Recent pop culture events that hit the headlines or just plain intrigue
Britney Spears "It Is What It Is?"
A regular tradition in this neck of the woods is a monthly trip, involving myself and my granddaughter, from the swamps of Delaware to Maryland. Said granddaughter being only two years old and by law must be constrained in a car seat. Said car seat must be strapped into the back seat of my Jeep.
I am taking sweet granddaughter home during these trips and it's a two-hour drive. I really dislike having the child in the back like that while I'm in the front and ostensibly concentrating on driving.
Sweet granddaughter and I really enjoy those trips but it's not always easy. Should granddaughter lose her precious juice or a cherished French fry I must either stop the car to look or fumble around awkwardly from my front seat driver's perch.
So the arrogance of Britney Spears driving with her 4-month-old baby not only not in any sort of car seat, but also being held in her mother's arms while Britney was driving strikes me as especially careless.
Back many years ago when I had a child, we didn't have mandatory child seats. Even so, driving with a baby in one's lap was illegal even then. I simply cannot imagine anything more irresponsible.
Now Britney's story is that she was being chased by paparazzi and that might be true. If nothing else she should have at least put the child in the passenger seat. Driving with a 4-month-old sitting on your lap?
Britney Spears has taken responsibility — well, some of it — for driving with her baby son, Sean Preston, sitting in her lap.
"I made a mistake and so it is what it is, I guess," Spears tells Access Hollywood in an interview that was to air Thursday.
Several photos published Tuesday showed Spears driving her sport utility vehicle in Malibu, Calif., with her 4-month-old son perched on her lap rather than strapped into a car seat in the back seat.
The 24-year-old pop star said she did it because of a "horrifying, frightful encounter with the paparazzi."
In response, X17, the agency that snapped the pictures, said they were snapped "in a very peaceful context, in which photographers exhibited no aggressive behavior."
As I understand it, because the police did not witness Britney with the baby in her lap, she cannot be ticketed.
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