If people are grossed out by very normal human body functions and sexual behavior, then they shouldn't be reading articles like this, or passing judgment on the author. I found this article refreshingly honest about a subject that is obviously difficult to write about, because it's so marginalized (still! as the commenters have proven!).

HIV is the main disease that's passed via breastfeeding, and beyond that herpes and syphillis if the infant comes in direct contact with the lesions. I don't think a breastfeeding mother should have to curtail her sex life - but like anybody else she should be careful about multiple sexual partners and be as safe as she can possibly be. This whole idea that breastfeeding mothers have to be virginal is a bizarre complex foisted upon women by a puritannical culture. Come on! It's just sex, and if you and your partner are tested and practice safe sex, it's not a big deal.

Anyway. Bravo to the writer for being so frank about her experience. I think more stuff like this should be written so people stop getting so freaked out by it. Seriously, it's just breastmilk!

When the body is sick, it gets a fever that helps to work the virus out. The fever is a sign of the body correcting itself, ridding itself of the things that made it sick.

Which is to say, I don't think this is a bad thing. I mean, it's terrible that people are losing their jobs, homes, etc. - that is truly awful. But this is what happens when the markets run rampant, unchecked, and based on too much speculation, too much consumer debt. As Robert Reich wrote in his Salon piece on the economy, 1% of the population controlled 20% of the wealth going into this recession, and the last time that happened was just before the Great Depression. Hmm... what do they say about those who don't know their history? Republicans (and Dittoheads in particular, since they seem to be flocking to the Limbaugh stories here) like to pretend that it wasn't greed that got us into the Great Depression, and it wasn't big government spending that got us out of it.

We live in a play-by-play, 24-hour news cycle, and all of us have developed a very short attention span. This will all start to correct itself in a few months, or at worst a couple of years. In the meantime, we have to raise taxes to pay for the national deficit, and get smarter about how average people work and live and consume. People do need to start paying off their debts, and living within their means, and building savings (which economists are wringing their hands over now - we've been overconsuming for so long it's difficult to deal with regular consumption levels).

And this country has to use these tough times to innovate. Innovation is the best driver of a strong economy. Innovation means production, which means jobs. This is why Obama and others want to invest in green energy (though "clean coal" is a fallacy... I'm talking about truly green energy), because it creates production-based jobs that are more sustainable. It takes the long view, not the short one.

So I'm not convinced that everything the current administration is doing is the absolute best, but it's certainly far better than the last administration. And things may get worse before they get better, but they will get better, if both parties on the Hill can agree that it's time to rethink how this country has been doing business for the last 30 years.

This is incredibly disturbing. And, yet again, I feel a sense of helplessness. I know your job is to report and not to direct toward action - but what can we do to protest and ultimately try to stop this?

I voted for Obama and am pleased with some of the things he's done, but this is still scary, scary stuff. I think many of us voted for him because we thought he would not do this. So what do we do now?

I know at least two grandmas who only take care of their grandkids under extreme duress, and even then will complain about all the stuff they're missing because of it.

So a trend? I don't know. But it happens.