Judgment Days

The stars aligned and this week became father judgment week in pop culture.

American Idol Claymation Aiken, 29, is father to the newborn son of a 50-year-old music producer Jaymes (yes, there might be something in getting a "boys" name that plays into all of this) Foster. [Earlier: Just a Chip Off] Intriguingly, while the conceptive insemination was "artificial" and no non-parental, non-musical partnership appears to be on the horizon, newborn Parker Foster Aiken is officially an Aiken.

Aiken père may draw snickers from those who doubt his talent and his heterosexuality, but so far anyway, as someone pledging to be a part of the baby's life he does stand ready to be judged as a father.

Not so, former senator/potential POTUS John Edwards. The father of three (confirmed) and husband to one — a woman scheduled to succumb to cancer in the foreseeable future — fessed up to an affair (finally) while under pressure to admit to also being the father of her child, which he continues to deny.

There is likely to be some investigation into money paid by organizations and people associated with Edwards to the woman who claims he's the father of her child. And the talk about who the child's father really is will not die down; probably not even after the DNA test results come in from the test Edwards claims he wishes to take post haste.

Wait until that child can google. Imagine what he'll find. Imagine what he'll find that is, if he can get over the famous "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by puritan New England's Jonathan Edwards (are you listening Johnny E.?) that in part offers:

There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God. By the merepleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else but God's mere will had in the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment.

The current Mr. Edwards says both his lord and his wife have forgiven him. Maybe? His children? The child he says isn't his?

And, finally, the jury was both called in and then sent out again on King Tut. He was thought to have died childless at age 19. But now DNA tests are being conducted to see if two infants buried with him were his? Was he a good father?

Not that we want to rush to judgment, but how much time has to pass before time will tell about Tutankhamun, or any other dad?