• Jon Gosselin attempted to make peace with Kate Gosselin at a divorce arbitration hearing yesterday by bringing roses to the courtroom. Kate turned them down, "but in the end it all came together and concluded on a happy note." [People]

• According to Jon's lawyer, Mark Heller "it's possible" that The Gosselins divorce could be finalized by the end of the year. [People]
• According to ABC, production has temporarily stopped on Courteney Cox's show Cougar Town "in order for Courteney to deal with a private family matter." [People]
• Whoops! Michael Phelps allegedly owes $23,289.16 in back taxes to the State of California. [TMZ]
• "My old agent used to promote me as the male Keira Knightley. (Laughs) I thought: ‘Well, what does that say about me exactly?' Do I pout a lot or something?"-Robert Pattinson [Mirror]
• Melanie Brown, aka Scary Spice, says that she hasn't completely ruled out posing for Playboy: "Playboy are always asking me to pose for them. They've asked me on and off for the past five years, which I'm really flattered by, but it's all about timing and right now it's not the right time. But I definitely haven't ruled it out." [Mirror]
• One of Seth Meyers' ways of winding down on Sundays after a long night at SNL is to call his parents: "I've called them every Sunday since I went away to college," he says, "We started this family football pool when my brother and I were, like, 9 and 7; I guess they felt it was a key thing, to teach us the building blocks of gambling at a young age. Or maybe they figured it would always give us a reason to call home. I lost $10 last week." [NYTimes]
• "Not too long ago. my mum ran into one nun at home, who'd known me, and the nun told her, 'Oh my God, I watched the "She-Wolf" video, and Shakira looks phenomenal in it! I love how she looks, how she does the splits, and how flexible her legs are.' This was an 80-year-old nun. Times are changing."-Shakira [Guardian]
• Jennifer Aniston eats french fries. Is it because she's lonely? Because Angelina Jolie "stole" her husband away? Because she desperately wants a child?! Or maybe, just maybe, she eats fries because—gasp!—she likes them?! [E!]
• John Travolta thanked his neighbors in Ocala, Florida at a recent screening of his new film, Old Dogs, for the support they showed his family after the death of his son, Jett: "We know that we have a community. We know that we have friends. And we know that we are loved. We appreciate it. Jett appreciates it. We love you, Ocala." [People]
• Jay-Z reportedly "refused to be photographed with the Victoria's Secret models for fear of upsetting his wife, Beyoncé. [PageSix]
• Sean "Diddy" Combs spent $3 million on his 40th birthday party, which included a "$30,000 orchid display." [PageSix]
• Mariah Carey has also been a big spender lately, reportedly dropping £750,000 during a recent four-day trip to London. [DailyMail]
• New Moon took in 72.7 million dollars at the box office on Friday, breaking the one-day record set by The Dark Knight in 2008. [Yahoo]
• According to Entertainment Weekly, Lady Gaga's performance at the American Music Awards this evening "appears to be her most far-reaching live effort yet, as though she took a look at that bizarre gyroscope dress-to-piano transition she rather botched on Saturday Night Live and said, "Yeah, but what if we made it even harder for me to get to the keyboard?" [EW]
• Stop the presses: Victoria Beckham took her children out for frozen yogurt! And one of them had a tantrum! But then she gave him a talking to! And then everyone got yogurt! Huzzah! [DailyMail]
• "I don't want to be a sex symbol. I'm a geek. Anyway if I was naked on screen it would not be titillating."-Simon Pegg [Mirror]
• Gayle King, whose previous talk show attempt flopped in the ratings, may get a second chance at a talk show after Oprah Winfrey's show goes off the air in 2011. [PageSix]
• "I think there's some artists that are really focused on the music and the artistry, but I also think being a showman and being an entertainer is more than just being a musician. It's everything-it's something to look at and to listen to."-Adam Lambert [JustJared]
• "He has to be good in bed and the size matters. The inner beauty counts as well, but without a toy it doesn't make it fun. Right now I don't want to have a serious relationship, I want to have fun. I love flirting at the moment. I'm single and I'm enjoying my freedom. But I don't give my phone number out that often. But if I'm dating, I check the boy from the top to the bottom."-Rihanna [ShowbizSpy]
• "The day my Britain's Got Talent audition was shown on TV life changed for ever. I was sitting at home watching the show alone. Then, when I came on the telly, I heard shouting outside my window. My neighbours were outside jumping for joy, screaming and and shouting. We ended up having a bit of a street party."-Susan Boyle [Mirror]
• "I'm in the know because I did courses. I like to be known as me, first of all – that's the problem with being associated with any religion. Different things in Scientology have helped me become even more of an individual, not a blind follower. People are like: "What? I thought they steal your money." Nobody's stealing my money."- Juliette Lewis [Guardian]
• Michael Jackson's famous Moonwalk glove was sold at auction yesterday for $350,000, far above its original estimate of $40,000-$60,000. [Yahoo]
• Amy Winehouse is planning on getting a nose job. "Amy's become totally obsessed with surgery since her boob job," says a source, "She wants her nose made smaller to fit with her small face as she hates the fact her nose is so big and she doesn't like the shape. Amy says she can barely look in the mirror at the moment as she hates it so much. She's booked in for January but is pushing to get it done sooner. Her family are dead-set against it and her brother has gone mad at her saying it will ruin her whole look and she will become unrecognisable. They're trying to talk her out of it but Amy's having none of it." [Mirror]
• "Jake is the kind of guy who can do a spot-on impression of someone you work with that will make you giggle. He plays guitar and has a great voice. Kids and dogs love him. He loves his mom and sister and girlfriend. He's perfect. Too bad he's ugly."-Natalie Portman on Jake Gyllenhaal [JustJared]

[Image via INFDaily.]

It's that word. Cougar. As Rebecca Traister so eloquently wrote for Salon, "aggressive female sexuality is always talked about as feral, often feline. When it's older, apparently, it develops sharper claws and teeth… mindless characterizations of va-va-voom youth seekers who wear too-tight animal prints and talk like children about stalking men as prey is not important, valuable or empowering in any way." And as Allure blogger Erin Flaherty once wrote of Brooke Shields being called a cougar: "Sometimes an attractive woman is just an attractive woman. Can't hot older women just be hot?"

Viewing older women as "wild" "cats" results in unfortunate, often preposterous language of predator and prey. Poor, defenseless men! Scary, aggressive ladies! When writing about the photos from the Bay Area Cougar Convention, SF Weekly's Joe Eskenazi jokes, "beware young gentlemen. Here thar be cougars." Come on. An older single woman is not some sort of bogeymonster, lurking in the shadows, preparing to attack. It's diminishing, insulting and derogatory to characterize them that way.

What you actually see in theses pictures are older women and younger men — single, consenting adults — enjoying each others' company. The men in the images look extremely pleased to be there and not at all like they've been pounced on by claw-bearing, untamed feline females. Sure, there's that one chick with cat ears on, but we go easy on crazy cat ladies around here.

Hello, Ladies: Fur Flies at Bay Area 'Cougar' Convention [SF Weekly]

Earlier: How Do We Survive The Cougar Attack?
Me-Ouch! Sarah Haskins Gets Catty About TV Cougars
5 Reasons Why Courteney Cox's Cougar Town Looks Awful

[Images by Daniel C. Britt/ Painet; used with permission]

Here are the glaring problems with what we can see so far:

• 1. The use of the word "cougar." It's clichéd, it's lame, it's undignified. It smacks of predatory desperation. As Salon's Rebecca Traister wrote in April, "How sad and backward that we have to give it a nickname, animalize it as if it's outside the boundaries of civilized human behavior, make it a trend, pretend that Demi Moore invented it. That's not progress, and it's not a step forward for women." 'Nuff said.
• 2. Bad jokes. From the tiny bit seen in clips below, Cougar Town is not funny! Courteney's character says to a friend over the phone, "Why so pissy?" The woman answers: "I'm fat." UGH. Really? Courteney says: "No, you're not," and the woman replies, "I am. I woke up fat!" "I don't buy it," Courteney says, and then goes to the window to look at her friend who lives next door. She sees the woman in a purple nightgown and deadpans, "Wow, you look like a whore." "Thank you!" the woman enthuses. This is just the beginning. Said neighbor is super reluctant to have sex with her husband. Ha? Later, Courteney's son thinks she is hitting on him because she is talking to him while holding wine. Hilarious?
• 3.Where's the empowerment? Courteney's character makes this speech to a male neighbor: "You know what drives me nuts? Your wife moved out what, a week ago? And you're already sexing up sorority girls. But nobody cares, because when a 40-year-old guy gets divorced, all your friends are like, 'Way to go, tiger.'" She's making a point — albeit one that been made TIME AND TIME AGAIN, that there's a double standard for how older men and older women are seen. But there's no new twist, new insight, or skewering of this double standard. Maybe it's coming later? Still, one of the rules of writing for the screen is show, don't tell. Oh, and in this scene, the man replies her rant by asking, "When's the last time you got laid?" Instead of kneeing the dude in the nuts or saying, "Right, because if a woman is angry she clearly hasn't gotten enough dick," Courteney's character seems to think that yes, maybe this is the problem. Groan.
• 4. Preposterous casting. Courteney Cox is 44 and gorgeous. Beautiful face, amazing body, and in possession of millions of dollars to designate solely for upkeep. As Allure blogger Erin Flaherty points out about Brooke Shields: "Sometimes an attractive woman is just an attractive woman." When you look at Courteney, do you think, "That's what a typical American 'cougar' really looks like"? When the male neighbor says, "Maybe what really drives you nuts is that you couldn't bag a young stud if you tried," you have no choice but to roll your eyes so hard they get stuck up in your brain. She looks almost exactly like she did when she was on Friends, which is to say: Hot. The only way a "young stud" wouldn't find her sexually attractive would be if he were gay. And even then, second base seems like a possibility.
• 5. There is a way to present older, desperate, needy, messy women and have it be funny — and it's been done, on a show called Absolutely Fabulous.

But judge for yourself: Two Cougar Town clips below.

Giving It Another Go! [Perez]
Related: Sometimes An Attractive Woman Is Just An Attractive Woman [Allure]
Earlier:How Do We Survive The Cougar Attack?

[Managua, April 22. Image via Getty.]

A Cougar (Puma concolor), lies at its cage of the Nicaraguan National Zoo, April 22, 2009 during Earth Day in Managua. Different species of animals in danger of exctintion are in many zoos around the world. AFP PHOTO/Miguel ALVAREZ (Photo credit should read MIGUEL ALVAREZ/AFP/Getty Images)

Look, I get it. The stereotype of mothers is that they are sexless, uninteresting parentbots with floppy vaginas, saggy breasts, big asses and no interest in sex. And so when a woman just happens to be attractive and, God forbid, sexual and interested in sex after giving birth to a child — let alone raising one to adulthood, as was the original meaning of the term "MILF," now lost in the plethora of MILF-porn featuring women younger than this writer — it's a cause for men's peens to stand at attention and that, of course, is the goal of women everywhere. Gag. At least "cougar" has the benefit of imbuing the older woman in question with some agency — because a MILF is, of course, an object for men's lust, while a cougar is pursuing the younger objects of her own.

So, look, it's been nearly a decade since Stifler's mom boned the nerdy virgin and brought the term to the mainstream, and I understand that this was probably a seminal (heh) movie for a lot of dudes (and some women) now in their twenties. But it's a stupid acronym that sounds stupid and adding "ILF" to everything under the sun is becoming more annoying than the media's love of adding "-gate" to the end of every political scandal. Just call it a day, dudes who use "MILF." No one needs to know who you'd like to fuck given the chance that you'll never have!. There's just no need to keep pointing out the attractive women who won't fuck you.

Hasn't "MILF" Jumped The Shark Yet? [Feministing]

[Los Angeles, February 4. Image via Splash.]

[St. Barth, February 7. Images via INFDaily.com.]