Turning Thirteen!

Last Day of Childhood!
Originally uploaded by gehmflor.

What an amazing boy my oldest is! (Well, they're all amazing!) He has been through so much in his lifetime. One of these days maybe I'll have the courage to chronicle the jouney. It amazes me how children's personalities can be present before birth, and grow and mature, but still stay the same. How will that continue through his teen years? What struggles lie ahead? What triumphs await? A new book is opening: The Teenage Years Chapter One!

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(My second teenager.)

Ocean Blue

float art
Originally uploaded by gehmflor.

For some reason this float reminds me of how much I miss living near the ocean. Standing on the beach, looking out into the seemingly infinite horizon, digging for sand crabs, diving under the waves, decorating sandcastles with seaweed, standing on a pier watching a storm whip up the waves, the smell of salty air whipping through my hair....hmmm, I think I'm a bit homesick.

Driveway Moment

Wednesday I caught the second half of Fresh Air on NPR. Usually Terry Gross interviews musicians, actors, and such, but the authors that day really caught my attention. I just caught the very end of the interview with Scott Shane, and then heard most of the second half with Tera McKelvey. Absolutely, fascinating and horrible. I sat in the driveway for the last 10 minutes not wanting to miss the end, but there was no way I could turn it on inside where my kids could hear.

Fresh Air from WHYY
to Wednesday's
show · June 6, 2007

Interviews: Scott Shane
on U.S. Interrogation Techniques
Journalist Scott Shane writes for The New York Times about terrorism and the CIA's interrogation techniques. His article "Soviet-Style 'Torture' Becomes 'Interrogation'" describes how the United States has adopted interrogation techniques that it decried when they were used by the Soviet Union.

Interviews: McKelvey
Talks of Terror and Torture
Author Tara McKelvey interviewed former
prisoners from Abu Ghraib for her book Monstering: Inside America's Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War McKelvey is senior editor at The American Prospect and a research fellow at the NYU School of Law's Center on Law and Security.