Posts Tagged ‘cultural discourse’

Protecting a Woman’s Right to Choose… Breastfeeding

No breastfeeding allowedAuthor Ray Bradbury pointed out, chillingly, “You don’t need to burn books to destroy a culture — just get people to stop reading them.” Similarly, you don’t need to actually ban nursing to decrease the incidence of breastfeeding — just make it more and more difficult to do.

The ways our culture makes breastfeeding ever more difficult range from the insidiously subtle (hospitals’ goody-bag full of formula) to the outrageously overt (Bill Maher’s infamous rant equating breastfeeding — “a private thing” — with “farting or masturbating or pissing”).

Bottled Up! from The Milky Way on Vimeo. (Includes the aforementioned Maher rant)

{Read onward at mothering.com}

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Image:
myllissaused under its Creative Commons license

 

Protecting a Woman’s Right to Choose…Breastfeeding

Protecting a Woman's Right to Choose...BreastfeedingAuthor Ray Bradbury pointed out, chillingly, “You don’t need to burn books to destroy a culture — just get people to stop reading them.” Similarly, you don’t need to actually ban nursing to decrease the incidence of breastfeeding — just make it more and more difficult to do.

The ways our culture makes breastfeeding ever more difficult range from the insidiously subtle (hospitals’ goody-bag full of formula) to the outrageously overt (Bill Maher’s infamous rant equating breastfeeding — “a private thing” — with “farting or masturbating or pissing”).

Bottled Up! from The Milky Way on Vimeo. (Includes the aforementioned Maher rant)

 

Image:
Mothering Touch used under its Creative Commons license

 

Time Magazine: Not Mother-Friendly or Child-Friendly

A Postmortem on “That Cover”Time’s recent infamously iconic cover image plus headline “Are You Mom Enough?” (look again if you must) is tantamount to shouting fire in a crowded Chuck E. Cheese. One can almost picture the gleeful anticipation in the editorial offices: Wait for it… Mommy cat fight…! Honestly, what possible good could have come from that taunt? (more…)

Does iPhone’s Siri Thwart Social Intelligence?

A thought occurred to me years ago on one of my maiden strolls through Costco (besides yum, those mini pizzas are good): If I were an evil genius wanting to erode the nutritional wellbeing of a civilization (not to mention the individuality of its citizens), this would be a good first step. Induce mass consumer hypnosis via the big-box store. (Will return to this point in a bit.)

In the half-decade between my son’s junior and my daughter’s freshman years in high school, I witnessed his late-night telephone confabs (on a landline, gasp, when conference calls were a cool innovation) give way to her disembodied “connectivity” with Facebook friends. (more…)

Beauty as a Verb

In difficult times you should always carry something beautiful in your mind. •Blaise Pascal•

It sometimes seems to me that we’ve lost a sense of the importance of beauty in daily life. There is a coarseness and crassness to so much of the personal and cultural discourse we’re exposed to, that we’ve grown callouses over our “beauty receptors”—out of sheer survival! And, we’re all so busy, so techno-distracted, so efficient. Just don’t have the time to pick a few flowers for vase on the table… to smooth out the clutter by the front door… to hang just the right pictures on the wall. This relates to P4P Principle #3, Rhythm. (more…)