noelani54
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I find it interesting that you say you're glad your parents had your foreskin "taken" off. A lot of people avoid saying "cut" "crush" or "amputate" which is actually what is done. Besides "taking off" people use "remove", "trim", "snip" and that kind of thing, to try to make it sound like something as benign as having toenails clipped.
If you don't care that you don't have an intact penis, that's fine with me. I wouldn't want you to start feeling like you are missing something, but many men, like my son, do. Some have difficulty functioning sexually because of the long-term effects of it, especially when they are older. Some just don't feel like anyone had the right to cut off a healthy, normal, part off of their bodies. Leaving the next generation intact does not require any apologies or admissions of guilt or anything else but just taking the baby boys home, with nothing that needs healing except for his naval, cleaning the outside of his penis until his foreskin retracts naturally, and then just instructing him to wash, the same as any other child. Rarely does a child ask a question of a circumcised father that requires more than a simple answer. Many don't even ask about it, or even notice that their fathers' penises are different then their own.
The choice is not between two different forms of surgery, but between cutting into a baby's healthy body, exposing him to pain and the possibility of a whole host of complications, versus just leaving his healthy body alone and doing nothing to it. Medical ethics dictates that no medical intervention should be employed unless there is some kind of reason to consider treatment, in the first place. The fact that a normal body part exists does not qualify. Beyond that, medical ethics dictates that no medical intervention should be used unless the potential benefits clearly outweigh the potential harm. Again, circumcision does not qualify. Exceptions are made for cosmetic surgery, because the patient requests it, which babies can't do. So, by circumcising baby boys, physicians are breaking their own rules. They try to excuse it with such things as the fact that there is a group of non-circumcised men in Africa who frequent prostitutes and have a high rate of HIV, while refusing to even acknowledge the fact that America has both the highest rate of circumcised men AND the highest rate of HIV in the industrialized world. Put another way, there are many more circumcised American men with HIV/AIDS than non-circumcised men with it, all over Europe and in other countries that have similar access to things like adequate diet, indoor plumbing, etc. as we do. Essentially, those who promote neonatal circumcision for the prevention of AIDS are telling circumcised men with HIV/AIDS that being circumcised prevents them from getting the disease that they are suffering from. That doesn't make much sense, does it?
While we're on the topic of claims of circumcision preventing sexually transmitted diseases, I've always wondered how many people have been infected because they were operating under the assumption that because they, or their partners, were circumcised. Our mostly circumcised population boasts high rates of pretty much every sexually transmitted disease there is. One might even suspect that circumcision INCREASES the rates of such things, but I think it is more likely that it is due a false sense of security that leads to lower condom use and failure of women with circumcised partners to get regular Pap tests.
I am an adoptive mother of six grown kids. I believe so strongly in the benefits of breastfeeding that I went to a great deal of effort to breastfeed my adopted babies. I had to supplement with formula, but my kids still got the immunities from my milk. I didn't do very well with my second baby, though, who had an extremely weak suck. That was before there were decent breast pumps or any written information on how to induce lactation any other way but to get the baby to suckle the breast. Since his suck was so weak, I didn't produce any milk for him. He was a miserable baby who screamed constantly. He had ear infections that would not go away, despite our ped having tried four different antibiotics. I'd asked him what he thought of trying to find some donated breast milk for my baby, but he said not to. After four months of listening to him scream, I decided I had to try something else. There was a very nice lady who lived near me, who could hand express tons of milk to leave for her baby while she worked full time and she said she'd be happy to share some with my baby. The same day I gave him the first bottle of her milk (she gave us 4-6 ounces a day) I threw away the antibiotics. He started doing better immediately. He screamed less, ate more, and started smiling and catching up on his development. When I took him to the ped, his ears were perfectly clear! He continued getting just one 4-6 ounce bottle of her milk per day for the next 8 months and never had another ear infection or cold or anything. That taught me how important breast milk was for a baby's immune system. I think there are some real good formulas now, that approximate the nutrition of breast milk (and others I don't think much of). However, although the ones with probiotics are helpful for the baby's immune system, it doesn't compare with the immunities from breast milk. I wish mothers knew that it doesn't have to be all or none for the baby to get benefits. Breast milk is produced according to demand. Moms can just nurse or pump a couple times a day and still give their babies the immunities.
At first, when I heard they were doing teams, I thought of the RuPaul's All Stars season, which was all team challenges. They were challenges of two and they had to work in the same teams for the whole run. It made it so that anyone who was unfortunate enough to be teamed with someone who was weak didn't stand a chance.
Now, I think (hope) that there will be a different kind of team setup each time. So, that might not be so bad. I guess we'll see!
I find your article very offensive and out of line. I don't think it was the right decision for the press to focus on the pictures that are a little old, but I know why they did it. Trayvon was a normal teenaged boy. I have raised four of them, now, two black and two white (I'm white, with six adopted children, three white, three black). My youngest is a year older than Trayvon was. Teenaged boys have been doing whatever was stylish and trying to act grown up since there have been teenaged boys. For example, my father, at 16, joined the Marines. At 17, he got a tattoo. He acted tough, and even got into an occasional "slight altercation" in a bar. At age 56, he retired as a "full" colonel, highly respected by both the men he served under, when he was young, and commanded, when he was older.
My oldest black son got into trouble at school on several occasions. There were people all over town spreading rumors, saying that he belonged to a gang and was a menace to the community. He now has his own family, including a little girl and a baby boy due soon, is a tax payer, and a homeowner.
Reading your article, it appears that you think people like my son and my father deserved to be shot (by someone who had gotten into more trouble than they had). Trayvon Martin was a boy growing up, trying things out in life, searching for his own identity. He had not done anything that was punishable by execution! The poor boy is dead and his family is devastated. They will learn to adjust, to some extent, but they will never really get over it. Speaking as a mother who has also buried a son, three years ago, I can assure you that Trayvon's mother will never have another day that she will not miss her son, or grieve over the fact that some goofball felt entitled to kill him.
Isn't it bad enough that the boy is dead? Why on Earth do you feel the need to assassinate his character? I would be willing to bet an awful lot that, if I had access to your personal correspondence, photographs and school records from when you were a teenager, I could find something to make YOU look bad, too, especially if I did like you and added conjecture and rumor to it.
@snapsbacula Wouldn't YOU try to protect yourself from some big man you didn't know, who ran up behind you in the dark, while you were on your way back to your father;s house with candy and tea? Black teens are not subservient to other Americans anymore. They have the right to try to protect themselves, like everyone else. Most of the time, if someone stalks a kid who is walking alone in the dark, it is someone who means to do them harm. We can't teach our kids to wait and ask whoever it is what they are doing, first. It will usually be too late, by that time. Trayvon had no way of knowing that Zimmerman wasn't just a mugger. Had Zimmerman waited for the cops to come, as he was told to, Trayvon would have just told him who he was and why he was there and they would have sent him on his way.