Whew! I’m glad everyone’s fine. I sure wouldn’t want to try that:

A woman admitted to Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital for an induced birth was forced into a do-it-yourself delivery last month, with only her non-medically trained common-law partner to assist.

A hospital official said Wednesday that an investigation is under way.

[…]

At about 5 a.m. on May 13, medical help failed to appear even after Karine Lachapelle’s water broke.

Despite attempts to summon help by partner Mark Schouls, who was pushing a nurse-alert button with increasing frequency as Lachapelle’s contractions became more intense, the two delivered their new son, Kristophe, entirely on their own.

Lachapelle pushed the child out past his shoulders and face down, allowing Schouls to get a grip and pull the newborn the rest of the way out, he recounted.

There were no complications, and Kristophe was crying loudly within seconds.

The boy, born at full term weighing six and one-half pounds, remains healthy and perpetually hungry, Lachapelle said Wednesday.

Check out the last two paragraphs of this story:

Dr. Tiller’s killing has pushed some young doctors to commit to a career in abortion. Lisa Hofler, a medical student at Emory University, had been mulling over the idea for some time despite her husband’s concern for her safety. Now, she said, she’s determined to offer abortions as part of her practice.

Still, she expects to limit her practice to first-trimester abortions. She doesn’t feel comfortable, she said, pushing the boundaries.

Admittedly not very scientific. There may be 3 doctors who won’t consider offering abortions for every one who will. I know, I know. I just wanted to point out that things aren’t always as black and white as all that.

Here’s a post that explains how to make your own slime. That little boy sure looks very pleased with his.

“Pop Can” baby doing well:

PITTSBURGH, June 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On March 12, parents Brittany Rideout and Adam Bouchat welcomed their beautiful and extraordinarily tiny little girl, Taylor Rideout, at Magee-Women’s Hospital of UPMC in Pittsburgh. Born at 26 weeks gestation, Taylor was a mere 12.5 ounces or 350 grams, about the size of a pop can.

Ms. Rideout suffers from lupus, and about six weeks into the pregnancy she underwent two strokes and two seizures, says Mr. Bouchat in a video on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s website. She was hospitalized for a month. Then, two months after she was released, she was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome. “Her blood pressure was sky-high and her liver was failing,” said Mr. Bouchat.

Faced with the possibility of death for both mother and child, they chose to deliver baby Taylor at 26 weeks. According to Taylor’s doctor, Dr. Jennifer Kloesz, the smallest babies they had delivered before Taylor were about 500 grams, but these babies were only 24 weeks gestation. Dr. Kloesz said that Taylor was about half the size of a normal 26-week baby.

[…]

Taylor is now 83 days old, and weighs 3 pounds. She has been transferred into a transitional unit for a couple weeks in preparation for leaving the hospital.

Jolly good show!

Things people discover, I tell ya.

Despite sex education in schools and information from friends, parents, medical professionals, the Internet and the mass media, many young women and men don’t know “sex was supposed to feel good,” says researcher Sarah Flicker, a professor of environmental studies at York University.

She was involved in a major study of more than 1,200 Toronto teens.

The ground-breaking report found the young people surveyed aren’t getting what they want from sex education — information about sexual pleasure and relationships.

[…]

“Over the years, we have gotten a very clear sense from youth that while they appreciate concrete information on sexual health, pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, they have at the same time sensed a lack of attention and discomfort on the part of educators to focus on human relations,” said McKay, who recalls being part of a panel 20 years ago with a group of teens.

“One of the teenaged boys said: ‘We’ve had it up to here with the condom talk. If you want us to use condoms, try talking about relationships and having good relationships’.”

Allow me to go get my crusty old goat hat once again, and ask: Where are the parents? Aren’t they supposed to talk about the importance of having good relationships? That perhaps good committed relationships between people who are somewhat older than 13, have the potential to lead to good sex, not the other way around? Oh, and one more thing: If teenagers are having as much sex as we suspect, and still don’t know it’s “supposed to feel good,” why on earth are they doing it then? Isn’t hedonism supposed to be fun?

Colby Cosh has a longish piece about the murder of George Tiller, which he concludes thusly:

No: Like most pro-lifers, [Jim Hughes, of Campaign Life Coalition] is simply a purveyor of beliefs whose literal truth he does little or nothing to act seriously upon. (As I’ve pointed out in this space, you can make Henry Morgentaler a member of the Order of Canada, thus offering the grossest provocation imaginable to Catholics and evangelicals who have received the honour, and literally 99% of them will suck it up.) But, very occasionally, some ardent religious loner is confused enough to hear those beliefs, conclude they are true, and follow through. And a doctor somewhere ends up maimed or dead. And we blame only the individual who pulled the trigger.

I can’t speak for others, only for me. Here’s why I blame only the individual who pulled the trigger. For the same reason I don’t blame Muslims (or even “just” the hard-core ones, or even peaceful anti-Iraq war activists) for the shooting death, on Monday, of a young soldier outside a U.S. Army recruiting station in Arkansas. Because every individual is responsible for his or her own actions. You can’t blame those of us who say Dr. Tiller made a living taking innocent lives, or even that he was a murderer, for his death the same way you can’t blame the folks who claim U.S. soldiers are murderers for the death of that Arkansas soldier.

Ideological disagreement, moral confusion, religious bigotry, anger or even blind hatred are not the same as murderous intent, as any first-year law student can tell you.

Angelina Jolie is apparently too old, at 33, to play Lara Croft.

I think I need a drink.

(I am, however, pretty sure I don’t need this invention…)

Someone suggested I was over-reacting in this case by allowing myself to be terrified by European bureaucrats. Maybe, who knows. So to try and be more balanced, allow me to terrify ALL OF YOU with atrocious (and extremely detailed) accounts of something even worse that’s happening to “our” society – right here in North America. Warning: This may be too much for some readers.

Are you ready? You sure?

OK.

One of the most popular television shows in history contains a “large number” of tobacco-related scenes, say researchers who watched 400 episodes of the cartoon for science.

“We recorded 795 instances of smoking or references to smoking,” says Dr Guy Eslick, a fellow of the International Union Against Cancer and honorary associate of the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health.

“The most notable characters who smoked were Marge Simpson’s sisters Patty and Selma, Krusty the Clown and Bart’s school teacher Mrs Krabappel.”

Dr Eslick assessed the first 18 seasons of the program and found the number of smoking references per season ranged from just over 10 to more than 60.

Smoking was presented in a “positive way” in just two percent of these cases, in a negative way in 35 percent of cases and neutrally in 63 percent.

Can you imagine? Exposing the nation’s children to the sight of animated morally neutral tobacco smoking? Run for the hills, I tell you. RUN!

I suspect there is more to this story than what we are being told, but nevertheless, what a mess:

A MOTHER is taking her fight to the European Court of Human Rights after she was forbidden from seeing her three-year-old daughter because she is not “clever enough” to look after her.

The woman, who for legal reasons can be identified only by her first name, Rachel, has been told by a family court that her daughter will be placed with adoptive parents within the next three months, and she will then be barred from further contact.

The adoption is going ahead despite the declaration by a psychiatrist that Rachel, 24, has no learning difficulties and “good literacy and numeracy and [that] her general intellectual abilities appear to be within the normal range”.

Her daughter, K, was born prematurely and officials felt Rachel lacked the intelligence to cope with her complex medical needs Baby K was released from hospital into care and is currently with a foster family. Her health has now improved to the point where she needs little or no day-to-day medical care.

Rachel said last night: “I have been totally let down by the system. All I want is to care for my daughter but the council and the court are determined not to let me.

“The court here has now ordered that my contact with my daughter must be reduced from every fortnight until in three months’ time it will all be over and I will never see her again.”

There are times when it feels like we live in a society that is absolutely determined to destroy the normal bond between mother and child. And another thing: What makes you think typical government bureaucrats know what being “clever enough” to care for your own child even is?

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Andrea adds: I recall going to see The Danish Play way back when (about a woman who resists the Nazis) and at one point the main character’s daughter is taken away because, I believe, the Nazis deem her unfit to care for her.

I note one of the comments to this post is dismissive of your concern here, Brigitte, but I stand firmly in the “freedom is not free” camp and if we aren’t vigilant on such matters we’ll lose our liberty. Europe may not be our society, no, but it is our roots (in particular, it certainly makes up my immediate heritage), and many Canadians look up to the European model.

Here, for instance, you will get beauty mistakes that make you look older. Only about 3 of which I was doing. So I should start looking younger any minute now…

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Andrea asks: Which three? Inquiring minds need to know. (Every once in a while you get to get ready for an event with friends, fun, but I always note–aha–so that’s how you are actually supposed to use mascara/eye shadow/fill in the blank beauty product here…)

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Brigitte confesses: The heavy concealer, the mascara on bottom lashes, and the powder all over. Fortunately I don’t wear makeup most of the time, but, ahem, I shall use different techniques from now on.