Wow, this will really drive you crazy…New Rules: 9/11- watch for the breastfeeding disparagement at the end (thanks Heather!)

and if you can’t stomach watching the whole thing here’s the transcript (thanks Emily R.!):

BillMaher.com:

And finally, New Rule – and I never thought I’d be the one to say this, but: Don’t show me your tits. [laughter] Last week, the world’s first “Nurse In” was held to protest the case of a woman who was breast-feeding in public, and asked by an Appleby’s manager not to leave, but just to cover up a little bit. Because the wait staff got tired of hearing, “I’ll have what that kid’s having.” [laughter] [applause]
Look, I’m not trying to be insensitive here. I know your baby needs to eat, but so do I, and this is Appleby’s, so I’m already nauseous. [laughter]

Breast-feeding a baby is an intimate act, and I don’t want to watch strangers performing intimate acts. At least not for free. [laughter] It cheapens it. [laughter] But breast-feeding activists – yes, breast-feeding activists, called “lactivists” – say this is a human right and appropriate everywhere, because it’s natural. Well, so is masturbating, but I generally don’t do that at Appleby’s. [laughter] [applause] Not in the main dining area, anyway.

I mean, next thing, women will be wanting to give birth in the waterfall at the mall! [laughter] Look, there’s no principle at work here other than being too lazy to either plan ahead or cover up. It’s not fighting for a right. It’s fighting for the spotlight you surely will get when you go all “Janet Jackson” on everyone. [laughter] And get to drink in the “oohs” and “aahs” from the other customers because “You made a baby!” [laughter] Something a dog can do. [laughter] [applause] [cheers]

Only in America do women think they deserve a medal for having a kid. In China, women give birth on their lunch hour, and by the afternoon, they’re back on line, painting lead onto Barbie dolls. [laughter] [applause]

But this isn’t really about women taking their breasts out in public, as much as I’d like it to be. [laughter] It’s about how petty and parochial our causes have become, how activism has become narcissism. It’s why Al Gore can’t get people to focus on global warming unless there’s a rock concert. “Melting icebergs, brought to you by Smashing Pumpkins.”

It’s why there’ll be no end to this dumb war until there is a draft. Because, at the end of the day, Iraq is somebody else’s problem.

And, by the way, there is a place where breasts and food do go together. It’s called “Hooters.” [laughter] [applause]

Dear Mama,
Way way back in 2003 I did these comics about the silencing of an ad campaign meant to promote breastfeeding: Handbasket! and MOCK MOCK!
and this just in (thanks Carolyn Y, Julia M, Christy N, Janna H, Janaki D, Mia O, and Ingrid VdP, if I forgot anyone, sorry!):

HHS Toned Down Breast-Feeding Ads By Marc Kaufman and Christopher Lee

In an attempt to raise the nation’s historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed. It featured striking photos of insulin syringes and asthma inhalers topped with rubber nipples.

Plans to run these blunt ads infuriated the politically powerful infant formula industry, which hired a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a former top regulatory official to lobby the Health and Human Services Department. Not long afterward, department political appointees toned down the campaign.

The ads ran instead with more friendly images of dandelions and cherry-topped ice cream scoops, to dramatize how breast-feeding could help avert respiratory problems and obesity. In a February 2004 letter, the lobbyists told then-HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson they were “grateful” for his staff’s intervention to stop health officials from “scaring expectant mothers into breast-feeding,” and asked for help in scaling back more of the ads.

The formula industry’s intervention - which did not block the ads but helped change their content - is being scrutinized by Congress in the wake of last month’s testimony by former surgeon general Richard H. Carmona that the Bush administration repeatedly allowed political considerations to interfere with his efforts to promote public health.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating allegations from former officials that Carmona was blocked from participating in the breast-feeding advocacy effort and that those designing the ad campaign were overruled by superiors at the formula industry’s insistence.

“This is a credible allegation of political interference that might have had serious public health consequences,” said Waxman, a California Democrat.

wow. You kind of suspected didn’t you? but seeing the proof of it makes me really think we might be IN that handbasket. wow.

Love,
Heather

I interrupt this mommy blog to bring a bit of politics, not necessarily mommy inspired-unless you count MY mommy, who is terrified (as a direct result of how much FOX news she listen to) by what she’s hearing about Iran. Take a deep breath mama, watch this:

Feel better? Helps to put it all in perspective doesn’t it? Oh, Now I see, the media is just trying to get us to start an UNNECESSARY war, probably to fatten the wallets of their politico and corporo bosses. THAT makes me feel a LOT better. and while we’re putting it all in perspective: Saudi Arabia Funds Insurgentstoo! We don’t need to go to war in Iran to be safer! War is never the safest option, and preemptive? forget about it.

Love,
Heather

Have you thought much about your retirement lately? Me neither! But, I recieved my social security letter telling me what my benefits will be when I retire and well, it’s a bit thought provoking. My friend Mara wrote me an e-mail about hers telling me “don’t resuscitate me!” and it was sooooooooo funny I had to do a comic. Here’s an organization and some ideas that we can do to try and remedy the disparity Why Social Security Matters to Mothers and the organization Mothers Ought To Have Equal Rights has a pdf called No More Zeros! you have to search on their site a bit, but there’s lots about SS. As if you didn’t have enough to do already!

Love,
Heather

Dear Mama,
Mother’s Day has never been one of my favorite holidays, it always seemed so saccharine sweet or if you’re more granola-y stevia sweet (yum yum ;o) and made up by the Hallmark Cards corporation.

I always felt that it should have more meaning behind it, activism and action. Sure the love, but also the focus- the World Changing aspect. A mother is not someone who perches on a pedastal one day a year, she’s in the trenches of life and should be treated with respect. (and flowers and candy, of course if you feel so inspired)

So, I feel especially gladdened by some of the new motherhood movements out there in the world, it gives me hope and I share them because I love you and hope your day is full of life-changing purpose!

Standing Women (thanks for the heads up Cathy L. and Robyn C.)

Mothers Acting Up!

and for some fun the venerable women in pink: code pink: Mother’s Day is for Peace!

This was one of my favorite named groups! radical activist mother and baby league (rambl) I think they might not be very active anymore, but hey, you can start a local chapter right?

and Riane Eisler (of the Chalice and the Blade) on What’s a Mother Worth?

and this that I post every year…

a Mothers’ Day Proclamation:

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach
them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From
the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance
of justice.”

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons
of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a
great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women,
to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the
means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each
bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a
general congress of women without limit of nationality may be
appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at
the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the
alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement
of international questions, the great and general interests of
peace.

Julia Ward Howe
Boston
1870