I was looking for something else when I saw it. The photo startled me: a young girl, horribly disfigured, lying on a wretched bed in a shabby room. Acid had been flung in her face because she dared to go to school, a serious offence in parts of Afghanistan. By and large, we haven't heard much about what life is like under the Taliban for women. We hear about opium production and war lords, military offensives and diplomatic initiatives and look at the photos of men and boys without seriously registering the absence of women and girls. An occasional glimpse of a burka on the margins may remind us, but the suffering of many Afghani women generally passes us by. I don't know what we do about it, but excluding women from literacy and education and reinforcing that exclusion with violence and cruelty strikes me as a sin crying to heaven for vengeance. I can be irritated by misogyny or condescension in our own society (Church not excepted!) but one learns to turn things with a laugh or a "blotting-paper" look, while one quietly gets on with things. Most of the time, it works. But there are other times when something more is called for. You can't laugh away acid in a young girl's face.