Because this is what the universe really needed. Oh, yes it did.

To fill up the precious, precious time left over from taking care of your house (if any) your family (if any) your job (if any) and your social life (if any) the little elves of Silicon Valley have now produced a social networking site specifically for the progesterone crowd. Because it’s a well-known scientific fact that the state of pregnancy is so mind-altering that one loses all ability to or interest in conversing with the non-pregnant, suffering a sort of temporary hormone poisoning of the brain in preparation for the nonintellectual tasks of diaper changing and breastfeeding. I refer you to the Law of Parent/Child IQ Equivalence, which states that when a baby is born the IQ of its parents drops to that of the child, since any normally intellectual person would go raving mad if s/he had to converse about the texture of poop and the semiotics of Playmobil toys 24/7. So naturally someone thought there was money to be made there, and built a walled compound to contain those conversations and keep them out of the mainstream.

Yes, it’s Facebook for preggos, and it’s called Babble Playground.

Babble. Ah, the power of metaphor.

You would not believe the furor this picture has caused on the internets.  I won’t bother linking to any of them, if you’re curious you can simply Google something with Angelina and Cheetos.

The gist of quite a few snarky posts were that ohmigod, Angelina Jolie feeds her kids junk food! Bad mother alert! Bad mother alert!

You know what I say? 

Fabulous!

As long as junk food is eaten in moderation, I don’t see anything wrong with it. And I highly doubt that these kids have Pop Tarts for breakfast, Cheetos for lunch and hot dogs for dinner every day.

Kids like junk food.  Should they be fed junk food at every meal? No.  Should they get junk food every time they want it? No.

But.

If a mom can’t relax and let her kids have some now and then, then it becomes the forbidden food that they want to have all the time.  It’s basic psychology that to deny access to something makes it all the more attractive.  And trust me, they will find a way to get it without you knowing, all the while pretending to crave your special brown rice and broccoli recipe.   I know this from experience.

So the self-proclaimed food police can have their macrobiotic diets and whatnot while the rest of us have a little snack.

Ice cream, anyone?

Voice of GenX (sorry, Douglas Coupland) McSweeney’s genius and 826Valencia founder Dave Eggers talks (for nearly half an hour) about engaging with the public school system. Lengthy, but worthwhile.

Somehow, it just seemed topical. For some reason.