Ladies who've just had babies (they get all the luck, fitness-wise!) can simply attach their nipples to the mouths of said baby, and allow the child to extract hundreds upon hundreds of calories worth of breast milk every day, leading to slim, trim, pre-baby body in no time. So says a gross simplification of a NYT trend story today (with a priceless lead photo)! At last, science has discovered a use for babies. New mothers couldn't be happier:

"Nobody wants to admit they are doing it for themselves, or ‘I'm doing it to help myself look hot again,' " said Jesse Comer, from Portland, Ore., whose main motivation to breast-feed was her baby's health.

Ha, we'll take your word for it, Jesse! And for those of us not fortunate enough to have an attachable fat-remover, scientists have bad news: the bacteria in your very gut is conspiring with the food you eat to make you fatter. The simple takeaway is that, if you want to lose weight without being forced to reach inside your own intestines and engage in hand-to-hand combat with allegedly "friendly" bacteria, have a baby.
[Pic via]

Al Arabiya reports:

After making it on America's infamous "axis of evil," Syria will now become synonymous with Angelina Jolie's brood as the U.S. actress looks set to adopt a child from the Arab nation despite her partner Brad Pitt's objections.

Uh oh. Apparently, Brad is of the opinion that six kids is enough. The Jolie-Pitt clan currently counts three biological children and three adopted among their ranks, but Jolie has supposedly "fallen in love with" Syria after a recent trip, and insisted on adopting with or without her partner.

OK! Magazine reports that Jolie is adopting a little girl. Metro, a UK-based paper, offers some details from a source:

'He has made it clear that six children are more than he can handle,' claims an insider.

'The idea of one more seemed ludicrous, but Angie is determined to complete her rainbow family', said the source.

However, they also note that only Jolie's name was on the adoption papers for Maddox, who she adopted from Cambodia in 2002, while still married to Billy Bob Thorton. She also adopted Zahara solo, but Brad later legally become father of both kids. So it's possible that Angelina isn't driving Brad straight into Jen's arms with her baby-mania, but we still suspect that's the story tabloids are going to tell.

Angelina Jolie To Adopt Seventh, Syrian Child [TrueSlant]
Angelina Jolie Set To Adopt An Arab Child [Al Arabiya]
Angelina Jolie To Adopt Tot Number 7? [Metro]

Representative John Shadegg, a Republican from Arizona, decided it would be for the best of the debate that a child be brought forth and tortured by being used as an exhibit by Rep. Shadegg, as he helped floor members understand something about the health care bill basically ensuring this kid would be broke or dead or addicted to smack or all of the above. Watch as the kid tries to do what I want to do, which is eat the microphone:

Yeah, kid, NOM, indeed. But old people like babies so whatever, nobody blinks at what kind of patent ridiculousness this is. But when the "Fat Pride Community" talks about getting healthy, nobody listens to them, even though they're 2/3rds of our country. And what do they have to say? It's not just about getting skinny. O RLY? And who is this talking for them? Professor Bacon, that's who. Seriously:

"I get so angry when I feel people pushing a weight-loss agenda," said Linda Bacon, a nutrition professor at City College of San Francisco and author of "Health at Every Size," a book published last year whose title has become the rallying cry of the fat pride community. "What we're doing in public health care policy is harmful. We give a direct and clear message that there's something wrong with being fat."

Oh, ho, ho! A conspiracy! The tasty-meat industry has infiltrated all walks, it seems! But they might be screwed, as the House has started debate on the current legislative package, which will eventually lead to a vote on something like a 2,000 page bill, the contents of which most Americans seem to think include a provision that says something along the lines of "YOU, SIR, OR MA'AM, ARE GOING TO DIE. WE ARE GOING TO KILL YOU, AND YOU ARE GOING TO ENJOY IT! AND ALSO PAY US TAXES TOO, THANKS!" So they're getting together and freaking out, screaming mean things at a building where nobody can hear them inside.

"Kill the bill!" a few protesters yelled, egged on by a woman with a megaphone. "You'll be starting a civil war, you fascist tyrant!" yelled Andrew Beacham, 27, of nearby Falls Church, Va. Mr. Beacham, his hair in a ponytail, said in an interview that he believed Mr. Obama was a fascist because-

I'm sorry, what?

Mr. Beacham, his hair in a ponytail,

Unless he's fighting for provisions in the health care package to cover taxpayer-supported Bumble and Bumbles, I will stop processing information past that sentence. And he's not, and I did.

Oh, whatever. If there's anything nice that these Town Hall meetings have yielded, it's that we're no longer shocked and disturbed by the fucked up rhetoric plaguing our national debate. It's hard to be disappointed once something becomes the standard, no? These guys are just being ridiculous, now. Like this one, who killed a bunch of trees just to prove a point that the bill is long and complicated.

....(The representative) took a foot-high copy of the House bill to the podium when he spoke. "This bill steals freedom, and those of us that believe in freedom have contempt for those who would steal our freedom and contempt for this bill," he said in a shout, heaving the papers to the ground below the low stage.

What kind of asshole would do that? Let's go back to the first part of that paragraph...

Representative John Shadegg, a Republican from Arizona..

Oh, you mean, the baby-puppeteer? Yeah. That one.

Forget obesity for a moment. There are thousands of pages in the legislation. Hopefully, there's at least a milli or two in that thing set aside to look into the causes, effects, and ways to prevent important conversation-born at-large jackassery from infecting our country any further. The biggest health care crisis we've experienced in the history of our country is the one we've brought upon ourselves since we started talking about health care: that we, and our conversations about things that should matter, are getting patently stupider every time we have them.

It's not like you just have children and then don't have to worry about your fitness routine and whether the changes induced in it by parenthood would be good fodder for any fake trend stories in the NYT. You do have to worry about such things! You think jogging while pushing a stroller is just as easy as regular jogging, except while pushing a stroller? The paper of record has like a thousand words of filler that say you're wrong:

Ms. Arnold of Santa Fe joked that strollers should come with a placard, warning starry-eyed parents of what an intense workout they provide.

She's absolutely right. Strollers should come with a placard warning starry-eyed parents of what an intense workout they provide. "WARNING," this placard would say, in bold letters. "This stroller provides an intense workout."

But one placard won't be enough to resolve all of the serious fitness issues facing the adult New York Times-reading population. Allow us to present to you Michelle Slatalla's newest column detailing her adventures as a Wife/Mother/Worker/Spy. In this episode: Michelle likes to play tennis at the tennis club but she hurt her wrist and now she has to learn to serve with her other hand and despite her extensive work with Rafael the club tennis pro she's hesitant about returning to playing tennis competitively at the tennis club but her entire tennis team is putting mad peer pressure on her to come back to playing tennis until one day, Michelle reports, "She had put me in the lineup! OMG, OMG, OMG!"

She plays okay. The point is, the reader demographics of the New York Times are fucking terrifying.
[Pic via]

Swiss-based Low Cost IVF Foundation plans to open three new clinics on the African continent that will help infertile mothers reproduce for about $300, a mere sliver of the cost rich, spoiled Westerners pay. Meanwhile, another organization's hatching a similar scheme in Egypt.

Not only will the process help child-longing women fulfill their reproductive dreams, but it will help ward off ostracization, for many people in various African counties associate infertility with witchcraft. (That's fair, right?)

Anyway, the article was posted at New Scientist and the reaction has been, well, confusing. Take, for example, this over-the-top feminist remark:

As if the world wasn't already overpopulated, why is there any need to turn women into breeding sows using technology that has such a high rate of problems in the offspring? Come on now, this is beyond insane, this is misogyny at its worst, perpetuating the myth that women are just ambulatory incubators.

You said it, sister! And then there's this, entitled "Just what we need — more people:"

Rather than trying to solve that fertility issue, we should be trying to shift those Sudanese cultural beliefs from 'witchcraft' to having a big heart and having a family there adopt one of the many african orphans.

Hey, buddy: the Sudanese have the smallest tatters of a government, little hope and even less food. Let them have their babies. Sure, it will only compound their woes, but babies are so cute! And, really, no amount of hardship can take that away...

Image via bdinphoenix's flickr.

There are oh so many of these Hamptons society magazines, with party pictures galore. Which one keeps it the realest, society-wise? The New York Observer finds a shocking number of people who will discuss that question as if it were not a self-evident farce. Decry the poseurs, fawning socialite chronicler David Patrick Columbia!

"With the great bubble of prosperity, you had all these aspirants to that world," Mr.[David Patrick] Columbia continued. "But since they are not part of it, they've actually created their own world-a satellite world which they call society, which it absolutely is not. They're trying to create a hierarchy based on publicity, which is something that follows hierarchy-it doesn't precede it."

Put your feud with rival vapid magazine Hamptonite into perspective, Social Life editor Devorah Rose, pictured!

"It was like Olivia Palermo versus Tinsley," Ms. Rose chimed in. "They were trying to Olivia Palermo us!"

Call out the fakers, celebrity photog Joan Jedell!

"Social Life doesn't interest me," Ms. Jedell said, "because it's like, ‘Who are these people?'"

Break it all down, Andrew Cuomo's sister-in-law!

"When Pamela [Gross, Avenue's editor] asked me to be on the cover, I asked her, ‘Don't you see this as competition?'" Ms. Cuomo recalled. "And she said, ‘No, we only cover society. You cover affluence.'"

Now everyone go throw up on purpose!
[NYO]

Gibson was on the Tonight Show last night and confirmed the existence of his new bastard son, his eighth child. "I guess that makes me 'Octo-Mel'", he sputtered amusingly. Then he stretched out his lips to emulate the crazy, collagened Suleman. And the audience roared.

So we'll forgive the blotto religious zealots, but not the bloat-o fame zealots. Because only one of them gave us Tequlia Sunrise. Only one.

As the City Room has it:

Some 60 tests for the city's Gifted and Talented programs, taken by pre-kindergartners and kindergartners at Public School 9 on the Upper West Side, went missing, angering parents who are concerned that they will not get the scores in time to visit the programs for which their children qualify.

Angry parents have issued bromides excoriating the malfeasance of the Department of Education. They are, correctly, upset for if their children are doomed to remain amongst the hoi polloi of the Upper West Side, they'll no doubt begin a knotty and untoward path from P.S. 9 straight to Hunter or even perhaps CUNY. The horror! The horror!

One parent, Joseph Clancy, bitched, "Our kids are four years old, and one thing we know is that our kids, who lose things all the time, did not lose these results." Hmm, such observational wit. It must be genetic. And this brings us to our final point. Not quoted, but certainly existent: Parents who know their kids aren't that talented or that gifted. Right now, they're breathing a huge sigh of relief that the proof of their child's meanness will remain, hopefully, forever lost. Thus allowing them to operate with plausible deniability that their babies are geniuses for the rest of their lives. Because, really, that's what child-rearing is all about anyway.

Bezos's family foundation is funding research by University of Washington professor Patricia Kuhl, whose research seems to involve putting babies in really freaky-looking scientific equipment. Will this one day lead to Kindle Nanos getting implanted in their ocular nerves at birth? Will their brainwaves be mined to determine today's specials on Amazon.com? With Bezos looking more and more like Dr. Evil with every passing year, the mind boggles. But he already knew that.

We've never quite understood how it's totally okay that Les Moonves is the CEO of CBS and his wife is the star of one of the network's flagship properties. What if her ratings sucked? Hello, conflict of interest! But we're grateful, because this kind of power couple is invariably nutty. Take Chen's anecdote about sniffing her husband's wine at dinner. Chen and Moonves are acknowledged grape groupies: Witness the portrait of themselves that hangs in their living room.

(Clip by our video intern Nicole Keller)

This email went out to the Park Slope Parents Messageboard, the place where the community is kept safe:

Dogs IN Tot Lot??!!!
Posted by: "bklynfam" jewelsluv@gmail.com bklynfam
Sat Apr 18, 2009 5:13 pm (PDT)

Dear Parents,

I am very upset that so many parents violate park rules and bring their dogs INTO the Tot Lot. For example today I was there for just 2 hours and three people brought their dogs. One of those parents even let their dog OFF LEASH. I am livid.

I don't care how cute, or small your dog is, or if you are holding it on a tight leash. Keep your dog out of the playground away and from MY child and all the children!! And when I say something to you about your dog, don't give me an attitude. You are breaking the rules and being totally arrogant and irresponsible. Leave your dog at home like I do.

Rules are rules for a reason. The fact is that dogs are animals and can turn mean for any reason; another kid or parent gets too close it it's owner or child, a child pets it too hard, or pulls a tail or ear, OR as toddlers do, FALL, may fall on a dog or near it and scare it. BITE.

Call To Action: Write a complaint e-mail to the Prospect Parks department asking for clearer, more prominent sign that clearly state NO PETS. Send you e-mail to info@propectpark.org . And say something to people who bring dogs. Tell them it is not allowed. If they don't leave or give you s++t, then call the Parks Enforcement Patrol at 718-437-1350 (put this number in your cell phone).

Thanks,
Juliette- dog owner to a dog that stays home, and mom to a toddler that betta' not get bit by someone's dog...

...OR ELSE, bitches. Or else.

As if he planned to reveal it all along, Newsom casually Twittered that his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, was pregnant, after the Valleywag reported the news yesterday. In a news conference today, though, he admitted that the news didn't come out quite the way he wanted:

The mayor fielded questions about fatherhood today following a news conference about improvements to Civic Center Plaza, saying that the baby is due later this year, possibly sometime in September.

Newsom welcomed "any advice on diapers, any advice on feeding times, any advice on names," or other topics related to a new child, and said he was already receiving tips on his Twitter account....

He said some extended family members learned of the pregnancy through TV reports.

He even apologized to his Aunt Annie:

"Unfortunately, some gossip column in New York City leaked this, and so we didn't announce it in the way we intended to, but such is the life of public service," Newsom said Thursday outside City Hall. "I had to deal with my aunt. To my Aunt Annie, I apologize for you watching it on TV last night. The point being that I hadn't reached out to our extended family to let them know before everyone else found out."

("Some gossip column in New York City"? Gavin, hon, you need to brush up on your local media. Valleywag is based in San Francisco. How else would we have heard about it first?)

What better way to play the news than as benighted new father, dealing with anxious relatives and soliciting advice about diapers? It is a happy event for the Newsoms, certainly, as a family. But going into a tight race to be California's next governor, it could also spell a rebirth of his political ambitions.

Newsom, a Democrat, has declared himself a candidate for California's governor seat, a wide-open race taking place next year, since term limits are keeping Arnold Schwarzenegger from running again. A rising star in the Democratic party, Newsom has hurt himself with gaffes both personal and political.

He and his first wife, Fox News TV host kimberly Guilfoyle, divorced in 2006. While going through the divorce, Newsom had an affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk, the wife of his campaign manager, Alex Tourk. The divorce and affair ruined Newsom's Camelot-by-the-Bay image.

His wedding last year to Siebel, a cousin of wealthy software entrepreneur Tom Siebel, was a step towards restoring his tattered image. (Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin ferried guests in their private jet to the wedding site on a Montana ranch.)

But then came Proposition 8, California's ban on gay marriage, a cause Newsom has championed since he defied state law in 2004 by issuing marriage licenses to gay couples (including the author of this post). At a rally, Newsom declared that gay marriage was coming to California "whether you like it or not," a sound bite Prop 8 supporters aired endlessly in TV commercials and was cited in many election post-mortems as a factor in the passage of Prop 8.

With memories of his messy personal life still fresh, and his main cause defeated in the last state election, Newsom's push for the governor's seat looked like it was off to a rocky start. In the Democratic primary, he faces California Attorney General Jerry Brown, the former Governor Moonbeam.

But political observers say Brown may strike potential voters as too old. With Newsom's wife expecting a child in the fall, he will have the perfect family-man campaign prop. What better way for a claimant to the throne to seem young and vital than to have his very own heir?

Update: The mayor's office has confirmed that the Newsoms are expecting. Spokesman Nathan Ballard said:

We are pleased to confirm that Mayor Gavin Newsom and First Lady Jennifer Siebel Newsom are starting a family. The Mayor and the First Lady are thrilled to be embarking on this adventure together, and they appreciate your good wishes.

Guess who wasn't expecting this? Gavin's dad and Jennifer's mom, both of whom told the San Francisco Examiner that their children hadn't let them in on the secret.

(Photos by Getty Images)

Young Alfie Patten got plenty of press when it was announced he was a 13 year-old father. Now they say it might have all been a scam! Cooked up by the responsible adults, obviously.

Chantelle Stedman was told by her mother to say that 13-year-old Alfie was the baby's father so that they could cash in on their incredible story, according to a close friend of Chantelle's parents.

Clive Sim, 39, claims that the schoolgirl was ordered to keep quiet about sleeping with other boys so that the 'teenage dad' story could be sold to newspapers for thousands of pounds.

Hey, is this so different from putting your preteen girl in a beauty pageant, or hounding your 12 year-old son to practice more so he'll make the big leagues and give you a comfy retirement? America exploits its kids the healthy way, thank you very much! Anyhow the crack British press notes that "It has been suggested that there are another six potential fathers" of this poor baby and surely there will be many more details to come, ugh ugh ugh let's all go take showers now. [Daily Mail UK; Pic via]

Probably the most troubling thing of all is how greedily we've slopped all this stuff up. But after making celebrity baby covers the biggest sellers for the likes of Us, People and OK!, we get the freakshow news we deserve. Still hungry for more and more babies, we've turned to the circus disaster that is regular lives made alien and shocking when bad choices mixed with a few bits of bad luck and stories were born.

Maybe it coms from exhaustion with all the other media. First it was scripted television shows, and then their high-concept reality descendants. And now we've sifted through every last layer of story until we've gone and found a low, universal denominator. People come out of other people's vaginas sometimes. The more that come out of the same one or the younger the owners of the necessary body parts are, the more we're interested. 220 channels and nothing else was on, so we've settled on the baby zoo currently on display on TLC or sitting in a dimly-lit room across from Ann Curry.

While Suleman's desire to go and get herself knocked up with octuplets when she was already a cash-strapped mother of six probably had far more to do with some murky and deep-seated emotional cataclysms than it did with a desire for fame, the end result has been a raft of high profile TV appearances, implied hopes for a reality series, and a website asking fans or followers or whomever to donate money to this Elephantitis-suffering family. Ms. Suleman has become a rickety celebrity simply by making the wreckless decision to bring many children into this world for whom she had no way of caring. Good for us!

Little Mister Patten may not have been courting fame when he got his young girlfriend pregnant, but now he's likely being paid exclusivity fees by the Sun. And, in the wake of the media frenzy surrounding the unsettling story, two more boys have come forward, claiming paternity of 15-year-old Chantelle Steadman's daughter. There are posed photos of the two boys, aged 14 and 16, on Splash, the photo agency where I find many of the silly celebrity pictures I use for Open Caption.

It had become fairly routine for celebrities to profit off the act of procreation, what with the big glossy magazine industry and whatnot. But now common folks are saying "me too!" and the troubling thing is, if you don't already have a certain degree of popularity, you have to make your babymaking pretty sensational to get any attention. And what's sensational is often ugly. Again these folks probably didn't enter into reproduction with designs on tabloid notoriety, but once the first publicist calls or newspaper camera flashes... Well, the Siren call is tough to resist.

Though humanity has its limits, and the public outcry against Nadya Suleman—and the sad revulsion expressed over the Patten thing—suggests that maybe there is a limit to this mayhem. But we don't suspect it will die down quickly. Prepare yourselves for other strange stories, for other curious and unpleasant parlor tricks of the body. After all, while everything's being torn down around it, Coney Island still has its sideshow.