Excuse me, I feel a rant coming on

I got into tug-of-war of words on Facebook. It did not escalate into an all out flame war, but that might be because I left the conversation before it got to that point. I do not normally have conflicts online. I learned a long time ago that arguing online is often frustrating and many times fruitless because rarely are any minds changed. So how did I get dragged into this and why am I still kind of upset about it? It started with a link to this article. For those of you like me who are generally too lazy to follow links, here’s a brief synopsis:

Man and woman date. Woman moves abroad. Man and woman have a long-distance relationship. Woman has second thoughts and tries to break up with man gently. Man sees pictures of woman and her new boyfriend on Facebook. Man goes to woman’s house and stabs her to death.

Awful ain’t it? It pissed me off like so many other similar stories do because it’s yet another example of how women are not safe in this world. What really riled me up though, was that someone made comments along the lines of how a lack of common courtesy on the part of the victim is what led to her murder. The same commenter did however point out that murder is bad, mmkay. Gee, thanks for that nugget of wisdom.

Banana? Nah!

“So is he eating real food yet?”

This is the question du jour (along with the oldies but goodies: “Is he sleeping through the night yet?” and “Is he a good baby?”).

The answer to that question could be, “Well, duh, breastmilk is real food!” complete with an eye-roll and an absolutely snotty, irritated tone of voice.

Or, perhaps I should say, “No, we’re letting him eat Play-Doh for a bit.”

But that’s not how I respond because what these well-meaning individuals usually mean is, “Has Baby E started solid food yet?” The answer to that is kinda yes but mostly not really.

HIV is a Women’s Issue

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m big on making posts about HIV/AIDS. Not only because it’s been the center of my professional life for a good many years but also because it’s a topic I am passionate about. You see, we live in a society that thinks AIDS is obsolete. We think it’s nothing to worry about anymore because 1) we have life-saving drugs, 2) it’s mostly an African problem.

AIDS is not obsolete.