This Sunday’s New York Times has an article that took my breath away. It follows the journey of a teenage girl who opts for the lap band in order to cure her of morbid obesity. The story is heart wrenching in every way, from the sad fact that a teenage girl would weigh close to 300 pounds to the ultimate failure of the device and our medical system.

Currently Allergan is trying to get the FDA to to allow it to market the Lap-Band to patients as young as 14. This is a phenomenal disaster in so many ways I’m not quite sure where to begin.

The Lap-Band restricts the size of the patient’s stomach so that they feel full. It’s not a surgery without risk but of course the folks who are getting the Lap-Band are already at risk for a host of terribly debilitating and life threatening diseases. The Lap-Band isn’t about getting cute, it’s a medical Hail Mary.

In restricting the size of a patient’s stomach, the Lap-Band also restricts a patient’s ability to get nutrition. Lap-Band recipients are told to take vitamins, but because of the size of their stomachs the vitamins are very uncomfortable to swallow. I have a hard time swallowing vitamins and I assure you I have the palate of a billy goat and a rather average sized stomach.

There are countless stories about Lap-Band patients and their misery post operatively. Common sense dictates that when someone needs to lose half their body weight it’s a medical issue, a behavioral issue and a psychological issue. A 45 minute surgery is more of an introduction to the solution than it is an ending.

It is alarming that Allergen would seek to make Lap-Bands available to 14 year olds. It is not alarming that Allergen wants to do business with teens. Allergen is a business and it operates to please it’s shareholders. What is alarming that there is a growing market for Lap-Bands with teens both literally and figuratively.

As I mentioned before Lap-Bands are the Hail Mary of medicine. When a patient gets a Lap-Band that means that diets, therapy, exercise, and behavior modification have failed. The tremendous risk of surgery is overshadowed by the risk of diseases such as diabetes and heart failure.

Every parent, educator and ally of children should be wondering how we can affect change so that 14 year olds never need to lose half their body weight. Every lawmaker who thinks they can cut physical education out of the school day needs to know that it’s going to cost our country hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat those children who are unable to work and who will require medical care that healthy sized folks don’t require. Every school board that serves crap lunches should know that they’ve effectively slapped every child in the face, hard, when they serve them dubious food.

Every time high fructose corn syrup (or Corn Sugar) is added to a food it should have a surgeon general’s warning on it much like a pack of cigarettes. This will attack your liver and send your pancreas into a tailspin. Your body doesn’t know what to do with this much sucrose.

And every time we tell ourselves that a ten year old has “baby fat” and then we reward him with a Snickers Bar we should be ashamed. Because it hurts our kids. It’s Munchausen’s by Twinkie.

It’s entirely possible that your breakfast cereal has more sugar in it than your homemade cake or cookies.

It’s probably not good medicine to give Lap-Bands to teenagers, but Allergan isn’t their parent. Let’s please look at articles like this and be shocked into doing something good for our kids, all of our kids.

If these kids feel ashamed for being fat we should all feel shame for making them that way.

We have a good number of celebrity parents roaming the neighborhood. The kids go to school and to camp with kids whose families have security plans. Some of the parents are film actors, some are TV, some are easily recognized and others just look familiar because they’re in everything. It’s fun to see my friends pop up on screens large and small but I’ve never felt intimated or star struck by any of their appearances.

Until this week.

Jane has a very good friend at school whose family we trust. When Alexander had his eye surgery I asked if Jane could stay there. It’s just a solid home with two involved parents and a Grandmother that lives nearby and lends a hand every now and then. I’d met the Grandma and I knew that she had directed Wayne’s World and some other stuff and I knew that she drove a modest car and smiled brightly when talking about her granddaughter. That’s all I knew.

I was watching TV the other night when a promo came on for Suburgatory which made me think of the Pet Shop Boys song Suburbia which then made me think of my all time favorite movie when I was a teen, Suburbia. I watched that movie dozens of times, wearing out the tape when the kid woke up with a snail on his face.

For a kid who grew up surrounded by south bay skate punks Suburbia was a film that celebrated my heroes. It spoke to me. Flea was in it, you can’t get more important than Flea in 1984 (or 1885, 86, 87 and parts of 92).

So I did what every middle aged, middle class, suburban housewife does on a Tuesday night. I flipped open my iPad2 while sitting up in bed and googled Suburbia to see if I could find a copy of it for sale.

Of course Suburbia has it’s own Wikipedia page so I started to scroll through that and I saw that the Suburbia was written and directed by Penelope Spheeris. Interesting.

Then I followed the hyperlink and saw that Penelope Spheeris had directed some other things and I looked at her picture and went Penelope Fucking Spheeris! That’s the Grandma. She’s my Steven Spielberg, she’s my Joe DiMaggio… she’s the only woman in Hollywood that I’m DYING to sit down with and ask her a million questions and she’s been to my home a half dozen times but I’ve been busy talking to her about kids. As if kids matter…

It’s been THREE hours since my last blog post and eighty gazillion publicists have sent me 732 pitches for holiday gift guides. I’m deleting them all, I hope you’ll forgive me when I delete the follow up emails too.

My gift guide is almost done. I’ll suggest a few items that I’ve bought myself this year. That is all. I won’t suggest anything I don’t own and know to be wonderful. You can shop the sales if you want or if you’re like me you’ll shop this week and use an app to get a price adjustment next week.

Actually if you’re really like me you’ll you’re on your way to the grocery store to buy stuff for the food pantry, because stocking up for holiday toys that no one really cares about can be fun, but it’s a luxury and it’s good to be cognizant of luxuries.

In the coming days I’m going to give you details of my trip and why Mexico is my new old favorite, I’ll tell you about my upgraded mattress, and why Mr. G. and I are going to start a new family tradition of flying like the president and vice president.

I will not recommend toys and games for your children for the holidays because if your kids want a toy or a game they’ve probably already told you about it. I will not recommend a special holiday drink because I’m Jewish, we just hold up a glass of wine, say l’chaim and get on with the show.

Buy yourself something nice, buy a stranger something nice. If you want to give for the holidays try giving Gideon and Leah the chance to go to High School.

BlogWorldLA is good and I’m sure it will be fun but epic? Okay, short and sweet here… the kids from Shepherds School need an 8th Grade, in another year they’ll need a 9th grade. We need an Epic Change.

BlogWorld should be great fun. I’ll be speaking about privacy there and I really do hope someone shows up at my session. If you want to have a great discussion about how to blog very personally (I think I do that) without telling other people’s stories. I ‘ll also be giving you a list of action items to keep your information safely buried on the web.

Did you know that children are victims of identity theft? If you’re blogging (facebooking, twittering, G+’ing) about your kids you really need to be mindful.

There are a ton of great sessions at BlogWorld and I’m looking forward to them. I know a bunch of you will be all, “I can’t come to LA because I have a life…” or some other wacky excuse. So there’s a BlogWorldExpo Virtual Ticket. This will let you stream the sessions live. If you’re in an office and reading this as part of your job you know you should be streaming BlogWorld and we both know your boss will pay for it.

So here’s what I need you to do. Use the affiliate link from this page to buy your BlogWorld virtual pass and $75 will be donated straight to EpicChange so that Leah and Gideon can have an 8th grade classroom. Use the coupon code BWEVIP20 for an additional discount on your in person ticket.

That’s EpicBlogWorld.

I promise I’ll get back to blogging about misbehavior just as soon as we get this school built.

This morning I read a post about how to get more traffic. It’s a good post, and like any blog post it’s a good beginning. Because blogs are short… they’re so short that blog isn’t even the word, they were Web Logs but bloggers can’t even be bothered to have seven letters and a space involved.

I digress. Everyone wants to know how to get more traffic to their site.

I don’t know with great authority, no one does. I know that if you try to do what someone else is doing it won’t work.

I can’t be like Ciaran because only one person can be Momfluential. I can’t be like Debbie because if I said Throat Punch it would be weird. I don’t disagree with Helen Jane, but she’s a vague about how to create that train wreck.

I might have hyperlinked back to those women because they have significant audiences and my hope is that my link baiting them they’ll share this post with their audiences.

I can help you avoid pitfalls that I’ve personally experienced.

Giveaways are incredibly time consuming and will not bring you a community or readers. You’ll get passers by who are unlikely to read you again.

Images are a great way for people to find you and should be well named. I do not use images because I’m slow to learn.

Do not automate twitter to share every post. The only person who can break this rule is Guy Kawasaki. I don’t know why Guy can overshare and no one else can, I just know that’s how it works.

Don’t join a StumbleUpon group. Those kids at StumbleUpon are smarter than any blogger, their algorithm will start ignoring you and StumbleUpon traffic is so delightful you wouldn’t want to lose that.

Don’t reprint a press release. It doesn’t count as quality content and I’m not visiting your site to get the same content that 2,000 other bloggers are publishing.

The things that you can do to get readers:

Tell people you’re a blogger. Add a signature to your emails.

Generously share other people’s content on your social channels like Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. Share different stuff on each channel.

Say something outrageous, memorable or poignant. Make your audience love your community.

Write every day, or as close as you can.

Respect your audience and don’t bullshit them about loving a product that no one in their right mind could love.

Above all else every blogger should know that they’re incredibly privileged that anyone wants to read anything they’ve written. Assume your audience is smarter than you are and never pander to them or to advertisers. People want, and deserve, honest writing that you can’t get from a glossy sell out space.

Don’t be an asshole. People will read.

Do NOT miss a minute of this.

Sometime in the past few years a grifter entered my life. An honest to goodness con-artist with a story that would make the producers over at Dateline slobber. In the past three months there have been phone calls from a half dozen people owed money, law enforcement and ex spouses. In the past week it has come to my attention that the FBI is sniffing around, that law enforcement and judges are pissed that this person is on the streets.

There was an arrest followed by a few days in jail and then there was a large sum of cash produced which released this person from some of the fraud charges against them. Some people will get some of their money back, though surely not all. While our lovely neighborhood grifter was languishing in the LA County Jail the non custodial parent worked the phones in an attempt to locate their children. I passed along the phone numbers that I had available to me.

This makes me a villain.

I’m really frustrated and angry. I’m angry with myself for allowing someone into my life that my husband didn’t like. When we met this person he was suspicious of the stories, the houses and the cars. He stayed away, I ignored a few signs (and a bounced check to my favorite dog trainer ever) and proceeded to let this person into my life.

I would hear stories about the spouse and dutifully retell them to Mr. G. in an attempt to explain why there was only one parent. He would nod and say, “There are two sides to every story.”

Why don’t I listen to my husband?

A housekeeper wasn’t paid for several weeks. She showed up at my door weeping. I loaned her money but distanced myself ever so slightly from the friendship.

There were websites devoted to the frauds this person perpetrated online. This person was able to make them go away. New and similar complaints are popping up.

Two women I know and respect are collectively owed more than ten thousand dollars.

But still I’m the villain.

I’m sad that a few people will exit my life because of this. It’s clear that at least one person will no longer speak to me or to my husband. I’m not crushed by this because I fully expect that the full story will come out when more victims of the fraud come forward. I also expect that this person isn’t finished with stealing from people, from businesses and from marriages (yes there appears to be one spouse in his/her crosshairs that’s facilitating real estate scams, lending money and behaving rather flirtatiously).

Only the most sophisticated liar could find a way to convince a community that I was somehow responsible for their children ending up with the other parent. Logic tells us that the nine felonies pending and last year’s arrest for similar criminal activities are what made a judge think the children belonged somewhere else.

I’m not even sure why I feel compelled to blog about this. I’ve held this person’s secrets for a very long time. Bankruptcy, repossessed cars, bounced checks, swindled employees…. maybe my secret keeping is what allows a con like this to be successful? This person was so good in garnering my sympathy that I suspended all good sense for the better part of two years. I turned a blind eye to signs that no one else would have missed.

What infuriates me about this most isn’t that I’ll lose friends that I care about. I know I will and that’s a risk I took when I did the right thing for those children. I didn’t remove children from a house. I didn’t track anyone down. I gave a non custodial parent (who incidentally was the only parent not in jail and remains the only parent not on probation) a phone number to call. If the children were “taken away” it was by a judge AND by the felonious parent’s actions, not by anyone else’s.

The thing about losing these friends? I think they’re being taken for a ride as I was.

I’m stunned that something so otherworldly has entered my life. I feel like I opened my front door and laid out a welcome mat for evil. The most upsetting part of all is that I feel like I can’t trust my own instincts. That sucks.

I’m not in shul today. The kids are in school.

Every year we’re a little more removed from Jewish tradition. I suppose that’s my fault, I’m the mom, and I come from the more observant home. The kids go to a church school. They say it’s not a church school, but they’re in chapel three times a week and they’re one of a small number of schools that’s actually open today. So church it is on the holiest day of the year.

I tried to explain to the kids that these are the days of awe. I asked them to reflect on the year and to will themselves to be a little better and a little kinder in the next year. “Like a resolution?” One asked.

Like a resolution.

I don’t believe that G-d is sitting in front of ancient scrolls and writing me into the book of life or the book of death. On the off chance that I’m wrong I’m pretty sure I won’t get put in the book of death for not praying in a language I don’t understand. I think he’s cool with me. I’m a good person, flawed, but basically doing good things.

Interestingly my husband, who would rather walk on hot coals than sit in temple, is insisting that our son is Bar Mitzvahed. We don’t really practice at home more than just lighting candles for Hanukkah. I’m more than a little unhappy that Mr. G. wants to have Alexander study a dead language for two years and learn stories that Mr. G. lovingly refers to as Jewish Fables.

As much as I don’t believe, I do. I’d be sad if I had goyim for Grandchildren, but I’m not all that interested in practicing Judaism. Maybe in these days of awe us Gottliebs can decide how much any of this matters.

My inbox is filling up with marketers and publicists who want to get The Mommy Bloggers to talk about their stuff.

Since everyone knows that The Mommy Bloggers are a homogenous group I thought I’d give you a list of pitches that will never work for me. I’m pretty sure they work for everyone else otherwise I wouldn’t get a dozen of these every hour.

• I won’t post a photo of a celebrity wearing your clothing. I don’t care about celebrities. I care about bloggers.
• I won’t bring my children to your event. They are not bloggers.
• I don’t really talk about what I wear until after I’ve purchased it so sending me high resolution photos isn’t really a great idea.
• I don’t keep clothes that people send me, so sending me samples is also not a great idea.
• My husband doesn’t smoke cigars or wear ties
• My dog doesn’t wear clothes.
• I can’t talk about the gifts I’ve bought for anyone because they read my blog. So you can skip all the gift guides. I did one once, it was a lot of work.
• I won’t tell you what we’re planning to wear for Halloween, but that’s just because no one cares
• I don’t really want to work hard, so if your pitch looks like work then it won’t get read.
• Your new app may be great, but since the only app I’ve ever written about is iFart. It is the only app worth  writing about.
• Do not add me to constant contact, icontact or any other mass email list. There is no reason for me to  care about the same content everyone else is getting.
• If you didn’t come from my womb don’t call me Mom, Mommy or Mami. I’m not your mother, I’m Mrs. Gottlieb, address your emails appropriately.
• I don’t talk about TV shows so you can probably skip those, I’m basically a pop culture disaster.
• If you’re having a contest you can buy an ad but word of mouth on something with a huge budget? Only an idiot would pick up that flaming baton

Pitches that do work

• I do love to talk about my friend’s successes so connecting with me on various social networks is a good idea.
• Lend me a car
• Show me how you build your cars
• Lend me a computer
• Give my kids an experience that I can’t provide them with (and keep in mind that I can provide a lot)
• I will bring my children to your event if you are Tony Hawk.
• Change the world and make it magnificent. I will talk about that for ages.
• Do something good.