictive - whether it’s to viewers of a television show, fans at a rock concert or classmates in a high school.  But, like a drug, that high is only temporary.  There will always be another singer, another actor, another star.  And when that drug passes, it makes it so easy to fall prey to the more garden variety drugs that don’t care whether you’re a multi-millionaire or just a high school sophomore.

Just as I never imagined seeing this kids do so well, I also never imagined seeing one of them so publicly wheeled out of her mansion and placed in an ambulance with photographers craning to get every last shot.  For most people, it’s just another chapter in a very public saga.  But for some of us, it’s a heartbreaking moment for a girl we knew as a sweet eleven year old.  I’m sure she is still that same girl.  It’s just so sad to see what all of the addictions have done to her. 

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I found this story on the AP Newswire:

Jane Hambleton has dubbed herself the “meanest mom on the planet.” After finding alcohol in her son’s car, she decided to sell the car and share her 19-year-old’s misdeed with everyone — by placing an ad in the local newspaper.

The ad reads: “OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don’t love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet.”

Hambleton has heard from people besides interested buyers since recently placing the ad in The Des Moines Register.  The 48-year-old from Fort Dodge says she has fielded more than 70 telephone calls from emergency room technicians, nurses, school counselors and even a Georgia man who wanted to congratulate her.

“The ad cost a fortune, but you know what? I’m telling people what happened here,” Hambleton says. “I’m not just gonna put the car for resale when there’s nothing wrong with it, except the driver made a dumb decision.

“It’s overwhelming the number of calls I’ve gotten from people saying ‘Thank you, it’s nice to see a responsible parent.’ So far there are no calls from anyone saying, ‘You’re really strict. You’re real overboard, lady.’”

The only critic is her son, who Hambleton says is “very, very unhappy” with the ad and claims the alcohol was left by a passenger.

Hambleton believes her son but has decided mercy isn’t the best policy in this case. She says she set two rules when she bought the car at Thanksgiving: No booze, and always keep it locked.

The car has been sold, but Hambleton says she will continue the ad for another week — just for the feedback.

What do you guys think?

• 	Posted by: Sarit Catz | 3 Comment(s)
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This morning, while I was running around with the regular morning routine - you know it:  making breakfast, asking kids to come down to breakfast, packing lunches, repeatedly asking kids to come down to breakfast already, loading backpacks, yelling at kids to come down to breakfast-I’m-not-making-this-for-fun-you-know - I turned on the news to find out what happened in the Iowa caucuses.

Well, with her usual impeccable timing, my daughter Freckles decides to walk into the kitchen while the news is covering the other big story of the day… Britney Spears being taken to the hospital, apparently under the influence of something, after getting into a fight with her ex.  To my horror, Freckles saw the chyron which read Britney’s something-or-other, and she immediately said, “Britney?  Britney Spears?”  Despite the fact that Freckles is only 10, owns no Britney Spears music, videos or posters, and wasn’t old enough to tune into pop culture when Britney was actually a pop star, she knows who Britney Spears is and all about her.

It’s amazing how in-tune kids are to this stuff.

How do you fight it?  And you can forget about trying to counter the fact that Britney’s 16-year-old sister Jamie Lynn is pregnant - that kid’s a Nickelodeon star, there’s no way to keep that one quiet.  How did this looney family hijack our culture?  Why is the press giving this so much coverage?

And here is the saddest part of all (and I copied this from an AP article):  “Britney’s mother, Lynne Spears, would not disclose any information about her daughter’s condition. ‘Just say prayers,’ she told the celebrity news show Access Hollywood by phone Friday.”  Do you get this?  The mother is on the phone with Access Hollywood!! 

Did you know Lynne Spears was supposed to be writing a book about parenting?  A book about parenting!  Fortunately, the book’s publication was postponed indefinitely.  Unfortunately, so was her parenting.

This picture from Getty Images shows photographers surrounding Britney Spears’ car at one of her court appearances.  This drek (do you guys know what drek is?) gets more attention than important stuff like…  whether or not Jay Leno used scab writers.

• 	Posted by: Sarit Catz | 0 Comment(s)
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