DADWAGON

Um, so first we get Indonesia’s smoking toddler. Now comes a father in Wuhan, China, who tried to auction off his son on a street corner:

He put up a table with a sign on it, giving the youngster’s name and age and boasting of his capacity for hard work.

But when bidders began to ask how much the boy ate, angry bystanders attacked the father.

Police now have the lad in care in Wuhan, central China.

Both stories come from a dubious source—the Sun—and they leave me asking many questions. Like, what is an 8-year-old worth in, say, dumplings? At this point, shouldn’t the Chinese child market be more sophisticated than simply chaining kids to lampposts? Come on, China, it’s the 21st century: You should have a whole national eBay-like Web system set up to buy, sell and trade unwanted crotchspawn. You don’t want to be thought of as backward, do you?