Marketing to children is a huge industry and all of our kids, even babies, have a high price on their heads. The aggressive, negative and unscrupulous tactics used to reach and influence our children and their long-term effects, which are finally being acknowledged by the American Psychological Association, are incredibly manipulative and designed to undermine parents.

If you’re tired of the media onslaught directed at your kids; tired of being undermined by a machine seemingly too powerful to stop, then consider signing both of these petitions, one to each political party, to make this topic a platform issue and put our children’s well-being ahead of corporate profits.

Click here to sign the petition to the Republicans

Click here to sign the petition to the Democrats

Please link to this post on your own blog if you support this petition. Thanks!

I came across this picture today. I took it two years ago in New England. Click the picture to enlarge. Look at the gas prices.

The latest AP report tells us that new housing sales for June were down 0.6 percent compared to May.  Compared to last year, June of this year sees sales down 33.2 percent.  This is being reported as bad news.  This may not be bad news.  Read the rest of this entry »

Why yes, I am worried about food safety.  I have stopped buying grapes from Mexico long ago, even though I love grapes.  So, it does not surprise to me read that people are wary about the food they eat.  What does a recent poll tell us that should be filed under obvious? Read the rest of this entry »

I live in the steamy hot midwest, where air conditioned homes are the norm.  As a child growing up in Wisconsin, we never had an air conditioner and I learned to stay with cool with fans.  I had one friend who’s parents had an A/C.  Now, I am a parent and I can have a lot of impact on how my children view the cooling blessing of A/C.  They too will be addicted to fans; like my mom made me.  Also, just like my parents would tell me to put socks on or a sweater on if I complained about being cold, I want my children to think about alternatives before adjusting the thermostat.  What are the top 5 ways to cut cooling costs?

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(Image: Source Zimbio. Photo by None/Getty Images North America. Taken at a a live taping of Meet the Press at NBC Studios July 13, 2008 in Washington, DC. Even Carly Fiorina, a top McCain surrogate, called birth control a choice.)

In other women’s rights trampling, the Bush Administration is doing the quick step to achieve as many of its oppressive agenda points as possible before the President’s term ends. This week’s big move?

Removing the blockade and letting anti-choice activists storm the health care castle in order to not only block women from getting abortions that are, for the record, still legal, but also could classify contraception products as abortions and enable “objectors” to prevent women from accessing those too.

They call it “preventing discrimination” in hiring on the basis of “religious belief” but it’s clear—after reading all 39 pages of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed rule document—what it really is: trying to cut the legs out from under Roe v. Wade.

What does the document say? (Click here to read the complete PDF, provided courtesy of RH Reality Check.)

Read the rest of this entry »

A while back we talked on about how well it works - or doesn’t work - to bring your baby to work as a way to bridge the need to work with the urge and need to be with and feed your baby. So we were pretty excited to learn about the Babies in the Workplace program, run by Carla Moquin of the Parenting in the Workplace Institute. How great is it that these resources are cropping up? Carla’s goal is to better integrate children into the workplace. In her own words:

For most of human history, mothers kept their babies with them while they worked to support their families. However, after the Industrial Revolution, having children in a work environment was no longer feasible. Society became fragmented - children separated from their parents, and parents often separated from society. It’s time for a change!

If you want to start a program at your employer, there’s a how-to guide for purchase or you can contact the founder, Carla Moquin @ (801) 897-8702. Happy baby working!

PS - Read more about this on The Huffington Post in Carla’s Bringing Humanity to the Workplace post from 2.08.

From MomsRising.org:

As if the price of gas wasn’t bad enough, now Exxon Mobil is aggressively lobbying to defeat our efforts to ban phthalates, a toxic chemical, from kids’ toys.

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According to a recent study, the world is fat after all.  Does this really surprise anyone?  By 2030 more than half of the world’s popluation will be overweight.  Fat people, global warming, wars, and the chance that maybe Madonna is fighting divorce rumors; all these issues can send a person into an overly-concerned tizzy. With so many things going wrong, what is a person to do?  I have a few suggestions.  Read the rest of this entry »

Easier said than done? Not according to Carleen Cullen a mom from Kentfield, California,who has decided to take the issue of carbon emissions to task through a school-based education program.

Cool the Earth, a new climate-change enrichment program, has already saved more than 8 million pounds of carbon from going into the atmosphere and has influenced 6,000 households to take 10,000 positive actions to reduce carbon emissions. With additional funding in place and a web-based delivery system available this summer, this program—currently running in 25 Northern California schools–expects to expand to 100 schools in the fall (from Texas to New York) and is positioned to become a national model for positive environmental change. Read the rest of this entry »