Recommended: A Thousand Splendid Suns

This is a book about the fortunes of a poor girl in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, through the era of the Taliban and then after September 11.

I found nothing surprising in this book; I've often read similar accounts of the treatment of women and children in this country during this era and the present one. I imagine most people have, too.

What you might find interesting is the color and feeling this book gives to the culture. It's heroine, I suppose you could call her, suffers during the Soviets. She suffers during the Taliban. She suffers later after September 11. She suffers through peace; she suffers through war. In the end, she dies at the hands of the Taliban, one of those burka covered anonymous women walked out on the soccer field and beheaded.

But what I found interesting was that, just as the characters cry about how war has ruined their lives, it is war, in the end, that allows the heroine's adopted daughter to escape her fate, marry her love, and rise above her circumstances. And this, I suppose, is the truth about war. We hate war and we fear it, but war is sometimes the only way to wrench life from the hands of the diabolical.

All tuckered out

Redneck Pup

I'm a redneck puppy, ain't no high class dog.

Just a product of my raising, I say Hey Dog and Arf Arf!

(Now Pamela or Jeff could probably think of something actually clever for those lyrics!)

Butterfly

Little Dobro

Our puppy Dobro last week. He's bigger now, but this photo cracks me up. Talk about a little bit of nothing!

I am king of the bird feeder!

Shouldn't they have negotiated?

Why didn't Kerry and the rest of the peaceniks negotiate with the nutball student who was later tasered at the Kerry event?

Instead, they resort to physical confrontation.

Where's the love?

This would have been a great time for Kerry to demonstrate how peaceful negotiation solves all problems.

The great horseshoe pit caper

For the last three weeks, the men have been working (on and off) on a horseshoe pit. Its various stages have provided fun for all. Notice how our puppies and great-niece enjoyed jumping around in the horseshoe pit hole. (Please ignore the time stamp from the niece's new camera.)

But this weekend the freaking horseshoe pit was finished. Mark and Wendo dug big holes and put big iron stakes in them and them we all filled the holes with a ton and a half of pea gravel. This is despite of the opinion of the brother from Mississippi that pea gravel sucks for horseshoes. But there you are.
In the end, fun was had by all, even though all they could manage to catch on Sunday was a three legged horse which surrendered all the shoes he had for the game.

Happy Birthday to Dobro and Banger!

Our new puppies will be 7 weeks old tomorrow.

When last I wrote of my new pups, I believe I was writing about ONE new puppy. But circumstances dictated we take TWO puppies. So there you go.

We now have Dobro, left, who is brown and really looks like his Boxer father. We also have Banjo, aka Banger, right, who is black, big, and smart as heck.

They are really just so young right now... too young, really, to be away from their mother. But they are doing well, even so.

REMEMBER

A chilling remembrance and a most haunting article from Chas. Read at your own risk.

I kind of like Fred

I'd like to see Fred answer some questions. Love to see him debate Hillary and Obama.

I tend to think of Hillary as Evita. She's the smart wife of the washed up politician, willing to do anything to stay in power, including commit murder (which I think everyone agrees she has done), to satisfy her ambition. When it comes to policy, she hasn't always pandered to the lunatics, and you can see that in her Iraq policy (yes she has been a switch hitter there, but still...) But on the other hand, the liberals are changing their Iraq policy. Did you see Katie Couric in Iraq? Seems the libs think they are winning and they are in a mighty big hurry to say victory is around the corner.

Obama, on the other hand, is a pampered baby. Brought up on the privileges of racial preferences and shallow expectations, the only thing Obama has had to do is be black and handsome. In short, that's all he has done.

I don't know about Fred. After GWB, I'm hoping for someone who can speak (after all that's the most important part of the job and I'm sick of Bush's inarticulate ramblings). We'll see.

McCain and Giuliani really don't do it for me. McCain because, at heart, he is pandering to the liberals with his anti-free speech political legislation. And Giuliani I don't like because of his stand on abortion. You can't be catholic and be in favor of abortion and Guiliani tries to be both. I hate that more than abortion itself.

I'd like to see more of Mitt Romney and Fred.

KD holding Budtoo

This is Aunt KD holding the lovely and talented Budtoo. Budtoo, offspring of Mark's daughter's boyfriend's dog, has been tagged as our new dog. Soon as he knows how to eat on his own.

Budtoo is a combination of a really lovely and playful full blooded boxer and a really sweet lab/greyhound mix.

Shouldn't he be sent to a re-education camp?

From the Associated Press article by IOAN GRILLO -- A rare stab at balance

"Meteorologists agree that it is impossible to determine if any single hurricane is the result of climate change. But they differ on the key question of whether global warming is making hurricanes stronger.

Some scientists say that more intense hurricanes are forming because of human-caused increases of sea surface temperatures. Others say that newer technology such as satellites and other devices allow better storm strength measurements, and that accounts for the increase in detecting more powerful hurricanes."