Things today just seem a little out of whack

Is it just me, or have there been plenty of signs the world – our world – is going a little nuts lately

Consider:

–A father pumps his teenage daughter’s laptop full of bullets because she posted an anti-parent rant on Facebook and then he posted his own video, showing his gunplay with her laptop with an accompanying commentary about how screwed up his daughter was.

The really scary part was how many people applauded the father for his parental handiwork. OK, folks, raise your hands if you really, firmly believe that public humiliation of your teenager is good strategy. I’d like an update on this dysfunctional family in five years.

–The Grammys television show was well on its way of appealing to music fans across generational lines when it interrupted sanity with a performance of “Roman Holiday” by best new artist nominee Nicki Minaj.

The Internet site HitFix summed up her performance best: “It was a theatrical interpretation of hell, though viewers were indiscriminately and unknowingly cast there within the first few notes.”

I have to wonder what the producer of that piece of awfulness was thinking.

–Also from the Grammys (and thanks to friend and Illinois publisher Jim Shrader for finding this little tidbit), more than a handful of young women tweeted (a verb that identifies a post on the social media site Twitter) in the aftermath of Chris Brown’s performance that they wouldn’t mind if Brown beat them.

Brown, if you remember, was charged three years ago with assaulting his ex-girlfriend Rihanna, who also performed at “The 54^th Annual Grammys Awards.” It was not immediately clear if that fact bothered either one of them.

–To appease the Catholic Church, President Barack Obama backtracked on his administration’s proposed requirement that Catholic hospitals, universities and so on provide birth control to employees of those institutions.

To solve the dilemma and hold the Catholic bishops at bay, the administration said it would require the church’s contracted insurance companies to provide the assistance – free – to any woman who wanted it.

Someone please tell the government that there are unintended consequences when it starts requiring the private sector to give away stuff for free.

–In the aftermath of the tragic deaths of two small boys whose father murdered them and set his house on fire – and who was certifiably mentally ill – at least one television network aired an hour-long special on the horrible circumstances surrounding their death, guaranteeing severe depression for anyone who watched it.

The question is why would anyone want to watch an hour-long special on that particular case especially when there did not appear to be substantial new information?

I don’t get it. Sweeps month? Come on.

–An organization called One Million Moms, which has 40,000 members (so I assume the “one million” thing is wishful thinking), called for a boycott of JC Penney stores because the retail chain’s new spokesperson is Ellen DeGeneres, who is arguably America’s most likeable lesbian, although if you have financial questions perhaps Suze Orman ranks a little higher.

I mean, really, Ellen DeGeneres?

Anyway, reports are that the boycott hasn’t worked because a number of people took offense to the narrow-minded call to boycott JC Penney and actually went and shopped there, buying all sorts of merchandise.

I could find no evidence that the Million Moms organization also is boycotting Cover Girl cosmetics for which DeGeneres also is a spokesperson. I’m not sure what that means.

Full disclosure: I have a brother-in-law who works for JC Penney and he likes his job. So, I have kind of a personal stake in the store’s success.

–Republican strategist Karl Rove said he was offended by Clint Eastwood’s “It’s Halftime, America” commercial for Chrysler because it furthered a Democratic agenda.

I mean this is really nuts.

If he was talking about the government’s bailout of Chrysler and GM, he must have missed the part about it being suggested first by the lame duck Bush administration of which he was once a part.

And, to suggest Eastwood was a Democratic shill, well… 

If I were Rove, I’d watch my back.

I can hear Eastwood now.

“You've got to ask yourself one question, Mr. Rove, ‘Do I feel lucky?’”

You know the next line.

Follow Dick Farrell on Facebook and Twitter (dfarrell_dover).