Jay Leno had the audacity to make a joke about nurses. Can you imagine one being so cruel, as to make fun of the nursing profession? I didn’t hear his joke because I don’t watch the Tonight Show, but a member of the nurse police, who apparently scans the media for all such infractions, voiced a vehement objection on a nurse forum.

The poster wrote something to the effect of that she had just watched the Tonight Show, and Jay Leno make a really rude comment about nurses. “It went something to the effect of… ” you know nurses are the most overworked profession in America… especially in those adult movies.” GRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

The subject line of the post was “Jay Leno slams nurses.” Now, while his remark was a little silly, I would hardly say that he is slamming nurses. Leno is a comedian, afterall, and the Tonight Show has a long history of making fun of people, professions, stories in the news, and so on. Nurses are part of our society. They are fair game.

The militant nurse police, the ones who feel that the bad press and the entertainment industry is responsible for the nursing shortage, are probably busy trying to organize boycotts of the Tonight Show. How dare Jay Leno not realize that nurses are more sacred than the Virgin Mary, and sit higher than everyone else in the universe.

Fortunately, I was relieved to see that a large number of posters thought nothing of it, and that there was nothing wrong with telling jokes about nurses. Of course, there were a few who were advocating for lynching Leno for daring to make a snide remark about the sacred nurse, and then went into the whole kit and kaboodle about nurses not getting respect and how this wasn’t helping….and by that time I was yawning.

Two posters, I think, summed up the situation better than I can:

None of us want to be viewed as sex kittens or anything that degrades us as professionals. But we need to react lighter…….it really was poking fun…………part of the monolog……..part of a misconception that honestly I think few people believe………………..there is too much over reaction out there and those that do essentially shoot thmeselves in the foot.

And another:

I wasn’t that offended by it. It was a part of his monolog … a context in which he pokes fun at everything. “The Tonight Show” monolog has been a national tradition for over 30 years …. first with Steve Allen, then Jack Parr, then Johnny Carson, now Jay Leno. The monolog pokes fun at national institutions, public figures, etc. — everybody gets a little teasing equally — especially the high and mighty.

Another poster noted that if nurses “can’t take a little gentle ribbing from such a respected and traditional source, then we have a problem.”

And the best: “We need to pick our battles carefully.”

With all of the problems in nursing, is a joke from the lips of Jay Leno, a noted and well established comedian, really a serious faux pas to nurses? I think the person who started the thread, and those who agree that Leno committed a cardinal sin, really do have a little too much time on their hands. And maybe by lashing out at Leno, it makes them feel better for permitting themselves to be abused in the workplace, or for not standing up for themselves and their profession when it counts.

This sort of reminds me of a person worrying about avian flu, but ignoring the fact that she has AIDS.

Not very good news for those of us who value the quality of our foods. If the label says organic, then I want it to mean just that. I don’t want standards weakened, and in fact, they need to be strengthened. But as usual, our lawmakers have succumbed to big agribusiness, the corporations who wish that organic farmers would just board a flight to Venus and never return.

The best thing to do is to try to eat as little processed food as possible, which is much better for your health anyway. Buy foods in their freshest and most natural forms. And continue to push your lawmakers to think of the public, and not the financial rewards granted by big business.

INDUSTRY SNEAK ATTACK ON ORGANIC STANDARDS RAMMED THROUGH CONGRESS

Despite receiving over 350,000 letters and phone calls from OCA members and the organic community, Republican leaders in Congress October 27 attached a rider to the 2006 Agricultural Appropriations Bill to weaken the nation’s organic food standards in response to pressure from large-scale food manufacturers. “Congress voted last night to weaken the national organic standards that consumers count on to preserve the integrity of the organic label,” said Ronnie Cummins, National Director of the Organic Consumers Association. “The process was profoundly undemocratic and the end result is a serious setback for the multi billion dollar alternative food and farming system that the organic community has so painstakingly built up over the past 35 years.

As passed, the amendment sponsored by the Organic Trade Association allows: Numerous synthetic food additives and processing aids, including over 500 food contact substances, to be used in organic foods without public review. Young dairy cows to continue to be treated with antibiotics and fed genetically engineered feed prior to being converted to organic production. Loopholes under which non-organic ingredients could be substituted for organic ingredients without any notification of the public based on “emergency decrees.” OCA will work to reverse this rider with an “Organic Restoration Act” in Congress in 2006. http://www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm