Everybody's complaining---after the fact...that we didn't have armed Marines guarding the Babylonian museum at Bagdad. I know at least one archeologist, a professor at a local university, who can't look at such pictures without it making him want to cry...

And yes, it was an oversight. But, science geek though I am, I don't think it was criminal stupidity, just a case of bad planning. And no one, it seems, is blaming the thieves...whom, it seems, had keys to the museum...which to me would argue we only have a relatively few people to look at. I'm sure the FBI guys, flown out there, are looking at the museum curator very carefully right now...

Offer a huge reward for the artifacts' returns (where could you sell them, and it not be immediately evident that you were dealing in stolen goods? It's like trying to unload the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo...) and amnesty for anyone who voluntarily returns them, and hope they had sense enough to treat the artifacts gingerly....

Remember I have mentioned that Brian, the one talking, nonautistic son I've ever had, talks for all three sons I've had, and then some? I have also mentioned that he breaks into snatches of song without any reason. Others have noted that also....

He wrote down a list of his nicknames...

One of them was "Radio".

"Why did they call you Radio...nevermind."

Some questions are too self-evident to be finished.

Sometimes I will recognize the song he's singing. Sometimes I have to ask, "Who did that?" He's got a fairly good singing voice, good enough where I can usually recognize the song...

One car needs to be fixed, having a busted water pump--- and the other has a short in its wiring that effects the radio. It runs fine otherwise, so that's what we're using right now. So when Brian's with us, he's the radio...albeit a really random one. He'll sing snatches of song and then do a totally different song.

It's like looking for a good radio station along the bandwidths. Sometimes it's good stuff, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's annoying, random snatches of songs, sometimes it's something good...

And no, he doesn't take requests. It's whatever his mind is focused on at the moment.

So, our lives are filled with music...when he's awake, anyway....

Barb oftentimes plays cd's when she's on the computer, but listens to them on headphones. We don't have MTV-2, and MTV as it stands might as well call itself "The Real World Network". I own relatively few albums.

That comes from old habits. My brother had a tremendous record collection, and I would always depend on him for music, when younger.

Brian, after he gets through with his shower in the morning, will spend five minutes combing his long dark hair and an additional five minutes brushing his teeth. He turns on his CD player during that time. It can range from classical guitar to rap, but tends to focus on stuff like the Dave Matthews Band.

It's not unpleasant...but it ranges so far from day to day, often our first question on the way to school is what he was playing that day....

I'm a second-hand music junkie---I have my favorites, like James Taylor, Tori Amos, Bruce Hornsby....but it's not important in my life. I would rarely go out of my way to a concert or even to buy an album.

All my life I've enjoyed music, but it's never been central in my life...

So it's fitting that I have a son who bursts into snatches of song at odd moments. If I could get him to dance, too, I would be living in a musical...