In Afghanistan's Taliban controlled South, tribal militias are resisting Taliban domination, opening a new and indigenous front against the enemy with implications on the direction of American and NATO strategy in the eight year war.

So a woman walks out to her lawn and there's a free range chicken...

I can't sleep. The numbness in my toes is turning to cold. Something about the poison I have had to take to keep on living. Peripheral neuropathy, but just the sole side of the toes. The top side, the hard part with toenails, can feel. Strange.

It's the yellow and purple, the blue and orange, the Red Sox nation, Damn Yankees and fantasy first fives Jessica, so we must be having a good time at the Lodge, here where you're whispering to Cam about something you'd never whisper to me about, but I don't mind, the communal cr …

I rarely have intro for my pieces but I wrote this one back in 2003 about a mountain tribe indigenous to the Cordillera mountain range of North Luzon in the Philippines.

Few believe me when I tell them about you but then I couldn't believe you either. Now I relive the grace in your gestures sparely, like the comfort of gauzy curtains cradled by the gentlest breeze floating above me that with a quiet sigh fall upon my face.

When I heard that John Lennon had died, I lifted my chin and stared blankly before me, and took note of how he had died, suddenly, quickly opened artery in his gut, bleeding onto his wife.

This morning, the Left and Right choked and gagged on their coffee with the announcement that President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Since we can't do anything about it, we can at least find out how we feel about it.

You said goodbye the way you cook, a secret in every recipe waiting to be told, to tell me, "It's special, for you," knowing me, and of course it would be like the first time I had ever, but that's a secret for you, as new as the first second of waking. Here, it's here now  …

I remember when you would cry beside me. I still remember how you would let go with me. Not once did I shed tears with you, and yet you could be impetuous or wounded, or impish without reservation with me. Not that I mind, for you compel me still, like the moon in the blues …

By now, most of you Viners may be getting an earache from all the yelling about healthcare reform. Worse, you may be developing a serious ear infection from exposure to spit from the person sitting next to you while trying to sit through one those town hall meetings.

I am as helpless now as the day I swore I would not be marked again. You build walls, you know, as tall and wide as you can see from. Count the stones inside your right shoe before throwing them back to the ground, my familiar earth nearer and hungrier than I.

Full and bound, a heart of grief beats nonetheless, beyond command. Found a fool, there is no comfort, no salvation at hand. Well enough, yet fall into despair, a drowning man flailing for air. You must tell me, how have we come to this, after the crossing, to the far.

Dirty hands.

My bedroom windows face east so that at night when I sleep I have only the radio playing just loud enough to sleep underneath.

I have never seen your legs. Its a little like waking up after a very strange dream, like when I told myself, "Did I really get grabbed by the principal and slammed against walls while he congratulated and taught me all at the same time?" And all I could think of was,  …

I am captive of faces, a map of what we have endured then labor to hide. Secrets buried at corners of lips and softened gazes, that what is painful or embarassingly cocksure remains underneath.

I don't remember how many times I thought I was as good as dead. Close. How does one say close when you are talking about your life, your soul, given thoughtlessly, pain at the point of some knowledge suddenly gained.

Dammit. Why do certain people beat up on folks who cook out of love?

You should be here instead of me, but then your son is here too, though I am first as much your son as he. I remember him asking about you and I could not tell him my measure of you, just your general mien, your coolness.

If I had not followed you soon enough, far enough, I would have never known that you cared. You would have been as even-tempered as you always have been, full of stories of the lay of the day past and how you were just so occupied, or upset, equivocal about this or that and …

Listen. You have to listen. Powder snow falling free of a breeze through the neon streetlights. If you stand still, you won't hear your breath.

What the hell.

I would like to follow the breath I have had since I realized I could remember, and I am sure many have, fraught with danger as it is, but I want to see it's shape over the course of a life, the pauses in between, particularly in my dreaming, the times easily forgot, or cho …

I wish all Viners the best in this New Year. It's been a long '08, let's hope that this one is way better...