In Memoriam - 9.11.

Resentment and anger, these are foul things,
  and both are found with the sinner.

He who exacts vengeance will experience the vengeance of the Lord,  who keeps strict account of sin.

Forgive your neighbour the hurt he does you,
  and when you pray, your sins will be forgiven.




If a man nurses anger against another,  can he then demand compassion from the Lord?

Showing no pity for a man like himself,  can he then plead for his own sins?


Mere creature of flesh, he cherishes resentment;  who will forgive him his sins?

Remember the last things, and stop hating,  remember dissolution and death, and live by the commandments.
Remember the commandments, and do not bear your neighbour ill-will;  remember the covenant of the Most High, and overlook the offence.

Ecclesiasticus 27:33-28:9

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong"

"Die Schwachen können niemals vergeben. Vergebung ist eine Eigenschaft der Starken."

"O fraco nunca poderá perdoar. O perdão é a marca dos fortes."

Mahatma Gandhi

The Qur'an makes it clear that, whenever possible, it is better to forgive another than to attack another. The Qur'an describes the believers as those who, avoid gross sins and vice, and when angered they forgive. (Qur'an 42:37) and says that Although the just requital for an injustice is an equivalent retribution, those who pardon and maintain righteousness are rewarded by GOD. He does not love the unjust. (Qur'an 42:40).

Assad delays Hama crackdown - why?

The United States, Britain, France and Turkey are spearheading a plan to preserve Bashar Assad as Syrian president while cutting away his support system of relatives and political and military chiefs and replacing them with "moderate opposition" figures, say Washington and Middle East sources.

Assad is lending the move qualified cooperation. Last week, he let the first foreign correspondents into the country to report from Damascus and even interview opposition members – although never far from his minders. He has also allowed Western go-betweens to establish mechanisms for "national dialogue" with opponents and rebel representatives as a mark of his willingness to gradually pacify protest and begin the process of democratic reform.

This move accounts forAssad's privileged position in US public statements. US President Barack Obama and other US officials have never said he must go – like the Egyptian, Libyan and Tunisian leaders - notwithstanding his uniquely brutal crackdown on dissent at the cost of thousands of lives.

This policy found public expression for the first time on July 1 when US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told CNN:  "Al Assad has made terrible mistakes and obviously abused his people, but increasing pressure from the United States and Syria's neighbors may be pushing al-Assad toward more representative, responsive government."

Military sources are less optimistic.  Profound mistrust on both sides raises huge obstacles in the path of this objective. Washington, London, Paris and Ankara suspect that the as-yet non-existent national dialogue will not stop Assad continuing to send tanks and live bullets against demonstrators. The Syrian leader suspects the West is using diplomacy to throw him off guard against Turkish military intervention backed by the United States.

He will not have missed the report Sunday, July 3 in Turkey's largest daily Huriyet. The article captioned "A Turkish Buffer Zone inside Syria," asks: "Could Turkish troops enter Syria without seeking Damascus' permission first, and set up shop there? You bet."

Military sources point out that Turkish units have been deployed on the Syrian border ready to cross at a moment's notice for more than two weeks.

The Syrian president's Iranian military and intelligence advisers explain to him that a Turkish buffer zone would not just be there to care for Syrian refugees; it would become a stronghold for Syrian politicians claiming to speak for the opposition. They would establish a transitional administration there on the same lines as the anti-Qaddafi Libyan rebel authority in Benghazi which has already gained the recognition of 17 governments.

Assad's Iranian advisers warn him that the US and Turkey are preparing to apply to North Syria the lessons drawn from the Libyan conflict.

Sources add that neither Washington nor Ankara were prepared for another obstacle to their plans for Syria. The 300,000 residents of Hama, unaware of the diplomatic balls in play, are standing firm, determined to forcibly resist any attempt by the Syrian army to occupy their city.

The Syria ruler has therefore deployed large units around Hama, which are gnawing at its outskirts, but avoided ordering them to go into the city center. He knows that this order will result in a bloodbath savage enough to halt the Western bid for dialogue in its tracks and end the respite it has given him. More Syrians would then head for the Turkish border in their tens of thousands, giving Ankara the pretext for sending Turkish troops streaming into northern Syria.

Once again, all parties are eyeing the coming Friday to watch the number of protesters turning out in Aleppo, Syria's second largest town and its commercial hub. A sizeable outbreak of protest there would give Assad's grip on power another hefty jolt.

Related articles

• Troops and tanks sweep into restive Syrian city (ctv.ca)
• Syrian Rebels: 'No Talks Till Crackdown Ends' (news.sky.com)
• Syrian president sacks governor (edition.cnn.com)

NATO is undoubtedly trying to kill Qaddafi

The top U.S. admiral involved in the Libya war admitted to a U.S. congressman that NATO forces are trying to kill Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi. The same admiral also said he anticipated the need for ground troops in Libya after Qaddafi falls, according to the lawmaker.

House Armed Services Committee member Mike Turner (R-OH) told The Cable that U.S. Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of the NATO Joint Operations Command in Naples, Italy, told him last month that NATO forces are actively targeting and trying to kill Qaddafi, despite the fact that the Obama administration continues to insist that "regime change" is not the goal and is not authorized by the U.N. mandate authorizing the war.

"The U.N. authorization had three components: blockade, no fly zone, and civil protection. And Admiral Locklear explained that the scope of civil protection was being interpreted to permit the removal of the chain of command of Qaddafi's military, which includes Qaddafi," Turner said. "He said that currently is the mission as NATO has defined."

"I believed that we were [targeting Qaddafi] but that confirmed it," Turner said. "I believe the scope that NATO is pursuing is beyond what is contemplated in civil protection, so they're exceeding the mission."

Later in the same briefing, Turner said, Locklear maintained that the NATO mission does not include regime change. "Well, certainly if you remove Qaddafi it will affect regime change," Turner said that he replied. "[Locklear] did not have an answer to that."

Locklear also said that, upon Qaddafi's removal, ground troops would be needed during the immediate period of instability, Turner said. In fact, Locklear said publicly that a "small force" might be necessary following the collapse of the Qaddafi regime in a May 30 conference in Varna, Bulgaria.

US and NATO military build up against Syria

USS George H.W. Bush

The US and NATO continue to pile up military assets in the Mediterranean and Turkey.

The huge USS George H.W. Bush carrier cruising in the central Mediterranean opposite Syrian shores has been joined by the USS Truxtun missile destroyer which departed the Israeli naval base in Haifa on June 17 and the USS Barry guided missile destroyer which sailed out of the Italian port of Gaeta on the same day.

USS Barry

Also that day, Turkey assumed command of the Standing NATO Maritime Group-2 Response Force in the Mediterranean.

In Paris, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin issued another warning against military intervention in Syria on the Libyan model.

 USS Truxtun

Monday, it was reported that some sources described Turkish military helicopters as infiltrating northern Syria on reconnaissance missions and NATO planning to fly extra troops from Spanish and Germany bases to the Izmir Air base in western Turkey.

Related articles

• Turkish Actions Designed To Trigger NATO Confrontation With Syria? by Rick Rozoff (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)
• The Destabilization of Syria and the Broader Middle East War (wakeupbd.wordpress.com)
• NATO welcomes Russian plan to build a common missile defense center - Rasmussen (rt.com)

US naval movements around Syria

The USS Bataan opposite Syrian coast

Military and intelligence sources report that Monday, June 13, the US deployed the USS Bataan amphibian air carrier strike vessel opposite Syria's Mediterranean coast with 2,000 marines, 6 war planes, 15 attack helicopters, including new V-22 Ospreys,  and 27 choppers for landing forces aboard.Also this week, US naval units went operational in the Aegean, Adriatic and Black Seas as part of the joint US-Ukrainian Sea Breeze 2011 exercise.

The USS Monterrey cruiser armed with Aegis surface missile interceptors has additionally been stationed in the Black Sea. Western sources additionally report a build-up of ship-borne anti-missile missile strength in the Mediterranean basin.

This huge concentration of naval missile interceptor units looks like preparations by Washington for the contingency of Iran, Syria and Hizballah letting loose with surface missiles against US and Israeli targets in the event of US military intervention to stop the anti-opposition slaughter underway in Syria.

Moscow, Tehran and Damascus, in particular, are taking this exceptional spate of American military movements in and around the Mediterranean as realistically portending American intervention in Syria.

This concentration of US might also has the effect of deterring the Turkish government from going through with its decision to send Turkish troops into Syria. The plan was to create a protected buffer zone where the thousands of refugees in flight from the Assad regime's military crackdown would be kept safe on Syrian side of the border and out of Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan is averse to be seen working hand in glove militarily with any US interference in Syria. At the same time, Western intelligence sources in the Persian Gulf are sure Washington is coordinating its military movements with Ankara and that Erdogan quietly agreed to place Turkish bases at US disposal for an operation in Syria.

Military sources also report that Monday, June 13, Hizballah began shifting the long- and medium-range rockets it had stored in northern Lebanon to locations in the center of the country.

Western military sources first thought the Lebanese Shiite group was taking the precaution of keeping its arsenal safe from a spillover of violence from Syria. Tuesday, however, they learned that Iranian intelligence had advised Hizballah to remove its rockets out of range of a possible American operation in Syria.

Tuesday, Iran capped these events with three separate warnings to the Obama administration against military interference in Syria.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said Tuesday: "The Americans are not allowed to launch a military intervention in any country of the region including Syria."
He accused "Israel and the USA of standing behind the riots in Syria, Iran's closest ally in the Arab world… with particular aims…of provoking terrorist groups in Syria and in the region to carry out terrorist and sabotage operations."

Another spokesman warned: "Western attempts to set the model of Libya in Damascus are doomed to failure."

Iranian Vice President Reza Rahimi accused the United States of preparing and executing "the slaughter of Muslims" worldwide.

Iran's ground forces commander Brig. Gen. Kioumars Heidari added this threat: Any new military move by the US in the region will impose heavy costs on the country far greater than the costs it paid in Iraq and Afghanistan."

DEBKAfile

Obama and the truth

President Obama often turns to the “truth” when talking about the Middle East. In fact, he used that word five times in his 2009 Cairo speech and four times in his Middle East doctrine speech at the White house last week.

In 2009, the president proclaimed before his Cairo audience that “the truth is that America and Islam are not exclusive”, that “Islam is a part of America, and America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations.” He also said “there is one rule that lies at the heart of every religion – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples.”

In his doctrine speech last week, Obama said that America would assist civil societies “who speak uncomfortable truths”, that “the truth cannot be hidden”, and that “precisely because of our friendship (America and Israel it is important that we tell the truth: the status quo is unsustainable,Israel must act boldly to advance a lasting peace” and that America "holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Before an AIPAC audience that same week he reiterated the “fundamental truth that has guided presidents and prime ministers for more than 60 years: that even while we may at times disagree, as friends sometimes will, the bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable.”

All of these truths may have merit, but for truth to become the theme for Middle East peace and prosperity, President Obama and his various audiences should also consider the following noteworthy truths:

1) Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for over 3,000 years and that of the State of Israel since its re-establishment, with a large Jewish majority since 1860. Jerusalem is referred to thousands of times in Jewish scriptures; Jews pray towards Jerusalem and yearned to return to it during 2,000 years of forced exile. Jerusalem was never the capital of an Arab state, doesn’t appear once in the Koran and Muslims pray towards Mecca;

2) The 1967 borders, referred to by Obama and others, are in essence the 1949 armistice borders drawn after Israel’s victorious 1948 War of Independence;

3) Although there was never a sovereign Palestinian state at any point in the history of mankind, Israel accepted the UN’s 1947 partition plan. The Arabs did not, and instead reciprocated with war, and another war, and then a couple of more wars, simultaneously combined with more than 70 years of terror against innocent civilians. Therefore, aside from its biblical and historical rights, Israel has more than 25,000 reasons, one for each slain soldier and terror victim, to refuse the return to 1967 borders;

4) Peace could have prevailed at any point during the century-long conflict between Israel and its Arab enemies had the Arabs only agreed to put down their arms. In contrast, if Israel would put down its arms it would cease to exist;

5) With the rapidly changing world, one of the few theories of International Relations that still holds water is that “true Democracies do not go to war against true Democracies.” Israel is the only true democracy in the Mideast and therefore, as Prime Minister Netanyahu pointed out in his 2011 AIPAC speech, “it's time to recognize this basic truth: Israel is not what's wrong about the Middle East. Israel is what's right about the Middle East.”

Acknowledging these telling truths is the preface to peace and prosperity.

Is there a truce in Libya?

Libya is winding down.

Exclusive military sources report that Muammar Qaddafi and the rebel commanders are close to concluding a series of accords for ending the war after two weeks of secret talks.

Meanwhile, as NATO warplanes continued to pound Tripoli Wednesday night, May 25, fighting on the ground receded to small pockets where a few rebel commanders are still holding out. However the primary battlefields of Misrata, Brega and Ajdabia have fallen silent as the ceasefire begins to take hold.

The talks led by Qaddafi's chief of intelligence Abdullah Sanousi made enough progress this week for both sides to agree to go public on the call for a ceasefire. This prompted Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi to send a letter to world leaders proposing an immediate UN-monitored ceasefire. He said Qaddafi's regime is ready to enter into unconditional talks with rebels, declare an amnesty for both sides, draft a new constitution and create a different form of government. But first the fighting must stop.
He made no mention of any plans for Qaddafi to quit.

Our sources report that the text of the prime minister's letter was taken from the draft accords already covered by government and rebel negotiators.

In London, US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed after they met Wednesday that Qaddafi should step down and leave Libya but they also admitted that to achieve this objective the fighting would be drawn out. "We may have to be more patient than people would like," said Obama. Neither ruled out a possible ceasefire.

Meanwhile, NATO continues to bomb often empty buildings in Tripoli still hoping to kill the Libyan ruler and so cut the war short with a victory. This week, too, alliance bombers targeted Nalyut 230 kilometers west of Tripoli in the Nafussa Mountains where it is rapported Berber tribes are fighting a secessionist war against Qaddafi unrelated to the Benghazi revolt.

According to military sources, the rebel commanders decided to go for a deal with Qaddafi when they saw the Obama administration had no intention of contributing anything further to war and without the US, NATO would never defeat him. Negotiating for terms for ending the war looked like the better option.

DEBKAfile

Obama blows it in Middle East speech - no RESPECT!

The President of the USA  Barack Hussein Obama produced the usual red herring whilst he mildly castigated his best friends and totally ignored Saudi Arabia.

Despite his moral rhetoric and his offer of economic aid to the emerging democracies together with his condemnation of the regions bad boys - Gadaffi ("when Gaddafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end, and the transition to a democratic Libya can proceed.") and Assad ("President Assad now has a choice: he can lead that transition, or get out of the way"); his softy lines on Bahrain and his inability to remember what and where Saudi Arabia is (or maybe he did - and therein lies the rub) -, all media attention has concentrated on his undermining and incorrect statement:  "The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.".

President Obama does not realize this fundamental truth about the State of Israel: what Israel wants is negotiated peace and secure borders. What happens to the Palestinians - their own state etc. - is a detail dependant on peace and secure borders, not the reverse. Convince the Arab - not just Hamas but also those endemically anti-Jewish states such as Syria and Iran, to recognise and respect the State of Israel and everything will fall into place. Unless this happens - nothing will change.

Besides, it is an error of puerile proportions to consider a return to a situation from a time past.  From whom did the Israelis occupy the land of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the first place? Not from the Palestinians, but from the Kingdom of Jordan who had occupied these lands illegally since the end of the British Mandate in Palestine. Perhaps, with the possible declaration of a Palestinian state by the UN imminent, we should consider returning to 1947 when the UN first offered the two states  (only for Israel to accept and the Palestinian partition to be violently rejected by the Palestinian representatives and all the Arab countries)?

Of course not.  Different conditions prevail. There have been causes and there have been consequences. Time moves on from when the President of the USA  Barack Hussein Obama was 6 years of age. Whilst little Barack played with his toys, the Prime Minister of the State of Israel Benyamin Netanyahu (the democratically elected head of the USA's best ally in the region) was signing  up for his first tour of duty in the Israeli Defence Force.

 I was 20 years old in 1967 and selectively remember these events from that year of different mind sets, with the Vietnam War, race riots, an elected segregationist governor in Georgia etc. (what Obama needs to show for Netanyahu is a little R*E*S*P*E*C*T):

January 6 - Vietnam War: USMC and ARVN troops launch Operation Deckhouse Five in the Mekong River Delta.

January 8 - Vietnam War: Operation Cedar Falls starts.

January 10 - Segregationist Lester Maddox is sworn in as Governor of Georgia.

January 14 The New York Times reports that the U.S. Army is conducting secret germ warfare experiments.

February 14 - Respect is recorded by Aretha Franklin (to be released in April).

April 2 - A United Nations delegation arrives in Aden due to approaching independence. They leave April 7, accusing British authorities of lack of cooperation. The British say the delegation did not contact them.

April 4 - Martin Luther King, Jr. denounces the Vietnam War during a religious service in New York City.

April 7 - Six Day War (approach): Israeli fighters shoot down 7 Syrian MIG-21s.

April 10 Oral arguments begin in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), challenging the State of Virginia's statutory scheme to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications.

April 14 - In San Francisco, 10,000 march against the Vietnam War.

April 15 - Large demonstrations are held against the Vietnam War in New York City and San Francisco.

April 28 In Houston, Texas, boxer Muhammad Ali refuses military service.

May 6 Four hundred students seize the administration building at Cheyney State College, now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, the oldest institute for higher education for African Americans.

 May 17

• Syria mobilizes against Israel.
• President Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt demands withdrawal of the peacekeeping UN Emergency Force in the Sinai. U.N. Secretary-General U Thant complies (May 18).

May 18 Tennessee Governor Ellington repeals the "Monkey Law" (officially the Butler Act; see the Scopes Trial).

May 23 - Egypt closes the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, blockading Israel's southern port of Eilat, and Israel's entire Red Seacoastline.

June - Moshe Dayan becomes Israel's Minister of Defense.

June 1 - The Beatles legendary release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, nicknamed "The Soundtrack of the Summer of Love"; it would be number one on the albums charts throughout the summer of 1967.

June 5 Six-Day War: Israel occupies the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai peninsula and Golan Heights after defeating its Arab neighbours.

June 8 - Six-Day War - USS Liberty incident: Israeli fighter jets and Israeli warships fire at the USS Liberty off Gaza, killing 34 and wounding 171.

June 10

• Israel and Syria agree to a United Nations-mediated cease-fire.
• The Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Israel.

June 11 - A race riot occurs in Tampa, Florida after the shooting death of Martin Chambers by police while allegedly robbing a camera store. The unrest lasts several days.

June 12 Loving v. Virginia: The United States Supreme Court declares all U.S. state laws prohibiting interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.[4]

June 13 - Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall is nominated as the first African American justice of the United States Supreme Court. [5

June 23 - Cold War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey, for the 3-day Glassboro Summit Conference. Johnson travels to Los Angeles for a dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel where earlier in the day thousands of war protesters clashed with L.A. police. [7]

June 26 The Buffalo Race Riot begins, lasting until July 1; leads to 200 arrests.

June 28 - Israel declares the annexation of East Jerusalem.

July 12 After the arrest of an African-American cab driver for allegedly illegally driving around a police car and gunning it down the road, race riots break out in Newark, New Jersey, and these riots last for six days.

Obama to spank Assad: Assad to throw toys at Israel

Washington sources report exclusively that President Barack Obama has finally resolved to stamp down hard on Syrian President Bashar Assad in person as the man responsible for the inhuman Syrian crackdown on protest against his regime and the massacre of hundreds of dissenters.

Before his much-awaited speech on US relations with Middle East Muslim nations Thursday, May 19, Obama is preparing to impose sanctions on the Syrian president.  The White House is working on the final text of the announcement but has already decided to recall the newly-appointed US Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford for consultations.

An American ambassador was last recalled from Damascus in 2005. It took five years for Obama to appoint Robert Ford to the post in late 2010.

The administration has also decided to authorize the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to report to the UN Security Council that Syria was building a plutonium reactor for military purposes at Deir A-Zour, which it was bombed by Israeli in September 2007. Damascus has refused to cooperate with the nuclear watchdog in making the site available for inspection. The IAEA is therefore urged to seek the same Security Council for Syria as those imposed on Iran for its nuclear activities.

Barack Obama was finally convinced that Assad must be stopped without delay by the horrifying discovery of five hastily-dug dug mass graves near the protest center of Daraa in southern Syria. They containing scores of bodies of men, women and children shot in the head. This raised the civilian death told from Assad's savage three-month crackdown on dissent well past 1,000.

It is taken into account, DEBKAfile's military sources report that tough American measures targeting Assad will bring forth heightened Syrian-Israeli border tensions, potentially in the form of a limited Syrian military strike into Israel or Lebanon or both. Indeed his cousin Rami Makhlouf threatened that instability in Syria would cause instability in Israel.

The expectation of trouble to come was strengthened by the information reaching Washington that Syrian military intelligence and Ahmed Jibril's PFL-General Command had organized the forcible crossing of the Israeli border on the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) Day, Sunday, May 15, of thousands of Palestinians streaming out of the camps in which they are held near Damascus. The operation was also synchronized with the Lebanese Hizballah.

According to this information, Syria and the PFL-GC are planning another mass incursion in the same format for June 5, the 44th anniversary of the 1967 War, when Syria lost part of the Golan after attacking Israel.

Is it right to lie about Bin Laden's death?

The major faiths who share their roots in the Holy Land, share also a requirement to obey the commandment issued by God "Thou shalt not kill". This is such a fundamental law that even those who would deny any divine authority for it, absolutely accept its validity.

Fortunately the vast majority of human kind are never confronted with having to even consider if they would be compelled to break this commandment. Any dilemmas as to whether we could break this commandment are by their very nature nearly always hypothetical.

Especially the pacifist is very rarely tested. I remember the story of Lytton Strachey when asked by the tribunal deciding on his pacifism in the First World War, "If you saw a man raping your wife - what would you do?". He replied, "I would place myself between him and her." A reply often ridiculed because of the fact that Strachey was a homosexual.

Those who are truly tested (and I exclude from this members of the armed forces who we require that by by their nature they must deny this as an issue), are the politicians and leaders of countries who must decide on war and its implementation. We must all thank God that we are free from the hourly decisions of having to command death in order to preserve life.

But there is one moral dilemma we all share: Jew, Christian, Muslim, political leader, King, despot, man or woman in the street or on the land - whether to tell the truth or not.

Sometimes we feel it is necessary to slide around our family dilemmas with all sorts of excuses we wrap up in "white lies". But despite our protestations, in the end we always discover that honesty is the only genuine way to reach agreements and understandings. Even the honesty that admits a lie. In the end honesty (the good value) will triumph over the lie (the bad value). This is called hope.

And this is what disturbs me about the death of Bin Laden: I cannot imagine the dilemmas and awkward decisions that have been taken by the President of USA, nor the problems on the ground experienced by the Navy Seals, but I do understand the daily problems we all have wrestling with telling the truth.

President Obama must come clean and tell the whole truth about the planning, motivation and expedition of the death of Bin Laden. If necessary apologise if there are moral contradictions.

Then we can move on, honour intact.

Paying attention to important things

The inner world of our dreams helps us to detach ourselves from excessive preoccupation with our outer world and give us a sense of freedom.

There was this sociologist who was making a study of some North American Indians. One day she was present when a government official was lecturing in a particular village on the necessity of digging proper latrines. The sociologist noticed that one of the Indians burst out laughing at a very boring part of the lecture. She was curious about this so after the official had gone, she asked the Indian what had been so amusing.

He said, 'Oh, the bear had just fallen into the water.' When she enquired further she found that every time he became bored, especially during talks from government officials, he would, in his imagination, go bear hunting, and enjoy all the excitement of it.

Sometimes we just need to give ourselves a break.

Peter Hannah
Follow your dream – Restoring lost intimacy
www. Columba.ie"