I know exactly what she means...

Pundits are describing 4-year-old Abigael Evans as an "internet sensation"--after her mother posted her endearing cries for mercy, correctly echoing all of our deepest feelings!

Tired of Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney



Viewed almost 12 million times, Abigael wins the DEAD AIR prize for sincerity, during this 2012 election.

Greetings from Redneck Nation

Finding politically-correct targets for the trendinistas to hate, is getting more and more difficult.

How can they prove they are the cool trendies unless somebody is the inferior rube? And the usual suspects (the darker peoples, the disabled, the foreigners who dress funny)... well, all of that prejudice is starting to look really BACKWARD and ignorant, even to the trendies. Who'd a thunk it? This seems to have touched off a crisis in confidence. They can't even use a well-seasonsed, drive-by insult like "mouth-breathers" anymore, without somebody getting irate. It's getting harder and harder for them to find people beneath them to safely ridicule. WHERE ARE MY INFERIORS?--howl the trendies, starved to recognize their innate superiority.

Ah, yes. Of course. Their inferiors, as always, are south of the Mason-Dixon line. What Robin Williams once amusingly called the Manson-Nixon line, even though one of those men was born in OHIO (which is ABOVE the Mason-Dixon line, last time I checked) and one was born in California. But that's quibbling... let's not let the facts interfere with good anti-southern insults!

On my show tomorrow (which I taped yesterday in scenic Simpsonville, SC), we have a first-rate, top-notch, Daisy-rant in store! This was occasioned by the newest affront perpetrated against Redneck Nation, an unbelievable Reality TV show on The Learning Channel (!) titled, HERE COMES HONEY BOO-BOO. I didn't watch too much of it. Needed drugs after only five minutes.

This mocking, derisive show manages to combine hatred of southern rednecks (the only form of overt classism now openly celebrated in the USA) with hatred of fat people, exploitation of children and early-sexualization of girls, all in one happy little package. You can almost see the TV-executives, triumphantly tallying up all of these factors on their nasty fingers: heyyyyy, we got KIDS, we got a BABY BEAUTY-QUEEN, we got a FAT FAMILY of DUMB REDNECKS! (high fives all-round) Whoever thought up this show, got himself a raise and probably a promotion.

Already, the trendies are stampeding forth to "defend" the show against... well, against who? Do they understand that they like it because it was MADE FOR THEM? Apparently not. (The irony, it burns.)

I started thinking about the cultural geneaology of Ms Boo Boo and where she came from. Brainstorming with my ever-astute radio co-hosts (Consiglieri Gregg Jocoy and Occupy Greenville Mentor Double A Battery), we came up with a noxious stew of the murdered JonBenét Ramsey, the rise of awful Toddlers and Tiaras (where Ms Boo Boo was "discovered"), Dance Moms and other such shows, as well as Little Miss Sunshine. We then segued into Larry the Cable Guy and Jeff Foxworthy. Nobody is safe, once we start naming names!

To make matters worse, there is also a constantly-replayed show titled World's Dumbest Hillbillies. After thinking really hard, we could not come up with single other group of people that would rate such a TV show named after them, try as we might. (Any takers?)

I invite you to listen. Saturday at 9am, WFIS-AM, 1600 AM/94.9 FM on your local upstate radio dial... or on our radio blog.

~*~

Taking a short break for the neighboring Peach State.

Trivia time: there was once a minor-league baseball team actually known as The Atlanta Crackers. This came from the pejorative term, Georgia Cracker. (staying on topic!) My father-in-law saw the Atlanta Crackers play several times, and the first time I ever heard him comment about that, I was momentarily confused. (You say what?)

There was also a Negro-league team called the Atlanta Black Crackers, which is an even weirder team name.

See you when I get back. Keep the faith, redneck brothers and sisters.

If Disney did a horror movie, might look like this

Left: Victoria's birthday party; she is the one in yellow who looks just like me.







My granddaughter turned six on September 11. I certainly DO wish her birthday was NOT a national day of mourning. To my daughter's credit (that's her in the photo), she has always tried to make her birthdays happy. I don't think Victoria will become self-conscious about the date until she is older, and maybe not even then.

As one commenter on a blog recently said to me: If we let them take our happiness, they have indeed been successful in totally destroying the day. I agree.

Meanwhile, my granddaughter is SIX whole years old! I will be seeing them next week for the first time in over a year, and I am very excited.

And don't these partiers look a little scary? ;)

Kindergartner brings loaded gun to school, injures three

Damn, they sure do start em on guns EARLY in Texas! This was the lead story yesterday in the Houston Chronicle:

Houston Police Dept probing how kindergartner brought gun to school

Five-year-old Jarneshia Broussard was eating her lunch, a hot dog and beans, with her kindergarten class Tuesday when she heard a loud "pop" in the Ross Elementary School cafeteria.

The little girl at first thought a light blew out. Then she recognized the sound.

"I knew it was a gun because a gun goes 'pow,' " she said. "I got really scared."

A loaded pistol had dropped from the pants pocket of a 6-year-old male classmate and discharged, slightly injuring him and two other pupils in the legs or feet, officials said.

The three children — believed to have been hit by a single bullet or fragments — were in stable condition, smiling and playing video games, by Tuesday afternoon, said David deLemos, a trauma specialist at Texas Children's Hospital.

Investigators were trying to determine how the boy obtained a gun and brought it into the northeast Houston campus without anyone stopping him — sending fear through students and parents who trust that school is a safe place.

The boy's parents could not be reached for comment. Officials with Texas Child Protective Services plan to question the family within 24 hours, said agency spokeswoman Gwen Carter.

"It would be a concern about supervision, how a child gained access to a gun and was able to transport it," she said. "In cases like this, we look to the parents to try to understand what has happened."

A relative who would only identify herself as an aunt confirmed that the boy had brought a gun to school and still was in the hospital Tuesday evening.

For having a gun on campus, the boy could face a year-long expulsion to an alternative school, according to Houston Independent School District policy.

The Houston Police Department, which is leading the investigation, would not release details, including the type of gun or the owner.

Also see earlier article: Child, 6, brings gun to school

Three children grazed by bullet after kindergartner brings gun to school

NPR: The Two-Way News blog

Wordless Wednesday: Discovering coolness

Daisy's grandson dons sunglasses, appears momentarily confused. I'm sure he'll catch on later!

Wordless Wednesday: Your Future Mr Right

My grandson is your Future Mr Right! (((beams proudly)))

Stalemate and ADD

I keep drawing the Two of Swords, which I can't figure out. I've never drawn it for myself until lately. The problem with attempting to read one's own tarot (or be one's own therapist!) is that you simply can't figure out this stuff for yourself, just as we can't always figure out we don't look good in certain clothes we love anyway. No objectivity!

And it doesn't help that many of the tarot-experts and sources can't agree on the card's meanings. Hm.

I choose the meaning I think is most likely: Stalemate. I am stalemated. At least I know that much.

However, if I am indeed lying to myself (one of the meanings of the Two of Swords), how could I know what the card means? Obviously, I am already in denial, and that means I don't have a clue.

She really needs to take off the blindfold!

~*~

Speaking of blindfolds (how's that for a segue?), Chaos is Normal posted FTY: Students, which included an excerpt from a bang-up interview (by Amy Goodman) of one Canadian Dr Gabor Maté. This incisive excerpt sent me over to Democracy Now to listen to the whole show, titled Dr. Gabor Maté on the Stress-Disease Connection, Addiction, Attention Deficit Disorder and the Destruction of American Childhood. Highly recommended!

I hear about ADD every day, as my customer-parents attempt to deal, often buying supplements for their children. I hear all about the endless "symptoms"--which so often to me, sound like, well, just being a child. When did simple childhood become a disease?

I didn't grow up hearing about ADD, which also fascinates me. Is this some "new and improved" diagnosis, in that case? If so, is our culture to blame for stigmatizing certain behaviors? And as with autism, are those same behaviors possibly 'rewarded' elsewhere? (i.e. the preponderance of autism in the Silicon Valley) Dr Gabor Maté believes actual brain development in children has markedly changed over the last generation or so, due to our radical changes in culture. (I have often believed this about addiction, so when somebody with smarts comes out and backs me up, I am thrilled.)

Quotes from Dr Maté I found especially pertinent:

In the United States right now, there are three million children receiving stimulant medications for ADHD... Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. And there are about half-a-million kids in this country receiving heavy-duty anti-psychotic medications, medications such as are usually given to adult schizophrenics to regulate their hallucinations. But in this case, children are getting it to control their behavior. So what we have is a massive social experiment of the chemical control of children’s behavior, with no idea of the long-term consequences of these heavy-duty anti-psychotics on kids.

And I know that Canadians statistics just last week showed that within last five years, 43—there’s been a 43 percent increase in the rate of dispensing of stimulant prescriptions for ADD or ADHD, and most of these are going to boys. In other words, what we’re seeing is an unprecedented burgeoning of the diagnosis. And I should say, really, I’m talking about, more broadly speaking, what I would call the destruction of American childhood, because ADD is just a template, or it’s just an example of what’s going on. In fact, according to a recent study published in the States, nearly half of American adolescents now meet some criteria or criteria for mental health disorders. So we’re talking about a massive impact on our children of something in our culture that’s just not being recognized.

...

The normal basis for child development has always been the clan, the tribe, the community, the neighborhood, the extended family. Essentially, post-industrial capitalism has completely destroyed those conditions. People no longer live in communities which are still connected to one another. People don’t work where they live. They don’t shop where they live. The kids don’t go to school, necessarily, where they live. The parents are away most of the day. For the first time in history, children are not spending most of their time around the nurturing adults in their lives. And they’re spending their lives away from the nurturing adults, which is what they need for healthy brain development.

...

In ADD, there’s an essential brain chemical, which is necessary for incentive and motivation, that seems to be lacking. That’s called dopamine. And dopamine is simply an essential life chemical. Without it, there’s no life. Mice in a laboratory who have no dopamine will starve themselves to death, because they have no incentive to eat. Even though they’re hungry, and even though their life is in danger, they will not eat, because there’s no motivation or incentive. So, partly, one way to look at ADD is a massive problem of motivation, because the dopamine is lacking in the brain. Now, the stimulant medications elevate dopamine levels, and these kids are now more motivated. They can focus and pay attention.

However, the assumption underneath giving these kids medications is that what we’re dealing with here is a genetic disorder, and the only way to deal with it is pharmacologically. And if you actually look at how the dopamine levels in a brain develop, if you look at infant monkeys and you measure their dopamine levels, and they’re normal when they’re with their mothers, and when you separate them from mothers, the dopamine levels go down within two or three days.

So, in other words, what we’re doing is we’re correcting a massive social problem that has to do with disconnection in a society and the loss of nurturing, non-stressed parenting, and we’re replacing that chemically. Now, the drugs—the stimulant drugs do seem to work, and a lot of kids are helped by it. The problem is not so much whether they should be used or not; the problem is that 80 percent of the time a kid is prescribed a medication, that’s all that happens. Nobody talks to the family about the family environment. The school makes no attempt to change the school environment. Nobody connects with these kids emotionally. In other words, it’s seen simply as a medical or a behavioral problem, but not as a problem of development.

Daisy pauses to scream a hearty YES!

You see, now, if your spouse or partner, adult spouse or partner, came home from work and didn’t give you the time of day and got on the phone and talked with other people all the time and spent all their time on email talking to other people, your friends wouldn’t say, "You’ve got a behavioral problem. You should try tough love." They’d say you’ve got a relationship problem. But when children act in these ways, we think we have a behavioral problem, we try and control the behaviors. In fact, what they’re showing us is that—my children showed this, as well—is that I had a relationship problem with them. They weren’t connected enough with me and too connected to the peer group. So that’s why they wanted to spend all their time with their peer group. And now we’ve given kids the technology to do that with.

...

...human beings are shaped very early by what happens to them in life. As a matter of fact, they’re shaped already by what happens in uterus. After 9/11, after the World Trade disasters in those terrorist attacks, some women who were pregnant suffered PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. And depending on what stage of pregnancy they suffered the PTSD, when they measured their children’s cortisol levels—cortisol being a body stress hormone—at one year of age, those kids had abnormal cortisol levels. In other words, their stress apparatus had been negatively affected by the mother’s stress during pregnancy. Similarly, for example, when I looked at the stress hormone levels of the children of Holocaust survivors with PTSD, the greater the degree of PTSD of the parent, the higher the stress hormone level of the child.

So, how we see the world, whether the world is a hostile or friendly place, whether we have to always do for ourselves and look after others or whether we can actually expect and receive help from the world, whether or not the world is hostile or friendly, and indeed our stress physiology, is very much shaped by those early experiences.

Listen to/read the whole thing; Dr Maté has an overall approach you probably haven't heard before. And I think it helps immeasurably that Dr Maté has ADD himself, and has the necessary inside-understanding to talk about the issues.

His newest book is titled In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, which I have just ordered from AMAZON.

(Thanks Chaos!)

Odds and Sods - St Rita's edition

A rather long time since I did an Odds and Sods post, so here we are.

I've dipped my toe back into the waters of Blogdonia with great trepidation, keeping my head down, minding my manners and decidedly not frightening the horses. See? Despite what you may have heard, I CAN behave myself when I want!

~*~

Today is the Feast of St Rita of Cascia, subject of many fevered novenas from Daisy in years past. Since she is also the saint in charge of the bees, I decided I'd include some links on what the experts have named colony collapse disorder. Believe it or not, as one connected to herbs in a personal way, I have stayed awake at night worrying over the fate of the bees. The poor bees could be signaling The End of The World As We Know It.

And now, a big hole in the ocean and an oil leak the size of Madagascar, drilled by evil greedheads. No, I guess THIS will be our undoing, the meteor-to-the-dinosaurs. I am sick over this, and it has superseded my worrying over bees.

Too much to worry about.

Um, just a question, but what is Obama doing? Does he have his thumb up his ass or what? Is he actually WAITING for BP to fix their multi-billion dollar, environmental disaster? And why should he wait for them? It's not THEIR coastline!

I've heard this called "Obama's Katrina"--and that isn't precisely accurate (or fair), since this isn't a natural disaster, it's a thoroughly unnatural one. Nonetheless, it has the ring of truth.

Get off your ass, Mr President, and stop attending state dinners for five seconds. The future of the ocean and the coastline (not to mention people's livelihoods) is at stake and it doesn't look good when you are doing little more than photo-ops.

~*~

At left: The WWII aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, which we toured back in (I think) 1993. It's permanently parked down at Patriot's Point in Charleston Harbor.

Edit: My original photo was of a cruiser named the Yorktown, which was not the aircraft carrier Yorktown. Many thanks to the Eagle Eye of Ted Christian (who should have been in congress), a rocket scientist with attendant amazing and arcane areas of knowledge.




Mr Daisy has been reading about WWII and depressing me with talk of battleships blowing up and whatnot. As children, I remember that we all wondered when "World War III" would come, and none of us ever doubted it that it would. We asked our mothers when it would be, and few seemed to find the question bizarre or alarming... after all, they had lived through a World War, and it seemed reasonable to assume more were on the way.

Magic Lantern Show gives us beautiful photos of a French WWI memorial near Verdun, as Owen describes touring such a place:

[How] many people know that the largest American cemetery in Europe is in Romagne sous Montfaucon, or that it is from World War I and holds the graves of 14246 Americans, as well as the names of another 954 men whose bodies were never found?

I spent a few days this past fall wandering the area near Verdun looking for traces of World War I. One afternoon I stumbled on the American Cemetery near Romagne sous Montfaucon, and spent a couple of hours exploring the vast park that it is. Why had I never heard of this place? Why weren't we taught about it in high school? Walking the seemingly endless rows of white marble crosses I was short of breath, nearly gasping at the enormity of it, the tragedy of lives cut short in firestorms of flying steel and lead. The names of the dead cried out from each cross in silent pain, a name, a state, a military unit, a date of death. Who were these men who died between September 26th and November 11th, 1918, as they drove the Germans back northwards along a line to the west of Verdun? What actually happened there? What did the letters they wrote home say? What did their families and the women they loved experience in those terrible years?

We are approaching the 10th year of the war in Afghanistan, and we would do well to remember that war is hell.

Bring them home now, yesterday, last month, last year... wait, where's my new bumper sticker: I'm already against the next war.

~*~

Disturbing reading at this Feministe thread: On Hating Kids.

As of this writing, there are 632 (!) comments, and yes, I briefly commented, but (as stated previously) I minded my manners.

But truthfully?

Whenever I hear "I hate ___(fill in the blank)____" from anyone, I wince and my opinion of them goes down a notch or two, or 85. How can anyone say, I hate ____, when you simply haven't met them all?: I hate the Muslims, I hate the vegetarians, I hate gays, I hate kids. All sounds the same to me. Apparently, hating kids is regarded as different (oh, isn't it always?) since "we've all been children". Well, we will all be old someday too, but I see clearly how old people are despised in our modern culture. That may in fact be the crux of it; a hatred for the overwhelming lability of the human condition, a hatred of our own biological vulnerability. And even more than most people (a fact mentioned in the thread several times), Americans are instilled with bullshit notions of "independence" and agency. (All that pioneer/cowboy spirit, one assumes.) In the thread, it was notable how many (childless, child-free, whatever term we are supposed to be using now) people openly brag about how raising children necessarily means you simply can't do the "fun" SINGLE things anymore, so stop taking your kids to pricey restaurants (nobody cares if you take them to a poor place like McDonalds) and movies and having them kick up a noisy fuss. (Some Feministe commenters seem barely able to contain themselves: TAKE THOSE BRATS HOME, you breeder bitches!)

Hey, I totally relate to all that. I once turned around and cussed some parents out for bringing their ill-behaved tyke to an adult movie... and will be happy to do so in the future, if necessary. I can dig it, as we used to say. But proudly announcing you HATE an entire group of people is bigoted and wrong. Period. No exceptions. And I will henceforth regard you as an acknowledged hater and bigot.

As is true of all bigots, I doubt the hate stops there.

Renee has considerably more to say on the subject.

~*~

And Glenn Greenwald writes more about that wonderful Change We Can Believe In:

Few issues highlight Barack Obama's extreme hypocrisy the way that Bagram does. As everyone knows, one of George Bush’s most extreme policies was abducting people from all over the world -- far away from any battlefield -- and then detaining them at Guantanamo with no legal rights of any kind, not even the most minimal right to a habeas review in a federal court. Back in the day, this was called "Bush's legal black hole."

...

Amazingly, the Bush DOJ -- in a lawsuit brought by Bagram detainees seeking habeas review of their detention -- contended that if they abduct someone and ship them to Guantanamo, then that person [under Boumediene v. Bush] has the right to a habeas hearing, but if they instead ship them to Bagram, then the detainee has no rights of any kind. In other words, the detainee's Constitutional rights depends on where the Government decides to drop them off to be encaged. One of the first acts undertaken by the Obama DOJ that actually shocked civil libertarians was when, last February, as The New York Times put it, Obama lawyers "told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team."

...

So congratulations to the United States and Barack Obama for winning the power to abduct people anywhere in the world and then imprison them for as long as they want with no judicial review of any kind.

If I may quote the very wise John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) at the infamous last performance of the Sex Pistols: Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? You should ask that question with a cockney sneer and punctuate it with spitting (or whatever bodily function you choose).

Yep. I sure do.

Barack Obama has brought the Rotten out of me.

SC Lt Gov Andre Bauer compares poor to stray dogs

Photo of Lt Gov Andre Bauer from 67 Degrees.

~*~


Those of you who wondered why we weren't so all-fired anxious to get rid of our wayward governor, Mark Sanford, down here in South Carolina... well, this should solve the enduring political puzzle at long last. Next in line for the job would be Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, whom I have written about quite a bit here at DEAD AIR.

And Bauer has just distinguished himself in his inimitable fashion, at a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn, comparing poor people to stray dogs.

I could never make this stuff up:

Bauer equates 'stray animals' to people in speech on aid to needy
Lieutenant governor says those receiving help 'owe something back'
By Nathaniel Cary • Staff Writer • January 23, 2010

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer drew a comparison to “feeding stray animals” during a speech about people on government assistance, “babies having babies,” and parents whose children are on free and reduced-price lunch.

Bauer, who's running for the Republican nomination for governor, made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn that included state lawmakers and about 115 residents.

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better,” Bauer said.

In South Carolina, 58 percent of students participate in the free and reduced-price lunch program, 45.5 percent in Greenville County.

Bauer's remarks came during a speech in which he said government should take away assistance if those receiving help didn't pass drug tests or attend parent-teacher conferences or PTA meetings if their children were receiving free and reduced-price lunches.

Bauer later told The Greenville News on Friday that he wasn't saying people on government assistance “were animals or anything else.”

In his speech to the group, Bauer said people have to become more engaged with government.

“You see, for the first time in the history of this country, we've got more people voting for a living than we do working for a living,” he said.

What the hell is he talking about, Daisy interrupts to ask indignantly. Jesus H. Christ.

And of course, it just gets worse.

Later in his speech, he said, “I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina,” adding, “You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch and I'll show you the worst test scores, folks. It's there, period. So how do you fix it? Well you say, ‘Look, if you receive goods or services from the government then you owe something back.'”

Bauer said during the speech that there are no “repercussions” from accepting government assistance.

“We don't make you take a drug test. We ought to. We don't even make you show up to your child's parent-teacher conference meeting or to the PTA meeting,” Bauer said.

“You go to a school where there's an active participation of parents and guess what? They have the highest test scores. So what do you do? You say, ‘Look folks, if you receive goods or services from the government and you don't attend a parent-teacher conference, bam, you lose your benefits.' We're going to have to do things like that. We can't afford to keep just giving money away.”

And he said it was time to confront “babies having babies, somebody's got to talk about. Politicians don't want to talk about it anymore because it's politically incorrect.”

Later, Bauer told The Greenville News that “people in society have certain responsibilities, just like if you don't pay your taxes, there are certain repercussions.”

He said government hasn't made requirements to make those receiving aid be more responsible.

“They can continue to have more and more kids and the reward is there's more and more money in it for them.”

Instead, he said the government should place incentives in its welfare programs such as providing child care so parents can work or receive education so they can break the welfare cycle.

Government continues to reward bad behavior by giving money to people who “don't have to do a thing,” he said.

Does this include corporate welfare, such as subsidizing Boeing's expensive move to South Carolina--to the tune of a 60% tax break? (And how many millions does that eventually work out to? Never was too good at math!) I agree, that kind of welfare sucks! Not to mention the bloodsuckers who keep running for office and pandering to the lowest element in our society. What are THEY giving back? Are these party hacks good for South Carolina, or do they just contribute to the continuing stereotype of us as a bunch of stupid, xenophobic rednecks?

Is Bauer proposing we take away free lunches from the kids with bad parents--the ones who test positive for drugs and won't attend school conferences, et. al.? Punish the kids for the parents' behavior, isn't that what he is advocating?

Interestingly (and hypocritically), Andre Bauer is a major pro-lifer, and takes the OPPOSITE line when the subject is abortion: Why punish the baby for the behavior of the parents? Like Mike Huckabee, whom he supported for president, Bauer does not believe in any legal exceptions for abortion in the cases of rape or incest; and this is the moral defense he and Huckabee repeatedly offer. So, apparently, it's okay to punish kids for what their parents do, as long as they are already born! Just not in the womb! The womb is sacrosanct, but once they are born? Fuck them and their free lunches!

(((blood boils)))

Anyway, now you know why Sanford is still the governor. Everyone here in SC already knows.

"Bug bomb" overdose kills infant

Locally, the big story this week is the death of a baby from "bug bombs"--the popular over-the-counter, automatic-spraying insecticides his mother set off in her trailer (a very small, closed-in space) several times a week.

She sounds uneducated, and didn't completely understand the hazards. (She was covered with it herself.) I wonder if she could read the label?

Bug bombs may have killed Williamston infant, coroner says
Baby's mother, brother treated for breathing problems

By Eric Connor • Staff Writer • November 3, 2009
Greenville News

Over-the-counter insecticides are likely what caused the death of a 10-month-old Williamston boy over the weekend and left his older brother and mother in the hospital, an investigator said Monday.

However, additional tests that will measure chemicals inside 10-month-old Jacob Whitfield’s body will be conducted over the next several weeks to definitively determine the cause of death, Anderson County Deputy Coroner Don McCown said.

An autopsy discovered no signs of “injury, trauma or neglect,” McCown said.

“At the present time, we’re tentatively leaning toward that, but we’ve still got a lot more to look at,” McCown said.

Emergency workers arrived at Whitfield’s home on 104 Kirsch Drive on Sunday afternoon to find his mother, Elizabeth Whitfield, trying to resuscitate him after the baby suffered breathing problems, McCown said.

Jacob Whitfield later died at AnMed Hospital from cardiac arrest, McCown said.

Later that evening, emergency workers were again sent to the home when his older brother, 2-year-old Kenneth Whitfield, had breathing problems, McCown said.

Kenneth Whitfield was transported to Greenville Memorial Hospital, where he remained in critical condition Monday in intensive care, but “things look optimistic,” McCown said.

Elizabeth Whitfield also was treated at the hospital, McCown said. Her clothes were so saturated with chemicals that she had to take a shower and change clothes, he said. She was observed at the hospital but wasn’t critically affected, he said.

The mother told authorities that she had been using indoor insecticides — commonly known as “bug bombs” — to eradicate a roach problem, McCown said.

The singlewide mobile home sits in a thickly wooded area off U.S. 29, he said, and an insect problem was evident.

The mother apparently set off the insecticides “several times a week,” McCown said. A hazardous materials team was called out to the scene, he said.

The mother told authorities that her boys felt sleepy Sunday and took a nap, which is when Jacob Whitfield became unresponsive, Anderson County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Scott White said.

It's just such a tragedy. And it certainly underscores the dangers in "household chemicals" presented on TV as handy-dandy cure-alls for every situation.

Many of us talked about being students or clueless young wives, who probably set off too many bug bombs ourselves. We knew enough not to leave humans or animals inside, but we likely did it too often for safety. Back in the day, they didn't even print any 'limits' on the packaging, and it is likely Whitfield didn't grow up with any limits on the bug bombs her family used.

If we'd get rid of these dangerously-noxious and toxic chemicals for everyday uses, these things wouldn't happen. Then again, I dislike the nanny-state as much as many of the rest of you do...

Any comments on how to avoid these types of tragedies, particularly when dealing with illiterate people or non-English speakers?

(sigh)

Note: Although I am tagging this one with "child abuse" (for cataloging purposes), I realize this was not deliberate on the part of Elizabeth Whitfield.

Blue Jello Daze: A Back-to-School story of the suburbs

We wanted our young Delusional Precious to have the very best education in the county, although we could not afford to send her to a private school. Besides that, we didn't really think private schools were a good idea from an egalitarian point of view. So, we sent her to the"best" school in the county, which of course, turned out to be the "richest" of the public schools. The volunteer ratios were nearly 2-1; unemployed moms to students.

My first lesson in the new school was what this actually meant.

During test week on the West side (poor side) of Greenville County, we got a flier telling us the kids would be taking all of the official, federal standardized tests. Okay, that's nice. Typically, I didn't think much of it and just made sure Delusional Precious (herein referred to as DP) got a good night's sleep. However, in the days after testing was over, DP complained that the old lunchroom where the tests were taken (in a building that has since been condemned, BTW) was by turns drafty and too-hot. South Carolina Autumn sunlight (blinding) was shining right in her eyes at one point, and she couldn't concentrate. At another juncture, she had to pee, and there wasn't enough time alotted. She apologized for the tests, and said she knew she had not done her best.

And then, DP was tested at her NEW SCHOOL; the East side (rich) school with air conditioning, tinted windows and carpeting. No sunlight in the eyes there, no sirree Bob! In fact, between each test, there were copious bathroom breaks and stretching exercises, supervised and conducted by legions of stay-at-home moms. They did rousing cheers, as in sports ("WE'RE #1!") and practically engaged in Cultural Revolution-style calisthenics, right there at their desks. The kids were also plied with healthy snacks and juices between the tests, to keep their blood-sugar levels high. (Who paid for all this? Who do you think? The legions of volunteers, of course.) They were STOKED, and yeah, their tests scores were phenomenal. DP's scores were about 20 points higher. I was astounded!

I joked to people that my kid's IQ had been raised one standard deviation just by moving to the East side.

I should have known, this meant LOTS MORE WORK for me, but I really hadn't thought it through. But after awhile, I was carting her everywhere for all kinds of specialized activities. I was footing the bill for all manner of pricey field trips; some of which I could not afford (i.e. trips to Quebec) and she had to sit out. We were out of our league, financially, but I hoped this meant she was getting a better education.

The assigned school projects were enormous. A mere child could never execute stuff so intricate; they seemed to require people with engineering or graphic-design degrees. In addition, it seemed understood that the parents would certainly chip in... or maybe do the whole thing. Certainly, working mothers could never find the time to work on these gargantuan undertakings.

I found reasonable ways to cut time-expenditures on these projects, but discovered that this would be judged (by teachers) as "cutting corners" and would negatively influence DP's grade. The projects had to LOOK like they had been duly fussed over, and some seemed worthy of the Martha Stewart Living Christmas edition. When I visited the school to drop off the (increasingly huge) projects, I would see what the other parents had done. DP and I would exchange dumbfounded looks: Jesus H Christ. I would never be upset with her for whatever grades she was given on these things--realizing that a good grade in such a situation was simply impossible to obtain. But of course, she wanted the good grades too, and felt that she was being cheated and unfairly penalized (which she was) since her mother could not take whole days off work to execute these complicated, long-ass projects.

I realized, once and for all, that we had made a big mistake on the day I call Blue Jello Day. It was my moment of truth. We do not belong here. I realized, moving to this side of town for the sake of a better education, was a huge error. What were we thinking?

It was the Blue Jello.

The project was a Native American project. The kids picked a tribe and made something that was emblematic of that tribe. I was relieved that this was an easy one. I actually duplicated something I had done as a child: a warrior's necklace. I regret to say I now forget the tribe(s), but most tribal warriors wore these, rather as charm bracelets are worn in the present day. They collected pieces of arrowheads, colorful beads, animal bones, shells, etc and displayed them, as military medals or girl scout badges might be displayed. So, we made one based on a photo in Encyclopedia Brittanica, and I was happy with it. I figured it might at least get a B.

On this auspicious day, there was MORE THAN ONE PROJECT DUE (do you believe?), so there I am, hauling in some humongous hand-made poster about the habitat of the North American Lynx on the same day I brought in the necklace.

And, taking up about half the room, was an "Indian village"--on what seemed to be a very large, burlap-covered ping-pong table. There were little teepees and little people. PEOPLE. They were all dressed appropriately, I noticed. Little tiny braids on the little tiny people. Little tiny papooses on the backs of the little tiny wooden women... and...

There it was. In the middle of the village, well, what do you suppose was there? What WAS in the middle, usually? Historical accuracy! Yes, a POND. A very nice POND was etched out of the burlap, and it was .... made of blue jello.

Stunned, I actually reached out and touched the jello. My suburban Epiphany!

What the fuck am I doing here?!?

I pointed at the blue jello, and attempted to say something to Delusional Precious. Speechless. She looked at it and rolled her eyes. Even though she was only in the 5th or 6th grade, she exclaimed "Shit!" and I did not chastise her, because she had correctly spoken my thoughts aloud.

Yeah, shit!

Did the mom come and set this whole thing up IN THE CLASS? Well, I guess she had to, huh? How else could she get all the little people lined up just so? She must have brought the blue jello in some tupperware and dished it out, after carefully placing the burlap and teepees and tiny wooden Indians and teensy stuffed buffaloes (really) and teensy arrows made of painted toothpicks all sticking out of the miniature stuffed buffalo. I just stared, and as I often do, I wondered what JG Ballard would say.

Okay, that's it. I can NOT compete with this.

And it was then that I stopped trying to. I did not worry that my kid could not keep up with these people. I realized, well, we made a mistake, but we will attempt to deal. And we dealt with it pretty badly, actually, and things did not always go as planned. But after I saw the Blue Jello, I had a point of reference.

Every year, when I hear all the moms worry aloud about their kids going back to school, I think of my Blue Jello Daze. And frankly? I would not repeat those years for ANYTHING.

My love, good thoughts and novenas are with all of you feminist, progressive moms, as you attempt to navigate this territory, keep your sanity, and yet do the right thing for your babies.

Namaste, and know that I love you. :)

Dead Air Church: Ode to Joy

I took these photos yesterday in downtown Greenville, SC.

Wordless Wednesday: Victoria

Michael Jackson inspires Blogdonia

In lieu of a proper obituary for Michael Jackson (surely you've read/viewed enough of them by now), I have collected some of the Best of Blogdonia, holding forth on the King of Pop.

Just when you think everything has already been said, someone adds something especially thoughtful; Michael Jackson's colorful life inspires still another writer or activist to go off in a different direction.

RIP, Michael.

~*~

Open Thread: Remembering Michael Jackson at Racialicious, has some excellent comments and trackbacks.

By way of Isabel the Spy, I found Would Michael Jackson have been such a sensation if he couldn't dance?:

Michael Jackson did dance, he could hold an audience's attention by just dancing and not singing. He didn't have to stoop to pseudo sexual acts for shock appeal. And he made a lot of men, black, white, brown and yellow, want to dance just like him. Perhaps his dancing more than his music was what truly made him an international star.

TigerBeatdown comments on Michael Jackson, Celebrity, Empathy, and the Culture of Silence. Read the comments, too, which include one by your humble narrator.

Ballardian weighs in on Michael Jackson's Facelift from the purely surgical standpoint:

Scarring was hypertrophic at the points where tension was greatest: that is, in the temple and the region behind the ear, but fortunately these were covered by the King of Pop’s hair. The small fine sutures which were not responsible for tension were removed at 4 days, and the strong sutures removed at the tenth day. The patient was then allowed to have a shampoo to remove the blood from his hair. All scarlines are expected to fade, and by the end of three weeks the patient was back in social circulation.

And for even more cold, hard reality, you can always count on Socialist Unity:

The sheer extent of [Jackson's] fame meant that for him anything even approaching normality was as much a fantasy as standing on stage performing and being worshipped by tens of thousands of people was for his millions of fans. Unable to deal with the distorting and cloying reality of the pressure that was placed on him to be more than human, Michael Jackson did his utmost to escape into an imaginary world of childlike innocence and fairytale. His Neverland Ranch was symptomatic of a man who’d rejected a world in which he was surrounded by the demands of fans, managers, promoters, recording executives, and a legion of sycophants, for one in which he was surrounded by children and the innocence they represent.

Stories began to emerge of his relationship with a monkey, of him sleeping in an oxygen tent, and then later of his inappropriate relations with some of the children he took to taking with him around the world, which progressed into charges being brought against him of sexual molestation.

The physical manifestations of Michael Jackson’s personal collapse were all too obvious in the plastic surgery which turned him into a living, breathing monument to self loathing and mutilation. Increasingly, whenever he appeared in public, it was like looking at a man slowly turning himself into one of the characters from his Thriller video, perhaps in a conscious attempt to hide from a world grown ever more intrusive and unsympathetic.

Ultimately, the ridicule which dogged Michael Jackson while he was alive, ridicule driven by an unforgiving media and international press, was in inverse proportion to the deluge of tributes and fawning idolatry that has dominated the coverage of his death.

From Confessions of a Cryokid, here is A letter to Prince Michael, Paris, and "Blanket" Jackson:

By now you have probably heard all the major media outlets advertising that your dad is not your biological father, and that your mom is not your biological mother. I can only imagine how hard this must be, just days after your dad tragically died.

I am so sorry that you had to find out the truth this way, it's a cruel thing to do to a child - hide the truth about your identity and let strangers reveal it maliciously to you. Parents sometimes make these decisions (to keep a secret) thinking they are protecting their children. However, usually it backfires. Unfortunately, because of who your daddy was, this backfire has been made public and the entire world is watching you. It's not fair, but make the best out of a bad situation.

But don't feel alone. There are thousands (maybe millions) of kids out there just like you - conceived artificially and denied the right to EVER know who their biological parents are. You three can change this!! Stories are flying around that your dad's dermatologist is your biological father. If this is true, you deserve to know, to know him - as your father. Ask questions, demand answers! Not only can you find answers for yourself, you can help thousands of other kids and adults out there who were conceived the same way!

Your daddy will always be your daddy, nobody can take that away - and it will take time to mourn his passing. But you also have a biological father out there, and you carry half his genes. His is part of you - he even looks like you! While nothing can mask the loss of your daddy, I hope that your biological father will step up and give you guidance and love, and support through this rough time and as you grow up. You deserve that as children and as human beings.

You also deserve to know your biological mother, and I hope for your sake that she stands up and acknowledges herself to you and provides love and support. A child needs both a mom and a dad, and to have only one and lose him is tragic but to be denied the ability to know both biological parents is horrific.

If you ever come across this, in a few weeks, a few months, even a few years - please know that you're not alone and that there are many others out there pleading for these same rights...and that one day we will prevail.

"Why do my son's books tell him all men are useless?"

Daran at Feminist Critics has just posted a link to a London Daily Mail article by William Leath, titled Why do my son's books tell him all men are useless?

Some excerpts:

Why is the dad in [Zoo, by Anthony Browne], about a family trip to the zoo, such an idiot? Not just an idiot, but a grumpy, overweight idiot who tries to make jokes, but is never funny and, what's more, is always on the verge of ruining things for everybody else. He's a greedy slob, just like Homer Simpson. He's more childish than his children, even though he has hair sprouting from his ears.

Then there's the dad in Into The Forest, another book by this author. This one's about a dad who goes missing. He is clearly a weakling. He walks out of the family home and goes to stay with his mum.

A recent academic study confirmed that men - particularly fathers - are under-represented in almost all children's books. And when they do appear, like the fathers in Gorilla [also by Browne] and Zoo, they are often withdrawn, or obsessed with themselves, or just utterly ineffectual.

...

in another of our favourites, Benedict Blathwayt's The Runaway Train, the driver is called Duffy. And what does he do? He gets out of the train, forgetting to put the brake on, and the train rolls off without him. A driverless train - what a powerful symbol of male inadequacy! Yet this seems quite normal. We sit on the sofa and laugh.

'Why does Duffy forget the brake?' my son asked me. Why? Stories require fall-guys. They need some people to be malign or foolish or weak. And it just so happens that these people, in these stories, are male. It just so happens that it wouldn't seem right, to me, if these malign, foolish or weak people were female. Somehow, they have to be male. And symbols of male inadequacy are so deeply embedded in other parts of our culture. So much so, in fact, that nobody notices it any more.

For years, I've laughed at hopeless Homer Simpson and his dangerous son Bart, and the attempts of the female characters in the family to clean up after them.

...

For years, men in our stories - not just for children, but adults, too - have been losing their authority. Not just years - decades. It's crept up on us and now it's everywhere. Remember when movie stars were strong and decisive? That was a long time ago now: John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn.

Then came a new, softer type - Cary Grant and James Stewart were strong, yes, but against a background of self-doubt. And then came Jack Lemmon, Dustin Hoffman, Woody Allen, Bill Murray, Kevin Spacey - neurotic, bumbling, deeply flawed anti-heroes.

Think of Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. The deadbeat dad, smoking dope in the garage because he can't take the pressure of family life. For a long time now, something has been happening to the way we portray men.

And wherever you look, things seem to be getting worse for guys. In a survey of 1,000 TV adverts, made by writer Frederic Hayward, he points out that: '100 per cent of the jerks singled out in male-female relationships were male.'

So does this mean that there is something wrong with the way we portray men? Or - much more seriously - is there some deep trouble with men themselves? I can't bear to have that thought. Can you?

Yet that's certainly what our culture seems to be telling us. And it's what certain feminist writers seem to be telling us, too.

And predictably, at this point, he goes on to attack Susan Faludi and feminism in general.

But until he commences blaming women (which you knew was coming, right?)--I thought he made some good points.

However, those last few paragraphs got me thinking. I very much prefer Jack Lemmon, Dustin Hoffman, Woody Allen, Bill Murray, and Kevin Spacey to the Big Dumb Hollywood He-Men he named. I found them to be far more human, authentic, complex and 'thinking' protagonists. (I'd add Gene Hackman to that list, my all-time favorite actor.)

I loved Kevin Spacey smoking dope in the garage; he was trying to figure out what to do with his life rather than mindlessly charging ahead and continuing his unhappiness. Deadbeat Dad? He was present and accounted for in his child's life, she just didn't want anything to do with him. (And why do you suppose that was?) The pressures of family life? How about, the fact that his family was falling apart? His daughter was lying to him, he developed an obsession with a young friend of his daughter's and his wife was having an affair.

I guess John Wayne would have just pretended everything was okay and carried on anyway?

Some of us think that brand of male behavior was THE PROBLEM, not any kind of solution.

On the other hand, I don't want children to grow up expecting males not to do their share, which is how I read a lot of this fiction: Men usually screw up anyway, so don't be upset that your father has abandoned you.

If fathers are not represented in fiction, perhaps it's because fathers have been abandoning their role in real life? And this fictional presentation of male bumbling is possibly an effort to explain away the lack of men in children's lives?

How else could one explain it?

Any opinions?

How I spent my summer vacation

My three-year-old granddaughter Victoria is here for the week. As I twittered to the masses, HOW ON EARTH do these famous old broads my age (Holly Hunter, et. al.) manage to handle hyper-energetic preschoolers?

Ah yes. Nannies.

I am too old for this.

Meanwhile, the kitten loves her, but doesn't seem to realize that he should not frolic directly underfoot--she isn't exactly watching her step as she gallops pell-mell through the premises. (I keep expecting to find squashed kitten. Not a happy thought.)

Of course, they are both babies and on some level, seem to realize this and seek the other's company. It's too cute for words.

Other adorable things she does: When cranky and crying, she wails brokenheartedly, "I need a NAP! I need a NAP!" (Certainly, I know the feeling.)

When credits appear on screen after a movie or TV show, she points melodramatically and announces, "We did it and ON TIME!" I don't know if this is in impersonation of a parent or what, but it's as darling as the dickens.

Hope to get back to normal after the 4th of July. Right now, I am swimming in snack-foods of various animal-shapes.

How do the mommy-bloggers manage?

Oh yeah, youth!

Wordless Wednesday: my beautiful grandchild!

Here's hoping I will get to see her in a couple of weeks! I miss her like the dickens.

Disabled children routinely abused in schools

Photo of Cedric Napoleon from USA TODAY.



Some pretty harrowing accounts in USA TODAY, which read like something out of Dickens. A report from the Government Accountability Office released today, stated that disabled children are routinely restrained, secluded from other classmates (in what would ordinarily be called "solitary")--and describes the death of 14-year-old Cedric Napoleon after his special education teacher used a "therapeutic floor hold."

Greg Toppo of USA TODAY reports:

In one case, a New York school confined a 9-year-old with learning disabilities to a "small, dirty room" 75 times in six months for whistling, slouching and hand-waving. In another, a Florida teacher's aide gagged and duct-taped five misbehaving children to their desks; and police say a 14-year-old boy died when a special-education teacher in Texas lay on top of the student when he would not stay seated. Police ruled it a homicide, but a grand jury rejected criminal charges.

The findings from the GAO, Congress' investigative arm, stop short of attaching a hard number to how many children are subjected to the practices, but investigators say they found "hundreds of allegations" of abuse involving restraint or seclusion at schools from 1990 to 2009; in Texas and California, they say, public schools recorded a combined 33,095 instances in the past school year alone. [...] The report details 10 children's cases, four of which ended in death. Unlike in hospitals or residential treatment centers, there's no federal system to regulate such practices in schools — and teachers are often inadequately trained, GAO says.

Only seven states even require that educators get training before they're allowed to restrict children, and only five states have banned "prone restraint," which ended in the death of the Texas student.

Examiner.com reports:

Cedric Napoleon suffered so much abuse in his young life that, at age 14, he was already experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, an affliction often associated with soldiers at war.

By 2002, he was under the care of a foster family and attending middle school in Killeen, Texas, in a class with a special education teacher. That's when his troubled childhood took an even darker turn, lawmakers learned Tuesday in a hearing about school discipline.

Acting out in class one day, Cedric, 129 pounds, was pinned to the floor by his 230-pound teacher, who lay on him to quiet him down, federal investigators say. When she got off or soon after, he was dead.

Unbelievably, the teacher was not charged with any crime, and is still on the job:

In Cedric Napoleon's case, government investigators said the death was ruled a homicide, but a grand jury did not indict the teacher.

A judge found that the teacher used excessive force on the child and was reckless in her actions, the report said.

"The teacher also ignored pleas and warnings that the child could not breathe and continued to hold him after he became still and quiet, the judge noted," the report said.

The rest of the Examiner.com story is here, but be forewarned, it is some difficult reading.

Breast-feeding protest at West Asheville Denny's

At left: Breastfeeding mother Crystal Everitt of Asheville, asked by West Asheville Denny's restaurant manager to cover herself or feed her 1-year-old son in the bathroom. Everitt declined and quoted the North Carolina law, which protects the rights of mothers to breastfeed in any public or private location. Denny's responded by calling police. Photo from Mountain Xpress.


Nurse-in ends in standoff
Mountain Xpress
February 22, 2009
by Jason Sandford

A group of about 25 protesters, including several breastfeeding mothers and chanting supporters, held a nurse-in outside the Denny’s restaurant off Patton Avenue in West Asheville on Sunday afternoon.

Outside the restaurant, a Denny’s official apologized to organizer Crystal Everitt regarding an incident two weeks ago that sparked the protest, but Everitt said his statement wasn’t enough.

Everitt says she was in the restaurant two weeks ago breast-feeding her 1-year-old son when she was asked by the restaurant’s manager to cover herself or move to the bathroom. Everitt says she declined, citing state law, which protects the rights of mothers to breastfeed in any public or private location.

Rick Pate, regional director of operations for the Asheville Denny’s franchise, said Denny’s “responsibility as a family restaurant is to provide a nonoffensive environment for all of our valued guests. Obviously, if any behavior or any practice that happened two weeks ago while she was in the restaurant — specifically us asking her to cover up — offended her in any way, we’re sincerely sorry for that. We apologize for that,” Pate said.

“My goal today was today was to come out and speak to everyone that was here to protest, with a desire to have them come in my restaurant and have lunch with us today,” Pate said, adding that breast-feeding mothers are always welcome.

Everitt said Pate’s statement wasn’t good enough. She said that the statement, which matches a statement she received from Denny’s corporate office, leaves it up to the discretion of the restaurant to determine what is nonoffensive.

“They’re putting in a discretion clause, and they might as well not have a policy at all,” Everitt said, while standing outside the restaurant and nursing her child. “Who is it that determines if I’m being discreet or not? ‘Discreet’ should not even be in there.”

“Their policy is not in line with the law, so it’s absolutely not OK,” she said. “They need to guarantee that moms will not be harassed.”

Standing alongside Regent Drive off Patton Avenue in a bracing wind, the group of protesters held signs that read “Breast feeding is not shameful” and chanted, “Breastfeeding’s not a crime. Why won’t you let babies dine?”

In South Carolina, they probably would have actually taken her to jail!

Video of protest-organizer Everitt:



Comments? Are you shocked by public breast-feeding, or do you consider such laws sexist, as I do? What are the breast-feeding laws in your state or area?

High Fructose Corn Syrup ad targets African-Americans

Your humble narrator was drowning in domestic tasks yesterday, and began SEWING (!!!) ((((stop the presses)))) stuff that has been torn and buttonless since the beginning of time. While sewing, I sat in front of the TV watching THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ORANGE COUNTY. The new one, Lynne Curtin, looks fabulous. I wondered, MUST we play tennis and work out 24/7 to look like that?

I think so. ((sigh))

But interspersed with the usual gossip and catfights were commercials FOR high fructose corn syrup. By the time I saw the same commercial a dozen times, I was LIVID.



The Corn Refiners Association is assuring us that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is "fine in moderation"--and brings us this chirpy-cute commercial to drive the point home. Watching it over and over, I realized, the race of the participants and the ROLES they are playing, particularly enrages me, and I must say something about that. The OPEN RACIAL POLITICS of the commercial are fascinating, as well as infuriating.

Note that the African-American woman haughtily schools the woo-woo white woman (who reminds me of Mary Gross on the old Saturday Night Live; she used to specialize in the wide-eyed, clueless hippie routine). The white woman patronizingly blurts out to the black woman that the drink she is pouring has HFCS, and the black woman (subtly, but calmly superior) lets her know that it is JUST FINE. Then, nervous that she has been unnecessarily self-righteous with a black woman, she quickly adds, "I love that top!"

The background is very suburban American-mellow; these are two housewife-moms at a neighborhood party of some kind, with balloons everywhere and children scampering about cutely.

ARGH!

First, let's be clear that this commercial is directed at WOMEN, who buy most of the food for children and families. And most assuredly, it is directed at BLACK WOMEN, with a black woman reassuringly delivering the comforting nutritional information. This is at a time when African-Americans have the highest rates of diabetes in the USA. The American Diabetes Association has a whole page on this fact alone:

Compared to the general population, African Americans are disproportionately affected by diabetes: * 3.7 million or 14.7% of all African Americans aged 20 years or older have diabetes. * African Americans are 1.6 times more likely to have diabetes as non Hispanic whites.

And what contributes to diabetes? Guess. Consumer Reports analyzes the ad point-by point:

1) "It’s made from corn." True. High-fructose corn syrup is indeed made from corn. But you won’t get the same beneficial nutrients in it that you would from eating an ear of corn.

2) "Doesn’t have artificial ingredients." Partly true. The claim about artificial ingredients is a tricky one, since high-fructose corn syrup is processed using artificial agents. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has stated that if the final product has come in contact with synthetic agent glutaraldehyde, then it cannot be called “natural,” which they define as meaning no artificial or synthetic ingredients were added. But if the manufacturer uses the artificial agent in its production, and it does not come in contact with the corn starch, it can be considered a natural product. So its possible that some high-fructose corn syrups may be able to claim “no artificial ingredients,” according to the FDA, while others would not be permitted the phrase. It’s distinctions like these that lead Consumers Union to consider the “natural” label not meaningful.

3) "Like sugar, it’s fine in moderation." True. Most foods are fine in moderation. It’s too much or too little that causes problems. However, some would probably argue that with high-fructose corn syrup in so many products, to truly enjoy it in moderation you’d probably be better off leaving the “red juice” on the shelf.

This is pretty tame criticism, but does make the point that this ad is pure propaganda for the industry, using a comforting set of buzzwords. A commenter at Consumer Reports, tellingly named Open Your Eyes, puts it even better:

HFCS seems to be in everything we eat without enough research. Foods that did not have HFCS before have now either been forced to up their prices or to jump on the bandwagon to compete. Now consumers were oblivious to this extra sugar intake until recently and researchers are still finding new data on its effects. According to [another commenter] fructose is easily transformed to energy without the use of insulin. Simply put: everything we eat= HFCS, High Fructose consumption=low insulin production, Low insulin=Diabetes. The name says it all "High Fructose" --so more than normal, and that is a problem. Just because it comes from corn does not make it good for you either. Soap... made from animal fat+potassium, wouldn't eat it. Glue... made from animal parts, wouldn't eat it. Play dough.. sure its non-toxic and salty but it's simply not food.

Humans evolved eating naturally occurring food and HFCS doesn't grow on trees. HFCS came from a test tube in a lab. The body has a problem with artificial because for hundreds of thousands of years it got used to natural and it came from natural. This crash course of artificial isn't going to do very well.

Another woman commented that she attempted to buy soup today and couldn't find any that DID NOT contain HFCS.

Soup? Huh?

One reason that quack Dr Atkins made such major inroads with his goofy diet, was that he correctly pointed out how much sugar (usually in the largely-hidden and/or misunderstood form of HFCS) is in EVERYTHING. Most people were unaware, for example, that this insidious form of sugar is sneaked into non-sweet prepared foods like ketchup, soups and salad dressings. One could conscientiously read the packaging-labels, and still not fully realize one was eating pure sugar, unless you understood exactly what HFCS is.

Further confusing matters is the fact that back in the day, "fructose" (by itself) was considered a healthier alternative to sucrose (pure table sugar), since it came from fruit. Thus, for many years, consumers believed HCFS was some kind of improved-sweetener. And of course, it is not: it's a way for the corn industry to turn us all into junkies, and in the process, make themselves very rich.

Just as the tobacco companies turned out propaganda in the 60s, assuring us that nicotine was FINE, JUST FINE, these commercials are the nutritional equivalent of the SAME BULLSHIT. From Newswise Science News:

Researchers have found new evidence that soft drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) may contribute to the development of diabetes, particularly in children. In a laboratory study of commonly consumed carbonated beverages, the scientists found that drinks containing the syrup had high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown by others to have the potential to trigger cell and tissue damage that could cause the disease, which is at epidemic levels. They reported here today at the 234th national meeting of the American Chemical Society.

HFCS is a sweetener found in many foods and beverages, including non-diet soda pop, baked goods, and condiments. It is has become the sweetener of choice for many food manufacturers because it is considered more economical, sweeter and more easy to blend into beverages than table sugar. Some researchers have suggested that high-fructose corn syrup may contribute to an increased risk of diabetes as well as obesity, a claim which the food industry disputes. Until now, little laboratory evidence has been available on the topic.

In the current study, Chi-Tang Ho, Ph.D., conducted chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS. He found ‘astonishingly high’ levels of reactive carbonyls in those beverages. These undesirable and highly-reactive compounds associated with “unbound” fructose and glucose molecules are believed to cause tissue damage, says Ho, a professor of food science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. By contrast, reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar, whose fructose and glucose components are “bound” and chemically stable, the researcher notes. Reactive carbonyls also are elevated in the blood of individuals with diabetes and linked to the complications of that disease. Based on the study data, Ho estimates that a single can of soda contains about five times the concentration of reactive carbonyls than the concentration found in the blood of an adult person with diabetes.

And, as we have established, WHO is developing diabetes at dangerously high rates right now? African Americans.

Is it any accident that an African-American woman was chosen to deliver the Corn Refiners Association hype in this commercial? I hardly think so.

Please be aware of this industry's LIES and open manipulation of consumers as you go about your shopping... and check the labels, if you don't already. You will discover that HFCS is in everything from soup to noodle mixes. They have money to burn... or at least enough to run some expensive, carefully-targeted advertisements to defend their wanton creation of more sugar-junkies.

With all that extra coin, they don't need yours.