Man Q; terrifying article/situation

While grilling a pizza and helping Elia finish packing, we turned on the Saints-Seahawks game. The second half was fabulously exciting, and though I love the Saints and am sad they lost, A) the Seahawks deserved the win, and B) way to NEVER give up, NOLA. The 52 yard interception, onside kick, and long pass towards the end had me jumping and screaming. J was having trouble getting to sleep so watched the last ten minutes with me. Listening to my broadcast from the couch, you'd have thought I was a pro player in a former life. Who knew?! I did make it clear to J that while I think football is an awesome and often thrilling game, it was not one he or Ol would likely ever play. I don't need to have worked this damn hard for them to get their brains all bruised and shit and go to seed. Fuhgetaboutit! Question: why when a football player, for ex: Marshawn Lynch, makes an incredible play, everyone supports and cheers for him by punching and slapping him?? He got hit and slapped and whooped so many damn times upon leaving the field that I felt bruised. I don't get this part of manhood. Why all the hitting?!

In the midst of all this I came across this heart-wrenching, terrifying article about American Day Care that a friend posted on FB. If you're not a parent who has looked into childcare options for your kids and thus already been appalled by much of what's out there -and at what cost!!- read this and be moved and/or scared. I find it in.ex.cusable that so many of our politicians and citizenry go on and on and on about how abortion is an indefensible outrage -when nearly HALF of pregnancies in America are UNintended- yet refuse to support, fund and make damn sure to regulate and police the childcare centers many, many parents must rely on. Many parents, who in some ways and/or on some occasions had to have their children, cannot stay at home with their kids; they have to work and too often at below-minimum wage jobs and so MUST take whatever childcare is available to them. To leave them at the mercy of unregulated child "care" seems like an evil hard to describe. And don't even get me started on the public "education" that then awaits many of these children.

Meanwhile, on a related front, a terrific article by Charles Blow. sex is not our problem

A few final thoughts

If anyone has a random $7,500 and wants to treat Ms. Em-i-lis to a holiday treat, I'll take these stunners! Seriously, I saw these in the Times a couple weeks back and have been in full-scale lust ever since.

And, I was really jazzed by this article in today's NYTimes. It discusses the ways in which the federal government is helping curb the obesity epidemic in the US by making stores who accept WIC vouchers MUST stock whole grain breads and cereals, fresh produce, reduced fat dairy products and so forth. As 50% of all infants and 25% of kids under 5 will be on the WIC rolls at some point in their lives, access to healthier food that is also affordable is critically important.

Interesting book and review of it

I have definitely NOT had time to read The XX Factor: How the Rise of Working Women Has Created a Far Less Equal World, a new book by Alison Wolf, but I did read and really enjoy this book review of it. Sounds like a real feat of writing, a work that dispenses with some cliches, challenges a number of assumptions and is likely a tour de force to read. I hope to find the time.