Of Spa Treatments and bad parents

So, I saw this segment on GMA the other day, and I was pretty horrified by it.  Basic premise: there’s a growing trend of taking ever younger girls for spa treatments, manicures/pedicures, and yes, even a bikini wax.

Young Girls Getting Facials, Blowouts, Manicure…, posted with vodpod

What I really hate is emphasizing for young girls that what’s really important is their external appearance. It’s bad enough that society is doing this all the time– the fact that their own parents are doing it to is both depressing and infuriating.  Oh, of course, all these lame parents justify it by how much fun their child is having.  What child doesn’t love spending time one-on-one with a parent and being the center of attention.  First, you can do that without a pedicure.  Second, children are already overly prone to thinking they are the center of the world.

Basically, a lot of parents seem to take the approach that their daughters enjoy it, so how can it be a bad thing.  That’s asinine, of course.  Heck, Evan enjoys throwing water bottles at people.  David would play video games every waking moment and be quite happy doing so.  The job of a parent is not simply to let your child do whatever makes them happy.  The job of the parent of a daughter is most definitely not to further emphasize society’s message that external appearance is what matters most for females.

Photo of the day

Christmas being upon  us soon, this Reindeer photo via National Geographic seemed appropriate:

Romney and the ad war

Ezra asks: “Can Romney win the Air War?” and concludes:

In a debate, Romney just says he isn’t a flip-flopper.The viewers don’t see this:

That’s from the Huntsman campaign. And as we get closer to the primaries, ads like it will blanket the airwaves, not just YouTube. We don’t yet know what that will do to Romney’s support, or to perceptions of his electability.

Not to mention ads like this one from the DNC:

As you know, I love me some Ezra, but in this case, I think one of his commenters gets it right:

offhand, I’d go the opposite route: Romney is in much better position to win the air war than the debate war.

air war is 90% money 10% history and strategery; debates completely flatten the playing field and make it very hard to defend embarassing history

Sure, Obama and the Democrats will blanket the airwaves if Romney is the nominee, but do any of Romney’s opponents have the financial resources to compete with him in an expensive TV Ad campaign?  Not that I’ve heard about.  Perry raised some serious money, but his campaign is nothing more than the butt of jokes now.

Then again, maybe Ezra is right.  One thing I find really interseting is that this whole flip-flopper thing is the standard operating procedure attack that Republicans use on Democrats.  [Of course, given the reality of politics, pretty much every politician is susceptible to this charge to a greater or lesser degree.]  I wonder if Romney being consistently painted in not just any negative light, but a negative light that Republicans strongly associate with Democrats may be extra damaging.  We’ll just have to wait and see, because once things really heat up, there definitely will be plenty of Romney flip-flopper ads out there.  And on that vulnerability continuum, he’s about as vulnerable as it gets, regardless of what Kathleen Parker thinks.