Wordless Wednesday - O'Connor Ridge

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What does a feminist mother look like?

Blue Milk wanted her (feminist mother) readers to answer a few questions about their take on what it is like to be a feminist mother.

So here are my answers. (Feel free to join in and post your own answers on your blog - and then let me (and Blue Milk) know that you have done so).

1. How would you describe your feminism in one sentence? When did you become a feminist? Was it before or after you became a mother?

I guess I would say that I am a practical feminist - concerned particularly with structural discrimination. My mother is a feminist so I cannot remember ever identifying myself as anything else.


2. What has surprised you most about motherhood?

How much I am willing to sacrifice for my child.

3. How has your feminism changed over time? What is the impact of motherhood on your feminism?

I have become more confident in my feminism, but also less forceful and less concerned about the little things. Motherhood seems to have mellowed me more - but so far I have not had that many challenges.

4. What makes your mothering feminist? How does your approach differ from a non-feminist mother’s? How does feminism impact upon your parenting?

I intend to raise my daughter with the capacity to analyse the world from a feminist perspective and to challenge any patriarchal norms that she disagrees with. I also insist on sharing the parenting as equally as possible with my partner.

As my daughter gets older my feminism may occasionally bring me into conflict with people who would like (or me) to conform to their idea of what a girl (or woman) should be. Currently she is too young for this to have really come up.

5. Do you ever feel compromised as a feminist mother? Do you ever feel you’ve failed as a feminist mother?

Yes, when I take on too much (adopt a martyr attitude) and try to be super-mum.

I don't yet feel that I have failed as a feminist mother. I am not sure that I agree with the concept of being a 'failed feminist'.

6. Has identifying as a feminist mother ever been difficult? Why?

No. Probably because my mother and partner are both feminists.

7. Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?

By expecting the same level of sacrifice from my partner. However, I don't always live up to that...

8. If you have a partner, how does your partner feel about your feminist motherhood? What is the impact of your feminism on your partner?

I think that my feminism reinforces his.

9. If you’re an attachment parenting mother, what challenges if any does this pose for your feminism and how have you resolved them?

I think that this is the reason that I cannot always expect the same level of sacrifice from my partner - he cannot feed our daughter during the night and sometimes (well often) she is far more easily comforted/settled by me - meaning that my sleep is more interrupted and I get far less time to myself.

I have yet to resolve these issues, but believe that they will get easier as our daughter gets older.

10. Do you feel feminism has failed mothers and if so how? Personally, what do you think feminism has given mothers?

Not at all. I think that society often fails mothers, but that is simply because feminism still has a long way to go in terms of making society more friendly towards mothers (and women generally). Motherhood is still naturalised and largely undervalued in our society. We are not seen as doing important (and challenging) work, but rather as staying at home and existing solely in the private (irrelevant) sphere.

So far feminism has given mothers the capacity to work part-time (in some workplaces), maternity leave & the right to return to your same position after maternity leave (in some workplaces), the Anti-discrimination Act, the vote (in order to make our society more female-friendly etc), access to more childcare options (though this still has a LONG way to go), a language to discuss our concerns about the current inequalities and systemic issues that affect us as women and mothers.

What we have yet to achieve is a greater level of respect and support for those women who stay at home with their children rather than trying to balance work and children. But again, this is not a failing of feminism - it is a failing of patriarchy.

Lily in the garden

Apparently one of the reasons for our increasing rates of asthma and allergies in the West is that we bring up our babies in overly sterile environments...

Well, no one could accuse us of doing that to Lily.




[That's basil that she is chomping on, btw, not just any old random weed.]

A weekend of parties

This weekend we had two parties to attend - one for each afternoon.

The first party was a very civilized afternoon tea for Priya's birthday, for which I baked these yummy choc-orange cupcakes.




The second party was a Halloween Party for a woman in my mother's group and we were supposed to dress-up. I always love the idea of dress-up parties, but when it comes down to it I am quite lame and generally fail to actually get dressed up properly. However, this time I finally had someone else to dress-up and so I made Lily an Elf costume - well, a hat, really.




I have to admit that I am really quite ridiculously proud of this hat and how CUTE Lily looked in it. And so here are a thousand photos of her cuteness.

Saturday Baguettes

The yummy bread people at the farmer's market reached a milestone this morning. They served at least 10 customers without using their latex gloved hand to take money or give change!

In honour of this auspicious day we purchased a mini baguette for lunch.

This one is mine.



It's got tahini and avocado as a base and is topped with tempeh, fresh vine ripened tomatoes, baby spinach, pickles, and Iku salad dressing.

Yum.

Stuff

Have you ever noticed that when you decide that you really must budget (and generally just stop consuming so much) you are overwhelmed with stuff that you wish that you could buy?

Well, I have.

Here are just a few examples:



I just love these earrings and necklace from Nephilim Designs - an etsy shop of a jewelry artist right here in Canberra.




I also desperately want to get Isa's new vegan cookbook, Veganomicon and would really like to try out Dreena Burton's new cookbook, Eat, Drink and Be Vegan (great name, isn't it?).

But want I want more than anything is a Digital SLR. We are currently debating whether to get the Canon 400D or the Nikon D40x... and waiting until after Christmas until we can justify the purchase.




And... actually everything else that I want is for Lily (fancy new cloth nappies, a paddle pool, a sandpit, etc...) so maybe I am not all that bad.

Why plugs?

Just a quick question to the universe:

Why are electrical plugs so appealing to Lily?

Actually, I have one more:

Why will she not sleep this morning?

Quick Sunday dinner

Poor Lily has been teething something terrible these last few nights. She's waking every hour or so crying in pain. It's horrible to see her so upset, knowing there is little we can do.

What's worse is knowing that her teeth might not appear for weeks yet.

One result of this has been some quick and dirty dinners in stolen moments of Lily happiness.

Last night we threw together a quick Khao pad of brown rice, tofu, mushrooms, asparagus, carrots, and greens, flavoured with lashings of soy, tons of fresh ginger, and a dash of sesame oil.

We also threw down a few of the vegie dumplings we picked up from the local Chinese grocer. They were surprisingly good, especially with a quick soy, sesame oil, and coriander dipping sauce. So good in fact that C couldn't wait for me to make a photo before gobbling her's down...

Daily Mantra

until 24 November:

I will not get my hopes up.
I will not get my hopes up.
I will not get my hopes up.

Geez I'd love to see him lose though...

Silbling rivalry

"I really want to beat Michelle at scrabulous."

"I know. Why?"

"It's a family thing. She's always been the smart one."

"Uh huh."

"Dux of the school in year 10 math my ass. I'll kick her ass at scrabulous. This is way better than straight HDs in my masters."

"You know I don't really have that with my brother. I don't really want to beat him at anything. We are in way different places at the moment."

"Yeah, well I don't have that. I just have scrabulous."

Eradicate poverty? 0.7 would be a good start

Today was the United Nations International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

In fact, it's the 20th anniversary of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

It's interesting that 20 years on half the world's population lives on less than two United States dollars a day. As horrible as that sounds (and $2 doesn't buy you much anywhere in the world), it's actually worse. That $2 is actually based on the theory of purchasing power parity and often matched to the local equivalent of what $2 would have bought you in New York City in 1990.

So, we have half the world unable to afford a decent meal in New York and several hundred million living (more like slowly dying on) half that again.

That I can sit here on the carpet (choosing not to sit on the couch) in a warm room, with a pleasently full tummy and slightly cold feet (through the sheer laziness of not wanting to get up and find socks), and type on a laptop connected to the world via wireless broadband, makes me one of the richest people in the world.

I may not feel like it (and there are certainly a whole lot of people with vastly more money and wealth), but I'm living in absolute luxury by pretty much anyone's standards (or at least the standards of the 90% of the world's population not as well off as me).

If you are reading this, it's highly likely you aren't much different - perhaps you are even luckier than me, or perhaps somewhat less so (financially at least). But either way, you are one of the lucky ones. This isn't to say you don't work hard for your money, or that you shouldn't enjoy the fruits of your labours. But it is to say that you should feel some sense of obligation to those people who don't have the ability to enjoy the rewards of their labour - the unlucky majority.

Peter Singer wrote a powerful essay in 1977. The drowning child and the expanding circle is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. It's available here.

There is much that we can do, but perhaps the single most important thing is to put pressure on donor governments around the world to meet their commitments under the Millennium Development Goals and the Monterrey Consensus and give 0.7% of GDP in official development assistance.

Australia currently gives 0.3%, which is very middle of the road.

Obviously increasing the volume of aid alone is not enough. We are getting much better in the ways we spend aid money and some ODA does huge amounts of good. The trick is to ensure that the most possible aid is being spent in the best possible way, and we're still some way from getting to that point.

Still, a committment is a committment and we need to live up to it. To be held to account. To follow through on our promises (something the Howard government has not been very good at doing to date).

One can only hope that in another 20 years, we'll be celebrating the International Day of Remembering When People Lived in Poverty.

Blog Action Day? Missed it...

Yesterday was Blog Action Day. The idea was that bloggers all over the world would post (yesterday) about the environment.

It seems that thousands did. But we didn't.

Of course we didn't. We rarely do anything at anytime approximating the time when things are supposed to be done.

Not that either of us would have it any other way.

Anyway, despite the tardiness, you can consider this the peas' contribution to Blog Action Day.

Having said that, I should write something about the environment.

How about this.

As far as I can tell, and despite climate change being one of the key issues of the campaign, there is very little to distinguish the policies outlined by the major parties.

This is a bummer, obviously, but makes the difference between the major parties and the Greens that much clearer.

It's pretty simple really. If you are genuinely concerned about what we are doing to our planet there is really only one party worth voting for in this election.

Right, just because the election has finally been called doesn't mean I'll be writing green rants every day. Just some days...

Oh, and the other date that has now been set is the annual Walk Against Warming. Last year was a great day, so head to your local walk on Sunday 11 November. If one hasn't been organised yet, get organising.

7 Months

Dear Lily

Today you turned 7 months old.

It has been quite a month. You figured out how to crawl and have been experimenting with a wide variety of styles ever since. Commando is still your favourite and probably the most efficient, but some of your other styles show a lot of potential and have the added benefit of being extremely amusing while you are developing your technique.


All this increased mobility has made you far less frustrated with the world and far more independent, which has been wonderful to watch. However, it has also made some things a little more tricky. Nappy changing has become a particular challenge and I now have a new nickname for you: Rolly Polly McNolly. This is in addition to your already impressive array of nicknames which includes: Lila, Lilakalila, Lilikins, Snuggle Buggle, The Buggle, Groovertron (shortened to Groover or Tron), Munchkinhead (a family name), Bubba Cunubbins (often shortened to Cunubbins), and many more...


Another new skill that you have acquired is the ability to clap. You appear to be particularly proud of this one and spent our last mothers' group attempting to get everyone's attention so that they could watch you in action.

The clapping was accompanied by what Papa and I like to call your practice smile. This is also a new skill and one that amuses me no end. Normally when you smile it is completely spontaneous and you somehow seem to smile with your whole face (even your whole body sometimes).


In contrast your practice smile is mostly just your mouth and appears when you would like attention for doing something particularly clever or just attention for being you.


Another place that you have been doing your practice smile is, somewhat appropriately, in front of the mirror. You have always loved the mirror and have now discovered all sorts of places in which to admire your reflection. The bin is a particular new favourite - which is inspiring me to clean it a little more often.


Another favourite passtime of yours is eating your socks. You have become particularly adept at removing them and placing them immediately into your mouth. I am not sure why you love this so much, but it certainly makes it difficult to keep your little feet warm on cold Canberra mornings.


Although you initially took to solid food with the gusto you continue to display with your socks, we had to slow down on this kind of eating this month because you got a little blocked up. Hopefully this will be the only time in your life when all you were given to eat (apart from an endless supply of breastmilk) was diluted prune juice and pured pears, prunes & apricots. Fortunately after about 10 days you seemed to clear up very well and the results were particularly impressive! (I have to admit that I left most of them to your papa...)

This month we went back up to Sydney to visit Grandma and Grandpa. You were in a particularly good mood all weekend (although you did scream particularly loudly when we dipped your little toe in the water at Balmoral Beach) and had the chance to show off your new crawling skills to a very admiring audience.

We also finally found you a 'blankie' to sleep with in the hope that you will eventually find some comfort in its soft little ears and not be so utterly attached to snuggles in order to sleep at night. For now you are certainly bonding with it fairly well, but you still clearly prefer real snuggles (which is perfectly understandable really).



I just hope that you continue to enjoy our snuggles so much as you get older.


love
mama
xox

Electioneering

Just call it already.

Then we can all get back to whatever it was we were doing.

Howard's behaviour of late means I have had a certain Radiohead song buzzing through my head constantly:

I will stop, I will stop at nothing.
Say the right things when electioneering
I trust I can rely on your vote.

It's only going to get worse, but at least it'll be official.

Saturday haul

We're getting back into the swing of things and heading to the Canberra farmer's market on Saturday mornings to get the week's fruit and veggies.

Our favourite Sydney bakery, Infinity Sourdough, has a stall (it's just like being back in the Cross), and, along with delicious organic fruit and vegies, there is a wonderful local couple making the best tofu we have ever tasted. They even use local soybeans!

Here is today's haul. A little smaller than usual because we ended up at the supermarket out of desperation earlier in the week.

“Either they were going to give it to me sometime before I popped off or not at all”

A while ago I subscribed to the New York Times' "News Alert" service. Apparently nothing worth alerting me to happened for a good while. Burmese Monks protesting the ongoing human rights abuses of the junta didn't rate a mention. The UN Security Council finally deciding to send peacekeepers into Dafur wasn't worth mentioning. Pakistan's dodgy elections not a peep.

And then, suddenly, a flurry of emails alerting me to US baseball results? Seriously!

I was somewhat annoyed and decided to unsubscribe, but didn't quite get around to it. And then this morning I received an alert that went some way to redeeming the NY Times for its former "baseball is the only issue worth alerting the world about" attitude.

Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - finally.

The NY Times article also carried this wonderfully evocative photo:



Perhaps I'll keep that subscription open for a little longer and see if anything else worth knowing comes through.

Books, books, books

The other week I went along to a Scholastic book fair to see if I could find any good books to buy for Lily. And, well, I did.

You see books are my weakness (one of many, but a big one really) and I seem to lose all rational sense when book shopping (which, incidentally, is almost the only kind of shopping that I enjoy). So, at a sale where all books were 40% off and many were $3 and $5, I managed to spend $122. Oops.

Anyway, in amongst my precious bundle I bought a couple of really fantastic books that I wanted to recommend to you.

First, up is George Saves the World By Lunchtime.
In this gorgeous book a little boy (George) wakes up and declares to his Grandfather that he would like to save the world today. Ok, says his Grandfather. Let's do it by lunchtime. So George dons his cape and sets off to do superhero-like maneuvers.
However, his Grandfather has taken him at his word and starts to show him how he can really save the world. They go through the morning sorting out the recycling, composting food scraps in the garden, cycling to a charity store to donate old toys and clothing and shopping at the local farmers' market.
This is a seriously cute book and it has a great, upbeat message for kids about what they can do to make the world a better place

The Peace Book is a little more light on than George Saves the World By Lunchtime. Each page contains an almost glib statement about Peace - like Peace is travelling to different places. Peace is listening to different music, etc, but the over-all message is great, the illustrations are bright and happy, and Lily just loves it.

The author, Todd Parr, has a range of these books and we have picked up a couple of others - The Daddy Book and Reading Makes You Feel Good - which also have nice messages and beautiful bright illustrations.

Now I must stop buying books and start budgeting. We just looked at our credit card bill for the month and I am feeling a little nauseous.

Musings on breastfeeding

[This post is in honour of the League of Maternal Justice's action against Facebook - for more info see my previous post, or their website. I would have posted this at 10am, but our electricity was out for the day...]



Before Lily was born I was really worried about breastfeeding. I had heard that many women experience attachment problems and that it can be quite stressful and painful in the first few weeks (or months) of making it all work with your baby. Luckily for me, however, Lily had done all her homework in the womb and after being born, she was placed on my tummy and immediately worked her way up to my left breast, opened up her mouth wide and attached perfectly for a nice long feed.

Lily - 2 days old

Words simply cannot described that feeling. She had gone from being this mystery little being inside of me - whose hiccups and movements I could feel, but whose body and face were completely hidden - to this tiny little person who belonged right there on my chest. I was so impressed that she knew exactly what to do and that I was able to provide exactly what she needed. The bond was instant and amazing.


From that first feed onwards Lily never looked back. Every time she has opened up wide and latched on without any issues, and every time I have felt this amazing sense of connection between us.

As well as providing the best nutrition for babies, breastfeeding also releases hormones that make mother and baby feel relaxed and content. For the first couple of months of Lily's life, she would fall off the breast 'drunk' on milk - mouth open, eyes rolled into the back of her head and a look of sheer pleasure on her face. It was adorable. Now, she will often squeal with delight when she sees the nipple and will still often fall asleep while feeding.

Fortunately for me (or maybe for them?) no one has ever suggested to me that I shouldn't breastfeed in public. If they did, I would be utterly outraged. I simply cannot understand why anyone thinks that babies should eat in private (or in the toilet!?!?). After-all, I have to see people eating the flesh of dead animals in public all the time and I never say anything. Surely that is more offensive than a baby eating the only thing that she is biologically designed to eat?

Of course, as I mentioned in my last post, the concept that breastfeeding is somehow offensive can only stem from a mind that is incapable of viewing women's breasts as anything other than sexual objects. That is why public breastfeeding is a feminist issue, because a distaste of breastfeeding stems from a misogynist attitude - one that seeks to maintain control over women's bodies and to objectify them as something that exists purely for the purpose of male sexual pleasure. Viewed from this perspective breastfeeding is a challenge to the objectification of women. It says: My body is actually here for my own purposes and for the nurture and nourishment of my child. You have nothing to do with it and no control over me.

This little person, however, well she has everything to do with it and complete control over me!


Update: For a full list of participating blogs, see this post.

Vegan Chili - my new favourite dinner

Lately P and I have decided that vegan chili served on fried polenta is our new favourite dinner food.


This version has kidney beans, borlotti beans, green lentils, tvp, herbs, spices and tomatoes - and it is yummy!


Update: To cook fried polenta you need to make sure that you cook it in the right amount of water:

• Pour 2 cups of polenta into a medium saucepan
• Add 2.5 cups of cold water and place on the stove over a medium heat
• Add a little salt
• Add 2 cups of boiling water
• Stir continuously until it starts to boil
• Turn down the heat to low
• Keep stirring continuously until it is thick and almost (but not quite) sticking to the pan
• Turn off the heat and put a lid on the pan
• After about 5 minutes, pour the polenta into a baking tray and spread it so that it is about 2 cms thick
• Leave to cool
• Chop into pieces and fry over medium heat (with some olive oil).

That looks like lots of steps, doesn't it? It shouldn't though - it really is very easy.

Facebook sucks

I have recently succumbed to Facebook. It is such an easy of catching up with people who you haven't seen in a while (even quite a while) and even with those who you do see fairly regularly (because you can send them short messages and 'gifts' one-handed while settling a baby with your other).

However, it has recently come to my attention that Facebook removes photos of breastfeeding from the site because they are "obscene".

Frankly that is an obscene policy. Breastfeeding is not only something that needs to be encouraged so that as many babies as possible can get the best start in life, it is also something that defies the disgusting male tendency to objectify and sexualise woman. The only way that anyone could view such a necessary and natural act as breastfeeding as "obscene" is if they were incapable of viewing a woman's breasts as anything but a sexual object - rather than as a source of food, nuture and life for a new life.

It is just so disgusting to me that any one individual could feel justified in having this attitude, but for a corporation to not only adopt such an attitude, but to actually take action on it by removing photographs of breastfeeding, well, that is just outrageous.

Frankly someone should sue Facebook for breaching the Anti-Discrimination Act.

In the meantime, the League of Maternal Justice is promoting a virtual "feed-in" on 10 October 2007 at 10am:

We're asking women around the world to speak out - and squirt out! - against the banning of breastfeeding pictures on Facebook, as well as against the constant onslaught of negative attention toward breastfeeding mothers in public spaces and in the media.

That's right. We're staging a virtual nurse-in!

On October 10 at 10am (your time), women around the US and Canada and - we hope - the world will breastfeed for justice. We'll nurse our babies or bottle-feed our babies or reminisce about doing either of those things and we'll post pictures and video, all together, and let the world know that there is no shame, only power, in caring for our children.

Spread the word by placing a button on your blog, and then set up your web cam to live broadcast on your blog on October 10 at 10am (your time). If you don't have a web cam, but have a video recorder, post some breastfeeding video! Load it up on YouTube and tag it "The Great Virtual Breast Fest" on October 10!

If you don't have a web cam/video camera or you are not currently nursing, send us your breastfeeding pictures, along with your blog url (if you have one -- non-bloggers are WELCOME and strongly encouraged to participate!). We'll be creating a video montage of pictures that you can embed onto your blog. (If you've already written a post with pictures, please still send us a photo!)

So not to exclude our non-breastfeeding friends, you can participate by writing a post - even a blurb will do - about why you support women's right to nourish their children whenever and whatever and in whatever manner they wish.

We love your boobs too!

Whatever you're planning on doing as part of the Breast Fest, make sure to let us know how you're participating by emailing The Boob Squad. Want to breastfeed live but need a webcam? Plan on putting video up? Sending us some pics?

How you can participate:

1) Nurse live on your blog via a webcam at 10am YOUR time

2) Place recorded video of you breastfeeding on your blog at 10am YOUR time

3) Place the LMJ Breastfeeding Montage (available 10/8) on your blog at 10am YOUR time Up and through 10/10, please help us spread the word by writing posts and linking our site with the button codes.

"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of robots"

But how we wish they were.

Apparently several Japanese Civil Servants were busted spending hours editing Wikipedia entries "rather than attending to beef quotas and rice prices."

I know what I'd rather be doing...

Funny, Japanese Civil Servants get reprimanded for playing on Wikipedia during work hours, while Australian Public Servants get paid to do so.

I wonder how many people at Prime Minister and Cabinet would rather edit entries on Manga than on our esteemed PM?

Cigarettes more important than health care - Bush

This is just typical.

Interestingly though, it seems that this might be the last straw for Republican control in the US. Apparently the majority of Republicans in Congress approved of the bill, as did (and get this) insurance companies.

So, while W said he vetoed the bill because:

"This legislation would move health care in this country in the wrong direction," Mr Bush said today. "Under this bill government coverage would displace private health insurance for many children."

[Read: "I don't want people to think they can have something for free, and my pals in the insurance industry can't really mean it when they say they support the bill. My friends in the tabacco industry told me it would hurt their profits, and we can't have big business being hurt by crazy communist ideas like universal health insurance - even if it is just for poor children. Do we even have poor children in America? I don't know any...]

World Vegetarian Day

Yesterday was World Vegetarian Day and I completely missed it. Bother.

Still, I can redeem myself because 1 November is World Vegan Day, so I'll just have to pretend that I was waiting for that...

Melbourne is the only city in Australia that hosts a World Vegan Day event and it makes me quite jealous. I briefly contemplated suggesting to P. that we head down there for the weekend, but then I thought that maybe we should start our own tradition up here in Canberra.

I don't know many actual vegans in town, but I think that plenty of people would be happy to enjoy a vegan picnic in honour of the day regardless. So, maybe I will try to organise something...

Naturally it will involve cupcakes (I was going to put in pictures of yummy cupcakes here, but blogger spazzed out on me and won't load images right now... boo hiss).

Lily is on the move, Burma just might be

Lily has taken to waking up rather early of late. This is both good and bad at the same time. Good beacuse she and I get to spend a couple of hours or so together while C catches up on some much needed sleep. Bad because I'm rather buggered.

The early waking thing has happened a few times before, but it has been dramatically altered by the new crawling thing. I used to be able to pop her down in the sunny living room and pop into the kitchen and grab a bowl of cereal and a quick coffee. The last few days, however, have been a different story entirely. She's getting so quick (and quick to get frustrated and need attention). It's like being able to move isn't enought for her - she wants to be able to run!

We're going to spend the day today Lily proofing the house. It's amazing the things she gets herself into - she has a particular, if somewhat strange, fondness for a couple of old speakers I'd stashed under the couch. She also loves this laptop - making typing an intereesting experience...

I actually opened blogger to post about the situation in Burma, but find myself besiged by little hands so will just leave it at this: The writing is on the wall, and it says, Free Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, you facist arseholes.

Well, that made me feel somewhat better.

Oh, and before I forget (and before I hit post and let Lily have free reign on the keyboard), Burmanet says head fuckwit Than Shwe's family has been whisked off to Laos on a chartered jet. It seems the Burmese first family (first in greed, violence and repression) are safely ensconced inside the stronghold of Burma's closest (if almost entirely impotent) ally. Good to know.

I don't think the keyboard can take anymore drool, so I'll leave it there.