A Statement from Jim Tananbaum

[Eric]

Fucking high school in here sometimes.

And sometimes it's a graduate course at MIT. That dichotomy is one of the main reasons I love it here.

[digital]

Fucking high school in here sometimes.

And sometimes it's a graduate course at MIT. That dichotomy is one of the main reasons I love it here.

Me too. Both here and in the dust.

[VultureChow]

Yes, fetal alcohol syndrome acts before any of us can reliably tell a woman is pregnant. Plus, it's getting a little too close to the whole right-wing the woman is the vessel for the sacred fetus thing for my comfort.

There's a left wing analog to that sentiment. In that case it's a faith in science to be able to "perfect" our children. You have to avoid tuna, cheese, coffee, wine, stress, certain vegetables, over the counter drugs, etc. You have to breastfeed exclusively. You have to pump and dump if you drink while breastfeeding. The right books, and schools, and no TV or any of number of things.

The studies that are supposed to arm us with knowledge have a dark side. We think we can control the uncontrollable. But smart parents will produce stupid children and visa verse. There will still be asthma and autism and birth defects and leukemia. Anti-vaxxers are the extreme manifestation of this. Autism is scary. There has to be a cause. Something we can avoid to keep it from happening.

Its reminiscent of the early eugenics movement. Where that was based on the "right" people breeding, now its based on the "right" maternal actions, and frankly it's damaging both to mothers and children.

If you ask an ob-gyn, they'll give you the list of thing to avoid, and then they'll tell you to calm the fuck down. That glass of wine you have in your third trimester won't keep your kid out of Harvard. That tuna sandwich hasn't dropped his IQ by 5 points. You can raise a healthy baby on formula. You are creating a complex human out of two cells. There are millions of chances for things to happen in that process and we can't control for them all.

[Leo]

So what the hell does this have to do with Jim T. and his lame-ass excuses?

[Elderberry]

I 'think' I am pretty much in agreement, if I am understanding you correctly. I got a bit confused by the two sentences I highlighted. How exactly are you equating 'a faith in science' with 'anti-vaxers'?

Also, when you say it's possible to raise a healthy child on formula, do you mean exclusively on formula? Or as a supliment to breast feeding? I'm asking because I thought that one of the main benefits of breast feeding was the immunity from any illnesses, allergies it provided children. My thinking is that the importance of breast feeding is played down in this country because of culture and convenience. We already have one of the lowest average times for breast feeding in the world. The average length of time for countries outside of the US for mothers to breast feed is just under five years. (Though I haven't researched this in several years.)

There's a left wing analog to that sentiment. In that case it's a faith in science to be able to "perfect" our children. You have to avoid tuna, cheese, coffee, wine, stress, certain vegetables, over the counter drugs, etc. You have to breastfeed exclusively. You have to pump and dump if you drink while breastfeeding. The right books, and schools, and no TV or any of number of things.

The studies that are supposed to arm us with knowledge have a dark side. We think we can control the uncontrollable. But smart parents will produce stupid children and visa verse. There will still be asthma and autism and birth defects and leukemia. Anti-vaxxers are the extreme manifestation of this. Autism is scary. There has to be a cause. Something we can avoid to keep it from happening.

Its reminiscent of the early eugenics movement. Where that was based on the "right" people breeding, now its based on the "right" maternal actions, and frankly it's damaging both to mothers and children.

If you ask an ob-gyn, they'll give you the list of thing to avoid, and then they'll tell you to calm the fuck down. That glass of wine you have in your third trimester won't keep your kid out of Harvard. That tuna sandwich hasn't dropped his IQ by 5 points. You can raise a healthy baby on formula. You are creating a complex human out of two cells. There are millions of chances for things to happen in that process and we can't control for them all.

[VultureChow]

So what the hell does this have to do with Jim T. and his lame-ass excuses?

Absolutely nothing. All possible responses and reactions to the statement and situation have been made already. We're on to solving all of the other problems facing society.

[Elderberry]

So what the hell does this have to do with Jim T. and his lame-ass excuses?

It's called thread drift.

[VultureChow]

I 'think' I am pretty much in agreement, if I am understanding you correctly. I got a bit confused by the two sentences I highlighted. How exactly are you equating 'a faith in science' with 'anti-vaxers'?

Also, when you say it's possible to raise a healthy child on formula, do you mean exclusively on formula? Or as a supliment to breast feeding? I'm asking because I thought that one of the main benefits of breast feeding was the immunity from any illnesses, allergies it provided children. My thinking is that the importance of breast feeding is played down in this country because of culture and convenience. We already have one of the lowest average times for breast feeding in the world. The average length of time for countries outside of the US for mothers to breast feed is just under five years. (Though I haven't researched this in several years.)

Anti-vax language is always pseudo-scientific. They'll talk about white cell counts and thimerosol. And give you statistics on the amount of vaccinations. And it is most prominent amongst more educated people. The same people who refuse to vaccinate tend to be those who religiously follow other scientific advice regarding diet and breastfeeding. As I said, I think its an issue of control and intelligence run amok.

And yes, it's possible to raise a healthy child entirely on formula. Millions of adults were raised entirely on formula. Myself being one of them. I'm not sure if I was nursed immediately after birth, but I was adopted the next day and never had breast milk after that. And that was 1970's era formula. There are health benefits to breast milk, but the rhetoric has swung so far the other way, that women are shamed if the choose not to or can't breast feed. Supporting mothers means supporting their choices either way. Motherhood is tough enough without moralizing about every single choice.

ETA: This is a good article on the messages that pregnant women and mothers get and how overwhelming and contradictory they can be. http://jezebel.com/5960255/how-to-have- ... nancy-ever

[Elderberry]

Anti-vax language is always pseudo-scientific. They'll talk about white cell counts and thimerosol. And give you statistics on the amount of vaccinations. And it is most prominent amongst more educated people. The same people who refuse to vaccinate tend to be those who religiously follow other scientific advice regarding diet and breastfeeding. As I said, I think its an issue of control and intelligence run amok.

And yes, it's possible to raise a healthy child entirely on formula. Millions of adults were raised entirely on formula. Myself being one of them. I'm not sure if I was nursed immediately after birth, but I was adopted the next day and never had breast milk after that. And that was 1970's era formula. There are health benefits to breast milk, but the rhetoric has swung so far the other way, that women are shamed if the choose not to or can't breast feed. Supporting mothers means supporting their choices either way. Motherhood is tough enough without moralizing about every single choice.

ETA: This is a good article on the messages that pregnant women and mothers get and how overwhelming and contradictory they can be. http://jezebel.com/5960255/how-to-have- ... nancy-ever

Too many non-medical, non-scientific 'experts' out there today.

From reading I've done, it appears that most mothers in this country, when asked if they plan to breast feed, answer Yes. The biggest reason they then don't follow-through is because of lack of support--from just about everything in their 'busy' lives.

Anecdotal stories about the health of babies not being breast fed is not evidence that it is healthier (or even as healthy as) than breast feeding.

[Aurelia]

VC
What the fuck ??
Are you looking for a new quest ?

xoA.

[Aurelia]

and I did mention it
I do fight this one when you need it ..just don't dumb down.
xoA.

[VultureChow]

I'm just happy to discuss something else.

Maybe the finer points of various Christmas cartoons would be better.

[Eric]

And yes, it's possible to raise a healthy child entirely on formula. Millions of adults were raised entirely on formula. Myself being one of them. I'm not sure if I was nursed immediately after birth, but I was adopted the next day and never had breast milk after that. And that was 1970's era formula.

Yup. I was adopted, and raised on '60s era formula.

[Aurelia]

Formula is great !
My fight was the other shit you were talking about
xoA.

[Elderberry]

Formula is great !
My fight was the other shit you were talking about
xoA.

I'm confused.

[Lonesomebri]

Wow, the other thread on P&P practices and procedures always left me feeling hungry, now with this thread, for some reason, I'm thirsty.

[Ratty]

Hey, I wanta play too. (BTW Sorry about the pregnant drinker comment. I didn't expect everyone to jump on it.) In 1969 I was a young mother with no experience, 2 babies and a magazine from the 1950's. My husband made $1.54 an hour and we spent $15 a week on groceries. Even our 15¢ tv guide was budgeted. Anyway... My point is that the old mag had a recipe for baby formula. It involved karo syrup and evaporated milk. That was about all I could afford so it had to do. The kids grew up fine. Happy and healthy.

Fast forward to 1984. New husband, new pregnancy. Wow! If I don't breast feed this boy he will have debilitating illnesses, develop an unbalance, kill all of us and spend his life in prison. OK. I'll buy that. I let the little leach suck the life out of me till I had to go back to work. He was the most unruly, disruptive A-hole that anyone had ever seen in our school system. (Now he's a charming, funny, successful, well loved man.)

The moral of this story is. Sometimes the AMA condones circumcision. Sometimes they find fault with it.

[5280MeV]

I think that there is good evidence that breast milk is marginally better than modern formula under sanitary conditions - there are some things that make biochemical sense like the presence of sIgA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunoglobulin_A) and a makeup that is a bit easier to digest.

However, the long term benefits are probably greatly overstated or simply not meaningful in my opinion.

All studies that show weak correlations between some dietary choice or early childhood educational gizmo and middle age conditions such as heart disease and obesity are suspect in my book - especially if they fail to present some reasonable etiology to explain the correlation.

Its just hard to take something that affluent people tend to do - such as drink red wine in moderation - and properly control for all of the myriad factors that contribute to general affluence. So if red wine is found to correlate with heart health, this is probably because it also correlates with better diet and exercise (i.e. grilled tilapia and yoga class).

There was a study in 2014 that had a clever way of controlling socioeconomic factors. They looked at families where one child was breast fed and the other formula fed, so that the formula and breastmilk populations had the same social environment. The result was that no significant long term health benefit was found by breastfeeding over formula. You can read about it here: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/sibbreast.htm

People want to believe that they can optimize their lifestyle to some minor details and improve their welfare, but the truth is that aside from reasonable diet, exercise, low-stress environment, and access to health care, there isn't much you can do. There is too much random variation in ones day to day life. You can take 15 nanograms of mithril sulfate and spend thirty minutes in the 8th level interpolated lotus position every morning, but you still have the about the same chance of getting pancreatic cancer or getting creamed on the interstate.

[theCryptofishist]

And if you do a bit of forensics, you'll see I didn't throw the first stone.

*facepalm* Strictly speaking, a demonstration wasn't necessary.
1--I'm not going to go back and wade through all that.
1a--Nobody's going to go back and wade through all that.

2--No one cares. It's gone on far too long.

3--You're a mod. It's unseemly to have this never ending argument. Agreed, being a mod isn't the kind of power of being pope or emperor or CEO of a fortune 500, but it's a little bit of power. It makes any contest a little unequal. It means that some people are going to see your pm in their box and not want to read it. You have to live with it. You have to be able to shrug it off. It's not personal, it's the position.
Seriously--and I hate to say this--it's like fighting a girl or a cripple. There's no honor in it, you just look like a bully.
The board agrees with you, well except for me and Bri. And maybe Simon, I can't tell what game he's playing. Bri isn't to stop. It means too much to him (hey, that's right, we're burners, exemplars of stubborn passion). So, it's up to you to stop. For the good of the board that you care enough to be a moderator on. Cause right now, you're being an extreamifier.
imho

[Major Krash]

So what the hell does this have to do with Jim T. and his lame-ass excuses?

he wasn't breast fed as a child?

[Simon of the Playa]

And maybe Simon, I can't tell what game he's playing.

actually no game whatsoever.

i fully support bri and his right to be bri.

i also take issue with EB on his bedside manner....back when you were just kisha, that was one thing, you could be as prickly as you want, but if you are gonna be a total bitch, make a note of "Taking off the Mod Hat" before you do it...

i also think this little tit for tat should have ended long ago, and have commented as such.

Bri has the right to his opinion, but maybe Bri should be the Bigger Man and stop trading blows...

and..

EB should not be actively taunting him like a yapping chihuahua, barking at every turn....c'mon.....thats amateur bullshit....i expect something more clever if you are going to try to subterfuge someone.

why am i the voice of fucking reason?

what.the.fuck...



now cut the shit, or nobody gets ice cream.

[Lonesomebri]

...Bri isn't to stop. It means too much to him....

There are some things I simply cannot turn my back on....mmmmm....ice cream....

little-man-ice-cream-01.jpg

[Lonesomebri]

Can someone please explain to me the difference between Sandstorm's posts and those of Lonesomebri?

They are pretty much the same troll.. I have one plonked so only have to read once..

And I am very sorry for being the immature asshole here posting negative stuff that should go into private messages. I did not realize the standards I was to abide by.

slap.jpg

[GreyCoyote]

All this talk about milk.... now where did I put those cookies...

[VultureChow]

There are some things I simply cannot turn my back on....mmmmm....ice cream....

All this talk about milk.... now where did I put those cookies...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/201 ... ndon-store

[Lonesomebri]

Plenty for all......

cookies.jpg

[Simon of the Playa]

come to the dark side.

[digital]

I love you guys.

(And suddenly this conversation is so much more interesting!)

[Lonesomebri]

There are some things I simply cannot turn my back on....mmmmm....ice cream....

All this talk about milk.... now where did I put those cookies...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/201 ... ndon-store

And over on the holiday thread weren't they discussing making a warm weather egg-nog out of melted ice cream?
Oh, I'm pretty sure I see a way that old JT and his camp can gift their way back into the hearts of some of us dis-satisfied burners in 2015.

[Captain Goddammit]

Cookies... goddamm you asshole you had to mention cookies... I just spent all day Saturday in bed feeling nauseous... you see, here's what happened. I forgot my lunch bag in the office before I headed out to go places and do stuff on Friday. I hadn't had time for breakfast either. My phone power cord was in it too. I went into a Rite-Aid store to buy a cord, and some sort of emergency food substance. They don't exactly have a deli, so I grabbed a package of chocolate chip cookies.
Well I ate pretty much all of them that day...