I’m gonna rant a bit. And rave, too. Ready?

Let’s go! If you’re a fan of the Real Housewives of New York (heck, even if you’re not), you’ve probably heard of fan favorite Bethenny Frankel. She’s sassy, she’s smart, and she’s certainly not a typical housewife (whatever that is in this day and age). Well, she recently announced her engagement and soon thereafter it sounds like she was forced by celeb blogger Perez Hilton to reveal her pregnancy.

So not cool. Of course, once the news leaked about her two-month pregnancy, she did the classy thing and approached PEOPLE with the exclusive and tweeted about it, others wrote about it, voila! It became public fodder.

When certain things in life are sacred and you don’t even have the chance to tell your in-laws yet, there are lines that must be drawn that you don’t cross as a media hound. Sure, you’re in the public eye but two months pregnant means you’re barely showing and are praying everything is okay since you haven’t even heard the heartbeat yet. Was it truly necessary to force the story? Why not just let things be and allow Bethenny to tell the world on her terms? There are very few things other than a pregnancy or engagement that could be less personal, don’t ya think?

Would love to hear your thoughts. Do you think it’s par for the course by being in the public eye or do you think Perez crossed the line and violated her privacy?

[Photo: Patrick McMullan]

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Remember when the stunning Princess Diana was alive and she did her best to shield her princes from the spotlight? You gotta give her props for wanting them to grow up as normal as possible, all things considered.

Not to compare her to Jason Priestley or anything but hey, 90210 alums are in a class by themselves! <grin> Jason was spotted at the international airport in Toronto with his wife, two-year-old daughter, Ava Veronica, and three-month-old son. Unnamed. Well, suffice it to say he has a name but we don’t know what it is! Rumor has it the kid is named Dashiell, but they haven’t confirmed their son’s name yet publicly.

Jason’s goal is to keep his private life private. You know what? Good for him. I’m not sure if that would include something as basic as a child’s name versus perhaps revealing details about his private life on a more personal level but whatever it is, he is protecting his private life and consequently his family.

Could you imagine what it would be like to open a weekly magazine to see your family’s faces all over the place? Granted, I’ve heard some celebrities yearn for the face time because these mags keep their personal stock on the high end but when it comes to shielding their privacy, he’s certainly trying to keep things hush-hush and, in this case, the cutie pie on the QT.

So, whaddya think? Does being public about the basics of your personal life come with the celebrity territory or should more celebrities draw the line in the sense that work is work and personal life is off limits?

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Ah, the power of celebrity. Is there a war going on in Iraq? A health care debate here on American soil? The pending World Series at our fingertips? That would be yes, yes, and oh, yeah. And then there’s the world of Tinseltown. Consider it escapism if you will and how refreshing it is to simply hear about celebs instead of life or death serious situations.

Such is the case of Suri Cruise. We haven’t heard about the little offspring of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise now, have we? They’ve managed to keep her somewhat out of the spotlight from time to time though the occasional photo op does not disappoint. I had to wonder though: what happened to his adopted daughter and son, Isabella and Connor?

Do they feel like the ugly stepsisters a la Cinderella since they’re hardly ever photographed or in the news? Or perhaps they prefer to fly under the radar and consider it a blessing since their dad is uber-famous? Hmmm. You gotta wonder why we hardly ever hear about the 17-year-old and 14-year-old kids. Maybe they just like going to soccer practice and studying for the SATs without the photogs snapping away at their every move. Or maybe there’s not as much of a demand since Suri is genetically produced from Katie and Tom (ok, how awkward did that sound? haha) and Isabella and Connor aren’t?

I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem like equal opportunity shine time to me. What do you think: do certain siblings get “star” treatment while others get shafted?

What do you do if you’re a Major League Baseball player’s spouse who just went into labor as your husband is on the mound in the playoffs? If you’re Heidi Strobel, you send a text message to the team’s traveling secretary, that’s what.

“I’m in the hospital going into labor. Could you please tell Cole as soon as he’s done pitching?”

Her husband, Cole Hamels, was the starting pitcher of Game 2 for his team, the Phillies, as they duked it out with the Colorado Rockies. Heidi sent the text at approximately 4 p.m. when she went into labor and actually told the team’s traveling secretary  to alert her husband after his time on the mound was done.

At the end of the fifth inning, he was pulled out of the game as  a pinch hitter took his place in the line-up. At that point in time, Cole got word his son was about to enter the world and off he went! Cole left Citizens Bank Park to jet to Lankenau Hospital in the suburbs of Philly.

Their healthy first child, Caleb, was born and, without skipping a beat, his ballplayer Dad will not miss a rotation. After all, he’ll join his team in Denver for the third and fourth games of the series. Since he’s a starting pitcher, it’s likely that he won’t pitch again until the next division series, assuming the Phillies prevail over the Rockies.

[Photo: Fox]

Here’s a hypothetical question for you: If you were in labor and your husband was on the mound or in an intense meeting of his profession, would you interrupt it or let the show go on until his work was done?

The Duggars

Okay, by now you’ve heard of them, right? Surely, you have heard of the Duggars. They’re the stars of TLC’s brand new show, 18 Kids and Counting, featuring their household of kids (dare I say it? More like two baseball teams) and now they’ve welcomed their first grandchild into the world.

In fact, a special will air this Tuesday at 9 p.m. as the First Grandduggar. Mackynzie Renee is the first grandchild to Jim Bob and Michelle and has arrived in the world with 17 aunts and uncles! Plus, another aunt or uncle will be born in 2010 as Michelle is expecting her 19th (yes, as in 19!) child this coming spring.

Mackynzie was born in her parents’ house, Joshua and Anna, as a midwife and doula attended the birth. With this many kids and an unusual family size, you simply have to wonder: Is this family cashing in and leveraging their kids as bait to the network? Is it a way for them to earn a living like any other family or are they sensationalizing their story? Hmmmm.

As peculiar as it is, at least Josh has had his share of child-rearing. As the eldest of their brood, he likely grew up helping his younger siblings with their homework, assisting with household chores, and the like.  That said, one can only imagine how they won’t lack in the department of finding a babysitter or nanny to help watch Mackynzie!

Do you think this family is cashing in on their unique circumstance or do you think all’s fair in love and war in terms of making a living however they can get it?

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Alright, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard the story revolving around David Letterman and an extortion plot. He revealed on Thursday’s edition of The Late Show that he was a victim of an alleged plot by a producer at CBS News. Apparently there was a demand of $2 million or else!  As such, Letterman confessed on-air about sexual liaisons with members of his staff.

Aside from the latest headline, in the past Letterman was stalked and his son was a target for kidnapping and he’s also had heart health issues. So, what happens when you’re just a little kid with a famous mom or dad (or, in some cases, both)? You’re trying to grow up into a normal life consisting of play dates, nap time, and piano lessons.

Well, Harry Joseph Letterman will turn six years old this November. How do you try to shield a child from the headlines especially assuming he’s already in kindergarten? When celebrities are in the news, in particular for something less-than-flattering, you have to wonder how can they effectively shield their child? I commend Letterman for addressing the issue on-air to his audience but you have to contemplate how the situation can impact his son. Hopefully he’s too young to truly understand what’s going on despite the buzz that may be going on among his classmates’ parents proverbial water cooler.

Nevertheless, it’s always a shame when celebs are dealing with their own demons and need to add a significant consideration of what to tell their kid, if anything.

How do you think celebrity parents can shield their kid from the news?

Sometimes you have to wonder about the lives of celebrities. Truly wonder. As in, they truly don’t live normal lives. Yeah, we already knew that, but don’t their lives end up resembling a caged animal in a zoo more than a liberated citizen in this country? Look, the monkey is actually… wait for it… peeling a banana! Wow, major accomplishment!

Enter Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Granted, they’re at the upper echelon when it comes to A-listers of the A-list but apparently they went to get ice cream in Jordan. They took their twins to get ice cream. This, my friend, has become news. For real? They also visited refugees in Syria related to Angelina’s work with the U.N. Now that, to me, is headline news!

I think we put celebrities on too much of a pedestal. Way too high of a pedestal, that is. Do you take your children to get ice cream? Isn’t that a normal thing to do? Maybe that’s why it made headlines. After all, here are two wealthy, successful actors doing something that regular folks do on a daily basis. Why make news of it? It’s probably because their children are rarely seen in public. Again, could you imagine raising kids to have photographers following their every move? To have sleazy people scrounging through your garbage? To truly live under a microscope? I commend Jolie for doing goodwill work but just wish some of the minutiae wasn’t magnified as some of the truly substantial things like her work get downplayed.

I won’t start my soapbox rant of how professors doing research on cancer or volunteers across the country are making a difference for various causes and how they get overlooked. Rather, we’ll just focus on the high pedestal we put celebs on for “newsworthy” things that aren’t so significant when you truly think about it. Although some people enjoy celeb stuff as an escape and hey, we all know entertainment is an escape anyway, can we just keep our feet on the ground here for a sec, please?

They went to get ice cream. Big deal. Get over it. Let’s focus on some more important things and give them their privacy, ‘k?

Do you think magazines and websites publish trivial headlines because they think there’s a demand for it? Or is the demand being fed by the publications which choose to publish such “breaking news?”

[Photo: AP]