Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

Yes, NFL players are to blame for their behavior.  But teams who hire only beautiful women to act as game hosts and sideline commentators are essentially chumming the water.  Why not let attractive female sports enthusiasts sit in a booth and act as game analysts?  Players would be less likely to toss the ball in the direction of their on-field reporters if the only payoff was to get a look up Terry Bradshaw’s skirt.

NFL Chums Water for Players, Makes Women into Meals.

When the story broke about Brett Favre sending naked pictures and provocative text messages to game host Jenn Sterger, it wasn’t surprising because of his actions.  It was surprising because the man had a squeaky-clean image, has been married for 14 years, and is a grandfather.  Other player sex scandals have come and gone with little surprise.  Were creeps like Ben Roethlisberger completely wrong, deserving to be strung up by their naughty bits?  Absolutely.  But there was no collective “oh, it can’t be” when we learned that various professional football players did bad things.  Football is a fantastic sport, but it is largely played by men we wouldn’t want to meet in dark alleys.  Whether we liked Brett Favre’s waffling over playing or not, he was still held up as a good-hearted family man with a charming southern accent and a loving wife.  Then Deadspin.com got a hold of the now-famous text messages, voicemails, and those photos, and all hell broke loose.  While Deanna Favre still stands by her husband’s side, still wearing the wedding ring he gave her, it would not be a shock to soon find that she is in an Elin Woods situation.

But another question comes up in all of this.  Why does the NFL hire unequivocally hot women to act as sideline commentators, inviting them into the locker rooms for post-game interviews and putting them into situations that are bound to blow up.  This is not—I repeat, NOT—the fault of these women.  They are not “asking for it” by wearing tight jeans and low-cut tops.  A woman should be able to wear whatever she wants.  On the other hand, a gorgeous woman surrounded by testosterone-fueled men is going to get a lot more than in-depth interviews with players.  Jenn Sterger, the woman who received Favre’s inappropriate passes, is a former model for Playboy and Maxim, and hosts games in less than conservative clothes.  It is certainly what many fans want to see, but there are repercussions.  When the New York Jets hired her, it wasn’t just for her love of the game.  If she looked more like John Madden in drag, she never would have gotten that job.

The same can be said of Ines Sainz, a television reporter, international sports commentator, and model.  She has been an athlete her whole life and has parlayed her love of sports into a career.  Her choice of sideline wardrobe has been called into question a number of times, as she favors short skirts, tight jeans, and halter tops.  That’s all fine for a night at the club, but might not be the wisest choices for interviewing male athletes.  These are men who are paid for their excessive testosterone levels and enormous sense of entitlement.  Sainz is 100% qualified for the job, but, again, the Jets probably would have hired someone else if she didn’t look like she was pulled from the pages of Mexican Playboy.

The feminist in me says that women should be able to wear what they want, when they want, whether they’re in locker rooms or not.  But the realist in me can help but think that it wouldn’t kill these women to button up a bit.

They’ll get harassed anyway.

Call it bad performing, call it bad casting, call it the judges drinking “hater-ade”, call it the effects of steroids, but don’t call it anything but justified.  The Situation has been eliminated from Dancing with the Stars after performing, well, something that was supposed to be dance but didn’t quite pass muster.  And by “pass muster”, I mean that he didn’t dance.  His feet moved a little bit and he threw his 80-pound partner around very well, but that doesn’t make it pretty.  It was as uncomfortable to watch as is it was to be Karina Smirnoff.  She must feel cheated that she hasn’t had time to make tabloid news for another affair with a co-star.  While we are all somewhat saddened that we won’t get to see The Situation embarrass himself on this show any more, we can all rest assured that he will do just fine in upcoming seasons of Jersey Shore.

One less embarrassment for show, lower rating to ensue.

The judges were harsh on the couple, complimenting only Karina for her ability to maintain composure while her partner forgot steps, looked at his feet, and showed all the grace that Al Gore might were he to attempt the Argentinian Tango.  I am crying for you, Argentina, for having your name attached to this event.  The elimination will give ample time for our Italian-American bed-hopper to do some extra crunches before filming another season of the show that first took away his family name—something that makes Sorrentinos everywhere rest a little easier.  But what about the rest of us?  Will we ever be able to use the word “situation” in a sentence without thinking of this vacuous assclown?

Some of the negative attention was temporarily taken away when Bristol and Mark took the floor.  Yes, the young Palin was appropriately clumsy and inexplicably dressed, but when she pulled his shirt over Mark’s head halfway through their performance, it was just silly.  We get it.  Dancers have good bodies and Bristol Palin, well, not so much.  We’d rather see Mark Ballas topless than his partner.   Beyond that, they didn’t dance well.  Not that anyone really expects many of these “stars” to be great dancers, but there should be some kind of qualification process.  Something a little more discerning than “Has this person been in the National Enquirer enough?” and “Is this person considered a has-been?”  It doesn’t necessarily make for good television when we are constantly averting our eyes to avoid feeling the shame that the performers must feel.

At least The Situation and Bristol Palin have careers to return to.  One gets to return to tequila-guzzling, tanning, and grenade avoidance, while the other can return to her lucrative pro-abstinence speaking circuit.  One will make millions for embarrassing himself to the delight of MTV viewers everywhere, and the other will end up married to an Alaskan loser with a deer strapped to the hood of his F1-50.

And we’ll keep tuning in to Dancing with the Stars because Jennifer Grey has shown us that she can still cut a rug even without her real nose.  Of course, the same can be said for Audrina Patridge, except for the dancing part.

Either way, it will continue to be a hit for as long as there are former celebrities willing to embarrass themselves.  Bless their hearts.

Remember the cover for the book “Twilight”?  It’s been so deeply engrained into our minds that we cannot, no matter how hard we try, get the image of hands holding an apple out of our heads. As pop culture references go, it could be much worse.  We could, after all, be picturing The Situation trying to dance.  It was an interesting enough choice for a book cover, if we consider that author Stephenie Meyer may have actually had a semi-intellectual reference in mind, especially since the book was not even remotely intelligent or thought-provoking.  It was simple.  Almost classic.  And we managed to make it years without ever really having to think about it.  Until recently, when someone decided to cash in on having hands.

Twilight Hand Model, With Apple (of course)

There is an entire industry that revolves around something called “parts modeling”.  Every time you see a pair of legs in an ad for razors or a belly advertising the latest fat-burning pills, there is someone who was paid to be photographed, but only partially.  It’s far less costly than paying for an entire model’s body.  Now those hands, belonging to Kimbra Hickey, a New York-based parts model, are looking for an extra payday.  After all, with a multi-million dollar movie franchise in full swing, she couldn’t help but hear opportunity knocking—and probably with a well-manicured fist.  The 40 year-old part-time model and cashier at Barnes & Noble has been walking around with an apple in her purse, offering to prove to anyone who might ask that she is, indeed, the owner of the well-published hands.  She’s been attending Twilight-related conventions and, for only $20, you, too, can have your picture taken with some woman holding an apple the same way she did on a book six years ago.  Granted, anyone can pose with an apple, but it only Hickey who has the true claim to fame.  She is always willing to recount the physically demanding process of creating the iconic photo.

Evidently, she was chosen above other hand models because she had so few visible veins on her arms.  Not easy for someone who also lists ‘massage therapist’ among her many trades.  On a Twilight fan site called Twilight Lexicon, she explained that the photographer, “wanted my hands to look soft, sweet, and death-like all at the same time.  It was also important,” she added, “that the inner part of my arms form a perfect ‘v’, for ‘vampire’, of course!”  She is so proud of her grueling work that she tells anyone she sees reading the book that she is “the hands of Twilight”.  At the conventions, she not only offers to pose, but also tries to sell fans an apple-scented lotion.  It is well known that Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson, has a nearly rabid following of teenage girls.  If Bella had the same kind of following of teenaged boys, the lotion might be a much bigger seller.

Now Ms. Hickey is trying to use her famous hands to boost her acting career.  She’s hoping for a small role in the second installment in the last of the Twilight films.  She said she would be content with a cameo, “even if they only wanted my hands in it”.  I guess the $320 she was paid for the original picture didn’t carry her quite as far as she had hoped.  Perhaps if her skin ‘twinkled like diamonds’ like Edward, she wouldn’t be concerned about cash.

It’s difficult to parlay a picture of a body part into millions, as Hickey has discovered.  Unless you’re Paris Hilton.  Or Tommy Lee.   Or Pamela Anderson.

She just had the wrong bits put on film.

But we still don’t like him.

And the world begins a game of “Where’s Eduardo?”  Eduardo Saverin originally bankrolled Facebook with $1000, when it was still being run from a Harvard dorm room.  Later, everyone’s favorite megalomaniac Mark Zuckerberg just decided to removed Saverin from the company.  A lawsuit resulted in Saverin receiving 5% of the company, worth about a billion dollars now.  Zuckerberg fumed.  It is said that Saverin was the primary source of information for the book “The Accidental Billionaire”, on which the movie The Social Network was based, but, wherever he is, he’s not talking.  That was, evidently, part of the settlement.  Whether it’s his Brazilian-ness or his billions, searches for him online shot up about 600% after the movie was released Friday.  As the only marginally good-looking co-founder of Facebook, he is suddenly more popular than Brad Pitt and chicks are lining up to get a suitably-sized engagement ring from the elusive chess-playing recluse–if they can find him.  Even Mark Zuckerberg, who was portrayed in the film as just-this-side-of Darth Vader on the cruelty scale, has become a hot ticket.

One of these brought "SexyBack". The other, not so much.

Zuckerberg has been portrayed as greedy, rude, and dishonest.  He is said to think of himself as a hacker, and, at one point, was rumored to use Facebook to read personal information and emails of anyone using the site.  In an effort to repair public opinion of him, he appeared as himself on an episode of The Simpsons.  He also donated $100 million to the Newark, New Jersey school system, although he claims that it has nothing to do with the movie.  He says he had been planning to become a philanthropist all along, but the timing of his gift came at the same time that press for the movie increased.  After all of the lawsuits filed against him by former business associates, it seems somehow unlikely that his desire to make the world a better place came from the heart.

Perhaps the most perplexing of all casting was Justin Timberlake as Napster co-founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker.  Not because Timberlake is a bad actor; he is, in fact, quite good.  But Sean Parker, who was forced to leave Facebook after being arrested for cocaine possession, is not exactly what anyone would call “good looking”.  Justin Timberlake, on the other hand, is. Timberlake portrayed a cocaine-addicted backstabber who was instrumental in ousting Eduardo Saverin from Facebook, Inc., and some talk shows and entertainment reporters have even mentioned him as a possibility for an Oscar nomination.  Although the depiction of Parker was so negative, it is said that he was very pleased with the choice of Timberlake to play him.  Who wouldn’t be?  A borderline-average-looking uber-geek gets to have a hot superstar pretending to be him.  How lucky for Sean Parker that Hollywood wanted at least one big name to be associated with the film.

But people would have gone to see the movie anyway.  And then they would have quickly changed their Facebook status updates to read: “Saw ‘Social Network’.  Justin Timberlake is so hot!”

Negative depictions or not, these nerdy guys are now household names, and will undoubtedly begin dating models and actresses.  So it goes.  Still haven’t seen the movie.  Maybe I’ll illegally download it.

It isn’t unusual for athletes and celebrities to branch out and use their popularity to sell merchandise.  It begins with endorses other people’s products, but then they begin hiring people to develop their own products.  Britney Spears and Mariah Carey, among countless others, have their own perfumes.  Paris Hilton also has energy drinks bearing her name.  50 Cent has his own Vitamin Water.  JWoww from Jersey Shore is developing a new line of hair extensions to match her classy club-wear.  In the breakfast cereal biz, it started with Wheaties putting famous athletes on the front of the box.  At the height of their popularity, Bill & Ted had their own semi-nutritious way to start your day.  And then Chad Ochocinco, receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals had his people create Ochocincos, which is basically Honey Nut Cheerios under a new name.  It was a good idea in theory, but he probably would have been better off being known as the guy who bought his Dancing with the Stars partner an extravagant diamond necklace and matching ring.  Not because his breakfast cereal is any worse than the many others, but because of an unfortunate typo on the box bearing his burly frame holding up the Os on either end of his name.

Offering more than just a healthy breakfast.

He deserves some credit for using his fame to promote a good cause, which is, in this case, Feed the Children.  In an effort to raise money for the charity, the toll-free number to donate was supposed to be printed on the box.  That number is (888) HELP-FTC.  Unfortunately, due to a typographical error, (800) HELP-FTC was put there instead.  Evidently, the letters associated with 435-7382 must also spell something pretty disgusting.  When a 9 year-old girl dialed the number, instead of hearing a prompt for donations to Feed the Children, she heard a sexy voice offering to “do anything you want”.  We can assume that pressing “1” would not direct her to the nearest donation center.  We can also guess that the 9 year-old was not interested in hearing “whatever it takes to pleasure you”.  Just a guess.  Prior to the discovery, Ochocinco took to Twitter to tell his followers that they should “order my cereal OCHOCINCOS.  Start your day with a lil suga!!”  This was clearly not the “suga” he planned on hawking to the masses.

Fortunately, a few helpful citizens, after reading of the mistake, called the number to see what it was about.  It did not, evidently, disappoint.  A few other upstanding members of the community took to the internet to see what those numbers can possibly spell besides “HELP-FTC”.  The answers were disturbing.  The only lingering question is how a phone-sex line could be a toll-free number.  I thought those were all 900 numbers which would charge outrageous fees to find out what this young lady and her “ultra-hot girlfriends” were capable of doing.  It takes a great deal of self-restraint to not find out the answer to that.  The easy way out was to check Ochocinco’s Twitter page, which was full of apologies.  He is, after all, known to be a good guy, and he was trying to do a good thing.  And he’s an athlete, not a copywriter.  Someone else dropped the ball (no pun intended) on this one.  It was small type on the back of the box.

But can someone, anyone, please tell me how he could let it slide that the giant name of the cereal reads “Ochocinco’s”? That is so wrong.

It was heartbreaking over the years to watch the struggles of young Natalie Green.  She was the chubby girl forced into jolliness despite watching all of her friends start dating while she stayed with Mrs. Garrett and baked cookies.  But we tuned in, without fail, to watch The Facts of Life week after week, even after the girls graduated, went to college, and met a young, dorky, mullet-wearing George Clooney after they opened a shop that sold useless junk. But it was bright, colorful useless junk, and we all wanted that giant inflatable palm tree.  But I digress.  Natalie—that is, actress Mindy Cohn—eventually moved on shortly before Blair Warner was due to receive her first Medicare card.  Were we to play Six Degrees of Separation, we’d assume that Mindy met Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie through George Clooney.  We’d be wrong.  Somehow Mindy became close with B-list actor and brother of Saint Angie, James Haven.  He’s the brother that Angelina tongue-kissed in that revolting awards show display.  Through James, she met Angelina, and through Angelina, she met Brad.

The unlikely friends are apparently so close that Mindy Cohn has been named godmother to twins Knox and Vivienne. (As an aside here, I must add: “You’re 44 years-old.  Mindy?  I think it’s time for a grown-up name.”)  She does have that sort of motherly vibe, although apparently has no children of her own.  I guess that doesn’t matter when your BFFs are bearing more fruit than the state of Florida.  So Mindy has the godmother honors in case something tragic happens while St. Angie does her saintly things.  (Again, an aside: I’d love to be able to hate this woman, but seeing her watch part of the Charles Taylor trial at The Hague made me respect her.  Curses, foiled again!)  As a thank you, the Jolie-Pitts have flown Mindy all over creation to spend time with their economy-sized family.  Most recently, they gave her a diamond ring that is some ridiculous 5-or-6-carat piece that she proudly wears.  Most women would clothesline their own grandmothers to get a diamond from Brad Pitt, but Mindy remains as nonchalant as a person can while dragging a rock that size around.

"I took the good. I took the bad. Now I just get a consolation prize?"

Diamonds are an interesting choice, if one refers back to the whole Charles Taylor trial.  He is, after all, accused of (among crimes against humanity, use of child labor and the such) trading diamonds for weapons in the mass genocide of Sierra Leone.  Is Angelina putting her politics aside to give Mindy such an extravagant gift?  It seems, well, hypocritical.  But how does one with limitless wealth reward the godmother of her children?  It seems that a Smart Car would be a good choice, but in all its eco-friendliness, it is unlikely to accommodate a woman of Mindy Cohn’s size.  Perhaps mounting one of those in a platinum setting?  It wouldn’t be much smaller that a 6-carat diamond, after all.  But, again, I digress.

So Mindy Cohn didn’t get to marry Brad Pitt and bear his children.  She does, however, get to play her eternal role as jovial sidekick to the Beautiful People.  At least she’s had practice.

Michael Vick was as surprised as anyone to find out that he would, once again, be filling in for injured Philadelphia Eagles QB Kevin Kolb on Sunday.  Now, while Kolb resists the temptation to beat his head against the wall (he’s got a concussion, for those not in the know), Vick is proving what many of us already knew: he kicks a**.  After taking over for Kolb in the second half of the season opener, he ran for 103 yards—leading the team in rushing—and threw for 175, including a touchdown.  Despite his performance, Eagles head coach Andy Reid stands by Kolb as starting quarterback.  And why?  Because 3 years ago, Vick was charged with participating in an interstate dog fighting ring.  After pleading guilty to federal charged, he served 21 months in prison and an additional two in home confinement.   He has since spoken out against animal abuse and done everything that he can do to improve himself.

Should I repeat the part where he served his time?  Isn’t the goal of punishment to teach offenders a lesson?  As for his argument that dog fighting was a part of his upbringing and it is cultural, animal rights groups and haters alike all claimed that he was making excuses.  Spend a few months working at any SPCA in the South and anyone can see that it is, in fact, something that many underprivileged folks get into.  But that’s not the point.  He served his time.  He lost endorsement deals and his NFL contract, and was completely ostracized.  Perhaps if he were only caught sleeping with a baker’s dozen of women he wasn’t married to, he would have been given only a slap on the wrist and suffered embarrassment.

But he came back.  Against all odds and the wishes of screaming masses, he came back to the NFL with his head held high.  And last Sunday, he threw for 291 yards (including 3 touchdowns), completed 17 of 31 passes with no interceptions, and rushed for an additional touchdown.  Next week, the Eagles take on the Washington Redskins.  The story there could easily be about the division rivalry or former Eagles QB Donovan McNabb starting for Washington now.  But thanks to the big mouth of a fella named Albert Haynesworth, we should have something else to talk about.

Haynesworth takes a stand against slave treatment, and, evidently, diet cola.

The two-time All-Pro defensive tackle seems to have his nose out of joint a bit because he was recently told that the ‘Skins would be switching to a 3-4 defense and he would be moved to nose tackle.  During a tirade on radio 106.7 The Fan, the normally media-unfriendly giant spoke about his ‘need’ to take a stand.  He decided to forgo the normal off-season conditioning practices and skipped a mandatory minicamp.  Because of all of this, he was unable to pass necessary conditioning tests that would enable him to play.  This is after a $21 million bonus check cleared on April 1.  His argument?  That he is nobody’s slave.

The argument is supposed to carry weight with us because Haynesworth is black.  His knowledge of the general treatment of actual slaves seems to be a bit on the fuzzy side, because no slave I’ve ever heard of has a $100 million contract and diamonds the size of dinner plates on his earlobes.  “Just because somebody pay [sic] you money don’t [sic] mean they’ll make you do whatever they want or whatever,” he explained.  “I mean, does that mean everything is for sale?”  He went on to lament that, “I’m not for sale.  Yeah, I signed the contract and got paid a lot of money, but…that don’t [sic] mean I’m for sale or a slave or whatever.”  Well, I hate to tell you this, big guy, but yes, it does.  If a normal person who is not, say, 6’6” and 350lbs, signs a contract with Microsoft to do a specific task, that person is expected to deliver, or she is in violation of that contract.  If a copywriter signs a non-compete contract, agreeing not to write about companies in the same industry, then he not only negates the contract but risks financial repercussions as well.  It’s called a job.  And those people are probably not raking in dollar amounts well above the GNP of most countries.

But let’s all busy ourselves with talking about Michael Vick—who is doing his job, and doing it well.  That makes much more sense.

God help us all.

Yet another news day has come upon us and, as we optimistically look for something worth reading, we instead find that Americans are still expecting miracles, Iran is still run by a lunatic, and there is still no peace in the Middle East.  Those stories—newsworthy or not—are buried underneath layers of Ashton stepping out on Demi, Lindsay Lohan soing drugs, and Bristol Palin doing things that don’t make sense.  But it’s mostly Bristol.  Now that she seems to have put the whole ‘Levi Johnston engagement ring’ business behind her, she is branching out.  Now, following in the sensible shoe-prints of her mother, she has started her own Facebook page.  She told the Associated Press that she is doing this to step out of her comfort zone and begin talking about her “pro-life and pro-family” views.

Mostly, however, she has used her new page as a way to talk about her performances on Dancing with the Stars.  She must have made Mama Palin so proud when she first appeared on the show.  She wore a conservative suit and her hair in a bun, looking as much like her mom as possible.  Then, to the booming beats of the family classic “Mama Told Me Not to Come”, she threw off her Velcro-ed-on conservative garb to reveal a fire engine red, fringed minidress that clearly showed her commitment to conservative values.  She shimmied and shook those solid family values all over the stage.  After agreeing to appear on the show, the 19 year-old vowed to be covered up in a respectable way in direct contrast to the usual dance apparel worn by contestants.  Of course, respectable means different things to different people.  She was definitely wearing more than she was when she got knocked up at 17, so that’s a step in the right direction.  The only logical way to convey her views on abstinence was to end her performance with dance partner Mark Ballas’s hand on her behind.  Whatever.  It got great media coverage, and we know how the Palin clan likes that.

Since Sarah Palin likes to meet all the guys who grab her daughter’s tush, young Bristol brought Mark Ballas to Alaska to meet the family.  How proud they must all have been to meet the next young man to help sully the Palin name.  He could be well on the way to fathering the next grandchild, after all.  The 24 year-old has been studying dance and music for most of his life, and Sarah must have been ecstatic to learn that he was in a musical group called 2B1G (2 boys, 1 girl).  He has all of the qualities that a Republican White House hopeful looks for in a son-in-law.  Palin tweeted her enthusiasm for her daughter’s first performance on DWTS, and plans to be in the audience in the future.  All the better to keep an eye on her daughter from there.

So you can check out Bristol Palin’s Facebook page to see all the photos of her with Mark caressing her butt, and to read her self-written pro-life, family values rhetoric.

Any guesses as to which will make more become fans of her page?

For starters, Katy Perry was an odd choice as a celebrity guest on the wholesome children’s program Sesame Street.  She is known for her revealing, strange style of dress and has graced more worst-dressed lists than Paris Hilton.  Anything attention-getting is right up her alley, including her often-blue hair.  Although she filmed an episode of Sesame Street looking more wholesome than she ever has, enough parents complained to PBS that her dress was too revealing and her appearance on the show was pulled.  Perhaps her history of odd behavior played into the decision.  She is, after all, the woman who ecstatically accepted an engagement ring from the oddly-shorn, unclean-looking Russell Brand.  The couple took to Twitter to express their reactions.  Perry tweeted that it, “looks like my play date with Elmo has been cut short” and urged fans to view the skit on her website.  Brand reacted by tweeting, “Today’s Sesame Street will NOT be brought to you by the number 34 or the letter D”.  Classy.

Katy Perry: In case you haven't seen them yet.

The have been other sex-kitten types on the show, with appearances by Cher, Beyonce, Kim Cattrall, and even Jessica Alba to describe the word “scrumptious”.  Parents didn’t ask PBS to pull those appearances.  There have also been skits from actors and musicians who are no strangers to controversy.  Sopranos actor James Gandolfini, rapper Ice-T, and marijuana aficionado Cheech Marin have been on the show, although Chris Brown’s appearance was cancelled after his girlfriend-beating incident.  Sesame Street has not shied away from featuring openly gay actors, with skits including Neil Patrick Harris subtly acting as the “Fairy Shoe Person” and Nathan Lane performing in all his glory.  The show has had as many stars as Saturday Night Live, including athletes, musicians, actors, politicians, models, and activists.  No public outcry has matched this one.  It is because Sesame Street is getting racy, because parents are getting more conservative, or because YouTube made footage viewable in time for people to object?  Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

But it seems that Katy Perry’s reputation preceded her, and parents weren’t having it.  Executive Producer Carol-Lynne Parente defended their decision to have Perry on the show and felt that the skit was far from too racy for young viewers, but revealed that the show relented when so many adults objected to the YouTube-leaked portion.  She cited the importance of Sesame Street’s relationship to its viewers and the opinions of parents.  Although the controversy may seem silly, any show that relies on public donations needs to tread lightly.  There might have been uproars over previous celebrities appearing on the show, but since many of them were prior to the “YouTube” age, any criticism would have come only after the shows aired.  Who knows if Cheech’s episode was aired more than once?

So Katy Perry’s D-cups will never air on Sesame Street. It’s okay.  You can view them clearly in every other picture of her ever taken.

It’s all about social media these days.  What began as a way to connect to people has turned into big business.  Now companies have pages on Facebook, MySpace, and a few other sites like Friendster that may or may not exist anymore.  Bands create pages to make their music even more accessible to the masses.  A person can get discounts on items if they become fans of particular Facebook pages.  We text instead of talking, we find mates on websites, and we buy things without leaving the house.  Because of “social media”, everything is popularized and made available online.  We can get updates from our favorite authors, musicians, and celebrities daily.  Do I expect to get a personal message from Chuck Liddell by becoming his Facebook friend?  Well, no.  But a person can buy everything from books to computers to diamonds and engagement rings—often at dramatically reduced prices—by becoming “friends” with companies.  Where MySpace has been eclipsed by Facebook, so is Facebook quickly playing second fiddle to Twitter.  But suddenly we find ourselves being virtually assaulted and given viruses via the internet.

Big Brother in 140 characters or less.

And it makes headlines, especially when a gaping hole in security is found by a 17 year-old Australian kid who just wanted to see if he could do it.  The precocious Pearce Delphin decided to send out a bit of JavaScript code that would cause a pop-up ad to appear when someone moused over it.  “I did it merely to see if it could be done,” he told AFP via email (of course), “that JavaScript really could be executed within a tweet”.  Well, not only did it work, but hackers found it brilliant and used it to send millions of people to various websites, including Japanese porn sites.  It also was used to create something called “worm tweets” that replicated every time they were read.  Twitter was suddenly overwhelmed with random redirection and endless tweets from other accounts.  The glitch wasn’t only used for pranks and porn.  More malicious hackers were able to create code that allowed them access to Twitter users’ personal information.

And suddenly we all feel a little more vulnerable, afraid that everything from our real birth years to credit card and banking information is being accessed by cyber-creeps.  And those of us who still rock it old-school and prefer talking on the phone to texting are still left exposed to attack because we wanted to be among the first to know when Soundgarden released their tour dates.

The one thing that kept us mildly protected was Twitter’s allowed tweet length.  According to the mischievous teenager, “The problem was being able to write the code that can steal usernames and passwords while still remaining under Twitter’s 140-character tweet limit”.  Given enough time, hackers could certainly figure it out.  Twitter, however, jumped on the problem and had the bug fixed within five hours, but not before even White House press secretary Robert Gibbs found his account bombarded with unwanted code.  While Delphin didn’t do anything that is technically (pun intended) illegal, he did prove that no system is foolproof.

It certainly isn’t causing very many people to panic and close their accounts to Twitter, Facebook, or any other of our favorite social media, but it does kinda make you think, no?

I’m going to call my mom.  On the phone.  Using a landline.  But while we’re talking, I’ll be checking to see what my friends overseas are up to without leaving the comfort of my own home.  I, like everyone else, can’t go back to what life was like before AOL got me hooked.