"Use your power of choice wisely."

Although I don't see how anyone could actually be "undecided" at this point in this presidential election, with the issues so obvious and clear, here is Neal Boortz's treatise "To the Undecided Voter." No matter what you think of him, it is worth reading... especially by those of you who are planning to cast a vote for President Obama. As Og Mandio once said, "Use your power of choice wisely."

But first, a reminder of our ultimate hope, and of the gracious sovereignty of God, from John Piper. View the entire article here.

“Let those who deal with the world [do so] as though they had no dealings with it.”

Christians should deal with the world. This world is here to be used. Dealt with. There is no avoiding it. Not to deal with it is to deal with it that way. Not to weed your garden is to cultivate a weedy garden. Not to wear a coat in Minnesota is to freeze—to deal with the cold that way. Not to stop when the light is red is to spend your money on fines or hospital bills and deal with the world that way. We must deal with the world.

But as we deal with it, we don’t give it our fullest attention. We don’t ascribe to the world the greatest status. There are unseen things that are vastly more precious than the world. We use the world without offering it our whole soul. We may work with all our might when dealing with the world, but the full passions of our heart will be attached to something higher—Godward purposes. We use the world, but not as an end in itself. It is a means. We deal with the world in order to make much of Christ.

So it is with voting. We deal with the system. We deal with the news. We deal with the candidates. We deal with the issues. But we deal with it all as if not dealing with it. It does not have our fullest attention. It is not the great thing in our lives. Christ is. And Christ will be ruling over his people with perfect supremacy no matter who is elected and no matter what government stands or falls. So we vote as though not voting.

By all means vote. But remember: “The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).

Voting with you, as though not voting,
Pastor John

from Let Christians Vote As Though They Were Not Voting
October 22, 2008, Desiring God Ministries

To the Undecided Voter
By Neal Boortz

This is long; very long. Hey, I'm a pretty entertaining writer ... so give it a go. If you're an undecided voter in this presidential election the least you owe your country is to try to base your final choice on some substantive facts. No, I don't have all the facts here ... but I have enough of them to perhaps convince you that voting one particular way on November 4th might not be the most brilliant move you've ever made.

This election is my 10th. My 10th presidential election since I became a radio talk show host. My 10th election since I began spending more time than the average American thinking about, researching, reading about and talking about the choices voters face. Look; I mean no arrogance here. It's just that the average American doesn't spend from 15 (then) to 22.5 (now) hours a week over the period of a presidential race talking about the candidates, the issues, the non-issues and the consequences of voter choice.

Never in those ten elections can I remember choices so stark and possible outcomes so perilous. For the record, over those 10 elections I voted for the Republican candidate six times and the Libertarian four. Never have I voted for a Democrat for president. I see no need to vote for a Democrat since I have no plans or desires to become a ward of the government. Somehow I don't think 2008 is going to be the first time.

I've noted that some other "pundits" out there are starting to post, in columns and in their blogs, the reasons they are going to vote the way they are going to vote. I'll make no attempt to refute their (oh-so refutable) arguments here. Instead, I'm just going to put my thoughts and reasoning in writing just to cleanse my mind. If you can make some use of them; whether it is for laughter, talking points or intellectual consideration, have at it. Me? I'm just pulling the handle.

The Race Factor

Are many black voters going to vote for Barack Obama primarily because of race? Of course, many will. Surveys and polling have shown that the figure may reach 20%. I think it's well more than that. Is race a sound reason to cast a vote? Probably not. Is it understandable? Absolutely. I cannot fault a black American for voting for Obama. It may turn out to be a negative vote insofar as their dreams and goals are concerned. It may not work out all that well for their children, especially if they're ambitions and talented. But I don't think many of us can absolutely say that we wouldn't be casting the same vote were we in their shoes.

If you are a white American there is no way in the world you can look at this election through the same eyes as a third or fourth generation black American citizen. Several months ago a caller to my show suggested that Barack Obama's ascendency in the presidential sweepstakes was Black America's biggest accomplishment. I disagreed. Though I can't remember the exact words, I said that, in a general sense, the shining moment for Black America may have been the show of patience and restraint shown by black men when they returned from putting their lives on the line in World War II and in Korea to a country with segregated schools, colored waiting rooms, whites only water fountains, beatings, lynchings, water hoses, police dogs and systematic discrimination pretty much every where they looked. The restraint showed by black Americans during the civil rights struggles of the 50's and 60's, though not universal, was something to behold.

Now .. try, though you won't succeed, to put yourself into the mind of a black American. How can you experience or understand the legacy of segregation, violence and second-class citizenry your ancestors went through and not take pride in a black American on the verge of winning the presidency? How many black American voters do you think are uttering to themselves: "If my grandfather had only lived to see this." It takes a great deal of maturity and a clear understanding of the possible future consequences for someone to put their racial pride aside and swim against the tide on this one. So, there will be no name-calling, at least not here, for people who cast their vote on the basis of race in this election. As I said, It's understandable.

And Then There's the Race Card

This really isn't really a reason to vote for or against Barack Obama, but you do need to know what the next four years are going to be like with an Obama presidency.

During the campaign there have been some rather amazing charges of racism. Let's see if we can remember a few:

• Using the word "skinny" to refer to Obama is racist.
• "Community organizer" is a racist term.
• Any reference to a connection between Obama and Franklin Raines, the former head of Fannie Mae is racist ... that would be because Raines is black.
• All references to Jeremiah Wright are racist; that being due to Wright being black.
• Referring to Obama as "eloquent" is racist because it infers that other blacks are not eloquent.
• For goodness' sake, don't say that Obama is "clean."
• This just in from The Kansas City Star: Calling Obama a "socialist" is also racist because "socialist" is just another code word for black.

And so it goes. We've also had several pundits, columnists and opinion-makers flat-out state that if you are white and you don't vote for Barack Obama it can only be because he's black. There is simply no other legitimate reason to deny this wonderful man your vote. Vote for McCain, you're a racist. Simple as that.

Now let's consider the next four years under President Obama. He is certainly going to introduce ideas and pursue policies that are pure poison to many Americans; especially achievement-oriented self-sufficient citizens. Whenever anyone dares to utter a word in opposition to any Obama position or initiative you can be sure that there is going to be someone waiting close by to start screaming "racist!" By the end of Obama's first year in the White House virtually every white American will have been called a racist for one reason or another. So, what else is new?

The Republicans

One thing for sure ... the Republicans deserve exactly what is happening to them in this election. It's just too bad the rest of the country has to suffer the lion's share of the punishment the Republicans so richly deserve. In 1994 the voters were fed up with Clinton and the Republicans swept to control of both houses of congress, largely on the strength of Newt's Contract with America. Do you remember some of the promises? One that sticks in my mind is their promise to dismantle the Department of Education. Republicans – in 1994 – recognized that the quality of American education had been going steadily downhill since this government behemoth was formed. Well, that was then ... this is now. The size of the Education Department, as well as the cost, has doubled. Republicans did this, not Democrats.

As a matter of fact, it's not just the Department of Education; it's our entire federal government. Spending has doubled. Size has doubled. All under the Republican watch inside the beltway. Pork barrel spending is completely out of control, and Republicans are behind the wheel. Education and pork spending aside, we have the Medicare prescription benefit, McCain-Feingold, Sarbanes-Oxley, a tepid response to Kelo vs. New London ... all elements of a well-deserved Republican drubbing. The problem here is that the cure, that being Barack Obama, might well be much worse of than the disease.

The Republicans don't deserve power in Washington just as you don't deserve a boil in the center of your forehead. There are worse things, however. Complete Democrat control or, in the case of your forehead, a nice big melanoma. Pretty much the same things, actually.

It's not that the Republicans did everything wrong. They got the tax cut thing right, and they responded correctly, for the most part, to the radical Islamic attack on our country. They just did so much wrong at the same time. They got drunk with power, and the hangover affects all of us.

Obama's Friends

By "Obama's Friends" we mean the likes of Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko and other assorted miscreants. I could spend a lot of time here detailing the crimes of Obama's friends --- and make no mistake, they were his friends. At this point I don't think that any votes are going to be changed one way or another by detailing the corruption of Rezko, the America-hating of Wright or the unrepentant terrorism of Ayers. Suffice it to say that Obama was close to all of these people ... and these were associations born of mutual interests and philosophies. If you think that it is fair to judge the character of a person by observing the people they surround themselves with, then the judgment of Barack Obama would be a harsh one.

Obama's varied storylines regarding his relationship with Ayers have, to say the least, been interesting. The list is incomplete, but thus far we have:

• He was just a guy who lived in my neighborhood.
• I was only eight years old when he was throwing bombs.
• I didn't know about his history when we started working together
• I thought he had been rehabilitated.

Yeah ... I guess it's OK if you form a close relationship with a bomb-throwing terrorist, as long as he threw the bombs when you were a kid. Works for me. Work for you? In a similar vein, It must be OK if your pastor rails against America, as long as you aren't in church on those particular days. Or maybe we should say as long as nobody remembers actually seeing you in church on those days.

One interesting point: If Barack Obama was applying for a security clearance as a government employee, these associations would disqualify him. We are, my friends, about to have a president who doesn't qualify for a security clearance. Pretty pathetic. If Barack Obama becomes president, he would not even qualify to be his own bodyguard.

Obama's Tax Policies

You may consider this to be horribly old fashioned, but I operate on the principle that governments have the power to tax so that governments can collect the money needed to pursue and pay for the legitimate functions of that government. By "legitimate functions" I'm referring to law enforcement, national defense, a system of courts to adjudicate interstate disputes, national infrastructure and the costs associated with running the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government.

Now we can get into quite an argument over what constitutes a "legitimate" function of government, but let's save it for later. Suffice it to say that Barack Obama has a much different picture of our government's taxing authority than many of us do.

Before we go on, let me remind you of a point that I first heard made by former Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne. Government has one unique power that you don't have, and neither do I. This is a power that is denied all private businesses and individuals in this country. That power .. the power unique to government .. is the power to use deadly force to accomplish its goals. If you have a business; a restaurant, for instance; you have to convince people to come to your establishment for a meal. You can advertise for customers, but they make the decision whether or not to give your restaurant a try. When the customers do come in it is up to you to deliver to them a superior product with exemplary service. This is how you get them to come back. Not through force, but through value and service.

Not so the government. You have no choice as to whether or not you are going to be a customer of government. Your patronage is compelled and your payments are extracted at the point of a gun. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall said that "the power to tax is the power to destroy." The power to tax in the wrong hands can certainly bring destruction to our economy and even to our country. I submit to you that the power to tax in the hands of Barack Obama is dangerous: Dangerous to you personally, and dangerous to the very fabric of our Republic.

Just take a look at some of the rhetoric Barack Obama uses when he talks of his plans to increase taxes on the evil, hated rich. In a television interview with (I think) Charles Gibson, Obama was asked if he understood that tax increases have often resulted in decreases in government revenue. Obama responded that he was aware of this fact. He was then asked why, then, would he be so eager to raise taxes? Obama responded that, to him, tax increases were simply a matter of "fairness." In other words, Obama didn't wish to use the police power of the state to collect taxes necessary for the legitimate functions of government; he wanted to use his taxing power to promote some vaporous "fairness" in our economy. After all, as Obama put it, the people he wants to tax have more money than they actually need and he wants to give that money to people who really do need it.

Now I ask you, does any of that sound vaguely familiar? Hmmmmm, let's see. I know I've heard something like that somewhere before. Wait! I think I have it. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Some character named Marx made slogan quite popular around 1875 in a writing called "Critique of the Gotha Program." This phrase is one of the most well-known principals of communism. You can yell, scream, spin around on your eyebrows and spit wooden nickels all you want, but what Barack Obama is pushing here, at least insofar as his tax policies are concerned, is communism. This shouldn't come as a surprise considering Obama's self-professed affinity for communist student groups and communist professors during his undergraduate years. Oh, you didn't read that? Maybe that's because you read his second book, not the first one. But what the heck. He's eloquent, isn't he? And he has a good narrative.

As I've indicated, I've been doing talk radio for 39 years now. I was on the air when we were fighting communism in Southeast Asia. I was flapping my jaws when Soviet leaders seriously entertained dreams of world communism. Throughout all of those years I was never one to scream "communism" every time someone came up with an oddball idea on governance, and I never once found a communist under my bed. But now, at least when you consider tax policy, we have a candidate for president who seems very comfortable with some basic communist principals. Too comfortable. But none of this should really bother you ... right? A little communism or socialism never really hurt anyone that you can remember. Besides, Europe is telling us that they'll like us again if we vote for Obama. That pretty much overrules everything, doesn't it?

Does this reflect your philosophy?

Come on! Put the celebrity worship aside for a moment. Put skin color aside. Just think about Obama and his "spread the wealth around" tax policy.

Let's talk heartbeats. Sounds weird, but I'm going somewhere here. A bit of Internet research led me to the fact that the average number of heartbeats in a life time for a human being is about one billion. To make this more understandable, the average human heart beats around 70 times a minute. In one eight-hour work day your heart beats around 33,600 times. This is your heart beating .. every beat subtracted from the one billion .. every beat a part of your life gone, never to be recovered. If you are a moderately successful human being Barack Obama is going to take about 13,000 (39%) of those heartbeats away from you every working day. Put your finger on your wrist and feel your pulse. Feel every heartbeat. Just count up to 100. How much of your life went by as you counted? You can't get those beats back. They're gone, for good. Remember, you only have a finite number of those beats of your heart left ... and Obama wants 13,000 of them every working day of your life. Those heartbeats – your life – being expended creating wealth. Your heartbeats, your wealth. Obama wants them. You don't need them. Someone else does. The police power of the state.

Taxes are a nasty little reality of life. Nobody wants anarchy. Government is a necessity. Government, though, is not supposed to create winners and losers. Government is not, as Obama intends, to be used as an instrument of plunder. Almost all Americans are perfectly willing to surrender an appropriate percentage of their earned wealth to fund the legitimate functions of government. I, for one, don't want to see my wealth confiscated because some bureaucrat has determined I don't "need" it, and then have to watch as that wealth is used to buy votes from someone who is simply too lazy to generate the income they need by themselves ... or, as Obama puts it, "spread around."

What is Obama going to do? How does he determine "need?" What data does he use to determine "fairness?" Maybe he'll set up some bureaucracy staffed with like-minded leftists who will use data collected in the last census and from those pesky American Community Surveys to establish a basic "need" level for people living in different areas. Once it is determined how much of a person's wealth they really don't "need," it will be a simple matter of confiscation and redistribution to those who do need it. After all, that would be "fair," wouldn't it? Come on, it's not exactly like you worked for that money.

Listen to the rhetoric of the left. Those who are in need are called "the less fortunate." This means that their status as needy was due to nothing but bad luck. It stands to reason, then, that those with more than they need were just lucky. The fortunate and the less fortunate. The lucky and the not so lucky. And here comes Barack Obama riding over the rainbow on his Unicorn to set everything right and make it all fair. Isn't that the world you want to live in?

There's a quote that's been floating around since I began my talk radio career. This quote is most often attributed to someone named Alexander Tyler writing in 1787 about the fall of the Athenian Republic. Others have said the guy's name was Tytler. Let's not argue spelling right now ... let's just get to the quote, because the quote goes to the heart of this presidential election:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

Think about this, my friends. Isn't this exactly what we're seeing right now? In fact, hasn't this pretty much been the theme of Democrat Party election politics for nearly as long as you can remember? Here we have Barack Obama promising that he's only going to raise taxes on the evil rich who make over $250,000 a year while 95% of Americans will get tax cuts. Think of this in terms of votes; higher taxes for 5% of the voters, lower taxes for the other 95%. It really doesn't take all that much brainpower to figure out how this is going to work at in an election does it? You take money away from the people whose votes you don't need, and give it to the people whose votes you do need. So very simple. The result is that people have, in fact, discovered that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. Who is promising those wonderful goodies? That would be Barack Obama. Just what percentage of voters out there do you think are going to vote for Obama simply because he is promising them someone else's money? My guess is that the number would be high enough to constitute the margin of victory for The Great Redistributionist.

Somehow I had this idea when I was growing up that if you wanted something bad enough, you would work hard until you got it. That was then. This is now. Now you vote for it. That's change you can believe in.

Those Amazing Vanishing Jobs

Barack Obama repeatedly tells the American people that he is going to cut taxes for 95% of them. Now that's a pretty nifty trick when more than 40% of Americans don't pay income taxes in the first place. Tell me please ... just how do you cut taxes for someone who doesn't pay taxes?

Here's the fancy narrative (Obama supporters just love that word) that the Obama campaign has come up with. Even if you don't pay income taxes, you still pay payroll taxes. So Obama is going to give these people who only pay Social Security and Medicare taxes an offsetting tax credit. At this point Obama's plan becomes almost impossible to explain. It's convoluted, to say the least, but that's out of necessity. When people started reminding him that about one-half of the people he's going to cut taxes for don't pay taxes he had to come up with something. The bottom line is this. Obama says that he is not going to take the cost of his tax credits from the Social Security Trust Fund. That's nice, considering the fact that this so-called Trust Fund exists only on paper anyway. But if that money isn't subtracted from the Trust Fund ... where does it come from? Obama's people explain that at first the deficit will just have to increase while these checks are written. Later they'll just go out there and get the money from those "rich people."

OK ... so there we are. It's tax the rancid rich time so that money can be transferred to the poor. But just who are these evil rich people destined to be beaten down by Obama's taxes? At first Barack Obama defined them as "people making over $250,000 a year." That definition had to change when it became known that the $250,000 a year figure was only for a married couple filing a joint tax return. In a heartbeat Obama changed his rhetoric to note that the tax increase would nail "families," not "people" earning over 250 grand. If you're single, the figure will be somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000, depending on who you're talking to. We'll try to let you know when Obama settles on a hard figure.

There's your first lie.

So, what does all of this have to do with jobs? Well the very people that Barack Obama wants to nail with these tax increases are the people who create most of the jobs in our economy; America's small business owners.

The Democrats spend no small amount of time excoriating corporations. To listen to a Democrat candidate corporations and lobbyists are the sole sources of evil in our society. Oh ... and right wing talk show hosts. Well, you can forget these evil, nasty corporations for now. Fact is 70% of all jobs in our economy come from America's small business owners. The Small Business Administration recently reported that 80% of all new jobs are being created by these small business owners. These are people who report all of their business income on their personal income tax returns. As such, they are squarely in the crosshairs for The Chosen One's tax increases.

If you are an American concerned about your job with a small business ... and if you vote for Obama ... then you very well could be cutting your own economic throat. Think about it. If the small business owner(s) who employs you has his taxes increased by Barack Obama he is going to look for a way to replace that money. So where does he go to replace his income lost to Barack's tax increases? The best way would be to cut expenses. Well guess what? You're an expense! Will it be your job that is cut to compensate for the increased taxes? Maybe you'll be lucky and just have to forego your next raise. Maybe there would just be a cut in your pay or a reduction in benefits. Cast your vote and take your chances!

In recent days the McCain campaign has finally started to warn people about the possible consequences of Obama's tax increases on America's small businesses. This has forced the Obama campaign to come up with a response. Initially Barack Obama started saying that he was going to give a break on capital gains taxes to small businesses. This worked for a while until people started figuring out that small businesses don't pay capital gains taxes. Back to the drawing board, and this time they came up with a beauty. It's a con, but it works. Barack Obama is now telling the media and anyone else who will listen that 95% of America's small businesses don't make $250,000 a year, and thus won't be affected by Obama's tax increases.

That's the second lie. A lie of omission.

Obama's statistics may be accurate .. or nearly so. But the statement leaves one very important statistic out. Initially when you hear that "95% of all small businesses" line you probably think that this 95% employ about 95% of all of the people working for small businesses. You could think that, but you would be wrong.

The trick here is that the vast majority of America's small businesses are just that ... small. I owned a title abstract business in the 80's that had one employee. My wife owned a travel agency that had two employees. Neither of these small businesses came anywhere near the $250,000 line.

When you think about it you will understand that the important statistic here is the percentage of small business employees who will be affected, not the percentage of small businesses.

The October 21st edition of The Wall Street Journal addressed this issue in an article entitled "Socking It to Small Businesses." The WSJ reports that Obama is right "that most of the 35 million small businesses in America have a net income of less than $250,000, hire only a few workers, and stay in business for less than four years." There's more to the story though: ".. the point is that it is the most successful small and medium-sized businesses that create most of the new jobs.. And they are precisely the businesses that will be slammed by Mr. Obama's tax increase." The Senate Finance Committee reports that of those who file income taxes in the highest two tax brackets; three out of four are the small business owners Obama wants to tax.

The WSJ reports that the National Federation of Independent Business says that only 10% of small businesses with one to nine employees will be hit by Obama's tax increase. However, almost 20% of the small businesses that employ from 10 to 19 people will get nailed, and 50% of small businesses with over 20 employees get punished.

Again ... it is not the percentage of businesses that will have to pay the increased taxes; it's the percentage of the total of small business employees who work for those businesses. The Obama campaign is counting on you not making that distinction; and they know the media won't make it for you; so Obama's "95% of all small businesses don't make $250,000" line will probably rule the day.

Come on folks. These are your jobs we're talking about here. It's time to take your blinders off and see through some of this Obama rhetoric. The Obama campaign has some wonderful people working for them to tell them just how to parse words to hide intent and meaning. Just because they're trying to fool you doesn't mean that you have to be so easily suckered. When Obama talks about change .. he may well mean that you are going to have to change jobs. Now that's change you can believe in, right?

Pandering to the Unions .. at Your Expense.

Now since we're talking about jobs here, you need to be up to speed on The Messiah's "Employee Free Choice Act." Let me step out on a limb here and say that applying the words "free choice" to Obama's plan to eliminate secret ballots in union elections is like applying the words "fun sex" to an act of rape. Freedom has nothing to do with Obama's plan, and fun has nothing to do with rape.

Going in you need to recognize that union membership has been falling for decades. You only see growth in union membership in government employee unions. This, of course, is troubling to union leaders. It is also troubling to Democrats. Unions, you see, almost exclusively support Democrat candidates, both with money and time. Big money and lots of time ... and it's all behind Obama's candidacy.

To know what Obama is up to here, you need to know how union organizing works under the current law. Union organizers circulate a petition among employees. Employees are asked to sign a card saying that they would like to be represented by a union in their workplace. If a majority of the workers sign the cards the employer has the option of immediately recognizing the union and allowing them to organize the workplace. More often the employer will call for an election – an election using secret ballots. Every employee will be given the opportunity to express their desire to join or not to join a union in secret. Their co-workers will not know how they voted. They can prance around the workplace touting their support of unionization all they want in order to impress or appease their fellow workers, especially those who are trying to organize the union, but then vote "no" on the secret ballot if that's how they truly feel.

How, you might ask, do Democrats feel about the secret ballot in union elections? For a clue let's go to a letter from 16 House Democrats dated August 29, 2001. The letter was written on the letterhead of California Congressman George Miller, a Democrat representing the 7th District of California. That letter reads:

[Letterhead of George Miller, Congress of the United States] Junta Local de Conciliacion y Arbitraje del Estado de Puebla Lic. Armando Poxqui Quintero 7 Norte Numero 1006 Altos Colonia Centro Puebla, Mexico C.P. 7200 Dear members of the Junta Local de Conciliacion y Arbitraje of the state of Puebla. As members of Congress of the United States who are deeply concerned with international labor standards and the role of labor rights in international trade agreements, we are writing to encourage you to use the secret ballot in all union recognition elections. We understand that the secret ballot is allowed for, but not required, by Mexican labor law. However, we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise chose. We respect Mexico as an important neighbor and trading partner, and we feel that the increased use of the secret ballow in union recognition elections will help bring real democracy to the Mexican workplace. Signed: George Miller Bernard Sanders Lane Evans Marcy Kaptur William J. Coyne Bob Filner Martin Olav Sabo Joe Baca Dennis J. Kucinich Fortney Pete Stark James P. McGovern Barney Frank Zoe Lofgren Calvin M. Dooley Barbara Lee Lloyd Doggett

So there you go. These 16 Democrats are on the record as being solidly in favor of using secret ballots in union recognition elections. So far, so good ... because that, as they point out in their letter, is clearly the right stance.

That brings us to piece of legislation – a piece of Obama sponsored legislation --designated as H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act. Would you care to guess just what H.R. 800 does? Well, that's simple. It will eliminate the secret ballot in union recognition elections. You got it! Obama has decided to really do something nice for the union bosses that are supporting him in this election, and he is determined to do away with secret ballots in union elections. When H.R. 800 gets passed ... and trust me, with Barack Obama in the White House, this thing will become law ... the union organizers will visit all of the workers, perhaps even visiting some of them in their homes, and "urge" them to sign the card calling for a union. I can hear it now: "Mrs. Johnson, wouldn't you and your children want your husband to be represented by our union at his job?" Now put yourself in the worker's place! Are you going to say no? This organizer is sitting in your living room looking at you and your wife and saying "You do want to be represented by our union in your workplace, don't you?" And you're going to tell him no?

Are you getting the big picture here? This is nothing less than Barack Obama and his Democrat pals legitimizing union intimidation in the workplace. If you don't see that, then there is virtually no hope for you when it comes to understanding basic politics. It's payback the unions time .. pay them back for all of that financial support and all of those volunteer hours. Besides ... the more union members there are the more union dues the union bosses have to spread to Democrats as campaign contributions.

But – we're saved, right? After all, we have those 16 Democrats who signed that letter to Mexico. What was it they said? Oh yeah: " ... we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise chose." So these 16 Democrats will certainly put up a spirited defense of secret ballots in union organizing elections, right?

Well ... um ... maybe not. You see, four of these congressmen (Dooley, Sabo, Evans and Coyne) are no longer in the Congress. One of the signers, Bernie Sanders, is now a Senator. That leaves 11 of the 16 signees still in the house to defend the principal of the secret ballot.

I'm afraid we have a small problem though. It seems that every one of the 11 remaining signees is now a sponsor of H.R. 800. In fact, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act was actually introduced by none other than George Miller – the very California Democrat on whose letterhead that letter to Mexico was written. Bernie Sanders is a sponsor of the same legislation in the Senate along with Barack Obama. No surprise .

On the one hand we have these Democrats writing a letter extolling the virtues of a secret ballot in union organizing elections, and then they sponsor a bill eliminating those very secret ballots! And here's Barack Obama pledging to sign the bill as soon as it comes to his desk! So what changed between 2001 and 2007? What happened that made these 12 Democrats go from believing that a secret ballot in a union election was "absolutely necessary," to introducing a bill eliminating those "absolutely necessary" secret ballots? Control of congress; that's what changed. In 2001 the Republicans ran the show. In 2007 it was the Democrats ... and it was time to return some favors to union bosses. Do you know what you're seeing here? You're seeing just how much power unions have over Barack Obama and the Democrat party. It doesn't matter what kind of letter you wrote, or what stance you took in the past --- when we say "frog" you had better jump.

Let me tell you what is going to happen as soon as Barack Obama is elected. Employers are going to look at the so-called Employee Free Choice Act and they're going to be very afraid. They know what a union can do to their business and their profitability. Just look at our auto industry. So employers are going to immediately start working to minimize the damage. How do you do that? Well, automation is one way. Go ahead and buy that machinery you need to automate much of your workplace. That will allow you to get rid of these employees before they can unionize. You might also want to consider the possibility of moving some of those jobs overseas where union intimidation might not be such a negative factor in your business operations.

When Obama gets his unionization by intimidation thing in place – and he most certainly will – jobs are going to be lost and businesses will fail. This is the price Obama is willing to pay to pay back the unions who have supported him.

Just another reason to vote for The Chosen One, right?

The Supreme Court

This is getting to be a bit long. We're over 6,200 words here. So let's end this message to the undecided voter with a few words about the Supreme Court.

It is quite possible that Barack Obama will get to make one, maybe two Supreme Court appointments before he's through in Washington. It is also possible that he will have a filibuster-proof Senate to help him ram those choices through.

I'm a lawyer, and I've always had this strange idea that the U.S. Supreme Court should base its decisions on the supreme law of our land, our Constitution. Many people think differently these days. A recent and rather shocking survey showed that around 80% of people who support Barack Obama believe that the Supreme Court should base its decisions not on the Constitution, but on what's "fair." Egad! On the other hand, the strong majority of McCain voters believe that the Supremes should look to our Constitution as the final authority.

Let's just make this short and sweet, because I know you want to get out of here. If Barack Obama gets those two nominations, and if the Democrat Senate rubber-stamps them, then we are going to have a Supreme Court making decisions based on their liberal definition of "fairness" with some consideration to foreign court decisions tossed in. This is perhaps Obama's greatest opportunity to do permanent damage to our Republic; permanent and irreparable damage. It's one thing when Barack Obama talks about wealth seizure and redistribution in terms of "fairness." It's quite another when that talk is legitimized by a Supreme Court decision.

So, dear undecided voters ... as Og Mandino (a great American) once said: "Use wisely your power of choice." There's a lot hanging in the balance.

There. I'm done.

© 2008 Neal Boortz

If the shoe fits...

There aren't many people I have less in common with, practically or ideologically, than Howard Stern. But the audio of this interview from his show is unbelievable. Does anyone really believe that race is not only one of the issues, but is actually the deciding factor, for many who are voting for Barack Obama?

Nobody is really for baiting ignorant people into making very apparent their ignorance, except for maybe when so very much is at stake. And don't call me racist for calling these Harlem voters ignorant. If the shoe fits...

Consider the words of some of the uninformed voting public, who will be casting uninformed votes on November 4.

"If my people..."

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)

During WWII, an advisor to Winston Churchill organized a group of people who dropped what they were doing every night at a prescribed hour for one minute of collective prayer for the safety of England and its people, and for peace. There is now a group of people organizing the same thing here in America. They are asking people to stop at 9 p.m. Eastern Time and spend one minute praying for the safety of the United States, our troops, and our citizens; for peace in the world; for the upcoming election; that the Bible will remain the basis for the laws governing our land; and that Christianity would grow in the U.S.

If you know anyone who would like to participate, please pass this along. Someone said if people really understood the full extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be speechless. Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have.

-adapted from a mailing from HEAV

"This Election and Abortion"

My friend Chris posted this on his Facebook page today. It is worth reading, so I reproduce it here.

This Election and Abortion
Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 6:09pm

I've been tempted many times over the last few months to write this note, but I've been chicken to. It just isn't fashionable to talk about abortion, and Supreme Court Justices, and this election. Anyway here goes.

I'll start by saying that I realize there are many Christian believers who think that abortion is not morally wrong. I have to admit that I cannot get inside your head and understand how you reconcile the self-sacrificing Christ with abortion, an act that is so self-serving. Whatever. I can't convince you and I'm not trying.

What is more unfathomable to me are those Christians who believe that abortion is morally evil (though they may stop short of calling it murder) but who plan to vote for Barack Obama. It is well known that Obama supports broad abortion rights, and would most likely sign into law a bill that codifies abortion rights at the federal level. Even more importantly, he almost certainly would appoint Supreme Court justices who would uphold Roe, thereby continuing the flow of abortions in this country for decades to come.

Maybe I am an idealist, but if you think abortion is morally wrong, I cannot see how you can vote for a President who will encourage them. Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, healthcare, energy; all these pale in importance when compared to death by abortion.

I became politically aware in 1984, the year I entered college. The Cold War and overturning Roe were 2 political realities that dominated the 1980s and they dominated my political landscape. Now, more than 20 years later, there is a chance to overturn Roe. Back in the 1980s, I could never have imagined that so many Christians would vote against the man who could appoint the justice(s) to rectify this great wrong.

If you're reading this and you're planning to vote for Obama (and you're a Christian who believes that abortion is morally wrong, if not evil) please reconsider your vote. Make history in 2008, but not for the wrong reasons.

And no, I'm not a single issue voter. I'm voting against Obama for 100 reasons other than abortion.

Backgound Noise?

A friend sent me the following article regarding television and its effects on child development... only this time it isn't necessarily anything the child is watching, but just the fact that the television is on in the background that is potentially problematic.

I found it interesting to ponder, as we consider - as parents -whether the benefits ever outweigh the costs when it comes to the television programming which many have playing in the backgrounds of their lives.

You know where I tend to lean from my post back in June, but anyway, here is the article:

The Effects of Background TV on Toddler Development

Playing is essential to children's development all through childhood but especially in the first five years of life. Through play, children acquire motor skills, explore the physical characteristics of objects, learn about cause and effect relationships, and problem solve. Focused attention to play is necessary for these benefits to occur. A new study explores whether playing with television on in the background—an increasingly common phenomenon in U.S. households—can affect children's development.

At Children's Hospital in Boston, 50 1-, 2-, and 3-year-olds were observed for an hour in a playroom with a television. Half the children had the TV on for the first 30 minutes, and the other half had it on for the final 30 minutes. The program Jeopardy was selected to be on during playtime because it contains no material that is relevant to young children as well as nothing objectionable. Also, children this age could not comprehend what was going on in this show, making this a pure background factor.

Parents were present in the playroom with their children but were instructed to read or watch television. They were asked not to interact with the child nor encourage play with anything unless the child became cranky or demanded their attention.

Children were videotaped during this hour and investigators later observed and analyzed the playtime behavior. The researchers found that there was less play overall, shorter play episodes, and shorter bouts of focused attention when the television was on. Children were more likely to move from toy to toy rather than focusing on one toy, for example, when the TV was on. (Child Development, vol. 79, no. 4 [Jul/Aug 2008]: 1137-1151)

Comment, by Loraine Stern, M.D.: Children's attention spans increase as they get older. The ability to sustain attention and play uninterruptedly for as long as a child's age permits is essential for children to follow through an idea or an investigation. So this new research couldn't be more timely and relevant, given that approximately 75 percent of U.S. parents of young children report that they leave the TV on at least half the time that children are playing at home.

If TV is a significant disrupter of children's attention, does background television contribute to later attention issues as well as impairing development in this age group? This study does not answer either of those questions. We do know that chaotic and noisy households are associated with those problems, so it stands to reason that the noise and rapidly changing light that distracts young children might have a long-term effect.

Another problem with leaving the TV on is that children can be exposed to material that is inappropriate or even harmful—violent images, sexual content, etc. In my practice I ask parents about television use and persuade them to turn it off if nobody is watching. Soft music from the radio or a CD player is hugely preferable if you need some accompaniment to your daily activities.

Happy October!

Below is a "guest post" from my middle daughter, OG. She posted this on what was then the "kids' blog," which has turned into her brother PT's blog since she and her sister EV only posted a couple of things. I like the things they posted, however, so I've preserved them here...

Everyone, it's October! Spook time!

Listen to a loon; it's lovely, but spooky.

Close your eyes and listen to a loon while thinking about Busch Gardens' Howl-O-Scream!

(If you've been, you'll get the chills.)

If this doesn't work, sorry! That's how I feel!

'ding 3

Who knew?!!

In the spirit of my previous post about avocados and eggs, I offer the following link about how to peel an onion. I've been chopping onions for a lot of years now, and I mostly use this method, but I never knew about how to make the "joiny end" work for me as I chop until now. I've been trying to hold the thing together in my hand as I chop closer and closer to my fingers and as the onion falls more and more apart the closer I get to the end. So, at any rate, I've been ignorant. In case you need to know, too...

Outside Our Customary Food Box

I just received a very long, very yummy-sounding email from iivo's cousin containing lots of recipes for Indian food. I'm going to include a link to the information here, for anyone who may be interested in this sort of thing. It sounds delicious!

"... forsaking all others..."

Today is the opening of the Fireproof movie I blogged about a few months ago. Yes, we're going.

But what I really want to say today is that I just found out about an interview that Kirk Cameron (the lead actor in the film) did on the Today show on Tuesday. Apparently, he has a commitment to kiss only his wife, Chelsea. (That means no onscreen kissing, as an actor.)

In this film, there is a very intimate moment that involves the character he is playing kissing his wife ... only the actress playing his wife is not his real wife. Except in this scene. Hmmm... follow that?

Apparently, for this shot, they dressed his wife Chelsea up in the same clothes as the actress and shot the scene in silhouette. He's kissing his real-life wife, honoring his real-life marriage, even as he shoots a movie about honoring marriage.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons their Hollywood marriage has actually lasted through six kids and seventeen years?!

"Take Note of This, My Dear Brothers..."

10-year old OG took matters into her own hands and decided to write a song to help her remember this week's Scripture memory verse. "Take note of this, my dear brothers. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. For man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires" - James 1:19-20.

I know I'm extremely partial, but I think this is so cute! I bet this is how our friend Holly got started...

Have a listen:

"A time to plant..."

I think of an old entry I read many months ago in my friend Heidi's blog, where she mused about a quote from author E.B. White. She said:

Yesterday, as spring was working it's way into warm, I took the daffodil bulbs from Sully's service, an Easter lily given us in his honor by our babysitter, and all of the other plant-able flowers given us by so many and began to "calmly plot the resurrection." That's what I kept repeating over and over in my head as I dug up the earth and tucked each bulb and plant away in hopes that they would return next year. I can hear my friend's voice reading to me E.B. White's words about his dying wife: "There was something comical yet touching in her bedraggled appearance…the small hunched-over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection." I wonder what that next Spring was like for White without his wife. I wonder how he felt as he watched her garden resurrection.

My mind goes back to the Andrew poems, to another mother who, like me, planted her Easter lilies and tulips with a certain madness in her method. There is comfort in thinking that there will be life again, to think that these bulbs and plants that bloomed while my Sully lived and breathed here on this earth will bloom again. Somehow that makes me feel like I will have a part of Sully again on this earth. Just a bloom, is that really all I'm hoping for? No, it surely is more. I am hoping for my very own garden resurrection and the reminder of what will one day be.

And so - after reading that - last May I ordered a bunch of bulbs using a "free coupon" from Breck's . They send them to you when it is time to plant them, and they were delivered to us by UPS today. In our region, apparently, it is time to plant tulip bulbs.

We chose an assortment of tulips, which we will plant in honor and memory of the sweet babies we've miscarried over the past two years. When we lost baby Jordan, a dear friend who has had several miscarriages of her own brought us a lovely pot of tulips and a card expressing her sympathy with our loss. It was so special and thoughtful.

Only those who have prepared for receiving - and then lost the opportunity to receive - a new little one into their lives can understand exactly what's going on in the heart and mind as a result of the loss. Many people assume the grief isn't there since the baby didn't develop fully, or move around inside you, or be born. And I'm sure they're right that the grief is not as acute. But it is nevertheless real, and tulips will forever remind me of the bittersweetness we felt upon losing little Jordan, and then later babies Eden, Carlan, and Quinn.

We will remember you as we plant these bulbs, little ones, and we will remember you each spring during the "garden resurrection."

Breastfeeding, Solids, and Sleeping Babies

Following is a copy of a letter I sent to a friend about ten years ago, in response to her query about whether she needed to start solid foods for her exclusively breastfed son because she was concerned about something she'd read about declining iron levels at his age. He was her first child, and she knew that I had exclusively breastfed for a year with my own children. (At the time I was breastfeeding my third child.)

Interestingly, this copy was sent to me by another friend, to whom I'd forwarded the original letter when she was facing the same questions several years later. She mentioned it to me in an email, because she herself had been forwarding it to a friend of hers who was at that same stage of life now. Although I was humbled by her dubbing of it as "a very helpful read," I figured if it could be useful to anyone, I may as well post it here.

My copy has been long lost in a computer crash, and this is one of the subjects I am still asked about often. The details are getting hazy now that it has been several years since I have been actively breastfeeding, so I'm happy to have my own words back after all these years! Thank you, Michele, for having a copy and sending it on...

[As a side note, if anyone has an old saved copy of the letter that I first wrote to my friend Tiffany years ago about "Homeschool Kindergarten," I would really love a copy of that, too. It was also lost in the crash, and I usually have several folks a year asking about that subject. Again, the details are now hazy about how I handled homeschool kindergarten when I only had one child "doing school." Things look very different—and not necessarily better, I might add—when your kindergartener has older siblings in high school, middle school, and elementary school!]

So, anyway, here's the copy of the letter, if this topic is of any interest or usefulness to you.

Yes, I did exclusively breastfeed PT for his first year of life. It was wonderful. With EV, I started solids in response to great familial pressure from both sides of the family at Christmas, when she was just about 8 months old. I had successfully withstood the pressure at Thanksgiving, but to do it all over again at Christmas was just too much.

So, she began to eat some ground oatmeal, prepared very soft, or mashed banana, or plain yogurt, or things of that nature. This kept my folks and in-laws appeased, and I was sporadic about the feeding. Mostly we did it for “show” when they were around—once every few days or so—and didn’t do any regular feeding for a couple more months. Anyway, they were "encouraging" me to start solids because (1) they'd never known anyone who went past six months starting food, and most folks they knew started baby food at two months, and (2) they, too, had heard about the iron thing, and they were worried that EV was too small and that it must be because my milk wasn’t adequate for her. Ironically, I never fed her iron-fortified baby cereal, but feeding her regular food seemed to satisfy their fear about both the iron thing and about the “maybe you're starving your baby” thing.

When PT came along, I was more adamant, and they were less so. My mother got a little concerned when nine, ten, eleven months went by with no food for PT. “He’s a very big baby, Laurie, and you couldn’t possibly have enough milk for that to be all he needs.” After I pointed out to her that he had gotten that big on my milk alone, and that clearly it was enough for him, by virtue of his continued growth, she let up a little. It wasn’t until after I said, “Mom, you were worried that EV was too small, and that I must not have enough milk. Now you’re worried that PT is too big, and I must not have enough milk. You can’t have it both ways. Which is it?” that she’s never said another word about any of it.

I started giving PT bits of bread or such, or let him gnaw on a raw carrot, at about 11 1/2 months, sporadically, to occupy him when we had guests at dinner or were in a restaurant or whatever.

It was so nice to skip the entire “baby food” thing! With EV, I had made all my own baby food, for both financial and health reasons, and so had to cook big batches, puree it and freeze it in ice cube trays, and pull it out to feed her later. There is the whole messy and time-consuming “feed them with a spoon as they spit it out all over you because their tongue still thrusts forward as if nursing on a nipple” thing, and the preparation of two separate meals, for the family and for baby. When you start that early, you have to cook baby’s food bland and plain, and feed him something different from the rest of the family, to avoid allergic reactions and digestive problems (or at least they’re saying so at the time of this writing). When you wait until they’re a year old, they can feed themselves bits of whatever you prepare them, so you can skip the whole baby food stage. It is wonderful!! By a year, they have a few teeth in the front, and they can really “gum” the stuff well in the back, provided you fix it soft enough. Sweet potatoes, bananas, etc., are great to start with until they get the hang of it.

Anyway, I know that isn’t really what you asked, but it is the logical start of the discussion. On to the next thing you didn’t ask, but which I’ll talk about anyway.

In order to "pull off" exclusive breastfeeding of a larger, many-month-old child, you have to be willing to allow him opportunities to increase your milk supply as his needs increase. This can be accomplished without nursing in the middle of the night, and without just ‘demand feeding’ them all day. It really can’t be accomplished with only four very rigid feed times over the span of a day. So, how did I accomplish this?

I have the general policy pretty much from birth that I nurse the baby both when it wakes up (this is the “real” feeding) and before it goes down to sleep (this is a 'snacky, non-nutritive, settle down' feeding, usually), whether nighttime or naptimes are in view. By the time the child is five or six months old (when most people start itching to start solids), this tends to work itself into a schedule something like this:

- early morning nursing (real feeding) somewhere around 5 am, after which the baby goes back to sleep. I do this nursing lying down in bed.

- morning nursing (real feeding) somewhere between 7 and 9, whenever the baby wakes up in the morning for good.

[This "schedule" allows for two really good feedings early in the day, when my milk supply is very good from having been resting all night, and before the urgency of the rest of life has kicked in full-force. Notice that it is set by the child and centers feeding around sleep, not sleep around feedings. I very rarely wake a sleeping baby.]

- I nurse the baby before he goes down for a morning nap (usually around 10 or so, or a couple of hours after he woke up in the morning), even though this is usually only a little “snacky” feeding. He’ll suck until I have ‘let down,’ take a few swallows, and then pull off and fuss and want to be put down to sleep.

However, this opportunity allows for the baby to take more milk, and really use it as a real feeding, if he’s needing to increase my milk supply. Because this feeding occurs only a couple of hours (at the most) since the last one, his nursing more at this time will successfully increase the supply at the previous “real” nursing, so that he won’t need to keep “really” feeding at the snacky time once he’s upped my milk supply. Make sense?

Anyway, then there’s a morning nap of 2—3 hours (usually, although I don’t wake the baby from his naps).

- real feeding upon awakening (4-5 hours from the last “real” feeding, but only 2-3 hours from the “snacky” feeding that the baby didn’t really take but had opportunity for, if he needed it).

- same thing a couple of hours later, or when the baby gets fussy again. I offer him a non-nutritive feeding to take if he wants or needs it. Generally, he only sucks until ‘let down,’ drinks a few gulps, and wants nothing more to do with it. If he “chows down” vigorously again, I know he’s hit a growth spurt, and I can pay attention to increasing my milk supply to meet his needs (i.e. nurse well at the “non-nutritive” times, take Brewer’s yeast, get good rest, drink lots of water, etc.)

Then he takes the afternoon nap for 2–3 hours or so.

I nurse him upon his awakening (real feeding) and again before he goes back to bed (“snacky" feeding) a couple of hours later.

This type of “schedule” (and, again, it is loose, based around the sleep schedule more than based on an eating schedule) allows for four “big, real, meal” type nursings, and for three “snacky but will be a meal if you are needing more milk” type nursings in a given day.

Again, there is no nursing from bed time (usually between 6:30 and 8) until the early morning feeding at 5 am or so (and after which the child goes back to sleep for 2-4 more hours).

[Side note about sleep: On this "system," three of my children slept through the night, on their own, by six weeks; one took a little longer and did it by eight weeks. I never had to wake them up. I never had to schedule their feedings at certain times. I just followed this loose "work around their sleep, and let them sleep as much as possible" system I've outlined above. Not much makes me as sad as seeing a poor little fussy, tired guy whose mother is constantly waking him up to try and feed him when he's not hungry, in the name of helping him sleep! But I digress...]

Following this routine, you can pretty much expect (like clockwork) the child to hit a major growth spurt around four months, and again at around six months, at which point he’ll awaken again in the night. You will be tempted to think he now needs more than your milk can provide, and start wanting to add solids. This isn’t the case, and you don’t have to give him anything more than your milk, but just ensure that he gets more of your milk by attending to his need to increase your milk supply by more frequent and vigorous nursing during the day, as outlined above.

If you “cave” and nurse in the middle of the night when he awakens, he will develop a habit of eating in the middle of the night. It you allow this one middle-of-the-night feeding to continue, it will invariably turn into two (or more), and you’ll end up having to break him of a terrible habit by enduring hours and hours of crying in the middle of the night. This is NOT because he has to eat in the middle of the night to get enough milk!! (See above.) This is because once the long (around ten hours in a row without waking) sleep has been interrupted, they are back into the "I awaken every 3-4 hours or so" pattern again. I have “caved” with both of my first two, each time because they were sick with their first cold at the time, and I thought things like, "Oh, they might really need the extra milk, and they’re so snotty anyway, that if I let them cry they’ll get even more snotty" or, "They just don’t feel good and need the comfort, and ..."

At any rate, they did want to keep up the nursing after the illness passed, and I had to let them cry to break them of the habit. So far I haven’t “caved” with OG, although I haven’t had much opportunity yet, as she hasn’t awakened in the middle of the night since she gave up that midnight feeding at two months of age. I’ll let you know how I do when she does! (NOTE: I did end up caving with her, too, when she woke up in the middle of the night while we were visiting iivo’s folks and I didn’t want her to wake everyone up in the middle of the night. Once we got home, I had to let her scream it out, too, because the one feeding turned into three over the course of a couple of weeks. Always does!)

NOW, for the answer to the question you actually asked. (How’s that for offering advice no one asked for?!)

The "need iron" concern stems from the very true and real medical fact that the baby has had iron stores in its body (from the mother, stored up during gestation) that last him from 4-6 months without his needing to get any iron from any external source. After this time, it becomes necessary for him to get his iron from outside his own body stores, and he must have a good source of it. This does NOT mean he needs supplementation to get it (whether from baby cereal or baby vitamins), for iron passes freely and in adequate amounts, through the milk of the mother who is getting enough iron herself. SO, if you're worried about it, you should be taking an iron supplement yourself. (I take "Blood Builder" from Mega-Food, a food-source vitamin that is exorbitantly expensive if you buy it retail but which a friend gets for us at cost. This is what my midwife and others recommend, along with the "Baby and Me" natural prenatal formula and "Bone Builder" calcium supplement, for nursing mothers.)

To end, I will quote you some stuff from one of the books I read on the subject, written by pediatrician George Wootan, M.D., in his book Take Charge of Your Child's Health. If, between my letter and his quoted stuff, we didn't answer your questions, please feel free to write back and ask more. If I've had the same questions, and therefore sought for and found an answer, I'll be happy to pass it on. Happy reading!)

“Although most doctors do concede that breast-fed babies are generally healthier, many still persist in thinking that they need iron and vitamin D supplements, considering breast milk to be a less than adequate source of these nutrients. Supplements are not necessary, however. The idea that breast-fed babies need supplementary iron stems mainly from two misconceptions. The first of these is based on the fact that many bottle-fed babies who receive cow’s-milk-based formulas become anemic, usually around the age of six months. Since cow’s milk actually contains slightly more iron than breast milk, doctors assume that breast-fed babies must also be iron-deficient. However, the reason a bottle-fed baby becomes anemic is that the child's body is able to absorb only about thirty percent of the iron in cow’s milk. In contrast, the iron in breast milk is virtually one hundred percent absorbable, so that the breast-fed baby is actually less likely to become anemic.

A doctor may also conclude that a breast-fed baby is anemic after doing a hematocrit that shows a low ratio of red blood cells. If the child has just had a growth spurt, a low red blood count may simply indicate that his blood production is lagging slightly behind his weight gain. Given a little time, his blood production will catch up to his weight, and he will no longer show a deficiency of red blood cells.

I also believe that a baby may appear to be anemic simply because babies and toddlers do not need the same iron count as older children and adults. This may be because of the immune mechanism lactoferrin, which is dependent on a low level of iron in the baby. If the baby is saturated with iron, lactoferrin may be hampered.

Unless a breast-fed infant is severely anemic (and this is rare), I do not believe there is any reason to use iron supplements. However, if the baby’s red blood cell count is unusually low, the mother's should also be checked. If she is anemic, her body may be unable to provide enough iron in her breast milk to keep her baby adequately supplied. In this situation, the mother should be given supplements, not the baby. Once she is receiving enough iron, there will be enough in her breast milk to provide for her baby.

Like the presence of white blood cells in human milk, the presumed lack of vitamin D in breast milk has sometimes been considered another of nature’s little "mistakes." In reality, however, there is plenty of vitamin D in breast milk - if you know where to look for it. Because most sources of vitamin D are fat-based, researchers have separated the fat from the aqueous portion of breast milk, examined the fat, and found no vitamin D. Some scientists have looked for vitamin D in the aqueous portion of the milk - the part they had previously tossed into the sink - and found as much as a baby needs. One large study showed no deficiency of the vitamin in breast-fed infants who did not receive supplements.¹⁵

There has been a tendency in the medical community to compare the composition of breast milk against that of formula as if formula were the model that must be lived up to as a baby’s perfect food. Consider, for example, this quote from a medical journal: "Although breast milk contains less protein and energy than formula, this does not constitute a problem because breast milk is so well suited to the infant."¹⁶ It would make more sense to turn this statement around, to say that the composition of formula may present problems because it contains more protein and energy than breast milk. This same backward thinking is applied to expectations concerning infant growth patterns. At around the age of six months, bottle-fed infants tend to start getting larger than babies who are breast-fed. As a result, doctors will often conclude that breast-fed infants need supplemental feedings in order to take care of this “lag” in growth. However, they are comparing the growth of the breast-fed babies against reference standards for bottle-fed babies, who grow at a faster rate. To date, there has been no large study to chart the normal growth patterns for babies who are exclusively breast-fed. A doctor who tells you that your breast-fed baby “needs” solid food or formula is working under the faulty assumption that breast-fed and bottle-fed babies should have the same growth patterns. In fact, studies have been done in Japan of children who were highly allergic and so received nothing but breast milk for the first two years of life. These children showed no nutritional or growth problems whatsoever. As one researcher in the field has suggested, "As long as the infant is growing, there is no need to add supplemental foods."¹⁷

As you may have guessed by now, I am of the opinion that infants should not be started on solid foods between the ages of four and six months, as is often recommended by doctors. (Even La Leche League suggests beginning solids at six months.) There are some very good reasons to delay the introduction of solid foods into your child’s diet. One important reason is that the introduction of either solid foods or supplemental formula seems to reduce the effectiveness of breast milk’s immune properties. One study conducted in India observed three groups of children: one group was exclusively breast-fed, one was fed both breast milk and supplemental formula or solid foods, and one was fed only formula and/or solid foods. The breast-fed children had the lowest incidence of disease and mortality. The babies who had mixed feedings had slightly fewer gastrointestinal problems than those who were artificially fed, but their rates of respiratory diseases, middle ear infections, and skin diseases were essentially the same.¹⁸ Two more interesting studies were done in Guatemala, where the children are typically breast-fed for the first two to three years, with solid foods being added to the diet around five to six months. While the purpose of these studies was to illustrate how disease and diet work together in causing malnutrition, one of the findings was that the incidence of overt disease increased substantially after complementary foods were started.¹⁹

Another good reason to keep your baby on a diet of breast milk alone is that a baby’s intestinal tract is not fully developed until several months after birth, perhaps as late as eighteen to twenty-four months.²⁰ Digestion is a complicated breakdown process that begins in the mouth when food is mixed with saliva, and continues throughout the digestive tract, with the stomach, pancreas, liver, and intestines all playing a unique role. Various enzymes are involved in each stage of digestion, speeding up the breakdown of food and converting it into a form that can be utilized by the body. Some of these enzymes are present only in very low levels or are entirely missing from the infant digestive system.

One of these enzymes is amylase, which plays a key role in the digestion of carbohydrates. The common suggestion for a baby’s first food is cereal or fruit, both carbohydrates. However, amylase is present at just ten percent of adult levels in an infant’s small intestines, and is virtually nonexistent in the pancreas until at least six months of age.²¹ Ptyalin, an enzyme in saliva that breaks down carbohydrates, does not appear until around twelve months of age. When carbohydrates are introduced into a baby’s diet too early, he is unable to digest them completely. The result can be poor nutrition due to failure to absorb the nutrients in the food, and possibly diarrhea.

This lack of enzymes presents no problem to the breast-fed baby, since human milk contains more than twenty enzymes that become active in the stomach so that the milk is easily digested. One of the most important enzymes contained in breast milk is lipase, which helps to break down fats, from which forty to fifty percent of the energy in both human milk and formula is derived. Not only is formula completely lacking in lipase, but at least one researcher has suggested that "these compensatory, or complementary, mechanisms for fat utilization... are less effective when cow’s milk fat or other fats are introduced into [the] diet," ²² so that the baby who is fed supplementary formula may have more trouble digesting even breast milk than if he were on a diet of breast milk alone.

Some lipase is produced at the back of an infant’s tongue as he nurses. You may have noticed the “milking” action that’s made with the back of the tongue as an infant sucks. It seems probable that this action helps to stimulate lipase secretion and to mix the lipase with the milk to begin digestion. Since drawing milk from a bottle involves just sucking, this effect is eliminated if a baby is bottle-fed.

Because formula contains no enzymes, the bottle-fed baby is more prone to digestive problems. Protein molecules, which may cross the underdeveloped intestinal lining before they have been completely broken down, can be particularly troublesome. These molecules can then act as antigens, causing an allergic reaction. Digestive problems are often compounded when modified food starch, a common ingredient in commercial baby foods, is added to the diet. Modified food starch, usually derived from corn or tapioca, has an even lower level of digestibility than other carbohydrates. In order for modified food starch to be effective, it must make up approximately five percent of the product. While this may not sound like much, at this level it contributes about thirty-two percent of the food’s total calories.

My recommendation regarding solid foods before one year is to start with proteins rather than carbohydrates and to introduce them no earlier than eight months of age, but preferably not until one year. Hydrochloric acid, which helps digest protein, begins to appear in the stomach around the seventh or eighth month of life. It would seem, therefore, that the body would first be ready to digest proteins (at eight months) and then carbohydrates (at one year). By holding off on introducing any solid foods (or formula) until the age of one year, you can be certain that the digestive tract is sufficiently developed to be able to handle the foods that you put into it. Remember, too, that breast milk contains everything your baby needs to thrive and be healthy for at least the first year of life, probably for the first two. There’s really no reason to feed him anything else, and there are several good reasons not to [emphasis his]."

- from Take Charge of Your Child's Health by George Wootan, M.D. and Sarah Verney. (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1992) pps. 116-120.

A Confession and a Plea

Okay. Here is something silly, but it is what I believe will probably be revealed - in time, once I've gotten a handle on it and gotten a system going - to be my single greatest "practical failure" as a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom. Not having a handle on this area causes large amounts of stress in me and causes my family to spend large amounts of money it doesn't have to spare.

What is it? ...the lack of an organized, well-thought out, planned-for-and-scheduled menu strategy for any given day before that day is underway.

Literally, I am usually deciding what to make for any given meal somewhere between an hour before and an hour after that meal needs to be served!

I am so organized in many areas, but getting a meal plan together for a week's worth of meals just isn't happening. It has never been happening. For whatever reasons, I simply have not been able to pull it off, despite several unsuccessful attempts.

Sometimes I find myself pulling frozen meat out of the freezer on the afternoon of the hoped-for dinner, defrosting in the microwave or a sinkful of warm water. Sometimes I find myself serving the same things week after week, just because they're easy at the last minute and my family likes them. Sometimes I find myself grabbing fast food or some other unhealthy option just because it is dinner time, and I can't even pull off one of the last minute things before my family goes berserk. Even fast food, however, is exorbitantly expensive when there are six of you! And even if it weren't, there is not money for eating out on a regular basis in our family's financial picture. It is the single greatest saboteur of our very tight budget, and there is simply no room for it as a consistent "bail out" option because of my lack of planning.

So, please! Those of you who have this under control, please help me! How do you do it? When? What? I need practical and specific advice here... HELP!

Back to School

I don't really know what I want to say in this post. I don't know where to begin, or even what to say, really, regarding a phenomenon that takes me by surprise every September. As a homeschooling family, we don't experience this regularly, but even the year I had some of my kids in public school, I didn't relate.

To what, you ask? To this nearly universal collective parental cry of, "Hooray - the kids are gone all day again!" It seems to me - given the many, many casual comments and Facebook posts and sermon jokes and the like - that most parents absolutely couldn't wait to see their kids back to spending the majority of their time elsewhere than in their presence. What's up with that?

I remember hearing a pastor giving a talk about "child training" once, and his challenge to us parents was, "Train them until you want to be with them." In other words, how kids turn out... and how much we (and other adults) enjoy being with them and spending time with them and having them with us as we socialize and do life... is dependent on our training them to be worth being around.

So, anyway, we are "back to school" now, too. And I, for one, am glad that this does NOT mean that my kids are now gone all day.