I want to tell you a story and have you help me sort my thoughts.

[sinkingfeeling]

I've been thinking about an incident that occurred over 50 years ago. I started school at age 5, in the first grade (there was no kindergarten)at a small country school in Ohio. I think there were 14 or 15 of us in first grade. There was one boy, named Jimmy, who was larger than the rest of us and had very poor language skills. Now that I look back, he probably had Downs Syndrome.

One day, we were at recess and for some reason Jimmy pushed me to the ground. I had a little red cotton jacket that zipped up and had taken it off to play. Well, I picked up my jacket and hit Jimmy across the face with it. The zipper scratched his cheek and drew blood. He let out a horrible scream and began to cry. Some of the other kids went to him and escorted him back into the classroom. (We didn't have anything like monitors on the playground.)

I KNEW what I had done was wrong on several fronts. I KNEW that there was something different about Jimmy and that I had some how taken advantage of him. I sat on the swing set and started to cry, partially because I knew I was in trouble. The bell rang and I didn't go back inside. After a while the teacher came out looking for me. She took me back inside and I had to apologize to Jimmy in front of the class.

Now I want to know: why did I know it was wrong to hit Jimmy back in retaliation for him pushing me to the ground? Why was I conscious that it wasn't a 'fair' fight?

Why do I now look at the world and see nations and 'leaders' acting like 5 year olds? Why do so many people support retaliation after retaliation? Look at Israel and Palestine. Aren't we, the US, falling into the same pattern? Suicide bomber, military pounding of suspected groups or cities, more insurgency, more raids on homes, and on and on. I fear that the US and UK will take a retaliatory action against someone, some place, for the bombings in London.