Yes, the stamps really only have value inside the prison, where the inmates still have to rely on them heavily for contact with the outside world. People outside have much less limited access to things like email and cell phones, which have made stamps a very low-value item to anyone on the outside — and I think this…

What else you gonna eat with all that Spam?

This is either the greatest stealth gimmick account, or the most hilariously stupid comment-user-name synergy ever.

I'm all in favor of looking to the past for ideas about how we might be able to do things better, and I think a lot of women who want to give birth at home are reacting against all the drugs and gas and forceps and other stuff that went into hospital births in the mid- and even late-20th century. I can understand…

Sounds like some really ungrateful veterans!

"The torch-and-pitchfork crowd"

That's a like for "good example," not "woo-hoo! I'm lovin' it!"

Call the Midwife is one of the best shows I've ever seen, and while it's the most effective enunciation of some core feminist values (women working together, with or without men, in a supportive and nurturing environment that they make themselves), even they are rushing women to the hospital every other episode. …

That's the comment of the day for me! But you missed the registered mark on 'M'r'c'n FREEDOM!!!!!®

The emphasis was on the second word of the phrase "earning power." Poor men didn't have a whole lot of that, either.

I'm not sure that humans are the only animals to get a thrill out of being cruel. I can imagine the other great apes doing it. Cats certainly do it.

This is exactly why I'm constantly infuriated by all these novelty methods of having babies (birth at home by conscious, planned choice, for example, when there's a perfectly good hospital for that sort of thing, and the mother-to-be can certainly afford it).

Hey, it's rising here in the US, where we supposedly have the Greatest Health-Care System in the World­™! It's not at 20% for poor families yet, but we're getting there!

Very well said…except that I'd change the age in your second sentence to 5 instead of 18. Also, no one was special, because everyone was one of at least half a dozen kids. Parents had no effective birth control, obviously, but large numbers of kids were desirable for several reasons:

In and Out of the Planet of the Apes

I hate myself for laughing at this.

Eh, have the desperate humans in this movie or the next one get ahold of a nuke, explode it as a dirty bomb in Ape Capital City, and there you've got your mutants. Maybe mutant apes, too!

Liked especially for "chimp pimp." Now I totally need to see Caesar, or any chimp, really, dressed like Dolemite (especially in his aspect as the Human Tornado).

RE: the 1970s sequels (I assume you don't mind spoilers; but if I'm wrong:

I had to get an x-ray once and when the nurse put the lead apron on me, she said that was to protect me from too many gamma rays. I said, totally deadpan, "How am I supposed to get any superpowers then?" She was not amused.