Put my picture beside the angry face.

In Kate's classroom, there is a poster with drawings of faces reflecting different feelings, a face drawn in a frown to be sad, a face with furrowed brows for angry, a face with squinted eyes and wavy mouth for frustrated and so on. As part of their daily activities, the kids use Polaroids of themselves and place them beside the face that matches how they are feeling. The exercise helps them identify what they are feeling, normalize it within the context that we all sometimes feel this way, and then give occasion for discussing how to deal with these emotions.

I am doing my best to be an adult and deal with my emotions in a rational way, but I admit that I do not always succeed in this effort. I've said it before, by definition, I am just Too Much. I love too much, believe too much, trust too much, and give too much. And when I get burned, I feel angry, disappointed, frustrated, and hopeless -- and, characteristically, I feel all those things too much. And now, although I've named everything I am feeling, I still don't feel any better. It's no wonder that Kate does this exercise everyday in school and still throws things when angry. Right now, throwing something (preferably at someone) would make me feel better, too. Mental note: remember how hard this is next time the kids try to destroy each other.

Yesterday, we got notification from Humana (our current health insurance provider) that the family insurance plan we requested had been denied -- or, at least, parts of it had. Plans were offered to Paul and Will, but not to Kate and I. This is after spending more than an hour, during the bedtime rodeo!, on the phone with a nurse representative going over 10 years of medical history for all 4 of us, including Every Single claim for a doctor's visit or a prescription. Looking back on my notes for the week, I see that I've spent about 12 hours on health insurance research, phone calls, and applications. And now we have to do it again.

I can almost see how they might deny me. I have allergies, my BMI puts me in the "overweight" category and I have a prescription for acne treatment. Definitely an insurance risk, me. But Kate? She's 2 and has had maybe 2 prescriptions in her life (one for thrush, one for her ear infection earlier in the year). It makes me feel better to say that they are women hating and leave it at that.

Today, Paul began to pursue getting our life insurance policies in order. So this morning, I spent 54 minutes on the phone giving medical history which will influence both IF we can actually get life insurance for me and HOW MUCH it will be when we do. One of the questions was if I had ever been denied health insurance. Following up this invasive interview, which included a 10 minute line of questioning about the fact that I see a dermatologist for the acne that I've had since puberty, someone will call me within the next 2 days to schedule a blood draw, urinanalysis, and height/weight check. For life insurance.

What the whole experience has shown me, for one, is that I do not ever want to see a physician ever again for anything. That preventative care is a BAD IDEA if you want to coverage for anything. Want or need a prescription? Steal it or cross a border. In short, the smart thing to do is to avoid the medical establishment all together, because anything you do can and will be held against you.

University of Michigan, the source of my graduate training, recently had articles about health insurance in it's School of Public Health alumni magazine. Several of our illustrious faculty discussed the insurance industry and how it's not that bad, it actually works well, and it keeps costs relatively low. I remember reading it thinking that maybe the arsenic in the city's water supply had gone up dramatically or perhaps the legalization of marijuana had finally been passed. Academics are the most famous Mr. In-Between-ers on the planet, being completely unable to commit to a solid 'yes' or 'no' on any topic, so it makes sense that someone would try to balance out arguments against the way insurance companies work. But I also noted that the faculty who were the most supportive of the current system were also consultants to big insurance companies.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

I know this is suppose to help, but all I really want to do is find someone to call a douchebag. Ah, it felt better just to type the word.

If you get it, you'll love it

I learned of these gems through a few of the feminist websites I troll. Clever and way funny, all of them...

...on how yogurt ads are targeted to women (it's the only food acceptable for us disgusting females to eat)

...on wedding shows and the promotion of women as selfish children (even by, or maybe especially by, We!)

...on the political wooing of women's votes (we're all free now, considering we were all in for Hillary, since she is a woman, too)

I'm surfing around while waiting for pictures to load on Smugmug. More trip pictures really are coming soon...

Quick note for important legislation in Louisiana

Latinola has a link to an editorial in the T-P regarding pending legislation in Louisiana regarding immigrants. (Have I mentioned how much I love the colors of Latinola´s website?)

I´ve taken the time to write local officials and hope others will, too. Here is some information...

Listed below are all the immigration bills, plus one resolution that have been filed:

Ø HB 1357 by Rep. Geymann (District 35, Lake Charles) creates the crime of harboring, concealing, or sheltering an alien. (passed House floor waiting to be heard by Senate Committee)

Ø HB 1358 by Rep. Geymann (District 35, Lake Charles) creates crime of unlawful transportation of an illegal alien. (passed House floor waiting to be heard by Senate Committee)

Ø HB 25 by Rep. Geymann (District 35, Lake Charles) requires police officers to verify citizenship of every person they arrest. (passed House floor waiting to be heard by Senate Committee)

Ø HB 1365 by Rep. Burns (District 89, Mandeville) requires that landlords verify legal status of aliens (passed Committee waiting to be heard on House Floor)

Worth the two minute read, even if you're trying to dash off to another continent

Nails. It.

There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.

h/t: laloca, who should keep reading the morning news

Training and Education

McCain feels that women don't need Fair Pay, they need "training and education."

I have a fantasy where his office is swamped -- a-la Harry Potter and letters from Hogwarts -- with resumes from thousands of well trained and educated women.

Help make this picture-perfect image a reality by signing up and sending here.

And while you're riding the activism wave, go on over here and tell the APA that naming Kenneth Zucker (yup, the maniac from the recent NPR series) to the position of Chair of the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders on the DSM-V Committee was a Really Bad Move. (h/t: GG)

When I complain that a graduate student's time is never valued, this is great example of what I mean.

Stanley Lemeshow is speaking tomorrow afternoon at Tulane SPH&TM/Medical School. It is wonderful opportunity; we all have read Lemeshow. His talk is "Assessing the Scale of Continuous Covariates in Logistic Regression Modeling" and YES... if given the choice between dinner out with my husband (something I do, say, twice a year?) and attending this... well, I'd tell Paul we could go to dinner once the Q&A began. (Okay, maybe it'd be alright to skip it if he offered to put out or something; I'm not totally unreasonable.) Anyway, the point is that since Dr. Lemeshow is probably in town for PAA, it makes sense to think that this speaking engagement tomorrow has been scheduled for awhile.

So WHY are doctoral students finding out about it THE DAY BEFORE!?! This makes me crazy. With our doctoral seminar from 12-1, going to Lemeshow's talk from 4-5 completely screws my day and the rest of the week, since I'd have to put off some things, reschedule others, and get even more behind in work than usual. Had I known a week ago, I could have tried to juggle the week's must-dos to make it all work. ARGH!

V-Day. It's here for a reason.

Jessica at Feministing.com posted about the V-Day events happening in New Orleans this weekend, which is great. But then she notes that none of the websites' regular contributors could make it to the event, so she recruited outside of the area, and outside of the Gret Stet, actually, to liveblog the weekend.


What, are all the local feminists at French Quarter Fest and unavailable?

Did all the New Orleans' feminists evacuate and not come back after Katrina?

Were there not enough Women's Studies majors to chose from at Tulane?

What would have been wrong with the words of the thousands of women of New Orleans who will be attending the event?

And for those New Orleans' women who won't be attending due to their living in the poverty and isolation V-Day seeks to address, couldn't feministing.com have offered to sponsor a few... in exchange for some words about the event?


V-Day is celebrated as an International call to the importance of Women's Health; it is a performance piece that signifies a global movement. However, it is intentionally being done HERE, in NEW ORLEANS, featuring specific new monologues written about real women living HERE, because of the historical significance of our city's history and what it has meant in the lives of the women of this place. This aspect of the event should not be overshadowed or forgotten. As is the case with any story of poverty and loss, the ones who suffer the most are women and children. New Orleans continues to be the poster child for both of these ills; these monologues have significance to how our city and our people will be remembered. Part of a global movement, yes, but RIGHT NOW signifying an important step in our recovery.

I understand why feministing.com may want to keep writers whom they know and trust to adhere to the kinds of writing the website wants to reflect (I love feministing.com, learn from the posts, and enjoy reading it ... but yes, there was some criticism in that last sentence) --- but within this context, I am disappointed that the website authors determined that bringing in an outsider was more important than finding someone local. Someone who could truly talk about the new monologues using both a feminist (or maybe 'feministing') lens AND the understanding of what it means for those pieces to be performed HERE.

No offense to the friendly youth coming in for the weekend to cover it. I'm sure her reflections will be thoughtful. But will she be able to comprehend what it means for the hundreds of women who have not yet returned and were brought back for the weekend's events? Will she be able to capture the frustration, heartache, and loss that we in this place have come to recognize as daily aspects of life? Will she be able to contextualize how a monologue about 'a woman in New Orleans' can symbolize an entire city's struggle for rebirth? No offense, but no. And if you can't get that, well, you're missing a HUGE part of what this weekend means.


UPDATE: Jessica has offered to include reflections from local women regarding the event on her website (see comments). Thanks!

Must Read

If you only read one blog post this week, let it be this one.

Is The Washington Post turning into The Washington Times?

Camilla Paglia and Ann Coulter, watch out -- here's another anti-feminist "feminist" set to steal your air time. via Feministing...

Charlotte Allen - a professional woman-hating hack from the Independent Women's Forum who has also oh-so-bravely attacked transgender rights, said that the answer to women's potential financial woes is marriage, and suggested that Hurricane Katrina might have been "the best thing" to happen to New Orleans which is full of "whiners...chisel[ing] us taxpayers" out of money - has outdone herself in an article that is all about what dumb f@&!s women are.

I'm sickened that the Washington Post is publishing this ridiculous nonsense.

Newsflash: women aren't men. Equality doesn't mean that we act like men. We're different, our bodies do different things, and our needs our different. This does not make us weaker (actually, we survive childbirth and infancy in greater numbers and we live longer). Thinking that women must act like men in order to be employed, gain respect, and enjoy careers is what creates unimaginable situations like this.

What is really galling is that the sort of misogynist garbage Allen puts out is equally damaging to men: you can't narrowly define the expression of one gender without narrowly defining the other (in her case, she's arguing a sex difference, but she's defining those differences according to tired, old gendered rubbish). Labeling women as emotional basket cases assumes the opposite in men. If women are emotional, men are stoic, and showing any inclination towards the other brings gender conflict: you're open for attack from the masses. Meaning that if a man shows emotion, he is feminized... and our society has a real problem with men who show any hint of femininity. By labeling women in one extreme, you put men in the other -- it is equally offensive and damaging to both. Not to mention that it ignores the fluidity of sex, gender, and their expression, which is better described on a continuum than in binary.

How I am going to raise both a boy and a girl through adolescence within all of this nonsense??

Passive aggressive crafting?

Can't think of something to get for the boss-from-hell's baby shower?

Boingboing says, " think of the incredible mental scars you could leave on your child by hanging this over her crib!"

Obama the Plagiarizer.

All those rumors about Obama plagiarizing are true. He has most certainly been plagiarizing. His catchy phrase, "Yes We Can," is lifted directly from Bob the Builder. No word on whether Bob is pressing charges, although Lofty threated a suit if Obama used, "Uh... yeah, I think so!"

Not so fast, Hillary.

Apparently, for women to do anything in government, from voting, running for office, becoming president... maybe even for going to school or walking on the sidewalk?... there must be a specific clause referring specifically to sex that says it's legal for them to participate in such action. Or, at least, this yutzball thinks so. I agree with her; it's pretty hilarious.

I don't care how "low the water is" -- these people are crazy.

Yesterday afternoon, Will saw a picture of Mount Everest with hikers climbing around in some area low enough and far enough away that they were relatively mildly dressed and outfitted. It was such a causal picture that it almost didn't seem out of the ordinary for Will to suggest, "we should go hiking there one day." I explained that this was the tallest mountain in the world and that it was very far away and very dangerous. No matter, he was hooked: "Mommy, can we go there? Can we hike on the Tallest Mountain In The World???" (The fascination was extreme; he spoke those last words in Capital.)

Somewhere, the universe is laughing at me. Because the one thing I made Paul swear he would NEVER, under ANY circumstances take up was extreme mountaineering. I do not want to ever be in a position where I am biting my nails while someone I love is playing that roulette game with nature: the Into Thin Air IMAX convinced me of this. It would figure that Will is now fascinated with the idea of climbing Everest. (Mental Note: work on instilling fear of heights into children.)

We now have a second "No You CANNOT, Not EVER, NEVER." I don't care how the water is low and the current mild. This is crazy!
h/t: growabrain

On this Valentine's Day...

When I taught at Michigan, I used to put an overhead of this up on the board as students walked in when I had class on Valentines Day. Sort of sums up my thoughts on the whole Valentines thing*. It had a lot more bite to it in the days before Blood Diamond and was a great launch into discussing the paradigms around relationships.

Share it with someone you love on this Valentines Day. (You can find online copies of it here.)



Ten Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring from Anyone, Under Any Circumstances, Even If They Really Want to Give You One.

By Liz Stanton, CPE Staff Economist

1. You’ve Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond. The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.

2. Diamonds are Priced Well Above Their Value. The De Beers cartel has systematically held diamond prices at levels far greater than their abundance would generate under anything even remotely resembling perfect competition. All diamonds not already under its control are bought by the cartel, and then the De Beers cartel carefully managed world diamond supply in order to keep prices steadily high.

3. Diamonds Have No Resale or Investment Value. Any diamond that you buy or receive will indeed be yours forever: De Beers™ advertising deliberately brain-washed women not to sell; the steady price is a tool to prevent speculation in diamonds; and no dealer will buy a diamond from you. You can only sell it at a diamond purchasing center or a pawn shop where you will receive a tiny fraction of its original “value.”

4. Diamond Miners are Disproportionately Exposed to HIV/AIDS. Many diamond mining camps enforce all-male, no-family rules. Men contract HIV/AIDS from camp sex-workers, while women married to miners have no access to employment, no income outside of their husbands and no bargaining power for negotiating safe sex, and thus are at extremely high risk of contracting HIV.

5. Open-Pit Diamond Mines Pose Environmental Threats. Diamond mines are open pits where salts, heavy minerals, organisms, oil, and chemicals from mining equipment freely leach into ground-water, endangering people in nearby mining camps and villages, as well as downstream plants and animals.

6. Diamond Mine-Owners Violate Indigenous People’s Rights. Diamond mines in Australia, Canada, India and many countries in Africa are situated on lands traditionally associated with indigenous peoples. Many of these communities have been displaced, while others remain, often at great cost to their health, livelihoods and traditional cultures.

7. Slave Laborers Cut and Polish Diamonds. More than one-half of the world’s diamonds are processed in India where many of the cutters and polishers are bonded child laborers. Bonded children work to pay off the debts of their relatives, often unsuccessfully. When they reach adulthood their debt is passed on to their younger siblings or to their own children.

8. Conflict Diamonds Fund Civil Wars in Africa. There is no reliable way to insure that your diamond was not mined or stolen by government or rebel military forces in order to finance civil conflict. Conflict diamonds are traded either for guns or for cash to pay and feed soldiers.

9. Diamond Wars are Fought Using Child Warriors. Many diamond producing governments and rebel forces use children as soldiers, laborers in military camps, and sex slaves. Child soldiers are given drugs to overcome their fear and reluctance to participate in atrocities.

10. Small Arms Trade is Intimately Related to Diamond Smuggling. Illicit diamonds inflame the clandestine trade of small arms. There are 500 million small arms in the world today which are used to kill 500,000 people annually, the vast majority of whom are non-combatants.

References:

* Collier, Paul, “Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and Their Implications for Policy,” World Bank, June 15, 2000.
* Epstein, Edward Jay, “Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?“, The Atlantic Monthly, February 1982.
* Global Witness, “Conflict Diamonds: Possibilities for the Identification, Certification and Control of Diamonds,” A Briefing Document, June 2000.
* Human Rights Watch/Asia, “The Small Hands of Slavery: Bonded Child Labor In India,” Human Rights Watch Children’s Rights Project.
* Human Rights Watch, “Children’s Rights: Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.”
* Kerlin, Katherine “Diamonds Aren’t Forever: Environmental Degradation and Civil War in the Gem Trade,” E: The Environment Magazine.
* Le Billon, Philippe, “Angola’s Political Economy of War: The Role of Oil and Diamonds, 1975-2000,” African Affairs, (2001), 100, p.55-80
* Mines and Communities, “The Mining Curse: The roles of mining in ‘underdeveloped’ economies,” Minewatch Asia Pacific/Nostromo Briefing Paper, February 1999.
* Other Facets, Number 1, April 2001; Number 2, June 2001; Number 3, October 2001, www.partnershipafricacanada.org/hsdp/of.html [dead link]


*Full disclosure: I do own a diamond that I consider to be one of the most precious things we have. It was Paul's Grandmother's engagement ring from the 1920s, set in a completely one-of-a-kind ring that she designed. I like to think that it holds a bit more innocence for it's age, originality, and family history. But hey, I eat meat, heat my house, take long showers, and own clothes that came from maquilas, so I am in no way innocent. Even still: I have never bought a diamond.

Thank you, Mayor Nagin.

For helping us parents spread the message to our children that guns are objects of violence, not toys. You are doing a great job of telling us just how seriously you take the issue of violent crime in New Orleans.

Taking me away from Important. Adult. Business.

I SHOULD be spray painting rubber boots, making superhero emblems, and decorating that seriously gorgeous float sitting in our outbuilding. And Emmy just called from the Mardi Gras store... I could be with Emmy in a Mardi Gras STORE!?! My priorities are way out of whack, 'cause that is what I should be doing.

Instead, I'm redoing my consent (or at least complaining about it) because the IRB people don't like that I wrote a sensible, understandable, useful form (in two languages, don't forget that part!) I didn't correctly use their template and didn't have a running footer with the version date. Apparently, you MUST use their ALL canned fill for ALL project submissions, even when it includes stuff about my salary from the research (what?!) and the potential profit in the sale of body parts (hello, this is qualitative research, people!) I understand and respect the IRB process and generally think it's super fantastic that they are mandatory, but seriously... isn't rational thought involved anymore??

Actually, what is pissing me off isn't all of that... bureaucracy I can reasonably handle. I'm ticked that I requested meetings 3 weeks ago to go over these details and was blown off... three times. So I'm irritated that NOW I'm having to make changes. I guess it could be worse... they could've flat out denied me and made me do the whole process again. Aye, when I think about all the trees who gave their lives for this submission...

What I learned in my PhD

The more I do this PhD thing, the more I learn. Don't confuse this with being trained in your field; that stuff you learn in a post-doc. PhD learning is about learning how to get through a PhD. Unfortunately, I'm not proving to be the best learner in this area... I'm too determined to actually gain something from my experience and catching on a little too late.

Today's lesson: there is a reason why PhD students do not do independent research. PhD students are better off piggy-backing something on a Professor's work agenda because that is THE ONLY WAY TO GET ANY F&%$*!NG attention.

If I weren't okay with just charging ahead on my own with no direction whatsoever, or practiced at getting feedback and advice from other areas (read: other universities, departments, persons outside my chair), then nothing in my degree program would ever happen.

Tin Roof, Rusted (Part II): Party Conversations

One of the people I most enjoyed was a wife of one of Paul's cooler co-workers, who is the Department head of the Math Department of a local high school and teaches AP Calculus and AP Statistics. She and I were discussing the importance of women in Mathematics and Sciences when she came out with this: "I have a class of 28, and each year, about 21 of them are female and all of them consistently outperform their male peers. Our student government is always female. So what I want to know is: WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING IN COLLEGE????"

A brilliant question placed so nicely within the observations and experiences of someone who faces it everyday. What is happening to women?

Once upon a time, Paul and I made similar observations about friends and acquaintences, noticing that they shared the same college: we joked that this particular university had a curious way of beating dreams and aspirations out of women. This particular university is also well-known for having faculty who openly have flirtations and affairs with students -- and write about it -- and maybe this isn't a coincidence. What happens in college, and what happens after, and why is it so toxic to the promising potential in the talents of women?

Maybe it isn't necessarily what happens in college, but is instead what happens afterward? She gets hired by Company X and gets stuck working with the guy with the roaming hands. This guy is pervasive everywhere and is typically one that everyone seems to like (or is maybe tolerated out of some strange peer-pressure fear), and while it's well-known that he is inappropriate, he remains untouched by an indifferent management (make the environment more friendly to women? what is that a requirement of management?) Worse, he may be her boss. Or, her boss totally ignores her, calling in for the first time on the day she resigns. She gets paid less than her male peers, receives less promotions, and is hounded on her personal life (marriage and kids makes a working girl distracted, ya know.) Are all of these things illegal? Well, maybe, but they are all active and real... as part of corporate culture as power ties and pumps. Maybe my use of the word 'corporate' unfairly fingers business, which is not my intent: it is even worse in academia.

So what does the world offer to women, professionally? Well, I'd argue it offers all that it offers to a man -- at a reduced pay, of course -- IF the woman is willing to act like a man.

For a woman to be successful, she must remain aloof, act tough, rough, and hard (which will label her a "cold bitch" but is preferred to the alternative, patronizing treatment). She is constantly observed for signs of female-ness: did she marry, buy a house, or (gasp!) have a baby!? These are all connected to risk within the robot-male business model, where one must have no emotion to any thing but the job, dedicate all time to it, and reject life outside of work. Forget that 30 hours a week of work is the most efficient, connected to more completed in a work week, healthier employees, and a better overall company: you are required to be at work, even if you're not doing anything at all, 12 hours a day, everyday. Not performing at this level is a feminine slip, a sign of weakness, and shows lack of dedication. Want to push back that 4pm meeting to 3pm so that you can make Tommy's soccer game? Tisk, tisk... your priorities are all messed up. (Incidentally, if your male boss makes the same request, he's just "being a good Dad.")

A day of sexual harassment, hours and hours of extra work with little reward, pay out of whack with peers, and diminished opportunities for advancement... who would willing and openly choose this life? Staying home with babies (who actually need to be with their Mothers for more than the ridiculous 6-week window) does not sound like a "choice" but a rational path made by smart women who are lucky to have enough resources available to them so that they do not have to endure the torture of a sexist, hostile work environment.

If the work world was structured to be family friendly: to offer part-time opportunities with benefits (or have university health care so that benefits were not a requirement for families), and work options that allowed for quality jobs with less hours and more flexibility; if maternity leave was reasonable; if childcare was affordable and on-site for nursing mothers... in short, if women and families were valued, then I believe more women would remain in professional positions in all fields. Women "choose" to leave the work force because there is no other choice to make. I don't think it a coincidence that so many women have part-time independent businesses, photography studios, craft endeavors, design consultant services: these are flexible areas where women can control their professional lives. Signs that women want to continue to develop themselves outside of their family identity and responsibilities, but cannot do so in the professional world. So they look for other places to do so.

So what happens to women to take them out of mathematics and sciences (and the professional world, in general?) Well, they get beaten. Enough licks and anyone with a ripcord will pull it to get out.

The whole situation sucks for men, too, who are expected to work, expected to find well-paid employment to support a family, expected to work too much, and expected to not notice that they are missed at home. What would it take to re-think how we work and who we expect to work? Is it too much to encourage young women to think beyond a life in homemaking and allow men to pursue art or craft-making without looking at him as irresponsible?

It's the little things

Once again, insomnia is the name of the game. Restless and sleepless. The nice part is that when I am asleep, I'm getting to cuddle Will. We're sharing a bed while friends from Lima (one of my mentors, Valerie, and her husband Eric and happy 3-month old baby Diego) use our room. I'm not the only one, though, since Diego isn't particularly interested in sleeping, either. (Not that he is fussy -- he is the happiest, sweetest baby -- but still awake.) So Valerie is nursing all the time, trying to get as much work time in the SPH&TM as possible, and barely sleeping. This is a situation I can very much understand and acutely remember. Is there such a thing as sympathy insomnia?

But lack of sleep I can deal with. What is going to make crazy? The fact that I can't save drafts on the writable PDF for the IRB submission forms (I have to use about 5) without buying Adobe Reader. (Paul pointed out the issue when I balked that I couldn't save my work.) Currently downloading Nitro trial to see if that will do the quick trick, if for only two weeks. It's better than the cutting and pasting nightmare I'm currently facing. If I'm a raving maniac two hours from now, the reason has now been officially documented.

UPDATE: Nitro does the job. But it uses that new Word layout... the one that should be the poster example for why "change for the sake of change" is just not always a good thing. In other words, it's really annoying. But it did the job and will keep doing the job for the 13 more days I've got it.

For Today's Parental Freak-Out Moment...

I bring you the following information from Consumer Reports. Lead is everywhere, existing in a ton of your household goods and children's playtoys. Love that lead. Here is what they found:

Our lab tests detected lead at widely varying levels in samples of dishware, jewelry, glue stick caps, vinyl backpacks, children's ceramic tea sets, and other toys and items not on any federal recall list.

Samples of a Fisher-Price blood pressure cuff that is part of a toy medical kit had surface lead in worrisome amounts. Parents should remove this toy from use.

And more on that...

Our tests found high total lead levels in three new samples of a red toy blood pressure cuff from classic Fisher-Price Medical Kits purchased in the New York area and three samples from the homes of employees of the Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports.

We detected the highest concentration of total lead, more than 10,000 parts per million, in a cuff that a child had regularly played with for the past two years.

Right. Like my kids. Because we totally have this set. The kids LOVE it. When Kate was a baby, Will used to give her daily check-ups.

Why oh why oh why are we still even manufacturing lead??