Collisions with Reality

I am deeply upset by the harassment of a gay University of Michigan student by an assistant Attorney General of Michigan. So, while it appears that Chris Armstrong can handily defend himself, I knew that I wouldn’t feel better until I wrote to the Attorney General myself. Here it is.

Attorney General Cox,

I am a former resident of Michigan and a proud graduate of the University of Michigan. I am deeply concerned about the systematic stalking and harassment of a University of Michigan student by an assistant Attorney General. I find it hard to believe that all of Mr. Shirvell’s actions — cyber-bullying, showing up at MSA meetings, videoing the student’s residence — are fully within the realm of legality. Even if he is not breaking any laws, his obsessive targeting of Mr. Armstrong is grossly unethical and an abuse of power.

Mr. Shirvell is clearly unfit for public office, and I encourage you to remove him from that position immediately.

(I never liked Mike Cox, anyhow.)

I’m on vacation now, and using my iPhone for the vast majority of my web-browsing, tweeting, email, and blogging. (Indeed, I am typing out this draft with my own two little thumbs.) When I was pregnant, I got my iPhone partly for that reason — so that I could stay connected when traveling without lugging around a laptop and a baby.

Alas, tonight I was trying to post a comment from my phone onto a Blogger blog (the excellent Stand and Deliver), and said blog was using a Captcha verification in the comment form. Standard form nowadays, really. But the image itself is unreadable on my phone — it shows just a small question mark in a box. When I try clicking the handicapped logo, for another (audio?) version, I get an error message saying that the video cannot play.

When did this happen? It is incredibly aggravating, considering how many blogs I read are on Blogger and use the Captcha system. How am I supposed to comment on blogs from my phone? Meanwhile, E and I are mortified to realize that our own shared blog has this same problem. And again, while I can type most of this post on my phone — doing just a few last touch-ups with my parents’ computer — filing a bug report to Google from my phone is non-trivial. So blogging it is!

Nearly every day since my son was born, I’ve had a cup of coffee or tea in the morning, and a glass of wine or beer in the evenings. (I’ve also showered every day, but that’s a different post.) He’s now eight months old, I’m still nursing, and I’ve never pumped and dumped. Alcohol and caffeine do pass into the breastmilk, but only in the tiniest of amounts if one is consuming them moderately. The rule of thumb that I’ve gone by is one I’ve seen many places: “If you’re sober enough to drive, you’re sober enough to breastfeed.”

Unfortunately, there are a lot of misconceptions out there about breastfeeding, and the biggest one I’ve encountered is that you cannot drink any alcohol while breastfeeding. This weekend I learned (via Lactivist Leanings, on twitter) of yet another product aimed at worried parents — MilkScreen — which promises to test the alcohol content of your breastmilk. I am annoyed by the mere existence of this product, and it doesn’t help that the webpage implies that no level of alcohol consumption is safe while you’re nursing.

I know it’s just a stupid product, but it’s yet another example of a stupid and useless product aimed at worried, first-time parents. And specifically, it contributes to pressure on breastfeeding women to eschew alcohol, caffeine, and medications for minor conditions. (In addition to my daily cup of coffee and glass of wine, I will not be parted from my allergy meds.) In some circles, there’s sometimes an attitude that you shouldn’t bother breastfeeding if you aren’t going to do it for two years while following a perfect diet, and I think that attitude — and the advertising by products such as Milkscreen — drives women away from breastfeeding. It’s bad enough that everyone watches you like a hawk when you’re pregnant; who wants another 1-2 years of that?

I try to personally counter these misconceptions, but I’m a busy person. There are only so many times I can publicly nurse and then have a drink. So in the meantime, I’ll just have to blog about it.