Mick, I know well that Roger can respond for himself and with much better words than I, but I respond nevertheless to a part of your post to Roger. The reason for that is that I felt an uneasiness similar to Roger's to join that thread. I am reading books about that topic (NI) at a rate of two per month right now, and that's books from all sides. "If you are not comfortable with the topic, stay out.", you have written. That misses the point, at least for me. I am not uneasy with the topic but with the way it is dealt with in that thread. If I had joined I would have had to write about selective memory (of incidents), selective reading (of posts) and the 'yes, but...' attitude, an expression with which I mean that the 'yes' part swiftly brushes away what the 'opponent' has written or said without a serious attempt to understand the feelings or arguments of others, whereas the 'but' part with many more words attempts to impress the 'opponent' with a story of an incident or of general misdeeds that are at the basis of one own's feelings. I've read many interviews with actors from all parts and too many of them show exactly that 'yes, but' attitude. 'Yes, but think of what they did to...' 'Yes, but think of the brutality of the...' 'Yes, sure that's sad for any family, but haven't you ever considered that...'. I do not want to say that the content of the thread was full of such examples (it was not, and I personally think it was better than other threads on NI), but there was just enough of that attitude to make me not want to join the discussion.

Wolfgang