“So when are you due?” the driver asks, eyeing my enormous belly.

“Soon!” I say.

“But it isn’t today, is it?” the driver clarifies fearfully.

“No, I hope not.”

“So what is it?” she asks.

“It’s a boy.”

“Yes, yes, yes!” the driver exclaims. “Every pregnant woman I meet is having a girl. It’s like an epidemic! Good thing you, at least, are having a boy.”

“Erm . . .” I say, unsure of what to contribute to the discussion.

This sign reminded me of an old Soviet joke about a bed for three sold at the stores for newlyweds and called “Lenin is always with us.”

I don’t have time for a full-scale link encyclopedia but I have these two really great links that I want to share with you.

The first link is to a piece on the horrible damage caused by spanking. The author doesn’t want any comments and I think we need to respect her wishes. I only want to say that I deeply admire somebody who finds the strength to speak out so poignantly and powerfully against a widely spread form of abuse:

Spanking completely eliminated my parents’ trustworthiness and credibility in my eyes. It never once even occurred to me that they might want to protect me from outside threats.  It never once even occurred to me that they might have my best interests in mind.  It never once even occurred to me that there might be a good reason for any rules they set out.  It never once even occurred to me that if I was having a big problem with other adults I could go to them.  I never saw them as an ally, always as a threat or an obstacle.  All in the name of…what?  I don’t even remember what the alleged infractions were that I was being spanked for in the first place!

Let’s stop using the coy word “spanking” and call this brutal and abusive act what it is: beating, child abuse, brutalization of a small human being.

The next link is a very powerful and intelligent piece on Bradley Manning. This is definitely the best article I have read about Manning. This is what the author has to say to the people who have been chirping about how they are disappointed with Manning’s apology for his actions:

And some people dare to be “disappointed” or “puzzled” or “upset.” I cannot properly express the depth of my contempt for such people. Do they honestly believe that, against the background of Manning’s remarkable, incredibly courageous actions and the fate he now faces, anyone gives a shit about their feelings? That any decent human being gives a shit that they’re “disappointed”? Fuck your disappointment. Fuck you. To express “disappointment” and the like is to confess that you may have grown to adulthood physically, but that you have allowed yourself to become fossilized emotionally in a state one might expect from a pathetically narcissistic, very badly damaged adolescent, with no understanding of how human beings actually live their lives or how societies function.

I can only say: a thousand times yes. And it’s time we started seeing a difference between a Hollywood movie and life.