In Some Cases, Not the Worst Idea

Thanks to the British researchers who claim to have created viable human sperm from stem cells, we are once again encouraged to say so long to natural fathers. [Earlier: Gifts that Keep on Giving ... With Limits; Today's Betting Line; and No Good Procreators]

While on the one hand it seems unlikely we'll be rushing into a situation anytime soon where we say goodbye to natural pops, there is at least a moment every once in a while when it doesn't seem like a bad idea — such as when you hear about the guy who asked his son to help him dump the body of the prostitute he picked up and killed.

Humoir (un)Limited

There is, perhaps, a touch too much cutesy in combining "humor" and "memoir" into humoir, as in "The 40-Year-Old Version: Humoirs of a Divorced Dad." T4YOVHoaDD is a short collection of essayist — and father of a ninish boy and sixish twin girls — Joel Schwartzberg's ramblings on fatherhood that have appeared on web and page. And while there are passages that seemed culled from a best of Lifetime (the cable channel) collection there are certainly a greater number of scenes described that will suggest a tear from observing the love of father and kid.

Giving the Audience What It Wants

Introducing himself to the readers of MomLogic, Token Dad brings the predictable shtick (e.g., "Moms buy tomatoes ... Dads buy ketchup"), even if is in the unpredictable guise of a SAHD.

He knows his audience. Dads are blunderers challenges no reader in the same was as, say, how a dad did best by crushing his son's hoop star dreams with a single game of one on one. And a cheap laugh is much more fun than how a dad can lose his own anchor and become the neighborhoods, as in "Quiet Chaos," the new movie about a widower with a 10-year-old who just hangs out on a bench. And it is certainly true that the oaf dad in the picture is much more comforting to most than even the most thoughtful tales of European boomers searching for the American GI dad they never knew.

Maybe someday TD will challenge as well as entertain, will transform before his audience from "Stepin Fetchit" to "Go and Get it YourSelf ... and I mean now!" However that will require a change in his audience (hopefully) more than in himself. Still, here's hoping.

Sniff, Sniff

How do the little imps smell?

A recent study by French researchers reached the conclusion that dads treat better those children who look and smell more like them. They were in Senegal for the one study and will be issuing their results from a similar test of folks in France. And, for many reasons, being treated better is key, not least because if you smell better — and children, I'm talking to all of you — you might get a father-made mega toy made from toys, like those created by artist Robert Bradford. If, on the other hand you smell (and behave) poorly, you might end up doubley maced by your dad and with a 20-foot chain around you.

Comic With Some Pop

Celebrate Jiggs, the dad who went from highs to lows in his search of the comfort of the middle in the comic "Bringing Up Father." This week's objet d'eBay is a first day cover of the 1995 issue (part of the comic strip classics commemoritives).

Jiggs — and wife Maggie, daughter Nora and son Sonny/Ethelbert — were the creation of George McManus, although the idea of a father struggling to find some comfort in life did survive under different author/artists to the year 2000, 46 years following his death.

Seek and Hide

Can a father both hide from and enjoy the success he built with a child? Apparently he can if he is Richard Williams, who built the dream that daughters Venus and Serena will live in today's Wimbledon final, but who will be far from the stadium as the sisters battle for tennis supremacy (and top billing in their own "rivalry"). [Earlier: Venus Risen]

Given his conflicted nature at having his daughters battle it out, one almost thinks Williams pere should have gone into business with his daughters blowing things up in order to really enjoy the day.

Tommin' Dad

Should Ray Romano be taken to task as the "Uncle Tom" of fatherhood? The father of three boys and a girl played the doofus father in "Everybody Loves Raymond" and reprises the idea in his "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" in which he plays a doofus wooly mammoth expectant father.

It is true that critics are not being kind to this cartoon series in its third incarnation and so perhaps this will convince him to head off in a different direction, hopefully more like a real dad. And perhaps no judgment should be rendered until taking a look at his "Men of a Certain Age" dramady beginning in the fall, in which he plays a divorced dad of two still to come. So, maybe judgment should be reserved.

Or maybe we just don't need more doofus dads.

Together in the Workplace

Working father to son can be a dream, as exhibited by the five father-son mutual fund company teams the Wall Street Journal profiled. They talk together, like each other and each seems more successful than the previous.

But not every father and son is ready to work together. A good example are the Jimmy Crews, Sr. at age 64 and Jr. at 41. Over a meat slicer, and an eviction and probably a few other slights and slanders the Crews gents got into a gun fight at the Olustee (Fla.) corral. According to the Baker County: "As the two men were being arrested, the elder Crews told police he would not be calling them the next time. He continued to make threats from the detention center. ...'Y’all are gonna have one hell of a gun fight,' Jimmy Crews Sr. said. 'Next time y’all come, there will be a corpse.' "

Not good for business.

And then there is the middle ground. The MacGrubers, for example, have some issues complicating their workplace that probable should have been worked out better: