When my children were younger and needed to be picked up after school or from summer camp, parents got maps with directional arrows and written instructions. The unspoken message was clear: Don't start no mess in car line, won't be no mess in car line. That's not what happened earlier this week in New Orleans, La., at the Treme Community Center. Parents in car line and the children waiting for them witnessed an off-duty New Orleans police officer gone mad.

Perhaps after the sexism in media coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign or the nasty attacks on Michelle Obama, my ears perked up more eagerly this morning at the BBC Radio interview of Cherie Blair, wife of Great Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair. She considers herself an advocate of women's rights and didn't realize until she became a member of the Bar in Great Britain that being a woman could hold her back.

I suppose it's newsworthy that a 70-year-old woman, Omkari Panwar of Muzaffarnagar, India, has given birth to twins. On the other hand, last year the story was that a 60-year-old woman from New Jersey gave birth to twins. We talked about that here at BlogHer, and so, we've had the "what is too old to bear children" debate already.

I went with my offspring last night to see the movie "Wanted" with James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, and Morgan Freeman. In it a young man is beaten repeatedly when he fails to give an acceptable response to the question "why are you here?"

I came home Monday afternoon to a strange house. A confused woman who does not know me had been wandering its rooms, but now sat quietly, staring into space. Another woman that I barely know busily cleaned one room, shaken by what she'd witnessed, and a little old man hobbled in the living room. In the back bedroom, a young giant slumbered in clutter, and the family cat did not peep from behind the kitchen's bay window curtains to see who'd come to visit. Neither did the family dog bark in the backyard as he usually does when anyone arrives.