Citizen Mom: MEOW MIX: A Formula For Getting A Life

* File this one under Effed Up And Not In The Good Way: On the local news here in Tampa/St. Pete this week is a story about a local mom who nearly killed her five-month-old by watering down his powdered baby formula. The woman said she gets her Good Start through the WIC program but it doesn't last long enough to feed little La'Danian for the whole month, so she started cutting it with more water than the can's recipe calls for. Long story short, her baby nearly died from water intoxication.

However, the supply of formula always ran out before the end of the month. Moss says managers with the Women, Infants and Children program, which provided her with infant formula, told her she was getting the maximum amount. So Moss began to dilute La Damian's formula with water.

Says Moss, "I was doing under 2 scoops more than I was supposed to be doing." [10connects.com]

Since the baby lived, thank God, let me be the first to say: Something stinks here. It's a well-documented story already that expensive baby formula, aka Liquid Gold, is attractive not only to thieves but to cash-strapped parents who could sell a can of powdered formula easily for, say, gas money. And sure enough, the next day's story is about how people all over Hillsborough County are now donating cans of formula to this family. Sayin'.

* Personal congrats to Camille, Pete and the rest of Beretta76, just named by PhillyBurbs as one of the city's Top Ten Bands of the website's lifetime, along with Dr. Dog, Jill Scott and the Hooters. Camille tells me they're working on a new record even as we speak, so stay tuned.

* Is Ed Rendell a sexist for suggesting that Janet Napolitano is a perfect pick for Homeland Security Secretary because she has "no life," meaning no kids, no family? Campbell Brown, who has appointed herself the CNN sexism watchdog, is irate that anyone would suggest that being free of family responsibility makes it easier to do your job (which is true) and actually wonders whether women with families are discounted from positions of responsibility because of their "life"?
Well, yeah, it does. It's a well-documented phenomenon, and Brown makes herself sound naive in the way she approaches it. One recent study found childless female lawyers billed more than their colleagues who were parents. Among federal employees, this report detailed "findings consistent with past literature include the fact that among women who have faced gender-based barriers, those who chose to have children during their careers have been especially disadvantaged."
So what's her problem? Brown says she knows what Rendell meant but that his words "perpetuate stereotypes," which just sounds wrong. Acknowledging a stereotype exists in real life is not the same as perpetuating it.

PHILEBRITY: Time To Take Your Skirt Off