Touchy Topic Tuesday...Two?

Awake √
Dressed √ (in jammies, but not naked!!)
Children dressed √
Children fed √
Cats fed √
Dog fed √
Eldest off to school √
Bottle of Prune juice for breast-fed but somehow plugged up baby √
Yesterday's coffee mug removed from desk √
Today's coffee mug, full of steaming coffee, placed lovingly on desk √
Piles of work to do √
Blogging anyway √

Welcome back to Touchy Topic Tuesday, that day when I vent my spleen, or, lacking a spleen of my own, troll the blogosphere for the vented spleens of others.

Life with Quilts features a statement in defense of home birth, including links to some interesting facts and statistics about birthing at home.
Birth is such a personal and touchy subject. I personally believe history speaks volumes, and women's needs and bodies have long been ignored by the medical establishment. However, many of the doctors I worked with on my last pregnancy and delivery were willing to explore alternative birth options, and pain management options. So hopefully we are seeing a bit more common sense used in our OB's, when it comes to allowing for a positive birth experience.

Mom 101 brought up the issue of germs and infants this week in her post I'll take that Hazmat Suit in a 2T please.
The problem with germ paranoia is that over protecting your infant can pose a risk to their health. A baby's immune system grows and develops by responding to the bacteria and germs the baby encounters. Keeping your home too clean and your baby too protected can actually harm them. Helium has a good short article on the subject.
As for the public bathrooms, obviously it depends on the room itself, but I certainly know I don't clean and disinfect my bathroom every four hours, so the public restroom at Target is likely to have less bacteria than my bathroom at home. (Although it is other people's bacteria, which is gross.) Remember! The dirtiest place in any public bathroom is the door!

As for my own kvetch of the week? I am still on the Hillary thing.
I have been making phone calls on her behalf all week, and doing so has made me feel better. I have spoken with women across the nation who feel as I do, that it is our time, that it is time to have a woman represent us, that they have always been able to vote for a man, and now it is time to fight for our woman. Speaking with them has given me hope. I am not a member of a small majority of women who believe choosing an intelligent, savvy and experienced candidate who is a woman is a good thing, I am part of a large group of women. Women who have waited their turn, women who want it now.
So I am calling for Hillary, and if you believe as I do, I am calling on you. Go to HillaryClinton.com and register to make phone calls.
Make a difference, let's raise our fists and break that glass ceiling, there simply is no reason to wait any longer.

It's Touchy Topic Tuesday!! A colorful protest on the comics page, Lead Levels in Toys, and more....

Thank you for joining me in today's issue of Touchy Topic Tuesday, the day when I post about all those lovely issues that anger me, or open me up to snarky comments. (Okay, today is the first of such days, but why not Colbert a little and make it sound as though I have done this before!)

Minority cartoonists protested the lack of diversity on our comics pages this past sunday with a series of cartoons intended to illustrate the homogeneity of our sunday comics. The protest began when cartoonist Cory Thomas, of Watch your Head was turned down by papers who claimed to already have their "black comic strip" signed up, thereby not needing another one.

The cartoonists drew the same comic, in their individual styles, to protest the lack of comics representing minorities and minority cultures.

The protest is covered in more depth and detail in the Washington Post.

I think this is an artistic and unique protest that will hopefully bring the current lack of diversity in our comics pages into the light. It frankly never occurred to me to analyze the comics strips for diversity, but now that I look at them, it simply isn't there. There is no reason papers should refuse to accept strips drawn by minority artists simply because they already have one on their page. That is the barest of nods to the creativity of minorities in our country, as well as an insult. It's not as if the humor of a black cartoonist is only going to be funny to black readers.

Thanks to Ben for sending me the info on this protest, it was definitely worthwhile.
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MOM-101 brings renewed awareness to the levels of lead in our children's toys with her post Are our Kids Safe From Lead. Her post is inspiring and insightful. Please read it. It is truly frightening how much our children are still at risk and how little the Toy industry seems to be doing about it. (Maybe it's time to investigate a class action toxic tort or two... is that a lawsuit I smell?)
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In other news, the Bush administration is preparing to open millions of acres of public lands in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah for fossil fuel extraction from Oil Shale and Tar Sands. This will release a great deal of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, along with ravaging the landscape. Of course, it's too much to expect the Bush admin. will attempt to seek alternative fuel methods, but in an attempt to encourage them to do so the Center for Biological Diversity is urging people to write into the Bureau of Land Management and protest this decision.

You can mail your comments to:
Sherry Thompson, BLM Project Manager
BLM Oil Shale and Tar Sands Draft Programmatic EIS
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Ave.
Argonne IL 60439

Please submit your comments by March 20, 2008

So there it is... three touchy topics for this tuesday, ranging from race, to the environment. Enjoy your day and see you tomorrow.