Because otherwise you'd have to flirt uncomfortably with Doocy, Brian. And that would just be...awkward.

So, as we know, Miley Cyrus pole-danced at the Teen Choice Awards. Or, rather, she leapt up onto an ice cream cart with a pole in the middle and executed a single shimmy, obviously pole-dance inspired. Then she got down.

The dance itself wasn't that big a deal; yeah, it was completely inappropriate for a show that targets kids (because I think real "Teens" have moved on by this point), but not especially more so than her minute booty shorts or the parade of scantily-dressed dancers grinding behind her. It was, as the Examiner blog points out, a whole lot less raunchy than the pole-dance 'Fire Burning' number co-performer Sean Kingston indulged in.

Kingston is only 19, three years older than Cyrus, and he had not one but two poles. He also had two very scantily-clad ladies dancing around those poles with moves that were much more provocative than Cyrus's one shimmy. So why then is only Cyrus getting called out her inappropriate dancing and for using a pole in her performance, whereas no one is blinking an eye at Kingston's very sexy, very racy stage outing? Double standards, anyone?

Well, sure - and Scores doesn't seem to be clutching its pearl G-string over his two-pronged approach - but it's also true that Cyrus made her name as a good girl, has very young fans, and has recently started a spate of deliberate provocation: far from the remorse she espoused after last year's Vanity Fair fracas, now Cyrus is defiantly making her mark as an older entertainer, posing on the cover of magazines in overtly sexy getups and, yes, thumbing her nose at us fogeys with that half-assed gyrations.

Yes, she's just a kid. There were choreographers who put it together and parents who sanctioned it and managers who thought it was a good move, or at least trusted a 16-year-old's judgment. She doesn't deserve anyone's hate mail or the blame for society's ills. Maybe people are pissed off about it because a) it's August and people enjoy histrionics and b)now it feels deliberate. The Vanity Fair thing, most of us didn't mind: whatever, she was in over her head, it was Leibovitz, weird call on dad's part but really what's the big deal? But now, she's trying to throw off the yoke of exactly what made her famous, and while I understand chafing at Disney's stranglehold, it also feels, well, unfair to those little girls who look up to her. And she's playing deliberately with the clean Hannah Montana image that made her big. Says Salon's Tracy Clark-Flory,

That's some potent imagery: an emblem of childhood (an ice cream cart) juxtaposed with a symbol of modern young womanhood (a stripper pole). Looks like her managers are following the Britney Spears sexy-virgin path to success — or self-destruction, depending on your perspective.

Was the dance a big deal? Not in itself - it's short, not especially sexy, and frankly the song she was caterwauling was unlistenable. But will it negatively influence little girls? Frankly, I seriously hope most little girls weren't allowed to watch it, because it sucked, and the entire show was completely inappropriate. I maintain that girls are smarter than they're generally given credit for being, however impressionable their age, and that the behavior of one already-tarnished TV star isn't going to change the course of their lives.

But it does kind of depress me, because this is obviously what Miley Cyrus and her handlers/parents want for her, and for her career. I'm depressed for all the usual reasons - sexualization and cheapening and objectification and growing up too fast, and the lack of wholesome role models - but I think it's something more. I'm offended on behalf of little girls. Being a role model whom younger children look up to is not second-class. It's not a necessary minor-league servitude before the big leagues. It's not less important than attracting their older sisters. (It's certainly not less renumerative.) No, being a role model, someone who has the influence to touch and influence younger girls at a formative age, is an honor, and it's not an honor a lot of people are accorded. When I saw Miley Cyrus on that crummy pole, my heart sank a little: because, once again, she was saying that what she does, and her market, isn't important and she's eager to leave it behind. I get that for a young girl playing to kids doesn't feel sexy or glamorous, and it's natural to be rebellious. It's why kids shouldn't be in the public eye, arguably, in the first place - they have no control over what they're getting themselves into, and then, inevitably, they resent the pressures. That's sad for a lot of reasons, but not least because it plays havoc with the young girls whom Miley's growing up and abandoning, rather than the other way around.

(Oh, and in case you're wondering, here's what "Ed Norwick, General Manager of SCORES, the legendary NYC gentleman's club" had to say: "While Miley did show off some skills, we at SCORES cannot encourage this kind of behavior for women under the legal age. If she'd like to come try out in a couple of years, our door's open!")

Miley Cyrus, 16, Shows Off Her Pole Dancing Skills At The Teen Choice Awards [Daily Mail]

Miley Cyrus: Too Young To Pole Dance? [Salon]
Miley Cyrus Vs. Sean Kingston: It's A Stripper Pole Dance-Off At The Teen Choice Awards [Examiner]
"Party In The USA" At The Teen Choice Awards (FULL VERSION)(HQ) [YouTube]

Update: A rep from the Swiss ad agency Lowe that created this ad emailed to let us know that this — understandably — never ran anywhere.

[via Adrants]

Barack Obama's press secretary was supposed to introduce a new era of inclusiveness and feminism maybe because Barack Obama is a liberal and he would end the "old boy's club" atmosphere of Washington. So in order to explain how sexist and anti-woman all of Robert Gibbs' baseball talk is BBC correspondent Katty Kay explains in The Daily Beast that even though she's managed to wrap her silly little female head around complicated things like "politics" she can't handle the occasional off-hand reference to "innings."

I can talk politics with the best of them. I can even make reasonable sense of toxic mortgage assets. Give me Paris, Moscow, or Tokyo and I can usually muster an intelligent observation. But when the talk turns to innings, dunks and touchdowns, sorry, I've nothing remotely sensible to add.

To be fair, sports metaphors in politics are really stupid, Robert Gibbs is clearly kind of a dick, and there is a pervasive chauvinism in the beltway press (it goes hand-in-hand with the blinkered elitism and self-importance). But come on, Katty, you really don't have any clue what Gibbs is saying here?

"Bottom of the fifth [inning], the sausage race is [at] the beginning of the next inning, so stay tuned, and the starting pitcher is in there, still throwing nice curveballs and [he's] still got a lot of heat on the fastball," was how the new White House press secretary described the progress of the economic stimulus bill at a recent briefing....

Slow down, Robert! There are girls here! In order to demonstrate how not-sexist this administration is you'd better reframe the issue in terms of shopping for shoes! (Or, as Katty says, "It's as if Dana Perino had compared getting out of Iraq to extracting yourself from pigeon pose, or tracking Osama to finding vintage Pucci on eBay." Because Dana Perino is a girl, see, and those are things girls know about. Also for fuckssake we'd still be able to follow those metaphors, even though we're boys. Because they're stupidly easy to comprehend even if you have a penis.)

The real problem is that author Katty Kay is British. If Robert Gibbs used cricket metaphors she'd be fine! Or maybe he should just have the lady members of the press corps chase him around the briefing room at high speed while a zany sax theme plays? That's the sort of stuff you Brits get, right?

[pics via RightFielders]

Young women not included.

[via Adrants]

Sent from my iPhone.

So how does the magical world of Bella Sara work?

Each card comes with a code that can be entered on a Web site, unlocking a horse's stable, but each code can be activated only once — meaning the cards are meant more for collecting and less for trading. (Girls can use a computer mouse to clean the horse's living quarters and feed it hay, but they can't trade horses with their friends.)

With Ponies, Unicorns and Secret Codes, an Effort to Unleash a Craze for Girls [NYT]

The purpose of the article, according to Ms. Seymour, was to "understand why shopping seems to have become an acceptable hobby, even an obsession, among some young girls." It seems like it was fun to write! The girls wear skin-tight jeans. One of them in particular has a pretty shirt. Click through for more information!

The first stop for the ladies is Louis Vuitton, where little Lake notices a white mink stole. "I have to have this!" she yelps, probably like a bat. A little later, the girls see a man carrying a pink bag by Juicy Couture; this makes them excited, and "they start hissing like snakes, cheering, 'Ju-i-ccc-y! Ju-i-ccc-y!'"

A few experts and professors later, the girls jump up and down on massage chairs, and after that, Ms. Seymour starts thinking about what it means to be a tween.

Her conclusions: creatures like Lake and her friends are not quite girls and not quite women. They like brands because it makes them feel like they're part of a club. Also, "the concept of window shopping no longer exists. Going home without a bag is unthinkable. Shopping has become about buying."

All of which makes us wonder: who paid for all the stuff? Are freelancers allowed to expense stuff at the Times?—LEON

RELATED: Weekend 'Times': Fire of My Loins

"I had a huge headache, so I was in the back relaxing," Ariel said as she sat at her grandmother's table, looking sweet and tough as taffy in an oversize Sean Jean shirt, fatigue-style pajama pants and fluffy pink slippers.... During her Christmastime visit to her grandmother, on the way to buy a quart of milk, Ariel walked with a swagger that, after a lifetime of fights, has become as much a part of who she is as her full lips and her almond-shaped eyes.

The really remarkable thing is that context doesn't appear to matter much at all. If it's not a work day, and a ripening girl happens to be a part of the story, the Times will go out of its way to make all involved really, really uncomfortable. Consider how that 14-year-old girl with smelly autistic brothers was described in the mag a few weeks back:

Her own face is heart-shaped, sprayed with faint freckles and often demurely animated — lips slightly pursed, eyes knowing — by a look of private amusement on the verge of being made public.

The first thing you notice about 12-year-old Nora Leitner is the dark circles under her eyes. They stand in stark contrast to the rest of her appearance; at a glance she might be any petite, pretty tween girl, with her blond ponytail, elfin frame and thousand-watt smile. But the circles tell a different story: Nora looks as if she hasn't slept in a month.

Jessica, a soft-spoken girl who braids and pins up her hair before each match, says wrestling has helped build her confidence, challenging both her body and her mind.

With the hairnet, the dark T-shirt under her singlet, and the headgear over her ears, there is something oddly demure about Jessica, even as she is on all fours with a boy riding her back. The onlookers yell, ''Lock in that leg'' and ''Keep pushing,'' and her mother yells, ''Come on, Jess, upsy-daisy.''

EARLIER: The Secret Saturday 'Times'