If you thought 'funny' lady Roseanne Barr had quietly disappeared to wherever it is that loud, opinionated comedians disappear to, you were wrong. She's still out there and she's still making her opinions known. A few days ago, she posted a rather nasty piece on her blog taking aim at actor John Voight, his daughter Angelina Jolie, as well as Brad Pitt and the kids.

Barr appears to be angry that Voight isn't supporting Barack Obama and that Jolie has said she likes McCain but is undecided as to who will get her vote. According to Barr, that makes Voight a "frightened little girl in a pink ballet tutu" and Jolie his "evil spawn." Brad did not escape Barr's wrath either as she refers to him as Jolie's "vacuous husband."

Addressing Jolie, Barr writes: "....it might be good for your Asian and African children's self esteem to know you support a brown man for the leader of the free world. How nice of Barr to be so concerned for the self-esteem of the Jolie-Pitt children. It is unfortunate that she refers to their biological children as "dunces that will consume more than their fair share and wreck the earth even more."

Of course, Barr is entitled to her opinions and her political point of view, but I am just not sure what she was trying to accomplish with this rant. Calling someone an evil spawn and referring to their children as dunces is probably not the best way to bring them around to your way of thinking.

Returning home from my company picnic yesterday, with my two thirteen-year-old nieces with me, I jokingly asked if either of them had their driver's license so that they could drive at least some of the way home and I could take a nap. (Neither one did, of course, and, really, I was just kidding.) In Texas, though, that's not something they kid about.

Police officers in the East Texas town of Longview noticed a minivan turn into a driveway and bump into the house.

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Investigating, they found a twelve-year-old girl behind the wheel. She told the officers that she had just driven her mother to a bar. Upon checking at the pub, they indeed found thirty-five-year-old Jennifer Lynn Rosenberg who admitted to having her daughter drive her there.

On the one hand, you have to give Rosenberg credit for not wanting to risk drinking and driving, but on the other hand... Perhaps it would be best if she just stayed away from the bars altogether. In the meantime, Child Protective Services is looking into the situation.

Loving someone doesn't mean you have to love the people they love. My father had five kids and his love for each and every one of them was unconditional and unlimited. I, on the other hand, can barely stand to talk to myself, let alone the other four. And so, I completely understand Chris Orbach's desire to have nothing to do with his late father's second wife.

And yet... there's the matter of the ten million dollars, of which Chris sees none until his stepmother, Elaine Cancilla-Orbach, dies. Chris sent his stepmother a letter claiming that she manipulated the elder Orbach into cutting his son out of his will. It's not about the money, though, claims Chris. "People think [the letter] was a money grab," he wrote on the First Wives World website. "For the trillionth time -- it wasn't. I do just fine as a voiceover artist."

Chris Orbach also chastised his father's donation of his eyes to the Eye Bank Association of America. Cancilla-Orbach, defends that decision, however. "Jerry always said he was so proud that, at age 69, he didn't need glasses," Cancilla-Orbach said. "He said, 'If I can give anything back, I want to give my eyes. I can't give my liver because I drank too much, and I can't give my lungs because I smoked too much. But I can give my eyes.' So, on his deathbed, when they asked if he was an organ donor, I said, 'Take his eyes.'"

I don't know... Maybe Chris Orbach has a point. After all, he is, I'm sure, making hundreds of dollars a month as a voice-over artist so he really doesn't need the money. And this isn't Jerry Orbach's first wife; it's his second wife who swooped in at the last moment, only having to spend two and a half decades with him to inherit his money. Really, if this is just about not having to visit Elaine Cancilla-Orbach on Mother's Day, drop it and don't. It's really that simple.

It's hard not to do. For some, it's inevitable: Playing favorites. Parents try not to do it, grandparents too. Still, the idea persists--siblings talk about it amongst themselves and make the decisions when the grandparents don't. But what about when the grandparents do?

I can think of several instances when it's been pretty obvious that the grandparents had a favorite child. It's also been pretty obvious when the grandchild was not the favorite. To be frank, in both instances it really stunk for the kids. Sometimes, perhaps, it was because the grandparents had access to or spent more time with a particular grandchild. Sometimes, it was the direct result of having a favorite child.

In any event, having favorites is one thing--making it obvious is quite another. And, it's never fair to let it be known if you have a preference of one child over another. Yet some grandparents still exercise that option (parents too). Good Morning America online is taking a poll of how parents handle the situation when the grandparents play favorites. What are your thoughts on the subject? How do you handle it when grandma and grandpa play favorites? Or, is it something we can even help doing?

Pic by itchys on flickr.

Actor Richard Dreyfuss is probably wishing he'd taken to heart Shakespeare's famous line from Hamlet, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." Back in 1984, Dreyfuss claims to have loaned his father and uncle a whopping $870,000 that he says was never repaid.

Now, he is suing his father and uncle for repayment of the loan. He claims to have repeatedly asked for and been refused access to financial records by his uncle, Gilbert Dreyfuss. He is accusing them of "fraud" and "malice" and wants his $870,000 back plus interest and and punitive damages.

Dreyfuss has been working pretty steadily over the years, but his career was in its heyday back in the late 1970's and early 1980's. I am not surprised that he had that kind of cash to lend, but I wonder why after all these years he is taking his family to court over it. He may be feeling the same financial pinch most of us are dealing with, but it's a shame to see a family turn against each other over money.

It seems like it should be common sense. Don't diet while pregnant. Yet for many moms these days that seems to be the trend. Many of them are successful at it--but at what cost to their unborn children? In the United States as well as in the UK, pregnant women are succumbing to what is being termed "pregorexia," wherein the consume as little as possible during pregnancy to avoid weight gain. Experts agree this is harmful to both mother and unborn child. Fetuses get their nutrients straight from mommy; when she doesn't supply enough, like with calcium, they get it from her bones. If they can't get the nutrient from the mother, they suffer--kids are born prematurely, with a low birth weight and an increased risk of spina bifida all from mothers being underweight during pregnancy.

In Hollywood, the recent barrage of women giving birth would have have us think they were barely pregnant at all. Most of them gain hardly and weight and sport only the tell-tale bump. Almost as soon as they've given birth, they return to their pre-pregnancy weight, which was scandalously low in the first place. Some, like Nicole Kidman, have even drawn harsh rumors that she was never even pregnant at all--after seeing her less than a month post-baby her body was scarily small, prompting the media to generate the notion that her sister, who'd basically remained under cover during the pregnancy, was the one actually carrying the baby.

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With all these Hollywood celebrities maintaining tiny frames while they attempt to bring another human being into the world, it's hard to not feel the pressure to be thin in our own lives. Forget the fact that it's pure misogyny at work, isn't it also the worst thing in the world to deprive not only yourself but your unborn child of vital nutrients and sustenance? Experts suggest that women of normal weight (meaning not underweight nor overweight) gain between 20-25 pounds during a pregnancy. That number was recently lowered from the old notion of anywhere from 25-35 pounds (and in some cases 40). instead of worrying about gaining too much weight, shouldn't we be more focused on getting our children--and ourselves--the nutrition needed to be happy and healthy?

The Olympics are all about healthy competition, but it isn't the cutthroat kind of competition found in the music industry. It's all about working hard, perserverance, good sportsmanship and trying your best. Or is it?!

Apparently in an effort to present the best, most attractive Western-looking face possible, nine-year-old Lin Miaoke was chosen to sing "Ode to the Motherland" during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. There was only one problem: Miaoke' wasn't actually singing the song. The angelic voice heard by a billion people actually belonged to seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, whose face was deemed not adorable enough to represent China in the ceremony.

A British ex-pat Chris Smith, who has been living in Beijing for nine years, told a reporter: "It's because China is obsessed with promoting a certain look, girls should be more Western-looking with high cheekbones. They don't like rounded faces. Olympic officials also chose only tall, slim, attractive women of a certain look to hand out medals."

The music direction of the show Chen Qigang explained it this way, "This is in the national interest. It is the image of our national music, national culture, especially during the entrance of our national flag. This is an extremely important, extremely serious matter. I think it is fair to both Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi."

Having an attractive person serve as frontman for a more vocally talented, but less marketable singer is nothing new, just ask the surviving member of Milli Vanilli. It's too bad that people in power within the Chinese government that made this decision have not yet realized that imperfections are what makes kids so great.

There was no need to cobble together a super-kid, a child with a voice like that is guaranteed to awe and inspire the world.

When parents hold differing view on basic issues like discipline, education, or medical care for their children, it can be difficult to come to an agreeable compromise. However, when the parents have been mired in a messy divorce and bitter custody battle, those roadblocks can be insurmountable.

It doesn't appear that Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards have come to the realization that they will be forever linked by their daughters Sam and Lola. According to reports, the pair remains strongly divided on the issue of immunizations, with Denise voting for shots and Charlie maintaining the opinion that they are a potential danger that should be avoided.

So when Sheen received a nearly $400 bill from his daughter' pediatrician for the immunizations they had been given, Charlie didn't just get mad, got even in his own childish way-by paying the bill in nickels.

It doesn't matter where you stand on immunizations, one parent going ahead on an irreversible thing like that without telling the other is some dirty, dirty pool that might get what you want in the short term, but opens you up to the same treatment by your spouse down the road.

How have you handled difficult parenting decision with an ex?

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Scott Muschany, a Missouri state representative, has been indicted in connection with a sexual assault on the fourteen-year-old daughter of a state employee with whom Muschany was romantically involved. Muschany is married with two children of his own and is a licensed foster parent. What makes Muschany different from other toe-tapping politicians (or, perhaps, not so different) is that he was the co-sponsor of bills that toughened laws regarding sex offenders (2006) and supported abstinence education (2007).

It seems, however, that that whole abstinence thing doesn't apply to his girlfriend's daughter. The charges are just that, as of yet -- allegations of wrongdoing. Still, this is not the first time a conservative politician has been caught involved in what he was so vehemently against. (I wonder why you never hear of liberal politicians getting caught going to church or trying to pick up members of the opposite gender?)

I guess the important lesson here is to keep your kids away from politicians. I think, though, that that's probably a good idea in general, even without a scandal.

I'm not especially into watching Jon and Kate plus Eight, the show that chronicles the parenting adventures of a couple with twins and sextuplets, but my wife likes to catch it. I've never been a big fan of Kate, the wife and mother; I feel that she is too obsessive and doesn't treat Jon, her husband particularly well. If you've never seen the show, there are a whole lot of clips available for viewing online.

I find it difficult to comprehend how she can deprive her kids of the joy of coloring with markers or eating ice cream or, heck, all the myriad ways kids can have fun getting dirty, simply because she likes things clean. In fact, it seems like her kids are missing out on a lot because of her obsessive nature. My kids regularly come home from school or summer camp looking like they've been allergic to soap and water their whole lives. It's one way to tell they've had a whole mess of fun.

I can certainly understand phobias and fetishes; I know I have my fair share. The problem is, she's a parent now. She can't afford the luxury of having to have everything clean and tidy -- the kids' happiness and nurturing takes precedence. She needs to put her problems on the back burner and let her kids take center stage now. In twenty years or so, when the kids leave home, she can go back to being obsessive and dysfunctional.

Well, it seems I'm not alone in my distaste for Kate. In fact, one woman feels even more strongly about it and isn't afraid to say so. She has even suggested that perhaps the show should be cancelled, at least until Kate gets some help with "her multitude of issues."

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Her reason -- Kate's incessant berating and belittling of Jon. Is he an abused husband? I'm not exactly sure, but he's certainly not treated all that well. The author, Tammy G, cites an incident at Toys R Us as an example. Kate hollers at Jon across the store and he ends up leaving in embarrassment. I'm not sure I would stand for such treatment either.

I know that Kate's physical abuse of Jon is not something I would stand for; I'm afraid that if my wife slapped me the way that and as often as Kate slaps Jon, someone would end up getting hurt. Not only is physical violence unnecessary and inappropriate, it sets a very bad example for the kids. And as if that weren't enough, when asked about the slapping, Kate actually blamed Jon for it.

Tammy G suggests that Jon and Kate are not good role models and offers up the Duggars instead. It seems to me, however, that not everything on television needs to be an example of how we should be; sometimes television can shows us how not to be. Perhaps that is the lesson we can learn from Jon and Kate -- how not to treat a spouse and kids.

Britney's fans may be holding out hope for a career comeback, but she's been busy making a comeback of a different type. Last week, the custody case between Britney and ex-husband Kevin Federline was settled. While Kevin will retain primary physical custody, Britney will get visitation with the boys three days a week and two nights, or about 40% of the time. Kevin, on the other hand, will see a "slight" increase in child support payments.

Anyone who watched Brit's breakdown a little less than a year ago will know that she's come a long way in her recovery process. Eight months ago, she lost custody of the boys and seemed unable to pull herself together to even fight for them, which, as a mom, was really frustrating and difficult to watch.

Britney's affairs are still under the control of her father, Jamie Spears, but she's slowly been making professional gains as well, with a cameo on How I Met Your Mother and work toward a new album. I think this is a major victory for her personally, and hopefully a sign that she's on her way to a more balanced and happy life.

Welsh actor Sean Connery has left his son out of his will. According to his ex-wife, the reasoning behind this is that his son, Jason, should provide for himself.

Jason is now forty-five years old, so one would hope he indeed is able to provide for himself. And, in fact he is. According to reports, the father and son fell out after Jason threatened to drop the family name--the reason behind the fight in the first place. Jason works as an actor and director, gigs his father claims he got only because of his name.

According to Connery's ex-wife Diane Cilento, the relationship became strained after Connery cut off the money to his son. What would you do? If you were in a position of power or influence, would you open doors for your children, or would you make them work for it all? Or, would you do something in between?

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Last year, former Family Ties actor Brian Bonsall made headlines when he was arrested and convicted of third degree assault. You may remember Bonsall as Michael J. Fox's little brother, Andy, on the popular 1980's sitcom. After his conviction last year, the now 26-year-old Boulder, Colorado resident was sentenced to two years' probation for pouring a drink on his girlfriend, grabbing her in a choke-hold and throwing her down on the bed when she tried to leave. Nice.

Today, he's back in the headlines for failing to abide by the terms of his probation. He is accused of not paying for his court-ordered domestic-violence classes, missing his daily alcohol checks and testing positive for at least one breathalyzer test that he did take. But it gets worse. He was due in court yesterday to face those charges and failed to show. The judge in the case is expected to issue a warrant for his arrest today.

Sadly, a former child star getting in trouble isn't all that unusual. But what really gets me is the photos that accompany the article. From sweet-faced little boy to rough-looking criminal, it is enough to break any parent's heart.

They say that experience is the best teacher, but I don't think that applies in all cases. For example, Susan Olsen, better known as Cindy from the Brady Bunch, is teaching her 10-year-old son the dangers of alcohol by binge drinking and showing up for work with a vomit-inducing hangover.

The 47-year-old Olsen was being interviewed on a Colorado radio show when she began showing signs of intestinal distress. Clutching her stomach and covering her mouth, the former cutie-pie suddenly bolted for the bathroom. When asked what happened, she proudly told the truth: she drank too much wine the night before and was dealing with a bad hangover. "Of course I threw up in the bathroom. It's better than throwing up on their face," she said. "I'm a very, very, very honest person. I also am a person who doesn't drink."

I agree, cookies are better tossed in the bathroom than on the table. And honesty usually is the best policy. But what about her 10-year-old son, who was with her in the studio? When asked if she was at all bothered by the fact that he witnessed this display, she she insisted she was not. "That's the way kids learn," she said.

The way that kids learn what, exactly? That mom can't hold her booze? That getting drunk the night before you have to work is perfectly acceptable as long as you are honest about it? And if she really never drinks, what prompted her son to invite listeners to come "watch her drink like a pig" at a local bar?

Vaccinations are a hot-button topic that never fails to get parents on either side of the issued riled up. Amanda Peet, who will soon be appearing in a a pro-vaccination video, likely stirred the pot a little more with her recent comment to Cookie magazine.

"I was shocked by the amount of misinformation floating around," she said, "Particularly in Hollywood. Frankly, I feel that parents who don't vaccinate their children are parasites." Somewhere in Hollywood, Jenny McCarthy's ears just started burning.