Reading
for Fall 2002:
From: The New York Times, September 15, 2002
Relishing Beautiful New Freedoms in Kabul for
audio, click on speaker 
by John F. Burns Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 14
…
The most visible change in the way women in
Kabul appear in public is the increasing number who venture out without wearing
the shroudlike burka, the head-to-toe covering the Taliban made mandatory
for every woman outside her home. The burka, with its grille-like screen over
the eyes, became a totem of women's subordination by the mullahs. ...
Although the burka remains the preferred form
of dress for most women on the capital's streets, enough have abandoned it
to have forced the closure of some shops that sold them. But those that survive
have found benefits in the Taliban's departure. Several are clustered along
Mandawi Street in the capital's busiest bazaar, beside the dried-up bed of
the Kabul River, and the mood is upbeat. For one thing, the shop owners say,
the Taliban's demise has meant that many women from outlying villages who
hardly left their homes before are now joining the commute that has turned
the capital into a pressing crush of humanity - and doing their burka-buying
while they are about it. ...
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/international/asia/15KABU.html
Reading
for Fall 2001:
Naughty White House Kids
From
George Washington On, Presidents Have Had to Deal With Kids' Wild Antics
The Wolffiles by Buck
Wolf
If President Bush now has his hands full with daughters Jenna and Barbara, he should be happy he's not Chester A. Arthur – his son got caught skinny-dipping in a White House fountain with the prince of Siam.
Having a dad for president has a few advantages. Police let Alan Arthur off the hook when they found out who he was. But if White House history has taught us anything, it's that being leader of the free world doesn't exactly make you all-powerful in controlling your kids.
"My children give me more pain than all my enemies," lamented John Adams, the nation's second president.
Theodore Roosevelt – who took office with six children under 17 – put it even more bluntly. He said he could either be president or control his kids, but "couldn't do both."
"First families are under fantastic scrutiny," says historian Carl Anthony, author of America's First Families (Touchstone). "It's amazing that anyone can grow up under those conditions. The whole world is watching."
Still, only 10 presidents and first ladies had no living children while in the White House – and many of them had to raise children while trying to keep world peace.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/WolfFiles/wolffiles163.html