Random Link, Prison Rodeo, and Suri!

Let's start off with some quick items...

- First off, Co-Worker Adam has been a rockstar with the random links to great news stories recently, and he came up with another good one today. [Again, it needs to be mentioned that we do work. These links are sent to me first thing in the morning, or at night before we leave. Remember that.] This story offers a great lesson to the ladies out there: If an older, creepy looking man is offering a free breast exam, it might be a good idea to politely decline. Especially when he's not really a doctor.

- Next, Brian is always good for finding the events that are worth seeing. He's still spending a fair amount of time down South, and he's currently in Houston, but making a trip back to Louisiana over the weekend. On Sunday, he'll be attending The Angola Prison Rodeo at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Think about that: a rodeo consisting of prison inmates. If you get a chance, click on the "History" link on the left and read about some of the stories. My favorite is

"The success of the 1967 and 1968 rodeos prompted construction of a 4,500-seat arena for the 1969 rodeo. A near disaster occurred when the bleachers collapsed during one of the shows. Spectators weren't alarmed; most didn't even get up. They sat on the collapsed structure and continued to watch. The 1971 rodeo was the wettest in history, but the show went on."

Since they won't allow spectators to bring cameras in, Brian said that he'd take some good notes and possibly send a write-up for the blog sometime next week. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm looking forward to it.

- Alright, so as promised, a little commentary on Baby Suri, the offspring of our beloved Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. The reason I didn't make any comments yesterday is two-fold: One is that I didn't have that much time, and the second is that I wanted to think about celebrity babies for a little bit longer; you know, get the thoughts in order so I could make a decent argument for once.

Here's the thing about celebrity babies: they are all the rage between the time that the media breaks the news of the pregnancy until birth. But shortly after the child is born, we often hear less and less about them. Case in point: Sean Preston Spears Federline. If it wasn't for Britney's stupidity with holding him in her lap while driving, and the recent issues with Child Services, I truly believe that we wouldn't hear too much about the kid. But in the months leading up to his birth, pregnant Britney was in every tabloid, on every blog, and the whole shebang. Same thing with Katie Holmes' and Angelina Jolie's pregnancies. But once the kid is born is like an anti-climactic ending to a suspense thriller, except we know what the outcome is: it'll be a kid. Then media does a collective sigh, and says, "Ok what do we do now?"

Plenty of celebrities have kids: Off the top of my head, I know that Bruce Willis has several kids, so does Mick Jagger, Courtney Love, Madonna, Julia Roberts, Courtney Cox, Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Jessica Parker, and many more. You heard all about their kids when they were pregnant, but once the kid was born, the news died down. Occasionally, you'll see the celeb with the kid in one hand, Starbucks Grande Half-Caf Vanilla Non-Fat Latte in the other hand, while walking with the stroller down Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. Then the kids will grow up, and unless they do something stupid to get themselves in trouble, we may not know what they're doing with their lives.

Personally, I think the media went overboard with the TomKat pregnancy extravaganza. Did we really need media parked outside of their mansion? I doubt it. I heard on the radio this morning that you know any event is getting out of hand once the media starts covering the media circus surrounding the event. I would agree with this statement. Now Baby Suri is in this world, we'll make fun of her name, which in Hebrew means "princess", yet could pass for a boy's name in Hindi, and apparently means "pickpocket" in Japanese. Yes, these are the news topics now that this child has been born. In other words, who cares? Leave them alone.

The kid will have plenty of years ahead of herself to be scrutinized further by the tabloids and news programs, but all of this really depends on what kind of humiliation her parents put her through. That's right, I will put the initial blame on Tom and Katie, who could have remained a little more discrete in the past few months, but instead were out pushing the "silent birth" and all of that fake religion stuff. How will Suri be raised? Will she know any better? At what age will she realize that she isn't like the other kids? What will her reaction be when she sees old footage of Katie in Dawson's Creek and Tom in Top Gun? Again, these are the questions that need to be answered.

Bottom line: Suri's here now, she has no control over her crazy parents. I'll take the liberty to speak for the public and say that we don't need any more coverage of TomKat's 'kitten'. Let's wait around until she's older and starts doing stuff to bring attention to herself, or if her parents bring more unnecessary attention upon her, whichever comes first. (I think you can figure out the answer.)

With all of that being said, have a nice weekend...