The Daily Grill

He Died For Our Stick-Figured Sins

I love when religious types get their signals crossed when it comes to their sacred cows. In this case, 8-year-old Chester Johnson had been assigned to make a Christmas drawing as part of a class project. Turns out the administration at his school in Taunton, Mass., didn't much care for his stick figure drawing of Jesus Christ on the cross. (See the figure to the right...)

They sent Chester home from school. But that wasn't the worst of their hypocritical stance: They ordered the boy to undergo a psychological evaluation.

Okay, let's see. You're an 8-year-old child who has, given the subject of Chester's drawing, attended a Christmas Mass or two in your few years on Earth. Not to mention almost every Sunday if you're part of a God-fearing Christian family and community. What would be the one enduring symbol of your religion? The one thing that would be burned into your head?

Oh, yeah.

That guy nailed to the boards, right up in front, over the head of the other guy in the robes warning you to be good or the guy stuck to the boards is going to get you.

Little Chester should be given a pass on this absurdity. What's more, it seems like the morons of Taunton are the ones that need to have their heads examined.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Debbie Wolfe for pointing me to a recent press release issued by Taunton Public Schools in which they point out that a number of inaccuracies about this story have been punched up by the media. Check it out here.

Tiger Beat(down)

I don't know about you, but I've been pretty Tiger'd out with the incessant coverage since the golf legend cracked up his car, then cracked open his private life. The list of jokes online gets bigger every day, almost as long as the list of girls on the side that Tiger has/had.

But just when I thought I'd had enough, this music video, featuring a mashup of Tiger's voicemail message to galpal Jamie Grubbs set to music and images, made me start searching for more about everyone's fallen hero...

Find more videos like this on Our Social Network

Unreal TV People

Whatever your opinion of reality television shows — be they about singing, dancing, real estate, cooking or playing pranks on people — the kind of people they're breeding are becoming alarming. They're probably bubbling under everywhere but, to judge by the pedigree of the ones popping up on the radar, we may be in big trouble.

From the ongoing saga of Nadya "Octomom" Suleman to Richard Heene, father of "Balloon Boy", the desire to make a star of oneself is gripping Americans by storm. Octomom is horrifyingly real, while Balloon Boy turned out to have been a hoax, borne about because Heene REALLY wants to be a reality TV star.

Now there's Michaele and Tareq Salahi, a Virginia couple who crashed a state dinner at the White House last Tuesday. Though not on the guest list, the Salahis were able to get into the receiving line in the Blue Room at the White House and shake hands with President Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in whose honor the dinner was held.

It seems Michaele is currently a candidate for Bravo's "The Real Housewives of D.C." They even convinced the people at Half Yard Productions — the company that produced "Housewives — that they'd be invited to the White House do.  Half Yard even had a crew shooting the couple making preparations to attend.

They certainly have the lack of smarts that are the hallmark of TV's newest brand of "stars". The Salahis got copious still shots of themselves at the White House event, even posting some of them on Michaele's Facebook Fan page. Considering that they may be held up for criminal proceedings (federal law makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully falsify statements on matters within the federal government's jurisdiction), it was nice of the Salahis to post the pix where the prosecution can easily find them.

The oddest part of all this is that there's no stopping the layers that are coming unpeeled. I'm sure someone is already working up some show called something like "Getting Real", all about following the desperate people who wanna be, more than anything, the wannabes of tomorrow.

Grinch It Up

Available at The Daily Grill Online Junk. 'Nuff said?

What Would Santa Do?

It's that time of year again when we "unhide" the Xmas Xrap section in the Daily Grill Online Junk store! Don't miss your chance to pick up t-shirts, mousepads, mugs and more with some of our original designs celebrating the holidays!

And Happy Xmannaukah, everybody!

Plush to Kill

Just in time for the holidays, here's a toy that's sure to bring a scream to every child's face. Unless your kid is in the Pugsley or Wednesday Addams mold. The three plush animals in the Roadkill line — a raccoon, a rabbit and a hedgehog — look like they were scrapped from the highway after being flung from a speeding car.

Complete with colorful stuffed guts and tire-tracked pelts, an amazing amount of detail has been put into what really just a sight gag that keeps on giving. How do you explain to strangers why your darling's favorite plushy is a squished animal?

At $40 a pop, these critters are pretty pricey, comparable to the kind of coin old-time trappers used to get for dragging in a sled full of furs in the Northern Territories. On the bright side, it's probably a lot cheaper than the money you'll eventually shell out to a therapist who has to unwind the damage done to your kid's psyche after a childhood of playing with a dead hedgehog.

Nonetheless, I'm hoping these toys take off this season and inspire a line extension into more famous crushed creatures. Wile E. Coyote just after a 1000 foot cliff dive, perhaps. Or Sylvester the cat with a frying pan-shaped noggin after Granny klonked him for eyeing Tweety one too many times. And who could resist a blackened sooty-headed Donald Duck staring wide-eyed after looking down the barrel of a misfiring shotgun?

Hate Messages

(Reposted from my I Hate People blog...)

Having veto power is one thing for a politician but it takes real cajones to use it with swagger. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently shot a bill back to the state legislature with a cover note in which he rebuked the representatives for wasting their time on trivial matters while dragging their feet on more important issues such as water reform and health care.

It wasn't what he wrote in the note that got folks' goat but, rather, the way he said it. The first letter in each line in the main body of the Governator's letter, when looked at in vertical order from top to bottom, spelled out a rather common profanity. One occasionally issued by Arnold himself while playing one ass-kicking character or another on screen back in his movie days.

Some say that the placement of the letters could be sheer coincidence. As revealed in an story about this incident in the Wall Street Journal by Carl Bialik, a graduate student in cognitive sciences at MIT, Steven Piantadosi, did a complex analysis of the frequency of use of letters in the English language. He figured the chances that Schwarzenegger would have accidentally stumbled across the phrase used in the letter were just a tad less than one in one trillion.

While it may not be family-friendly politics to drop a hazy F-bomb in the middle of public politics — such tactics were not part of Schoolhouse Rock's "How A Bill Becomes Law" number — it is somewhat refreshing to see someone take the politically correct gloves off for a moment and give some politicos a dose of "in your face".

Downhill Battle

I love how the press is saying that Michael Bloomberg's narrow victory in the mayoral election in New York City should be considered as a sign that his dynasty will now be more closely scrutinized. The guy was able to get a law passed making it okay for him to run for a THIRD term...which he won. Close margin or not, in the election highlight reel, that's pretty much a slam dunk.

Walmart: From The Cradle To The Grave

"Save Money. Live Better." is Walmart's current slogan but it might be time for an upgrade. The huge stores are known for good prices and carrying pretty much everything a person could want from food to fashion. Err, well, fashion might be stretching it but clothes, certainly. They carry large items you don't find in most little stores. Including cradles and anything else a person would need from before they take their first steps until they breathe their last.

Now they've gone one step beyond. Or, actually, two steps beyond. Introducing the Walmart casket and urn.

Considering what a ripoff coffins tend to be — if you've never had to buy one before, when the time comes buy two because you'll need one for yourself when the sticker shock kicks in — it makes all the sense in the world that Walmart would finally get in the game.

There are 15 models currently offered, from the Sienna Bronze ($2,899.00) to the White Haven Steel ($895.00) Don't worry, though — there'll be no awkward moment of having to steer a shopping cart around a grieving widow on Aisle 13. You actually can't drive down and pick one up at your neighborhood Wallies. They're only available online. And have to be delivered to a certified funeral home.

The real afterlife savings take off with their selection of funeral urns. Even at the high end, the Floral Blush Swirl Cloisonne model will only run you $214.05 (Love the extra nickel — what's that about?) Or you can really show you didn't care by grabbing the Copper Deluxe Stainless Steel urn for just $94.05 (There's that nickel again...) Just like the coffins, you can only get your urns online BUT they will ship these right to your door. (In case you're in favor of the DIY cremation, I guess.)

If a casket or an urn IS the last item you're picking up for a poor departed Walmart shopper, make sure you choose wisely: Just like death itself, there's a No Return policy on both caskets and urns.

"Save Money. Live Better. Die Cheaply."

Writers Always Have More Fun

It's all in how you tell it...