And yet another week of a school vacation and no child care. I can only ignore the kid for so long before parental guilt sets in, so most work (including blogging) will happen in the evenings. The mute kid will be dragged along to the gym, the supermarket, and other assorted chores. Perhaps he'll get some video game time later in the afternoon, and I can get back to the computer.

In the meantime, here are some of the issues that we talked about this weekend:

My grandfather was born in Abruzzo, Italy in a small mountain village where everyone had the same last name — a last name that contains too many vowels. It's a gorgeous area of Italy and still untouched by tourism. Wonderful pork dishes.

Return to Sender. A seven-year old boy was sent back to Russia by his adopted parents in Tennessee, because they couldn't handle his psychological problems. He was put on a plane by himself with a backpack of candy. Russia is fuming and may end on foreign adoptions. 

Unbelievable tragedy for Poland. The Monkey Cage asks whether any other country has ever lost so many senior political leaders at once.