And the quints endorsement commentary evolved a life of its own

I wasn't sure how to contact Sarah Gilbert (to clarify: I thought about it, but didn't dig very much) to give her a courtesy call that I found an askance sort of reference in The Post to her quints name piece or that I was using her work in my recent entry (or the follow up). I don't read Blogging Baby, as it doesn't generally apply real well to my life circumstances (and I'm relatively, although blindly, sure that their infertility section is not the brand I feel in my cold, bitter heart), so I am not familiar with her body of work, her overall slant.

I suppose I'm glad that she found out about the two articles on her own (Jeez, the first one was at #5 overall for blog hits yesterday at BlogPulse. And it triggered Sarah's first post to be at #9. Thanks, Julie.) and that she decided to continue writing about the topic at Blogging Baby. She now has a beef with Mill*y, the Wash Post author who picked her out (as revealed by me) as the "reason" the quints weren't receiving endorsements. In her latest article, she also disagreed with the way he portrayed the parents in a Post picture, one he apparently took himself. He showed harried parents with the three infants home at that time, Sarah commenting that he could have tried to spruce them up a bit, but he seemingly chose to let them look, well, greasy, tired, and underdressed in order to further their endorsement-seeking cause.

While her analysis might be true, the parents could have looked more put together, I remember life with one newborn and, although I wasn't seeking endorsements, I sucked at just one kid. I looked and felt like hell, not getting my head above water until he turned 4 months old. I could not fathom caring for three whilst visiting the other two in the hospital. Nor could I imagine getting dressed just to have more pabulum spewed on the next outfit and adding to the already strained wash load. I understand wearing Ts, nightgowns, robes, sweats, and jeans on a really good day; shoes optional; shower, comb and make up MIA. I think these parents look normal and I would not have critiqued the picture.

Further, Sarah said that she didn't realize the family was African American based on ethnic names akin to Sha'nay'nay Me'Asia or that her piece could have been construed as racial. While I am not a regular reader of Sarah, I have to wonder who Blogging Baby "hires" (I am assuming they get paid unlike the insect here) to write and edit. Is there not someone who might have brought this to her attention? The web-creating crew obviously knew of the race, as the picture in Sarah's first piece shows the mother, Jannell Dickens, who honestly looks pretty damn good there after having quints. Obviously, Sarah isn't uploading/coordinating her own Blogging Baby posts/pictures the way I do in this Churp, Churp monopoly I have, but you'd think she'd have some formatting/content input or routinely check to see how her pieces look on line to see if anything affects the presentation of material.

Besides Sarah quoting from my brilliance and intelligently agreeing with my first post (tongue in cheek, people!), I kind of think she could have kept her mouth shut this go around. The critique of the picture was overboard and the blindness to race was naive at best.

But then maybe I'm just a crusty, old, pragmatic, barren witch who casts stones at both sides of an argument just for fun (and, seriously, for the sake of blogging and media integrity), trying to bring them together in the middle...

So, back to the crux, people...

Here's the address if you wish to donate even a mere dollar this holiday season:
Dickens Quintuplets Fund
M&T Bank
University Hospital Branch
22 S. Greene Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Attn. Tamara