Baby News

In the span of only a few months, 4-year-old Marla Olmstead rocketed from total obscurity into international renown — and sold over 0000 dollars worth of paintings. She was compared to Kandinsky and Pollock, and called “a budding Picasso.” Inside Edition, The Jane Pauley Show, and NPR did pieces, and The Today Show and Good Morning America got in a bidding war over an appearance by the bashful toddler. There was talk of corporate sponsorship, with the family fielding calls from The Gap and Crayola. But not all of the attention was positive. From the beginning, many faulted her parents for exposing Marla to the glare of the media and accused the couple of exploiting their daughter for financial gain. Others felt her work was, in fact, comparable to the great Abstract Expressionists — but saw this as emblematic of the meaninglessness of Modern Art. “She is painting exactly as all the adult paintings have been in the past 50 years, but painting like a child, too. That is what everybody things but they don’t dare to say it,” said Oggi, the leading Italian weekly. Through no intention of her own, Marla revived the age-old question, ‘what is art?’ And then, five months into Marla’s new life as a celebrity and just short of her fifth birthday, a bombshell dropped. CBS’ 60 Minutes aired an exposé suggesting strongly that the paintings were painted by her father, himself an amateur painter. As quickly as the public built Marla up, they tore her down. The New York Post asked …

At 2 years old, Elise Tan-Roberts has one of the world’s highest IQs. —————————————– The majority of parents believe their children are geniuses, but toddler Elise Tan-Roberts has the official seal of approval to back up the boast.. At 2 years and 4 months old, Elise becomes the youngest member ever of the high IQ fraternity Mensa . Not only does Elise know her shapes, but the London resident also can count in Spanish. But her favorite thing to do is recite world capitals. She knows 35 of them, including Paris,Tokyo and Washington DC Little Elise’s IQ is an astonishing 156. Compare that to Albert Einstein’s 160, and you realize just how smart Elise really is considering she still has so much to learn. Though Mensa can only test people older than 10, Elise was accepted because of a previous “evidence application” that confirmed her IQ score was within the top 2 percent of the population, according to British Mensa’s Web site. Before Elise took Mensa’s youngest-ever honors, the title of youngest female ever admitted to Mensa was held by Georgia Brown. Georgia had been the youngest girl when she joined in 2007 at 1041 days old. The youngest boy and youngest member ever accepted was Ben Woods, who joined Mensa in the 1990s at 1035 days old, according to Mensa’s Web site. Elise was 845 days old when she joined the international high IQ club. CONTINUE STORY: abcnews.go.com [MAY 2009]

Kids group Ralph’s World stopped by to perform songs from their new CD, The Rhyming Circus in stores now. Read more at CW11.com: weblogs.cw11.com

Aired January 1, 2010 on Al-Nas TV – Egyptian Man Brings 3-Year-Old Daughter to Tears, Forcing Her to Demonstrate Her Koran-Reciting Skills Live on TV – Courtesy of MEMRI TV – via www.atheistmedia.com -

We snuck out into the middle of Broad Street to snap a pic in front of City Hall and all the crowds. When Will raised his hands for the picture, cheers erupted. So he continued to repeat the gesture, getting wild response from the crowd on both sides of the street up and down the street as far as we could see. We couldn’t have planned this if we practiced and practiced. I wish the video was longer.