VotD

So I finally got to hear Anne Hathaway's version of "I Dreamed a Dream" and it's truly stunning. I'm a huge fan of "Les Mis" and there is a vulnerability to this version I haven't quite heard before. Somehow she makes this tried and true song her own (Man, I sound like I'm a judge on "American Idol", stop me, SOMEONE!). Anyway, the full scene from the movie is available at Vimeo, but I can't link to that video, so instead here's an abbreviated version from the trailer for your enjoyment:



And just for fun, here's her "For Your Consideration" video; clearly it worked!

Clarification

I realize my previous post might have sounded like I was anti-breast feeding, and I'm not. It's just that it's difficult, far more difficult than I expected, and it does feel like a marathon -- just one more mile to go, one more, if I can make it to that next marker. We've all been in that position and I wrote that post at a time when I was really mentally, physically and emotionally struggling with breastfeeding. I think we owe it to women to be truthful about the experience, that it's NOT for everyone, and it's not the end all and be all if you don't breastfeed. I think this last point is really what I wanted to get at.

There's such pressure and guilt put on mothers by society and other women regarding this topic that any deviation for whatever reason feels like a major failure. It's not a failure to say breastfeeding isn't for you. Feeding is such one piece of a complex algorithm on how one raises her (and his! fathers included!) child and there's no surefire way that everything you do is going to be exactly right on setting your child on the way to Bill Gates awesomeness. There are so many questions to answer along the way, so many decisions to be made. So as plaintive that post sounded, I needed to say what I said, and I'm calmer and more reassured about the decision I made. And that's all any parent can really do.

LotD

I've been hemming and hawing over this one for a while and have finally decided to post it*: The Case Against Breastfeeding. I've been of two minds because I do think there are some definite benefits to breastfeeding (I can't speak to the accuracy or completeness of Rosin's 'findings' in the article), but there are downsides to it that are rarely discussed. Instead, you get these lovely pamphlets and books with pictures of mothers staring beatifically at their children and all is well with the world. Just master the right hold, go skin to skin, and voila, life is good and wonderful and your child will grow up to be Bill Gates.

 I'm still trying to gather my thoughts on the subject, because this is an intensely personal choice and I'm still trying to understand how I feel. What I will share is that I didn't have the beatific experience that everyone seems to emulate and that it took a lot of support from various parties to get me through the first 10 weeks. Around months 7 to 8, I felt that tug of, "Okay, I've reached my goal, let's get on with life. I want to wear a dress again." And then I felt immediately ashamed, as if my desire to wear a dress trumped the well-being of the child. I didn't necessarily feel closer to the baby because of the breastfeeding. I mostly felt a bit of panic, some frustration, some angst -- why isn't this working? Where is the milk they said would be coming in days? Why won't the baby latch? Isn't it instinctive? Didn't I follow all the rules?

The rules, mind you, came from a breastfeeding class and as a result, I had made up my mind prior to delivery that the baby would a) not have a pacifier and b) no bottles and c) no formula. Within 12 hours of birth, all three rules had been broken; the lactation consultant was confuzzled and told me she'd be back in the morning to try again, but not before she bottle-fed the baby a bit of formula. And she came back twice the next day and again, the baby wasn't interested in nature's best and instead, once again, there was formula in a bottle. On the third day, the day I left the hospital, another consultant came, and after an hour, told me, "You may need to just pump. Some babies take time to get it." Her tone of voice made pumping sound like a weekend in the Swiss Alps.

 So we rented the hospital grade pump and retired the one I had bought -- a rather inexpensive double electric, bought on the premise that it would be used sparingly. Instead, I was hooked up to this loud, monstrous yellow box 6 to 8 times a day at 15 to 20 minutes a pop, sometimes as long as 45 minutes. And then there was the cleaning and sanitizing of all pump parts and bottles. It was enough to make anyone go crazy. When I couldn't pump enough milk, which happened more than I liked, we supplemented with formula. And I kept trying and trying to get the baby to latch. Week 10, I was about to give up and give in and lo and behold, the magical latch happened.

 I made it to the six month mark, pretty happy that I was a) disengaged mostly from that pump, b) had less bottles to wash on a daily basis (and oh, the dishwasher basket saved my life for sure) and c) it was relatively to easy to feed the baby when the baby was hungry, regardless of where I was. But something changed after I hit the six month mark. Was it that I had reached the goal set by the AAP -- six months of exclusive breastfeeding?** Or may be it was the baby was getting wiggly and knocking my cover off in public. Or that it was getting hot in the summer and I was tired of wearing the same old t-shirts and skirts and wanted back into my pretty dresses. Maybe it was the baby always seemed hungry (at six months, the baby regressed to newborn sleeping habits) and I felt like a nursing zombie. Still, I made it through month six because then I thought it was cruel to wean a baby just like that. And the pediatrician assured me that the baby would lose interest as solids were introduced.

But not losing interest fast enough for me. And that's when I realized I had come to the end of my rope. I wanted off the nursing bandwagon quickly and as minimally traumatic to all parties. And yet, even though I had made it longer than most women, I still felt guilt. My heart and mind were no longer in the process and I found myself reaching for the bottle and formula often. Suddenly breastfeeding no longer seemed easy and I wanted my life back.  

* I'm pretty sure I haven't posted this one yet as an LoTD, though it's been on my 'to do' list for quite a while. I find the article provocative in every way and it's never far from my mind in its dissonance from what society/culture dictates. If this is a rerun, I apologize. ** I always had to supplement with formula, but I would say at the 6 month mark, the baby was on 80% breast milk and 20% formula.

LotD

Happy Valentine's Day! In honor of the pink and red, I bring you my favorite cultural commenter, Jon Stewart, weighing in on the recent birth control controversy. The most important point regarding the issue is at the very end.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Vagina Ideologues
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

LotD

How to drive Planned Parenthood out of the abortion business.

A picture is worth a thousand words

What Planned Parenthood Actually Does.

LotD

Five unforgettable stories from Ground Zero.

LotD

I always enjoy reading features on Hillary; have been a fan since she was first lady, so it's nice to see an article when she's not getting beat on for one thing or another. It's amazing she went from one of the most reviled figures in America to one of the most admired women in the world (though in all fairness, she's been pretty respected and fairly treated since she became the junior senator from New York). Hillary Clinton: Woman of the World Politics: vanityfair.com

Wedding bells

To clear up the confusion, Kate Middleton will actually be known as Princess William after marriage, not Princess Catherine. See more here.

LotD

Five Myths About Planned Parenthood. I really like this series from the Washington Post and try to catch most, if not all of them when I can.

Movie-licious

Finally watched Food Inc tonight; I'd been avoiding it despite rave reviews and an Oscar nomination because truth be told, sometimes you just don't want to know where your food comes from. It's an intriguing film and I definitely recommend it, but do warn there are a couple of graphic slaughter-house scenes in it (though nowhere as bad as I'd heard). It's definitely thought provoking and filled with "you gotta be kidding me" moments (corn really makes it into nearly everything we eat?). Also, new big corporate villain is introduced -- Monsanto -- and you'll be seriously creeped out by some of their activities. Unfortunately it's food and we have to eat, but at least now I'm a little more educated on what it takes to produce the food I eat; that backyard garden looks more and more attractive now.

LotD

The War Against Women. And we haven't even covered the Georgia congressman who introduced a bill making miscarriages a felony if the mother can't disprove "human involvement". BTW, the previous link comes from Fox News...

I stand with Planned Parenthood

Did you hear? The House voted to bar Planned Parenthood from federal funding. They cut funding for HIV tests, cancer screenings, birth control, and more, putting millions of women and families at risk. We can't let it go unanswered. It's time for you and me to stand with Planned Parenthood. Sign the open letter to the reps who voted for this bill — and to the senators who still have a chance to stop it. You can find the letter here:
http://www.ppaction.org/IStandWithPP

Pass it on.

LotD

How the middle class became the underclass. Discuss.

Lotd III

My friend, Tamar Carroll, wrote an op/ed on Glenn Beck and his 'special' view of history here.

Beck has repeatedly and erroneously tarred as un-American the efforts of those who have sought to increase low-income voter registration, labor union membership, interracial cooperation, peaceful resolution of foreign conflict, and the meeting of poor people’s needs within and by their own communities.

LoTD II

Defend Planned Parenthood here. I don't usually sign up for things like this but I feel the GOP is continually doing everything they can to erode women's rights to make decisions about their own bodies. In this particular case, they're also taking away a key source for health services -- 97% of which are services not abortion (ex: pap smears, breast cancer screenings) -- for low income women and men. It just boggles the mind. Again, I want to know what the GOP is doing to address that particular gap? Oh, that's right, as the party of no, they don't have to do anything at all.

LotD

I've been wanting to address the efforts in Congress to defund Planned Parenthood and the separate bill that changes the definition of rape (until recently, it had to be a 'forcible' rape, as if there is any other kind), but Gail Collins in the NYT sums up my position beautifully so go there to read. I'd take the Republicans more seriously on health care repeal efforts if a) I thought they had a workable plan to replace Obamacare and b) if I thought they actually cared about people who make less than $250,000 a year and c) if their position wasn't so hypocritical: get government out of my healthcare, but by the way, ladies, we the government want to make it difficult for you to make decisions about your own bodies and whether you can have birth control covered under Obamacare. Notice we don't have these same conversations about Viagra.

The best way, mho, to put abortion providers out of business is to reduce the need. That includes providing education, contraception, and the care and support women need to raise the children (or pay the bills required to deliver and then give the child up for adoption). My greatest fear is that abortions will become so hard to get legally that women will find unscrupulous individuals to get their abortions or attempt it themselves with dire results (the WHO reports that in Europe, up to 30% of maternal deaths are due to illegal abortions). In fact, a study shows that the rates of abortions -- legal or not -- remain the same.

PP performed 340,000 abortions last year; that's a lot hearts and minds of women to change and I would argue that we can't judge those women without knowing the why of their decisions (in fact, we shouldn't judge anyway -- it's a personal and private decision). A woman's ability to make her own decisions about her personal health care is constantly being eroded by the GOP. This isn't the time to sit back and let it happen. We need to do everything we can to make abortion legal and safe but more importantly, rare. But more importantly, we need to reclaim our right to make our own decisions about our body; no bureaucrat in DC should have that power.

LotD

How the Tea Party's fetish for the Constitution as written may get it in trouble.

The problem with the Tea Party's new Constitution fetish is that it's hopelessly selective. As Robert Parry notes, the folks who will be reading the Constitution aloud this week can't read the parts permitting slavery or prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment using only their inside voices, while shouting their support for the 10th Amendment. They don't get to support Madison and renounce Jefferson, then claim to be restoring the vision of "the Framers." Either the Founders got it right the first time they calibrated the balance of power between the federal government and the states, or they got it so wrong that we need to pass a "Repeal Amendment" to fix it. And unless Tea Party Republicans are willing to stand proud and announce that they adore and revere the whole Constitution as written, except for the First, 14, 16th, and 17th amendments, which totally blow, they should admit right now that they are in the same conundrum as everyone else: This document no more commands the specific policies they espouse than it commands the specific policies their opponents support.

LotD

Interesting article: Income Inequality and the 'Superstar Effect'. I'm a big fan of capitalism but there are some downsides to it. I think this article summarizes it well.

CAPITALISM relies on inequality. Like differences in other prices, pay disparities steer resources — in this case, people — to where they would be most productively employed.
[...] Ultimately, the question is this: How much inequality is necessary? It is true that the nation grew quite fast as inequality soared over the last three decades. Since 1980, the country’s gross domestic product per person has increased about 69 percent, even as the share of income accruing to the richest 1 percent of the population jumped to 36 percent from 22 percent. But the economy grew even faster — 83 percent per capita — from 1951 to 1980, when inequality declined when measured as the share of national income going to the very top of the population.

LotD

File under "wow"; The Portland Press Herald apologizes for publishing a picture of Muslims celebrating the end of Eid on Sept. 11. The comments are mostly heartening.