This week Dr. Mehmet Oz made the public declaration that 1 in 3 Americans are “underbabied.” I have questions. Underbabied? Is that a medical term? Isn’t his job in the field of medicine? One in three? Where are the scientific studies? Where’s the data? This is all sadly connected in my mind with the emotional contortions that women are often subjected to every year on Mother’s Day. I posted this on Facebook at the end of the day on Sunday, with the words: Having some trouble with the sentiments of the day for some reason. For years my issue with Mother’s Day stemmed from my unhappy relationship with my own mother. But now I’m just so frustrated by the horrible wave of trying to redefine woman as breeders - - praising them only for adhering to that one narrow role. And what happens to anyone who is different? It makes me sad and angry. We don’t do this to men. We don’t define them by whether they have produced offspring. We don’t ask if they fe...
Thing I expected: a certain amount of inflammatory pushback in response to the CA Board’s decision to remove three board members due to ethics violations. Thing I did not expect: candidates for County Executive jumping into the fray. Dear CA Board, take note. Don’t make big decisions during election season. Needless to say, I have some opinions on this situation. They are based on my personal experience and are informed by (let me look) fifteen years observing local happenings for the blog. But I have to admit that there are other people in town who also have opinions based on personal experience and years of being hyper focused on CA. And their opinions are wildly different than mine. So why should you give any weight to what I’m about to say? I have found myself replaying the following exchange in my mind a lot this week. It’s from an episode of the BBC panel show QI: Host: The most dangerous job in terms of sport? Motorsports: motorcycling, Formula One… Panelist: No, no no I ha...