baby in the maxi

Yesterday, B. took T. up to Brookline to eat Swedish pancakes which R., her grandfather, was making. This left A. and I in the afternoon to entertain ourselves. Since I'm _finally_ not running (much of) a fever, I took her on the Townie to CVS to get the prescription for T. (liquid zyrtec, only the generic which I cannot spell yet). I figured since she keeps wailing and complaining about wanting to sit facing forward in the stroller (instead of facing the person pushing her), she could give the seat behind me on the bike a try, saving me from the tiny amount of time it takes to put the mini in place and also improving, marginally, my view of the sidewalk in front of me which I knew was going to be dodgy going to the strip mall.

She was cool with it, altho I kept nervously wanting to look at her. We got the prescription and a couple binkies, one of which she promptly lost on the return trip. Once home, we saw the neighbors were out playing, so we joined them, or they joined us, or something, and eventually three kids, two mothers and one dog all went on a walk down Spencer. One kid was on a bike. One kid was on foot. One kid was in a stroller. We did at least a mile, possibly a lot more, since the kid on the bike and the kid on foot were doing a fair amount of back and forth -- the kid in the stroller and the dog on the leash not having a lot of choice, and as a adults, the two mothers were conserving their energy. It was a lot of fun.

the suburbs really can't catch a break, can they?

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/10/sudbury_man_imp.html

Terrorists proposing to mow people down in malls. Creepy.

why I think Amazon has a future

So I'm watching Hardball, and Matthews is talking about Red State (a conservative blog) pushing their readers to send bags of rock salt to Senator Snowe. What did the readers do? They went to Amazon, where apparently Ron's Home and Hardware of Indiana, Maine (I assume there is a town called Indiana in Maine) received orders for 1200 pounds of rock salt to send to the Senator's Maine office.

Conservatives who are engaged in political protest through online shopping at Amazon. Wonders, truly, will never cease.

ETA: I actually think it was kind of a nice protest. The recipient, living in Maine, could probably use the rock salt during the winter months. If her office has more than they care to store until need, they can donate it to the town. Very considerate, really.

wtf? American Cancer Society grows a pair? Maybe?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/health/21cancer.html?_r=1&em

Nice coverage from Ms. Kolata. Basically, JAMA article points out the increasingly obvious: breast and prostate cancer screening are resulting in a lot of aggressive treatment for early stage cancers that probably weren't ever going to do anything (which is bad) and simultaneously failing to find in a timely fashion the cancers that are going to kill people (which is worse). And, apparently the American Cancer Society is not just going to ignore this issue. This time. Nope. They're massaging the message, but planning on telling people that maybe, just maybe, the whole screening will save you thing has been overdone.

About fucking time. It really sucks when the people who are supposed to be the experts on an issue are so terrified of how their public is going to respond that they can't provide leadership. This is a tough, distressing issue, but creating a world in which every year more men are rendered impotent and incontinent and more women are having their breasts cut off because they're afraid of something that wasn't ever going to cause any problems for them anyway -- that's just wrong.

sanity is cautiously peeking out all over

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/health/20mind.html?ref=health

In this entry, a psychiatrist suggests, all too timidly, and with absolutely horrific examples of how to do it, that sometimes adult children should divorce their parents.

Duh.

The idea that this is somehow akin to cutting off a gangrenous limb implies that there was ever anything there worth preserving, which, imo, is just enabling enabling. Loyalty to the utterly undeserving is _not_ admirable, any more than unquestioning obedience has any moral value.

But at least he's writing about the topic (which is more than anyone other than Alice Miller ever does) and at least he acknowledges that this needs to be done sometimes.

ETA: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/health/20mind.html?ref=health

ETAYA: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/divorcing-your-parents/

The comments thread is amazing -- solidly in favor of divorce, a mention of Alice Miller, several people saying they had to do this or knew someone who did. Usually there's a lot more back and forth, which is an indication that the author of the article (and the therapeutic community in general) is way, way too conservative on this point. Surprise. Most of the therapeutic community is about whacking people down to fit into prescribed societal roles; backing the next generation against the previous one is hardly on the agenda.