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Politics : About that Cuban boy, Elian -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (5394)	5/15/2000 4:18:00 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9127

Yesterday there was an article in our paper about Sierra Leone. A 16 year old girl was interviewed who had been captured and raped so viciously that by the time she escaped, the damage was so severe she had to have a hysterectomy. There was a picture of a 13 year old holding a younger child with her stumps. The RUF had chopped off her arms at the elbow. This is apparently very common behavior among the rebels, this chopping off of appendages, this raping of young girls (one was 11). The atrocities are endless. I had the same thought as you--- what strange rationale is governing this behavior? These aren't the actions of moral humans. These people have slipped the tenuous grip that civilization has on us. I;m having a hard time dredging up any compassion for them, despite X's advice.

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (5394)	5/15/2000 4:51:00 PM
From: marcos	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9127

Well i can't dispute any of this ... no, for sure we cannot allow ourselves to become complacent, for that reason it is imho wise to stay alert to possible breaches of civilised behaviour among the entities over which we have influence ... like, for instance, the various branches of US government in their control of the fate of the child of a cubano. We're arguing two sides of the same coin here - myself as Pollyanna with the glass-half-full theory, you as the Wicked Winchester of the West and the glass-half-empty ... but we can agree that always the liquid is on the bottom, and the air on top, eh -g- I think the species is improving all-in-all, though there are clearly many exceptions and aberrations ... and the improvement is due to education ... not to increased wealth, which is limited to a small fraction of humanity, but to increased communication and access to information about each other ... i guess at heart i am a vasconcelosista - he [Vasconcelos] was the secretary of education in the Obreg¢n government of 1920, he had a programme called Alfabeto, Pan y Jab¢n ['letters, bread, and soap'], he founded libraries all over the country, published books and magazines at least as much for children as for adults ... this was a major part of unifying and pacifying a diverse and fractious nation following the revolution, a process which continues to this day, and which all in all, counting in the problems of which there are a great many, continues to make life better for the citizen. All through education. ... got to go now, to meet a group of travelling, performing, living, breathing, eating, drinking, farting, merry-making [one hopes], actual cubanos ... just a coincidence