"I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine," one person wrote. "I immediately turned the magazine face down," wrote another. "Gross," said a third. These readers weren't complaining about a sexually explicit cover, but rather one of a baby nursing, on a wholesome parenting magazine - yet another sign that Americans are squeamish over the sight of a nursing breast, even as breast-feeding itself gains more support from the government and medical community. Babytalk is a free magazine whose readership is overwhelmingly mothers of babies. Yet in a poll of more than 4,000 readers, a quarter of responses to the cover were negative, calling the photo - a baby and part of a woman's breast, in profile - inappropriate" Ok, so let me get this right. Americans are capable of absolutely freaking out at a rather sweet and innocent picture of a chubby, bright eyed baby, feeding on a human breast which I assume is attached to the mom, and yet show little or no outrage with pictures of babies and children blasted apart by soldiers? IF, and it will never happen, the American news media ever showed a small fraction of the horrific pictures of torn and destroyed children, babies and families that are readily on the internet and shown to remind humans how pathetic war really is, the baby and the boob would not be much of a topic. Americans aren't shown the truth by the media for the most part, because we truly can't handle horrific realities of war waged by our government that few seem to question or challenge. But boy can the baby and the boob stuff just make us livid with indignation. I think if we put the pic of the Baby and the Boob up against images of a few babies that had a mother to nurse from last week, but this week either the baby or both the baby and mother are rotting in the warm sand of the Lebanon or Iraq, we might get the point. Americans are repressed and prudish due to religious ignorance and misguidance, but seem almost entertained by the misery of others, including their children. Actually Americans are never allowed to see the real carnage their tax dollars go to support. We are a nation of shielded and ill informed people because the media is so often beholding to those that find such images go against their causes. Perhaps some will post the contrasting images of the sweet baby nursing against those of mangled children let to rot on dangerous roads or scattered in pieces or crushed under fallen cement. Then we'll get the point. It is images that started to undo the Vietnam War and perhaps it can be images that can undo the folly of this one. Any gutsy takers out therez? How about it ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX or CBS? I dare you. Forget about the Baby and the Boob and show a few of the Baby and the Bombs. Those who advocate war as the way to solve the problems between nations have certainly run out of ideas and lack any form of enlightenment. It is a last resort that is all too often the first and waged by men who have agendas that excape public scrutiny and exposure. We live in such times as these. Evangelicals will have you fumming about disgusting pictures of sweet babies blessed enough to have a healthy mom who cares to feed them the old fashion way, rather than ways merely convenient. And out of the other side of their mouths of their sick world view, they will promote genocide in the name of Jesus and his expected return based on their ignorant theology and selfish stupidity. Wake up folks. Boobs or Bombs? Which offend you more? |
