Positives

• Faster Milk Flow
• Convenient & Portable
• Comfortable
• User-friendly
• Easy to Clean
• Safe

Negatives

• Not Totally Quiet
• Can Only Pump One Breast at a Time
• Design Defect – Motor
• Weak Pumping Suction
• Condensation in the Tube

Medela Swing

Medela Swing - Positive

1) Faster Milk Flow

• Rushing for time? Use the one touch let down button.
• That lets you pump immediately without the hassle of waiting.
• There are two modes (simulation and expression) which imitate your baby’s suckling rhythm. The simulation mode starts your milk flowing by the initial rapid sucking rhythm.
• Need evidence? Some moms have managed to pump 4 oz in approximately 5 minutes.

2) Convenient & Portable

• This breast pump fits like a glove, be it in a purse, a diaper bag or a briefcase. It’s no larger than a portable CD player!
• It’s compact enough to be placed on a table top. Alternatively, you can attach it to the belt clip or shoulder/neck strap.
• Stuck in traffic or multi-tasking at home? Use the ‘AA’ battery power option and belt clip on the motor. To be totally hands-free, just cut two slits in a tube top and slide the flange through.

3) Comfortable

• The Soft Fit TM Breastshield oozes exceptional gentleness and ease.
• The expression mode express your milk gently yet efficiently without causing you pain and distress since it follows your baby’s au-natural slower and deeper nursing rhythm.
• It can’t get comfier than that!

4) User-Friendly

• A new mom? No sweat.
• The one touch let down button is very easy to use. It’s next to impossible to not know how to use the 4 buttons. Still at a lost? Just use your intuition and it will work.
• You can even control the speed. Additionally, the letdown mode automatically turns on after a few minutes.

5) Easy to Clean

• Hate the thought of clean up? Tired after a full day of work?
• This straightforward cleaning of Medela Swing Breast Pump takes only a couple of minutes of your time. It is really a breeze.

6) Safe

• 100% Bisphenol-A (BPA) free, both Medela breast pump and Medela bottles are safe for you and your baby.
• That is, I believe, of outmost importance, regardless of how many babies you have.

Medela Swing - Negative

1) Not Totally Quiet

• Some moms commented that the pump is louder than their expectations.
• However, it is certainly softer than Medela Pump in Style or Symphony. Personally, I think it’s a matter of preference.

2) Can Only Pump One Breast at a Time

• Some find that the pump takes very long if they need to pump both breasts in a jiffy.
• Solution? Multi-task! A few ingenious moms found that since it only took one hand to hold the bottle/breastshield, they usually do something else with their other free hand. For example, some use the computer at the same time while propping the bottle on the table at the right height so that they’ll have both hands free!

3) Design Defect - Motor

• The mechanism that attaches the adapter into the motor is faulty. It might be frustrating since you would have to replug the adapter and restart your pumping session.
• Not all pumps have this defect. Nevertheless, if your pump has this defect, it might be advisable not to bring it to work since you would be spending a lot of time to restart your pumping session.

4) Weak Pumping Suction

• Some reviewers found that the maximum suction is quite weak according their standards.
• However, since some other moms have managed to pump approximately 8 oz in 10 minutes as opposed to others who only managed to pump 1 oz in 20 minutes, I would say this problem hinges on the mom’s pumping technique.
• Some moms also found that the pumps start to lose suction after a while.
• Solution? This problem could be due to your kit and not in the actual pump per se. Some moms found that this is because the membrane on the valve is loose. This membrane is the thin, round, flexible white piece that the milk flows through before reaching the bottle. So, check if the membrane is lying flat against the valve. Then, press it firmly into place and try pumping again. This should do the trick. If your kit comes with a spare membrane or two, perhaps by changing them, you can solve the problem as well.
• Not all mothers face this problem so sometimes it is due to the manufacturing discrepancies.

5) Condensation in the Tube

• This may be because the pump is not cleaned properly.
• Solution? Leave the pump running with only the tubing attached for 2-3 minutes after you have finished pumping. This allows the tube to be aired and dried.
• This method works for many moms so I would not say that this is a problem at all!

Although it looks like there are many problems associated with Medela Swing Breast Pump, do keep in mind that this pump is compared to other SINGLE Breast Pumps. As such, for those moms who want a full time pump, perhaps it would be wiser to spring a little more cash for the Pump In Style Advanced which can pump both breasts simultaneously. A note of caution: if you are a mother with low milk production issues, I would suggest that you browse over the double pumps instead of looking for a single breast pump. Most lactation consultants would recommend that.

Best Single Electric Breast Pump

On the whole, if you are looking for a ‘part-time’ pump or can spare more than 10 minutes for a pumping break, Medela Swing Breast Pump should be your pick. After all as the best single electric breast pump, it enables faster milk flow, is convenient and portable, comfortable, user-friendly, easy to clean and safe. Medela Swing Breast Pump is the one for you if you relish convenience and if you want a ‘helper’ pump.

Further Information:

• Medela Swing

Registration Brochure

This doesn't happen very often to have it here in RI, let alone in Warwick, so if it's something you have been thinking about doing, check into it soon.
-Shannon

Here’s a great letter from Dr Sears MD.

Dear … ,

I get loads of e-mails about my take on things, some of them skeptical. But it’s not everyday I get an earful from a representative of an entire industry. This one really had me scratching my head…

If you’re one of my regular readers, you know I’ve raised some serious concerns about the health hazards of commercial milk. Specifically, I’ve talked about how pasteurizing and homogenizing strips milk of some natural nutritional content—not to mention the addition of artificial chemicals and hormones.

Well, the word got out—way out. One of my readers forwarded my House Call about milk to the Australian Dairy Industry Council (ADIC). The response was not friendly.

They accused me of being a hired gun whose ideas about health and wellness make me a biased commentator. The phrase was “Mr. Rent a Statement for money” and asked if I had anything better to do than write “false and misleading articles.”

First, off this is a strange accusation coming from a paid spokesperson of the dairy industry. Second, even the most skeptical reader would be hard-pressed to show how I profited from my statements about the dangers of commercial dairy products. I’m not in the business of selling milk. I don’t have organic or raw milk myself and I don’t have any connection to the industry. All I did was suggest that organic milk was a better alternative, and cited a new study proving it.

I was also talking about milk in this country, not in Australia. Cattle there enjoy real grasses as well as grains as part of their diet. They don’t get pumped full of antibiotics and hormones like here in the States. In fact, they screen milk down under for these and other dangerous additives and toxins. So if you’re drinking milk in Australia or New Zealand, you’re getting a better product than you would here.

Setting aside those issues, let’s take a look at some of their claims about commercial milk:

“Prior to pasteurization requirements, there were a number of deaths associated with milk-borne bacteria (e.g. Tuberculosis) causing fatal infections.”

The data doesn’t support this claim. There may have been tuberculosis outbreaks in the past. But with today’s modern storage and handling techniques, there’s little evidence that we’re better off with pasteurized milk.

Here’s a graph of some recent outbreaks of food–borne illnesses:

As you can see, milk—whether raw or pasteurized—is among the safest things you can buy when it comes to food–borne illnesses. You ought to be more worried about packaged mixed greens.

“. . . . there is little evidence to suggest that these changes in any way de-value milk as a nutritious food or make it a ‘lot less healthy product.’”

Again, scientific studies reported in Scientific American and The British Journal of Nutrition have shown the opposite to be true. Here are a few nutrients that get lost in commercial milk processing:

Are we to believe that these journals too are “Mr. rent a statement for money”?

As for their contention that:

“Milk is a very good medium for bacteria to grow and prior to pasteurization becoming compulsory, milk was implicated in many food poisoning incidents”

I’ll give them half credit here for getting it half right.

Milk is an excellent medium for all kinds of healthy microorganisms and enzymes to flourish, including

• Lactoferrin–an immune booster that kills off deadly bacteria
• Complement & Lyzosome–disrupts bacterial walls, prevents disease outbreaks
• Mucins–acts like a glue trap for bacteria and viruses, coating their surfaces and preventing them from binding to your gut
• Oligosaccharides–prevents your stomach acid from destroying beneficial enzymes and nutrients

Most of these naturally beneficial substances do not survive the pasteurization process, even though we know they’re good for you. So much so that the FDA approved lactoferrin as a spray to reduce E. coli outbreaks!1

Meanwhile, it’s not as if pasteurization makes milk completely safe. There have been a number of dangerous outbreaks over the years traced to commercial milk. One involved the bacterium Listeria.2 Another massive outbreak of salmonella infected over 16,000 people in Illinois in the late eighties.3

And the reality is that the antimicrobial properties of raw milk may make it safer. For example, one study found that the most dangerous strain of E. coli multiplied at a significantly lower rate in unpasteurized milk than in its commercial cousin.4

Lastly my “takes” on all your health advise are grounded in clinical research. I stand by what I write—and put those principles into practice with my patients.

So let me make sure I’m clear: raw milk is still illegal in 22 states. However, if it is legal where you live, it’s worth looking into.

If you can’t get it legally, try to find organic whole milk as a healthy alternative. There’s plenty of scientific evidence that it’s better for you than the typical commercial milk on the market.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

1 FDA News, August 22, 2004.
2 Fleming et al. “Pasteurized milk as a vehicle of infection in an outbreak of listeriosis.” New England Journal of Medicine. 1985. 312(7):404-7.
3 Ryan et al. “Massive outbreak of antimicrobial-resistant salmonellosis traced to pasteurized milk.” Journal of the American Medical Association. 1987. 258(22):3269-3274.
4 Wang et al. “Survival and Growth of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Unpasteurized and Pasteurized Milk.”Journal of Food Protection. 1997. 60(6):610-613.

As scholar Doris Friedensohn argues, food serves as "a yardstick of consciousness".[i] If we use milk promotion and consumption to measure the consciousness of the contemporary US, it seems we are sadly lacking in the area of race/color awareness. For, while contemporary culture plays lip-service to acceptance, the models and celebrities that dominate popular culture by and large conform to standards of ‘white' beauty - not all of them have white skin, but most conform to Caucasian standards of appearance (large noses or too-full lips are out, as are curvaceous rears, hirsute females, ample bodies, and appearances that are ‘too' ethnic). This widely displayed notion of beauty trickles down to the everyday person, making many young black girls long for smooth straight hair, making many young Latinas wish they had the lighter skin of their sister, or, making young Asian females resort to "upper lid Westernization" - a cosmetic surgery procedure that makes eyes more 'Caucasian looking.'

Hence, as Toni Morrison makes beautifully clear in her book Playing in the Dark, the concept of the American self is bound up with an enduring rejection and exclusion of the non-white.[ii] While the promotion of certain food products may pale in comparison to racial profiling, I would argue that identity is crucially informed by food practices and that the long-lived valorization of white foods (such as milk and white bread) is linked to our investment in white skin as ‘superior.'

While some may retort that milk producers and processors are only trying to market their product in a hip, eye-catching fashion and that their advertising tactics are no better or worse than others in terms of promoting the picture of America as a homogenized culture, the continued efforts to promote milk as a beneficial, essential part of every American's diet constitutes a stubborn blindness to the diversity of the populace.

Moreover, it is not just the matter of a few well-placed ads and catchy tag lines. "Got Milk" is not only part of the American vernacular, but milk is required according to Dietary Guidelines, school cafeterias, and government proclamations. For example, the fact that milk is usually the only beverage offered as part of school lunches - even in areas where many students are likely to be lactose intolerant due to their genetic heritage - is a sad symbol of our continued obliviousness to the diversity of the populace. While milk may do certain bodies good, the machinations surrounding its promotion and ingestion serve as a sign that we, as a nation, are deficient in acknowledging that not all American bodies are white.

As part of an advertising industry that prompts the populace to consume messages perpetuating white superiority, the Got Milk ad campaign represents a mere drop in the bucket. While ads have begun to acknowledge that not all bodies are white, the images in advertisements still do not reflect the diversity of the US populace. Ads are still dominated by images equating whiteness with beauty and perfection (as in fashion ads, makeup ads, holiday ads, mortgage ads) and non-whiteness with bodies that are either meant to serve others (as in cleaning product ads) or bodies that need help (as with ads for medicine, hair ‘cures,' and drug treatment centers). The analysis offered by scholars such as Susan Bordo and Jean Kilbourne that lay bare the ways in which people of color are animalized, dehumanized, and brutalized in advertisements has not translated into substantial changes in the ads we view/watch. Thus, it is up to viewers to turn on their color awareness when  bombarded with advertisements (they are unavoidable in modern life even if you don't buy magazines or watch TV) so they don't unconsciously consume any 'white is right' messages.

(This concludes the 5 part Consuming Whiteness series. Thanks for reading!)

[ii] Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 57.

Like a lot of things, Weird Al Yankovic. Specifically, this Polka from his "In 3d" album:

Polkas on 45

Yes, one of the songs in his Polka Medley for this album was "Sex (I'm A)", and I'm certain that's where I first heard it.

Of course, Al's always been a bit off the deep end.

And if you've heard his concerts, you may know he also plays medleys of old and unreleased music of his at them. More on that in a minute.

But first, a commercial break:

Got Milk? (The Weird Al Show)

All right, I'm back. And now for a recording of a screen at Dementia 2001 that was showing a medley from a Weird Al concert in 1997. In two parts:

Weird Al Medley 1997 - Part 1

And Part 2

The songs, in order, are:

Laundry Day*
Chicken Pot Pie*
Spam
My Bologna
Alimony
Syndicated Inc
Another One Rides The Bus
Gee I'm A Nerd
--
Achy Breaky Song
Phony Calls
Cavity Search
Green Eggs & Ham*
Eat It
*Unreleased

I think "Gee, I'm a Nerd" in here is just great. Oh, and Chicken Pot Pie never made it onto a cd simply because Paul McCartney, as a vegetarian, didn't want it on an album.

Silly, really. I'm a vegetarian, and I think it's cool...

A few weeks ago I blogged about The Lactivist Jennifer Laycock's silence of over a month. Well today we found out what it takes to get her back to blogging about boobs. It appears that the California Milk Processors Board is upset over a breastfeeding advocate's t-shirts with the slogan "Got Breastmilk?". Read more in her post:

California Milk Processor Board Goes After Breastfeeding Advocate

While I completely agree with Jennifer about the ridiculousness of it all, I do see one big difference between this situation and her battle with the Pork Board over t-shirts that said "the other white milk." Pork is not a substitute for breastmilk. I have never heard of a mother saying, I just can't breastfeed or I don't want to breastfeed, so I'm going to give my baby a pork-based infant formula instead. I've never heard of a mother say, my child is now one year old, so I'm weaning him onto pork because he doesn't need to nurse anymore.

However, an increasing number of mothers are choosing to breastfeed and are choosing to breastfeed for longer. More mothers now know that nursing toddlers do not need cow's milk if they are still nursing 3 to 4 times per day. So it is entirely possible that the milk industry is starting to feel like breastmilk is taking a bite out of its market share.

The lawyers for the California Milk Processors Board said:

The phrases 'got breastmilk' and 'got milk?' are similar except for the addition of the word 'breast'. This difference is not enough to eliminate the likelihood that consumers will be confused about the origin of the products.

I'm sorry to tell you lawyers and milk processor management, but there is no confusion. Breastmilk comes from human breasts and is the ideal food for human offspring. Cow's milk comes from cow udders and is the ideal food for cow offspring. It also happens to be marketable for consumption by humans, but really, there is no confusion. At least not as far as my 16 month old is concerned. She knows which one she wants.

In an attempt to protect children from cancer, the Cancer Project is airing an ad in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C asking for schools to remove hot dogs, hamburgers, sausages and other processed meats off their menus. Many schools still serve these foods for both breakfast and lunch.

The Milk Processor Education Program spent about $67 million on advertising in 2006, including their 'Got Milk?' campaign featuring celebrities such as Heroes' cheerleader Hayden Panettiere, Sheryl Crow, Elizabeth Hurley and Beyonce. You've just got to take a look at their ridiculous milk mustaches in the ads to know they were paid a lot of money to promote milk. Many studies have shown that dairy products cause allergies, contribute to obesity and osteoporosis and are linked to heart disease and cancer; but with the massive amount of money that the milk industry puts into telling us milk is good for us, the truth is seldom heard.

Children who start off in life as obese often struggle for the rest of their lives to reduce their weight. It's so important that children learn good, healthy dietary habits which will continue in to their adults lives. McDonalds and the like aren't stupid, they know if they get children hooked now they have customers for life. Well, at least until they get cancer or heart disease.

Of course, milk was not the only food used to integrate a diverse populace. As Donna Gabaccia argues in We Are What We Eat, waves of immigration were often accompanied by campaigns to ‘Americanize' immigrant diets. According to these campaigns, part of 'becoming American' was letting go of cultural/ethnic foodways and learning to 'eat like an American." While in the US we now relish eating all sorts of foods, there is still an emphasis on 'properly assimilating.' For example, in the contemporary USA, this ‘Americanization' plays itself out via the 'English only' or 'English speaking customers only' signs that often grace restaurants in border towns. It is further apparent in the ways certain cultural eating practices are denigrated linguistically via terms such as 'beaner' or 'rice rocket.'

This is the modern day equivalent to earlier times, when those who ate ‘ethnic' were seen as failing to become properly assimilated into American culture. For example, there was a marked repugnance to immigrant foodways during the first decade of the twentieth century. During this time, dieticians and social workers emphasized the unhealthiness of ethnic diets and attempted to persuade immigrants to give up their ‘spicy ways.' As Gabaccia notes, one of the common chidings against immigrant diets was that they included "too little milk".[iv]Disclosing that "the lack of interest in milk among Asians and southern Europeans" was "shocking to American sensibilities," Gabaccia reveals the longstanding association between milk consumption and ‘proper' American citizens.[v]

However, despite these "campaigns for culinary Americanization," as Gabaccia terms them, the ingestion of milk (and American identity by extension) was not as easy as the ads, social workers, and dietitians suggested. For, far from stubbornly holding onto ‘ethnic foodways' and eschewing the supposed curative powers of milk, many people were (and still are) literally unable to readily stomach this white concoction. As Dupuis and others remind us, the majority of the world's population cannot easily digest milk. Northern Europeans and their descendants are tellingly the group that can tolerate this ‘purifying' beverage. As Dupuis argues, the "establishment of white racial hegemony and the celebration and purification of a white substance digested predominantly by this group" is "more than accidental".[vi]

In fact, the glorification of milk coincides with white hegemonic practice and has served to enforce ideas of racial superiority through - of all things - the ability to digest dairy products. Just as milk has been deemed the ‘perfect' food, so too have whites been deemed the ‘perfect' race. But, as Dupuis reminds us, "The privileged discourse about the perfection of milk has left out those people - mostly people of color - who are genetically lactose-intolerant. The perfect whiteness of this food and the white body genetically capable of digesting it in large quantities become linked. By declaring milk perfect, white northern Europeans announced their own perfection." Nutritionists, historians, dietitians, the American government, and most recently, the "Got Milk" ad campaign have fostered this association. For example, in the 1920's, the famous nutritionist E.V. McCollum proclaimed the following:

The people who have achieved, who have become large, strong, vigorous people, who have reduced their infant mortality, who have the best trades in the world, who have an appreciated for art, literature and music, who are progressive in science and every activity of the human intellect are the people who have used liberal amounts of milk and its products.[viii]

Along similar lines, historian Ulysses Hedrick claimed in 1933:

A casual look at the races of people seems to show that those using much milk are the strongest physically and mentally, and the most enduring peoples of the world. Of all races, the Aryans seem to have been the heaviest drinkers of milk ...a fact they may in part account for the quick and high development of this division of human beings.[ix]

Various activist groups have recognized milk as a "racist product," pointing out that the majority of the non-white population in the US is lactose intolerant. Due to complaints from such activists, the dairy industry was forced to change their tag line "Milk, it does a body good". For African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Latino Americans, among others, milk, far from ‘doing a body good,' often causes bloating, nausea, diarrhoea, cramps, etc. Conveniently though, a 450 million dollar industry of lactose intolerance products was (profitably) designed to meet this dietary fact. In capitalist America, it is, of course, more lucrative to promote pricey pharmaceuticals rather than endorse soy beverages or green vegetables as alternative sources of calcium.

The refusal to admit that milk doesn't do most bodies good is also related to the fact that milk is a big-money industry. This industry is the impetus behind the got milk ads -- a campaign aimed at increasing declining milk consumption. Thus, even though milk has been revealed to not be that healthy after all, the money behind this white beverage hides this information behind a clever ad campaign, a campaign so successful that the phrase "Got Milk" is recognized by 90% of Americans.

As Shanti Rangwani writes at Race History, milk is more like white poison than a curative beverage to many:

Got milk? If not, then thank your lucky stars. Because if you do, medical research shows that you are likely to be plagued by anemia, migraine, bloating, gas, indigestion, asthma, prostate cancer, and a host of potentially fatal allergies--especially if you are a person of color.

Ignoring this, the government declares that milk is essential to good health, subsidizes the milk industry to the tune of billions of dollars, and requires milk in its public school lunch programs. And celebrity shills sporting milk mustaches tell us that milk is rich in proteins, calcium, and vitamins--and very cool to boot.

The promotion of dairy products is thus not an innocent affirmation of a supposedly essential product. Rather, the encouragement to drink milk is economically motivated, and, more ominous still, fails to take into account the racial diversity of the populace. Dietary guidelines and food pyramids suggest dairy is a fundamental, easily digested product that should be a key part of every American's diet. Yet, as Rangwani further writes,

...milk is also a racial issue. Almost 90 percent of African Americans and most Latinos, Asians, and Southern Europeans lack the genes necessary to digest lactose, the primary sugar in milk. The milk industry's response is classic: they have launched new campaigns arguing that non-whites can digest milk if they take in small sips during the day. There is a burgeoning industry worth $450 million a year churning out products designed to minimize lactose intolerance.

 Lactose intolerance is the most common "food allergy," but to call it an allergy is to take a white-centric view that trivializes the fact that most of the world's people are not biologically designed to digest milk.

Milk does no body good, but for the vast majority of the world's people--people of color--it is a public health disaster

Despite the fact that for the majority of people of color milk is a 'health disaster,' the Got Milk ads, (which, for the most part, feature famous white people) set up an erroneous equation between milk consumption and health (not to mention weight loss, athletic ability, beauty, success, fame, wealth, etc). The milk moustache ads, which feature supermodels, actors, musicians, famous athletes, and politicians, imply that drinking milk is the key to opportunity, fame, and fortune. Although the ads portrayed some diversity in terms of race, class, and social background, the people of color that do appear are, ironically, often lactose intolerant. Whoopi Goldberg, for example, appears in a milk print ad- although she has to take lactose intolerance medication to consume milk.

The ads, through their continued focus on milk as a white drink, also often refer to the superiority of whiteness. While some may argue that this is a merely a marketing tactic with no racial undertones, it is problematic to ally whiteness with perfection in a country with a long, ugly past (and present) of racism. Take, for example, the milk ad featuring a young white woman with copy reading "the milk white look." Not only is the ad equating consuming milk with 'consuming' this white woman (and thus sexually objectifying her), it is also claiming that 'the milk white look' is desirable, sexy, beautiful, etc. This message that white is better is conveyed in a number of ads. For example, in a milk moustache ad that features country singer Clint Black, the copy reads: "My favorite color? White of course". Or, as the ad suggests, even those who are named ‘Black,' really prefer white.

Recent milk moustache ads have featured Sheryl Crow, Brooke Shields, Elizabeth Hurley, David Beckham, Miley Cirus, Christian Bale, and, yes, Beyonce. But, the majority of ads show white people or, when they do feature people of color those featured tend to accord to 'white beauty' norms. This gives the t-shirts featuring the "Got White Privilege" or "Got Privilege" taglines yet another spin -- when you are a POWP (person of white privilege), one of your 'privileges' is that you are likely to be featured in advertisements as representing purity, beauty, success, etc.  Another is the 'privilege' of likely being able to drink the supposedly pure, healthy, curative white milk.

Of course, milk is not pure (unless you consider growth hormones pure) and is neither healthy or curativefor the majority of people. Nevertheless, the US still equates wholesomeness, purity, and good health with milk. Just last week my daughter stayed at her cousin's house where she was only allowed milk as it is 'good for you.' Too shy to refuse to drink it, she has been suffering stomach pains as milk does not do her body good. And, today, my aunt reprimanded me when I told her my kids don't drink milk.  These relatives of mine are not unique I suspect -- they, like many other Americans, have been misled by a very successful ad campaign into believing that a beverage that is unhealthy and damaging to the majority of the world's populace 'does a body good.' Not only is it an unhealthy product for many, it is also promoted via a racist narrative that conveys a white supremacist paradigm.

[ii]Dupuis 8.

[iii]Dupuis 118.

[iv]Donna Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 123.

[v]Gabaccia 124.

[vi]Dupuis, Nature's Perfect Food, 14.

[vii]Dupuis 11.

[viii]Dupuis 117.

[ix]Dupuis 117-18.

[x] "Milk Madness," Consumer Freedom , 3 December 2002, <http://www.consumerfreedom. com/headline_detail.cfm?HEADLINE_ID=1695> (12 January 2003).

[xi]PrkStRangr@aol.com, "Got Bilked," Animal Writes: The Official Animal Writes Online Newsletter, 20 October 1999, http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1395/aro991020.html (12 January 2003).

Vous avez surement déjà entendu parler de la campagne publicitaire américaine Got Milk?* avec ces stars qui arborent fièrement une moustache de lait pour inciter leurs compatriotes à consommer du lait de vache. Depuis peu Got Milk?* a relié graphisme naïf et interactivité pour son nouveau site Internet afin de montrer de façon ludique le fonctionnement d'une usine de produits laitiers…
Le site est en flash avec comme fil conducteur un sympatique sample country, outre le menu principal qui reste conventionnel (bénéfices du lait, recettes, news, historique de la marque, magasin en ligne, presse), le reste du site est très conversationnel avec des petits jeux du genre "point and click" qui raviront petits et grands.
Je n'en dirais pas plus, je vous laisse l'immense plaisir de découvrir tout ça…

Pour découvrir les pubs print Got Milk?* : cliquez ici.

Autre jeu disponible sur le site de Got Milk?*, Get the glass : www.gettheglass.com

Despite a penchant for Thai curry, Vietnamese spring rolls, and Jamaican jerk chicken, the US remains a problematically homogenized culture. In particular, singular ideals of what a ‘proper' American eats and looks like dominate mass mediated images and pervade the cultural imagination. These images, by and large, still convey that certain types of bodies represent American ‘perfection.' Usually, the ‘perfect' or ‘true' American is represented as white, thin, male, middle class, able-bodied, and heterosexual. White women are also allowed to represent ‘perfectness' if they follow all the conditions listed previously AND are either beautiful sex objects or dutiful mothers (the good old angel/whore dichotomy refuses to die).

In a series of pieces slated to post to this blog over the next few weeks, I will consider how advertisements continue to promote ideas of white supremacy and induce the US public to consume the idea that whiteness (in food, bodies, clothing, etc) is ideal. While ads certainly also promote the thin, non-disabled, wealthy, heterosexual body as superior, the posts in this series will focus in particular on skin color and the "Got Milk"" ad campaign as representative of a trend to represent whiteness as good in advertising.

In the Got Milk ads, the representation of ‘perfect' white bodies was linked to the consumption of America's ‘perfect food' - milk. Inaugurated in 1993, the campaign included the famous milk moustache print ads as well as humorous television advertisements in which people found they were out of milk at the most inconvenient times. While these ads may have seemed innocuous, this campaign (and its similar descendants) help to sustain limiting notions of what it means to be a ‘good body,' and, most pervasively, perpetuated the notion that 'good bodies' are white (and consume/wear/desire whiteness).

This valorization of milk as a perfect food that these ads put forth is part of a long history in which white, middle class bodies are deemed better than the bodies of various ‘Others.' As nutritionist Marion Nestle notes, the idea that dairy is "essential" was brought about via the joint forces of dairy lobbies, nutritionists, and governmental agencies since the early twentieth century.[i] And, in spite of the fact that roughly seventy-five percent of African-Americans and Native Americans and over ninety percent of Asian Americans are unable to readily consume dairy products due to lactose intolerance, milk has been touted as "all American."[ii] 
The aggrandizement of milk (and other white commodities) reveals American culture's continuing obsession with ‘perfect whiteness.' The continued directive to "drink milk, it does a body good"  was imbued with underlying messages about whiteness as good, consumerism as good, cultural assimilation as good. This dangerous commodification of ‘whiteness' as a symbol of the nation's health continues to be disseminated in various forms of advertisement and media. From white t-shirts to white bread to white picket fences to white women to white teeth to white socks to white skin to white undergarments to white paper, ads (and the commodities they aim to sell) invest in (and perpetuate) white as good, white as superior, and white as pure.

However, as recent findings have revealed, white is not so good or healthy when it comes to food. The no-carb craze has shown white carbs to be the worst for the body while milk's ‘goodness' has been made questionable due to all the growth hormones pumped into cows as well as to studies showing that milk is not all that good for the body after all. Yet, to replace these outmoded investments in whiteness, we have turned to other white pursuits, such as teeth whitening and (gasp) anal bleaching. Who knew that having a white anus was so important?

What if we woke up to the fact that white is not right, that brown bread is healthier, that teeth naturally yellow, that white t-shirts are boring, that, for god/dess sake, a white anus is darn right unnatural and unnecessary? Whiteness doesn't do a body good-what it does is confer white skin privilege-a privilege that allows those with white skin to walk through the world with many advantages through no actions of their own. But hese privileges are not good in the entire scheme of things for white skinned people either because what they perpetuate is a racist, colorist world that harms everyone-white people included.

If people want to drink milk that's fine, but I wish they could stop mindlessly consuming the message that whiteness is somehow good or better.  if you are so inclined, I hope you will consider complaining to the advertising companies that continue to prompt the US populace to consume a white superiority message.

[ii] **Lactose Intolerance is a genetically based intolerance. People who are lactose intolerant usually do not have the gene that allows for the production of lactase, the enzyme that promotes digestion of the lactose sugar found in milk products. See E. Melanie Dupuis. Nature's Perfect Food: How Milk Became America's Drink (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 27.

This guy was determined to swim in the stars.  Call him the "fish that got away."  Big time!  He wanted to be a cosmic fish.  Pisces.  The night is his ocean.  His stream is the Milky Way.  (Got milk?)

[Top of the post:  Crayon drawing of a fish photographed on a black enamel surface with speckles, by Aletha Kuschan]

Recuerdo muy bien como mis compañeros levantaban sus manos cuando la profesora decía, cual subasta: “¿Quién trae la leche, quién trae el chocolate, quien trae el azúcar, quién se compromete con los sanguches de pollo?” y muchas cosas que a su alocada, navideña y villanciquera cabeza se le ocurriera.

Ya con los ingredientes en mano se pasaba a elegir a la mamá que iba a preparar este brebaje. Indefectiblemente siempre salía elegida la presidente de la Junta de Padres. Ella y el resto de señoras de su séquito se encargaban de preparar el chocolate y preparar los sanguchitos.

Algo muy curioso que recuerdo de aquellos tiempos es que a todos nos pedían llevar nuestras propias tazas. Así que podíamos apreciar una variedad casi interminable de estas. Habían tazas de colores, tazas con propaganda de alguna tienda de electrodomésticos, tazas con dibujitos, tazas floreadas, tazas de loza blanca con bordes azules y por supuesto la infaltable taza blanca de plástico.

Pero no sólo en colores había gran variedad, también había una gama extraordinaria de tamaños. Siendo así que el gordito del salón siempre llevaba una taza grande, habían tacitas que apenas llenarían lo correspondiente a un sorbo, tazas largas e incluso unas que parecían birras de vikingo.

Llegada la hora de la repartición todos hacían cola y se desesperaban por recibir su ración. Puedo entender que niños que toman leche apenas unas cuantas veces al mes se amontonen por llenar su taza; ¿pero en un colegio privado? En fin yo permanecía sentado en mi carpeta mientras sacaba de mi bolsillo un sobrecito de café, una bolsita con azúcar y de mi mochila un termo con agua calientita, me imagino que sabrán el por qué: Odio el chocolate y más aún la leche!!!

Recuerdo también que siempre la tía que servía la leche con chocolate me decía: “Siquiera este año prueba la lechecita, está rica yo la he hecho... dame tu taza y te sirvo un poquito” y yo siempre respondía: “No, gracias seño pero ya traje mi cafecito”, cogía mi sanguchito de pollo y me iba a mi sitio.

Otra cosa que odio de las chocolatadas es que ese día se “revelaba” quien era tu amigo secreto. He resaltado esa palabra porque en un post anterior hablo con más detalle sobre este juego, haciendo clic allí podrán leerlo completo.

También me molestaban mucho los concursos de villancicos. Creo que todos hemos pasado por ese roche de ponernos un gorrito de Papa Noel en la cabeza con cara de lornazas y cantando frente a todo el colegio villancicos alusivos a lo blanca que es la navidad (claro como si en Trujillo, Piura o Lima nevara) o a lo bonito que es adornar el árbol o peor aún uno dedicado a ese gordito antipático que viste de rojo, todo esto para que nos aumenten la nota en Matemática.

Y para colmo de males uno tenía que asistir a la chocolatada porque casi siempre era el último día de clases y era la última oportunidad de ver a tus compañeros del colegio. Aunque muchos luego se ven durante el verano, ya no es como siempre. Las chocolatadas se vuelven más nostálgicas cuando estás en quinto se secundaria y ves casi por última vez a tus compañeros de salón (digo compañeros y no amigos, porque con estos últimos nos vemos más a menudo) los miras y una frase aparece en tu mente: POR FIN ME LARGO DE AQUÍ.

Quiero terminar este post con una pregunta: ¿Por qué si para nosotros la Navidad llega en el verano tenemos que tomar chocolate caliente? Si conocen la respuesta pueden hacer un comentario aquí. Hasta la próxima.

As you can see she like's it with hotsauce. Fish, of course, is the main course.  Alice has very nice decor, wouldn't you agree?  Hmm, got milk?

[Top of the post:  Alice's Table, by the kid]

Kiddie Texts, Inc. of New York City is the primary supplier of sex education material for third-grade school children. The company is the new subsidiary of New Jersey-based Bovine Growth Chemical Company. Kiddie Texts currently produces two books for third-grade school children: "Why Your Nipples Are Relocating" for girls and "Hairy Houdini's Ball Drop Trick" for boys.

School districts in Vermont, Massachusetts, Oregon and parts of northern California are now using the books with little community protest. But other districts have had to cancel plans after one parent objected.

“My daughter doesn’t need to know anything about breasts at her age,” said Cindy Upright, whose eight-year-old daughter Sally attends school in Metarie, Louisiana. “I’m okay with just telling her she has big mosquito bites on her chest until she’s old enough to learn that whore stuff.”

Endocrinologists have noted a rise in the number of young children with precocious sexual development. About 20 percent of girls and 17 percent of boys are in full puberty by the time they reach the third grade, according to a 2006 study published in The Journal of Early Childhood Protuberances, which began documenting the phenomenon in 2005.

Until recently, doctors didn’t expect to see children showing signs of puberty until at least age ten. Nobody knows what’s causing the earlier onset, although experts have long suspected high-fat diets and growth hormones in milk. Scientists at the Bovine Growth Chemical Company went public last week and blamed the phenomenon on sexy television advertisements, but were later discredited when it was discovered that their research work was full of blatant plagiarism.

There's just something about Tila Tequila that angers me, its innate. Almost as if somewhere, amongst all those ribosomes, nucleic acids, chromosomes, and xylophones, God had just spit balled some genetic trait in me to automatically hate Tila. So if you do get offended by this you won't be hating me... you'd be hating God, but I digress.

The whole premise for "The Shot of Love" is Tila can finally find some love which is rubbish in itself because whores can't love. When was the last time you picked up a trick, took her to the movies, had a nice dinner at an upscale restaurant and then romanced her with a medley of adult contemporary love songs from the 80's? Hell I would, if there was a chick that was willing to sexual satisfy me for a buck-fifty I'd introduce her to the parents and take her out to the family beach house. But no, whores won't have it because they're too busy getting it on in the backseat or tossing salads.

Apparently to receive Tila's love you have to EARN it, by completing and succeeding in a number of "games" less physically challenging than the Gauntlet, more mundane than FearFactor but definitely less revolting than Flavor of Love

Ho-ly Sh-*beep*

So whoever wins the game gets to have a "date" with Tila. Been there done that! You guys know how these celebrity-love shows are. What really peeves me is the so-called "drama" that UNFOLDS throughout the show. Drama based on what? Bullshit, that's what. Drama that has no twists, and no unexpected surprises. Only drama that EVERYONE would expect if you put lesbians together with "dudes" who are all gunning for one single girl. Why would "dudes" warrant a pair of quotation marks? Because "dudes" specify a type of male devoid of all creative thought and intelligence. Whose lives are shaped and led by one thing and one thing only, and lady it rhymes with 'pushy".

Asian 'pushy'

And then the commercial showed Tila crying, and I remember interviews where she just seemed so desperate for love. She almost made it seem like she rightfully deserved it even. Let's cut the proverbial shit Tila and come clean shall we? No don't start crying, no girl don't even touch me lemme 'splain something to you m'kay? You are an attention seeking whore. ASW's can't afford to find love because no one gives a hoot (it took ALOT of willpower to not write what I wanted to write, and ladies it rhymes with 'phuck') about ASW's who are not partying all the time, who are not making the headlines, who are not indulging in the sinful decadence that life has to offer. Love? That's something for like, ya know normal people. What this girl really needs to do to find love is to drop the shenanigans, but put on some clothes, and try to find "the one" the right way. Not through seeing who can chug a hotdog slushie the fastest (yes that was a challenge). If anything, Tila get away from that damn show because it ain't like MTV's trying to help you. Have you seen the kind of socialite trash they bring onto that show? Maybe there might be one or two gems but... ugh-yuck.

Example of induced: ugh-yuck

Chi sono io che scherzo? Ladies would you like phuck me?

tila's credentials:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tila_tequila)

playboy: asian cybergirl of the month

hostess of pants-off dance-off

lead singer of band "jealousy"

singles include "sex" and "paralyze"

new line of clothing slogan "So hot you'll just want to take it all off"

-Leu

Alice the cat loves to look in the mirror because Alice thinks that her own feline face is one of the most beautiful spectacles of Nature!  Hence the art of self-portraiture comes naturallly to her.  Here, she has drawn herself using one of the artist's most fundamental tools:  the extremely fun and highly forgiving medium of the erasable magnetic tablet -- or tavoletta, as it's been known in other places and times. 

Alice gazes into her picture like Narcissus (Νάρκισσος) gazed into the pond and with equally mythic consequences.  It's a great perplexing paradox of selfhood that we can be both observer and observed all in the quiet confines of our cerebral cortex -- or more properly, in our minds -- wonderful echo chamber and house of mirrors that it is.  One can hardly imagine a place where more optical and other illusions abound than within its walls. 

Hold on for the ride -- Life is quite a trip!

Pst -- Hey!  Got Mice?

Alice!  Stay away from those koi!  (Sorry, but cat's will be cats.)

[Top of the post:  Alice's Self-Portrait by Aletha Kuschan]

deux petites nouveautés comme un jeu et un joli petit site internet!

La Campagne d'affichage!

Le Site Web

Le jeu! GET THE GLASS

                                            When I was young I had never heard of Islam.  Now "Islam" seems to be everywhere you look.  That, however, is a common mistake about perception -- so let me get that much on the table early.  Perhaps you learn a new word.  Formerly it might have seemed not even to exist, then suddenly the "new" word is everywhere -- in every book you read.  Well, like a used car, it's "new to you." Islam has been around a very long time, for my entire life! -- and if I hadn't noticed it in my youth, it was still nevertheless out there.  In even the post-Cambrian age of my upbringing, we had National Geographic  -- and Lawrence of Arabia aired more that once on tv.

Well, I nonetheless had an odd and novel encounter with Islam today.  I was working on this blog, actually, [previous post entitled Easy -- and yes, I still have time for painting] at a public computer in a university music library.  A young man at a computer near me was listening to something on headphones and laughing frequently outloud.  He couldn't seem to contain his mirth and self-consciously apologized to anyone who peered in his direction for the distraction he caused.  I figured he was listening to a comedy routine. 

After my own work was complete, I happened to run into the man as he was leaving and found him politely apologetic once more.  So I asked him in a spirit of friendliness what he had been listening to, and he told me rather soberly that he was listening to a lecture by one of his favorite Muslim clerics on the topic of marriage.  Feeling most of the blood draining from my face and wondering privately to myself what could be so amusing in this context, I listened as he went on rather soberly still to explain that the cleric thought young men should marry young and thus avoid the problem of "fornication."  He so obviously meant well as he explained the cleric's account of how "400 years ago" women were veiled from head to toe, and young men got married.  But today women are not veiled, and "nobody" gets married.  [Revisit: the "new word" phenomenon explained above.]

I asked him if he was going to get married soon, and he looked confused and said "yes" rather vaguely.  Thus I assume that the young bride-to-be hasn't been selected yet, though evidently she'll need little in the manner of qualifications other than the possession of an X chromosome.  Wishing to give this young stranger some advice, which clearly he rather desperately needs, I offered this:  I said "why don't you talk this over with your mom and dad."  I'm taking a wild guess, but maybe his parents aren't as Muslim as he is. Yeah, though you're taking the humorous advice of Ahmed bin Jon Stewart, why not also consult the two human beings on the planet who know enough about "marriage" to have arranged for your existence?

What has happened in America?  Why is a young student in an American university getting his advice on life's more compelling questions from the funny stand-up cleric whose counsels include extolling the mores of a culture 400 years old?  By the way, back in 17th century England John Milton was defending both divorce and freedom of speech, so I guess we in the West have been hip longer than we realize.

As the blood went back to my face, while I strove to address this well-meaning young man in a kind, tolerant way, I was thinking to myself: Hey, Sparky, I'm not wearing a veil because of your misguided understanding of your young hormones.  A young man who contemplates marriage to avoid "fornication" not only does not believe that he'll ever fall in love -- maybe he doesn't even believe that love exists.  Why would anyone who believes in love abandon its possibility for the sake of a very temporary solution to physical urges?

I have hardly thought of anything else the rest of the afternoon.  What is manhood now?  What is it in the West?  If one reads, say, Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, we find a world in which the ideal of manhood includes both love and dignity.  The avoidance of "fornication" exists in that fictive world though it would never be alluded to so crudely.  Indeed, the stronger idea of the heart -- the sense of human intellect and of dignity are its terms of discourse.  You hope for love because you know it exists, and a person of sense watches for love because to settle for anything less is disappointing to say the least and degrading to say the worst.  Of course, Austen was the unmarried daughter of a Christian minister but the ideal she represented in her stories was hardly her property alone.

One has certainly a right to wonder why "fornication" (as bad as that is) is worth the loss of one's character -- or, more to the point, one can ask how precisely would he be avoiding "fornication" if the chief, perhaps the only virtue of his bride was that he could satisfy his urges on her.  It would seem to me that the fornication still exists and has added to it only the trappings of a marriage license and a bit of ceremony.  On the contrary, as Miss Austen was at pains to demonstrate, nothing makes a person more chaste than love -- for what person, man or woman, looks upon their beloved as simply an object upon which to satisfy animal feelings?  It is love, in fact -- mature, deep, soul-touching, self-disclosing love -- that brings one into awareness of the larger compass of life. 

I concluded that the young man, who seemed to think the funny cleric had hit upon all the facts of existence, has been duped for a fare-thee-well.  Does he think that no one ever figured these things out before?  We have in our own culture a similarly funny idea:  "Nobody buys the cow, when you can get the milk for free."  Got Milk?  Yet we have not abandoned the dignity of women for the sake of this notion.  Quite the contrary, we are only beginning to really understand fully the larger scope of women's dignity, now in this era of women judges, doctors, lawyers, Secretaries of State, astronauts, writers, musicians, scientists -- and on and on.

The Islamic world, with its many centuries old obsession with male hormones, has missed the whole point.  Their own culture acknowledges as much, too.  In their acceptance of polygamy, they show how vacuous a cure "marriage" is for male desire.  When one wife's physicality gets a little dull, a new "wife" is required. 

So, give me the Western way, please! Particularly since I look horrible in a scarf -- and moreover because I am not the kind of person who likes to be ordered around.  I find within myself a natural tendency to lead.  Others have noticed it in my nature also and have told me I am a good leader, and I believe them.  I'm teaching my leaderly skills to my daughter.  No scarf for me, and all that the scarf denotes.  I prefer to believe in True Love (which is always capitalized).  Perhaps it is rare, perhaps some never find it.  But the ideal itself lifts us all -- even those who never marry.  The ideal points toward the union of man and woman as something more than a biological urging.  It gives us glimpses of a deeper spiritual communion that's possible within landscape of the heart.

A man or woman who really loves will accept all kinds of privations for the sake of the beloved.  And, believe me, that selflessness comes in real handy in life's twists and turns.  Real love goes far beyond the physicality of youth.  Conversation is nice too, especially in one's "golden years," and married men and women will find more to talk about if the desires that first brought them together go a little deeper than mere hormones. 

Young man, you were in a university library.  Why weren't you studying?  Why not learn something to make yourself interesting.  Women today are using their minds.  If you want a wife, perhaps it's education that you need.  Because, you know what?  In this culture the woman has a choice, and she might find chaste maiden life more to her liking when it comes with freedom and ideas than a hormonal life of servitude with you.  Something to think about in this era of East meets West.

I had qualms about whether I should write on this topic here since it has nothing to do with art.  But upon further thought, I realized it has everything to do with art.  After all, it was only because I'm an artist that my schedule lent me this freedom to be in the university library today.  Moreover, in this young man's 17th century idea of Islam, I'd wouldn't have a choice to be  an artist.  I'd be washing socks and milking goats, two activities for which I have no talent or interest whatsoever.

So, it does relate to art rather robustly.  In the 21st century West, a woman can be whatever she likes.  And this one likes art.  I hope you do too.

[Top of the post: Eugene Delacroix's 19th century drawing of a Young Arab Man -- more relevant than ever.]

Cade McNown was selected 12th overall in the 1999 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears. He was, obviously, a highly-touted quarterback coming out of UCLA and in his senior season, finished third in Heisman Trophy voting.

Yet, as quickly as he put on the navy blue and orange, the wheels on the McHype machine began to fall off.

McNown would finish his atrocious, two-year Bear career with a 54.6 completion rating, 3,111 yards passing, 16 touchdowns, 19 interceptions and a miserable 67.7 passer rating.

His only notable achievement would be allegedly getting with Heather Kozar, the wife of fellow bust and sh-tty quarterback, Tim Couch.

Maybe, the biggest shame is that neither McNown's talent, nor production level could match the awesomeness that was the above poster.

Luckily, an artistic effort of that kind isn't misused on busts anymore: