"No, see this is a really shit idea. You know why? Because it's really obviously a shit idea." -- 28 Days Later
According to the tabloids, Britney Spears puts Pepsi in her kids' baby bottles. And I know that sounds bad, but 1) She used to endorse Pepsi, and you have to admire a celebrity spokesperson who actually uses the product, and 2) At least she's not making them watch Baby Einstein.
Turns out, that crap'll make you retarded.
According to a new report in the Journal of Pediatrics, for every hour a day that toddlers watch Baby Einstein, they learn six to eight fewer words than toddlers that don't. Which may explain the company's slogan, "E = M C student," but probably not, because that's just a joke.
Wait? Now it's bad to make babies watch television? Who knew?
(I mean, aside from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which has always said children under two shouldn't watch TV, even if the DVD has "Einstein" written on the box. But what do they know? They're just pediatricians. The American Academy of Physicists says you shouldn't watch Baby Bruno Bettelheim. So there.)
Next you're going to say I shouldn't feed my kids all those McNuggets, even though I write the word "Bach" on each one with magic marker.
My own experiments with baby television ended when my eldest was still an only, and watched Barney the way Kathy Bates watches James Caan in Misery. Yes, we were letting a one-year-old walk the thin line between love and madness called obsession, but it was so nice to get that extra half hour's sleep. Don't look at me that way. You did it too. That all ended the morning I was actually reading her a book for once and when we got to the end she handed it back to me and said, "Rewind."
The tapes had to go.
You know how we should have known it was a shit idea? Because it's really obviously a shit idea.
I think we're going to spend a lot of time, cleaning up after the Bush Years, correcting things that were glaringly wrong from the start. "Make your baby smart with TV." "Let the extraction industries write their own laws." "Merge the government and the church." "Get the Arabs into democracy by murdering them."
If you don't have children -- and you never conned yourself into thinking it was good for them to watch a video of a hand pushing a toy truck to a lousy version of the Fur Elise -- the first place you may have heard of Baby Einstein was in this year's State of the Union.
When the President said:
"After her daughter was born, Julie Aigner-Clark searched for ways to share her love of music and art with her child. So she borrowed some equipment, and began filming children's videos in her basement. The Baby Einstein Company was born and in just five years her business grew to more than $20 million in sales. In November 2001, Julie sold Baby Einstein to the Walt Disney Company, and with her help Baby Einstein has grown into a $200 million business. Julie represents the great enterprising spirit of America. And she is using her success to help others producing child safety videos with John Walsh of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Julie says of her new project: "I believe it's the most important thing that Ive ever done. I believe that children have the right to live in a world that is safe." We are pleased to welcome this talented business entrepreneur and generous social entrepreneur Julie Aigner-Clark."
Of course she's a con woman and her business hurts the people it's supposed to help. She was sitting in the box with Laura. Another year, it was Ahmad Chalabi.
And of course "Baby Einstein" doesn't work. Bush endorsed it. So it makes kids stupid? We're lucky it doesn't kill them.
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By the way:
You know how I know running someone with Hillary Clinton's negatives for President is a shit idea? Because it's really obviously a shit idea.