Bill O’Reilly recently attacked Jennifer Aniston because of her new movie The Switch, about a single woman deciding to have a baby using a sperm donor and not with a man who would be a father to her child. While promoting the movie, Jennifer Aniston commented on the movie’s premise, saying:
“Women are realizing more and more that you don’t have to settle, they don’t have to fiddle with a man to have that child. They are realizing if it’s that time in their life and they want this part they can do it with or without that.”
Many have been commenting on what the movie is really saying about society, but this commentary goes back as far as when other movies of the same type came out; movies like like Baby Mama and Miss Conception. But one person in particular had quite the negative reaction to Aniston’s comments about women having children without fathers being in the picture; and that person is none other than Bill O’Reilly.
O’Reilly is under the impression that Jennifer Aniston is some gigantic role model amongst children and commented saying, “She’s throwing a message out to 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds that, ‘Hey you don’t need a guy. You don’t need a dad.’ That is destructive to our society.”
When I heard about this comment, the first thing I thought of was “Why would 12 and 13-year olds need a guy in the first place? At that age, you kind of want them to stay far, far away from guys”, but perhaps he just meant that Jennifer Aniston is out there saying that kids don’t need any kind of male figures in their lives whatsoever. Even so, that’s a pretty big slip up on O’Reilly’s part. Secondly, what 12 and 13-year-olds know who Jennifer Aniston is or what she is doing or what movies she is in? I really don’t think they care much about Jennifer Aniston and I was assured in my thought about this when Beth Feldman of Role Mommy came out and said the same thing.
But let’s get down to the real point of this topic–Do children of single mothers suffer more than if they were brought up in a household with a father present?
“The traditional family that we have always known as mom, dad and two kids is no longer the traditional family. … Children of single parents do just as well as kids who have two parents. There’s nothing in the research that says having a baby by yourself is a terrible thing.”
Carl Pickhardt, a parenting expert and psychologist also commented on where Bill O’Reilly’s comments were coming from and what to take away from them, saying that while fathers are important in a child’s life, what it is even more important and downright crucial is “the quality of parental commitment to raising that child after it is born. … It is a prejudice that single parents — mostly moms — are deficient parents. In fact, they are among the strongest and most resourceful parents I see.”
Urban Girl Squad scored 50 free tickets to raffle off for the advance screening of The Switch with Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman, an offbeat comedy about a woman whose plans to have a baby on her own go awry due to a last-minute switch that’s discovered seven years later. The movie is from the people behind Little Miss Sunshine and Juno, so it’s sure to be a hit! Twenty-five lucky winners will win two seats to the advance screening on Wednesday, August 18 at 7:300PM.Enter to win here.
About Urban Girl Squad Amanda Hofman created Urban Girl Squad, a community-based social group for women in their 20’s and 30’s in New York City, in January 2008. Urban Girl Squad creates opportunities for these women to try new things, spend time with friends, and meet new people. Our events include food and wine tastings, beauty and fashion nights, dance and fitness classes, sports events, cocktail parties and more. We provide special, discounted access to the city–you’ll meet store owners and designers, taste gourmet food and drinks, receive personal attention from popular venues, and score some amazing gift bags. The welcoming atmosphere at our events makes it easy for members to attend on their own or with friends!
There is a not-so recent trend that has been sweeping the literary world; people are re-writing historical fiction like Pride and Prejudice and infusing it with dark humor which has been a huge hit. Books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters have done extremely well for themselves and to add to the hilarity, a new faux movie trailer has recently gone viral, appearing pretty much everywhere from Mashable to Jezebel to PopScreen.
Jane Austen’s Fight Club is a hilarious and extremely awesome idea and I do really wish that someone would pick this up and make it into a full-length movie. I’d definitely go see it. Would you?
There had been a great deal of spirited talk about Inception leading up to its opening weekend and it turns out those who were excited about what was being called the ultimate summer blockbuster of 2010 were not let down. The film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and written and directed by Christopher Nolan of The Dark Knight, had an amazing opening weekend earning $60.4 million.
Inception came in first this past weekend, coming out far ahead the $32.7 million Despicable Me earned in its second week. Not only did it come out first during its opening weekend, it is also the biggest opening of Leonardo DiCaprio’s career, even beating out Titanic‘s opening weekend numbers.
I am really glad to see that this movie came out on top. Over the past number of years I’ve grown used to being able to get pretty excited to see a great movie if it has Leonardo DiCaprio in it because, well frankly, he just doesn’t seem to do anything that sucks. Not to mention, Ellen Page is also in Inception, who I also absolutely love. I sadly have not gone out to see Inception yet, but I definitely plan to–and soon.
If you have managed to make it this long without seeing the trailer for Inception, check it out below.
In case it accidentally slipped your mind (like it did mine, I just remembered!), Father’s Day is this Sunday. Of course that doesn’t leave much time for picking out the perfect gift your father (or father-in-law) will absolutely love.
If you’re battling with seemingly impossible time restrictions, check out the following unique Father’s Day gifts from the practical to the unique and also bordering on hilarious.
New York Street Games Documentary
Bring your dad on a trip down memory lane with this documentary that looks back at all of the old street games that we’d be hard-pressed to find kids playing now, like Stickball, Boxball, Skully, among others. This DVD is narrated by Hector Elizondo with stories from Regis Philbin, Ray Romano, Mike Starr, and many others. It captures a special time in American history and strives to address the social and cultural importance of these games and the sense of community they fostered at the time when they were the most popular.
There seems to be a ‘Something of the Month club’ for everything, and now we can officially add bacon to that list. But not just any bacon–this is artisan bacon delivered to your dad’s door once a month for 12 months. He will also receive discounts on other bacon products, a Bacon the Month Club membership card, the Bacon Strip, a members-only bacon comic strip, the Bacon of the Month pig ballpoint pen, a rubber toy pig, a Bacon tee-shirt, one recipe each month that uses the bacon he just received, discounts on suggested wines and products that appear in said recipe and a pig nose.
Available at the Grateful Palate ($190/6 month membership with one package, $315/12 month membership with one package, $375/12 month membership with two packages)
Beer Kit from Mr. Beer
Is your dad a beer snob? Mine is, and that is exactly what I get him every year for every holiday we celebrate–awesome-looking beer or brewed ales that I find at the local beer distributor. But this Father’s Day may be the time to start letting him make his very own beer and he can do exactly that with the Premium Beer Kit that contains everything he will need to brew and bottle one batch of great tasting beer. The kit includes one 2-gallon fermenter, a standard refill, eight bottles with caps, eight label, one Brewer’s Guide and one set of instructions.
Have a dad who is the Master Griller of the family (or just seems to think he is?) Check out this Sliders Mini-Burger set that includes a triple slider burger press for the perfect size sliders, open bun cutter for perfect size slider buns and a none slider, non-stick metal grilling basket with rosewood handle for easy grilling that lets you turn all with one flip.
Sure, a tie may seem incredibly cliche, but there are some men out there who actually like ties and wear them often. Plus, if they have a job where they need to wear a tie daily, it makes this gift idea even better. This plaid silk tie is not only stylish, but also for a very good cause. The tie has a small embroidered logo of the Susan G Komen Foundation insignia for breast cancer awareness and the proceeds from the sale of this tie will go to the Susan G Komen charity for breast cancer.
I must preface this by saying that I know very little when it comes to cooking, never mind French cooking. I know enough to prepare something with very simple instructions, but for the most part my partner does the majority of any cooking that involves more than boil water, add noodles, wait until noodles are tender and cover with sauce. In addition to my lack of culinary expertise, I also knew very little about Julia Child when starting this book, so one could assume that this would not be a book that I would be interested in, if not having to force myself through. However, I surprisingly took to this book very well because you don’t have to know pretty much anything about cooking, French cooking or Julia Child to enjoy the humor and biting cynicism of Julie Powell and her ability to bring you on the journey, the upheaval, the frustrations and the victories that became her life.
Julie Powell was just a temp secretary working at a government office full of Republicans in a post-9/11 era where, among other things like filing, she answered phone calls about people’s ideas for the September 11th memorial that had not yet been placed where the World Trade Center towers once stood. Living with her husband, three cats and what one could assume to be a minor drinking and chain-smoking problem, she worked a thankless job and lived a mundane life in a crappy apartment. She lived the life so many people are currently and will continue to live–getting by without doing much of significance.
But that’s where we get Julie Powell’s life all wrong. Of course she did not mean to do something of so much significance, but she did strive to do something. While being told she had a condition that would make it difficult to impossible to have a child after the age of thirty, and being twenty-nine, she set out on a mission to restore her ambition, change her life and save her soul… by cooking all 524 recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I.
As she details her way through dish after dish, through long and excruciatingly-detailed pages on the insides of marrow bones and how to really go about stealing the lives of lobsters before turning them into delectable French cuisine, Julie & Julia is the kind of book you pick up on a rainy day when you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning, so you don’t and allow yourself to relax the morning and early-afternoon away in bed with a good book.
A memoir was the perfect thing for Julie Powell to write, being an honest and often self-deprecating woman who bears it all and isn’t ashamed of it. However, on this same note she did write in the author’s note that throughout the book she did just make things up but of course, does not touch on what is made up and what is true-to-life. That did not necessarily have a negative impact on my overall enjoyment of this book because as I found myself laughing during certain passages and then wondering if that had really happened or not, I realized that if it had, well, that would have been hilarious and if not, then Julie Powell is equipped with a great and witty imagination–And she is.
Her blog that inspired the book, the Julie/Julia Project gained a great deal of media attention towards the ending months of her project. She prepared dinner for newspaper columnists she had admired and even missed the last episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to do it. Her blog garnered a great deal of attention from people whom she called bleeders that cheered her on and also pleaded with her not to make aspic-and-anything ever again.
More-so than the art of French cooking, I was more intrigued by Julie Powell the woman. I enjoyed her anecdotes and expletive-filled tangents about her boring and thankless job, her varied and equally satisfying and satisfied friends and of course, a husband in which she portrays to be the textbook definition of perfect. While I had seen the trailer for the movie before picking up the book, I was actually quite thrilled to see that the real Julie Powell was not as wholesome as Amy Adams portrays on the silver screen.
Julie & Julia is a satisfying journey of discovery full of laugh-out-loud tales and lists of foods I am certain I will never let grace my dinner plate.
Sexuality is something to be celebrated and explored and we hope to help you do just that with the articles and reviews we publish in our love and sex category.
Bill O’Reilly recently attacked Jennifer Aniston because of her new movie The Switch, about a single woman deciding to have a baby using a sperm donor and not with a man who would be a father to her child. While promoting the movie, Jennifer Aniston commented on the movie’s premise, saying:
There had been a great deal of spirited talk about 
New York Street Games Documentary
Bacon of the Month Club Membership
Beer Kit from Mr. Beer
Sliders Mini-Burger Set
Susan G Komen plaid silk tie
