Gratuitously Cute Toddler Story #659

One of the books Pumpkin has been enjoying for the past few months is Silly Sally, by Audrey Wood. For those not familiar with the story: Silly Sally heads to town, walking backwards upside down. On her way, she meets various animals, until she meets a sheep (a silly sheep!) and falls asleep. Then a character called Neddy Buttercup comes along and tickles everyone awake, so that they can continue to town.

Lately, when we get to the pages where Neddy Buttercup is tickling, Pumpkin reaches out and tickles the book. She does this much like she tickles her Daddy- she sort of lightly pinches the pages, while saying "ickle, ickle" in a high-pitched voice and giggling.

It is just about the cutest thing ever.

A Plea for Equal Opportunity Cynicism

Another health-related scare is stirring things up in the momosphere. This time, it is trace amounts of mercury in high-frutose corn syrup (HFCS). Note I said "trace amounts". Most of the media reports on this did not, although the levels found really are small.

I posted my opinions on this latest scare on the threads on Mom-101 and Ask Moxie. In short, the study that got everyone all excited, which tested name brand products, reported mercury level in the parts per trillion range. One of the highest levels report was 350 parts per trillion in Quaker Oatmeal on the Go. The FDA reports mercury levels in fish in parts per million, and the EPA regulates mercury levels in drinking water in parts per billion. I took the EPA's reference dose for mercury, set with the safety of pregnant women in mind and considered by some to be among the most stringent standards in the world and calculated how many Oatmeal on the Go bars a 150 lb woman would have to eat to be worried. I came up with 30 bars. That is 30 bars in one day.

Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to get the mercury out of HFCS. However, the data in this study in no way supported the level of concern expressed in the study sponsor's press release, which was then dutifully repeated by the mainstream press.

I have very little patience for this sort of study. It wraps itself in the cloak of "science", but isn't really science at all. The results were not peer-reviewed. The conclusions were not supported by the data. This study uses scientific tools, but is not science. I suspect the institute that released it (the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy) has an agenda and that the agenda is not to provide American consumers with accurate information about food safety. I think it is wrong to use questionable science to try to induce fear in parents so that they will support that agenda. Do you want me to support the elimination of HFCS from out food chain? Fine. Convince me on the actual merits of that. Don't set up a false bogeyman of mercury poisoning to try to trick me into supporting your goals.

The other thing that bothers me about this sort of story is how quickly people dismiss the FDA and EPA as biased by lobbying from big corporations, but how easily they accept the conclusions of a report from an institute I suspect they had never heard of before. I have written before about this distrust of the government science agencies, and I put the blame partially on the Bush administration's willingness to pick and choose science that suited its policy needs. Now, I'm seeing the same selective science on the political left, too. It is fine to be cynical and demand to see the government's proof that some food additive (or what not) is safe. But you also need to be cynical and demand proof from those people who are claiming it is not safe. If you are not equal opportunity in your cynicism, you are not using science to help you determine your policy opinions. You are letting your policy opinions determine what science you accept. And that is wrong, whether you are George Bush or Greenpeace.

I realize that not everyone has the training in science to critically evaluate all the evidence. This is why I argued that we should let the experts do this work for us. However, if you don't trust the FDA and EPA to do that, you can still evaluate the claims that you read in news reports and on other people's blogs. Here are the steps I follow:

1. Check the source.
Go straight to the original study being cited. First, check that the conclusions the authors state actually match what the news report or blog says. Next, look at the study. It is a bad sign if it has a cover with splashy graphics on it- true scientific studies don't usually have this. Is it published in a peer-reviewed journal? If not, the study has not been reviewed by other scientists, and is less reliable.

Finally, look at who did the study. I usually check to see if it is some place I've heard of. Obviously, if you don't work in biomedical science, this will be a less relevant check. However, studies from academic institutions and institutes whose mission is biomedical research are usually pretty good sources. "Policy institutes" and watchdog groups usually have an agenda, which may or may not include the publication of fair and unbiased studies on the subject at hand. Read what their website says their goals are and think critically.

2. Compare the measurements with those in other scientific literature.
It is troubling if the study is reporting measurements orders of magnitude below the levels other studies say are of concern. Often, a simple Google search will turn up the relevant FDA, EPA, or CDC webpages with the government regulations on the subject. If you don't trust those sources (and in most cases, you should), you can also search the scientific literature directly using PubMed. You will usually be able to read the abstracts of the papers you find. Scientific abstracts aren't like the teasers on the backs of books- they will almost always include the conclusions of the study.

3. Read the conclusions of the report critically
Remember that correlation does not equal causation- i.e., data showing that two things are correlated can not be used as the sole proof that one of the things causes the other.

I know this sounds like a lot of work- it is. Which is why I usually let the experts do it for me.

Confessions of an Accidental Co-Sleeper

We never co-slept with Pumpkin much when she was a little baby. Hubby is a sound sleeper, and I always worried a bit about whether he would roll over on her. But more important was the fact that I couldn't sleep well next to her- she was too active, and I am a light sleeper.

But these days, Pumpkin spends several hours every night in our bed. We've stumbled on an unorthodox method of nightweaning. I have decided that I want to start weaning a bit more actively than I have been to date, and since Pumpkin wasn't giving up any nursing session easily, I decided to start with the one that bothers me the most- the middle of the night.

We decided, as we had before, to start moving the time of the first nursing back. We said I wouldn't nurse her before 3 a.m. For the first three nights, she slept past 3, so we didn't have much trouble. On the fourth night, she woke up at 12:30, and as we'd agreed, Hubby went in. She screamed, then settled, then screamed, the settled, then screamed... for twenty minutes. Finally, so tired that I felt sick to my stomach, I stumbled in, thinking I'd nurse her or whatever else was needed to just get to sleep. But when I picked her up, she snuggled in. She whimpered "boppy" (her word for nursing) a couple of times, and then went to sleep. I brought her in to bed with us, and we all slept until morning.

The next three nights, when she woke up at 12:30, I just went in, picked her up, and brought her in to bed with us, and we all slept until morning. Last night, she didn't even wake up until after 4. I was so disoriented from being jolted awake ("Mommy! Mommm-MEEE!") that I was nursing her before I thought about whether it would have been better to try to get her back to sleep without nursing. Oh well, Hubby and I can debate that later.

We won't be debating it tonight, because Pumpkin has come down with the cold Hubby had this weekend, had a very rough day at day care, and wouldn't eat anything for dinner tonight. I think I'll nurse her when she asks for it tonight.

However, when it is time to return to our nightweaning plans, I think we'll stick with our new method. I never would have thought that the easiest way to nightwean our toddler would be to start co-sleeping, but the evidence indicates that this is indeed what we should do. I guess she wants company more than food in the middle of the night these days.

And what about the mismatch between Pumpkin's active sleep style and my light sleeping? I have also stumbled on two tricks to help with that:

1. I settle Pumpkin before I bring her to bed. This sometimes means that I have to sit up rocking her for 5-10 minutes when my brain is screaming for me to just go back to bed, but I have found that if she is pretty much asleep when she comes into bed with us, she will settle into bed peacefully and we'll all sleep. If she is not, she'll spend about 20 minutes fidgeting and playing with my hair before she settles. By this time, I'm quite awake, and I don't get much sleep.

2. I turn my back on her in bed. I did this out of desperation one night (before I'd discovered trick #1), because I just wanted a break from having her little hands grabbing at my face and hair. But the trick makes sense- she wants to play with my hair, and there is far more hair within reach if I have my back to her.

Hubby and I realize that we're probably starting a habit that will be hard for Pumpkin to break. But we've decided that as long as she starts the night in her bed, we're OK with her joining us in our bed for part of the night. After all, it is finally the method that gets everyone the most sleep. And that is what matters the most to us.

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I clearly have started taking sleep for granted, because I just updated Pumpkin's book list rather than go to bed. The new books may all eventually make it to the sidebar, but they may not- it depends on how fickle Pumpkin is!

Zenbit: Beautiful, Yet Horrifying

This is a shoe for a bound foot. There is a store in Melaka that still makes them, as collector's items rather than footwear.

Location: Melaka, Malaysia
Date: February 1, 2006

Let it Go

I have a hard time forgetting about arguments that I feel like I've lost. I still remember a discussion in my second year Social Sciences course in college. We were discussing Hobbes and whether people will ever correct an injustice without violence. I argued that the American civil rights movement proved they would. A guy in my class, who clearly knew more about the detailed history of that movement than I did, rebutted that, saying that there was evidence that the threat of violence from one of the student groups was what moved white America to start to redress the wrongs we'd committed against blacks, and that without that threat Martin Luther King's non-violent campaign would not have been successful.

I had no answer for him at the time, but much later it occurred to me that perhaps the women's rights movement would have been a better example. I don't think women threatened anything more violent than the burning of bras.

This argument took place in a class outside of my major almost 17 years ago. But I still remember it, and the counter-argument I should have made. I wonder if this would make my professor happy to know, or if he'd just laugh?

I recognize the inability to just let an argument go as the character flaw that it is, and do my best not to track people down days or weeks after a discussion has ended with my "Yes, but..." arguments.

However, I still have a hard time letting go. Thankfully, I now have a blog and can indulge myself by posting my one-sided arguments here. So, I am going to see if I can purge a discussion we had last night at book club from my mind.

We were discussing The White Tiger, the Man Booker prize winning novel by Aravind Adiga. The book is set in India and essentially starts with the narrator telling you that he murdered his master, and this is how he broke out of being a servant. I think one of the things the book is trying to get us to do is to examine our beliefs about what is right and what is wrong, and also to illuminate the rich world tendency to excuse in developing countries behavior that we would consider immoral if it occurred in our own countries.

We were talking this, and I mentioned the fact that many locals in developing Asian countries (I've never been to developing countries elsewhere, so I can't say if they are the same- I suspect they are) will run scams that attempt to extract the maximum amount of money from visitors from richer countries. I'm not talking about the fact that they undoubtedly start any bargaining session at a much higher price if you are a tourist. I'm talking about things like kitting someone out to look as much as possible like an official from a governmental tourist office, and then positioning that person in front of train ticket counters to attempt to convince tourists to buy train tickets at an extravagant markup.

I think I made my point very poorly last night, because everyone argued back that rip offs and scams happen here in the US, too. Of course they do, that wasn't really my point. My point was that when they happen here, we think they are wrong and unethical. So shouldn't we consider such scams wrong and unethical when perpetrated in Thailand or China? If it was not OK for some mortgage brokers to profit from some peoples' lack of understanding of financial instruments by selling them terrible mortgages, why is it OK for someone in Thailand to take advantage of a tourist's lack of understanding of the Thai railway system and profit by selling them marked-up tickets? I would argue that both behaviors are wrong. The latter may be far more understandable, and cause far less harm, but it is still wrong.

When I was traveling in Asia, I generally wasn't too disturbed by the scams we saw happening, and that were attempted on us. We know of at least one time when we were blatantly overcharged for a taxi ride. I accidentally bought a $5 diet Coke in China. We were no doubt ripped off so well at times that we never knew it happened. The fact that the sums of money were relatively small for us and relatively huge for the people benefiting from the scam mitigates the impact, but I don't think it changes the fundamental ethics- it is wrong to cheat people, no matter where you live. If it is not, where do we draw the line? We'd probably all agree that it was wrong for the protagonist of The White Tiger to kill his master. But what about the thousands of situations in between?