Clueless Caitlin Flanagan

Susan Salter Reynolds reviews eight books about the mommy wars in the Los Angeles Times. She aptly skewers author Caitlin Flanagan, who gets a flattering profile elsewhere in the same edition of the paper

"But when Flanagan shifts focus to hiring a nanny, her writing becomes so whiny, self-indulgent and frankly bizarre that it capsizes the book entirely. There is almost nothing to be learned from her love-hate relationship with her nanny Paloma ('I was becoming quite the Latinophile!' she writes), as Flanagan bestows gifts and shares secrets and cups of tea and even Social Security set-asides, only to be shocked when Paloma wants to join a citywide strike of Central American workers in Los Angeles. It gets worse: 'De-cluttering a household,' she writes in an egregiously arrogant passage, 'is a task that appeals strongly to today's professional-class woman…. Scrubbing the toilet bowl is a bit of nastiness that can be fobbed off on anyone poor and luckless enough to qualify for no better employment. But only the woman of the house can determine which finger paintings ought to be saved for posterity, which expensive possessions ought to be jettisoned in the name of sleekness and efficiency."

How To Get Celebrities To Blog

Offer them opportunities to promote themselves and their latest projects, of course.

As I read Hollywood producer Lynda Obst's very short post about John Kerry, I couldn't help but notice the ad on the right side of the page displaying an image of her current book.

While I agree with her opinion of Kerry, it struck me that she hasn't put in a great deal of work here. Her post merely belabors the obvious while she gets a nice promotional opportunity out of it.

How many of Arianna Huffington's liberal cohorts would contribute what is often very little substance if they weren't doing it to maintain their public image? And does Huffington feature as many well known bloggers as she does because she assumes that without the lure of their names, very few people would be drawn to her site at all?

Bush's Secret War Plan For Iran

Say what you will about President Bush, but he doesn't believe in half-measures.

Thanks to sources under deep cover whose identity I cannot reveal, I have become privy to a general outline of President Bush's secret solution to the looming problem of Iran's nuclear program.

Without consulting anyone except those directly involved in this military operation, the president will give the order to execute a secret mission code named "Cure." A secret, experimental aircraft (pictured above) long under development will undergo final preparations to carry the experimental, one of a kind, Cobalt-Thorium G "World Destroyer" nuclear warhead.

The aircraft will be launched from Area 51, climb to suborbital altitude and then accelerate to approximately Mach 6.8.

It will deploy the World Destroyer over Iran and then proceed to return to base.

The World Destroyer will air burst over Iran at an altitude of about 6 miles. It's effect will be to literally destroy all human life in the country and deliver enough gamma and neutron radiation to penetrate even the hardest underground facilities.

As soon as he has received word that the mission has been successfully accomplished, President Bush will make an unscheduled speech to the nation announcing how he has courageously taken action to protect America from the threat from Iran.

Bush will later award the plane's pilots with the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Sandra Tsing Loh At War With The Mommy Wars

Sandra Tsing Loh has written a fantastic review-cum-essay of Leslie Morgan Steiner's book Mommy Wars: Stay-At-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families.

As Loh points out, the essayists in this book are hardly representative of either most stay-at-home or working mothers, because they are all highly paid writers and assorted entertainment industry professionals who are married to husbands with the same economic and professional status.

These highly priviliged if not over priviliged women have all the options one could possibly want. Their anxieties are caused by their inability to select from a plethora of choices, not a lack thereof.

Guess The Identity of This Bush Apostate

“I now know I wrongfully placed my faith and trust in a presidential administration hopelessly mired in incompetence, hubris and a lack of accountability. It planned a war based on false intelligence and unrealistic assumptions. It has strategically surrendered the condition of victory in Iraq to people who do not share our vision, values or interests. The Bush administration has proven successful at only one thing in Iraq — painting us into a corner with no feasible exit.

I will never trust any of them again."

Who wrote this? Jack Murtha? Cindy Sheehan? Michael Moore? If you guessed any of those names or that of any other prominent Bush critic, you guessed wrong.

"Christopher H. Sheppard is a former Marine captain who served two tours of duty in Iraq as a combat engineer. He currently is finishing his master's degree in mass communication and lives in Marysville.”