Hi Dave:
Good man, yourself. I'd say we are pretty much in agreement on your latest points. I think there are things which are maters of fact, a person's intellect, etc., and others that depend on where one stands, one person's hero is another person's fool. I believe there are well meaning British people who think Sands was not a hero. I think if many of them had a chance to have met him, they might have had a more complex view of the man, they might not, where we grow up has a lot to do with shaping how we look at the same event, the old Rashamon syndrome. I rather approach things with an open mind ... part of being a Quaker is to really listen to someone, with as little judgementalism as one can muster ... not always easy.

As to the thread about peace in Ireland. I really must look back and see if I commented on it. I lived in Ireland in the seventies, and part of the eighties, and so my knowledge of the people who lived and fought then is more a matter of comment from experience than my knowledge of the present peace progress, which I know of from reading others, rather than my own witness. During the eighties and into the nineties, I worked on cases involving extradition to Britain, and that kept me up to date with stories presented by the British and US government and the responses of individuals and organizations -- and so my knowledge of those times was rather up to date. I have great hopes for peace, but more, peace that informs the future so that we don't make the same mistakes again. We seem not to be able to do that well ... learning from our past. South Africa seems to be doing that very well, though not perfectly -- we are, after all human ... most of us.

So, I don't even think one is a "bastard brit who would like nothing better than to enslave the world under the imperialist yoke" if you don't wish to see a film about Bobby Sands. I tend to watch films which reflect a variety of points of view, and give them their due ... for example, "Dances With Wolves," which I watched with Lacota friends who found it racist and at times funny when it did not mean to be ... but, I would say it was a great piece of film making, a ripping yarn, but that it did not really inform much about the reality of interaction between the Lacota and White Americas. Others came to wish to learn more about the Lacota from seeing it, and in that, it was a good thing the film was made.

Cheers back at ya Dave, and if you get to New York, give me a shout and we'll go out for a pint, and as you're the guest, talk music or politics, your choice...

Lor         

PS, and if me bands playing someplace, and you can stand the Uilleann pipes, you're on for a night of music