Oh boy. Another front opens up in the Mommy Wars. On top of everything else we mothers are told to feel guilty about, we're now supposed to feel bad if we don't breastfeed our children exclusively for the regulation six months.

Never mind that some of us have medical problems that keep us from breastfeeding. Or we are on medications that may be passed to the baby in our milk. Or our kids have difficulty nursing. Or we can't produce enough milk to keep them nourished. Or we don't work at jobs that give us time to pump and a private, clean place to do it in. Or we don't have supportive families that will pick up the slack when we are busy nursing the baby. No, we're automatically evil, bad mommies if we don't drop everything we're doing to nurse our infants until our nipples fall off.

It's one thing to run a positive campaign that publicizes the benefits of breastfeeding and encourages women to do it. It's quite another thing to excoriate women for not nursing and insinuate that they are deliberately abusing their children if they don't. This approach is not going to encourage many people to breastfeed, but it will make women who cannot nurse doubt their abilities as mothers.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing.

I saw the re-release at our neighborhood theater with my husband and kids. It was fun to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen again (as it was meant to be seen).

Many jobs that involve working with kids already require a background check. The state could just add "Shopping Mall Santa" to the list if people are worried about their kids coming into contact with sex offenders.

Seriously, did I just read that Bill O'Reilley (if given the chance) would set himself up as essentially another Saddam Hussein, only this time with better teeth and no mustache?

He's unconsciously revealed the authoritarian nature of what passes for conservatism these days.

Developmental delays in kids happen for many reasons, most of which parents have no control over.

Women married earlier than they do today, so children were more likely to be born by young mothers. This would skew the statistics right off the bat.

ALso, kids were more likely to die young from diseases. The total mortality of this group is far, far higher than an equivalent group of children today. Result: far fewer people have the chance to live to 100, so what it tells us about our current life expectancy is pretty limited.

Perhaps farmers tended to live longer because the pollution and disease in urban areas contributed to earlier mortality.

They were put there specifically to do the bidding of their masters in the Bush administration and maintain Republicans in power at all costs. (That's also why Harriet Meiers was nominated, since Bush clearly saw the utility of placing his old family retainer on the Supreme Court.) There was no way that they were going to decide this case any other way and undermine the efforts of the Rethugs to gerrymander themselves into power.

Of course, the conservative base thinks that Alito and Roberts were put on the court to overturn Roe vs. Wade, Griswold vs. Connecticuit, and all the other decisions that they don't like. Masterly bit of indirection, that. But who knows, it may yet happen ...

... And farthingales, panniers, bum rolls, crinolines, and other bottom-enhancing undergarments of the past few centuries.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Given her complete lack of ethics and moral responsibility, it is no surprise that she has sunk to stealing the work of others. (Perhaps "sunk" isn't the right word here, as she has been crawling through the gutter for quite some time now and there isn't much lower she can go.)

They look like normal people. In the world of TV makeovers, though, that's apparently a fate worse than death. What the shows do is turn them into terrifyingly bland-looking Barbie clones with a full-court press of plastic surgeons and cosmetic dentists-to-the-stars, sadistic personal trainers, anorexic dietitians, sarcastic hairstylists, and emaciated fashionistas to dress her in her new paid-product-placement wardrobe.

What these women really need is a mini-makeover -- a modest wardrobe update, a new hairstyle, maybe a membership to their local gym, that sort of thing. (About the only real problem most of them have is lousy teeth.) Of course, this does not make for good, voyeuristic reality TV...

My mother grew up in the 1950s. There were five approved careers for women of her generation: teacher, nurse, secretary, housewife, and nun (if you were Catholic).

I grew up in the '70s/80s when these restrictions were gone but not forgotten. I had to put up with a fair amount of sexist crap in high school because I took a heavy load of science and math courses and in college because I studied engineering, a distinctly non-feminine field. And when I entered the work world, I encountered certain men who were uncomfortable with the idea that women were as competent as they were and felt threatened by our presence. Dealing with these attitudes was very frustrating.

When I tell younger, college-age women about this today, they look at me like I'm from another planet.

This sounds like progress to me.

... the terrorists will win!

Even after I got back to my pre-pregnancy weight, my body never was the same. Hips got wider, breasts got larger, feet went up a shoe size, and I got some more stretch marks. I like the way I look now, although I could do without having bigger feet.

My neighbor, though, is just as skinny at 40-something after five kids as she was in her early '20s, pre-kids. She's never dieted and isn't into running or any other form of intense exercise, either. Some people are just genetically lucky that way.