Humor would be impossible without the newspapers, but a lot of really funny stuff happens that never makes it there.
Shortcut: The National Pork Board is working for a happy solution with The Lactivist, who had previously been threatened with legal action for promoting breastfeeding with a t-shirt that says: “The Other White Milk.”
When I taught in a program that included the district’s teen pregnancy courses, I had a kid who one day, out of the blue, insisted that he’d never let his “baby momma” breast feed his son, “because I don’t want him growing up to be homo.” When such eruptions of ignorance and bigotry occur, what is to be done?
As luck would have it, he was studying the Progressive Era, and we had a lengthy discussion on public health issues, and how to improve the health of the population overall. We found several websites (which, if available through the district’s filters, were non-objectionable) discussing the value of breastfeeding in giving kids a head start on health and brain development. My student was skeptical.
In the face of that kind of health-threatening ignorance and such bizarre hoaxes, one quickly comes to understand that radical campaigns to promote breastfeeding are required — even those that depend on humor.
You will get a few laughs, and eventual hope for a happy resolution, following the story of Lactivist’s tussle with the marketers at the Pork Council, with a special tip of the old scrub brush to Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 