Crackles and snaps are outside my window. I'm sitting on my bed with the light on, typing on my computer (obviously). Everyone else is outside watching los fuegos artificiales and gasping in delight. Pretty swirls of burning chemicals streaking across the half dark sky light up little faces and animals race nervously in their fields.

But as I'm sitting here, I hear a battlefield outside. It's not here, it's in Iraq and Afghanistan and the other places our soldiers are fighting. We watch gunpowder mixed with dyes and smile with delight. They watch gunpowder mixed with bullets and dive behind barricades.

I think there's something slightly obscene about fireworks.