Saturday, July 18, 2015

I Scour the Internet: The Post Independence Day Edition for July 19th 2015




Question:

When is the Air Force Academy not the Air Force Academy?

Answer:

When it's the Air Force Academy Prep School!





Say Whut??? But I thought...

Yep, y'all. It's true.

But first, some background...

Remember that day the Brown's tweeted those pictures of recent HS grad Hunter sitting in a conference room signing his life away....uh...I mean signing his Academy appointment papers?



Like any nosy person, back in May I popped over to the AF Academy's Official Website and read that Basic Cadet Training for the 2019 class would begin on June 25th and continue for 90 days until Parent's Day in September.

When June 25 came and went with nary a mention from  Janelle, Kody, and the rest of the sister wives parental units, I figured this would be yet another infamous Sister Wives Brown Family trip - this time to Colorado Springs - to send Hunter on his way.

And then, on July 14th, Janelle tweeted this:



Whoa...hold the phone! Basic Cadet Training started on June 25th, so what's going on? A living room member named Cheryl pointed out, maybe, he was accepted into the AF Academy Prep school instead of the actual AF Academy. I hadn't heard of the Prep school so of course, I let my finger do the clicking on the Official link she provided.

Lo and behold, there IS something called the AF Academy Prep School. In fact, apparently ALL of the service academies (you know, Annapolis, West Point) have Prep schools.

Who would've thunk it?

And guess who makes up a majority of the students attending? Yep, top HS athletes who did not get accepted into the more academically rigorous AF Academy, in this case. In recent years, the service academy prep schools have come under fire because of some questionable decisions - the same misdeeds universities were accused of  when it became known some top athletes never attended classes but still managed to stay in school with a barely passing GPA...or worse, graduating with a degree while being totally illiterate.

Now, the AF Academy Prep School isn't a walk in the park. A HS student can't apply directly to attend the Prep school: They still go through the actual AF Academy application process and be declined admittance  -BUT-  If they have compelling attributes (like being a star State athlete like Hunter) they could be admitted to the Prep School instead. Prep School students are still required to maintain certain academic and physical requirements for 10 months, as well as being required to join the Air Force Reserve. At the end of their 10 month Prep journey, they only have a 75-80% chance of being accepted into the AF Academy. Which is still pretty good odds considering 10 months earlier they were denied admittance.

But I maintained hope that Hunter was accepted into the actual AF Academy and maybe Janelle was doing one of those patented Brown Family smoke and mirrors, song and dance routines.

That hope all went out the window the next day when Janelle tweeted this -  erasing all doubt what school Hunter would be attending for the next 10 months:


Good Luck Hunter! Here's hoping in 10 months you are successful in being accepted at the AF Academy!

Some interesting links for further reading:

The United States Air Force Academy Preparatory School


NYTimes: The Military Prep School Scam


Military academies, including AFA, face criticism for using prep schools to fill athletic teams


In other Twitter News...


Over a month ago, Meri was acting like some giddy fifteen year old teenager on Twitter. Then, suddenly, her Twitter went dark on July 9th. This was her next to last tweet that day...


Holy catfish, Batman!




YIKES!!! 


Well, I'm happy to report Meri has come back to Twitter life acting a bit more appropriately for a middle-aged polygamist who happens to be a spiritual wife of Kody Brown after becoming the ex-Mrs Kody Brown in order for sister wife Robyn to step into the legal role as the New and now very Pregnant Mrs. Kody Brown.

Hmmm....now I wonder who Meri was thinking about when she tweeted this little gem?


That's all for now. And remember, I Scour the Internet, so YOU can listen one more time to "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band and "Money (Makes the World Go 'Round)" from Cabaret. Enjoy!!!!









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Sunday, July 5, 2015

Sister Wives: Should TLC Pull the Plug?

Something rotten is festering in the Sister Wives Cul-de-Sac.


In the early seasons, the audience was shown that, although the  Kody Brown family consisted of a man, his Original Three Wives plus a brand new fourth wife and all their combined "bonus" children, this religion-based polygamous family was just like every other family.

Or was it?

We followed a goofy husband, played by Kody Brown with an enthusiasm bordering on manic, gingerly traipse through the minefield of dealing with four women.



We watched as a very pregnant Christine, helped by her sister wives Janelle and Meri, set up an well-worn  baby crib in her sparsely furnished bedroom while their "husband" Kody wooed and courted a woman he blatantly called his "girlfriend" - a woman named Robyn who inconveniently lived a couple of hours south of the Brown's Lehi homestead.





We watched Kody driving his expensive Lexus convertible, even though his wives were shown driving cars held together with faith, and duct tape. A lot of duct tape.







And then, as the cherry on top of a three scoop polygamist sundae, we watched as Kody married his fair maiden Robyn, and then embarked on an extended honeymoon to San Diego.

An expensive honeymoon, courtesy of TLC. An expensive honeymoon that Kody's Original Three wives never had.



We watched in disbelief as Kody announced plans to move away from Lehi. Seemingly without a thought to the financial as well as mental costs, Kody chose to uproot his  children from their friends and school, away from their church and extended family to the "promise land" of Las Vegas Nevada.

It quickly became clear Sister Wives was not about the women in a polygamous marriage, but about the HUSBAND. Scenes of Kody driving breathlessly from one wife's rental house to another became commonplace. Eventually when the Browns moved into their overpriced, barn-like McMansions in a gated cul-de-sac, we were treated with scenes of Kody running from McMansion to McMansion, with his stringy, greasy,  thinning hair blowing in the breeze he's artificially created.




Tyra Banks would be proud...Kody's even got the smize down pat!

But even a smizing Kody Brown was not enough to keep viewers...viewing.





Thus, the annual Kody Brown Family Road Trip was born. Plyg-vacation starring the polygamist Joe Darger Family. The "Let's Copy Big Love Roadtrip" along the Mormon Trail, followed by the Route 66 trip to meet the polygamist Nathaneal Richards family in Missouri. And more recently, the Montana Road Trip to Hell where Kody not only showed how he REALLY feels about Christine, but gave viewers the opportunity to meet gun-loving polygamist Nathan Collier.


It's summertime again,  and we are suffering through a "drought" of reality shows featuring polygamists. My Five Wives was cancelled due to low ratings. Season Two of Polygamy, USA never materialized.

Rumors started. Is Sister Wives next on the chopping block?

After all the shenanigans from the past couple of weeks, I'm almost willing to say "Yes! Please, TLC, put the audience out of it's misery by cancelling Sister Wives. Puleeeeezzzeee????"

This summer has been excruciating. Following the adult Browns on Twitter and Facebook during the off season has become a major chore. One would need a roadmap to maneuver through all the bull excrement left festering in the middle of the road by the social media incompetent Kody and his Ko-dypendants ©.




But what's really weird? Kody appeared to be the SANE one of the bunch, with Robyn and Meri leading the pack of cray cray on the loose with 24/7/365 unsupervised access to Twitter!

I venture to add, if Robyn and Meri were to suddenly disappear from social media altogether, They. Wouldn't. Be. Missed.

Without going into too much detail (because I simply don't want to discuss "entities" that have not, and according to Robyn, will never appear on Sister Wives), I'll address some of those big old Pink Elephants  parked all over my living rooms.









Is Meri having an affair?

If she is, surely she could have done better. The social media imposters highlighted on MTV's Catfish Show are more believable. Is that Twitter guy  the best she can do? Damn!!!

Did Meri leave the cul-de-sac forever?

Do chickens have teeth? And for the record, I always thought for something to be confirmed, it should be actually...confirmed. You know, by a reliable source or two. For example, in the case of the recent breakup of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck, not only were there 'rumors' of a breakup,  there was the report of 'His and hers moving vans' seen outside their home. Meri left...for a vacation, apparently. Big difference. I'll believe it when I see it on Huffington Post.

Why did Robyn recently tweet...
Your guess is as good as mine, because later she wrote this on  the TLC Official Sister Wives Facebook fanpage...


Really? Then WHO, pray tell? This will probably come to Robyn and Meri as a surprise, but sometimes, when communicating with a lot of people, you can't be too vague or coy in your comments. I'm beginning to believe this habitual vagueness is actually a defense mechanism used by sister wives (in a passive aggressive way of course) to stick it to another sister wife. Wake up and smell the Postum percolating. Most people grow out of this kind of passive aggressive behavior as teenagers. When you are an adult, and you have a beef against someone, tell them direct! And please don't use Twitter to deliver the message!

Are these shenanigans a plan for keeping fans interested in Sister Wives during the long, hot and boring summer?

It's beginning to look that way. Even the announcement of Robyn being pregnant with Kody's second legitimate child (thanks to Meri paving the way for Kody to marry Missy Robyn by divorcing him) didn't get people all hyped up for the next season. If anything, the announcement brought out some feelings that Robyn held out getting pregnant until Kody made her his legal spouse. And for reference, this was played out fictionally in the HBO series "Big Love",  when Bill divorced long suffering wife Barb in order to marry spiritual wife Nicki Grant so he could legally adopt Nicki's daughter Cara Lynn. It didn't turn out well for Bill.

Why did Kody acknowledge Meri's friendship with her Twitter "friend"?

I don't think he did that intentionally. For some reason, I see Robyn nonchalantly saying to Kody "Hey hon, since you're watching Batman on TV, how about tweeting what he means to you to your followers?" And Kody obliged....



To which Meri's Twitter boy pal tweeted this meme in response...


Now THAT's maturity! We can only hope SOMEONE jumps on this opportunity to stage a knock down, drag out confrontation right in the cul-de-sac. The loser can clean up all that bull excrement!


So there you have it. Now if you'll excuse me, those pink elephants were cute, but they left a heck of a mess in my living rooms.

And what are YOUR thoughts?


Cynical Jinx



photos: TLC, FB, Twitter



For those of you following Twitter, here's a Twitter feed that might interest you...

Will he come through and be a Hero? Or a Joker?




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