A SPELLING BEE WITH TORI, PARTYING WITH PARIS

I CAN'T HELP IT.

I have become spellbound by Tori Spelling.

I've tried to find the rash, I've searched to see if I still have a soul, I've stopped immediately flashing past all those terribly "important" Hollywood TV entertainment shows (and their pale Canadian imitators) on the boob tube.

I think I've become a tube boob.

And it's all because of a terrible actress, her equally obscure new husband Dean McDermott (a Canadian), and a little menage a trois ugly style that's playing itself out every 10 minutes in the tabloids and on tabloid TV.

Canada was the playground this past weekend for the biggest "Entertainment Tonight" non-stories of the week, it seems, or at least the Canadian media is making it out to be.

Have a gander:

TORONTO -- Tori Spelling wants lots of kids – and they’re going to have some Canadian genes.
The former 90210 star and her Toronto-bred husband, actor Dean McDermott, admitted backstage at the Much Music Video Awards they're anxious to start making babies.
“We want a McDermott hockey team,” Spelling said. “We started saying we want two. The week we met, we picked out our kids’ names. We wanted two, we wanted three – and then by the time we got engaged we wanted nine.”
The actress used the baby talk to take a shot at McDermott’s spurned ex-wife, Mary Jo Eustace, 48.
“When you have a young wife, they can actually have more children because they start younger,” said Spelling, 33. “I’m young and virile. I can handle it.”
McDermott and Eustace adopted a baby girl just months before he dumped her for Spelling. The couple already had one biological son.

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A sidelight to this story, or at least one of them, is that Eustace is writing a tell-all book about how she was dumped by McDermott for Spelling, who if I'm not mistaken is the daughter of big-time U.S. TV magnate Aaron Spelling.

And this is dominating the headlines? Tori Spelling and another blonde-haired bimbo somehow given far more than 15 minutes of fame by the moronic North American media. Recognize her?



Read it and weep about why ANYONE really cares...

A Canadian boyfriend for Paris Hilton?
GAYLE MACDONALD

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

Toronto — Last week, party girl and serial dater Paris Hilton told David Letterman she loves being single, likes not pouring all her "energy into the man," and was thriving on "getting to know who I really am." In Toronto on the weekend for the MuchMusic Video Awards, she may have had a speedy change of heart.

According to a report last night on eTalk Daily, the heiress was seen snoggling Laval, Que.-born hockey hunk Jose Theodore, a goaltender with hockey's Colorado Avalanche. A source at an after-party at the Courthouse bar snapped pictures of the 25-year-old Hilton and a man identified as 29-year-old Theodore. They were holding hands. Hilton was recently engaged to Paris Latsis, before dating another Greek shipping heir, Stavros Niarchos.

In March, Theodore's girlfriend, Stephanie Cloutier, gave birth to their first child, a daughter. Sources say Hilton and Theodore left the Courthouse together on Sunday night to hit another club.

Eek.

Two more American soldiers are found dead in Iraq, North Korea's sounding off about testing a nuclear missile...and the mass media is feeding the world this pap. And we're gobbling it up.

A WHALE OF A STORY (unfortunate update)

WOE FOR THE WHALES -- AND ALL FOR...THIS?



These are mammals that communicate like us, that live in pods like us, that care for their young like us...and this is what we're doing to them -- making them a delicacy on plates in Japan and other countries.

FRIGATE BAY, St. Kitts and Nevis (Reuters) - Conservation groups on Monday called on governments to redouble their efforts to save endangered whales after pro-whaling nations led by Japan won a majority at an international whaling group for the first time in more than 20 years.

The pro-whaling nations at the International Whaling Commission managed to push through a statement declaring a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling unnecessary and blaming whales for depleting fish stocks.

While largely symbolic, the declaration adopted at the commission's June 16-20 meeting in the Caribbean island state of St. Kitts and Nevis was a show of strength by the whaling bloc after it had spent more than two decades trying to find the muscle to challenge the ban.

Environmental activists, who were also criticized in the declaration, said the whaling nations' success should serve as a catalyst to stir U.S. public opinion, in particular, out of its slumber, and lead to a counteroffensive by anti-whaling nations at the next IWC meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, next year.

"For those governments that have failed to wake up and smell the coffee, this is the final wake-up call," said Greenpeace International spokesman Mike Townsley.

The great whales, the Earth's largest creatures, were almost driven into extinction by commercial whaling before the ban came into effect.

But Japan has continued to hunt whales and has killed thousands in the past 20 years under a loophole that allows for scientific research whaling. Iceland also conducts scientific whaling while Norway has ignored the moratorium.

FATHERS, FEELINGS AND FEARS

A father is neither an anchor to hold us back, nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way.



The first Father's Day was observed on June 19, 1910 in Spokane Washington. Finally in 1966, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day.

Great. But life isn't universally about Father Knows Best or mom's applie pie. Stuff happens.

About half of all marriages fall apart, which means there are a lot of kids out there who are part of broken families. That's a staggeringly sad statement. On the other hand, the uncanny ability of kids to survive and even thrive is remarkable.

As the father of an 18-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son, both of whom live with their mother but who I see at least every second weekend, Father's Day can be uplifting but also ultimately sad and lonely.


A recurring theme and question in my life is how, when I'm not with my kids every day, I can be the positive influence, disciplinarian, loving support or whatever else a dad needs to be if he cares.

That can sometimes be a difficult proposition if you're not there to see them cry, laugh, struggle, flourish.

I wasn't there to see the huge smile on my daughter's face when she brought home her first steady boyfriend; I missed out on being there for my son when he got the boot from his first female flame or flunked that French test.

No single, non-custodial Dad can change the sad reality of a broken marriage or, for that matter, make up for all those lost magic moments that he would have otherwise experienced with his kids.

But he can continue to tickle his daughter when he sees her and tell her how beautiful she is and how proud he is of her being an honors student, yet again.

And he can still give his son a stern look or lecture when warranted, take him out to play catch, drive him to the mall so he can hang out with his friends and feed him every hour.

There are Deadbeat Dads. But if you're not, there are huge voids in your life that can never be fully filled. All you can do is offer the unconditional love that you are ready to give them and be there when they need you or want you to be.

A WHALE OF A STORY

Now HERE'S a great idea.

Earth's largest animals are barely holding their own now in the planet's warming oceans, still subject to illegal hunting (primarily by Japan) and the hapless, helpless victims of other environmental issues.

But have a read of this gem:

For National Geographic News
June 16, 2006
Pro-whaling nations may take control of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) this weekend for the first time since commercial whale hunting was banned 20 years ago.

Delegates from the 70-nation commission are gathering on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts for the IWC's annual meeting, which runs today through June 20.

Ever since the commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, Japan has worked tirelessly to restore the whale hunt. The Japanese government argues that whaling is central to Japanese culture.

This year antiwhaling activists fear Japan may finally get its way. The island nation, many believe, has recruited enough countries into the pro-whaling camp to begin chipping away at whale protections.

This morning, however, Japan lost a vote on a proposal to remove from the meeting agenda discussion of small whales, dolphins, and porpoises—which conservationists consider some of the most endangered species in the whale family.

But Japan may well have its majority before the meeting is out.

"The first vote was in keeping with the status quo," said Susan Lieberman, director of the Global Species Program for the conservation organization WWF, speaking from the St. Kitts meeting.

While the first vote is encouraging for the antiwhaling community, Lieberman says, several nations had yet to arrive at the meeting or pay their dues. At least two of those nations, she adds, are pro-whaling.

A majority of pro-whaling votes on the whaling commission will not overturn the ban. That requires a 75 percent majority. But the anti-whaling community fears a shifting tide.



So you've got the whaling weenies apparently gaining more power and I'm sure that can't be good news for Canada's beautiful Belugas or any other species. And God love Newfies, but our Canucklehead government continues to permit the annual clubbing of baby seals off the Newfoundland coast despite the international protests.



You would have thought they might have learned something about the death of the cod fishery off Newfoundland's Grand Banks, but apparently not.

Timberwolves, grizzly bears, African and Indian elephants...you name it, it's vanishing or becoming more threatened every day. And don't even get me STARTED on our treatment of domesticated animals.

Just another rant from just another voice in the wilderness...