By: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this post, click the play arrow below.What in the world was that?During Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show, viewers were treated to yet another installment of “Yes, I'm way too old for this, but because I am a delusional rock star, I will now prance around, act foolish and lip sync my way through my former hit songs while you all pay me homage and [...]

By: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this post, click the play arrow below. Photo by Haraz N. Ghanbari for the Associated Press I’ve used the same gesture countless times to bring errant kids (or a husband) in line. But on the President of the United States?Last week, in a photo shot by Haraz N. Ghanbari for the Associated Press, Arizona’s Republican Governor, Jan Brewer, was caught wagging a finger directly [...]

By: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this column, click the play arrow below.I thought I was finished with graduations.Yes, I still have kids in school, but personally, my last graduation took place quite a while ago, after an intense four years of college. Like graduation from elementary and high school, that one was a passage into a new, exciting world full of promise and potential. But recently, I received another [...]

By: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this post, click the play arrow below.Shame. Embarrassment. Humiliation.The hat trick of negative emotions were all experienced last week by the 14-year-old teen forced by his mother to stand in front of their home wearing a sign proclaiming, “I lie, I steal, I sell drug(s), I don’t follow the law.”At least I hope that’s what he was feeling.Indiana mother Dynesha Lax resorted to the [...]

By: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this post, click the play arrow below.With the exception of their shame-faced sabotage of the Nazi vehicles in pursuit of the beloved Von Trapp Family, the nuns in the movie The Sound of Music were positively angelic, serenely walking around their abbey and singing, wondering what to do about their “wild-child,” Maria. I had a slightly different experience.As a six-year-old Catholic school child growing [...]

By: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear the audio version of this post, click the play arrow below.Sooo...I'm sitting here watching Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve (obviously a few days before you're reading this) and thinking about what I want for the New Year. Of course there's the list of Miss America wishes--world peace, an end to war and hunger, etc., etc., but since as I'm writing this, it's the last day of 2011, [...]