The Fight Against Breast Cancer is Turning into a Circus

The Fight Against Breast Cancer is Turning into a Circus

Ed Note: I didn't take this article nearly far enough. At the end, you will see links to some of the silliest ways I've found to fight breast cancer, from pink beer to a man wearing a pink tutu. I am not making this up and urge you to see for yourself why I've become so fed up with the whole "pink" barrage.

Ok, I've officially seen it all. Well, that may be an exaggeration. I'm sure there are plenty more "save the breasts" campaigns I've not seen yet. I thought the shirts worn by men saying "I Fight Breast Cancer for my Mom," and "Real Men Wear Breast Cancer T-Shirts," were the topper, but no. My eyes have again rolled back into my head, and this time I was totally unprepared.

I ordered some seeds from a famous seed company last year, I won't mention the name because, quite frankly, their seeds didn't produce what they said they would, but that is a story for another day. Anyway, I'm on their mailing list (for life I assume whether I want it or not) and was thumbing through it when I saw, yep, pink pumpkin seeds.

They (I am assuming and I think I can back this up with some research) are genetically modified hybrid pumpkins bred to appear pink on the outside. They were specifically developed for sale to fight breast cancer. Ok, good cause and all, but come on people, last I heard, GMOs aren't good for you. Uhm, I hear they cause cancer. There is research to back up the claim that GMO corn causes tumors in rats.

 Does anyone besides me see a distinct juxtaposition here?

But I digress. My main point is this...aren't we going a bit nuts over pink? Pink is everywhere. Women's breasts are everywhere. We can't go to one store without getting assaulted (I'll come back to that word later) with at least 3 or more messages about breast cancer awareness and the amazing thing is that officially, Breast Cancer Awareness Month was almost 5 months ago--in October!

Sure, the marketing is as good or better than that of the Duck Dynasty clan. Again, you can go to any store at any time and see at least three and usually three dozen different marketing items from that show that is somehow hanging on by a thread despite the fact that the patriarch is a bigoted, gay-hating redneck.

And, as if that wasn't enough, I have found, and I am not making this up, a breast cancer awareness t-shirt that has the image of the men from Duck Dynasty wearing pink hunting camo outfits with the words "Real Men Wear Pink" emblazoned on it, and the Duck Dynasty logo somewhere thereabouts as well. Best marketing plan in the business meet the uhm best marketing plan in the business. A convergence of sorts. So where can this lead us?

Assuming the Duck Dynasty people and the Breast Cancer awareness folks are using the same marketing people, I am wondering what do we have to look forward to next? Pink camo AK-47 assault rifles? Oops, spoke too soon. They are online and available as we speak. Partial proceeds of sales to go to breast cancer awareness and/or research. I fear pink duck-hunting rifles cannot be far behind emblazoned with "I [Heart] Boobies" and "Duck Dynasty Men Shoot With their Pinkies," or something to that effect. The possibilities--as has been proven by these two marketing campaigns--are endless.

Unfortunately, folks, I don't think we've seen the last of this.

Just in case you haven't had enough of the "pink" barrage, I suggest putting a pink pumpkin on your porch for Halloween. And remember, if you forget, you can always buy the seeds, grow them yourself, and have pink pumpkins all over the place for Valentine's Day, Sweetest Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, and, of course, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which, due to the fact that there are too many events to fit into just one month, has officially been re-named National Breast Cancer Awareness Year.

Come on, people. There are lots of other cancers out there that are worthy of your time and money. Prostate cancer kills nearly 30,000 men a year, and in the year 2014, almost 250,000 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed. In no way am I trying to take away anything from the breast cancer folks, but it's time to come up with new colors for other cancers and fight them with the same marketing madness that the "Pinks" have shown as being so amazingly successful. Obviously, no marketing campaign is 100% effective until all cancers are completely wiped out in our lifetime.

http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-fight-breast-cancer-drink-pink-beer-20131009,0,5949858.story#axzz2uLlrsDuU - pink beer

http://www.thetutuproject.com/ - man in pink tutu

http://www.breastcancerttp.com/ - Breast Cancer Awareness Truck and Tractor Pull

http://www.babble.com/best-recipes/16-pink-foods-in-honor-of-breast-cancer-awareness-month/ - pink food recipes

  

Is Duck Dynasty's Goose Finally Cooked?

The once-popular A&E Reality Television show Duck Dynasty is slowly sinking into oblivion as more and more people are coming out of their down-filled slumber and realizing the show does nothing more than glorify redneck values. (Hey, wait a minute. If that were the only thing to bring down a reality television series, Jerry Springer would have found himself standing in the unemployment line a long time ago.) It must be something else, read on...

The latest big name (or semi-big name depending on your age) to ruffle feathers in the entertainment world by placing his support behind the controversial show is Liam Payne of the boy band One Direction. Evidently, it's not so cool these days to be one of the last kids on the block to admit to the guilty pleasure of watching a bunch of grown men prowling around out in the woods blowing everything to Kingdom come. Even God would have a problem with that.

But, of course, killing isn't the controversy that got DD patriarch, Phil Robertson, in double Dutch in the first place. It was homosexuality and racism. Putting your support behind those two highly explosive issues will trump killing a bunch of wild animals just for fun any day.

Phil Robertson blames the poor ratings the show is now getting on "a bunch of wussies out there in TV Land who won't admit they actually love watching a poor white trash rags-to-riches story."

"Where was our millions of viewers last month when I was being held feet to fire for stating what every one of them didn't have the man parts to say themselves?" asked a bewildered and hurt Robertson, resting his head on the over-abundant chest of his life-long partner Daisy, err, Miss Kay Robertson.

Folks are wondering where the understanding Kay's chest was when Phil was pumped up with his self-proclaimed love of God in telling tales about a south where no black man was ever mistreated, where everyone lived in peace and harmony singing the songs of the south in 'dem ol' cotton fields back home.'

Evidently, Mr. Robertson only brings out the double D's when it is absolutely necessary. Too bad he may not have them for much longer as this may be the last season for duck hunting on A&E.

As for Liam Payne, Robertson had this to say.

"I appreciate Mr. Payne coming out on our defense. I just hope to mighty God hisself that Mr. Payne doesn't 'come out' in any other ways as so many of his other boy band mates have done so in the past," proving once and for all that you can take the redneck outta the woods but you can't, well, you get the picture.

Duck Dynasty Christmas Not all It Was Quacked up to Be

Christmas at the Robertsons' homes wasn't as merry and bright as it could have been had it not been for the family's patriarch, Phil Robertson, spouting off about what he truly believes.

Apparently Mr. Robertson didn't get the memo declaring that although the Duck Dynasty clan were to star in their own reality show, they had to check their real reality at the door.

Ironically, the only thing that is duck related but not produced by the Duck Dynasty dynasty is duck tape, but the family is furiously working on a deal to buy the entire Duck brand in the coming year.

Son Willie Robertson says spending a few billion dollars to buy out the Duck brand is gonna save us a helluva lotta money in the long run and this way, we'll never have to worry about daddy or Uncle Si de-railing our gravy train again."

Duck Dynasty’s Uncle Si Fires Assistant Over Clean Tea Cup

Anyone who watches the A & E reality hit show Duck Dynasty, is familiar with not only Uncle Si, but his perpetual sidekick, a vintage Tupperware tumbler he carries everywhere he goes. Si is never without a container of sweet tea to keep his tumbler half full or half empty, whichever way the day is going.

The cup has become a running gag on the show. The way it was explained in the first season of the show is that when Si went to Viet Nam, his mama packed away his tea tumbler to go with him. He has had it in his hand ever since and needless to say, it is practically a sacrilege to mess with Uncle Si’s tea tumbler.

It is for this reason that Si’s booted his personal assistant off the set this past season when she, obviously unaware of the history behind the tumbler, decided to scrub the tea tumbler clean while Si was taking a nap on the set one day. Some say this was one of the worst outbursts of the season and Uncle Si literally had his assistant, Sally Morris, in tears before telling her to get her pitiful butt off the set and don’t come back.

“I honestly, to this day, do not know what I did wrong,” said Sally. “I cleaned a cup that everyone on the show complained about. It looked gnarly, and it needed a good scrubbing and I thought I’d help the old guy out by getting it all cleaned up.”

“The patina!” Si could be heard yelling over the scene being shot, said Si’s nephew, Willie Robertson. “The patina! Do you know how long it takes to build up a tea patina?”

Still groggy from his nap, Si appeared to have tears coming from his eyes as he held up the newly cleaned tumbler. 

“Sweet tea just don’t taste the same ‘less you got you some patina to give it flavor,” he yelled at Sally.

“You dumb little city girls don’t know the first thing about ‘Nam, memories, patina or sweet tea,” he said as he called for the producer to boot her “city girl butt” off the show.

Rumors have it that without Si’s cup, there may not be another season of Duck Dynasty, or at least there may not be an Uncle Si, which, of course, means much of the meat of the show will have been removed.

So what to do? Offers to get Si another assistant to do nothing but pour sweet tea into the tumbler, leave it sit in the sun for hours and then replace it over and over again to build up a new patina have met with grumpy silence. For sure, the mistake Ms. Morris made is sure to cost the network some serious money and they aren’t happy about it.

“If we can get the patina, as he calls it, back before next season,” said assistant producer Fetch Mesome, then we have a chance of Uncle Si returning to normal. For now, we’re left with one dejected and tea-deprived character, who has taken up drinking day-old sweet tea from the local 7-Eleven.”

“Day-old tea don’t taste near as good as my patina tea,” said Si when asked for one final comment.

Meanwhile, in other Duck Dynasty news, the local Christian network in West Monroe, LA, where Duck Commander is located, are up in arms about a new nickname the show has developed. 

“They’re now calling it ‘Double-D’ which, as we all know also refers to a popular size of bra among the heathens in this town,” said Tim “Tiny” Tucker, pastor at the local Love Thy Neighbor House of the Lord in West Monroe. 

Protesters have arrived at the Duck Commander outpost to demand that the Robertsons change the name of the show, Duck Dynasty, to anything other than its current name. So far, Duck Empire is coming up as a suitable replacement, but A & E refuses to cow tow to a small group of religious fanatics who, as they put it “seem awfully acquainted with the use of the words “Double D” and what it connotes.

More Duck Dynasty or Double D news as we get it.

Obnoxious Ducks Find a Home

“Hurry up, Mildred,” quacked Frank the duck impatiently at his mate.

“Oh good Lord, Frank. Tell me we aren’t moving again,” Mildred quacked back.

“I’m afraid so, featherkins. Seems the leader of this duck pack just happens to be a Canadian goose who has a bubble up his butt about us snapping up all the food as the walkers pass by before he’s able to get to it. Seems I’m still the fastest pecker in the bunch,” said Frank with a smirk.

“I’ll vouch for that,” Mildred said slyly, as she smoothed her feathers and followed Frank down the walkway to their next destination—the fifth one this year.

“Where are we going now Frank?” asked Mildred. “We’ve worn out our welcome in just about every place here.”

“Don’t worry, Mildred. I’ve been scouting around, and I found a wonderful joint not a couple hundred feet from here. If we waddle fast enough, we’ll get there just in time to catch the seeds from the feeder the birds left behind this morning.”

It was our house they were eyeing like a pack full of crackers.  And by all accounts, we weren’t going to get rid of them easily.

“Frank,” said Mildred, “I’m not so sure about this place…they have cats.”

“Oh yeah, the cats,” he replied. “Don’t worry Mildred. They must be at least a hundred years old and they don’t seem to be interested in chasing ducks.”

Frank was referring to our cats who, on occasion, might go after a mole cricket or a lizard, but anything bigger than their paw and they were no longer interested. We fed them well and, well, that meant they weren’t gonna attack any ducks who might want a quick meal at the bird feeder.

Frank told Mildred, “Oh and you’ll love this, lovey…the male human actually feeds opossums from his glass siding door. I decided to do a night reconnaissance a couple of nights ago and saw him putting out some leftover cat food for the critters. He’s even given them nicknames.”

Mildred told Frank “That is about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. We ducks never travel at night.”

Frank replied, “How do you think I find our next spots dear? I travel at night. I have to. If you haven’t noticed lately, we seem to be kicked out of every place we find. I think it is our personal hygiene.”

“Ahem,” replied Mildred. “Your hygiene you mean. You can’t eat three cracker crumbs without crapping all over the place. You have issues Frank, and they are ruining our lives.”

“Never mind Mildred,” said Frank. “I’ve found us the greatest place this time and I think we won’t ever have to move again.”

At first, for us, it was a novelty having our own pair of ducks showing up every day eating the birds’ leftovers and sunning themselves on our back porch, but the ducky doo doo began to pile up and before we knew it, we realized that ducks aren’t that cute…they’re more a nuisance and it was time to get rid of them.

The first time we clapped our hands and shooed them away, it took but a mere 5 minutes and they were back on our porch preening themselves under the bird feeder. My husband’s next course of action was to take some bread down the walkway a ways, dump it on the side and run like hell…thinking the ducks weren’t smart enough to realize that now they not only had a place to eat, but once in a while, we provided a lovely picnic in a totally different venue.

It was I, finally, who put a stop to the ducks dining on our patio. My solution was really more an act of desperation than anything else. I tried the picnic first, taking them further away from our home, but they had somehow managed to eat their meal of white bread crumbs and make it back to my house before I did. So, I did what I do to every critter who tries to take up residence in our yard. I got the hose.

Yeah, I know what you are thinking. Bright idea Einstein. Ducks sure are gonna hate water, ha ha. Well, come to find out, ducks love to swim in water, but they hate having it sprayed at them through a power nozzle. They were gone in a jiffy, quacking and clacking back and forth and I can imagine their conversation.

“Thanks a lot Frank,” said Mildred.

“What did I do this time? I was just scooping up the birdie seeds like you were,” quacked Frank indignantly.

“Oh yea? Well, maybe you didn’t notice that after Ms. Opossum lover turned the hose on us, she then turned it back on her porch to spray off the large mass of ducky doo doo you left in the corner.”

“Oh that,” he said. “Yes, I must admit, they have been feeding us rather well lately.”

They waddled away to their new destination, which Frank had found just that morning on his early reconnaissance mission.

“We going back to the flock?” asked Mildred.

“No honey. I’ve found an even better place. Her name is Ms. McNulty and she lives a few doors down from the couple who drove us out. Not only is she hard of hearing, she actually is so near-sighted that when I showed up at her door, she smiled, said “here kitty, kitty” and threw some dry cat food at me…the seafood flavor we love.”

“Oh Frank,” said Mildred as she waddled a few steps behind Frank, “You always take such good care of us,” and the two ducks waddled toward Ms. McNulty who was yelling “here kitty, kitty,” while stepping in a fresh puddle of Frank’s abundant calling card.

Meanwhile, I was patting myself on the back for coming up with such an unbelievable but workable scheme to get rid of the ducks. All day, while my husband was at work, the ducks stayed away. I had found the perfect solution.

That night, my husband came home.

“Looks like you didn’t get rid of the ducks,” he said as he looked out at the back porch that I hadn’t checked in some time.”

“What do you mean?” I said.  “Those ducks were gone all day. I did get rid of them.”

I went to get the hose and Frank yelled to Mildred to hit the deck.

“Honey, we’re gonna have to ride this one out just for a little while until Ms. McNulty’s son leaves. It was just their luck that they had found a woman whose son made a habit of visiting his mom every Mother’s Day to take care of her garden and make sure no varmints were lurking about.

This time the ducks hunkered down and I gave up. “Let them stay,” I said. “At least bird seed is a helluva lot cheaper than canned cat food you feed the opossum you call Dude.”

But that evening, just after dawn, the ducks were gone and the opossum named Grandpa was just stopping by to enjoy a savory meal of cubed chicken in gravy, a can of food that cost me $.65 at the store.

“That’s ok,” I rationalized. “Better Dude and Grandpa eat it than it gets thrown out in the garbage, as the cats are only partial to the dry seafood flavored food,” and, I thought to myself, “they don’t leave behind soggy doo doo, at least, I haven’t seen any yet.”

From COPS to Pot Farmers: How Reality TV Has Done a 360

Everyone who is a fan of reality television knows that COPS is credited with being the first reality-based show on television. A staple on Saturday nights, COPS ruled the roost in reality television for several decades on Fox before being pushed aside for more elaborate shows on other channels. So it is more than ironic that the latest offering in reality TV shows would be about an activity that has law enforcement officials feeling helpless to stop—Pot Farming in Northern California.

It was announced in August 2012 that The Discovery Channel was working on a new reality television series based on the lives of several pot farmers in northern California. Since then, pot lovers all over America have been eagerly anticipating its debut.

Pot Farmers of Humboldt County chronicles the lives of three pot farming families who have struck gold overnight by turning their rural farmlands into pot fields. Pot farming has become a very lucrative, albeit very competitive, business in California, so it goes without saying that this show will provide all the drama that other Discovery Channel shows now airing such as Sons of Guns, Hillbilly Handfishin’, and Moonshiners presently dish out.

Pot farming in Northern California, particularly, has been getting a bum rap for what authorities trying to stop them say are serious environmental violations, from cutting down virgin forests to make room for their burgeoning businesses to poisoning the environment with chemicals pot farmers claim are necessary to grow a healthy crop of a much-desired medicine in California.

One of the stars of the show, Pot Farmers, is a 60-year old hippie named Willie McMillon, who owns nine square miles of farmland in rural Eureka. McMillon heads up his family of seven, including his wife, Sadie, three daughters and two sons, all of whom help out on the farm. McMillon claims that his farm is as organic as it gets and claims the government is just trying to pick bones because they want to see pot farming eradicated and go back to a time when pot was strictly forbidden.

As a side note, Willie is said to own upwards of 100 or more tie-dyed t-shirts, some of which he has owned for as many years as he’s been a hippie. Throughout the show, Willie will be seen wearing his signature bib overalls and a different tie-dyed t-shirt every week, some so old, you can almost see the last threads disintegrate before your very eyes.

 “I’m glad to have this opportunity to show the world that pot farmers in California, well most of us anyways, are doing the best we can to make sure that pot farming doesn’t harm anything Mother Nature has given us,” says Willie on the 2-hour pilot program of Pot Farmers set to air sometime in March 2013.

Willie is most likely referring to two other families featured on the show who grow pot for a living. One in particular is a heated rival and who Willie doesn’t hold back on when describing his dislike for the way they do business. The family, the Hartfields, headed up by Robert “Rick” Hartfield, owner of eleven acres of pot land, live just ‘down the road’ from the McMillons, and this rivalry is as heated as any we’ve seen in recent reality show history. Not even the feud between Nene Leakes and Kim Zolciak of The Real Housewives of Atlanta will be able to outshine this modern-day war between pot farmers.

Hartfield has been cited for a few environmental infractions but in the show, he claims the chemicals he uses on his plants are the same ones that tomato and melon farmers in the area use and claims he is being singled out because of the nature of his crop.

In one particularly hard scene to watch, Hartfield has to take one of his dogs that got into the pot shed and ate halfway through a bag of buds to the vet for pot poisoning, but the dog ends up fully recovering with a new nickname “Bud.”

The Hartfields and McMillons, along with another family by the name of Miller, a transplanted Amish family originally from LaGrange, Indiana--another well-known, but as of yet, illegal place that is famous for its home-grown marijuana—make Pot Farmers one of the most anticipated new reality shows to hit the Discovery Channel since Moonshiners.

A producer of the show claims that the economy is partially responsible for these rogue families across the country doing whatever is necessary to keep their families fed and a roof over their heads.

“While families like those featured in another reality show, Duck Dynasty, which airs on rival channel A&E, get their money from the legal business of making hand-crafted duck calls, it is only a matter of time before other families will come forward, regardless of the threat of jail time, to get their families’ names in lights on the various channels that showcase what real America is all about,” she said.