Of course, the corporate media are all whipped up into a frenzy because Michele with one L took the opportunity to diss Michelle Obama's lobbying for the tax deduction as part of her anti-obesity campaign. It's been proven that breastfeeding is healthy for both mom and baby - the antibodies flow, mothers lose pregnancy weight faster, infants develop fewer of those fat cells that never go away - etc., etc., etc. If it weren't for Chris Matthews giving La Bachmann almost constant negative attention as Loony Woman of the Century, I doubt we'd even know who she is. She'd be just one more anonymous congressperson from Minnesota by way of the Coen Brothers' "Fargo."
And of course, Sarah Palin's joke about Michelle O. pushing for breast feeding because of the high price of milk was made-for-primetime infotainment. It was second only to the massacres in Bahrain and the union demonstrations in Wisconsin in news coverage last night. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell devoted several minutes to manufactured outrage over BreastpumpGate. Nothing like making a mountain out of an AA, male reporter guys! I can't stand Sarah either, but she was making a snarky joke, and you took the bait! Attention, attention, attention.
Of course, the real story should be why American business is so unfriendly to all mothers, breast-feeding or bottle-feeding. We are one of the few civilized nations on earth that doesn't provide extended, paid maternity leave. In France, new mothers even get someone to come in to do laundry. And maybe if companies had on-site child care, mothers wouldn't even need breast pumps. If asked, I am sure most of them would prefer to nurse their infants the old-fashioned way.
14 comments:
Bachmann, breast pumps, blah, blah, blah. Just an excuse for the comely Bachmann to hog the spotlight while conflating herself with milk-swollen mammaries. Can her demographic say "SCHWING"? They just did!
Meanwhile, NPR just reported that the WI Democratic Senators may stay in hiding for "days, or even WEEKS."
With all due respect to Joey Biden, THIS, and not the wimpy HCR, has the potential to be "a big (bleeping) deal."
eva
In France, new mothers get physical therapy to get back into shape. Motivation to look good can lead to motivation to be healthy. Vive la France!
The French are a great people to emulate! By the way do you know the reason that they plant trees along the streets of Paris? It's so the Germans can march down them in the shade.
To Anonymous at 12:53 pm
With all due respect, how much do you really know about who made the vast majority of wartime sacrifice in WWII?
Do you buy into the Spielbergian fantasy that manages to elide entirely the fact that 80% of all the Nazis killed in WWII were killed by ill-treated, ill-equipped Soviet forces? I wouldn't have wished to be like them, forced to fight and die for the Soviet machine.
On the other hand, I'm not so unaware to think that the French were, post-WWI, in any way prepared to fight the Nazi war machine. Nor am I so stupid as to judge a country that did not enjoy tge separation of the Atlantic Ocean.
eva
From eva, Continued to Poster from 12:53
What I mean is, since WWII, the US has had a false image of its military capability. (If you've ever read Thucydides, you'd know we're not the first democracy to get in over our heads based on our own fat-headedness.)
But... If Americans knew how tough the Soviets and earlier, the Brits had been in Afghanistan (and they still lost!), then we mght have made a more sober decision about our own involvement in Alexander's "land of bones."
eva
What I know is that my Cousin died at Bastogne during the last German offensive of the war and I also know if the French and the rest of Europe had been ready to defend themselves (they are still not ready to this day ) fewer Americans , and Canadians would have died saving them from the Germans. As for the Eastern front no one wanted to be there, not Russians and definitely not the average "German Landser".
If you're basing your knowledge of WWII on your cousin's sacrifice, I suggest you start reading more. A lot more. You might want to start with Colonel David Glantz.
It's not only unreasonable but irrational to have expected the rest of Europe, still groaning under the weight of WWI, to have been prepared to defend themselves against Hitler's machine.
Do you also blame the Poles, then, for not having been able to defend themselves against the Soviet machine?
Or the Chinese for not having been able to defend themselves against Japan?
Does it occur to you that the US and Canada have been fortuitous in their geographical isolation and their natural resources? Read that sentence again, and consider it, because you didn't address it in your "my cousin died in Bastogne!" response.
For the record, most of us had family who sacrificed in WWII and the wars that followed, but it doesn't excuse us for talking out of our behinds, as you seem to wish.
Do you have any idea the percentage of Nazis had already been killed by the Soviets before your cousin reached Bastogne, which, by the way, was hardly the defining battle of WWII? Try Stalingrad. Or anywhere on the Ostfront.
eva
Great points, Eva, but I wouldn't bother responding at all to Anonymous, who does not, as Karen suggested, offer some kind of identifier simply to distinguish himself from other Anonymous commenters. He is full of anger and poisons this site.
He craves attention. There are plenty of blogs out there but he likes this one for some reason. He surely is trying to get a reaction and some attention that he is not getting elsewhere.
Obviously, he doesn't have his own blog, or no one reads it.
Dear Sick-of-it, (from eva)
Good advice, thanks. I talk with a lot of conservatives, but to be frank, most of them have shown me the courtesy of sticking to the facts - even though we interpret those facts differently, simply having that as a baseline is a way to find SOME common ground.
I myself am stunned to learn how skewed our US-centric view of WWII has been - to the point that we still believe that WE alone saved Europe from Hitler. A lot of new info came out after the fall of the Berlin Wall. We in North America have been lucky to bemefit in so many ways from good resources and geographical isolation.
On war and resources: I was talking with a friend of mine who is a US Marine vet, he thinks we're about to experience a major oil shock, and that these past 40 years of failing to look into alternative energy is going to smack us down pretty hard. I live in a very liberal area, but even my neighbors who are "ultra-liberal" on social issues just don't seem to understand the resource issue - they just bought a HUGE new SUV. (and brother, it is one ugly vehicle.)
To Anonymous whose cousin died...
You're absolutely right! Stupid French who prefer month long vacations, maternity care, universal healthcare, and beautiful, broad, tree-lined avenues, to F-35s, aircraft carriers, mines, Glocks, M-16s and drones. Those poor Frenchmen...
Haley Simon
Dear Haley and Eva,
You should visit the Dolest slums that surround Paris and other French cities if you want to see poor Frenchmen, women, and children living the "good life". Most are from north Africa or the old french colonies in the sub-Sahara. They are also the same people that the French police stop and harass on the broad tree lined streets of Paris.
On the subject of the Great Patriotic War as it is known on the former Eastern front. You are overlooking the vast amount of aid that the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. sent the CCCP and without which Moscow and Stalingrad might have been overrun. The majority of the ethnic Russians fought for their homeland even if they didn't believe in their government. There is a very large memorial on the road into Moscow from the Airport marking the closest German advance on the city. The Russians are very proud of it.
On The failure of Europe and the U.K. to prevent a 2nd war in Europe. Their major failure was refusing the offer of the CCCP for an alliance between the U.K., France, and the CCCP against Germany, after which Stalin was left with no choice but to cut a deal with Germany. The French hid behind their fixed defenses and refused to listen even to their own leaders that warned of the coming disaster as did the English behind their channel. The U.S. was also complicit as they followed the advice widely offered today and stayed home and watched because they thought it wasn't their problem.
On the blessings of the U.S. and Canada. Have you considered why with most of the same people as Europe there are only two countries in North America or three if you include Mexico. Those three have rarely fought when compared to Europe over the same period. Europe killed between 30 and 60 million of it's citizens just in WW2. WW1 adds 37 million more dead. Then there were the other wars and revolutions in Europe during the same period that killed how many million more? We should emulate Europe because? You might want to consider what changed in Europe after WW2 and why there have been so few wars in the last 60 years and why they have been able to spend so much on their social programs.
Dear "Anonymous":
I'll address the rest of your straw men later, but your last paragraph I can address just by Blackberry.
You still haven't acknowledged how geographical isolation and greater natural resources (given that Europeans only reached NA some 2000 years after Pericles) played the major role in the difference in martial engagement.
Or perhaps you believe, a la Mr. Spielberg, that Americans are somehow "the new chosen."
eva
Les Américains de combiner les notions du christianisme et de liberté si intimement dans leur esprit, qu'il est impossible de leur faire concevoir l'un sans l'autre, et avec eux cette conviction ne découle pas que la foi stérile traditionary qui semble végéter dans l'âme plutôt que de vivre. Il ya certaines populations en Europe, dont l'incrédulité n'est égalée que par leur ignorance et leur avilissement, tandis qu'en Amérique l'une des nations libres et les plus éclairés du monde remplit toutes les fonctions extérieures de la religion avec ferveur.
Alexis de Tocqueville
To "Anonymous" at 4:57 p.m. who lacks the courage even of a tag:
If that were all de Tocqueville wrote, you might have a point. Then again, I hardly think de Tocqueville's 176-year-old tome is the last word on this country, no matter how much both liberals and conservatives like to invoke him.
At the time de Tocqueville published "Democracy in America" (1835), from which that excerpt is taken, the "Americains" were not exactly the model for liberty.
Old Alexis de Tocqueville managed to elide entirely (in a prelude to the "grandes elisions" of Steven Spielberg) the "little" issue of slavery, which is rather the opposite of the fantastic American liberty he praises, isn't it?
As you might recall, the Civil War would, within a few decades, tear the nation asunder in a manner from which it has never entirely recovered, as any review of Senator Strom Thurmond's "remarkable" life would suggest.
Wait - are you now going to claim you lost a cousin at Gettysburg? Oh, the humanity!!!
Seriously, though, I suggest that "Anonymous" is a liberal crank, posing as a "conservative" to make conservatives look weak and ridiculous. Alas, my liberal brother, you've been found out. Unmask yourself, you Noam Chomsky-in-disguise!
eva
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