How about “everyone who’s seen this video?”

Here’s one way to lose your girlfriend and become Internet famous at the same time.

During a Major League Baseball game between the Houston Astros and the Atlanta Braves, Astros Third Baseman Chris Johnson drove a foul ball in the direction of a couple sitting in left-field. Instead of catching the ball or taking the brunt of the hurling object though, the boyfriend (Bo) slid to his right, letting his girlfriend (Sarah) take a direct hit from the foul ball. Since her boyfriend was in the way until the last second, she never saw it coming.

Ouch.

If that wasn’t bad enough, it was all caught on tape. Plus, the broadcasters interviewed the clearly embarrassed boyfriend on TV. Oh, and they gave him a nickname we doubt he’ll be shedding anytime soon: “Bo the Bailer.”

Mix all of that together and surprise! — the two minute clip has gone viral. In just a few hours, the YouTube () clip of “Bo the Bailer” has nearly 30,000 views and has already been featured on SportsCenter. Hell, there’s already a Facebook page dedicated to the guy.

Sure, we feel bad for the dude, but you can’t abandon your girlfriend on TV and expect to get away with it. At least he didn’t pull a Steve Bartman. Oh, in case you were wondering, the Astros lost.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jfoaGh-Sqw&feature=player_embedded]

Suzanne Fortin over at Big Blue Wave wants to study us. Well, she wants to know more about pro-life women. That’s not a bad idea, though I’d have something more journalistic in mind, profiling pro-life women and asking questions rather than a study. That could be my bias after spending my day, all day, today reading A Very Boring Scientific Study. Honestly, one has to wonder whether these authors aren’t deliberately challenging me to Fall Asleep so that I have no idea what they conclude.

Anyway, study pro-life women. I’m all for it. Makes me feel exotic!

When Brigitte sent me this link by email yesterday evening, asking if I would like to blog on it, I was sitting at my desk working. It was 8:00 pm, the younger children were in bed and the older ones were watching James Bond “Moonraker”. I saw Mooraker in the plane to France in the summer of 1979, now my kids watch it as a piece of archive. Not that it dates me or anything…

It’s now 8:00 am the next morning and I am sitting at the kitchen counter with my laptop, working. You will agree that I have an expertise of sorts in matters of work-family balance — or lack thereof. My question today is: “What else is new?”

“Culturally, it paints an unhappy picture,” Ms. Bourne said in an interview Monday. “Where are we going to be if people are overworked, burned out, feeling stress and tension and not recognizing it? There is a societal policy implication.”

One of the reasons the women struggled to balance work and non-work is because they often found themselves working beyond a full work day and work week, the scholars say. The women used various justifications to express their acceptance of that situation.

What else is new under the sun? Men have been taking work home for generations. Were we concerned in the 50’s, 60’s and whatever about the societal policy implications of our poor bread-winners feeling over-worked, stressed, and burned-out and not recognizing it? As long as the bills were paid and the work was done, I didn’t think so. All of a sudden, women – who by the way fought to get the privilege of being over-worked and burned-out – get it and we are concerned about the policy implications. Guess what? If we want the lifestyle that comes with the paycheque, we will have to work for it like the men did. Nowhere is this reflected better than in the business world where start-up success is still very closely linked to sweat input. This leaves the female entrepreneur distressed? Maybe she shouldn’t be an entrepreneur.

The flexibility in “flexible work arrangement” applies to the schedule, not the output. I, for instance, am working from home this morning: my babysitter is on holiday and my oldest daughter is at camp. My husband – who pays the bills that don’t go away, like mortgage and hydro – needs to work more than I do. That’s not sexist, that’s called “keeping the creditors at bay.” So I am working from home. It doesn’t change what has to be done: I still have a foot-long to do list. As a result, I will likely spread my 8-hour day over the next 12 hours. But I had to fight to get the privilege to work from home, partly thanks to all the well-meaning studies suggesting that we, mothers, should have it easier than the average worker. It’s by making sure that the work gets done that I am now able to work from home occasionally. Flexible schedule doesn’t mean flexible output for fixed income.  It means that you can be trusted to get the job done.

The Maclean’s cover story this week is about…the usual. A discussion of how and why some teenage girls are comfortable being skanky, even proud of it. And why their feminist mothers are baffled and confused.

Certainly, it was never a critical goal of feminism to teach girls to be bubble-brained sex objects. I get that. But it seems logical that in forcing all of us to consider sexuality as the main driver of who we are (and in part, that’s what “feminism” does) then a natural response is to let sexuality drive who you are. (Modern feminism included teaching girls they have sex drives, sex lives and sexual desires that are exactly the same as a man’s.) So really, is it so surprising our world is very sexual today?  

My two cents. (As of my posting, the piece is not on the Maclean’s website.)

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Update: The story is now online, here.

I used to work at McDonald’s – and there I got my meals either half-priced or free. Then I worked in clothing stores – where I got clothes at huge discounts. Then I worked in a pub, where I got my food at half-price (unfortunately, they didn’t give us discounts on the beer – darn). I’m used to these things. Still, I find this story a bit much:

One of Britain’s leading abortion providers has come under fire for offering free terminations for staff as a perk of the job.

Marie Stopes International offers employees, their partners and children free abortions as part of  its benefits package – which also includes cheap gym membership, reduced rates at theme parks and an annual health check for £10.

The company, which receives an estimated £30 million a year from the NHS to carry out abortions, tells staff: ‘For your dedication, passion and hard work you will be rewarded with our support and benefits – both financial and non-financial.’

And they say pro-choicers aren’t in favour of having more abortions? First they call it a “benefit” then they offer it to their employees, partners and children for free? Yes. I see…

It must be summer when reporters write stories as lazy and old as this one. This can’t even be considered news, can it? An “exposé” about crisis pregnancy centres in the Star today.

I read with disbelief that she categorizes “emotional trauma” as one of the post-abortive myths. It’s a myth when you are a pro-abortion activist, sure. For the rest of the women out there who have had one, this ain’t no mythical beast. Neither is it mythical in the hard sciences, but pro-abortion people choose to look the other way.

These are people who can’t ever conceive that abortion wouldn’t be right. So when someone highlights that abortion might not always be neutral and easy, they are up in arms.

It is deceitful and harmful to make the claim that abortion is an easy choice. It is deceitful to fail to offer counselling and just let women, young women, teens, walk in and out of abortion clinics. Finally, it is deceitful to ignore the scientific literature decidedly indicating that there are negative side effects.

No, I didn’t do anything nearly as good or interesting as what Andrea did during my time off. (Actually, I didn’t take time off – I just worked on other things. I have issues.) Still, it’s good to be back. To the stuff that matters. Such as this:

Mark Wahlberg regrets dedicating a book to his penis in the 90s.

Mark has given up his hell-raising ways and is now a respected actor who recently received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The 39-year-old married his long-time partner Rhea Durham last year and the couple have four children together.

However, the star found fame as a streetwise teenager and released records as Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Mark often posed topless to show off his muscular frame and became renowned for dropping his trousers during live performances.

In 1992, he released his memoirs entitled Marky Mark and paid tribute to his genitals in the preface.

When asked why he chose that dedication during Time magazine’s Live 10 Questions this week, Mark replied, “I thought it would be funny.”

Here’s an easy rule for you boys and girls out there: If you’re ever tempted to make your private parts public, don’t. Chances are you’ll regret it.

You’re welcome!

From the makers of Jesus Camp, which I never saw, comes 12th and Delaware, a movie about abortion in America. They focus on a corner in a town in Florida where there is an abortion clinic and a pregnancy centre across the street from one another.

If you watch the clip, substitute “Taliban Camp” for pregnancy care centre and I think you get the frenzied, conspiratorial tone of the journalist and the filmmakers about right. I don’t see it, not in Canada, that’s for sure, but also not in what they are reporting. Nothing appears to be quite that frightening to me.

A good hiatus, which I expect to blog about in the future. I was in Ukraine where I stayed at a transition home for young girls, some of whom came from the streets of Odessa, others from the Ukrainian orphanage system. Second week was spent running a summer camp in a small village. So much that I learned and saw and experienced that I hardly think I’ll ever be able to put those thoughts to paper.

But if I were to make any application for this blog it would be to say I learned (experientially, and not because someone preached it or told me) there are no unwanted children, only those we choose to label as unwanted.

It was good to be away. But now I’m back, and apparently, back to lots of abortion news. A huge article on Linda Gibbons in the National Post, which I’m sure you’ve already seen, and then the news today that Canadians are almost entirely unaware of what Canadian abortion law is.

This speaks to the apathy factor, which is, of course, much larger than the anti-abortion/pro-abortion camps combined. So onwards in engaging this apathy and the ongoing sympathy that exists toward abortion amongst really well meaning folks. Can’t believe it’s August. Back to work!