today on the subway I saw a few weird things.

First, this morning I saw an older man who was reading Don Quixote, which is a book I am still working on and carry around in my backpack. But later this evening I saw a woman reading the same edition of donkey of day. This is somewhat odd because usually the only books I see people reading are trashy novels, religious books, self-help books, and anything by the idiot that wrote the da Vinci code.

second, I walked into the uptown A train, sat down, and immediately a young girl in the forwardmost part of the car broke into song and started doing her thing, kind of Beyoncé. Almost immediately, in the back of the car, an older man broke into song which he introduced as an old slave song from the 1800s. it looked like the man made a lot more money because I watched him walk the length of the car and a lot of people seem to give him some change while the girl didn't make it very far.

finally, one of the more depressing things I saw was a 250 pound mother of three smacking her kids around and yelling at them about how the one kid was a follower and did everything his brother did, and why was he being such a sheet. He needs to be a leader. The father was with the family as well, except he was doing Word search puzzles and not paying much attention. It made me think this woman was really not fit to be a mother. While it is obviously too extreme to suggest anything like eugenics, I really think parents should be ticketed by police when they either verbally or physically abuse their kids in public like that. It's a very touchy issue obviously, because who's to say how she should raise her children. But these kids were probably four or five years old, and can't possibly stand up for themselves. It's sad to think this is how a lot of kids are brought up. The other terrible thing I see more often than I'd like is when really young children are riding on the subway with their mother when it is really late at night, like three or 4 a.m.