As Jon and Kate Gosselin's marriage has slowly self-destructed, Kate is finding that the brand she has so carefully built is under attack. A children's clothing line that she produced with Healthtex is on hold, and her latest book, Love in the Mix: Making Meals into Memories, has been sidelined while she and her husband work out their divorce.

Reading through articles about these speedbumps, it's hard to miss the barely-concealed glee that underlies the reporting. Over the past few months, bashing Kate Gosselin has become a popular sport in America. By now, even people who haven't seen the show know that Kate can be disturbingly stern with her kids, that she is mean to her husband, and that she is greedy when it comes to snatching up the freebies of quick cable fame. Pundits have endlessly attacked her weight, her behavior, her child-rearing, and her hairstyle, until it seems that Kate isn't so much a person as the heart of a cottage industry in verbal brutality.

Sometimes when you need to get something done, asking just won't cut it. As a company that moves around plenty of money, Paypal may know this better than anyone ... which is possibly why it launched a new service called Do Stuff For Money.

Its premise is simple: Post an offer to a friend to do something, in exchange for money, which you'll then presumably pay with Paypal.

Making an offer is easy enough: simply enter your name and the friend you want to do your bidding, as well as the task at hand, and you're good to go. You can email your generous offer direct to your friend, or send it via Facebook, where it's posted on your wall, and makes the offer a little more public.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Gannett Co., the largest newspaper company in the country, will lay off another 1,000 (1,400 according to Gawker) of its 41,500 employees to help combat declining revenues.

In the scheme of things, that's about 2%, an insignificant number, but it's one more piece of bad news about an industry that just can't seem to pull itself out of a hole.

Lots of things have been said about the failing newspaper industry, in large part because so many of us word wranglers have newspaper backgrounds and can't restrain ourselves. It's frustrating to see the business we know and love go down the drain.

Family breakdowns including divorce, unwed mothers, and absentee fathers are costing millions to society according to a new study.

A senior family division judge for England and Wales, Justice Paul Coleridge, accused mothers and fathers who fail to commit to each other of engaging in a game of "pass the partner" that has left millions of children "scarred for life."

Seem dramatic? Maybe so, but it is true. According to the US Census Bureau, 29.1% of women who had a birth in 2004 were not married and that half of such unmarried mothers were living below the poverty level. This compared with 12% of married women at the poverty level. Too often, the failure to commit leaves children without a father, without stability, and without money.

And who picks up the tab? You and me. The societal cost of unwed mothers and divorced families is estimated to cost taxpayers at least $112 billion per year. A 1% reduction in family fragmentation would save taxpayers an estimated $1.1 billion per year.

A lot of Americans are understandably peeved by the fact that General Motors received a massive taxpayer-funded bailout designed to rescue the company from a long series of poor business decisions.

Some people are upset about it enough to refuse to buy GM's cars as a matter of principle and a show of commitment to the ideals of free market capitalism.

There are some logistical problems with the boycott: So few Americans are buying GM's cars anyway that you have to wonder what percentage of the people who claim to be boycotting the company actually would have bought cars from it anyway.

But the larger problem is this: Why would you refuse to buy from a company that you now have a major financial interest in the success of? For better or worse, the United States government owns 60% of the company and a boycott seems like a pretty classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

If anything, the bailout should make Americans more willing to consider GM cars. It's our best chance of making the bailout something other than a total and unmitigated disaster.

With school out for summer and a bunch of seasonal projects, the time's right for getting young do-it-yourselfers involved in home improvement plans.

Working together to make a repair or build something new not only teaches lifelong skills and builds confidence, but also gives kids a sense of accomplishment and renewed pride in the home you share.

Select a project together: Whether it's an easy fix-it project, a simple gardening chore or an opportunity to redecorate, every DIY project is a valuable chance to learn. Kit-based programs like Red Toolbox are also available, and help you learn together through three discrete skill levels, starting with very simple tasks and progressing to more advanced techniques. Along the way, parent and child have fun working together and create useful, decorative items that make great gifts.

It's been a pretty amazing week for snack foods. In addition to delivering nacho cheese and big, crunchy flavor, Frito Lay's Cheetos and Doritos brands have also been offering a hearty helping of domestic warfare and illicit sex.

No, this trend isn't part of a new prize promotion, although it is worth asking what, exactly, the company has been putting into its snacks. In Shelbyville, Tenn., for example, one of Frito Lay's products apparently inspired a couple to go face-to-face in a battle royale. Their weapon of choice? Cheetos.

Yes, Cheetos. The little orange squiggles of corn, oil, and fake cheese are, apparently, a major incitement to violence. According to Cpl. Kevin Roddy of the Bedford County Sheriff's department, 40-year-old James Earl Taylor and 44-year-old Mary S. Childers were involved in "a verbal altercation" that escalated until the two were hurling puffy cheese crunchies at each other.

With men getting laid off at three times the rate of women, the recession is quietly producing more stay-at-home dads and changing how households are run and children are raised.

The typical father spends about seven hours per week in "primary child care," according to a Time magazine story, which is more than twice as much as in 1965. It still doesn't sound like much, and for unemployed fathers, I'll bet it's a lot more.

But beyond the joy of being Mr. Mom, unemployed parents -- whether mom or dad -- have to deal with the extra burden of dealing with kids afoot while searching for a job.

I'm lucky. My wife still has a full-time job, and I'm writing this while she's working and I've put our daughter, 4, to sleep for the night. And because my wife works nights, she's around to take care of our child during the day while I search for full-time work and do some part-time work. By early afternoon, I'm on my own.

The stresses of being unemployed are harsh enough, but looking for work while keeping a house and child (or children) in semi-order is so much that you can find yourself being overtaken by the everyday tasks of life instead of looking for work.

Those are the topics I discussed with WalletPop editor Andrea Chalupa in the weekly podcast "Your Job Will Come."

When Congregation Beth Simchat Torah heard that the hate-spewing protesters of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church were coming to their turf, they cleverly decided to make a virtue of a visit by the fringe group, which has picketed the funerals of U.S. soldiers to get publicity for its anti-Jew, anti-gay, anti-American isolationism.

In an inspired moment of creative fund-raising, it convinced about 150 sympathetic community members to pledge $1 for every minute the hatemongers -- there were only six anyway -- appeared on their doorstep in New York City with signs bearing the group's usual invective, which has been trotted out for the cameras so often it ought to be trademarked: "Jews Stole the Land" and "God Hates Fags." By the time the haters departed, a mere 50 minutes after they arrived, $10,000 had been raised.

It's that time of year again, and I can't wait! The explosions, the smoke, the sparkly flames. I'm speaking, of course, about the annual season when your local TV news channel dutifully trots out the clips of fire safety marshals blowing the hands off mannequins to convince us to leave those M-80s well enough alone. More than the smell of the barbecue firing up, more than John Philip Sousa, nothing else tells me Independence Day is finally here again.

This year, they had better air those unintentionally entertaining clips of destruction a few more times, because in many towns, that's all the fireworks they're gonna get.

Because of budget crunches, cities across the country are canceling their fireworks shows.

On the eve of my friend Bill Frank's 80th birthday, his wife Winnie announced that if Bill made the decision to retire she would be forced -- after 60 years of wedded bliss -- to pack up and move in with her sister in Indiana.

I used to think Bill and Winnie were unique. But now as my husband and I approach retirement and the crabby-old-goat stage ourselves, it's clear that arguing over what comes next is hard to avoid.

A survey by Fidelity Investments featured in this USAToday.com story, concludes that 80% of couples don't see eye to eye on retirement.

Oakland A's fans will get their money's worth when the team gives away hats, tote bags and other souvenirs at games, thanks to a bonehead lawyer who sued the baseball team for sex discrimination because he didn't get a woman's hat on Mother's Day five years ago.

The team and San Diego lawyer Alfred Rava have reached a preliminary settlement on a class-action suit Rava filed, according to a Contra Costa Times story in Walnut Creek, CA.

In part due to the suit, the A's will no longer offer male- or female-only giveaways, according to team spokesman Bob Rose. On May 10 this year -- Mother's Day -- the A's gave away tote bags to the first 10,000 fans.

Some churches pray that more men may find their way back to Sunday services. The Church of England, however, knows that God helps those who help themselves, and men tend to congregate where there is beer and barbecued meats. This Father's Day, the two came together.

According to the London Telegraph, men attending St. Stephen's church in Barbourne, Worchester on Father's Day were handed bottles of beers by children to slake their thirst during the service.

Other churches offered bacon rolls, chocolate bars, and even a hog roast as manna to those struggling through the carbohydrate desert between breakfast and lunch. A study recently found that less than 20% of men in England attend church monthly, perhaps because they became so peckish.

The archdeacon of St. Stephen's defended the beer giveaway, comparing it to the flowers that are given to mothers on Mother's Day. I wonder how many mums wouldn't have minded a cold one instead?

One bishop responded to the charge that the church was encouraging alcohol abuse by pointing out the gospel story in which Jesus turned water into wine. "He was all in favor of partying," said the bishop.

Grandparents from coast to coast are getting shaken down and being conned into believing their grandchildren are being held in a Canadian jail and need cash to make bail. As unlikely as this scam might seem, it just keeps coming back -- something that happens when people pay up.

The Attorney General's office in Idaho issued an alert warning that people in that state have been targeted. About a dozen complaints were filed before the alert was issued, the office said.

This isn't just an Idaho thing. Grandparents across the nation have reported getting this call -- with some admitting they forked over the cash.

Phonebusters, a consortium of Canadian law enforcement authorities who monitor such scams, first noticed the increase in complaints about this one in the fall. As time has passed, more and more state and local authorities have been hearing the stories of elders being taken. The problem just keeps growing.

No one wants to deal with filling out insurance claim forms, filing for survivor benefits from the Social Security Administration, or the other necessary paperwork when a relative dies. That's what lawyers are for.

But what if you can't find the insurance policy or various investment accounts that your dad never told you about? Or maybe he did, but you don't know where they are?

Enter WeRemember.org, a Web site that went live earlier this week that acts as a centralized database where people can put their preparations into place so that their designated beneficiaries can find the policies to make claims and get the insurance money, among other things.