We tend to be pretty quiet up here in Canada. You'd hardly know that we have an election coming up, for example. Nor is it obvious that we spend a lot of time worrying about things like the environment and our children and when the hell the Stanley Cup is going to take its rightful place in Toronto. (I kid! It would also look very nice in Vancouver!) You'd hardly know that we can get pretty gung ho about causes. Which is why it's time to remind you all about BlogHers Act Canada.

I don't usually write about politics, but I can't help myself. I just have to speak about what feels to me like a double standard when it comes to Sarah Palin. I'm surprised by the people who want equal rights for women so that they can do all the same things as men, yet now that Sarah Palin is the potential VP are all asking whether she can be a good mom and VP at the same time.

This just in: childbirth can be traumatic.

So there I was, feeling sorry for myself for having sustained extensive nether-region damage during the birth of my son ten weeks ago AND having the surgery to correct that damage BOTCHED (don't even ask), when I came across this: a Wall Street Journal report from Cindy McCain on the state of things in Rwanda.

I've been struggling with a secret, which is this: I'm really, really not in love with my body right now. I have, been keeping it secret for two reasons: 1) it's totally new to me - I've never really struggled with my body image, even after my last pregnancy, which added padding where no padding had hitherto existed, and so it just feels foreign and weird and (obviously) bad, and 2) it also feels so, I don't know, anti-feminist or anti-woman or anti-me (which, really, collapses into a kind of counter-womanism, to be anti-yourself as a woman) and I just so don't want to be that.

I gave birth six weeks ago. Since then, I've lost a lot of the baby weight. Partly because the baby that I was carrying was so huge that his expulsion from the womb represented a massive weight loss, and partly because I've hardly been able to eat anything since he was born, what with his unremitting need to be held ALL THE TIME HOLY HELL. Hardly anything but cookies, that is, and maybe the odd bagel or two. Which, you know, is not the best post-partum diet.

When I first started breastfeeding my first child, I was totally anxious about nursing in public. Was anyone looking? Was anyone freaked out by my boob? I sought out nursing rooms wherever I could, until it became clear that if I was to move about in the world with my child and not spend all of my time in stuffy nursing rooms or - horror - washroom stalls, I would have to chill out and just bare the booby. And so I did. And it was, mostly, fine.

Multiple Ohio blogs have posted entries in a foreign language today to protest an Ohio statehouse bill that seeks to legislate English as the official state language:

As we wind down in the primary season, the hub-bub about voter registration will be gone because everyone is all registered to vote, right? Wrong. More registration efforts are about to begin anew to get people ready to vote in the general election in November.

I just spent $2,200 in the blink of an eye...easiest money I ever spent. Check out our BlogHers Act/Global Giving fundraising widget:

Every time I open the newspaper or click open a news feed these days, my heart breaks. Breaks. War, crime, natural disaster: there's always something. And in recent days in particular, with the death toll in Burma climbing while authorities there continue to stymie aid efforts, and now the earthquake in China... I can barely stand to open the newspaper or follow the news links because I know that I'm going to have to hold my breath and press my fists to my eyes to keep from crying.

As I keep reminding anybody who will listen to me, I will - gods willing - give birth in the very near future. It will be my second time 'round the childbirthing block, but I gotta say: this part (the preparing to give birth part, and, I assume, the birthing part itself) is none the easier for having been there before.