On the ultrasound, it really does look like a hamburger.

Radium woo: the bad health science of yesteryear wants to irradiate your colon

Modern quackery might be full of terrible, life-threatening health advice, but it's really not got a patch on the golden age of radium-based medicine, when the newly discovered radioactive material was held to cure practically anything, especially in suppository form. Yowch.

If this was 15 May 1915, we could all be attending the Illinois State Medical Society's annual meeting at the Masonic Temple in Springfield, Illinois.And if we went to booth 18, we could've bought some fine, newish radium-based products that would be enjoyed drinking or bathing in. And all for the cause of human progress, the radium-based nonsense promised cures for all sorts of ills: rheumatism, dandruff, dull teeth, gout, sexual problems, general malaise, and on and on...

Many of these companies employed the real stuff, affecting thousands of people, radium-based cure-alls being ingested, injected, applied and bathed-in. For example, there were numerous companies distributing 'radium water" (such as "Radithor" by William J.A. Bailey's company), radium suppositories ("in a cocoa butter base"), toothpaste ("Doramad", distributed by Doramad Radioaktive Zohncreme during WWII, to Germans), cosmetics ("Tho-Radia"), and many different varieties of radium-enriched healing belts (to be worn or slept on). There were plenty of other products that used the "radium" name but didn't actually use the substance itself, further selling the idea of its usefulness on the individual level. There was radium beer, nail clippers, starch, cigars, polish, headache tablets, razor blades, butter and of course, condoms.

Perkins just texted me to say she was radioactive, coincidentally!

I bet she's getting her superpowers right. now.

Awww, Zen, you innocent kid. ...

...Wow. People really are crazy.

Puts me in mind of a convo vw and I had one time, about how overwhelming are the choices, the number of options, we have today for everything, and how our ancestors didn't have to make any of these choices because the options didn't exist. Like, not only would my granddad not have had to decide whether to get a smartphone, he wouldn't have had to choose amongst 8398764 different ones. Parenting has to be like that: once upon a time, you parented your kids pretty much the same way your parents did, the same way everyone in your village or whatever did - the older women told you how long to breastfeed, and what foods to start them on, and you sent them to the same school everyone else did, and while surely there were individual variations, there wasn't the same mountain of choices to make: vaccinate? circumcise? homeschool? organic? peanuts? pets? breastfeeding? There are so many options and so much information - however accurate - about each one, it's enough to crush your spirit. It doesn't surprise me that some folks treat their choices like the Holy Grail - if they weren't *that certain*, they'd be terrified they made the "wrong" choice. And then they get all crazy about it.

Personally? one more reason I'm glad I never had kids. I think I know what choices I'd make, but I'm happy to not have to make them. Or deal with zealots who think I should've done otherwise.

He said something like "it is either a hot dog or a hamburger. You are having a girl".

I disapprove of this euphemism on the basis that it is nonsensical and weird and a little gross.

Why on the parenting boards at Table Talk alone you could be accused of being a vile, abusive parent for (a) circumcising your child; (b) not breast-feeding; (c) breast-feeding for "too long"; (d) sleeping in the same bed with your kid; (e) ferberizng your child; (f) not home schooling; (g) home schooling; (h) vaccinating; (i) putting them in public school; (j) putting them in private school; (k) not feeding them organic home made food; (l) not teaching them sign language...

This is why I try not to advertise my hippie greanfreakitude at the playground unless specifically asked for advice on an individual topic by someone I know reasonably well. Because as soon as I say something like "I wash my cloth diapers with soap nuts" - BOOM. I've just labeled myself a Certain Kind Of Mommy and suddenly half the people in hearing range think I'm looking down on them.

(But seriously, soap nuts are awesome. They're cheap and compostable!)

As soon as Connie mentioned hot dogs and hamburger folds, my mind went to ultrasound.

ION, I took the initiative and approached my boss. He was actually very nice about the whole thing and I left feeling fine.

eta:

"I wash my cloth diapers with soap nuts" - BOOM. I've just labeled myself a Certain Kind Of Mommy and suddenly half the people in hearing range think I'm looking down on them.

I feel this way often. Plus, in my world, it's so about expediency until suddenly it's not. Perfect example - I love cloth diapering. Seriously, I always enjoyed washing and folding diapers. And then somehow in the move, I lost half of mine and most of Frisco's diapers are changed by other people these days and surely, surely, he will potty train any day. So, the cloth sits on the shelf.

That's good, Stephanie!

I disapprove of this euphemism on the basis that it is nonsensical and weird and a little gross.

Seriously. The taco thing is gross enough.

And it was fine with your not being in the office, right?

Unsurprisingly there was nothing I could have done better had I been in the office. And the calls and emails kept going pretty late. I haven't had the heart to ask if they were in here the whole time, but there's no way I would have lasted being coherent and public-facing and upright that whole time.

Wow, Steph, are you sure aliens didn't replace your boss?

I disapprove of the hamburger even more than the taco. And I can take a guess at what hamburger bs hotdog fold in origami might mean if you were using 8.5x11 paper, but it's just a guess--I've never heard it before.

I'm waiting to get a pertussis vaccination. And Hep A, while I'm here. Trying to be a grownup and go to the doctor and shit. Now if only I could do all my work and clean all the things, too.

Is anyone else familiar with hamburger fold as opposed to hot dog fold?

I am familiar with folding. That is it. One fold, called "the fold."

Perkins just texted me to say she was radioactive, coincidentally!

I bet she's getting her superpowers right. now.

I hope they're awesome.