Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

When President Bush's State of the Union speech was good, it was very good, but when it was average, it was well, mediocre, especially the stuff about the (shaky) US economy. But let's look at a few of the better bits, the ones that displayed moral clarity and resolve. To the Iraqi people, he declared, "Your enemy is not surrounding your country; your enemy is ruling your country." To the relativists, he said of Saddam Hussein's deeds, "If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning." To the world, he promised: " The course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others. ? We will prevail." And then, this:

"In Afghanistan, we helped to liberate an oppressed people... and we will continue helping them secure their country, rebuild their society, and educate all their children — boys and girls."

At a time when we seem about to be engulfed by so many daunting problems — war, terrorism, deflation, recession — it is sometimes worth sitting back and looking for positive signs, and there are some. One of the most cheering reports of late was that women in Afghanistan have started doing driving tests. Women were forbidden to drive in Afghanistan in 1992, when Islamic groups seized Kabul and began to restrict independence and mobility. Confinement of women became even worse in 1996, when the Taliban took control and banned women almost entirely from the workplace and girls from the classroom.

Last Saturday, Zai Kakal, an accountant at the Women's Affairs Ministry, became the first of 12 women to take the driving test. They all had to steer a yellow Toyota Corolla about 10 metres along an L-shaped course near Kabul Stadium, then repeat the course in reverse. The women were promised their licenses within a week.

The driving program is sponsored by the German private aid group Medica Mondiale, dedicated to helping women in war-torn countries. It provided classroom materials and paid the salaries of two men from the Afghan Traffic Authority who taught the classes. Rachel Wareham, a program manager with Medica Mondiale, said several Afghan women first approached her agency last year for help learning to drive. Her office now gets 10 such requests a day. Two years ago, who would have thought such a thing possible?

Diarist of the day: May Sarton, 30 January 1975

"The sixties are marvellous years, because one has become fully oneself by then, but the erosions of old age, erosion of strenght, of memory, of physical well-being have not yet begun to frustrate and needle. I am too heavy, but I refuse to worry too much about it. I battle the ethos here in the USA, where concern about being overweight has become a fetish. I sometimes think we are as cruel to old brother ass, the body, as the Chinese used to be who forced women's feet into tiny shoes as a sign of breeding and beauty. 'Middle aged spread' is a very real phenomenon. And why pretend that it is not? I am not so interested in being a dazzling model as in being comfortable inside myself. And that I am."