You have to be still to see the fish.

You have to be still to see the fish. The water is clear, clear to the point that from my perch I cannot judge the change in depth. The algae covered rocks and fallen leaves that become a play place for the sun, making light dance, are a perfect and lovely camouflage. But they are these--small and perfect in the stream, gracefully navigating their quiet world, while I, basking in the sun's warmth on my rock, am still.

I wrote this yesterday, on a rock, overlooking a stream, after what has become my weekly hike. I definitely feel saner and more able to take on the world of teenagers competing for my attention and the petty insecurities of fellow teachers and the anticipation of a Democratic Congress (though there are still a couple of weeks for us to mess that up) and the unceasing bloodshed in Iraq, and now today, on the front page of the New York Times, the almost unimaginable--Darfur getting worse.

But all I need to do is summon into my mind the picture of the fish, the calm stillness of myself. The sudden realization that hundreds of little beings were there, perhaps staring back at me, only moments before unnoticed--part of a landscape. As unimportant to the passerby as each of us may be to those "in charge" speeding by in their re-election bids. Perhaps that is why so many of them will lose this time around. They have not been still. Caught up in their politics and maneuvering, they have not seen us here, camouflaged by the "normalcy" of our lives, but important, if unnoticed, pieces of their landscape. Be still.

History is not dead.

Well, two stories in today's New York Times, both with a Latin American connection, remind us that history is not dead. It merges into the present and forces us to deal with it again and again.

Here in this country we are holding Luis Posada Carriles, a man widely believed to be the master mind of the explosion of a Cubana flight that killed more than 100 people decades ago, in El Paso on immigration charges. He'll soon probably be released. Why? We won't label him a terrorist. This shady character, who is linked to multiple intrigues and violent actions, including assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, used to work with the CIA. Had he killed a hundred Americans on a U.S. airline, there would be no hesitation in labeling this violent, manipulative man as a terrorist, but most of the victims were Cubans and Posada was often working to further U.S. policy. Scary.

How can we ask others to condemn violent acts that may be committed ostensibly on their behalf (Muslims, the Islamic World, Arab governments), if we do not condemn those same acts committed against our "enemies"--innocent Cubans on the wrong plane at the wrong time?

Meanwhile, in Argentina, Jorge Julio Lopez, a man who was tortured 30 years ago during Argentina's "Dirty War", a period of right-wing, military dictatorship that lasted from 1976 to 1983, has disappeared shortly after testifying against Miguel Etchecolatz, former police commissioner in Buenos Aires Province, who received life in prison for his involvement in disappearances and torture. Lopez' disappearance is just the worst in a series of acts aimed to intimidate and silence witnesses slated to testify in a series of trials in the country, which only now is beginning to bring the perpetrators of the Dirty War to justice.

Even today, there are many who believe that the government was justified in its actions, even in the tortures and disappearances, as it was only trying to protect the country from leftist revolutionaries, who, according to them, would surely have been worse. Scary.

Acts of terror, torture, murder are just wrong. We, the World in fact, must somehow get it through our heads that we cannot justify behaviors because it is convenient for us. Call a spade a spade. Eventually, if we don't, it will come home to bite us in our collective butts. Unjust acts do not stayed buried. History does not die.