one or two more general comments, than quiet from me.

It may be, as Stuart says, in the nature of politicians to make crass and inflammatory statements, but I say they must be challenged WHENEVER they do so. Sharon & his government has not distanced itself or responded to those ministerial comments in any meaningful way.

POLITICAL RHETORIC KILLS INNOCENT PEOPLE. It always has. It must be replaced by reasoned dialogue, not simply tolerated and accepted. Le Pen will rant about immigrants and somewhere people will be burned out of thier homes or killed by mobs. Likewise, the Minister in Israel & others will inflame others to acts of barbarity, & may do so in the name of peace.

MANY Israeli leaders have stated they want all arabs out of Israel. That is ethnic cleansing, which they may have not yet achieved or attempted, but it must be challenged early. I am not accusing Israel of specific war crimes YET, but I will not apologize for them if they occur, and if speaking out early can prevent them, so be it. The actions in the former Yugoslavia were not perpertrated in secret, but were given tacit approval by the silence of the rest of the world. Even more is at stake in the Arab/Israeli conflict. Now is the time to speak.

Peace must by achieved peacefully or it is not peace. The Palestinian intafada, from my point of view, is an attempt by them to respond to an overwhelming force of power in any way they can. IMHO Israel will not achieve peace through power, only a bitter, contested, short lived control. Not peace.

Let us all ask our leaders what they really seek. Mr. Sharon, do you want peace? or control? Mr. Arafat do you want peace? or revenge? Mr. Bush, do you want peace in the Middle East? or stable oil markets? If any of these 'leaders' do not want peace, we must work to replace them with those who do. The other things are not worth working for, and cannot be tolerated.

Having said all that, and holding back much more that can yet be said, I open myself up to the snide and sarcastic comments of those inclined to make such remarks, by saying I sure wish there were more interesting musical threads in the café.

It seems often when some new 'Catter, guest or otherwise, asks for info on a song, they are treated patronizingly by many, with 'it's in the DT...' or 'didn't you look?' or 'don't you know how to..?' more often then they are welcomed encouragingly by 'you've come to the right place', 'let me talk you through this' or 'that's an interesting question about a song we've discussed here many times, you might want to see...'. It seems we can start to build a more peaceful world even at this level. Ad hominems should be discouraged, trolls should be ignored, BS chat should be entered into sparingly if at all.