Back in the Prattle Again ...

October 12, 2009

OKAY, CHILDREN, the next time your parents tell you it’s a sin to tell a lie, hit ’em with this: New research from the University of California, San Diego shows parents lie to their kids all the time. The study, conducted with the University of Toronto, asked parents about lying to their children either to elicit appropriate behavior or to make them happy. In what they called “parenting by lying,” the researchers found that even parents who most strongly promoted the importance of honesty, routinely fibbed to their kids. In one study, parents reported they told their young children bad things would happen if they didn’t go to bed or eat their vegetables. In another, a mother admitted she told her daughter that if she wrapped up all her pacifiers like gifts, the “Paci-Fairy” would come and give them to children who really needed them. Not that the researchers are necessarily opposed to all lying. Concedes UCSD psychology professor Gail Heyman, “Telling a 2-year-old you don’t like their drawing is just plain cruel.”

THE GROUNDED EAR: Ed Moss, The San Diego Union-Tribune’s high-profile new publisher — and the newest board member of the San Diego Symphony — has donated a quarter of a million dollars of advertising in his newspaper to the orchestra ... Former U-T reporter Lisa Petrillo has a book on Sarah Palin, written for teenage readers, due in December from Morgan-Reynolds Publishers. Meanwhile, Palin’s own book, Going Rogue, penned with a San Diego ghost writer for HarperCollins, is reportedly being co-published by Zondervan, a Christian imprint ... State Attorney General Jerry Brown, a vocal supporter of marriage equality and LGBT rights, will be on hand at the San Diego Museum of Man November 14 to accept a 2009 San Diego Equality Award. Brown, who’s bidding for a return to the governor’s office, has urged the state Supreme Court to overturn Prop. 8, the gay-marriage ban.

PARTY ON: The fourth retirement party for Sheriff Bill Kolender this year was likely the best ever staged for a San Diego public servant. Certainly, it was the biggest. More than 900 of his closest friends turned out at the Town & Country Hotel last Monday to toast Kolender and his 53 years of service in law enforcement — in San Diego, in California and the nation. Amid countless serious and sentimental tributes — including touching vignettes about Bill and his wife, Lois — there was plenty of levity. County CEO Walt Eckert floored the assemblage by unleashing a sterling tenor’s voice as he roasted Kolender to the tune of “Thanks for the Memory.” It was Eckert, too, who got one of the evening’s biggest laughs, deadpanning, “There haven’t been this many members of law enforcement in one room since Francine Busby’s last congressional fund-raiser.” Pastor John Sorenson, “Friar John” to the thousands of San Diego couples he’s married, reminded the gathering of Kolender’s occasional gift for the malaprop. “Bill phoned me a few weeks back,” Sorenson said, “beseeching me to be here tonight to deliver his ‘eulogy.’” And Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger arrived in time to close the show with his own tribute to Kolender’s incredible longevity in law enforcement — as San Diego’s police chief, sheriff and director of the California Youth Authority. “In fact,” said Schwarzenegger, “if I’m not mistaken, Bill handled security for Moses.” Moses should have been so fortunate.

NAME’S SAKE: Now that 40-year-old Junior Seau is heading back to the New England Patriots for another short season, his bull-fighting days would appear to be over. While squaring off last month with a bull at a ring in Ontario, Seau was leveled only momentarily. He came up off the dirt with just minor bruises, he says. Presumably, the Patriots’ doctors will be checking the extent of those bruises . . . Popular radio clowns Jeff & Jer, dropped by Star 94.1 two months ago after protracted contract negotiations, are headed back to the airwaves. The announcement of a new radio home for “The Jeff & Jer Showgram” is imminent . . . Phyllis Schwartz, former president and GM at NBC 7/39 here, has quit NBC for a new home. She’s the new CEO of The Jumpitz, the Hollywood-based children’s media group that combines entertainment and education programming on TV, DVD and in live performance.

FLASHBACK: Real estate broker Jeff Hayes, selling condos at Lake Arrowhead, was showing a unit to a matronly Los Angeles woman. They stepped out onto the condo’s deck, overlooking the water, and the matron was awed. “That lake out there,” she blurted, “does it just go in circles, or can you actually get somewhere on it?”

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