Song for the refugees

This is for the refugees
the ones without a home
a boat out on the ocean
city street alone
are they not some dear mother's child
are they not you and I
are we the ones to bear this shame
are they this sacrifice.

Or are they just like falling leaves
who give themselves away
from dust to dust from seed to shear
and to another day
if I could have one wish on earth
of all I can conceive
t'would be to see another spring
and bless the falling leaves.

From John Denver's "Fallen Leaves"

On journalism

"I try to connect with readers rather than governments, people rather than power. I believe that top-level policies of government are more apt to change when democratic pressures build from below. This becomes terribly complex, however, when the world is run not by elected officials but by the markets -- unaccountable, non-representative institutions controlled by unelected bureaucrats representing the interests of huge corporations that are often more powerful than some nation states."

P. Sainath, India's leading development journalist in an interview
6 November 2001