Are you aware of the Penal Codes in this fundamentalist Islamic regime? What I mean to say is, them Talibanese banned the str-angest things. No kite selling. No chess.
No "any equipment that produces the joy of music".

I wonder how many violations my house would come under, lessee, at least:

• woman leaves home with her face unveiled (2 counts--and neither of them have husbands to be punished for it!)
  
• Chess (lots of counts: 2 sets and 3 or 4 books)
  
• Computer (uh, SEVEN at the moment, though 2 are just being housed briefly, not that they would take that as an excuse)
  
• VCR (there are 2 here, I'm not sure how they charge people for cinematography if I have stuff on video and it has bad cinematography would that still count? They'd probably frame me, just to make an example.)
  
• firecrackers and statue (my roommate Angela used to make sculptures that she burned with firecrackers inside them...I wonder if that counts, and I wonder if the neighbors would squeal?)
  
• alcohol (...guilty...)
  
• equipment that produces the joy of music (3 stereo type things plus 2 portables plus...could I get double jeopardy for playing music from my computer(s)? At least they didn't ban mp3s!)
  
• anything that propagates sex and is full of music (well, I'm off the hook here, I haven't had a Barry White or Sade album in years)
  
• wine (yup.)
  
• nail polish (I don't have an exact count on it yet, but I'll get the veil-less wonder on it right away--unless there's a ban on tallying! ;-) whoops! I'm sure emoticons wouldn't be allowed.)
  
• pictures (um. well, yeh. you mean photos? or bad thrift store art that is in its own way good? oh, and I've got one of bin Laden's mom in a compromising position here somewhere...is that bad? oh. You wanna see it first?)
  
• tapes (we got duct, masking, scotch, 8-track, cassette, um, blue duct [that's got another name don't it?] reel-to-reel & splicing, and, oh yeh, the double-sided kind. Ooooooh! RACEY!)
  
• sewing catalogs (somewhere, sure, I guess)
  

The ministry's headquarters were a two-story house with a small, dark jail out front and another in the basement. A second-floor room contains a pile of smashed televisions, and in the room next door, a dressing table taken because the owner had pasted pictures of female Indian singers on the mirror.

This sounds like the first exhibit for a new AfghanMOMA, doesn't it? Maybe we'll find out the whole thing was a conceptual art piece.

Okay, I'm going to start mashing potatoes now.