Megan Alton over at Waking Up Happy has been conducting interviews as part of her Knowing Birth series. I am honored to have my interview featured. Where did you choose to have your birth and why?… …It was only when I was pregnant that I learned about Ina May Gaskin. I found out that the […]
Quotes On Education
“Sadly, children’s passion for thinking often ends when they encounter a world that seeks to educate them for conformity and obedience only.” —bell hooks “Modern schools and universities push students into habits of depersonalized learning, alienation from nature and sexuality, obedience to hierarchy, fear of authority, self-objectification, and chilling competitiveness. These character traits are the […]
Link: The Educational Industrial Complex
“Creating Learning Communities: Freeing Education to Create a Sustainable Cooperative Society” (Anna Jahns, Pathways to Family Wellness magazine) “[T]he system of education our children are being indoctrinated into today is fundamentally the same as it was 100 years ago, when it was designed to prepare factory workers for an industrial culture oriented toward manufacturing consumer goods and winning political […]
Links: Agave “Nectar”
Like a lot of people, I jumped on the agave-nectar wagon several years ago, believing the packaging that said it was “raw,” “all-natural,” often “organic,” with a “low glycemic index” (I’ve always had blood-sugar issues). I quickly noticed a bad reaction whenever I had more than the tiniest amount: It gave me an intense sugar […]
A Critique of a Critique of Extended Breastfeeding
I’m not sure why I opened What to Expect the Toddler Years (Eisenberg/Murkoff/Hathaway, 1994/1996). Morbid curiosity I guess. The books in this series are notorious for maintaining the status quo, but they do so in a typically non-invasive way, especially if you go into it wary-eyed. Early in my pregnancy, I learned to take everything […]
To Vote Or Not To Vote
I am surrounded by two primary views on whether or not to vote. (More accurately, I am surrounded by one primary view, one opposing view, and then a lot of people who don’t feel as strongly. I simplify, to not get too convoluted and tomey.) 1.) Vote. You must vote. Voting makes a difference. Voting […]
Quote: Vonnegut On Community
Kurt Vonnegut has some good models/theories on communal living. “This is a lonesome society that’s been fragmented by the factory system. People have to move from here to there as jobs move, as prosperity leaves one area and appears somewhere else. People don’t live in communities permanently anymore. But they should: Communities are very comforting […]
Quote: A Balanced Diet
“In spite of all the talk and study about our next years, and all the silent ponderings about what lies within them for our sons [sic], it seems plain to us that many things are wrong in the present ones which can be, must be changed. Our texture of belief has great holes in it. Our pattern lacks […]