There Isn't Greensburg, Kansas Anymore--and--Sustenance Over Violence, Please

Friday night a mile wide-tornado destroyed virtually all of Greensburg, Kansas, a town of 1500 people, many of them wheat and corn farmers.  Eight were confirmed dead. Back in 1888 the Kiowa County Signal described Greensburg  as " the liveliest town in the state today, for money, marbles or watermelons."  We'd love to know more about those watermelons.

( At left: Old fashioned soda fountain in Greensburg's Hunter Drug Store--no word as to whether it's still there. )

Meanwhile, in Iraq Sunday, more than 50 Iraqis died in a fruit and vegetable market when a truck blew up. People trying to feed themselves and their families have gone down one more time.  (Eight more hard-working, overstretched U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb as well.)

These repeated reports, about people dying in markets, or cafes, or bakeries, get little play lately--it's like the almost identical daily Beirut violence reports we used to hear on the radio when we lived in Belgium in the 1970's. Finally, after 15 years, the exhausted warring parties there called it quits. Much "never-again" lamentation and monument-building to the dead ensued.

Maybe the U.S. government should just announce victory, exemplified by the triumph of eliminating Saddam, and pull the troops out. Then maybe the Iraqis can get back to the business of sustenance.