Hello-

I'd like to officially apologize for this topic having been deleted. I tried to save it, but we've had a major malfunction with the boards while I was clearing out some not to friendly posts and the board become corrupt, making it highly unstable.

I understand the hard work that the group leader put into her rather amazing discussion-- she got me to order the book from Amazon myself!

Again, I'm goin g to try and see if I can dig in and save anything, but I know you all were quite involved, with the discussion, so I wanted to put this board up just for now.

I am so very sorry for this-- I'll see if I can kick something to better stabilize the boards. Oddly, this is coming about as it is the first time, really, that I've had to remove posts-- but someone thought it perfectly FINE to come into a board just to harass someone else, which, sorry, I'm not allowing to go on. You want to harass someone, try email or private messages... leave the boards ALONE.

We are the Book Addicts and proud of it. If you are a book addict we hope you'll join us for some great book discussions.

Mary (ILUVBOOKS)

Welcome back again Mary. Let's see if it works this time.


Cindy

Hi Anne. Oh dear. Don't you hate computers. I have the whole three pages of posts on my blackberry but I have no clue how to transfer them off the phone. I guess we'll just have to start over. We'd love to have you join us for the book discussion of "A Thousand Splendid Suns."

Mary

Hi Cindy. Thanks for the welcome again. I have all three pages of posts saved on my blackberry but I have no idea how I'd get them off the phone. The whole discussion is gone.

mary

quote:

Originally posted by cindyj:
Welcome back again Mary. Let's see if it works this time.


Cindy

Hi, Mary! I got your email. I don't have a Blackberry, but maybe you could try emailing the posts to your computer and then putting them into a word document. Or, better yet, maybe transferring them right to this board(??) Do you have regular Internet access on your new phone? I don't know if that would work or not.

I'm sure this will get sorted out, one way or the other. I'm just sorry all those posts were deleted!

Anne, thanks for your help, and we're looking forward to having you join the discussion!

Sharon

Hi Sharon. Jill and I spent awhile last night trying to figure out how to get the posts off my phone. No luck. I could sent the file to Jill and myself but nothing pulled up when we tried to open the file. I don't think you can cut and post on a phone. It will be easier just to retype. I go to work late today so I'll work on it. Bad thing is I can't replace on the questions Jill answered. Hope you have a great Tuesday.

mary

quote:

Originally posted by momn3boys:
Hi, Mary! I got your email. I don't have a Blackberry, but maybe you could try emailing the posts to your computer and then putting them into a word document. Or, better yet, maybe transferring them right to this board(??) Do you have regular Internet access on your new phone? I don't know if that would work or not.

I'm sure this will get sorted out, one way or the other. I'm just sorry all those posts were deleted!

Anne, thanks for your help, and we're looking forward to having you join the discussion!

Sharon

Good morning Book Addicts!

Mary, I'm so sorry the background and questions are gone, as well as the comments, including Jill's responses! I know you put alot into making our discussions fulfilling and we enjoy it. I still remember the background you posted on "Devil in the White City" (? was that the name ?)

Anne, thank you for your assistance!

I wish I had the know-how to assist in getting the info from your blackberry back on the boards. I am challenged in this area!

Mary, I'd be happy to retype the info for you if you had a way to send it to me. I work this morning, but have this afternoon off, and a kid home sick! I also have tomorrow free I think. But if you could send it to me you could get it on the boards...right? Aagghh!

Gotta run...hope everyone has a great day!

Good Morning Rockin Robin. Jill and I tried and tried to get the posts off my phone but no luck. But I can at least see what I had posted. I'm only sorry I can put back the other posts, especially Jill's. I think she answered all the questions. I have the questions written out on paper so that's no big deal. Sorry to hear that you have a sick child. Amber is back to drying heaving again. I'm afraid by the time Oct 29 gets here she'll be addicted to the pain pills. Working in a pharmacy I can tell you stories about people addicted to pain pills. Thanks for the offer to help. Wish you could.

Mary

quote:

Originally posted by Rockin' Robin:
Good morning Book Addicts!

Mary, I'm so sorry the background and questions are gone, as well as the comments, including Jill's responses! I know you put alot into making our discussions fulfilling and we enjoy it. I still remember the background you posted on "Devil in the White City" (? was that the name ?)

Anne, thank you for your assistance!

I wish I had the know-how to assist in getting the info from your blackberry back on the boards. I am challenged in this area!

Mary, I'd be happy to retype the info for you if you had a way to send it to me. I work this morning, but have this afternoon off, and a kid home sick! I also have tomorrow free I think. But if you could send it to me you could get it on the boards...right? Aagghh!

Gotta run...hope everyone has a great day!

Here was the welcome post. We did away with the 40 Something Club and decided to start over with a new name. We decided to have our book discussions here because the O board is not user friendly and Karin can't get to the Yahoo board we use. We are reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns," this month. We will pick new books so we don't interfere with The Somedays reading schedule of some of the old clubs books. We can join them for the discussion on "The Time Travelers Wife." It's a great book. It's great to be back here. We have missed everyone from the Oprah boards.

Mary

Reading Schedule for "A Thousand Splendid Suns."

READING SCHEDULE:


September 1st - Pages 1-94 (Part 1).

September 8th - Pages 97-175 (Part 2).

September 15th - Pages 179-268.

September 22nd - Pages 269- to the end of the book.


Discussion Schedule:


September 8th- Pages 1-94 (Part 1).

September 15th- Pages 97-175 (Part 2).

September 22nd- pages 179-268.

September 29th- Pages 269 to the end of the book.


Mary

Here is a map of Afghanistan. When the book opens Mariam is living near the town of Herat. Later she moves to the city of Kabul.


Mary

Since this book is about two women living in Afghanistan I wanted to post some stats about women that live in that country.

1) Every 30 minutes, an Afghan woman dies during childbirth

2) 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate

3) 30 percent of girls have access to education in Afghanistan

4) 1 in every 3 Afghan women experience physical, psychological or sexual violence

5) 44 years is the average life expectancy rate for women in Afghanistan

6) 70 to 80 percent of women face forced marriages in Afghanistan

That stats are sobering. Sometimes I think that we as women living in the US forget how lucky we are to be living in this country.

Mary

The vast majority of Afghanistan's population professes to be followers of Islam. Over 1400 years ago, Islam demanded that men and women be equal before God, and gave them various rights such the right to inheritance, the right to vote, the right to work, and even choose their own partners in marriage. For centuries now in Afghanistan, women have been denied these rights either by official government decree or by their own husbands, fathers, and brothers. During the rule of the Taliban (1996 - 2001), women were treated worse than in any other time or by any other society. They were forbidden to work, leave the house without a male escort, not allowed to seek medical help from a male doctor, and forced to cover themselves from head to toe, even covering their eyes. Women who were doctors and teachers before, suddenly were forced to be beggars and even prostitutes in order to feed their families.

Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, many would agree that the political and cultural position of Afghan women has improved substantially. The recently adopted Afghan constitution states that "the citizens of Afghanistan - whether man or woman- have equal rights and duties before the law". So far, women have been allowed to return back to work, the government no longer forces them to wear the all covering burqa, and they even have been appointed to prominent positions in the government. Despite all these changes many challenges still remain. The repression of women is still prevalent in rural areas where many families still restrict their own mothers, daughters, wives and sisters from participation in public life. They are still forced into marriages and denied a basic education. Numerous school for girls have been burned down and little girls have even been poisoned to death for daring to go to school.

Source:Afghanistan Online

Mary

Under the Taliban, women in Afghanistan were severely oppressed. The idea of their liberation was used to sell the Afghan war as a war of liberation. But the condition of women in the new Afghanistan is precarious at best. While the Taliban’s members were oppressive moralists who forbade kite flying and listening to music and, at times, the education of women, they did at least impose a type of simple law and order. The new regime, in contrast, is marked by general insecurity in which women are the most vulnerable group.

In Kabul many professional women no longer wear the burka, but many still do. In the countryside a severe version of purdah—the Muslim principle of secluding and protecting women—is so strictly enforced that many men never touch or see a woman other than their mothers or pre-pubescent sisters and cousins until well into their late 20s.

For most women the only thing that has changed since the fall of the Taliban is that there has been an increase in insecurity. It is common to read or hear reports of women being abducted by gunmen who rape and sell them. There is no functioning law and order in Afghanistan—NATO forces are too thinly spread and the local police are little more than uniformed criminals—thus women have almost no protection other than that provided by armed fathers, brothers and husbands.

One feature of post-Taliban life has been a rise in prostitution. The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan claims that as many as 25,000 Afghan women worked as prostitutes just after the fall of the Taliban. Many, many thousands still do today.

Instead of dealing with the problem of sex trafficking and abuse of women, the Karzai government launched a highly symbolic crackdown on Chinese-run brothels in Kabul. In March 2006 the government raided 11 brothels and deported 47 Chinese women. The raids made for great political theater but did not really address women’s need for economic support and protection from predators.

In the countryside, poverty has been linked to a small but notable increase in the sale of child brides. Marrying off girls as young as 11 to men in their 30s and even older has been common in Afghanistan for centuries. But now with drought and war leaving family economies in ruin, daughters seem to be sold off with greater frequency.
The Taliban insurgency has burned down hundreds of schools where girls were educated. And recently Safia Ahmed-jan, the provincial director of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Kandahar, was gunned down by Taliban fighters.

True, women hold 27 percent of the seats in the National Assembly and one-sixth of the seats in the Upper House. But most Afghan women remain illiterate, impoverished and vulnerable to political and criminal violence. Only 15 percent of Afghan woman can read. The United Nations has described Afghan women as being “among the worst-off in the world.” On average, women in Afghanistan die at least 20 years younger than women elsewhere.

Most rural Afghan women have no access to healthcare during pregnancy. One U.N. report noted: “Afghanistan’s Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) is estimated at 1,600 to 1,900 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, which is one of the highest in the world.” All basic poverty measures put Afghanistan near the bottom of the U.N.’s Human Development Index, and women are still at the bottom of Afghan society.

Source: Truthdig

mary