Atomictumor

CNN.com has an article covering (uncovering?) the latest breastfeeding controversy:  a photograph on the cover of a magazine depicting a mother nursing her baby.  Yep, there’s a bare breast.  And a happy baby.

According to the article, there has evidently been quite an uproar about the photo, including a mother who shredded the magazine so her 13-year-old son wouldn’t see it.  Evidently, she feels that a “breast is a breast,” and that her son doesn’t need to see something as sexual as a baby nursing on a bare breast.

Uh, yeah.  If your 13-year-old-son is anything like the average 13-year-old-boy, I’m sure he’s seen a heck of a lot worse on network television, dating advertisements that pop up just about everywhere on the internet, and pre-teen fashion magazines with scantily-clad underage models. 

You, Mom, had the opportunity to balance the cleavage of society with something that’s natural and certainly not sexually explicit.  Instead, you belittled the breast to a simple sexual tool, and that is now how your son will view those parts of the female anatomy.  Way to go, Mom!

Got word yesterday afternoon that a water main had burst out at the library. The H2O was cut off, and I’ve got today off! I’d already scheduled leave for tomorrow, so what a surprise many vacation. Lugnut and I spent the morning playing trains, eating and watching the DVD, Bluegrass Journey.

This is an excelent dvd, much more so than I’d expected. Tim O’Brien said that Bluegrass is “kind of like folk music in overdrive.” He’s right. Watching these folks play is something different than simply listening to an audio recording. There’s something about seeing the fingerwork, sweat, and laughing that goes into the music. Makes me want to go a bluegrass festival.

A good bluegrass cd is still worth listening to, though. My father-in-law brought a copy of a Doc Watson cd to the North Carolina cabin where we vacationed. We listened to it there in the cabin and then all the way to the Emerald Mine in Hiddenite, N.C.

When l was a kid my family and l went to a couple small churches. We would go on Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings. Sometimes we would go on a Saturday night as well. If there was a revival going on at our church we’d even go during the week. Now, looking back, l’d say l went with a significant amount reluctance or perhaps with an ambiguous enthusiasm.

The songs, singing, and to a lesser extent, the raucus preaching made it worthwhile. Each service started the same way. The congregation called out page numbers from the hymnal for songs to sing. Then if it was a special evening we’d have somebody or a group of people singing. I always enjoyed most the folks that accompanied their singing with an instrument. It was usually a piano or an acoustic guitar that was played.

Listening to Doc evokes a certain nostalgic feeling which isn’t a surprise at all. He says as much about his music himself in the liner notes. Many of the songs cast, he says, “a little bit of nostalgic sadness.” For him, Doc Watson says it’s the memory of people who have taught him the songs. For myself, it’s a memory of a certain place and time less than any particular person. It’s these songs, the people’s tone of voice and the pace of the songs, that listening to Doc Watson and watching Bluegrass Journey brings to mind.

Totally.

We’ve been going to the Oak Ridge Farmers Market for the past few Saturday mornings. For all you Oak Ridge city dewellers this is worth getting up early and going to. You can find all the usual veggies and produce you’d expect, plus a few surprises. I was pleased to find local honey and fresh baked bread. The duck eggs are probably the most unusual item I’ve seen there.

I don’t believe I’d ever seen a duck egg before.

Can’t find a picture
Of my pink squeaky hammer
I like to carry

I keep it with me
My lil’ pink squeaky hammer
In my back pocket

People like to laugh
Because it has a squeaker
And because it’s pink

It can bring me down
When my hammer gets laughed at
It just isn’t fair

I had a real one
A nice shiny steel hammer
It was also pink.

GAC said no
“You’ll put your eye out”, she said,
gave it to the poor.

Poor don’t need hammers
They need pizza and iPods,
National health care

Right, but anyway
Damn, I lost my train of thought
What was this about?

Ten weeks we’ve done this?
Butchering Japanese art
On some dumb web site?

Oh yeah, the hammer
Little pink squeaky hammer
I love you so much.