America is the land of the free. A place where your dreams will come true if you put your mind to it. A place where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights. Freedom of expression is a hallmark of this great nation, with individual choice being something people pride themselves in here.

Today was a girl’s day out. It is like a weekly ritual among my friends. We go out for movie or lunch or just some window shopping. The main motive is to spend some quality time together. I had college today, so we attended two classes and bunked the rest and went for a Bollywood movie called “Dostana”.

Last week I attended a lecture by the Jesuit priest peace activist Reverend John Dear. I hesitate to use the word "radical" to describe him, because the word is so often used pejoratively, but there is no other way for me to characterize him. If he hadn't been a member of the Catholic Jesuit order I would have brushed him off as a pot-smoking, guitar strumming hippie. He certainly has the credentials: 75 arrests, months spent behind bars, death threats... I suppose that's what happens when you walk into a military air base and start wailing on their fighter jets with a hammer (which he did, and that's only the tip of the iceberg).

You may have noticed that this blog is tagged "shared responsibility". A lot of my posts are tagged this way. What I'm going to do here is tell you a pretty short story about something that happened to me very recently, and you can decide for yourself if this tag is appropriate.

My little girl is very bright. As you may already know, she is 2 and a half. Thanks in part to school, and to Baby Einstein videos, she knows most of the animals, and the names of the planets.

Ethnological expositions, human zoos, and Negro villages were the few terms used to describe the public exhibits of human beings in natural setting and sometimes even in cages.

Here's a deal. I'll tell the story, you do the research and gather the statistics. I have been challenged to blog about what I care about. I care about a lot of things. First, I care about children. Next I care about humanity. Then mental illness/mental health.