In a blog post entitled "Mothers Rocking the Prison Cradle," Marian Wright Edleman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, wrote that mothers are one of the fastest growing prison populations in the country. She wrote a poignant description of what it's like for some women who bear their children behind prison walls:

More problems associated with vaccines, this time the controversy is with the Chicken Pox vaccine. I haven't been silent about my distrust with the pharmaceutical industry, and most recently with the collaboration between this industry and our government...specifically the rush to make the HPV vaccine mandatory for 9 to 12 year old girls.

Last month, in the entertaining blog, Linda's Backroads Musings, Blogger Linda, a "rural mail carrier" on the Kansas prairies, wrote an entry about an NPR story on aging:

I have just returned from my third trip to the New York City Marathon. I am passionately in love with this event, the biggest marathon anywhere. And, in the most badass city on the planet.

The infernos engulfing thousands of acres in rural and residential Southern California are being amply covered by bloggers in and around the region. Here is a sampling of citizen journalists/live bloggers documenting and photographing the disaster:

My mission as one of the Contributing Editors for the all-encompassing topic of 'Life' is to seek narratives from everyday living as captured in the wealth of women's blogs. I am particularly intrigued with stories from the kaleidoscope of our working lives. Most compelling are the "war stories" of vocations I admire greatly but, because of a myriad of inabilities, character flaws and a lack of courage, I could never perform the work. And, at the top of that list of those occupations is the noble profession of nursing.

We don't know everything. I, for one, don't know Jack. I don't even who Jack is. Shows how much I know. And, should my teenager encounter this post in her web surfing, she'll be nodding her head so hard and furiously that she'll whiplash as she taunts - "Yup, that's for sure. Mom doesn't know Jack." Well, good, there's something we can agree on.

Yesterday I wrote a post on my personal blog titled "All Women's Rights Are Not Created Equal", in response to the controversy over the opening of a Planned Parenthood in Aurora.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Teenage girls who start dieting are nearly two times more likely to also take up smoking regularly, compared with teenage girls who are not dieting. Not surprising at all...According to this research study, teenage girls who are on diets are twice as likely to begin smoking than their non-smoking counterparts. The study is published in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

I didn't have something specific to blog about for todays post, I've been a bit preoccupied with my daughter this week (I'll tell you more at the end of this post, if you're interested), so I decided to Google women's health for ideas.

Marilyn, The Knitting Curmudgeon, has started a weekly feature to her blog: Open Mic Thursday. She asks a question and invites everyone to answer it in comments. (actually, this is a brilliant idea that I might steal). Her first question is an important one for anyone who truly loves a single activity:If you could not knit (or substitute your favorite activity) ever again, with what activity/craft would you replace it?