One of the couples we hung out with a lot at ConFusion had two beautiful daughters. The kind of kids you just know are totally loved: affectionate, outgoing, well-mannered sweethearts who say things far cleverer than their years with fair frequency.

The younger girl, I'd guess about 3 years old, was a particularly fey thing. She was shier than her sister, spoke more quietly, and had a little cut on her cheek, which made her seem all the more ursine. But from the moment I met her, she wanted to talk and to touch the grown-ups around her. She put her head on my shoulder while we were all sitting in the lobby, played with my hair, poked and tickled my belly, bashfully pulled my midriff-baring shirt down since surely I was cold like that. In short, totally adorable and heart-melting...

And as we were saying our goodbyes, we all shared the last elevator of the con, and this wee thing looked up at me with enormous blue eyes and held out her little hand.

"I want to touch you again," she said.

"Ok, sweetie," I replied, and held her hand through twelve floors.

We hugged and waved and drove home, but that moment just completely arrested me. I've been thinking about it ever since. I want to touch you again. What an amazingly clear thing to say. What a nakedly human thing. I am terribly impressed with such a small child's ability to state so clearly what she wants--in my family the more common tactic was just to misbehave until someone starting paying attention to you. To be able , fearlessly, unabashedly, to ask for human contact, monkey contact, little monkey to big monkey. I would never have been able to do that as a child

The parents who objected to their children being inoculated are among a small but growing number of vaccine skeptics in California and other states who take advantage of exemptions to laws requiring vaccinations for school-age children.

The exemptions have been growing since the early 1990s at a rate that many epidemiologists, public health officials and physicians find disturbing.

...

Every state allows medical exemptions, and most permit exemptions based on religious practices. But an increasing number of the vaccine skeptics belong to a different group — those who object to the inoculations because of their personal beliefs, often related to an unproven notion that vaccines are linked to autism and other disorders.

• They are wealthy and educated people who either presume they know more than health professionals (The "Arrogant Toolbag") or
• They understand perfectly well and are leeching health off others (The Craven Opportunistic Toolbag) or
  
• They are both Arrogant AND Craven, Opportunistic Toolbags.

Reflecting on his life thus far, John had no regrets.

Then, he realized he was out of bullets.

Alright, make that one regret.