(You 80’s fans out there were about ready to sing weren’t you?)
Last night I captured the eclipse with my fancy smancy new camera and telephoto lens (I have a Canon Rebel). It made me want to buy a telescopic lens for further astronomical displays. I mean, clearly, the money I would spend on such a lens and the small number of chances I would have to use it would be balanced out by the awesome details I could capture. Right?

While the eclipse crept over the surface of the moon:

The moon almost fully eclipsed:

The moon fully eclipsed:

I have to say I was pleased with the detail I was able to capture with a camera, so far away from the moon. I could have stayed in the freezing cold snapping pictures all night!!

So I took the advice of many loved ones yesterday when I went to sleep early, a little before 10. Otter has been getting up so much at night, and so early in the morning, that it seemed sensible to try and sleep when he does. I also had a migraine, which added to the desire to sleep a long and restful night.

It was not to be.

He woke up at four.
FOUR!!!

Happy as a clam, ready to nurse for hours, wanting to get up, up UP MAMA!!!

Four in the morning!!

Why does he hate me so?

What did I ever do to him, that he would taunt me with increasingly ghastly rising hours??

How on earth do I get him to sleep longer? We are co-sleeping, and he will just sit up and start smacking us around until we get up too.

Should I set the crib up again and shove him in it at four in the morning with a stuffy and a toy or two? Should he and I just get up before the sun and wander downstairs to stare at each other in the cold dark of night?

I have no ideas here, probably because I have no sleep. Poor Lee got up with him about 5:30, after I tried for an hour to nurse and soothe him back to bed. He sent me to sleep in the other room for an hour before heading off to work.

I wish I could drink more coffee, without making my situation even worse.

Of course, now he has fallen asleep in his jumper. Stinker.

Thank you for joining me in today’s issue of Touchy Topic Tuesday, the day when I post about all those lovely issues that anger me, or open me up to snarky comments. (Okay, today is the first of such days, but why not Colbert a little and make it sound as though I have done this before!)

Minority cartoonists protested the lack of diversity on our comics pages this past sunday with a series of cartoons intended to illustrate the homogeneity of our sunday comics. The protest began when cartoonist Cory Thomas, of Watch your Head was turned down by papers who claimed to already have their “black comic strip” signed up, thereby not needing another one.

The cartoonists drew the same comic, in their individual styles, to protest the lack of comics representing minorities and minority cultures.

The protest is covered in more depth and detail in the Washington Post.

I think this is an artistic and unique protest that will hopefully bring the current lack of diversity in our comics pages into the light. It frankly never occurred to me to analyze the comics strips for diversity, but now that I look at them, it simply isn’t there. There is no reason papers should refuse to accept strips drawn by minority artists simply because they already have one on their page. That is the barest of nods to the creativity of minorities in our country, as well as an insult. It’s not as if the humor of a black cartoonist is only going to be funny to black readers.

Thanks to Ben for sending me the info on this protest, it was definitely worthwhile.
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MOM-101 brings renewed awareness to the levels of lead in our children’s toys with her post Are our Kids Safe From Lead. Her post is inspiring and insightful. Please read it. It is truly frightening how much our children are still at risk and how little the Toy industry seems to be doing about it. (Maybe it’s time to investigate a class action toxic tort or two… is that a lawsuit I smell?)
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In other news, the Bush administration is preparing to open millions of acres of public lands in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah for fossil fuel extraction from Oil Shale and Tar Sands. This will release a great deal of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, along with ravaging the landscape. Of course, it’s too much to expect the Bush admin. will attempt to seek alternative fuel methods, but in an attempt to encourage them to do so the Center for Biological Diversity is urging people to write into the Bureau of Land Management and protest this decision.

You can mail your comments to:
Sherry Thompson, BLM Project Manager
BLM Oil Shale and Tar Sands Draft Programmatic EIS
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 S. Cass Ave.
Argonne IL 60439

Please submit your comments by March 20, 2008

So there it is… three touchy topics for this tuesday, ranging from race, to the environment. Enjoy your day and see you tomorrow.