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  • Washington Mom Admits She Coached Kids to Fake Retardation

    A while back, Johnny Knoxville got together with the Farrelly Brothers and brought us the film The Ringer. Knoxville, in a Brando-esque display of Method Acting, feigns mental retardation in order to enter the Special Olympics as a "ringer" so that he can win a fixed bet and erase a huge debt. Of course, Knoxville learns a lesson in life and love, and develops a new found respect and affection for the mentally challenged. It's not the greatest movie ever made, definitely a 13 or 14 in one's Netflix queue, but even I - a cold-hearted bastard if ever there was one - got a bit verklempt.

    So here we have life imitating art, without the feel-good ending. In an attempt to fleece the system, Rosie Costello instructed her kids, starting at ages 4 and 8, to fake retardation so that she could collect Social Security benefits. They were busted when social workers viewed a tape of son Pete contesting a traffic ticket in a Vancouver courtroom. Pete now faces six months to a year in prison, and may have to pay up to $59,000 in restitution. Daughter Marie has not yet been located. To borrow a line from Indiana Jones, "try the local sewer." At first I felt bad for the kids, but apparently they kept the ruse going until they were in their 20's. Rosie is scheduled to be sentenced on May 17.

    My feel-good ending? Rosie behind bars, banging out license plates to pay back the $280,000 she stole.


  • Jackass Kid in Critical Condition

    I'm thinking maybe, just maybe, there's something to the idea of censoring what your children watch. Or at the very least, taking some responsibility for making sure your kids can read and understand the disclaimer at the beginning of a film like "Jackass: Number Two" before you let them watch it and then eave them to their own devices. Such thinking is a little too late for whoever's responsible for eleven-year-old Wallison Costa, who is in a Philadelphia intensive care unit after throwing himself out a second-story window in an attempt to mimic a scene featuring Bam Margera. To be fair, it worked out fine the first time Wallison tried it.

    He was found on the pavement by the mother of his friend Bruno Potoozny, who is described as having watched the defenestration with "bemused trepidation", and taken to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children for treatment.

    Wallison and Bruno are known around the neighborhood for "tomfoolery", including such shenanigans as cutting school, jumping around on the roofs, and shooting BBs at their neighbors' homes in the wee hours of the morning. But this newest trick has lost them at least one cohort: "My son won't be going up there no more," said Harriet Lincoln, mother of 13-year-old Jahlil, a friend of the other boys "Oh, no, playing a stunt like that, oh, no! I'm so glad my son wasn't there."

    Bam Margera's spokesperson declined to comment.
     



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