Bill O'Reilly Slams Breastfeeding, So What?

We may be a little behind on the news, yes but we're not behind on your peeps' amazing ability to effect change.

Bill O'Reilly apparently feels that recent benefits to support nursing mothers are a burden to our society.  Sounds like he harbors a not-so-secret resentment to people fighting for nursing mothers' rights.  Who knows, perhaps he even harbors a secret resentment against nursing advocates, blaming these liberal idiots for the beating his portfolio has probably taken over the past few weeks.

We're going to go ahead and take a wild guess that readers of this blog are generally pro-nursing, or at least pro-supporting people who want to.

But sometimes you have to look at things from the other side.

Maybe the guy's got a point?  I mean, why should we make it easier to breastfeed at work, or frankly at all?  Do you really like walking down second avenue and seeing the indecency of exposed skin while some oblivious and thoughtless person feeds their child without even thinking to cover up or go down the stairs to the cramped and smelly bathroom like other people with manners do?

What has happened to us?  How are we supposed to increase our lagging GDP if we are encouraging people to take time away from their work to pump?  Look at all those Scandinavian hillbillies who let their womenfolk take a year off work and support their efforts to nurse.  What do they get for their efforts? Cold and ice! Cold and ice, peeps!!! Is that what you want? A land of cold and ice?

Think about it.  All that time pumping.  That, combined with all that brainwashing hoopla the government is disseminating about preventative health, for goodness sakes - smoke breaks may disappear altogether!  Think about what the tobacco companies do for our economy!  It would be downright irresponsible to let tobacco companies struggle in a time like this.  And the formula companies!  My goodness, formula!  Do you know how expensive formula is?  Women who nurse are not spending hundreds of dollars of formula, which would provide much-needed stimulus for our economy.

We don't want to scare you peeps, but Bill O'Reilly isn't afraid to tell the real truth like it is, even if it ain't pretty.  And we're here to tell you if this women's health nonsense doesn't stop we could become a society of (gasp) socialists!!!  Yes, we said the S word.  Extreme times call for extreme measures, peeps.  We apologize for anyone we may have inadvertently offended.

Don't listen to this uneducated hack

 
It's time we took back our society.  Breastfeeding is for wusses.  We need to focus on important issues like jobs for all those unemployed men out there and making guns more accessible to all who want them.  Don't listen to peeps like this guy, whose only agenda is to fuel anti-Fox News propaganda among the common folk.

And definitely, definitely, don't support organizations like this who are going to bankrupt America and spoil our workaholic culture with their agenda for more family friendly corporations. 

So, if you were mad at Bill O'Reilly's comments, you might want to look at an issue from all sides, is all we're saying.

*We feel an obligation to point out that the above post was sarcasm, or what may be referred to some as "satire".  Poker Chick does not, in fact, believe that all Scandinavians are hillbillies, nor does she think people who choose to breastfeed are ruining our country.  Just to clear that up.

How Do Food Allergies Affect Daily Life?

There's been a lot of news this week about a new study showing the incidence of food allergies in children as quite high and The Today Show actually had a segment on it this morning as well. Now, a fellow blogger just wrote an article about food allergies for the Today Show section on MSNBC.com as well.  You go girl!

Living in a world of constant danger: One mom's story of food allergies

Jenny's piece is a good personal story to read to start to understand how it affects the families of these kids.  We know those of you reading this don't need the education, but perhaps the information will be new to someone else, and will make them more empathetic the next time they are asked to put up with minor inconveniences for the sake of these kids' safety. 

Oh, and if you don't think this information needs to be passed along, just read the other Today Show article, titled:

Allergy backlash: Skeptic moms flout no-peanut rules

For the life of us, we'll never understand why some people feel so strongly about their "right" to bring a peanut butter sandwich to school.

Bottom line: More education is needed. Not everyone is as thoughtful as you peeps.

Please read and pass along. 

How Quickly News Spreads

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

You're expecting one of those "where were you" posts, or a lecture about how "we shouldn't celebrate the death of any human being, no matter how vile", aren't you?

We were tempted.  We could go on on some long "where were you when you heard the news bit", but that would be rather boring.  Also, we wanted to spare friends the mental visual of Poker Chick watching the news in bed in her really old, faded, stretched out pajamas.  (Whoops, so much for that one).

If you haven't already heard, one of the side stories of this momentous event was the speed with which it was reported.  In a recent post, we discussed etiquette in social media.  Today, we're awed by the power of social media.

Marketers we work with are all buzzing about the speed with which the news broke.  Over 5,000 tweets a second.  Per second, peeps. "Live-tweeting" from bystanders gave us a detailed recount of what went down.  And social media provided opportunity for instant reactions from our leaders who were apparently up all night on Facebook. 



This was tweeted by a little-known IT consultant at 4:30 EST Sunday. 
He had 16,000 twitter followers the next morning.

A few hours later...

Boy did this guy not realize what he was getting into.  You can read the full twitter conversation here and the full article in Fast Company here.  It's really a fascinating read.  If anything, skim it just to see the Google trends chart on what people were searching for after it was announced.  Trends were set.  Records were broken.  History was made.

Also, it's an easy read.  With lots of pictures. 

More Than Just A Laugh

There's a popular article from Thursday's New York Times making the rounds called "Don't Call Me, I Won't Call You".

This sounds shockingly similar to the article we posted on February 5th titled, "Are Phones Becoming Obsolete?".  While they may have one-upped us on the title, we're seeing a trend here.

This feels eerily similar to the time we made an early statement of hot Snuggie sales before AdAge declared them a winner.

You can fill in your own last line here.  You know where this is going.

Wake Up And Smell the Fenugreek Seeds!!

Poker Chick is not sure which is more upsetting, the fact that this is national news, or the fact that it was on the front page of CNN.com. Regardless, it's still kind of funny. And it's not even satire.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The source of a mysterious maple syrup-like smell that has periodically blanketed New York is not a particularly aromatic pancake house but a New Jersey factory involved in the processing of fenugreek seeds, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Thursday.

The source of New York's sweet-smelling aroma has been identified as a food-flavoring firm in New Jersey.

The sweet aroma first descended upon Manhattan and northern New Jersey in October 2005, initially triggering several building evacuations as well as concern the scent was physically harmful. Authorities from the Office of Emergency Management soon concluded it posed no danger to the public.
The odor made several return appearances in subsequent years, each time confounding nostrils before vanishing as perplexingly as it arrived.
Comparing information about local wind speed, wind direction and air humidity against the locations of citizen complaints about the smell, officials from the city's Department of Environmental Protection narrowed down the potential source to four factories in northern New Jersey that produce food additives and fragrances.
Last week, when several dozen residents of Upper Manhattan called to complain about the smell, the environmental department, having developed a new evidence gathering procedure, gathered air samples from each suspected source in canisters. Tests revealed the pungent perpetrator of that incident was a Hudson County facility owned by Frutorom, a company that develops and manufactures flavors for the food, fragrance and pharmaceutical industries.
The specific chemical agents responsible for the scent are esters, compounds "created by the reaction between an alcohol and an acid" during the processing of fenugreek seeds, according to Bloomberg.
Toasted fenugreek seeds are often used in the production of artificial syrups and in the cuisines of a number of cultures.
The mayor said New Jersey officials, who cooperated with New York in the investigation, had concluded that Frutorom had not violated any rules. He said New Yorkers will have to tolerate the syrup smell's occasional return, noting that it's a relatively benign odor.
"All things considered I can think of a lot of things worse than maple syrup," he said.

Breaking News: A real world sample

A sample of the top stories from today's news alone:

1. Cars are not selling well this holiday season. Duh.
2. Lebanon could be in the Guinness book of World records of a giant potato. Well, that's one way to get there.
3. The Irish have bad pork. Mental note: no more traif.
4. "Man vs. Wild" host injured in Antarctica. Great. Thanks for the 2009 season spoiler, news people!
5. Laid-off workers seek pay. No kidding.
6. Amy Poehler is back doing news at SNL after just a few weeks. Really?

What happened to, like, real news?

Headlines

Forget the election, Middle East peace and Britney Spears, and focus on the real news you're missing:

1. Injuries when a bus en route to a casino burst into flames. Unthinkable.
2. A different way of denying rhinoplasty.
3. Stephen Colbert's in the National Portrait Gallery...really!
4. Bulldogs are the new black.
5. Bin Laden's son says Daddy wants a truce. What's he smoking?
6. Gary Coleman's back...with his pants off.
   
   And finally.....

Could it be? The return of television as we knew it? Will someone write a friggin' ending for Lost already!