The father seemed feckless to me, but the whole scenario barely ruffled Phil's feathers. Had Melissa been a table dancer she would have really gotten Phil pissed. But endangering this child's life and verbally abusing him? Not so much. Phil is a windsock on a lot of key issues. A fat, bald, stuffed-into-a-pricey suit, power drunk windsock: You need to put down the vodka before the sun sets today! Or, maybe you should switch to beer and see how that goes. Whatever. Just don't get fat. That's a drop dead deal breaker.

So full of ire I could barely register the rest of the program, I did make out a bit about Kitty quoting Cosmopolitan Magazine. Kitty! Cosmo. I quoted Cosmo too! Fer sure I did! But then again, so did the rest of the girls in our FRESHMAN DORM. Grow up and stop twittering and collecting shiny objects. You're not a crow fer chrisakes.

Phil wrung me out today. I got nothing.

Wordy McWord.
And I am just so frickin' freaked that PatriarchPhil is running a home-shopping outlet for prospective adoptive parents/birth mothers. Kuh-reepy. He's already got one of the FUFkids named after him...when does it stop?!?!

I could hardly fathom how anyone there was buying the horseshit spewing from the bitch's mouth. If I was in that audience, I would've flung my shoe in her general direction. Just the fact that there IS a condition known as "Post-adoption depression" makes me realize how over-diagnosed and over-medicated this country is. Just DEAL with the problem, instead of dissecting it endlessly and trying to discover the "reasons" behind it. I partly blame Oprah and Dr. Phil for this mindset sweeping the nation. To quote Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes: what a pathetic culture of victimhood we live in.

That Melissa woman was such a horrible bitch! My jaw dropped to the floor when she said she wanted to "Take IT back." The "IT" being that child she adopted from India. Holy shit! Where did they find this psycho? Telling that poor child to his face that he was "stupid", and making him run around like that knowing that it would be dangerous to his health. That woman was a monster, and honestly, I consider that to be abuse. It's emotional abuse. No wonder he's not bonding with them. He probably senses their hostility. And making him engage in an activity that could threaten his physical well-being was so vicious and cruel.

The husband was a pathetic doormat. He just went along with his evil shrew of a wife. Melissa even admitted that she got annoyed and resented him when he showed affection to the kid, so, I guess he just stopped trying altogether.

Oh, and I was annoyed at Dr. Phil for calling AJ a "young man". He looked like he was 4 or 5 years old. That's a baby!

Someone needs to sic Social Services on their ass.

Oh my dog! That bitch of a woman, Melissa is just such an awful human being! I can't believe she called a child "it". IT! He is not some inanimate object, he is a child for crying out loud! What the hell is wrong with that woman?! Let’s see, you take the child away from everything that he has grown up with while he is sleeping. And you’re totally surprised that he was scared and freaked out by you? Then you get mad at the kid for being scared and not saying "I love you"? Oh my god this woman should have all her kids taken away from her and given to people who don't call children "it".

I can understand a woman not having the same bond with an adopted child as her biological child but this woman just outright hated the boy. And I suspect that she only said "I wish I could feel different about him and love him" because she knew that that’s what Dr.Shill wanted to hear. At the end when Dr.Shill was telling her that they would pay for the medical tests for the boy she had such a disappointed look on her face, I'm sure she expected Phil to find a home for "it". That poor boy would be better off and get more love from a pack of wolves.



Word. But just to let you know I do have a serious condition known as "Dr.Phill Rage". It's verys serious and causes me to scream obsenities at the tv.

The fact that today's Phil was a rebroadcast gave me a sick feeling in my hind region. PLEASE don't let this mean he's not around because he's hauling his overfed self and his cameras and crew and his posh trailer/dressing room and his bodyguards and his PR people and his supply of expensive gourmet food and the required hired prep people and servers and two senior ladies-in-waiting and the royal Mistress of The Wardrobe and his ziploc wife and maybe his elder son (whose broad ass pool dives have caused a few tidal waves of his own) and traveling to tsunami ravaged Asia in order to get in the way of relief workers.

As much as Phil's authoratative intonations will piss me off, I do NOT need shots of Kitty doing her Princess Diana imitation, picking among the ruins in a hard hat and cuddling orphans.Kitty keening and wailing with twice the verocity she expended for the soldiers' kids? What would the tens of thousands of people who lost everything, and will get to see this very rich American woman overcome with just how awful it all is and how she just wants to look away from this terrible, icky stuff she has never seen before and how it wounds her in her warm and fuzzy place say?: "Bitch,please. Turn off the camera, pick up a shovel or get the hell out of our way. We know how to sic an elephant on your ass and we will if you don't go back to the luxury bus and cry there."

Let the people who don't give a crap about cameras do their work, and let Christiane Amanpour do her's. Kitty, just because you're a Beverly Hills wife doesn't mean you still can't sell make-up door-to-door. Do what you were born for.

I have to add my two cents about that bitch (because what other word will do?) Melissa, the beast who called her adoptive child "it." After Gemmadoll's first post I was paying special attention to the video before the interview. NOT ONCE did that woman crack a smile, seem relaxed or show any affection around her own kids and husband. At one point her little girl asked her something and she gave a cold, expressionless reply; whatever that little exchange was about, the kid snapped to pretty damn quick. I think even her biological kids are afraid of her.

Melissa lives in a coldly perfect world, where the house and kids are supposed to be perfect at all times. It's the perfect setting for her cold cold heart. May she rot.

Unfortunately I missed the ep you're all talking about- can someone explain how this wretched woman defended herself? Did she say why she wanted to adopt a child in the 1st place?

They thought they wouldn't be able to have a 2nd bio child, so they adopted this little boy from India. (The husband is Indian or Pakistani himself). Once they unexpectedly had their second daughter they had one too many. This boy had been "spoiled" by his foster parents, claims mom. He "refuses" to bond with them, says mom. He has a few health limitations, which makes him frustrated and irritable, so the best thing to remedy that is physical punishment, says mom.

She calls him "stupid." She tells him she wishes they had never adopted him. She says she wishes she could "send It back to India." It is all his fault, because he is "difficult" and "unhappy" and other egregious things. If you had seen his little crying face it would have twisted your heart into a square knot. I swear he was expressing everything through his tears he doesn't yet have the words for.

Phil did not rip either parent a quart-sized asshole, as we hoped. Instead he spoke of the phenomenom of post adoption syndrome and how they needed professional help to be better parents and etc etc etc. If you looked into this woman's eyes, you would NOT suggest professional intervention of any sort that meant she could remain in a home with anyone younger than eighteen. You wanted to snatch her kids, offer her a freshly killed chicken to gnaw on, and back away slowly.

This little boy will get bigger and so will his problems. This is what happens when you bring up kids. As Dave Pelzer grew up, his torture via his mother accelerated until he was stabbed, starved and forced to inhale chemicals. Where did it start? Probably from the first time she called him "stupid" and "the whole world" didn't "fall in" on her sick ass. Nice fumble, Phil.

ETA: She offered no excuse, explanation, or apology. Absent feeling, absent concern, absent humanity. As someone said, she wanted to Phil to grant her a parent pardon and take this child off of her hands.

That bitch Melissa needs to get her bitch-ass beat. I don't know what caused her to be a cold, calculating, fucking murderer-in-waiting, but fuck that "post-adoption syndrome" bullshit. She wanted another child not because she wanted to share love or even keep the family line going. She wanted another child just so she could exercise domination and instill fear. She looked like she positively got off on saying those shitty things to that poor boy.

Man, two days later and I'm still pissed about that. And fuck Phil for not calling bullshit.

It made me so mad I just emailed Phil's website about it.

I just hope that someone who knows Melissa watched this episode, and made a call to Children's Services. Therapy, in this situation, is ridiculous as a remedy.

Isn't it wonderful that in the year 2005, we still adhere to "a man's home is his castle" when it comes to domestic crime? I mean, if a man beats on a woman until her breasts are solid bruises, he doesn't "belong in jail" as long as they are married or in a partnership. That's so lovely.

Phil got this one right, didn't he? Asking what part she played in the abuse. Well, duh, she left a glass on the table. Also, she left the MAIL in the TRUCK. Isn't that probable cause? After the beatings she has the audacity to "curl up and play victim" unlike the correct action, which is...Well, don't confront him, it'll provoke his fists. Don't leave him, because you'll just find another prick just like him. Don't do anything until you fix yourself, woman. (Not sure how you are supposed to do self-work while a Neanderthal stronger than you sits perched, ready to choke the life out of you because you bought the oil-packed tuna, but you have to try, sayeth Phil. Take ownership. Pull my finger).

Assault and battery should be assault and battery--the relationship of perp vs victim notwithstanding. The old argument says that if you jail the abuser the wife and kids suffer for lack of his paycheck. Uh huh. If the perp beats up his neighbor, sells crack or knocks over a liquor store no one suggests he not do time because his family would suffer for lack of his income. A crime is a crime. Prosecute the bastards the first time.

Alas, since 1.4% of domestic abuse victims are men, out trots Wifezilla. Phil at least was concerned about the baby enough to step in immediately, but holy cow. Holy Kitty. Holy Big Butt Jay. Where is Phil's insult to this guy's self-esteem and Phil's criticism of his lack of "paternal instinct"? You stay with a woman who rakes your balls with her nails? You let your baby see/hear/feel this hell of a family life? Where is your ownership?

These two cases were assault and battery, multiple counts. Prosecute it and stop trying to analyze the hell out of it. People do what they can get away with. Period. You can't change the "sanctity of marriage" wherein a third of its members are abused, but you can change the archaic laws. Just when you think we are not chattel anymore, along comes Phil with his crown and sceptor, babbling nonsense. "If I had to wear a cup around the house... ha ha ha." Shut up.

I have not watched this show lately but I must say thank you to Gemmadoll,
your posts have got me up to speed. I don't know if I wish I had seen the adoption show and the abuse show. From what I've read I would be so upset with no way to vent my rage except these pages.You've said what I have in my head, but you say it so amazingly well.

I haven't seen this episode, but I thought DP has always said that physical abuse was a "drop-dead deal breaker"?

I turned on today's domestic abuse show, saw the preview of Phil telling an abuser that he needed to stop while the guy nodded, and I turned it off. What a load of hooey! Gee, why don't we have Phil go to prisons and tell the prison population to stop breaking the law? Why doesn't Phil go to hospices and tell people to stop dying? If it were so easy to break the cycle of abuse by telling the abuser to stop, one visit from the local cops oughta do it.

Hate to defend Dr. Phil, but within the context of the episode, it did make sense. He was saying "I'm not at all defending your actions, you HAVE to stop what you're doing, BUT.." and then went on to babble some pseudo-psychological bullshit. However, he wasn't just telling him to stop and nothing else.

Phil annoyed me as usual. His take on the spousal abuse had the ring of "he's a good man but he just does bad things" that I disagree with. When is something bad enough that it makes you a bad person that may have the potential to be a good person once again? I'd think spousal abuse would be one of those things.

Phil, I don't have a doctorate in psychology, so you may think this advice stinks, but here is what I'd tell the battered wife: Your life is in danger. You have been beaten to the point of needing medical care, plus you have been choked, which is attempted murder. Domestic violence escalates, so we need to get you out of there today. Let's figure out a way to board your animals, but right now, your life is the most important thing.

Whatever reason your husband has become violent is not for us to speculate at this time. Your home's on fire and you need to run for your life. (See Phil, I can do folksy too. And I aint a Texan,yo.) I understand your fear of getting into another abusive relationship, but we're on step one, and that's step thirty-seven. You need counseling for your self-worth and re-learning a sense of control, but you aren't going to get there while you're living with a man who watches you like a hawk and pummels you for not doing things his way. And all you battered wives out there listening to me today? That goes for you too. Tomorrow may be too late. Run from the s.o.b. now, as you would a tsunami.

Abused husband? Take your baby out of that house today. Contact a good attorney and using whatever documentation you can, petition the court to deny your wife unsupervised visitation until she has entered a treatment program for rage. Meanwhile, you need a top notch therapist to help you understand why you allow your nads to be used like Silly Putty, but the first priority is sheltering the baby. Period.

My advice has no gold seal, so it is moot. But the fact that Phil kept cagily asking,"Have you hurt the baby?" had everyone who watched this program yelling,"Of COURSE she's hurt the baby. Do something Phil." Well, at least he didn't send these couples to a resort so they might play out their domestic violence in a tropical setting. Maybe the old, bald, twangy, ambitious,misogynist gorilla is learning. Or, not.

I have a friend whose first husband beat her on a regular basis. She left him due to the abuse. All of her boyfriends after that were controlling, difficult men-I disliked all of them. A few years later she remarried and her second husband also beat her. After 10 years of marriage she finally left him because of the abuse. I could never understand what was wrong with her that she was always attracted to this type of man.
This is one time that I would agree with Shill-Michelle needs to work on herself to find out why she is attracted to this type of man. The abuse started before she was married and she married him anyways-why would she marry a guy who beats her??
I read the book "Battered Women" by Lenore Walker. It is stories about women who are abused. One of the stories was about a woman whose husband beat her on a regular basis. One time he beat her so badly that he knocked out her kidney, broke most of her teeth and came very close to killing her. A few days later, while she was recovering in hospital, she decided to take him back because she loves him. Go figure!
A woman who stays with an abuser is as sick as her partner.

I'd hazard a wild guess that some people are attracted to/stay with abusive partners partially based on their parental figures. Granted, that doesn't quite hold for ever person who enters into an abusive relationship--it's as if the person has an unacknowledged masochistic streak (unlike people who are aware of and affirm their masochism as a sexual fetish).

Am I the only one who thought that Shill treated the abusive wife differently than the abusive husband? He spent a lot more time talking to the asshole wife and trying to psychoanalyze her--but to the asshole husband (who, by the way, was blowing smoke up Shill's ass--his eyes were creepy, cold and, dead), he basically said all of one whole sentence: "You should stop hitting her, but please, please; we're not trying to beat up on you." This he said over and over again. The fuck. I come from the Old School--muthafucka beats his wife, the wife's family posse up and make sure said muthafucka doesn't beat anyone else up. ever. again.

Hate to defend the $hill, BUTT...
Even thought this was only on the teevee, and I have only a teensy bit of training re. crisis intervention and domestic assault, DP wasn't wrong in NOT rehearsing the escape plan with the victim in the presence of the abuser... And, while I personally agree with the posse-up & lock-em up approach, most laws can barely recognize violence in the home in any enforceable way. (In many states, if she were to defend herself by scratching/biting/kicking, she would be charged as perp/abuser as well. Whatta world, whatta world...) Oh -- and the 'you know how to set him off' schtick -- right out of the Al-Anon/CODA handbook, ie. finding some way to recognize personal agency in a totally screwed situation...

Back to the BigP:
I was almost impressed that DrP was not browbeating a female guest UNTIL Wifeszilla got trotted out. Such a false comparison, to put those couples on the same show, BUT as a way to keep DrP on formula-task? Heaven-sent...

ETA extra obsessions...
question: has there been a greater than usual number of complete monsters in recent shows? Between the evil adopters & the crazy non-custodial parents & now abusive bubba...has there been a higher number of "dead in the eyes" guests lately?

I'd just like to add that people who abuse their spouses and serial killers should no longer be able to blame their parents ever again (you too, Buffalo Bill). Especially when they are aware of it. I can understand -- but still not accept -- someone who grew up in a violent household and unconsciously projecting this on his or her own family. However, the scumbag who was on today smugly grinning while basically passing this off as a result of his upbringing, does NOT get a free pass in my eyes. Hey, a lot of horrible stuff happened to me when I was a kid but I sure won't be doing the same to others. Again, this culture of victimhood is driving me nuts.

Way to reach out for some kind of small way to compliment Shill! All I could think of when he kept saying "Have you hurt the baby" ad infinitum, was that he was trying to protect himself from a lawsuit. The husband needs to grow back a set (since she strangulated his first set.) He should've calmly got up, left the stage, gotten the baby and had the locks changed, until she had completed an anger program, like Gemmadoll said. How could he just sit there as she detailed how close she has skated to injuring the kid?

WHY ARE THESE WOMEN STAY AT HOME MOMS? Every time I watch Nanny 911 or something like that, I think, "Go get a job and let day care do it better than you can."

Having worked with abuse victims as well, I realize Phil was edging around the silent/safe plan as one would with the perp sitting right in the office. However, since his show was being seen by untold numbers of abuse victims, he needed to be very clear that all domestic violence victims are in very real danger of being killed and that the trying to "lay analyze" becomes a way to justify and that perpetuates the cycle.

I agree that it doesn't matter what happened in someone's past, beating another person is a felony. Like I said, it is our archaic system of laws, endorsed by the "family first/straight folks only,please" chuckleheads that have kept our domestic partnership laws in the Middle Ages. If FUF of origin gave one a pass, every writer I've ever known would have every excuse to be murdering and mayhemming all through the Breadloaf circle. Gotten work your swords into ploughshares eventually, or the bad guys win.

What do I want from Phil? Well, how about not jumping up and down and turning colors when a parent admits their three-year-old has spat at them, but demonstrating a bit of that same rage when a woman carefully explains how her husband broke her nose because she forgot to pay the cable bill. Phil probably thought Patty Hearst waited for the exact moment in her gilded youth where she might have an excuse to knock over a bank with a machine gun. "Rape, isolation, threats and torture notwithstanding, you made that choice..." He quotes from the "Dick and Jane" psychology series but I ask you, where's the Jane?

You ARE what you DO. Bad actions=bad person.

The hell with her goats, dogs, cats, etc. She has to get out of there now, and not look back!

Who will look after her precious pets after he has murdered her?

Bitch had it comin', clearly...

Shows like this totally sour my milk, I mean, jeeesus.



We used to debate this in law school. If women commit violent crime less than men, is the "reasonable person" standard even applicable? Should you use two different standards, one for the reasonableness of men, and one for women? Either way, you end up with a system that excuses men and punishes women, since men abuse on a far greater scale, it is more "reasonable" for men to abuse, etc. If you use "reasonable man" and "reasonable woman" standards, same result. Of course, we could dial waaaay down and always use a "reasonable women" standard for everyone, which would punish male abusers far more harshly (like that's going to happen).

Sorry if I explained that whole thing badly.

Once again, boo on Phil for expecting women to bend far more than men.

Let's not pitty-pat over why the abusers do what they do, just tell them to get the F outta there, then maybe we can mamby pamby about why the abusers are abusing, and why the spouses are taking it. I just have no patience for this...these victims are in life-threatening situations. Would you ask someone drowning in a lake how they got out there and why they never took swimming lessons? No, you'd pull them out of the lake, then think about swimming lessons. Ugh.

Nope! How many times did he ask Wifezilla "What gives you the right to treat [your husband] like that?!", yet he never asked Bubba-the-Dead-Eyed that question ONCE. And he didn't reassure Wifezilla that she's really, really a good person underneath it all.

As other posters pointed out, Shill didn't address that at all, did he? Weird. Something about the way Shill treated Bubba makes me think that Shill was afraid of him. During that interview it felt like Shill was acknowledging Bubba as the alpha dog in that exchange. He didn't want to rile him. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

BWAH!

DeepRed, I totally agree. Shill was extra careful to tell Bubba the Dead-Eyed that he was most emphatically NOT trying to come down on him and make him the 'bad guy.' BtDE just sat there with this near-smirk on his face--seriously, his eyes fucking creeped me out/made me want to plug him dead between em. This fucker has ZERO interest in changing his ways. And quite frankly, I don't think he should be given that kind of chance. She needs to get the fuck outta Dodge, post-haste. Fuck counseling them while she's still in danger. Get her out of there, to some place he can't find her and THEN work on setting his FUBARred brain straight.

As far as Wifezilla goes, ditto to the abused husband. Get your baby, get the fuck out.

I didn't see the show yesterday, but I have a comment about this part I quoted. Ddid it occur to this woman that if she was afraid of getting into another abusive relationship, she could just simply not date? Or did she look like the type that fells that her life is incomplete without a man in it?

Well, those of you who didn't think Phil would actually throw people off the weight loss challenge were wrong. I dunno, I think those totals of "pounds lost" are WAY too high. I mean, I've done Weight Watchers, and I'd be thrilled to bits if I had lost 6 pounds in 3 weeks, which is what Tracy had done. Then again, maybe if you're drinking 12 Pepsis a day like that one guy, just cutting those out is enough to make the pounds start falling off. But it seems to me that for all of Phil's talk of health, this is almost like a crash diet.

Hi all. I've been lurking for a while now, and you guys really know how to roast him!



Big time! I also think the aspect that it's a competition is very distasteful and not emotionally healthy. Why anyone with a weight problem would join his weight loss challenge is beyond me. He talks about "healing feelings" or something, but having people compete to win! win! win! does not seem to have anything to do with healing to me. That guy who kept saying "I'm gonna win this" was really annoying, but he seemed right up Dr. Phil's alley like that obnoxious guy who won the original weight loss challenge.

Do you ever get the feeling that Phil is like some kind of fire and brimstone preacher standing up there thinking he's some kind of faith healer in front of all "his" weight loss challengers? I used to like him thinking, "maybe he's kind of stuck up, but he really wants to help people." Now I think his ego is getting out of control and he has no shame about talking about *all* the people that *he* has helped.

Whatever happend to that woman who Shill had on before the new year and she was doing something "so horrible and so bad" that we couldn't know about it. And shill said that he will tell us what she was doing but never has. Are we ever going to find out what the hell happend to her or what she was doing? Because i'd really like to know what she was up to...porn in her home? Postitution ring? Out of state cat smuggling buisness?

Knowing Phil, she probably runs a printing operation for NOW, lets her kids smart off to her husband, or sells glazed doughnuts to the obese.

We try. We consider it our civic duty. Welcome missmax! Only one thing--it's Shill or Dr. Shill, not Phil. History of that nickname is becuase he's always trying to cram a giant stack of his books down our throat on each episode!

I like calling him Dr.Phillatio, cause, ya know, he sucks.

Today's show is a repeat of the run-away bride. The oh so giggly and adorable little diamond collector who has goaded five guys into proposing and then left them at the altar. Dr. Shil thinks she's a "people pleaser." Riiight, and those guys who talk the young virgins into having sex so that they can brag to their buddies about it are people pleasers, too. It's so obvious that this girl sees all the proposals as trophys of conquest.

At the end of the show we have a young woman who was jilted at the altar and nobody seems to think that the guy who did it was cute.


[edited to laugh at dr phillatio, heeeeeee kimberleejean}

I think I read somewhere (upthread in this forum, maybe?) that he's saving this for his next primetime special.

It's cute if a gal does it, 'cause Julia Roberts made it look so adorable in that movie. Inwhich she finally snagged Richard Gere. Again.

Apparently not:

"A DR. PHIL PRIMETIME SPECIAL: ROMANCE RESCUE," A NEW ENTERTAINMENT
SPECIAL HOSTED BY DR. PHIL McGRAW TO BE BROADCAST FEB. 15 ON THE CBS
TELEVISION NETWORK

Dr. Phil McGraw will host his second network primetime special, A DR.
PHIL PRIMETIME SPECIAL: ROMANCE RESCUE, where, in his own inimitable
style, he tells people like it is about their love life, on Tuesday,
Feb. 15 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. In the
special, shot entirely on location, Dr. Phil shows the romantically
challenged how to make their relationships work.

Knowing that everyone deals with problems in their relationships at
one time or another, Dr. Phil comes to the rescue with compelling
information and advice in his own unique style.

One couple on the special, contemplating marriage, has a very unusual
prenuptial agreement that, unlike most, doesn't deal with money.
Instead, it specifies domestic as well as personal responsibilities,
including the frequency of their intimate encounters. Dr. Phil urges
them to take a close look at their relationship before they take that
walk down the aisle.

In another segment, Dr. Phil will work with a woman who has a
lot of first dates but rarely a second. Imagine what it would be like
to have Dr. Phil giving you dating advice, via a hidden transmitter in
your ear, while you're actually out on the town.

First time poster (on this thread) alert. Glad to see I'm not the only one pissed about Shill's newest weight loss challenge. Spend three weeks helping the poor woman make positive lifestyle changes and then, when she loses a perfectly healthy amount of weight, reward her by kicking her out of the challenge. Yeah, like she's not going to hit the nearest all-you-can-eat buffet on her way home from the taping.

The wonder is that Phil stooped to help the overweight at all. Fat women give him nightmares and affect his hydraulics. They are also scary and make Kitty cry.

I'm looking forward to reading his breakthrough weight-loss book which details extraordinary information that includes this secret: Eat less, move more. Also, that human beings eat when they're not hungry. They eat for other reasons as well, unlike slick fur mammals and certain tropical fish. If it weren't for Phil, I ought not to knowed that.(Cos I'm a woman with a plump ass) Yessirree Bob.

Even my slick furry dachshund eats when she's not hungry - give her a shot at the neighbor's barbeque grill and she'll eat enough hamburger drippings to give herself pancreatitis for the umpteenth time. When tasty food is available we're all programmed to stock-up.

Unrelated tangent: This week's Newsweek has a short bit about the new slang term "hoyay" crediting TWoP for inventing it. They're reading us! Soon we'll be asked to rule the world!

Word! What a travesty. Do they at least have different criteria for the men 'vs' the women, or is it strictly pounds off? 'Cause Shill, that makes it a diet. Say it with me, d-i-e-t. JUST LIKE Weight Watchers, or Jenny Freaking Craig, or South Beach. A diet. And (IMO) everyone knows that men lose poundage differently than women. A man can cut out sodas and drop a few quickly. A woman doesn't drop an ounce without serious exercise. And even then, she's apt to gain weight in muscle mass long before she drops weight in fat.

Sheesh. I'm training for a 5K. I'm gaining weight. I guess that means I'm a phailure.

Hexele: For the competition, you are judged on the percentage of weight lost, not just the total pounds lost. For instance, the dieter who got kicked off was "only" 15% of the way to her goal (in three weeks!!!). 3 of the 5 were already 25-30% of the way to their goals.

It is a well-known fact that losing too much weight in too short a time makes you lose muscle mass, and your metabolism slows down -- the body becomes efficient at storing fat. Unless these folks manage to keep exercising several hours a day and staying away from all the foods Shill has told them to cut out (unrealistic), they're going to gain the weight back plus more. I would LOVE to know if any of last year's WLC folks have gained weight since the spotlight's been off them -- I'd be willing to bet that they have (except Shill's pets Thomas & Jim, of course). Even the U.S. government's own guidelines state that 1-2 lbs/week is considered a "healthy weight loss," but I guess that's not dramatic enough for TV.

I sort of enjoyed last year's WLC because a lot of the challengers had interesting personal backgrounds and struggles but this year's challenge is just wrong on so many levels.

Human beings eat when the guy doesn't call or the kids are climbing the curtains or the promotion didn't come through.Not just the biological need to stave off famine or hedge against winter. Emotional eating may not be healthy, but it isn't a crime, as Phil wants us to believe. The problem is, for all of the way modern humans cope-- nicotine, narcotics, rage, television, McDonald's--Phil is most distressed by the latter, and it is hardly because it compromises the health. It is because extra poundage compromises the visual, and for Phil, that is unacceptable.

If he were such a health fanatic he'd have ventured into the career area of health and nutrition. He''s a swimsuit photographer at heart. His advice brings to mind the old New Yorker cartoon: I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.

He can't very well speak out against television. Where would he be without television?

Last night Dr. Shill was on Entertainment Tonight, commenting on Team Spousal Abuse from The Amazing Race 6, who was elimated the night before. According to Phil, he can't tell if they're for real unless he has a more in depth session with them - it seems Dr. Shill viewers will be treated to yet another spousal abuse show, with Jonathan and Victoria as the "celebrity guests".

Dr. Shill and Team Shrill. Oh joy.

On radio, seminars and in packaged video series starting at $300. I was reading an expose on the frightening Dr James Dobson (he of the "family focus beat your kids the bible is inerrant I'm sorry I diddled my partner's wife") and was stunned and sickened that he receives reams of mail from women who say,"I didn't have a father, you're my father now." (This was verified by former staffers who realized whom they were dealing with and ran screaming from his employ).

I can see Phil replacing his "old fashioned values" jot by jot until he is speaking the truly archaic language of the patriarch, which confused, damaged people lap up. If Phil were surrounded by a table full of peers, who simply demanded he defend his ideas(as a dissertation) in an intelligent, forthright way,he would eventually feel so threatened he would bubble over and let fly with rancor. He is one confrontation away from a paparazzi/Tyson tussle and I'm loopy with anticipation.

Didn't we create "snark" also? We want our full credit here!

Ick.

Double-triple ick.

You nailed it. Shill will not be happy until he drags us kicking and screaming (or in the case of his fans, panting and moaning) back to 1956. Where Daddy comes home to a clean well-run house and his pretty petite wife and clean well-adjusted children (Davey is going out for football and Muffy is practicing her cheerleading!). Never mind that those who don't look to the past with rose-colored glasses knew that Daddy had two belts in the club car of the commuter train before he came home (right after he nailed his secretary on the desk), that Mom is blanked out on valium and secretly cuts herself. Davey is so far in the closet he could be mistaken for a veal calf. And Muffy is dumb as a sack of hair. And by the way, the neighbors are planning this new thing they heard about when they were out in swinging San Fran on vacation: a Key Party!

But they're such a nice looking family and they keep such a pretty yard!

And when Daddy's secretary is unable to obtain a Mexican abortion, Daddy will leave Mummy and pay her a stipend called "alimony" and Mummy will be ever so grateful because she can't get credit or real estate in her own name. As Phyliss Schlafly used to warn about the ERA,"It'll make men stop acting like men!"

I'll bet Phil thinks Phyliss is right on and sexy as hell. Spinach.

I think we've just found the next Dr. Phil Family...

https://www.drphil.com/drphilplugger/templa...ugId=D122700001