In South Africa Now, of course, I'm happy for them. I'm happy for anybody getting married. But the fact that South Africa offers same-sex marriages is a national disgrace. Not for them, of course...feelings. We were a white man and a black man, free to be together in the country of our birth, treated with dignity and humanity by a system that had denied both for so long. Well worth the fuss.

It's kinda remarkable how much of that there is for kids. (Add that to the Holocaust-lit I read, and it's a wonder I didn't grow up more strange than I am!) I read straight-out dystopias, like "The Last...books was a cop-out and not cool at all. Even if you felt you had to do it, you could've done away with the sled and had it as a fever dream. That would've been less jolting and weird. I'm just saying

So we're in the middle of this whole "thing" about safety and unattended children and whatnot over elsewhere. And somebody who thinks this woman should not have left her 12 year old babysitting her younger... Horrible things happened to kids in the 50s and the 30s and the 90s and in the past year as well. The question isn't whether or not these things happen, but what the appropriate response to that fact is

I happened to pass by a sign on the N train the other day. "In observance of the da-da-da-da-da running on a Saturday schedule". And I thought how funny it was, because, of course, the holiday is on...schedule on FRIDAY, July THIRD. Well, good for them! Because it's not like people have to go to work on a Friday or anything, not like they'll have to fight through herds of tourists to do so anyway

I'm going to have to go out and read it, even though I don't want to, just to be able to talk about it more effectively. I have no idea what the book says, although I've seen some debunkings of *specific*...individual child shows you is the best method for them, rather than by where the bulk (theoretically) of their gender is gonna end up? That's the right way to do this. Doesn't make any sense to me

Those of you with kids, or who teach kids, or who have ever been around kids, or who have ever even been kids may know that children like to imitate adults. It's a big part of childhood, and an important...to think that the subject matter of the poster is totally okay (for crying out loud, the shirt isn't even lifted!), there's information on how you can write to the hospital to lend your support here.

1. I know that this neighborhood has a dearth of public garbage cans. Nevertheless, there are some things which should never be left as litter. This list (and it's quite short) includes condoms and... Paper! (Also? No, I don't care that Ana climbed over that 3 foot fence. Speak to me when she climbs something over her - or my - head. Oh, she could fall? Well, she'll have to climb better, then.

And we also played a round of Memory with our new set. (I gave away the old one, with the whole "first games" set, to Ana's school. It was the only one of those games we played, and it was impossible to...the cards are insanely flimsy. I'm not sure I want to entrust this to a group of small children - or big children for that matter. Is there a way to remedy this? Help me, guys! You're my only hope

When people caught on to the huge wait times between books (and now the series is ended, of course), they started publishing a whole heckuva lot of other kid and YA fantasy books, much of which is really...other than white guys? Seriously? I mean, I'm all for encouraging boys to read, and I know that society tends to discourage them from reading books about girls, cooties and all that, but really now!

I dared to suggest that maybe - just maybe - if 31% of the US population is non-white that it might be a great idea if picture books (especially alphabet books which have 26 or more separate people in...comes off as narrow-minded, irrational, and - worst of all - defensive. Oh well. I tried. Can't say I didn't put in my best effort! * Exclamation points are like salt. A little goes a long way.