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Been quite a year.
I'll tell you what, I'm glad to see that Saddam finally met his end. As some of you already know, I served with the Marine Corps in the 1990-91 campaign and I was sorry we didn't get rid of the son of a bitch then. Well, now he's gone. For those who want to know more, there's information on atrocities in Ba'athist Iraq here and information on Saddam Hussein here.
Thursday night I had drinks with Michael. He just got back from his latest trip to Beirut, where he spent three and a half weeks this time. (Last time he was there for six months.) He said Nasrallah's Hezbollah had come extremely close - much closer than the media report - to toppling the Seniora government. In Lebanon, he says, there's a saying: "No victors, no vanquished." I guess that was the principle that kept Nasrallah from stepping over that last line.
Closer to home, my trip back to Connecticut was an incredibly healing and vitalizing experience. Saw a lot of old friends at the high school reunion, and renewed ties with some relatives in northeastern Connecticut. Two weeks in the boondocks of New England was a welcome change from my little apartment in downtown Portland.
The day after Thanksgiving, I got an e-mail from an old girlfriend of my sister's, from back in high school, who's now living in the Bay Area. I'd contacted her more than a year ago but never really expected to hear back from her. So now, out of the blue, she gets in touch and we really hit it off. I'm hoping to get together with her when I go down to visit California in January.
But I just spoke with her on the phone, and she's in the hospital.
More under a friends cut.
I'll tell you what, I'm glad to see that Saddam finally met his end. As some of you already know, I served with the Marine Corps in the 1990-91 campaign and I was sorry we didn't get rid of the son of a bitch then. Well, now he's gone. For those who want to know more, there's information on atrocities in Ba'athist Iraq here and information on Saddam Hussein here.
Thursday night I had drinks with Michael. He just got back from his latest trip to Beirut, where he spent three and a half weeks this time. (Last time he was there for six months.) He said Nasrallah's Hezbollah had come extremely close - much closer than the media report - to toppling the Seniora government. In Lebanon, he says, there's a saying: "No victors, no vanquished." I guess that was the principle that kept Nasrallah from stepping over that last line.
Closer to home, my trip back to Connecticut was an incredibly healing and vitalizing experience. Saw a lot of old friends at the high school reunion, and renewed ties with some relatives in northeastern Connecticut. Two weeks in the boondocks of New England was a welcome change from my little apartment in downtown Portland.
The day after Thanksgiving, I got an e-mail from an old girlfriend of my sister's, from back in high school, who's now living in the Bay Area. I'd contacted her more than a year ago but never really expected to hear back from her. So now, out of the blue, she gets in touch and we really hit it off. I'm hoping to get together with her when I go down to visit California in January.
But I just spoke with her on the phone, and she's in the hospital.
More under a friends cut.
