Catching Up

I traveled to Savannah yesterday afternoon. Arrived back home around 8pm, with my laptop. It was a tiring trip, but well worth it - I now have a usable laptop - I mean, notebook. That's apparently the current lingo.

It's a Gateway, about the same footprint as my HP, but LOTS lighter in weight. I've been busy today (most of the students were testing) with installing software. I'll probably be doing that for the next few weeks - I really had a lot of utilities on the previous one.

This is a nice break tonight - tomorrow we have parent meetings, but don't have to go into work until 11am. I figure I'll head to Curves first thing in the am. For me, sleeping late means lolling around until 7:30.

There's not a lot of major interest going on right now. The election coverage, so far, seems to favor Democrats. I hear a lot of smug assumption that the Dems will be taking over Congress. It's possible. But, not sure.

In my experience (I've been voting for the last 35 years), calling the election too early is a mistake. It's sorta like the team heading in before that easy pop-up actually lands in the glove. You look like an idiot when it lands in the dirt.

Rather surprisingly, the Foley scandal isn't budging many people's minds. The Dems are slavering over the juicy details, but most Republicans and Independents are withholding judgement.

The war is foremost in everyone's mind - good news is sparse, and the enemy (what a quaint word) seems to be willing to throw everything but the kitchen sink into the battle. Especially when they can take out those big, bad women and children.

How brave.

I've come to the belief that many in the Muslim world just don't think like us - surprise, surprise. I first had that feeling a few years when some bizarre Japanese custom hit the headlines.

Both Japan and the Muslim world isolate themselves from influences outside of their xenophobic environment. As a result, they often have little in common, culturally, with the rest of the industrialized world.

In Western culture, to hide behind women and children is despicable, cowardly, and shameful.

In Muslim cultures, it's a dandy idea, and a swell way to keep the infidel from firing back.