trying to grok

BABY BOOM

There was something in the water in our neighborhood nine months ago...
Baby #1
Baby #2
Baby #3
And unfortunately we'll be moving before I get to meet Baby #4.

You all are amazing. A dog is too much work for me.

FINALLY

We've got orders and plane tickets. We move in 34 days...

BLOG WORLD

One of my friends is thinking of starting a blog. This friend is quite shy and introverted, so we were talking about the pros and cons of blogging. She doesn't know if she wants to be anonymous or open, if she wants a family-centered blog or one where she talks about deeper stuff. And she's very concerned about who might read her blog. Because you never know.

I told her that sometimes you'd be surprised who reads your stuff: your first grade teacher, your husband's old commander, or your parents' next door neighbor (yikes to all of those). And I told her that even if she has an anonymous blog, someone might still find her: both a friend from high school and our local lawyer recognized me.

The funny thing about blogging is that even if you never say who you are, strangers will read about the best and worst days of your life. I've been enjoying reading knitting blogs lately, and I've been privy to some very personal stories. I gasped when the Etherknitter's husband's tibia popped through his leg. I choked up when Debi gave Augie his sweater. My heart leapt back on the train with Squeeky's mom. And I cried with Jeanie when her son lost his best friend. I don't know these people from Adam, but I am in on their lives. I am thinking about them. I am cheering on their intarsia. And for moments, when I am engrossed in a particular post, I feel like I am a friend.

For all the headaches and heartaches, blogging has been very rewarding for me. I never would've known Bunker if it hadn't been for blogging. I never would've gotten an email from Ben Stein or gotten published in a book without blogging. And I never would've found so many people who cheer me on.

So even though I think about quitting every single day, I'm still here.

NOT NOW

Now is not the time to get sick.

My husband was promised that his orders would be ready today. And not a moment too soon, since we're leaving in about four weeks. That means there's a ton to get done, and since I'm scheduled to work tomorrow and Thursday is Sergeant's Time, everything needs to get done today: final out, household goods, plane tickets, etc.

And I feel like I've been run over by a truck.

UPDATE:

I guess it doesn't matter anyhow, since the husband didn't get orders today anyway. I normally try not to complain, but they've been telling him every day for two weeks now that his orders will be done "tomorrow." It's getting a bit frustrating.

SCIENCE

My favorite episode of From the Earth to the Moon is "Spider", in which engineers build the LM. How do you design something to go somewhere we've never been and do things that have never been done before? These engineers had to tackle issues we never have to think about here on earth. And it seems scientists are working on these issues again as they prepare to go back to the moon as a stepping stone to Mars.

Once planners choose a base, the astronauts will immediately need to bring a host of technologies to bear, none of which currently exist. "Power is a big challenge," Toups said. Solar arrays are an obvious answer, but away from the poles 14 days of lunar sunlight are followed by 14 days of darkness, so "how do you handle the dormancy periods?"

Next is the spacesuit. Apollo suits weighed 270 pounds on Earth, a relatively comfortable "felt weight" of 40 to 50 pounds on the moon, but an unacceptable 102 pounds on Mars. "You can't haul that around, bend down or climb hills," Lee said. "Somehow we have to cut the mass of the current spacesuit in half."

And the new suit, unlike the Apollo suits or the current 300-pound shuttle suit, is going to have to be relatively easy to put on and take off, and to be able withstand the dreaded moon dust.

After three days, Apollo astronauts reported that the dust was causing the joints in their suits to jam, "and we're not talking about three outings," Lee said of the next moon missions. "We're talking about once a week for 500 days -- between 70 and 100 spacewalks."

Dealing with dust is also a major concern in building shelters on the lunar surface. Toups said it might be possible to harden the ground by microwaving it, creating a crust "like a tarp when you're camping." Otherwise, the dust pervades everything, and prolonged exposure could even lead to silicosis.

Dust also makes it virtually impossible to use any kind of machinery with ball bearings. Civil engineer Darryl J. Calkins, of the Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, warned that the combination of dust, low gravity, temperature swings and the high cost of flying things to the moon is going to define the lunar tool kit in unforeseen ways.

"You can't put a diesel up there; you can't put a 20,000-pound bulldozer up there; and none of our oils or hydraulic fluids are going to survive," Calkins said in a telephone interview. "We may have to go back to the 19th century to find appropriate tools -- use cables, pulleys, levers."

And even then, it will be difficult to level a base site and haul away the fill because there's not enough gravity to give a tractor adequate purchase. Instead, Calkins envisions a device that can "scrape and shave" small amounts of soil and take it away bit by bit.

But in the end, "you have to learn how to do it, with real people," McKay said. "This is hard, but we can learn it. And if we do it right on the moon, we will be able to answer my ultimate question: Can Mars be habitable? I think the answer is 'yes.' "

I love that first sentence: "bring a host of technologies to bear, none of which currently exist." It reminds me of Michael Crichton's insight on the horse:

Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was.

I can't wait to see what these scientists come up with.

SURELY YOU MUST BE JOKING

I couldn't help but guffaw when my husband pointed out the funniest quote from France's labor riots:

You'll get a job knowing that you've got to do every single thing they ask you to do because otherwise you may get sacked.

Heaven forbid you have to do what your boss tells you to do.

PUPDATE

The Girl sent me this link with Charlie in mind: Game of fetch turns ugly
I don't know if Charlie could swallow a whole stick, but he appears to be working himself up to the challenge: two days ago he threw up a couple of pieces of tree bark.

In other Charlie news, he's gotten too smart for this house. Our kitchen pantry has a flimsy folding door, and Charlie has taught himself to open it and feast on the garbage. He bites the wooden slats and pulls! So now we have to have something constantly blocking the door, which makes my life annoying because I have to move a gigantic space heater every time I need to get food or throw something away.

I took some photos of the husband and the pup wrestling on Ace Ventura night. This one turned out hilarious:

Stay tuned for photos of Charlie's birthday party in April; he's inviting six of his closest friends over for cake...

FOCUS

I just had a long talk with Erin about how pessimistic and depressed I've been feeling lately. I can't read LGF without wanting to cry. My stomach is still in knots about Iran. And I just watched Season 2 of 24, which is reason enough to want to crawl in a hole. I'm losing it. And then I remembered Smink's advice:

First, go buy a six pack and swig it all down.
Then, watch “Ace Ventura.”
And after that, buy a Hard Rock Café shirt and come talk to me.
You really need to lighten up, man.

I don't have a Hard Rock shirt, but maybe my "I saw the Pope -- Des Moines 1979" shirt will work? And we certainly have beer and Ace Ventura. That's what my husband and I will do tonight, because I sure need a way to relax.

I also found that my spirits were lifted reading the Tanker Brothers blog today. I realized that I want to focus on reading MilBlogs for a while; soldiers always make me feel rejuvinated.

OPTIMISM, ANYONE?

I saw some show yesterday with some newswoman talking about the anniversary of OIF I (honestly, I can never be bothered to keep the shows or the people straight). At the very end of the segment, she said something in closing about the toll of the war blah blah and something like "in a war whose outcome is far from certain." What a defeatist way of ending the show. I'd like to think my country isn't interested in getting into wars we're not sure we're going to win. And I'd like to think that three years in we're still committed to winning instead of being "far from certain." I wish she had ended the program by saying that the road may be hard but the US is not ready to give up. How different everyone's view of this war would be if newspeople threw a dash of optimism into their reporting.

LGF got an email about casualty statistics that's really something to ponder. Anyone who has a loved one in the fight should read it. It also brings up the same thing that I said while my husband was gone: a soldier's job is to soldier. These are things we should all keep in mind as we settle into OIF IV.

UPDATE

I just talked to my Swedish friend, and somehow something came up about a unit leaving for Iraq. She asked if we were still sending soldiers to Iraq, you know, since the bombing started this week.

Oh lord.

When I flipped out about the media's misrepresentation of the air assault, I honestly didn't even think about the repercussions for the global media. I didn't stop to think that the German media might be telling Germans that the US started bombing. What a mess they've caused.

NICE

We went to Prague today.

Golly, I just love Europe.

MORE TO GROK:

Pertinent link: 17% of Americans view the US negatively

Anyway, I was just being snarky with my photo. However, I will say that my husband and I are two of the stingiest people you'll ever meet, which is part of the reason we hardly ever travel. So it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth when we spend money to go to another country and have to see crap like this. We also went to the Museum of Communism, and while we were happy to see them tell communism like it is, I was extremely disheartened to see that some of the stuff in the gift shop made fun of the US and George Bush. This just doesn't seem very appropriate to me, nor did the other poster that said something like "Remember when the US stood for freedom?" I don't see why that kind of "joke" has a place in the Museum of Communism.

WHAT?

Sweet merciful crap.

Right now on MSNBC on TV, they're announcing that the US has launched the biggest "air strike" in Iraq since 2003. This would be news if it were true, but what is really going on is an air assault, which is nothing like an air strike. An air strike is planes dropping bombs; an air assault is helicopters dropping troops onto the ground so they can kick down doors. Big whopping difference, news folks. Maybe you should get your damn terminology straight before you start blabbing your mouths.

As of right now, the MSNBC homepage has this graphic:

Which leads to this article: U.S. launches largest Iraq air assault in 3 years
Correct information in the article, which the military spoonfed them; incorrect information in their flashy photo.

Oh media, how I roll my eyes at you.

This is not just a nitpicky difference. The two words are completely not interchangable. Why didn't someone correct the anchorwoman, who repeated "air strike" several times? Oh, that's right, because no one at MSNBC has the first clue about the military.

KNITTING UPDATE

I haven't had any knitting content on the blog lately because everything I was making was a secret. But now the baby knitting is over and I'm just trying to pass the time until we move. I can't start anything big, so I've just been working to keep my hands busy. In the past two weeks, I've made two pairs of socks, a scarf, and a cozy for our portable DVD player.

The scarf sprung from a challenge from The Girl. The husband and I went to see King Kong over the weekend, and I knew that I didn't want to sit for three hours without knitting. So I told The Girl I was going to try out my Blind Knitting in the darkness of a movie theater for the first time. I realized that knitting in the dark is a bit different from knitting in the light. Even though I normally watch TV while knitting -- and I can even watch subtitled flicks -- I can still sneak peeks at my work. But there were no peeks in the movie theater. I found it takes more touch to knit in the dark; I had to put my finger on every stitch in order to knit it. And I was only brave enough for garter stitch! The process was much slower, but I think in time I'll get better. Now I just have to decide if I want to take knitting to see Superman Returns or X-Men: The Last Stand. I had trouble concentrating on that scarf when King Kong was fighting three t-rexes, so I'm not sure I'll be able to concentrate at all during two movies that will be the highlight of our summer! But maybe I can perfect my Blind Knitting before Spiderman 3...

BURN IN HELL, SLOBODAN

It's a coincidence that I made a cake yesterday, but maybe it's not too late to add Milosevic's name to it so he can have the same "honor" as Arafat and Saddam. "Suck it, Slobodan" has a nice ring to it too...

WISTFUL

I just had a wistful moment at my new job. We recycle old used folders when a new client comes in, and today the folder that was on top to use was Heidi Sims'. It was sad for me to stick a new label on that folder. But at least I'm excited that Heidi will be visiting next week! I can't wait to spend some time with her now that I've gotten to know her better.

FIRST THING THAT POPPED INTO MY HEAD

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise—you know!

Earth heard a rumor that there's water on Enceladus...

ALL THAT BEAUTIFUL FUR...

After the Incident, I knew we had to get a professional involved. Charlie's hair has been steadily getting more tangled. I handed over one big mess of hair to the dog groomer today...

and this is what they handed me back...

He doesn't even look like the same dog! But I'm sure this hair situation, although a bit chilly for our snow, will be much better for summer in South Carolina.

COOL

Colby Buzzell has another article out in the March issue of Esquire. Personally, Buzzell is a bit too existentialist for my taste, but this article features our friend LT A who was injured in Mosul. I can't believe LT A remembers pushing his own intestines back into his stomach...

MILESTONE?

I suppose today is a milestone of sorts, though I don't really know how exactly it should be celebrated. My husband returned from Iraq one year ago today. I feel blessed that I've had him for 12 consecutive months without another deployment on the horizon; that's something to cherish in today's military. And that's all I have to say about that.

SNIFF

This article will give you a lump in your throat. Heck, I got misty-eyed just reading the title: At his 80th birthday party, Holocaust survivor meets soldier who liberated him

DEFEATED

I get discouraged often. The other night, my husband comforted me as I defeatedly moaned about demographics and jihad. I fear Iran's nukes. I fear the birthrate. I fear what will happen if we don't put our foot down and say, "It's just a cartoon, dammit." I did mention to my husband that I feel awful pessimistic about the future of the world, so I pity those who honestly believe we live in Bushitler's Oil Junta; they must fret a lot more than I do. My moaning has got nothin' on these people.

When I get discouraged about the future, I just remind myself that we live in the last second of December 31st. There's so much more to come...

FUTURE

Several people have asked what's next for our family. We should PCS back to the US in about two months. We'll enjoy some hard-earned vacation time in the Midwest before we drive out to South Carolina for my husband's career course.

However, the finance career course might all be for naught, since my husband has answered the call for Civil Affairs officers. The active Army currently only provides 4% of CA soldiers, with the reserves pulling the majority of the weight. However, with changing needs of the Army, there has been a call for officers to volunteer to change their functional area to Civil Affairs. My husband has submitted his packet, so we should find out this summer if he's been accepted.

We've told very few people about his decision, and the ones we have told typically reply with "Wow, you two must like being apart." My husband hopes to be selected for either Arabic or Farsi training, which of course will mean that he'll be more valuable in the Middle East than in garrison. But it's what he really wants to do, and I couldn't be prouder. If someone has to be a Civil Affairs officer, I'd rather have the most capable person I know on the front lines.

So keep your fingers crossed that he gets selected for an exciting and important duty. And I'll keep my fingers crossed that he doesn't spend the remaining 16 years of his career away from home!

PATRIOTISM

Pericles asked a question that I thought about a lot last night and that I'd like to answer as honestly as I can.

What I'm not sure that you recognize, at least not consistently, is that people who disagree vehemently with you can still love their country passionately. I question the intelligence and competence of Bush and his ilk, but I have never questioned their patriotism. I completely disagree with their vision about what is best for America, but I don't doubt that they are motivated by a concern for doing what is best. Based on my observations, you don't always give the people with whom you disagree that same kind of credit. Am I wrong?

I do in fact think you are wrong. I don't doubt either that John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Ralph Nader think that their plan of action is the best choice for America. You make it sound like I believe they're all in some dark room musing, "How can we make the US worse?" I think that Hillary Clinton honestly believes that her plans for health care, education, or business are in our country's best interest. But do I want to live anywhere near Hillary Clinton's version of America? Heck no.

There's a big difference between questioning someone's patriotism and questioning their credentials. You question Bush's intelligence, which is your prerogative, and I question the intelligence of others as well. Back to George Clooney as always, my beef is not with his patriotism but his knowledge. Why is a college dropout who played a doctor on TV someone we go to when we want political commentary? I have a hard time believing that Clooney spends nearly the time I do online reading various news sources, so why does anyone care what he thinks? I asked a Lefty about this once recently, and she said, "Gosh, I never thought about it because I just agree with what he says." Questioning his expertise is not the same thing as questioning his patriotism.

I think the "don't question my patriotism" phrase is overused and most of the time is a red herring. It's like calling someone a racist for opposing affirmative action: it's the easy zinger that often has nothing to do with the argument. However, I tried to think about it a lot last night, and I realized that it depends a lot on how you define patriotism.

Do you define patriotism as simply love for your country? Do you define it as the thought that your country is better than others? Do you define it as putting your country ahead of yourself? Do you define it as being willing to sacrifice for your country? What's the definition? Because I know a lot of people who don't have any of these feelings for the US.

I don't know many people like you, Pericles. I feel I've sort of gotten to know you through your comments, and I basically get the impression that you love an ideal version of the US that's neither represented by the Republicans nor the Democrats. Please correct me if my assessment is wrong, but that's what I have gleaned. But most of the people I've come in contact with are nothing like you. I was a French and International Studies major and I got an MA in ESL. I was constantly surrounded by people who jumped at the chance to be anywhere but the USA. My colleagues consistently thought that France/China/Fill-In-The-Blank was better than the US. When they travelled, they were ashamed to admit they were Americans. They graduated and many looked for ways to leave the US and find something better. They thought the grass would be greener anywhere but the USA.

So do I question their patriotism? I do. They don't have any deep feelings for their own country. And any feelings they might have include shame and guilt. Is shame for your country patriotism? They don't have a deep love for America that transcends their hate for Bush. They just don't want to be in the US, period. I'm sorry if I'm a bad person for refusing to see them as patriots. I'm sorry that the internet is filled with stories of yahoos who hate our flag and our country. Yes, I question these people's patriotism, and none of them are Republicans. That doesn't mean that I automatically question every non-Repub's patriotism, but I can't help but notice the consistent trend.

I respect people who love our country even if "Bush and his ilk" don't fit the bill, but like I said I simply don't know many people like this. If Hillary Clinton were elected president, the US would move further away from what I consider the ideal, but you can bet I'd still wear my US flag pins and leave the big USA country code sticker on the bumper of our car. Because I love my country no matter who's at the wheel and I still think she's the best country in the world.

CONTEXT

Why is it always the West's fault for not understanding Islam? Why is Islam itself never to blame? A Muslim college student wrote:

It does not come as a surprise to me that so many “unbiased” Western news sources carry extremely resentful outlooks regarding Islam.
There is a lack of distinction between orthodox Islamic values and the actions of a minority of Muslims. Western media outlets frequently present a correlation between these two classifications and often interpret Islam out of context. Unfortunately when it comes to reporting Islam, a lack of understanding, quoting sources out of context, and ethnocentric viewpoints seem to be trademarks.

And then in this debate, another Muslim suggested that in order to reform Islam,

we'll have to have a lot of help from rational Muslim minds around the world who buy into the argument that we--you, me, George Bush and Don Rumsfeld (i.e., all of us as Americans)--are not out to get them. ... We could enjoin Western scholars in that process and have them talk through external perception problems with what Islam proposes.
...
If we had an American Muslim FBI director, or the deputy Defense secretary was a Muslim by faith, or one day we had an American Muslim secretary of State, these officeholders would do a world of good by setting an example of how secularism, tolerance and belief can coexist, much the same way Condi Rice and Colin Powell did for black people everywhere in diffusing race as a factor in service to our country.

So the solution to the problem of Islam is that all we Western white folks have to coddle Muslims for decades and have some sort of new affirmative action that gets Muslims into positions of power so that they don't believe we all think they're evil? Give me a break. (It hasn't even worked that well for black people, since many of them hate Rice and Powell anyway.)

When the big news stories broke about Catholic priests molesting children, no Catholic said, "Well, it's not my priest who did that, it's some other priest who misinterpreted scripture." Catholics everywhere were outraged. Why aren't Muslims everywhere outraged? Why is it so easy for them to say "Well, I lead a good life, so it's not my fault if other Muslims misinterpret scripture."

The solution to Islam's problems is not a Muslim Condi Rice. Lord help us if we have to wait that long. The solution is for individual Muslims to be as outraged as individual Catholics were. Mansoor Ijaz says that he has never believed Allah wants him to kill Jews, but unfortunately many Muslims do believe just that. And they outnumber Ijaz. It's not my job as a white Westerner to make sure that Muslims don't feel offended; it's their job to make sure their religion doesn't offend. (And the solution is definitely not just to have Muslim editors making sure nothing in the newspaper offends Muslims. Good lord.)

The common complaint is that Islam is taken out of context. Please tell me what the correct context is then, because I don't know of any other way to interpret "We will wipe Israel off the map."

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

The problem here, Mr Silly, is that you put yourself on a pedestal that I simply don't put myself on. I have never claimed to be intelligent or all-knowing. I don't think I'm very smart at all, which is the whole reason I named my blog what I did. If I already had all the answers, I wouldn't be trying to grok. I really meant my post to be a question: why aren't these Saddam tapes important? If someone has a real answer to that question, I'm willing to listen to it and learn from it. But your condescension is completely unwarranted. All is does is turn me off and make me skip over your comments. If you really have something to add to the conversation, or something you think I can learn from Your Almighty And Infinite Wisdom, then stop writing like a complete douche. I don't care about your List Of People Who Are Smarter Than Sarah. What does memorizing Homer have to do with understanding foreign relations and WMDs? I can play that game too: I can speak Swedish, which obviously makes me much more intelligent in all realms than Mr Silly, who can't speak Swedish. And you say I have faulty reasoning? I'm sorry, but all the degrees in classics in the world don't make you an expert on Iraq, any more than I am an expert! So if you have an argument to lay out *pertaining to the blog post at hand* please present it in a respectful way. Otherwise, you've done nothing to build up my intelligence or illuminate other points of view. All your present attitude does is make me roll my eyes and ignore your comments.

Jesus Tapdancing Christ, I still can't believe you gave me a lecture on how "we educated people" use something called the scientific method blah blah blah. Get over yourself.

UN

Mark Steyn is preaching to the choir for me; his assessment of the UN's ineptitude is spot on:

Transnational institutions should reflect points of agreement: Americans don’t mind the Toronto Blue Jays playing in the same baseball league—and even winning it occasionally—because they’re all agreed on the rules of baseball. A joint North American Public Health Commission, on the other hand, would be a bureaucratic boondoggle seeking to reconcile two incompatible health systems. Imagine then what happens when you put America, Denmark, Libya and Syria on a human rights committee, and then try and explain why the verdict of such a committee should be given any weight when the U.S. is weighing its vital national interest.

It's long but it's worth it.

MOVING

My husband's report date for the next big adventure is in exactly three months. That means that our aval date should be in two months. We're leaving Germany in two months. We don't have orders yet, so the only thing I'm working on regarding the move is panic. If I sit and think about it for too long, I start to feel like I'm going to throw up.

But I could never have written a better blog post about moving than Erin did.

(And I don't know how she and Kelly get away with making fun of me all the time: they're both just as neurotic as I am!)

TAPES

Why isn't this as big of news as Cheney's hunting accident?

Inconveniently for critics of the war, Saddam made tapes in his version of the Oval Office. These tapes landed in the hands of American intelligence and were recently aired publicly.

The first 12 hours of the tapes — there are hundreds more waiting to be translated — are damning, to say the least. They show conclusively that Bush didn't lie when he cited Saddam's WMD plans as one of the big reasons for taking the dictator out.

...

War foes have long asserted that Saddam halted his WMD programs in the wake of his defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991. Saddam's abandonment of WMD programs was confirmed by subsequent U.N. inspections.

Again, not true. In a tape dating to April 1995, Saddam and several aides discuss the fact that U.N. inspectors had found traces of Iraq's biological weapons program. On the tape, Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law, is heard gloating about fooling the inspectors.

"We did not reveal all that we have," he says. "Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct."

There's more. Indeed, as late as 2000, Saddam can be heard in his office talking with Iraqi scientists about his ongoing plans to build a nuclear device. At one point, he discusses Iraq's plasma uranium program — something that was missed entirely by U.N. weapons inspectors combing Iraq for WMD.

Why in the heck is it reported like this on Investor's Business Daily but reported completely differently on CNN? On CNN, the lead paragraph in bold is all about how "Hussein told his Cabinet in the mid-1990s that the U.S. would fall victim to terrorists possessing weapons of mass destruction but that Iraq would not be involved." And then in smaller font in paragraph two, it reads "Hussein also can be heard speaking with high-ranking Iraqi officials about deceiving United Nations inspectors looking into Iraq's weapons program." Why is CNN focusing on nothing and ignoring that Saddam tricked the UN, as the US suspected when we went to war? Everyone knew that Hans Blix was a impotent doofus, and this proves it. So why isn't it bigger news?

Apparently it's much bigger news that there's some tape of what Bush knew about Katrina, because that's what's on all the headlines right now.

I know these tapes came out two weeks ago, but why isn't anyone talking about them?

JUST WOW

Back when I was in college, I was naive. I thought that people in the US liked the US. I learned the error of my thinking after 9/11, when I forwarded Gordon Sinclair's 1973 broadcast to my fellow students and professors. The email backlash shocked my naive self, as students rushed to label me jingoistic and insensitive. One professor pulled me into his office the next day and offered me some wisdom I've never forgotten: "The last place it's OK to be American is in an American university."

I was reminded of that today when I read that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, is currently a student at Yale. I have many of the same questions as Varifrank, such as "Are there any students at Yale whose mother or father died on 9/11? Any children of NYC fireman at Yale? Any non-Taliban Afghani refugees in Yale? Any of them women?" Mostly I just want to know who had the brilliant idea to invite this jackass to the United States and let "an ex-Taliban envoy with a fourth-grade education and a high-school equivalency" into one of our most lauded universities for the sake of diversity and oneupsmanship.

Why are our universities so durned un-American?