On this side of the world, everyone is obsessed with the news about the pregnancy of Jamie Lynn Spears (Britney’s 16 year old sister and star of Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101). But on the other side of the pond, a new star has become pregnant that has just as much buzz as the Spears sisters. Lily Allen, singer of the song Smile from her award winning album Alright, Still has announced that she is with child. The 22 year old has been dating 37 year old Ed Simons who is said to be the father. Most know Ed as half of the techno music duo, the Chemical Brothers.
Lily is also starting a show that will air on BBC Three called Lily Allen and Friends which will be a show along the lines of “The View”. Lily has already announced that she only wants to release one more album and then leave the music business altogether, but that will be doubtful since apparently her contract states otherwise, baby or not. Not to belay the fact that many people are itching to hear her sophomore effort and if it goes well, she has years ahead of her. Don’t think she’ll be able to pull off what Edie Brickell did by marrying Paul Simon and disappearing into the background.
On the health side, many were amazed at her weight loss, which made her a fashion designers dream, but she said it was for health reasons and not for the public. Mrs. Allen has a heart murmur that was made known in the Summer of 2007 and she’s simply trying to live right. Although, Lily does have the nasty habit of smoking and has yet to kick that monkey, but with baby in tow, the smoke free lifestyle should be right around the corner.
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December 19, 2007
Mr. Christopher from the Corner Stork Baby Blog putting in my two cents into the “File Under Ridiculous” column. British teacher Gillian Gibbons who is a teacher in Sudan was found guilty today for naming a teddy bear “Muhammad” as part of a class project. Not being familiar with the Sudan customs, she brought in a teddy bear to class and then allowed the kids to name the teddy bear. The kids, all around the age of 7, offered names such as Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad, and by vote decided to name the bear “Muhammad”. The children would then take turns taking the bear home and documenting what they did with the bear such as “we played, we had a picnic”, etc. and then would turn in the diary that would be turned into a book from all of the diaries collected.
What Gillian was not aware of is that naming an animal after “Muhammad” is a horrendous insult and is punishable by Sudanese laws of 40 lashes and 6 months in prison. However, she got off easy with 25 days in prison, no lashings and is facing deportation back to 
Britain. (Update: 12-4-07 - She has been exonerated and has gone back home to Britain). Although this punishment seems to be extreme overkill to us Americans, it is apparently VERY serious to citizens of Sudan who have followed the case and have offered up death threats, have rioted outside of the courtrooms and more.
However, there are some major points being ignored here. The first is that a teddy bear is not an animal, it is a toy. That’s the first thing overlooked here. Secondly, the bear wasn’t named by the teacher. It was named by the students. It seems that if this was such an incredible insult and so incredibly serious, the parents of those children would have made sure that their children knew that this was a serious offense. Isn’t Sudan a country that takes parental responsibility for their children’s actions very seriously?
Regardless, if I was in Gillian’s shoes, I would be counting the days until I could get out of that country and back to my homeland. I don’t think it takes a teaching degree to know that staying in Sudan is not going to be a good idea.
Meanwhile, head over to Corner Stork Baby Gifts and pick up a teddy bear for a loved one and feel free to name it whatever you’d like. And if you want to read all of the details of this crazy case, head over to MSNBC and read all of the sordid details.
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November 29, 2007
