I graduated from h.s. in '74 - after abortion was legalized. Once we got to college almost every women I knew went to the school clinic to either get birth control or at least know the options. At that point we were given useful information about all birth control methods. For women who did not wish to take the Pill, I remember that we were strongly advised to never use a condom alone - to always use with spermicidal foam or, even better, with a diaphragm . And the reason we were told this was that condoms do break or slip so having another barrier between sperm and egg significantly reduced the risk of pregnancy in the event of condom failure. And, experience taught me that condoms do indeed break or slip - so back up methods provided a lot of peace of mind.

Flashforward to the 2000s. We live in a very liberal school district where kids are taught sex ed. Yet, my boys know virtually nothing about birth control and even less about the mechanics of sex itself. They know about "safe sex" (ie. use a condom), about AIDS and other STDs but not much else, other than the ever popular demonstraton of how to put a condom on a banana or a zucchini. Now, do not get me wrong I am glad they know about AIDs - this is not something I had to worry about. But, unless they plan to limit their sexual partners to fruits and vegetables - they need a little more information about the mechanics of sex - that actual penises, vaginas, etc are involved.

I had the 1st non-theoretical sex talk with my 18 year old son - he is in his 1st serious relationship. I asked my son if he knew that condoms can break or slip - he did not. And, given that they'd never discussed the mechanics of sex in sex ed class, he could not think of a reason why that might happen - so I shared a few of the reasons. Sort of embarassing to discuss, among other things, vaginal lubrication or lack thereof with your son. But he needs to know how to "do it" right - use the condom properly, make sure his partner is ready, etc. Finally, I asked: if your condom breaks or slips and leaks, is your partner protected against pregnancy? Yes. Against, AIDs or other STDs? He had to think about this one but than it dawned on him - yes. Right, so make sure you know what you are doing!

According to my son he and his girlfriend are not having sexual intercourse. And I know that her mother talks to her weekly about this. But information before the fact is helpful - it is going to happen one day. And parents should not assume that just because your kid's school has a full sex-ed curriculum don't think that he/she knows anything about sex!

I recently visited Charlottesville, VA. I plugged the address of a restaurant in the Historic District into my navigation system. As I got closer to my destination the nav system told me to take a left. Well, turns out the street I was to turn onto was actually a pedestrian mall. So, what did I do? Hey, what do you take me for, a "flip-flopper?" No way! I barrelled through those barriers, killed several pedestrians, and crashed my car into a shop across the mall destroying it and killing the owner. I am writing this from jail. Okay, not true. What I actually did was - changed my initial route, took a left further down and ultimately reached my destination. Deviated from my timetable but I got there.

I am reading Naomi Klein's book (The Shock Doctrine) now. It is billed as a "groundbreaking alternative history of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free-market economic revolution."

This book is not "groundbreaking" and it is not particularly "alternative". The facts of what happened in Chile, Indonesia, Argentina, etc should be well known to any educated person. And there were no "free-market economic revolution[s]" in any of these countries. For example, under Pinochet there was neither freedom nor "free-markets." Rather, in Chile, government functions were "privatized" and put into the hands of a few influential, powerful and wealthy people and the economic interests of these people were protected by the Pinochet regime's use of force, terror and coercion. Its called fascism and it is hardly revolutionary. Claiming that Chile was a free-market economy under Pinochet is just plain wrong. I will reserve judgment as to the value of Ms. Klein's book until I have finished it. But given that she makes the mistake of calling Chile's or Indonesia's or China's economies "free-market" economies, I am not sure that her book will add anything to the discussion of the problems and pitfalls of free-market capitalism.

There is human behavior. There is human nature. That is it. Differences between individual human beings are far greater than differences between female and male human beings. Let's finally get our heads around that.