I don't know if songs can win converts or not, but they can cerrtainly inform the uninformed in an exciting way--here's an idea for a song for somebody: I heard an interview on KPFA with a couple of Australian journalists who had witnessed the massacre of hundreds of East Timorese outside a church. The massacre took place shortly after Jimmy Carter visited Suharto (did Carter assure Suharto that the US wouldn't object to Indonesia's annexation of E. Timor?). Someone could find that interview, or the book or articles the journalists wrote and the pictures they published upon their return to Oz. Write a narrative ballad using the words of the witnesses, the images from their film, and a bit of history. But keep it very personal: "I saw the trucks roll up; I watched the soldiers raise their guns, I ducked into the church when the firing began..." As I recall, one of the reporters described the events in much that way. --seed