If you do one thing today...

Please take 1 minute to go to the Demand A Stance website and (in 3 clicks) ask your UK (or US or Canadian) representative to take a stance to end the bloodshed of innocent children in Gaza and bring peace to the region.

Regardless of which side you might take, please speak up now.

It is only by taking individual actions such as these that we might collectively achieve peace in 2009.

Afghan's choice?

I just heard a news report on the radio say that the level of uncertainty about which side will emerge victorious in the struggle between the Taliban and the western-backed Afghan army in Afghansitan, is so great that many families are placing one son in the Taleban and one in the Afghan army to ensure they have a foot in the camp of the ultimate victor.

My gut response was that this must be the definition of insanity. But how much choice do they have when on one side the Taleban threaten show-trials for collaborating if they don't enlist and on the other you have the most powerful nations in the world claiming determination to back the Afghan army for as long as it takes?

Perhaps it is the definition of failure. Whose failure? You decide.

Remembrance Sunday (2006) - Kipling and his Son

Yesterday was Remembrance Sunday. To be honest it largely passed me by, which is unusual. But in the evening there was a programme on BBC1 about Rudyard Kipling and how his life was blighted by the loss of his son, John, in the First World War.

His son went to war despite extreme short-sightedness and with the encouragement of his father who was greatly in favour of the war. His son's letters as he approached the front betrayed his youthful innocence and optimism.

The story was reconstructed with actors in parts and I was moved by the scene where Kipling opens the "Missing In Action..." telegram in front of his wife, who breaks down into the most harrowing of sobbing. I thought how awful it would be to lose Oliver. Later I told Hayley about it and reflected on how I would hate him to be sent to war, especially a war created by over-arching politicians. "Well he won't be going to any war, I won't let him" was her summary reply.

But of course, we had to admit he will make his own mind up. And we were left wondering how we will instill in him the right values; values that will steer him into a good life but just as importantly to us will help him to survive.