For the Children, Please.

I wanted to make a nice post about the signs of seasonal change in the Shire – the sand coloured wheat, the turning barley, the hedgerows laden with elderberries, the brown-spattered leaves of the Horse Chestnut trees. You know, that sort of thing.

But the last post has taken the wind out of my sails. I can’t get the image of a weeping and terrified little Palestinian girl out of my head. It’s haunting me, and it’s reminding me of that iconic image from the Vietnam War – the one which showed the naked little Vietnamese girl running to escape the napalm.

If the suffering of children won’t persuade people to stop using extreme violence in pursuit of their interests, what will?