We received a scorching letter last week from Merilee Kern, co-founder and CEO of Healthy Kids’ Catalog, in response to a piece in Magilla Marketing headlined “Stupid Catalog Watch: Book Targets Humorless Nag.”
Kern is livid because we ridiculed some of her catalog’s products, such as the Entertrainer, which turns the volume down on the TV set if the kid watching it doesn’t keep his heart rate at a certain level, and the EZ-Rope, “the rope without the middle” consisting of two handles attached to lengths of rope with hunks of foam on their ends so kids who can’t jump rope can swing the foam bits around and pretend they’re doing so.
Here is the letter unedited:
“While journalist Ken Magill takes uninformed and entirely heartless jabs at the resources offered through the entirely well-intentioned, desperately needed, and long overdue Healthy Kids' Catalog, millions upon millions of children from coast to coast are suffering with, and dying from, health complications directly related to their overweight or obese condition - be it type 2 diabetes, heart disease or otherwise. Rather than undermining the solutions offered in this catalog, however unique and unconventional, he should instead be applauding these inventions and interventions intended to help to stem the burgeoning problem of childhood obesity that ultimately affects us all - if nothing else fiscally as our collective insurance premiums rise and our economy suffers due to an ever-ailing population. It's easy for Mr. Magill to make light of these products, the catalog and the intentions thereof as he clearly does not have a child that can't walk up the stairs, play with friends, or is relentlessly teased until suicide seems to be the only viable choice to him or her. And, he surely has not met 16-year old Able Richardson who weight upwards of 520 pounds and whose life is very much in jeopardy. Would he be so callus if the resources were related to Cancer in children? I think not. We should all have the luxury of being in Mr. Magill's uninformed position to be so cynical and disparaging about a newly established catalog intended to help care givers save AMERICA'S children in practical, non-invasive ways. Ignorance is bliss, indeed, Ken.
Merilee Kern, Co-Founder and CEO
Healthy Kids’ Catalog”
OK, now we’re really insulted. We know Ken Magill, and he is no journalist.
Morbidly obese kids aren’t funny. The Entertrainer and EZ-Rope are. And, yes, we would ridicule them even if they were presented as a cure for cancer.
We apologize for headlining the offending article, “Book Targets Humorless Nag.” The piece should have been headlined, “Book Founded by Humorless Nag.”
Message to Kern: Don’t ever wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig loves it. Oink, oink.
We received a scorching letter last week from Merilee Kern, co-founder and CEO of Healthy Kids’ Catalog, in response to a piece in Magilla Marketing headlined “Stupid Catalog Watch: Book Targets Humorless Nag.”
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