Again, though, no Macarena: First, other antiabortion groups say they're doing fine. Also, Troy Newman's e-mail contains an ominous threat -- not reported elsewhere, oddly -- that's either empty saber-rattling or scary, perhaps depending on how much, and how soon, a big fat check comes from the Bank of Wingnut. From the e-mail: "Because, in the next 30 days, we're planning to launch the most ambitious and most significant project in our entire history. It's something that's going to devastate the abortion cartel. It could even help end abortion in America once and for all. Basically, it centers around our unique ability to close abortion mills. And although I can't go into detail about it -- because we need to take the abortion cartel by surprise -- I can tell you that it will be a totally NEW phase in the pro-life fight. We've been working on it all summer. And we were planning to launch it in the next 30 days. However, now that we're completely out of money, I'm afraid we won't even be able to launch it ... ever!" We'll see.

The second tidbit is perhaps more schaden than freude. At very least, it's shameless. As Eleanor Bader reports at RHRealityCheck, anti-choice forces have boycotted Susan G. Komen's Race for the Cure (SKG), the largest breast cancer charity in the world  and the leader in the fight against the disease. (The boycott is not brand-new, as the post implies, but it does seem to be heating up.) Antiabortion activists have called SKG a "menace to women," Bader reports, which, obviously, is like calling basil a menace to linguine. Their beef: Advocates for women with breast cancer don't warn women about "the abortion/breast cancer connection." Which, of course, is because there is no such thing. Not that the facts have stopped people like Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, from saying things like, "Women suffer tremendously when 'breast cancer awareness groups' keep us in the dark about breast physiology, especially when millions unwittingly damage their health by choosing abortion." (Or Angela Lanfranchi, M.D., from publishing reprehensible "studies" like this new one in the non-peer-reviewed Linacre Quarterly, which -- where shall I start? -- provides no actual data and no real explanation for why mothers get breast cancer or miscarriages don't seem to be a problem or ... feh. We're not going to dignify it with a rebuttal.)

The Komen haters have also (long) trotted out the association between Komen and Planned Parenthood -- which, to the radically antiabortion, is basically the Death Star. Diabolically enough, some Komen affiliates provide grants to local Planned Parenthood clinics, supporting -- exclusively -- breast cancer screening and educational programming for un- and under-insured women.

Silly as it all sounds, Bader reports that Komen staff "have had to respond to anti-choice criticism" -- instead of to, say, breast cancer -- "and recently hired two Catholic ethicists to rebut Diocesan efforts to stop the faithful from supporting SKG." Your donations at work!

Not surprisingly, the anti-Komen campaign has not gained a ton of mainstream traction. While, again, not brand-new, it -- along with O.R.'s "emergency" e-mail -- does have a whiff of loony, cartoony desperation. As such, it's a reminder that this fringe is only going to get fringier. And that, as we well know, can be fatal.

The blog -- called re: Cycling -- is kind of a hoot. There is plenty to discuss (and not just about first-period stories, though that’s always a draw): a remedial menstruation lesson on Tyra; a supposedly girl-powerful HHS campaign that winds up being a whole lot of product placement; the gender switcheroo commercial “Zack at 16” (that blogger: not a fan); a new Jewish ritual (post-period) bath in rural Montana; a study suggesting (not so convincingly) that women at auctions bid higher than men when they have their periods; a discussion -- hey! inspired by Broadsheet! -- about why our culture is more squicked out by menstrual blood than by blood-and-gore blood; a shelving unit in the shape of a giant maxi pad. (No word on coordinating tampon lamps.)

In all seriousness, though I’m not a big period-power gal, I’m glad our little friends have a whole research society all their own -- and that we have a place where we can observe the spot they occupy at the intersection of physiology and pop culture. Enjoy it daily! Or, you know, monthly. 

The brand's creators are all about "empowering women, to remind them that they are beautiful confident and SEXY" -- even when their belly is swollen or when their breasts are overflowing with milk. The designers also want to deliver a political message: The brand "supports and encourages breastfeeding through sophisticated and stylish designs. We also hope that our campaign will help to promote breast-feeding and elevate its importance" -- presumably through their selection of frilly and lacy nursing bras. I guess breast isn't truly best unless it comes with lactation lingerie.

It's worth celebrating the novel concept (outside of porn) of a pregnant woman being sexy -- only, this particular vision necessitates buying expensive underthings. I'd say the word "empowerment" only applies to this brand so far as it gives women one more choice on the McSexy drive-thru menu.

But while packaged as trend stories, both pieces seem to depict situations best described as lurking on the very far margins of human behavior. The womb-robbing story, written by Diane Taylor, is in response to the recent appeal in the case of a British woman, Linda Carty, who is on death row in Texas after being convicted of abducting and murdering a young woman to steal her newborn baby. Yes, the details are grisly, as they are in most homicides. But while admitting that these cases are extremely rare, Taylor goes on to claim they seem to be a wholly modern phenomenon -- “unheard of before 1987.” How rare? Well, since 1987, Taylor can find only 13 recorded cases, 12 of which took place in the United States. Not having access to a database that compiles worldwide local crime reports over the past century -- perhaps Taylor does? -- I’m not at liberty to offer up any factual contradictions to her claim. But I would hazard to guess that, like most statistically rare, yet sensationalistic crimes -- stranger abductions, molestation, daycare Satanic panic scares -- the ones that make headlines tell us more about the current preoccupations of the day than they do about the actual crime rate (which may explain why only one country -- us -- got caught up in reporting on baby-theft homicides. Or maybe I’m totally wrong and we Americans have made yet another contribution to crimes never before seen in nature, to go along with fanny packs and wearing socks with sandals). Even so, 13 cases in 23 years -- during which time many pregnant women were killed by their partners, mothers killed their children, and strangers kidnapped already born children -- sounds pretty low to me. And I’m even more bothered by the fact that Taylor’s “expert,” Philip Resnick, a professor of psychiatry at Case Western University, seems to blur the line between demonstrably criminal behavior and just plain old baby lust. “I have been involved in three cases, and none of the women was psychotic,” he says. “They are women who want a baby very badly.”

In the next article, women who want a baby very, very badly and thus pursue IVF are described as being driven by an urge “stronger than addiction and more powerful than obsession,” according to professor Sammy Lee, one of the early pioneers of egg donation in the United Kingdom, who goes on to tell the Guardian: “The quest to have children can become a vortex that gets faster and faster and sucks people in. Women will sell everything and do anything to have the treatment if they are short on funds. They will risk their lives, there’s no doubt about it.” He then goes on to liken couples who get “addicted” to IVF cycles to the cycle of abuse, and says, “When they get too old to get treated in this country, they go abroad. That makes them vulnerable to yet more abuse, though again, it’s abuse in which they are already complicit.”

How exactly are these women abusing themselves in pursuit of a baby? Well, in this case Lee is talking once again about a very, very tiny subset of women: those who refuse cancer drugs in order to undergo fertility treatment. "Some of these women do, indeed, go on to die [from the cancer], but they die happy, feeling that they have achieved something greater than their own continued existence." But the ethical guidelines printed in just about every IVF treatment center tell you that doctors will not start IVF treatment in former cancer patients until the woman’s condition has stabilized. But we’re not yet done. The article then goes on to suggest that women who use IVF knowingly expose themselves to cancer-causing hormones, but decide -- what the hell? -- a baby is worth dying for. Rebecca Frayn, a filmmaker and novelist who underwent IVF, claims that she was freaked out by the “cancer scares” associated with the hormones she ingested, but was so consumed with wanting a kid, she developed a “moral myopia” about the risks. She then goes even further, essentially claiming that two women she knows were killed by fertility drugs: “Liz Tilberis and Ruth Picardie, both journalists who died respectively of ovarian and breast cancer after many rounds of IVF, believed their treatment had caused and accelerated their cancers, respectively. To attempt to achieve life at the potential expense of one's own [health] is self-evidently sobering. Yet, even then, I somehow squared what I was contemplating doing with my conscience. I was in the iron grip of procreation fever."

Whether or not she’s a victim of procreation fever, Frayn is not an oncologist, and hardly qualified to diagnose what may have contributed to another woman’s cancer. While some researchers have speculated on a link between fertility drugs and cancer, the latest research seems to suggest that women who undergo IVF are no more likely to develop breast or ovarian cancer than any other woman. Anyone looking to write a story about those who defy death while pursuing cancer-causing activities could do much better with “Teens still bake in tanning beds!” Or: “Twenty-five-year-old dudes smoke Camel straights!”

So why whip readers into a hysterical frenzy about those who seem to have a death wish to produce life? Most women who have undergone fertility treatments will concede that they are pretty keen on having a baby, but I would guess you’d have to search pretty hard to find anyone who was willing to kill or die for a baby. The Guardian may have had the good fortune to find a few of both within days of one another (though I’m still not convinced their IVF story succeeded in introducing us to an actual woman who actually died from IVF). But let’s at least have the good grace to label those who would as what they are: statistical outliers, not some harbinger of the next trend to come.

But the last few weeks of media glad-handing have just been a warm-up to the big event -- a sit-down extravaganza with fellow powerhouse Oprah Winfrey. Part 1 of the interview kicked off Oprah’s season premiere Monday; the conclusion airs today.

In her first televised interview since the notorious "crack is whack"  conversation with Diane Sawyer in 2002, Houston proved she’s still probably only a part-time resident of planet Earth, but she is no longer the "doodie bubble" lunatic of "Being Bobby Brown" nor the bewigged Skeletor we’ve grown accustomed to in recent years.

Dripping with enough jewels to bail out a large North American nation, Houston was forthright as Winfrey lobbed softballs, but she seemed to be on her own personal two-second delay, as if the universe had to bounce the signal to where she was sitting. When Oprah asked, "When did the drugs start?" Houston paused, sighed deeply, and said, "All right …" before narrowing it down to both prior to and after making "The Bodyguard." Though it’s not exactly a bombshell to learn that for a while Houston was doing "heavy drugs…every day," it’s nevertheless not an everyday thing to hear explicit descriptions of how to lace up your weed with cocaine straight from a star’s mouth. (Before their vices killed them, ever hear Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley ‘fess up to a hardcore substance abuse problem?)

Whitney Houston’s a big girl, and the only person responsible for the rough patches in her life is Whitney Houston. It’s nevertheless chilling to watch one of the most successful entertainers in the universe describe a descent into hell that was fueled largely by "crazy love." Speaking of her ex-husband, former New Edition bad boy Bobby Brown, Houston said, "He was my drug. I didn’t do anything without him. We were partners, and that’s what my high was." This is the man who was arrested in 2003 for allegedly hitting her,  a man she says emotionally abused her, cheated on her, and spit on her. But though she posits that Brown’s issues may have been fueled by his discomfort with her greater fame, Houston doesn’t play the victim in her own saga. She cops to hitting Brown with a telephone receiver, and drawls, "I will fight you back with anything I can find."

The road back from the bottom is a rocky one. Houston croaked her way through her "Good Morning America" appearance earlier this month,  and the album has been garnering mixed reviews. And the public squeamishness about her drug abuse, especially while she was raising her now 16-year-old daughter Bobbi Christina, won’t magically disappear with a power ballad or two. Yet Houston’s got a better shot than most -- you don’t get 170 million album and single sales, as well as a nice sideline as a movie star, without a legion of "I Will Always Love You" karaoke fans rooting for you.

On yesterday’s "Oprah," Houston credited her mom, gospel legend Cissy Houston, with saving her life, saying her mother told her, "I want you back. I want to see that glow in your eyes, that light in your eyes."

She will never be the bubbly girl who shimmied through "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." That person is as gone as the era of acid-washed jeans. Houston’s got too much hard living under her diamond-studded belt now, and it’s evident in her strained voice and her not-quite-there demeanor. Anyone with any experience of addiction -- whether it’s cocaine or love -- knows it’s not something that can ever be cured. It can only be worked on, one day at a time. Yet if you last long enough, with time and pain and mistakes come a few perks.  In the previews for today’s "Oprah," the 46-year-old from the Newark projects looks fan-freaking-tastic, belting out "I Didn’t Know My Own Strength" to a near ecstatic throng.  She looks like a survivor. And there’s a welcome glimmer of light in those crazy eyes.