And I Thought Summer HERE Was Boring...

I think the Swedes need something new to occupy their time. Read on:

There's a discrimination issue that's raging in Sweden right now. It involves - sit down - birthday invitations. Yup. You read right. Birthday invitations (or their improper distribution) can cause discrimination. Did you know that? I didn't. I guess the rules in Sweden are different.

The details: in a school south of Stockholm recently, an 8-year-old boy who had given out invitations to his birthday party had the invitations confiscated by his teacher. The reason: he hadn't given them to everyone in his class. Two boys were not invited. Why? His father says one of the boys bullied his son, and the second hadn't invited him to his party. But as a result of not receiving the invitations, those two boys were discriminated against. Or so the school says.

Now, I've heard - and abided by - those rules at private pre-schools, and I thought they were pretty justified for a group of really little kids (and this was a PRIVATE school). But do we really need to have PARLIAMENT decide whether this is discrimination? And why is it discrimination? Because some children will have their feelings hurt 'cause they weren't invited to a private party? Well maybe there was some justification there. And how did the other boy get away with not inviting everyone? How come he wasn't bagged for discrimination?

I don't believe in a "big government" that has to make rules for everything. In fact I personally believe some things just shouldn't be legislated. And this is one of them. Social mores are based on current social custom, which, I think, should not be legislated. Prohibition, anyone?

And hey, don't people in Sweden have anything else to worry about? This is soooo silly, and for it to have reached the Parliamentary Ombudsman is ridiculous. I've always wanted to visit Sweden, and Norway, and Denmark, and Finland, but I gotta start wondering about a place that has to establish rules on who must be invited to a birthday party. Good Grief!!!

More Info:  http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hkBG46h2R7GP4O08d5vSYk416N0gD91JTSFG0

Devo Sues McDonald's Over Toy's Look - Duh!

Hey, kids!  Long time no read!  Sorry, but the end the kids' school year was a bit harried, and it took me a while to catch up with everything.

Did you see that the late 70's / early 80's band Devo is suing McDonald's?  Yup.  Apparently the fast-food monster aligned with American Idol and passed out toys representational of different musical eras, and the "New Wave Nigel" doll, which looks like this,


is apparently (obviously??) too close to Devo's standard stage costume as seen here:



Me, I think it's kinda obvious (ok, REALLY OBVIOUS) that McD's took the image from Devo. No question at all.  Four-tiered red hat on toy, four-tiered red hat on band members.  Clinches it for me...

The real issue, I think, is that not many people, myself included, knew that the Devo hat (dubbed "energy domes" by the band) is actually trademarked and copyrighted. Cool! I didn't know you could DO that! And they were pretty prescient on that too. Who knew 25 years ago that one of the biggest corporations in the world would step on that same trademark? Or that a hat would become so emblematic of a time and its music.  Woah.

Hey, trivia for you: did you know that Mark Mothersbaugh, the lead singer (I think) of Devo, wrote the music for the children's tv show "Rug Rats"? Yup. I guess we all grow up eventually.

And on that note, here for your viewing pleasure is a taste of what Devo became known for:



I can't find a nice clip of the opening Rugrats music, but I"m sure you can easily call it to mind. Bah bah bah baaaah bah bah baah bah bah bah bah bah bah...  :)