Intercourse.

My Chinese friends and I decided to leave the high tension suburbs of Washington for a short trip to the past. We drove to Intercourse, PA., in the heart of Amish land. The Amish, are descended from a group of Anabaptists who left southern Germany and the Colmar region of Alsace, to settle in the rich agricultural state of Pennsylvannia.
The Amish speak German at Church, a German dialect close to Letzeburgish at home, and English with outsiders they call....the English. They do not accept any benefits from the State, do not serve in the military, and live without cars, electricity, phones or other modern inputs.They drive buggies, work in very rich farms, and wear plain looking clothes.
After Lancaster county, we drove on to Rte 15 in Maryland, and took a walk in Catoctin mountain State park, with its lake and Cunningham falls.

It was a welcome break from the news with its constant drums of war and destruction. Israel has of course the right to survive, and I feel for the grieving Lebanese. Is it a proxy war between the West and Iran, or the Umma? The Bush Administration is playing for time. Europe, as usual, talks and talks and talks, but cannot act.

Blessed are the Amish who, above all, fear "Hochmut".