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Sure, "Friday Night Lights" did get massive kudos last summer for its nuanced depiction of a Texas 10th-grader's decision to end a pregnancy. But that kind of thing basically hadn't happened since "Maude." Today, other than a handful of relatively tidy plot turns on "House," "Six Feet Under," "DeGrassi" and "South Park" (not to mention "Juno" and "Knocked Up," where "smashmortion" is ruled out in one or two perfunctory scenes) that's pretty much it. And, in fairness, that's all fiction.

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Why such confusion in the first place? Cahoon's series of videos, based on the advice in her book, "The Single Girls' Guide To Meeting European Men," are so hilariously perky yet wooden, so social-media-savvy yet dated, so mannered yet subtle, so "worldly" yet wide-eyed, that "parody" vs. "real" sides have been ferociously taken. (Video posted below.)

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Mr. and Mrs. Bird-Bee are actually "Neil and Karen," who are actually two very funny deadpan actors in giant goofy costumes. They're the stars of a series of five webisodes at the centerpiece of a new campaign designed to raise awareness about infertility, one that nails the experience so knowingly and wittily that it's getting big love from the infertility community -- which is especially notable considering that, in fact, it's coming from big pharma. Sponsored, subtly (no, really), by EMD Serono -- Massachusetts-based maker of fertility drugs used to stimulate ovulation -- the "Increase Your Chances" campaign encourages couples to visit a specialist if they hit that fertility wall, and, more broadly, aims to change the way infertility is talked, or, more to the point, whispered about, in our culture. (Part of the campaign involves sending bird- and bee-clad actors onto the streets of small cities -- two weeks ago, it was Austin -- to "get couples talking about fertility issues.") The Web spots also close with key facts about infertility: One in eight couples struggles with it; it's about equally likely that fertility issues will stem from the male as the female partner; 85 to 90 percent of fertility issues are treatable; infertility -- "just relax," my ass -- has no correlation with stress. While scattered dissenters find the humor trivializing, most bloggers and commenters became big fans on sight, sending the videos to each other and also (as one poster wrote) to "close (and fertile) friends who are trying to be supportive of me but who just don't quite understand what living with infertility is like."

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"Yes," the woman replies. "And also if it's a girl."

How might a doctor respond? Female genital mutilation (as a matter of health policy, "circumcision" is considered a misnomer) has been a federal crime since 1996, but we know it happens here, with an estimated 228,000 American girls having undergone or being at risk of the procedure. If the doctor doesn't do it -- or do something -- someone else probably will, either here or in Somalia, as untold numbers of girls are also sent to their home countries for the procedure. (This, too, may soon become a federal crime).

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Roeder had been convicted in January of first-degree murder for gunning Tiller down in his Wichita, Kan., church last May. The question remaining today was whether Roeder's mandatory life sentence would carry a minimum of 25 or 50 years before he would be eligible for parole. Prosecutors -- citing Roeder's longtime stalking of Tiller and assault of others in the aftermath of the shooting -- argued for the so-called hard 50. Determining that those aggravating factors were not outweighed by factors presented by Roeder and his counsel, the judge gave Roeder the maximum sentence.

Throwing the book at Roeder sends the clearest possible message that nothing -- not even his stated belief that his actions prevented the "murder" of millions more -- mitigates his crime.

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Yes, FGM is practiced -- or at least planned -- on U.S. soil, on girls in immigrant families who were born and/or raised here. Perhaps even among people you know: Not long ago, a concerned mother posted on my Brooklyn-area parenting list-serv that she believed an eight-year-old friend of her daughter's had undergone some form of the procedure in her home country in the Middle East (and appeared to be markedly traumatized). Archana Pyati, an asylum attorney for Sanctuary for Families in New York, has encountered dozens of FGM cases just in the past six months. "The majority of our African clients have been through it, and most often, they are fighting to protect their daughters," she says. (Older relatives with "seniority" often push for the procedure.) "It is our hope that by recognizing that FGM may be occurring under our noses we will become better able to respond to it, just as we would any other form of violence against children," she says.

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Thing is, that derision is not only about Park Slope, and it's not only about strollers, which have somehow become synecdoche for the perceived ills of indulgent parenting everywhere. And it's not only about "parenting," either. No, I am telling you, it's about mothers. (White mothers, generally, and usually urban ones -- if in part because they're out and about on sidewalks and subways, not cloistered in carpools and playrooms.) You know them, or at least their epithets: "Stroller moms," the "stroller mafia," the particularly objectionable "stroller Nazis" -- and while we're at it, the "helicopter moms" and "sanctimommies." Along with the area blogs, the New York Times got in on the Maclaren fun with a silly shark-bait story on the allegedly "palpable sense of anxiety" the recall had wrought on the "hyper-conscientious" Slope. Standard online comment: "If the typical 'Slope Mummy' was not so hell-bent to get to her pilates classes, yoga classes, or whole foods market to pick up her 'fair trade, organic food items,' perhaps she would not be so careless as to fold 'Johnny's finger tips' into the hinge mechanism and amputate them."

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Ann Moore, a senior researcher associate at the Guttmacher Institute, has conducted in-depth interviews with women in abortion clinics. When asked how they found out about the clinic, she told Broadsheet, some women responded that "they used to protest outside."

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What's happened, as Dionne Scott of the Center for Reproductive Rights explained it to Broadsheet today: The CRR, who filed suit against the law on behalf of two local women, requested a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prevent the law from going into effect as the wrangling went on. In response, a judge set a hearing for October 30 -- and then, for reasons unclear, recused herself from the case. The new judge, Twyla Mason Gray of the Oklahoma County District Court, ignoring the TRO request itself, granted the state's request for an extension on that hearing, moving it to December 4. Yes: this would allow the law to be in effect for a month before anyone could order it restrained. (Indeed, CRR attorney Jennifer Mondino called the move "very unusual.") So the CRR, no doubt delighted to have found something to do with all the time on its hands, filed a motion opposing that extension and saying, "Also, about that TRO?" Result, late this Monday: Judge Gray kept the December 4 date -- this just for the TRO hearing, mind you -- but did stay the law for now.

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The pageant's goal, as reported, was to bring attention to the plight of the country's homeless. But -- really? Contestants were required to give a talk about the importance of ending homelessness demonstrating their "will to get themselves out of a difficult situation." And, as pageant organizer Aline Duportail said, "It was about the contestants' inner strength and determination to get themselves out of their old life and on a new path."

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