The brochure was titled “Happy, Healthy and Hot” and was aimed at young people living with HIV.  It encourages them to explore their sexuality in a safe manner.  The brochure also argues that national laws requiring HIV-positive people to reveal their status to their partner(s) “violate the rights of people living with HIV” and calls for readers to fight to  ”change laws that violate your rights.”

Conservative organizations are incensed at Planned Parenthood’s involvement. Some, like Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America, even accuse the venerable reproductive rights advocacy group of “encouraging kids to be sexually active.”  But the Girl Scouts aren’t alone in their decision to promote sex education and HIV issues.  Several powerful agencies within the UN have joined together to form the “UN Adolescent Girls Task Force,” which is designed to promote and support programs that “empower… adolescent girls, particularly those aged 10-14,” and a big priority for that empowerment is going to be access to “life-skills based sexuality education, HIV prevention, and sexual and reproductive health.”

The UN has been involved in controversial sex education decisions in the past – the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization also recently co-sponsored controversial curriculum that includes teaching children as young as five about sexuality.

The turrtopsis nutricula species of jellyfish are the only creature science has even encountered that do not eventually break down and die. How do they do it? By cycling through their adult phase back into their immature polyp stage and then back again.  Imagine, instead of growing old, you grow up, spend a few years being 35, and then grow young again.

Scientists say this ability is totally unique.

The key to this unique death cheating tactic lies in transdifferentiation, which allows one type of cell to transform into a different kind of cell.  Some animals use a limited form of this process to do things like regenerate organs and limbs (think salamander).  Turritopsi nutricula doesn’t just occasionally replace a limb, they replace their whole body over and over again.

Because the jellyfish don’t die, their population is spiking.  They used to just be found in the Caribbean, but now they’ve spread to every ocean in the world.  ”We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion,” says Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute.

Naturally, scientists are eagerly studying the jelly’s, hoping to discover their secrets and apply them to human medicine.  With some doctors hypothesizing that extending the human life-span to 500 years or more may enter the realm of possibility in the next 25 years, an immortal jell fish is sure to play a sizable role in that race for the fountain of youth.

(Photo by Peter Schuchert)

When Alana realized that the baby was not going to wait until the paramedics got there, the 911 operator instructed Faith and Jabari to get towels and then the even had to tie off the umbilical cord when 9 pound, 4 ounce baby Joseph was born in the bathroom.  Paramedics soon arrived and took 36-year-old Alana Sanders and Joseph to the hospital where the boy received a clean bill of health.

Husband Geoffrey Sanders, 35, said he had left for work about 1:30 a.m. and was not around when the baby came March 9. “I’m a proud father … we are doing something right,” he said.

Alana, 36, said her children remained composed throughout the ordeal. “They didn’t freak out. They didn’t fight with each other,” she told The Oakland Tribune

Jabari said the birth was “cool and weird.”

Good job to Faith and Jabari for staying cool under pressure and turning an emergency into a joyous day that nobody in that family will ever (EVER) forget.

When we were kids, I always had someone to play with even if we fought over what to play and who got which toy.  My brother and I used to make a deal that if I played GI Joes with him that he would play Barbies with me.  I was never lonely.  If I got into a fight with my friends, I always had a brother or sister’s shoulder to lean on and talk to about it.  And since we spent all of that time together while we were growing up, we have lots of inside jokes and stories to reminisce about now.  I try to explain them to other people like my husband, but it is usually one of those things where you just had to be there.

I was a sophomore in high school the first time I remember being really grateful for my big brother.  There was a girl who was a year older than me that kept trying to pick fights and bully me.  My brother was a popular senior.  When I told him what was going on, he spent his lunches with me and my friends for two weeks “escorting” us around campus until the whole thing blew over.  For those two weeks I felt so safe and secure.  Every time that girl saw him, she went scurrying the other way.  It wasn’t the first time he had stood up for me, but it was the first that I had noticed enough to realize how great he was.  Now, when I am scared about something, he is the first person I call.  There are not a lot of bullies anymore but when life starts to stress me out, he is always there to calm my fears and I like to think that I do the same for him too.

Both of my brothers played football in high school and one went on to play in college.  My sister and I were at every game we could go to, cheering them on.  I remember several times that I nearly lost my voice yelling for them.  Those games were a metaphor for our whole lives.  Whether it is a play that my brother is in (now that he is an actor) or an emergency like when my son broke his leg, we are all there to support and encourage each other.   There is no one in this world that I am as genuinely happy for, and constantly rooting for, then those three people (except for maybe the rest of my immediate family).

Now I like to watch my three kids play (and sometimes even fight) with each other.  And although they may not realize it right now, I know that they are forming a bond that they will have for the rest of their lives.  And I can’t think of a better gift that we could have given them.

Sandberg was mobile and responsive after the hit, but his parents and teachers weren’t taking any chances, they called 911.  It’s a good thing too, because when emergency room doctors did a CT scan they determined that he needed surgery to relieve pressure on his brain.  The surgery, done on Friday, removed a portion of his skull to allow for swelling of the brain without compression.  He has been in a medically induced temporary coma since then.  His doctors estimate that the coma should last three to five days.

But how did a high school hitter get a ball moving so dangerously fast?  The players were using lightweight aluminum bats, banned from pro leagues because they allow batters to hit balls at such tremendous speeds.  Gunner is far from the first child to be seriously hurt by a ball hit from an aluminum bat.  In fact, if he escapes without brain damage he’ll be luckier than most.  New York and North Dakota have banned metal bats in youth baseball and parent groups across the country are lobbying for their local schools and states to do the same.

Another possible step that has been suggested is fitting players, particularly pitchers, with helmets like batters already wear.  Since many of the particularly bad injuries due to these high speed drives have been to pitchers who stand directly in the path of the ball, it only makes sense. Bottom line? As Sandberg’s father told the Marin IJ: “We need to make this game safer for the players.  These new bats are too powerful.  They’re like weapons.”

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These days more and more people are looking for greener, and more economic, ways to do household chores.  Kitchen gardens and keeping small domestic food animals like chickens are in vogue again, as is air drying laundry.  But one Philadelphia area mother is having to fight for her right to air dry.  Patty Pozeynot of Skippack Township, Pennsylvania was fined $100 for hanging her laundry to dry on her back porch.

The Hunter Ridge development where Pozeynot lives does have an ordinance against hanging laundry outside, even in the back yard, but Pozeynot says that the rule was put in place a year after she moved in and she feels it’s not fair.  She told NBC Philadelphia, “I wanna hang out my laundry because I think it’s better for our environment, it’s the green thing to do.” Some of her neighbors, however, don’t want to see the rules bent.

“You change one rule, what’s going to be next,” resident Karen Kelly asks. ” I think if everybody did it, I don’t think it would look appealing.”

Pozeynot has considered moving, but she doesn’t want to uproot her kids so she has decided to stay and fight.  To legally hang her clothes, she needs more than half of her 55 neighbors to sign a petition allowing her to continue.  A neighbor in a nearby home has gotten the necessary signatures, but Pozeynot only has 19 of the 38 she needs.

How? We see with our mind, not with our eyes.  The retina, the part of the eye that collects light information and translates it into nerve impulses, doesn’t actually interpret those impulses.  It sends them to the visual cortex via two million or so optic nerves, where that information is decoded, allowing us to experience vision.  If one can find another way of collecting and decoding that light information, then transmitting it to the brain, one can bypass the eye all together.  Or at least that’s the theory that, BrainPort, the new device being developed by neuroscientists in Wisconsin, works on.

The BrainPort device collects visual data through a tiny digital camera in the center of a pair of sunglasses and transmitted to a handheld unit the size of a cell phone.  This unit allows the wearer to control zoom, light setting and shock intensity levels and houses a central processing unit (CPU) that converts the digital signal from the camera into electrical pulses. Those electrical pulses are transmitted back to the brain through the tongue.  A “lollipop,” an electrode array that sits directly on the tongue, transmits these pulses through a series of tiny electrical bursts that feel like Pop Rocks or champagne bubbles to the user.

After about fifteen minutes, blind users begin to interpret spacial information via the BrainPort.  ”It becomes a task of learning, no different than learning to ride a bike,” neuroscientist Aimee Arnoldussen says.  The “process is similar to how a baby learns to see.  Things may be strange at first, but over time they become familiar.” Patients testing the device are quickly learning to do things like find doorways and elevator buttons, read letters and numbers and pick up utensils without fumbling.  Arnoldussen and her colleagues are still not sure whether or not the BrainPort is actually managing to transmit information to the brain’s visual cortex or whether or not it’s being interpreted through the somatosensory cortex, where data from the tongue is usually processed. But for the people the BrainPort promises to help, that hardly matters.

Los Angeles is teaming with RecycleBank to start a new pilot program that will compensate households for recycling. The goal is to increase Los Angeles’ recycling rate from 65% to over 70% and eventually, if Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has his way, push the city toward zero waste.

The program will weigh and record the recyclable contents of tagged bins each week.  Depending on the weight of the bins, residents can earn points that they can redeem at local businesses like CVS, Bed Bath and Beyond and even restaurants like El Pollo Loco.

RecycleBank already has contracts with more than 50 cities around the U.S., including Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, and Atlanta.

15,000 L.A. area homes will be eligible for the program, including Northridge, Topanga, Sherman Oaks, Hollywood, Lincoln Heights and Cypress Park.  The program kicks off April 5, and each household can earn recycling points up to the equivalent of $400 a year per blue bin.  Residents along various routes will receive mailers in March that explain what they can recyclables are eligible and how to register for the program. The existing blue recycle bins will be given a bar code and ID stickers embedded with microchips with the resident’s account number to track their recycling rewards.

The rewards are based on weight of recyclable material and will be evenly divided among households along an entire route, not by individual participation.

If you live in the LA area, this is the perfect opportunity to teach your children not only about the importance of recycling, but working to earn money for the things they want. Kids can collect bottles and cans from the household and learn what is a recyclable material, and what isn’t.  Set goals for your family to exceed the previous weight’s total and use the points you earn for family activities, like meals out, or make a special trip to participating stores so everyone can pick out toys, books or games with your family’s hard earned points.

Or think bigger: organize a recycling pick up day where families on the same route can band together and pick up recyclable materials around the neighborhood.  The payoff?  A greener, more connected neighborhood and a fun way to earn extra cash.

1. Let kids help. Decide what you are going to put in their lunch.  For example one fruit, one veggie, one treat and a drink.  Fill a bowl with different fruits, one with different veggies, etc.  Then when you have to pack lunches let your kids pick which fruit, which veggie, etc that they want.  This ensures that they will eat their choice and it will make lunch packing go faster with all of the extra hands.
2. Make a chart. Make columns on a dry erase board for each food group.  Have kids fill in their favorites for each group.  Then make a deal that you can pack their lunch with anything that is on that board and they will eat it.  You may even discover some ideas from your kids that you might not have thought of yourself.
3. Make a theme. Bust a rut by packing lunches with a theme.  You can pack all things that are all round, square, green, orange, etc.  Or you can pack a cowboy lunch with BBQ fare or a circus lunch complete with kettle corn.
4. Get Crafty. Stick Con-Tact paper on the inside lid of a lunch box and, voila!, you have an instant dry erase board.  You can write messages, jokes or interesting facts for them to read to fellow classmates.  You can even include a dry erase marker and draw up a game of tic-tac-toe or hang-man for them to play.
5. Give Sandwiches A Face Lift. If your child has a habit of ignoring your sandwiches, try this quick fix.  Pull out your cookie cutters and cut their sandwich into fun shapes, making them instantly more appetizing to little peepers.

The new additions to the recall are the following items:

• 240,000 “Innovations” and “At Home with Meijer” Roman Shades and Roll-Up Blinds -  Shades are made with fabric or bamboo and the Roll-up blinds with bamboo. A label reading “Innovation” or “At Home with Meijer” can be found under the head-rail.  For more information visit Meijer or call 800-927-8699
• 5,000 Lutron Shading Solutions Roman Shades – Motorized and manual Lutron Shading Solutions Roman shades. The shades were sold in a variety of colors, fabrics, and sizes. Nearly all shades were professionally installed. “Lutron Shading Solutions” or “Lutron Shading Solutions by VIMCO” is printed on the packaging.  For more information visit Lutron or call 866-793-4270

If you or someone you know has any of these products they should immediately stop using the item and remove if necessary.  Contact the manufacturer for more information about a replacement or refund.

Please see the links below for additional recalls that may affect you:

• RECALL – Martha Stewart Kettles May Cause Burns
• RECALL-3 Different Sweatshirts May Cause Strangulation
• RECALL – 500,000 Cribs May Cause Infant Deaths
• RECALL – ‘Princess and the Frog’ Walmart Neckalces May Be Toxic
• RECALL – Steamer Mops May Cause Scalding or Lacerations

Makes Me Sick:  Tour of Italy

Warren Buffet the II can pretty much ensure this is Grandpa’s last meal if he orders this monstrosity.  The plate full of chicken Parmesan, fettuccine alfredo and lasagna has 1,450 calories and 3,830 mg of sodium, not counting the unlimited salad and breadsticks enjoyed before.  I’m lobbying to have it renamed Tour of the Cardiac Care Unit.

Healthy Pick: Linguine Alla Marinara

If Gramps is in the mood for pasta, this isn’t a bad choice at only 310 calories for the lunch portion.  In addition, Olive Garden offers low fat Italian dressing for their salad, and Baby Bill Gates could special order breadsticks without butter. Then again, if Gramps is in the mood for pasta, maybe he shouldn’t be at Olive Garden.

The problem with all of these lies is just that: they’re lies. The problem with telling a lie is that it’s likely to be discovered to be a lie sooner or later. At best, these ten lies insult the intelligence of your child; at worst, they breed fear and false hope. Another example: “Don’t worry, sweetie, that can’t happen here.” The accompanying explanation to support the lie says that we’re meant to ease the worries of our children with this lie, but what happens when the worst does happen? In this particular example, a far better thing to tell a child is that 1) the odds are against something disastrous happening, and 2) if something terrible does happen, there are ways that we know to fix/preempt it. That puts the power into the family’s hands, and turns the situation from something unstoppable into something manageable.

Look over the list yourself and think of ways to better address each particular situation than what the article advises. I guarantee you’ll find something more positive than what’s listed — and let’s hope the post is meant to be humorous.

William Walsh, the creator of the GreenBox pizza containers that are about to take the country by storm, owes a great deal of his success to digg.com.  A blog called asylum.com ran a promotional video for GreenBox last April and the unassuming post turned out to be the most “dugg” article in asylum’s history.  Why? Who knows. Maybe internet users just thought the ingeniously designed new pizza box’s were that cool.  One has to admit, turning what used to just be clumsy, inconveniently sized trash first into paper plates then transforming what’s left of the box into a conveniently sized storage container for leftovers is pretty awesome. Perhaps there wasn’t anything more exciting going on that day.

Whatever the cause of GreenBox’s unexpected viral popularity, it’s a big part of what took a good idea and made it a great business.  According to Walsh, “When we go into a meeting with a pizza chain or a distributor, what we point to most is the response from social media.  The executives are quite aware of sites like Digg, and it’s been a powerful tool for us.”

GreenBox has just signed a deal with PFG-Roma, which is the country’s largest distributor of Italian foods to restaurants and food specialty shops.  And, even more exciting, the company and its product are “being reviewed by three of the top four national pizza chains.” Walsh says.  ”We feel like negotiations are moving along with a couple of them.”  It’s always nice to hear about a little guy making good in the world of the corporate giants. If that little guy happens to be saving us from having to do the dishes and take out the trash on pizza night, well, so much the better.

Sleep is a vital part of everyone’s health, no matter your age, but many of us do not get the recommended amount.  Lack of sleep can effect mood, immune function, productivity, and attentiveness.  Experts recommend:

• Adults receive 7-9 hours per night

• Toddlers receive 12-14 hours per night

• School aged children receive 10-12 hours per night

• Teens receive 8.5-9.5 hours per night

Experts also say that equally important as the number of hours of sleep is sticking to a sleep schedule, or routine, to ensure that the quality of sleep is as restful as possible.  Inevitably, springing an hour ahead will throw a wrench in your family’s sleep routine.

If you are worried how Daylight Saving Time will effect your family, or it your family is a pack of walking zombies every morning all year round, here are some ways to make the morning a little easier on everyone.

Stick to your regular schedule. Thankfully, the time change occurs on the weekend, so take advantage.  Let the little one’s sleep in an hour later than normal to make up the difference instead of trying to get them to go to bed an hour early.  It is easier to make up the hour once already asleep, instead of trying to get the kids to go to sleep when they aren’t yet tired.

Get up immediately. Put your alarm clock on the other side of the room, so when it goes off, you have to get up to turn it off.  Experts agree that using the snooze button can leave you more tired than if you got up immediately.  Everyone goes through sleep cycles throughout the night, and to reach the most restful part of sleep takes about an hour.  Waking up again before you have reached it will leave you more tired than if you never went back to sleep at all.  Under the same logic, when you wake up children, make sure they get up- don’t give wake up warnings.  This will ensure they are alert all day long.

Everyone needs a bed time- even you. There’s that sleep schedule again.  Your body is a big fan of routine.  It might take a little getting used to, but getting to bed at the same time every night will let your body know what to expect, and it will begin to shut down automatically.

Turn off the electronics. Blue light, which is given off by the screens of electronics, has been shown to stimulate the brain and interfere with sleep.  Two hours before bed, have the kids turn off the TV and video games to help them unwind.  That goes for your laptop, too.  Engage in relaxing activities, like reading, listening to music or completing crossword puzzles.

Limit caffeine. Hopefully your kids aren’t guzzling coffee before bed, but caffeine can have a longer lasting effect than most realize, which can make falling asleep difficult and deep sleep harder to achieve.  Caffeine has a half life of 3-5 hours (it takes your body that long to eliminate half) but the remaining can last for 8-14 hours.  For adults, coffee and tea should be limited to morning only, and for kids, caffeinated sodas should avoided as much as possible.  Chocolate has less caffeine than most people think, and the link between sugar and hyperactivity is still under debate, but these should be given to children sparingly anyway, because of their lack of nutritional value.

Prepare for the morning. Rushing around is never a good way to start the day.  Make sure the kids have their clothes picked out, homework done, and backpacks packed and ready to go before they go to bed.  Make sure lunches are packed, coffee pot is ready and breakfast is planned and ready to throw together.  The less stress, the better the tone for the day.

By implementing these ideas, and streamlining your entire family’s sleep routine, your mornings will cease to be the stressful chaos you are so used to and set a peaceful, positive tone for everyone’s day.  With less screaming, yelling and pot banging, you may actually have some time to eat breakfast together, and, you know, talk.

Brooklyn mom Gezime Amer can honestly say she’s never had a single baby… because all of her children have come in pairs.  She gave birth to her first set of twins 12 years ago, a beautiful pair of boys.  She and her husband were hoping for a girl with their second pregnancy two years later.  They got their wish. Except instead of one girl, they got two.

“Got blessed me with the genes to have twins,” said Gezime.  ”They came to me all natural, too.” Amer’s gynecologist, Ayman Shahine, says that he’s never come across a mom so genetically prone to twins in his twenty years of practice.  ”Her genes are like that,” Shahine says.  ”When she had her first twins, she was scared. Then she had two girls and she could not believe it.  Now, she’s an expert.”

Multiple sets of twins in the same family are rare.  Three in a row is almost unheard of.  Only 15 of the 26,000 members of the National Organization of Mothers of Twins have reported giving birth to several sets of twins.

While Amer will admit that extra babies have made her family, who live on her husbands hardware store manager’s salary, hard pressed for cash and time, she loves her children and is thrilled to have another pair on the way.  ”We teach them that we may not have a lot, but we have each other,” she says.  ”Blood is thicker than water.”

The older sets of twins are excited too. They love being twins and they’re happy their new siblings will have the same experiences – “When you are [a] twin, you know someone always has your back,” Said Kerima, one of the 10 year old female set of twins, “You know you’ll never be alone.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It’s true. Bronson Staker was dead when he arrived at the hospital after drowning in his bathtub.  But Friday morning he was burbling happily on his father’s lap while his parents were interviewed on the Today Show, more interested in his dad’s cell phone than his own miraculous recovery.

Six weeks ago, Bronson’s mother, Sara, put him in the tub for a bath.  She stepped away momentarily to deal with another of her children, and when she came back she found Bronson face down in the water.  ”It was horrible.  It was the most helpless feeling I’ve ever had in my life,” Sara told the Today Show.  ”There was no question in my mind that he was gone.  He was white, his lips were blue. His eyes were rolled back.”

Emergency responders were also unable to revive Bronson and he was declared DOA – Dead On Arrival – when he reached the hospital. But his doctors didn’t give up, and forty minutes later they finally restored a heartbeat, while a ventilator pumped oxygen into Bronson’s lungs.  Bronson’s doctors told his parents that it was very likely that their baby would have serious brain damage from having been oxygen deprived for so long, but there was something that might help reduce that chance.  An experimental treatment that could help them recover more of the child they’d lost.

That treatment is called Therapeutic Hypothermia.  They would lower Bronson’s body temperature to 91 degrees, 8 degrees below normal, and put him in a medically induced coma to reduce brain swelling.  The Staker’s agreed, and for almost 2 weeks they watched, helpless, as their baby slept alone in a cooling unit, puffy and cold to the touch. “It was excruciating, because every fiber of your being as a mother wants to hold your child, especially when they’re hurting.” Sara told the Today Show. “You want to hold him and hug him and wrap him in a blanket and keep him warm.”

Doctors had told the Stokers that Bronson would probably not be the boy they’d known when he woke up.  That he would likely be the equivalent of a 16 month old newborn, needing months or years of rehab.  But Bronson didn’t get the memo – when he woke up, he was fully alert.  ”I walked in the room and the lights were on.  Immediately I could see that he was tracking and connecting and looking from on nurse to the other.  When I walked in, he lifted his chin and I could see that he knew who I was,” His mother says.

By the time the family took Bronson home, he’d achieved every bench mark doctors had set for him for the next year – he was back to his old self.  In fact, he walked out of the hospital on his own two feet.

Bronson’s parents hope that other parents will learn from their hard lesson.  As Sara put it, “Life is so fragile.  As parents, we’re so busy and we try to multi-task things.  It’s really easy to get distracted by the things that aren’t the most important things, and the things that are the most important suffer.”

1. Grocery Stores. Thoroughly clean shopping cart handles and seat belt buckles when you enter the store.  Most stores have cleaning wipes at their entrance, but if yours doesn’t, don’t touch the rails or bring your own because carts are crawling with germs.  Customers may sneeze, wipe their noses, then touch the cart handles.  They’re also contaminated by children’s dirty hands and by leaky meat packages you toss into your cart.  Poultry and beef can contain bacterial bombs such as salmonella and E. coli.  About 70%-80% of shopping carts tested nationwide had E. coli on them.
2. Playgrounds. Playgrounds are a germ’s paradise because kids touch everything they see and their mouth and nose interchangeably.  The largest threat is from fecal bacteria from bird poop and diaper-wearing tots on playground equipment.  The most offending gear is swings, slides and monkey bars.  Be sure to wash hands thoroughly or use hand sanitizer after returning from playground, using the bathroom and changing diapers.
3. The Mall. Can’t keep your hands off of those escalator handles?  Your not alone.  That is why it is one of the germiest places in the building along with the kids’ play area.  The easiest fix is to just not touch the rails or let your kids play in the fun center.  But that’s no fun!  If you happen to brush the rails or if you cave and let your kids romp around in the land o’ germs just be sure to wash up or use sanitizer when your done.
4. Restaurants. Be weary of tabletops and highchairs.  The contaminating agent is not food, usually or even other people.  It is usually the rags that are used to “clean” the surfaces.  When busboys wipe down a table or chairs, their dirty rags may be spreading a small film of E. coli.  They should put disinfectant on the rag after each use, but studies show that the same cloth are sometimes used on more than a dozen tables before it is disinfected.  The easiest way to deal with these germs is to use you own sanitary wipes to clean the tabletop and high chair when you’re seated.
5. Libraries. Libraries appear to be tidy, sterile places, but they can be crawling with germs.  Why so filthy?  Lots of people shuffle through and peruse books, log on to computers and touch counter-tops with little sterilization afterwards.  The worst places to touch are counter-tops and books.  Again, go ahead and indulge.  Just be sure to wash or sanitize hands when you leave.

“Crystal’s Soapbox,” published each Thursday, is a column by conservative Texas mom Crystal Arcand who loves to rant about issues that relate to her kids….and yours.

You know, not too long ago there was a big hoopla about a dad that let his seven-year-old get tattooed. There was talk of child endangerment and parents had proverbial cows about poking that poor baby with needles. “What kind of parent would do such a thing?!” everyone asked hysterically.

Then somehow the parenting world had been anesthetized to it by the time the Tattoo Barbie had come out. Sure, some were against it, but they still sold, and a lot of parents doled out the logic of “letting them try it” before kids made a permanent decision. It was touted by some as an opportunity for discussion.

And yet, there is no discussion about ear piercing. The discussion always seems to be centered on whether silver or gold earrings are preferred during the six-week healing period after the initial piercing. I’ve never heard getting your ears pierced compared to getting a tattoo. But it is like getting a tattoo. It’s a permanent alteration to the body. The effects of it last forever. Just like a tattoo.

Well, kind of. You can have a tattoo removed. You can’t remove earring holes. Sure, they can grow closed, just like mine did. But the scars are still there. It drives me crazy. I wish my mother had talked to me about the permanence of it before I got my ears pierced at nine – I wouldn’t have had it done.

The other day while I was in the grocery store I saw a baby with earrings. She couldn’t have been more than six months old. Did she tell her mother that she wanted holes in ears for the rest of her life? Or did she try to tell her, “Hey, Mom, y’know it hurts to try to sleep with these tiny metal spikes poking me in the neck no matter which side I sleep on, because I’ve got them on both sides, so no thanks, anyway.”

Oh wait, she didn’t. Because she’s a baby. She had no choice or say in the matter.

Why is it okay to poke a baby with needles as long as it’s in the ears instead of the hip or somewhere else? Is it the lack of ink? The precious metal? The gems? Oh, it’s cute, right? It’s totally okay to inflict pain on infants as long as they’re cute when we’re done. It only lasts a little while, right? Newsflash: tattoos don’t hurt after the healing is over, either.

Let’s get a grip and stop hurting babies that don’t understand what’s going on for the sake of “cute.” Buy a freakin’ hair accessory already.

The study was done in 49 remote Hutterite farming colonies in western Canada.  The Hutterites are descendants of a 16th-century Swiss Protestant sect who live in isolated communities.  Although they avoid some technology, the Hutterites drive cars and modern tractors and, most importantly in this case, live in communities of up to 160 people, own everything jointly, attend their own schools, eat in one dining hall and avoid contact with the outside world.  They have no objection to modern medicine, and, while they deliberately distance themselves from the mainstream world, they emphasize acts of generosity like blood donation.

Although previous studies have demonstrated this effect before, none have been so clear cut because they were done in less isolated places with more sources of flu passing in and out of the community. In late 2008, the study provided all children ages 3 to 15 in 25 of the colonies with the flu shot.  In 24 others, they gave children doses of the hepatitis A vaccine as a placebo.  By last June, more than 10 percent of all adults and children in the placebo colonies had contracted the seasonal flu at some point.  Less than 5 percent of those in the colonies with immunized children had gotten it and here was a 60 percent “protective effect” for the whole community, the study concluded.  That implies giving flu shots to schoolchildren protects the elderly from the flu just as well as giving the elderly flu shots directly. The C.D.C does, however, still recommend that “high-risk people” including the elderly, get shots – even if children in their community are fully immunized.

• Mix equal parts of bleach and water to make a cleaning solution for mildew, hard water residue and rust stains on the tub, shower curtain, shower door and around the toilet and sink.
• Use undiluted bleach to kill weeds, moss and algae in your yard.
• Mix 1 part bleach and 3 parts water to use for kitchen cleaning solution.  It is great for killing germs in the sink and on the countertop and stove.
• Add a few drops of bleach to each gallon of water you put in your humidifier to prevent bacteria from growing.
• Add a capful of bleach plus one sugar cube in the water of your flower vase to help cut flowers last longer.
• Rub bleach on your white porcelain items,  let sit for ½ hour, then rinse them off and towel dry to give them a pristine shine.
• Brighten your glassware by adding 1 teaspoon of bleach in your warm soapy water.  Let them sit for 15 minutes and then wash as usual.
• Clean plastic lawn furniture by mixing equal parts of bleach and water in a spraying bottle.  Spray them thoroughly and rinse.  You can also use this mixture to rejuvenate a wooden fence.  Wash away that gray look by simply spraying this directly onto wood.
• Remove lingering smells from coolers and other closed containers by wiping or spraying them with a mixture of one part bleach and 3 parts water.
• Cure poison ivy by wiping a small amount of bleach over the affected area to dry it up.  Be sure to rinse well before wearing colored clothes so that you don’t stain them.
• Clean smelly feet by mixing 1 part of bleach with 3 part of hot water, soak for 10 minutes, and dry with a hair dryer.
• Get sore throat relief by mixing 2-3 drops of bleach with a 16 oz of warm water.  Gargle and spit until the glass is empty.

Depression, anxiety, and substance abuse are among the other likely results seen in adults. It’s thought that when the body undergoes a stressful situation, elements of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system help regulate the body’s response. However, repeated trauma may damage this system, leading to the far-reaching effects outlined above.

As parents, we tend to forget sometimes that when we argue, the tensions can spill over and affect our children. They may be sitting in the next room, but when a certain angry tone comes to them, they tend to stop and listen. Not only is it unfair to the child to be witness to this, according to this study, it may actively harm their future selves. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, really, but a long-term research project like this one is more proof that we do not exist in a vacuum. Our children must be taken into account at all times.

When you feel yourselves on the cusp of a big public blowup, it’s helpful to ask of each other: “Does this help?” It may ease your personal stress to shout and get angry, but does it really help? Chances are that even arguments of substance can be shelved until your child is sleeping. Best yet, just learn to cope with frustration before it happens. Practice breathing. Exercise more. Anything you can do to prevent your children from future pain should be your goal at all times.

I know.  Please put your eyeballs back in your heads.

Yahoo Games released their list of the top 10 good for you games, and some of them may be in your kid’s console right now.

Mind and body are the integral parts to overall health, and these video games take care of both.

To increase brain power, let your kids play:

Bejeweled

The puzzle solving, jewel swapping game has been shown to lower stress levels and improve mood.

Brain Age

The lightning fast game keeps math and problem solving skills sharp, and help your kids brush up on some of the skills they may have lost over the summer.

Typing Maniac

While your kids may know more about computers than you could ever hope to, proper and accurate typing is a valuable, lifelong skill.  No more brb’s and ttyl’s.**  This Facebook game will teach professional keyboard skills to your child.

Scribblenauts

The Nintendo DS game uses puzzles to push your child’s vocabulary skills, and, well, it’s just so gosh darn.

To increase health and fitness, let your kids play:

Wii Fit Plus

The Wii Fit phenomenon gets your kids up and moving, but the Wii Fit Plus offers more games and customizable programs to track progress.

Food Network:  Cook or Be Cooked

One of the biggest issues cited for the obesity epidemic is that no one cooks anymore. This recipe game teaches kids their way around a kitchen and healthy foods without you worrying about them cutting off a finger.

EA Sports Active

Wii Fit gets the spotlight, but EA Sports Active has a resistance band component that makes their workouts hard to beat.  Incidental exercise is one thing, but EA offers intention exercise to help your child build a habit.

Wii Sports Resort

More calorie blasting Wii games.  ‘Nuff said.

Just Dance

The fast paced Wii dance game gets your kids shaking their stuff to the hottest tunes around.

Video games get a bad rap for producing sloven children, but these games you can feel good about buying for your children.

**Be Right Back and Talk To You Later.  Get hip!

Judy Danchura of Canada could never have guessed that befriending the stray orange and white tabby she calls Sumo would save her life

She made up a litter box for Sumo and went back to bed.  ”While she and her husband slept,” reports CBC News, “the cat hopped onto the bed and walked across her body. As it stepped on her breast, Danchura was struck by an unusual shot of pain.”

“I sort of went, ‘Oh geez, there’s definitely something wrong there,’” Danchura tells CBC News. She was right. She had a lump in her breast, which a trip to the doctor revealed was a tumor.  A malignant tumor.  Because it had been detected very early, Danchura was able to begin treatment immediately – giving her a 95% chance of survival.

Sumo isn’t the first animal to be suspected of being able to detect illness in an owner. Oscar, a cat who lives in the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island, is notorious for predicting the deaths of residents. Oscar isn’t usually friendly, but he often curls up with dying patients. Animal behavior specialists suggest that Oscar is probably smelling a chemical given off by the body as it shuts down.  There have also been multiple studies that indicate that dogs can use their keen sense of smell to detect cancer and predict epileptic seizures.  Perhaps cats like Sumo can too.

Danchura thinks of Sumo as her guardian angel.  ”I sometimes feel overwhelmed because I feel humbled,” she told CBC.  ”I can’t understand why this animal turned up for me.” Whether it was random luck, or, as Danchura suspects, Sumo was really trying to tell his new friend something, the cat has certainly given Judy Danchura a chance at surviving her cancer that she might not otherwise have had.

Sadly, this is the kind of world in which we have to raise our children. A seemingly casual, flippant remark, made in innocence, can easily backfire and turn the speaker into something perceived as malevolent. It’s no longer enough to say “That’s not what I meant”; we have to edit ourselves before saying anything at all.

However, we should be teaching our children this lesson anyway. If a child inadvertently hurts another’s feelings, she might say “I didn’t mean to”, but the result speaks for itself. It’s a sign that, good intentions or ill, mistakes sometimes get made. Maybe you didn’t mean to hurt someone, but you did, and now you know better. This is good for growth. We can’t expect a five year old to be aware of her strength, or limitations, or boundaries at all times. She’s learning from experience, which is the best teacher. But we can show that there are always consequences for every action, whether purposefully made or accidental. There is always room for apologies, and a genuine desire to make amends, which is, in the end, the most important issue.

“If a child of gay parents comes to our school, and we teach that gay marriage is against the will of God, then the child will think that we are saying their parents are bad.  We don’t want to put any child in that tough position — nor do we want to put the parents, or the teachers, at odds with the teachings of the Catholic Church.  Why would good parents want their children to learn something they don’t believe in?”

But, even though an unidentified child was not allowed to re-enroll in the Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School’s pre-school program this year because its parents are lesbians, there are plenty of kids in Catholic schools all over the country whose parents are divorced, remarried or unmarried, which is also against the teachings of the Catholic Church.  Add to that all the children of couples who are still married but use birth control and it becomes clear that Catholic schools would be nearly empty if they actually didn’t accept any children whose parents didn’t follow the teaching of the Catholic Church.

In fact, Catholic schools across the nation often accept many students who are not Catholic at all – in some urban areas the number of non-Catholic students in local Catholic schools is greater than 90 percent of the student population.

There have been public protests at the Boulder school – but beyond carrying signs, there isn’t much the child’s mothers can do legally.  As a private religious institution the school can decide who it wants to admit. But it will likely be the Church itself who suffers the most for having put this child out of their institution.

Surveys show that for Americans – particularly the younger demographic that the Catholic Church desperately wants to recruit back into its shrinking ranks – equality for gays isn’t even a question any more.  Americans support civil unions by an increasingly large margin, 58 percent for verses 37 percent against among 18-29 year olds.

That same demographic already perceives Christianity in general and Catholics and evangelical Christians in specific as “anti-homosexual” – an image that will hardly be improved by expelling a pre-schooler because her parents are gay.  Many Catholics agree that the Church needs to find new ways to deal with a changing world.  Juli Aderman-Hagerty, a member of the Sacred Heart of Jesus parish, said – “I just feel the Catholic Church is a church that should be teaching acceptance and tolerance,” Juli says. “I just don’t think this is an example of that.”