Parenting and The End of The World

Ok, this is a short but crazy story about a Red Hot Chili Pepper named Anthony Kiedis. Anthony and wife Heather Christie just had a newborn baby boy. One might expect a strange name for the new arrival like Apple, Meatloaf, Grape or something. So what did Anthony name his new bouncing baby boy? Everly Bear. You read that right. Everly Bear. Anthony chose the name after one of his favorite bands, the Everly Brothers.

Anthony tell People magazine, “We had a long list of names, but suppose it came to me by way of the Everly Brothers, which is one of my favorite bands. The mama came up with Bear. That made sense to me because he’s from me and I feel like I’m part of the bear clan, and I think it’s nice to have a little bit of earth in your name.” What did he just say? Step away from the bong and no one will get stupid!

Now, I have 3 children and I had a say in the naming of 2 of them. But if you think for one second that my wife would have let me name one of our kids after my favorite band with an earthy animal name attached to it, you’d be as crazy as you look. “Hey honey, I want to name our kid Prince Monkey.” Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

But since we’re talking about animals, check out the new Safari baby gift additions to the Corner Stork Baby Gifts collection at http://www.cornerstorkbabygifts.com. These are a very hip unisex yellow and they actually have cool names like JoJo Giraffe. Now that’s a cool name.

Know another RHCP fan? Bookmark the article and let them see it! 

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Mr. Chris from Corner Stork Baby Gifts with a touching family story that’s yet to be resolved. Ok, I saw this story yesterday on the morning news and thought it would be a passing thing, but obviously, that’s not the case. It appears that Ellen plans to fight if necessary to make this situation right. For those that aren’t aware of what all the hub bub is about, here’s the scoop. Ellen Degeneres adopted a dog from a pet adoption agency called Mutts and Moms. One of those little black curly haired pooches. The agency is very strict about what happens to the animals it adopts out and has some pretty strict rules. One of the rules is that if you decide not to keep the pet, you must bring it back to the agency.

So Ellen brings the dog home, spends thousands of dollars getting its shots updated and having the dog neutered and essentially taking loving care of the pooch. Well the dog is just way too high strung for Ellen’s cats and is basically bouncing off the walls. So Ellen tells the story to her hairdresser and her hairdresser says, “We’ll take the puppy.”. So Ellen gives the puppy to her hairdresser who has a very nice home with a nice big privacy fenced backyard, two loving kids (ages 12 and 13) and that was that. One would think. Mutts and Moms had a heartattack insisting that Ellen had broken the rules of the agreement. Then they demanded to see the home the dog was sent to. Upon arriving at the people’s home days later, the rep from the agency picks up the dog and refuses to let go of the dog until the police arrive. The police arrive and find that the microchip in the dog’s neck still says the dog is registered to the agency, so the cops allow the dog to be taken by the agency even though the dog has been in this family’s home for 2 weeks.

At this point, the family is very upset and man oh man, so is Ellen. Ellen can’t even make it through the taping of her next TV show because she is sobbing and emotionally distraught that the agency has been so cruel (click the photo on the left or here for the video). They were hollering at her and basically telling Ellen how awful she is for breaking the rules. Ellen could barely talk during her show pleading for the agency to give the dog back to the family. The agency simply has ignored her pleas and the website makes no mention of the scenario and has even pulled their telephone numbers to avoid the onslaught brought on by all of this negative publicity.

So here we are two days later and this is still a very big issue around the water cooler. The new breaking news is that the agency has no proof that Ellen actually signed those papers that they have been so animate about. Plus, the only reason why the microchip still had the agencies name on it was because the agency had failed to update the chip. So what now? I’m sure we haven’t seen the end of this story for a long while until this gets resolved. TMZ took a poll and over 95% of the poll takers think the agency should give the dog back. This seems like an obvious problem that could be resolved by simply giving the dog back. The agency is bringing all of the bad press on themselves for dragging their feet. Kudos to them for protecting animals, but bad juju is surely coming their way if they don’t fix this fast.

If you love reading about great entertainment news that relates to babies, parenting and family matters, be sure to check out the new home for this blog at http://blog.cornerstorkbabygifts.com. It will be the same zaniness that thousands of people have grown to love here, but now at a new location.

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Well Mr. Christopher from Corner Stork Baby Gifts once again bringing you the details of the Michael Vick story as it unfolds. The tough part about this case is definitely two fold. I, as a member of the Corner Stork team are all about kids and children. It’s a horrible travesty that millions of children who have looked up to Michael Vick and those that even stood by him to have watch him fall from grace so hard. The second part is that I personally stood by him as innocent until proven guilty and I believed in that justice system. The court of public opinion ruled this case. With that preamble, let’s get to the case at hand.

Michael Vick today has pleaded guilty to the federal dogfighting charges and animal cruelty.  In a public statement that followed shortly after, he stated that “First I want to apologize for all the things that I’ve done and that I have allowed to happen,” .”I made a mistake in using bad judgment and making bad decisions,” he said. “Dogfighting is a terrible thing.”He concluded by saying, “I offer my deepest apologies to everyone. And I will redeem myself. I have to.”

You can read the Summary of Facts and actual Plea Agreement here, but I’ll make it easy for you as to what he has pleaded guilty to:

1. Michael Vick, aka “Ookie” pleads guilty to traveling state to state to participate in illegal activities involving gambling.
2. Promoting the illegal activity
3. Knowingly sponsoring an animal in a animal fighting venture
4. Transporting animals for the purpose of dogfighting
5. Buying property and using the property for the sole purpose of dogfighting including specifically training pit bulls to fight and only for fighting purposes.
6. Establishing a “kennel” to use as a front for the dogfighting
7. Purchasing dogs specifically to put them into dogfights.
8. Providing the funding for the dogfighting activities (food, housing, travel expenses, vet treatment for dogs they wanted to keep and disposal fees for dogs they “disposed of”)
9. Participation in dogfighting in several states.
10. Providing a place for the gambling activities (Bad Newz Kennels) that involved gambling from the hundreds to thousands of dollars on a single fight. Vick supposedly did NOT make any money on these events. Proceeds were split between Tony Taylor, Quanis Phillips, and Purnell Peace.
11. Vick claims that a number of dogs were killed during the “testing phase”, but the killings were done by Phillips, Peace and Taylor.
12. Sponsored interstate dogfighting bouts with 2 of their champion dogs “Jane”, “Big Boy”, “Magic”, “Tiny”, “Too Short”, and various other “loser” animals in various southeastern states including SC, NC, and VA and attendants came from across the country including as far as NJ.
13. That he killed 6-8 dogs that failed testing along with Peace and Phillips.  The dogs were killed by either hanging or drowning.
14. That he was in possession of 54 pit bull dogs at the time of this discovery and most of which had scars from fighting. he also had the premises that were designed to host the fighting including an instrument that was designed to pry open the dogs mouths during fighting to loose them from the other dogs, treadmills and slat mills to train the dogs.

And essentially, that’s it.  As if that’s not enough. There’s a lot that’s disturbing about this and especially since he animately denied any of it to press, his managers and his team mates.  What’s worse is the audio portion of his apology where he makes sure that he indicates that he did not involve anyone else in these actions and that he takes full responsibility for his actions.  Funny, but the Summary and Appeal say something totally different.  He blames everyone and takes a little responsibility. Then he states that during this time, he has found Jesus and has turned his life over to God.  Good for him if that’s true, but after seeing the laundry list of charges that he’s pleaded guilty to, he’s definitely going need divine intervention.  You can hear the audio of Michael and the public apology here or you can watch the CNN video here.

Sentencing is on December 12th.  What exactly do you think the punishment should be? What are your thoughts?

Hello all! Mr. Christopher from the Corner Stork Baby Gifts entertainment news column. TMZ.com is reporting that actor Ving Rhamess dog has killed a man that was working for him as a caretaker for his home.  The report states, “The four dogs, Mastiffs and an English Bulldog, have been taken into custody by Animal Control. When they received the call this morning at 7:15, they say they found a black male on the front lawn, deceased.

KABC is reporting that the body of the caretaker had bites all over his body. They are also reporting that police are still investigating whether it was the dogs who killed the man, or if he suffered a heart attack or some medical condition.

Well that is definitely not good news.  So let’s change the subject!   My Wedding Favors has a great line of Fall wedding favors for those getting married in the autumn months.  Don’t forget to let your guests and your bridesmaid take home something to remember the day by!