A few weeks back, my man and I took our son to Urban Ore, one of the nonprofit organizations that deal with Berkeley’s waste. They have a contract with the city to salvage items being unloaded at the transfer station and to haul them away for resale. They pull doors and toys and tables and […] Continue reading →

I was listening to the radio the other day, and heard actress Maria Bello interviewed on Fresh Air. She’s in Oliver Stone’s latest film about the World Trade Center. As a method actress, having a child has greatly affected her ability to tap into certain depths of feeling that she had not experienced before. She […] Continue reading →

Bush-loving Baldwin Brother Stephen has found Jesus and now he’s on the warpath for your kids! “I’d always imagined Jesus was the sweet, cuddly, loving dude, and suddenly I find out he makes Conan the Barbarian look like Conan the wimp,” he says. “He didn’t come with a guitar singing Kum Ba Yah. Jesus brought […] Continue reading →

This generation of American children will be the first to live sicker, shorter lives than their parents. Those who view the attention being given to childhood obesity and diabetes as merely an extension of our culture’s unhealthy obsession with women’s weight– or otherwise doubt the “epidemic” nature of these problems– are in for a bumpy […] Continue reading →

It entailed hours of frantic prep and packing, and more hours of stop-and-go traffic through bleached, baking sprawl, but we managed to do what we used to enjoy so much: go camping! I still can’t say for sure that camping with a toddler is really worth the trouble. It is an exercise in perserverance–clinging desperately […] Continue reading →

When Elisa and I first arrived at BlogHer, we ambled over to the tent where sponsors and vendors were giving away freebies to conference attendees. Front and center were Weight Watchers and Comex bottled water–a new Nestle product that features added calcium and magnesium. The Comex gal sprung into action, handing me an ice-cold bottle […] Continue reading →

While real children continue to get blown to smithereens in Iraq and now Lebanon, those fellas in Congress have phantom fetus on the brain: Congress and President Bush are very good at protecting imaginary children from imaginary horrors. The House of Representatives this month unanimously passed the Fetus Farming Prohibition Act of 2006. The Senate […] Continue reading →

Bush used his veto power for the first time last week to put the kibosh on the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. His veto means that federal funding cannot support research using stem cell lines derived from embryos left over from fertility treatments. As you can imagine, with women waiting longer to procreate, there are […] Continue reading →

A heat wave over the weekend compelled us to the lake last Saturday. We first stopped off at Walgreens to buy a beach umbrella for me and a beachball for my son. Once I got back into the steaming car, I pulled the beachball out to inflate. Before my lips touched the valve, my eyes […] Continue reading →

My mate and I went to an outdoors rock concert on Saturday night (Flaming Lips, if you must know!). Unlike many of the shows we attend, there was a large portion of the crowd that was in our age group (mid-to-late 30s). Furthermore, many had brought their babies, toddlers, and grade-school kids. We lounged on […] Continue reading →