Is CBS’ controversial Kid Nation really the devil’s work, or are parents just kidding themselves? Only Starshine knows for sure …
Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA
Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA
Is CBS’ controversial Kid Nation really the devil’s work, or are parents just kidding themselves? Only Starshine knows for sure …
Starshine has a revelation about hanky-panky in a hatchback.
Starshine confesses to a brief but hands-on affair with a hot stone masseuse.
Remember the hookah-puffing Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland? The one whose cloudy exhalations made poor Alice cough, sputter and sneeze? His killer buzz just went up in smoke.
Disney president Robert Iger recently vowed to snuff out all depictions of smoking in the studio’s future family films. He said the company recognizes its profound influence over children, and while entire generations have been misled into believing that charming princes will rescue helpless but pretty girls, and that we should all adopt the life philosophy of a shiftless singing meerkat, he wants them to also know that a drag on a Marlboro will kill you dead.
Or something to that effect.
Stuntman camp. Heavy metal guitar camp. Jedi camp. Now that summer nears a close, Starshine and other parents ask: What the hell were we thinking?
The size of their bosoms and underpants notwithstanding, Starshine and her grandma have something cool in common. They both love to spin a good yarn.
Another senator (yawn) was caught with his pants down. Starshine ponders the nature of Capitol Hill canoodling.
She pan-fries with purpose, char-broils with cheer and grills with a Calphalon grin. She’s the merry meal-maker, ever disposed to whip up a hot and hearty supper for her grumbling-tummied groom.
When he’s home for dinner, she’ll toast the bread, salt the beans, trim the steak and chill the salad — because that’s the way he likes it best. She’ll bust out the good napkins and soil every pan in the kitchen just so he can enjoy a “proper” meal. The kind his mommy used to make.
But tomorrow, when he’s working late, she’ll stand at the kitchen counter plucking almonds from the trail mix and polishing off her kids’ leftover yogurt while thumbing through the junk mail.
And she’ll take an impish thrill in doing it.
As summer vacations get airborne, Starshine pens a personal letter to first-class passengers everywhere.
I owe you all a big apology. Because when I was a kid? Growing up in the San Fernando Valley? We talked in this totally weird way and all? And, like, it spread.