My husband came home from work with a small book called A Student's Guide to Economics. He breezed through it, since he's taken more econ classes than one human should take, and handed it to me. It's a little 50-pager about the evolution of economic trends from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman. I thought it was fascinating and quite accessible, so I thought I'd mention it here in case someone else is interested in an afternoon of light economics reading!

My favorite passages came from the section "Ignorance and Self-Interest," in which Heyne writes about people who propose policy as if they were "Aristotelian gods":

They grossly underestimate the amount of detailed knowledge that has to be used to provide food and housing for the inhabitants of a city; to assure enough but not too many physicians, plumbers, poets, and airline pilots; to make electricity and telephone service available to everyone; to maintain processes of discovery that will provide new and valuable answers to old problems of discomfort, disease, and disaster.
The dramatic failure of socialism that could no longer be denied at the end of the twentieth century was not, as many seem to believe, a consequence of the fact that people are selfish and put their own interests ahead of the interests of society. It was a consequence of the fact that no one is omniscient. We put our own interests ahead of the interests of most of those with whom we interact because we know what our own interests are, but do not even know the identities of most of the people with whom we cooperate every day.
...
The basic principles of economics will not be readily understood or appreciated by people who believe that economic theory explains the operation of an essentially immoral society, one governed by selfishness or dominated by the desire of "material welfare" rather than "human welfare." ... People who talk this way literally do not know what they are talking about.

Mmmmm. And there's more deliciousness where that came from.

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Found a very old Grim's Hall post I missed the first time around:
"The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous."

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Tonight we watched The Bridge on the River Kwai. Never have I seen such glowing reviews for a movie I disliked so much. None of the characters were even remotely honorable. Heck, none of the characters even existed; for a movie that was supposedly based on historical events, it sure played loose with the facts. 16,000 Allied POWs died building that stupid bridge, and the movie didn't show a single one. Oh, did I say POW camp? I meant Happy Camp, where Japanese and British got along swimmingly. What a load of crap. If I were one of those real-life POWs who surreptitiously tried to sabotage the construction and survived the war only to find a movie made ten years later in which I collaborated with the Japanese and built them a purty lil' bridge, I'd be pretty f-in' steamed. And to sit through a movie where the main message is that all soldiers are mad, war is pointless, and bad guys and good guys are all the same deep down? I'd be out of my mind.

You remember how Neil was looking into publishing a book based on his Armor Geddon blog? You know why he didn't publish it? Because no one was buying what he was selling. They wanted more "internal conflict." They wanted him to struggle with his role in the war and the world. They didn't want to hear that the only regret soldiers like Neil have is that they weren't able to kill more bad guys.

War does not make all men go mad and lose their sense of right and wrong. But apparently making a movie in which they do will get you a 95% approval rating.

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I'm always amazed at what people will name their children these days, but this one takes the cake: Pair told not to name son '4real'. Apparently we're so advanced in weirdness that numerals seem like a possibility.

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Via Photon Courier, an article about the effect of protecting children too much:

Children are so cocooned by their parents that they rarely venture far from home and have little concept of space, volume and how the world actually works, David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, said yesterday.

The area in which children were allowed to range freely by their parents was a ninth of what it was a generation ago, he said.

CaliValleyGirl and I have discussed this at length and how we hope to address it when we have our future children. And boy do I think it's tricky today.

Remember when Lileks wrote about the new Winnie the Pooh character?

This year the new Pooh series will introduce a six-year old girl in Christopher’s stead. I’m sure she’s spunky and adventurous and kind and empowered, and I’m just as sure my daughter will find her boring, because kids can smell pedantic condescending twaddle nine mile off. (It’s one of the reasons many girls love Arthur – his little sister is sixty-five pounds of smart, devious, narcissistic, naughty sass.) Here’s the part that makes me truly sad:

The little girl wears a bike helmet.

Because you could fall down in the 100 Acre Woods and hurt yourself.

I swear, theyÂ’re going to put airbags on BarbieÂ’s Pegasus next, and require thick corks on the point of all unicorn horns.

That's how ubiquitous safety has become: cartoon characters need helmets.

On my last day of fifth grade, my mom let me ride my bike to school. Some of my friends who lived closer to the school got to ride their bikes often, but we lived in a neighborhood that was further away and so I was a bus-riding kid. (Oh, and every day my brother and I walked down the street to the bus stop and waited alone.) But finally my mom said I was old enough to earn the right to ride my bike to school. I just google mapped it, and it seems I rode roughly two miles. And I felt SO COOL. I was one of the big kids now. I was independent. I had Done Something Awesome. And without a helmet.

My mom and I talked about that not too long ago. She says looking back she can't believe all the parents let their kids ride bikes to school. And she's not sure she'd let me do it today. Even she has a hard time remembering when cartoon characters didn't need helmets.

I needed to ride that bike to school. Heck, I still remember it. As a crowning achievement, as a milestone, as a step on the way to Growing Up. The thing that scares me is wondering if I will be able to let my kids take those steps too.

"A study by the Children's Society found 43 per cent of [British] adults thought children should not be allowed out with their friends until they were 14 or over." And apparently there's a debate in England over whether kids should be allowed to climb trees.

I fell out of a tree once. I also broke my front tooth playing tag once. I broke a kid's finger playing flag football in school. And once I fell in a ravine and couldn't get out, which was perhaps one of the scariest moments of my childhood. And I didn't tell my parents about it because I didn't want to lose my freedom to go play near the ravine.

I don't have kids yet. I nearly had a heart attack when brand new Charlie puppy ran out into the street in front of a car, so I know that I am going to battle overprotection. But it's a battle I'm going to have to have with myself if I want my kids to at least grow up with the independence I had, much less what my parents had.

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Surprise, surprise, Michael Moore thinks 9/11 was an inside job. The only thing he said that shocked me was at the end of his rant:

MOORE: See, IÂ’m not very good at the physics and all that. But believe me, the questions need to be asked.

I'm amazed that he even admitted that he has no idea what he's talking about. You think that might have something to do with why he still has questions? But apparently it doesn't matter what the answer is, only that the question gets asked. Repeatedly. Reminds me of something Bill Whittle recently said (er, recently in Bill Whittle Time):

"We're just asking questions" was the official, voice-over disclaimer. You hear that too from the 9/11 Truth crowd when confronted with the lunacy of their claims. We're just asking questions... Well, in that vein I'd like to ask some questions myself. Is Michael Moore a serial pedophile? I'm just asking, and I'm sure a lot of my readers would just like to have some questions answered. I heard that Rosie O'Donnell ate a baby at a Satanic Ritual once -- is that true? Can you please provide the evidence that this did not in fact happen? Thanks. Who has murdered more hookers: Bill Maher or Charlie Sheen? Come on, you can't tell me there's no smoke there. I just want a possible explanation...

I think it's a rare gift to know how not smart you are. I've met way more people who think they're smarter than they are than people who underestimate themselves. And a sure sign of thinking you're hot stuff is to argue these stupid devil's advocate ideas.

My husband has had the delightful fortune of running into several people like this lately. These people don't know anything about economics or business, yet they claim that the Chinese are gonna screw us on treasury bonds. It could happen, I'm just sayin'. Do you know how these bonds work? Well, not exactly. These people don't know a Sunni from shinola, but they claim to know all sorts of stuff about Iraq's civil war. They don't know thing one about how corporations operate, but they sure do seem to know a lot about how well Halliburton is doing. I'm just sayin', as I shrug my shoulders and grimace, it's probably a war for oil. Your evidence? Oh, you have none. And you don't care enough to go find any either.

My husband and I decided it would be more pleasant to discuss these issues with Markos Moulitsas than with any one of these devil's advocate people. At least you know where you stand with Kos and you know he will bring his A game. But how do you carry on an intelligent discussion with someone who thinks Manufacturing Consent might be how the world works but doesn't know anything about business, the media, or even Noam Chomsky himself? Noam who? And what's a blog? Yeah, you're a prime candidate in a debate on the media's stranglehold.

Devil's advocate arguments are the refuge of the intellectually weak. If your whole side of the debate consists of question marks and I'm-just-sayin's, then you need to work a little harder. And you need to stop holding strong opinions about things you don't understand.

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The title of this one is all you need...
Iraqi Orphanage Nightmare: U.S. Troops Discover And Rescue Orphan Boys Left Starving, Chained To Beds
The photos made me weep. They're concentration camp liberation for my generation.

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After the Milblogs Conference, CaliValleyGirl wrote:

Since my boyfriend/fiancé has returned, I have distanced myself from the Milblogging community. Not really on purpose, but just because once my soldier returned I wanted to celebrate his being home, act like we were a “normal” couple, doing normal couple things
...
When he was deployed I knew everything that was going on, the names of operations, the areas of operations, how things were going in these areas. I would check the names of fallen soldiers and read about their lives. I read milblogs religiously. I sought out new connections, searching for degrees of separation. I lived and breathed the war on terror. And I was shocked, shocked I tell you, that other people didnÂ’t share my fervor in following all things combat related.

I often complain that war is too distant from the general public. Because of the deployments, soldiers clock-in and then clock-out of the war. They arenÂ’t in war mode the whole time. And consequently their families arenÂ’t in war mode. I complain about the general public lacking the passion to fight this war, but I realize that I am just as much part of that problem. As soon as my boyfriend came back, I clocked-out.

Over the weekend, I realized that if you aren’t a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem. I had subconsciously become one of those people who lives as if we aren’t at war. And part of me thought that in 2 ½ years things might be over in Iraq and Afghanistan, and my fiancé won’t be deploying again. That this war doesn’t really directly affect me anymore. Over the weekend I realized that I hope my fiancé deploys again in 2 ½ years. Because if he doesn’t deploy, it means that we have given up.

I can completely understand her feelings here. And I applaud her for expressing them so honestly; when I tried to bring this up once on SpouseBUZZ, it didn't work out so well.

I still spend roughly the same time online as I did when my husband was deployed, but the hunger for frontline stories isn't as deep as it was when he was gone. Back then I needed to feel connected to Iraq in a different way than I do now. And while I am just as emotionally invested in the outcome of the war, I know that I too am half-clocked out. Or at least enjoying the idea that I have the luxury of being half-clocked out until next year.

But I am trying to reconnect with what I've let go since March 2005. So I offer some military reads today.

Read this day in the life of Greyhawk.
Read this old Matt Sanchez story if you missed it.
And read this encounter with a suicide bomber from Tadpole.

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Mark Steyn:

There are immigration laws on the books right now, aren't there? Why not try enforcing them? The same people who say that government is a mighty power for good that can extinguish every cigarette butt and detoxify every cheeseburger and even change the very climate of the planet back to some Edenic state so that the water that falleth from heaven will land as ice and snow, and polar bears on distant continents will frolic as they did in days of yore, the very same people say: Building a border fence? Enforcing deportation orders? Can't be done, old boy. Pie-in-the-sky.

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Matt Sanchez asked the other day about the Deskmerc quote I keep up over on the sidebar: "While our troops go out to defend our country, it is incumbent upon us to make the country worth defending." I know that Deskmerc wrote it in my comments section a long time ago, but I can't find it and think it might have been back on blogspot, and all of those comments are long gone. But it so impacted me at the time that it became sidebar-worthy.

A google search comes up with quite a few hits for the quote, which means Deskmerc has made a name for himself!

I emailed him to joke that he was getting quite famous, and he emailed me back the following explanation behind the quote:

A physicist (Robert Parks, I believe, I may have him confused with someone else) was asked before a congressional committe in the 80's about the Superconducting Supercollider. Reagan had authorized federal funds be spent on the project ("Go deep", he said, and everyone assumed that meant "Build it.") The committee was asking the physicists all sorts of questions, such as "Will this cure cancer? Can this be used to defend the country? Are there any practical applications for this multibillion dollar device you want the taxpayers to fund?"

The physicist (I'm paraphrasing here) replied with "No, it will not cure cancer, and there are likely very few practical applications to the SSC. And it will not help defend the country. What it will do, is provide a tool to increase our knowledge of the universe around us, and in doing so, make our country worth defending."

So that kinda stuck on me for a long time, sitting in the background of my head waiting for some more context to pounce, I suppose. And along came a war in 2003 and many folks of many political stripes engaged in the "chickenhawk" accusation. If you aren't military, then you should have no opinion on the war, that sort of thing, and if you support the war, then you should go fight it!

But that's asinine, of course, and we all know that. Many people have no reason to join the military and fight, they can't or they just aren't up to it, and not everyone is. But there are different kinds of support that anyone can engage in, and probably the most important one is simply to be a good citizen, work hard at your job, whatever it may be, produce good products, turn out well rounded students, keep the gas flowing at market prices, mow lawns, sweep streets, babysit technical illiterates on the phone because they have purchase technology four times smarter than they are, was cars, fix cars, answer phones, WHATEVER, just do a good job. Do they BEST job you can, no matter how small, because in the end, it does matter to the guys on the pointy end of the stick.

I found, that after coming home in 92, that I could have cared less in many respects who won the recent election (Clinton? Who is he?) What mattered to me is that I came home safe, we did our job, my family was there when I stepped off the plane, and cheeseburgers hadn't been legislated out of existence. What sort of country will this current crop of military men come home to? Will it be a country where nobody did anything because we're too busy yelling at each other to accomplish anything, or will they come home at least to a place where everyone did their jobs?

There are guys out there who are getting blown up, stabbed, shot at, run over, dragged around. They put up with it because that's the job (anyone who joins the military not realizing this is an idiot) and the job is very satisfying, in the end, especially when we kick ass and win all the time. But what's more satisfying is that part when you come home and everything is still there (except when they build a new mall or something, and you wonder how the hell kids can grow up so fast these days) The only way that can happen, that coming home satisfaction, is if everyone does their part back home. Without that, what's the point in fighting in the first place?

So, while these guys go out and get shot at to make sure I can still have a job myself (I doubt certain Islamist factions would allow monster datacenters to be operated with impunity, especially if it has lots of porn, if they had their way) then I can damn well do my job the best I can. Like it or not, agree or disagree with the fundamental reasons for going to war or even fighting in general, these guys lay it on the line every day. Its not a rationalization, its an objective fact: without a military, none of us would be here. Its an uncomfortable fact for some who advocate for Departments of Peace, but that is the way of things. The least any of us can do to thank these people is to make the best of the jobs we can do, not litter, and keep the cheeseburgers coming.

We can all disagree on fundamental points of policy. We can even advocate withdrawing if that is the wish of the plurality. It is, however, a disgrace be a slacker, because for the professions that cocoon slackers from the rest of the world, slack is not an option.

It's rare when you can remember the exact first blog post you ever read from a blogger, but I know exactly how I found Deskmerc (it was his sadly defunct Cthulhu joke), and I've adored him ever since. His quote and the tank he made me are just two of the ways he's so awesome.

Spread his quote. And make our country worth defending.

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Found a comment over at Buzz.mn that narrowly applies to seatbelt laws but broadly applies to almost everything we cover in the blogosphere:

Anecdotal Evidence Can Be Fun!
Submitted by jhugart on Thu, 06/14/2007 - 12:36am.

My dad used to wear seat belts only when he was driving on the interstate; he explained it by saying he could hold on to the steering wheel at lower speeds.

Then one day he was driving to the interstate, and had his belt on. Another driver ran a red light and smashed into his car, rolling it, and shaking him up a lot. He was uninjured, which all agreed would not have been the case had he been unbelted. From that point on, he always wore a seat belt.

For my part, I always put on the belt, and expect passengers to do so as well. I used to get the response, "Oh, I trust your driving!" My reply was, "It isn't my driving we're worried about." That always resulted in a thoughtful look and the click of the belt.

The entertaining part about anecdotal evidence is that it is great for supporting something you already believe in. If you believe seat belt use is a good idea, you can find stories to back it up. If you think seat belt use is dangerous, you can find stories to back that up.

Humans being human, I suspect that no scientific assessment of seat belt use, non-use, accidents, injuries, and fatalities would sway people from whatever positions they have already adopted. They are much more likely to be affected by a friend or relative who survived because of behavior X, whatever it happens to be.

The short answer is that there are all sorts of ways to die with a car involved. You can do your best to protect yourself, but sometimes you can get killed in spite of those efforts...and other times you can survive in spite of what may seem terminal stupidity. C'est la vie.

Jacob

(Thanks to this ColdFury post for leading me there.)

Actually, it reminds me a lot of something that's been bugging me immensely lately over at SpouseBUZZ: the idea that the new Lifetime series Army Wives is unrealistic because officer wives would never deign to hang out with enlisted wives. I say that my three best friends in Germany were all enlisted wives, and someone else says that in her entire Army life no officer wife has ever once spoken to her. And so our anecdotes cancel out. Ace says nicely today that "the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'", and I don't know if there's any data out there on this subject, but it sure does bother me to read over and over that I am too snobby and uppity to ever be friends with my three best friends.

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Those of you who've met me in real life met me in situations where I was Trying To Look Grown-Up, like at conferences and stuff. Even then I generally feel like a kid at the big table, but at least I try. On normal days, I don't do much for myself. I usually have comfortable basic clothes on and spend most of my time in a ponytail. Sometimes I look with envy at really put-together women, but never enough to put effort into my own appearance for just going to the store or around town.

Today at the library I was looking with interest at a display for a teen crafts class. The girl librarian, who must've been around my age, saw me looking and told me I should sign up. I said I'd love to but that it says it's for teens. "Oh, well, how old are you?" she asked, in a way that suggested she'd fudge a little for me if I was 20. "Um, like 30," I said.

Think I need to update my look?

This story killed my husband. He mused that the target age group when the library organizes something for "teens" is like 13-16. He said, "You look young, but no offense, you clearly don't look half your age."

At least I don't look as young as my Swedish friend, who got offered a coloring book on an airplane when she was 20.

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The dog's lived with us for two years now, and apparently he's made himself quite at home. I walked into our room just now, only to find that Charlie's really gotten in touch with his human side. There he was, sprawled out in the middle of our bed, sleeping with his head on a pillow. If he opened his mouth and spoke tomorrow, I really wouldn't be that surprised.

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1 My dog does the same thing with the pillow. It's normally very cute, but not so much when he goes to sleep before me and I have to push him out of the way. He's a bit bigger than Charlie (70 lb golden) and takes up most of the top of the bed when he decides to use a pillow.

Posted by: Peggy at June 16, 2007 11:11 AM (BIKt0)

2 Good doggie! One night I awoke to snoring and felt my husband up against me. So I nudged him a bit. He didn't move and the snoring continued. I nudged again. No change. I rolled over and saw that it was Moo (at that time about 105+ pounds) lying on her back, all four feet in the air, head on a pillow, snoring.

Posted by: Butterfly Wife at June 16, 2007 05:12 PM (Ol1EE)

3 Just wait til he tries to get under the covers! Then you'll know he's definitely gone human.

Posted by: toni at June 23, 2007 06:28 PM (M5jIa)

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1. If you plant an apple tree, you'd better like Japanese beetles.

2. When you go in to scout out a new sewing machine, you will get wooed by the glamour of the really nice machines. Then in the car on the way home, you will suddenly break out of your hypnosis and wonder why you were considering spending an extra $600 so you could monogram something.

3. When you accidentally put double the flour in a batch of cookies, they don't necessarily get ruined...but you don't necessarily feel the need to eat the entire batch in one sitting either.

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Just...dang.

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Today is actually another anniversary for our little family. Two years ago we brought a little Tibetan terrier home with us.

Happy Pupversary, Charlie.

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Five years ago today, I was trying not to barf. I was so nervous that morning, for no good reason at all. People were a tad concerned that I was having cold feet, but I told my husband on the phone that no matter how sick and nervous I looked, it had nothing to do with doubts about marrying him. Once I headed down that aisle, I was fine, and I was even better when it was over.

Greatest thing I ever did.

We had such high hopes to return to D.C. today and relive our honeymoon. But as we waited to see how much homework he'd have this weekend, we ran into snags for a dogsitter. The trip back to D.C. will have to wait a little bit. I was quite disappointed at first, but then I finally came to my senses and told my husband that it doesn't matter where we are or what we're doing, we're just so lucky to be spending the day together.

And adding another photo to our collection.

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1 Congratulations!! A photo of you smooching...CUTE!! Many more and enjoy the day.... fresh sheets, and the day in bed...*wink*

Posted by: armywifetoddlermom at June 15, 2007 03:43 AM (988LV)

2 Congrats! Wishing you many, many more happy years together. BTW, I love your hair!

Posted by: Butterfly Wife at June 15, 2007 03:46 AM (/LiOe)

3 Congratulations! The two of you look fantastic! Enjoy your love!

Posted by: vet66 at June 15, 2007 03:58 AM (JQe3J)

4 Congratulations!

Posted by: oddybobo at June 15, 2007 04:27 AM (mZfwW)

5 Congrats, you are a great looking couple. Very nice pic. I've always liked it when women put there hair up, it's very classy. Have a nice anniversary.

Posted by: tim at June 15, 2007 05:24 AM (nno0f)

6 Congrats. You two look great. Enjoy your day and weekend.

Posted by: Reasa at June 15, 2007 05:51 AM (JfF5d)

7 Congratulations! Randy

Posted by: R at June 15, 2007 05:54 AM (9JS9f)

8 That picture is so gorgeous! Happy Anniversary! Also, if you buy a white taper candle and paint some horizontal and vertical lines on it, it can be the Washington Monument. And a fat pillar candle with some vertical curved lines can be the Capitol Dome. Then you can print out a picture of the President to hang on the wall, and voila! You have brought Washington, DC to you! Make sure to also put some monopoly money in a briefcase with a random congressman's name on it and store it in the corner for authenticity. You guys are so adorable, by the way...

Posted by: airforcewife at June 15, 2007 05:57 AM (0dU3f)

9 Congrats to the two of you! I just love anniversaries...... Here's to many many more.....

Posted by: Tammi at June 15, 2007 06:59 AM (wbVY2)

10 Congratulations! As long as you're together - that makes it a wonderful anniversary. *grin*

Posted by: Teresa at June 15, 2007 09:08 AM (gsbs5)

11 (Found you from AWTM) Congratulations!!!

Posted by: Sgt. L's Wife at June 15, 2007 09:58 AM (3l9gY)

12 Yes, AWTM sent us! congratulations...and speaking on behalf of DC Metro, let me just say that we will be glad to have you any time!

Posted by: Aprille at June 15, 2007 03:44 PM (sf29K)

13 Congratualtions! It's a lovely pic, thanks for sharing.

Posted by: Maggie at June 15, 2007 06:58 PM (A5SFX)

14 Happy Anniversary! We love you both! You're a match made in heaven! Your Mama

Posted by: Nancy at June 15, 2007 07:44 PM (//+y7)

15 Sorry I'm late, but Happy Anniversary! And may you have MANY more to come...preferably more together than apart!

Posted by: Robin at June 17, 2007 04:29 PM (XTKEz)

16 Congratulations, albeit late! I am so glad you were able to spend quality time together on your anniversary.

Posted by: Guard Wife at June 17, 2007 04:35 PM (mMRvT)

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Happy Birthday, Army!

Last night we watched the movie The Great Raid. As a wife, I find watching movies like that extremely sobering, for there's no way to feel sorry about 15 month OIF deployments once you've imagined your husband a Bataan Death March POW. There's nothin' like a healthy dose of Perspective.

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The best thing The Onion ever wrote was the Point/Counterpoint on Africa.
Point (college student): Nigeria is a land filled with culture.
Counterpoint (Nigerian): Get me out of this hellhole.
That sums up Africa and the West's relationship to Africa better than anything else I've ever seen. Except for maybe this new interview with a Kenyan economics expert:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid.

Read the whole thing to get a real economics lesson instead of the feel-good economics that Westerners think runs the world. And if you have more time, read the book Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux.

UPDATE:

Marc's right; the article is from 2005. Hardly new, though I just found it today. Oh well, the message still applies cuz we sure didn't take it to heart over the past two years.

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This story (via Matt Sanchez) tickled me. Apparently a retired policeman and a retired Marine subdued a crazy man on a plane. I love that the old guys stepped to the plate. But I really, really loved what the policeman's wife said:

Hayden's wife of 42 years, Katie, who was also on the flight, was less impressed. Even as her husband struggled with the agitated passenger, she barely looked up from "The Richest Man in Babylon," the book she was reading.

"The woman sitting in front of us was very upset and asked me how I could just sit there reading," Katie Hayden said. "Bob's been shot at. He's been stabbed. He's taken knives away. He knows how to handle those situations. I figured he would go up there and step on somebody's neck, and that would be the end of it. I knew how that situation would end. I didn't know how the book would end."

I love that. "I knew how that situation would end." What utter confidence in her husband. I think that is so cool.

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