Some of my historical perceptions of the Boar wars in South Africa were revised by transcribing the jingoistic youthful poetry of Cicely Fox Smith who followed the last campaign avidly, commemorating each battle with a poem while never acknowledging that there might be more than a British side to the issue of truth and justice. Her war poems in World War 1 were similarly one-sided, characterizing the Germans as ruthless subhumans.

War is inherently ruthless, and civil war is inherently uncivil! To understand it's root causes, one really needs to know more about the political leadership of the warring countries or factions, the economy they are operating in, and their history.

Lox-

I've been thinking about re-visiting Ethiopia, where I taught in the Peace Corps in the early 1960's. Whether I go or not will involve a careful weighing of what the political situation appears to be. I have no interest in endangering the lives of former students (those who have survived), no interest in becoming a hostage or being murdered in some dark alley or rural road. The window for such a re-visit opens and closes very rapidly, but it may be reopening for a period this fall. It's much safer by far to gaze at the landscape via Google-Earth, and just wonder!

Charley Noble