While you were drunk bedridden this weekend: Pigluenza wreaks impossibly more havoc, cats fight on Candy Girls, the Taliban rises back up, and most devastatingly of all, Nas and Kelis hightail it to Splitsville. But there's no need to be so despondent in the wake of such horrors. With tragedies also come tales of heartwarming familial fulfillment -- those that tend to elicit sympathetic "awws" from the house audience of 1990s-era sitcoms, like that one time DJ confessed to having an eating disorder on Full House and then Bob Saget reassured her that she wasn't fat at all and needn't join any pro-ana cults. Set to make your heart swell with feelings of mushy warmth this particular morning: Adoption!

Because smearing hateful fundies is all the rage lately, find a modicum of hate in your heart for Mike Duke, the newly-anointed CEO of Wal-Mart. Fearing that gay men and women will gobble up children like Baba Yaga, Duke signed off on a gay adoption ban in Arkansas last year, which passed rather overwhelmingly. You know what this calls for. Boycott!

However, this isn't precluding the inter-species relations people always hope to prevent with such legislation. Ginger Spice, for example, has just adopted a pair of baby lions. ¡Que chévere! The lions are a testament to the failed mogulista's ardor for wildlife conservation. She blathers, "I'm passionate about wildlife conversation, I love animals, especially lions. I'm delighted to add Rudi and Aphrodite to my family." Whether her usage of the word "passionate" is a forgone plug for her third record is unverified. But the little lions will not be coming back home to play with Geri Halliwell's only non-leonine brood, Bluebell Madonna.

Which perfectly segues to that other Madonna. The one who remains vigilant in her quest to collect all Malawi Pokémon (err, children) in order to protect them from famine, AIDS, and other dangers that indiscriminately beleaguer the entire third world without the slightest exception. Most recently, the appeal process is well underway for Madonna to lure Baby Mercy back to her gingerbread manse on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

But we shouldn't be so harsh. Because Hugh Jackman, who did indeed best Beyoncé (by a long margin, too), has himself vouched for Madonna. "I challenge anyone who thinks you adopt a kid for a publicity stunt. Any parent knows that would have to be the most intensive publicity stunt in the world," says the wolfish one. Oh, but Hugh! Madonna's always been up to the rigors of effective PR stunts.