THE MAY DAY PROJECT: Recommended Viewing

By now you’ve probably filled your eyeballs with the Salon Bloggers’ May Day postings; thanks to Dave Pollard at How to Save the World, Rich at Rich Pure & Simple , Paul Hinrichs at Playing With My Food, Christopher at Barbaric Yawp and Neva, Miss Feva, Blogging for participating and making this project a wonderful change of pace last Saturday.

Here are two more highly recommended sites with May Day posts you shouldn’t miss:

n       Kane Blues – one of my regular favorites, never fails to wow me; select “Visuals” at the right when you get to his home page

n       Flightless Farrago – take your time getting to this one, her first site’s bandwidth was maxed and closed down; she’s had to mirror on another site due to popularity!

Enjoy!

UPDATE -- 10:18 PM EDT --

Oops, I just realized I hadn't posted my May Day site to THE MAY DAY PROJECT site!  Dave, Rich, Paul, Christopher -- you guys need to do the same, go to the site and enter the link to your May Day entry along with your name.  (Neva was an early bird, already did this!)

9:40:29 PM    comment []

MetaBlogging:  Kairosnews à Open conference via blog in progress

Description from the site:

>>

<<

Seems a little quiet in this conference, not much feedback so far.  What do you think, can blogs work as a collaborative medium?  What about this particular topic – does it not lend itself to this conference format?

4:04:52 PM    comment []

The Parent Learning Curve:  KEEP YOUR KIDS’ HANDS BUSY and more

Raven rants about children in public venues like restaurants, after being accosted by a “tot”.  He sounds pretty hissy, but he’s right: kids have no business making bodily contact with strange adults.

Especially out of pure boredom.

Same with squealing and other noises.  If your kid is making noises in a restaurant or store, YOU have a problem.  You failed to recognize one of two things (or both at the same time): 1) small children do not know how to amuse themselves quietly without guidance and tools, and 2) children can be set up for failure by inattention and lack of awareness.

The cures are simple.  First, if you’re going to take your children out someplace, let’s say a restaurant, don’t go to an upscale restaurant.  Find a family-friendly venue, the kind of place with finger food and deep fried chicken strips, okay?  Why torment your child with the fussy, stuffiness of a fine restaurant, while tormenting yourself and other diners who’ve paid for a nice, quiet evening away from their own kids? 

Secondly, “BUSY BOX" -- MAKE ONE. Your child should have a small lunch box or purse of their own they can take to a restaurant which contains "quiet" toys, like soft stuffed animals, crayons and a small pad of paper, etc. Keep it in the car, use it when you're in situations where your child will need entertainment. You're the adult in charge, take the reins and do this; by the time your kid is school age, they'll be responsible for their own Busy Box.  At five years old they only need a little reminder to check their busy box before going out for fresh paper and crayons, etc., provided you’ve used the Busy Box religiously.

Thirdly, don’t ask for trouble by setting your kids up for failure.  Pay attention to their needs since they can't articulate them.  A tired child who’s not had a nap yields a crying jag in Aisle 4.  A hungry child cannot wait for the waiter to arrive with his meal without having histrionics.  If your child needs a nap or snack, YOU ARE IN CHARGE, plan ahead, get your child a nap or snack before going out.  If a child won't stop with a crying or acting out jag, take him and yourself and go to Time Out, whether it's in the restroom or the car.  Don't come back until the child has himself back under control; he should know you mean business and you will leave altogether if he doesn't stop.  If you treat being out in a public venue like a restaurant as a special privilege by setting and keeping firm boundaries on behavior, they'll treat being out with special care.  Been there, done that -- with my stepson nearly twenty years ago, and now with my own kids.  It works.

An addendum, particularly for the smallest of tykes: always have a fresh cereal bar or teething biscuit in the diaper bag, Busy Box, along with a juice box, for those times when the car repair runs another hour longer than forecast (and you’re stuck waiting with your child whose dinner time has come), or for those times when the waitress is inept enough to bring the adults their meals first and forgotten to put in the child’s order.  Been there, done that, lived to tell and teach about it, too.

Yeah, you’ve probably seen me in public.  I’m the woman with two kids of her own, telling them It must be Somebody’s Nap Time or Bed Time when a kid nearby starts screaming or otherwise acting out.  I point to such kids and their parents as examples of what not to do in public, ever.  I’ll be the one who tells you this to your face if you don’t clue in and take your child home or deal with the problem.  Immediately.  It does take a village, after all, and you need the help if you’re not clueing in.

3:30:25 PM    comment []

You are Cordially Incited to Activism:  Ranch Dressing or Perchlorate on that salad, ma’am?

Agh, as much as I need these e-mails, I dread the ones I get from the Organic Consumers Association.  There’s always some new, fresh hell that I didn’t know about which affects me directly.

Call me a rabbit but I love salads – dark green organic romaine, organic mixed baby greens, with some sliced mushrooms and red cabbage, tomatoes, name it.  I eat them nearly every day, sometimes twice a day, all year long.  Healthy doses of vitamins, minerals, fiber and great tast in every bite.  I fix one every day for dinner for my family, too.

Now I discover that my family and I might be getting poisoned by this so-called healthy eating.  Adding insult to injury: my country has withheld information.  They’ll tell me when I might be eating fruits and vegetables from foreign countries so I can avoid their contaminated products if I choose…but they won’t tell me about the stuff growing right here that’s toxic.

Write to your representatives, tell them you’re tired of the lies and deceit.  Buy and eat locally produced organic products when possible – but if they’re irrigated from a nearby river, they could still be chuck full of chemicals.  Be warned.

Excerpt from OCA e-mail – be sure to read the article linked:

>>TODAY'S SALAD DRESSINGS: FRENCH, RANCH & ROCKET FUEL

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently revealed that there are alarming levels of rocket fuel pollutants in the nation's supply of lettuce. Recent studies have found that farms irrigating water from the Colorado River (the region where most U.S. lettuce is grown) are producing lettuce contaminated with perchlorate levels more than 30 times more toxic than what the EPA defines as safe. Perchlorates are well known endocrine disruptors, cause brain damage in babies, and can cause fatal anemia in adults. In response to the frightening report, the Bush Administration put a gag order on the EPA and turned its back on the EPA¹s $200,000 request to do more studies. Although Bush claims the decision to silence the EPA¹s findings is based on a lack of available funds, experts claim the Defense Dept. is more concerned about liability issues than public health.  "If they can spend $1 million on a cruise missile, it seems kind of ridiculous they won't spend $200,000 to see if our food is contaminated with rocket fuel," said Renee Sharp, a scientist with Environmental Working Group, which initiated  ts own lettuce study instead.

Read all about it: http://www.organicconsumers.org/toxic/lettuce042903.cfm  <<

1:45:55 PM    comment []

Spiritually thinking…

I’ve gone into spiritual overload, hearing Marianne Williamson speak twice inside three days.  Once at the Renaissance Unity service on Sunday, then again last night.

While I’m sitting there, soaking in spiritual thoughts about where we are and where we want to be, I had an AHA!

What if Dubya really did have an inside line to the ear of God, with all his cronies and the millions of people earth asking for the same thing…and in asking for the removal of WMD from Iraq, he received his wish?

God removed the WMD – and we won’t find them?

I didn’t say it wasn’t a funny AHA-HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Let’s just suspend our belief systems for a moment, assume that everything is possible with an omnipotent being, and the WMD were whisked away before they could hurt anyone.

Would Dubya pray to have them back in Iraq?

Perhaps God has a wickedly, lovely, truly divine sense of humor?

8:38:42 AM    comment []