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My congratulations and support to both Robert and Richard for bringing this up on the list. If we think of philosophy as having an ethical dimension (and here I commend Levinas to you all) then comments on what is going on now in the world are surely suitable. Moreover the recent spate of war films shows that the enemies of peace do not hesitate to use film to promote hate. This semester I took the opportunity to use the torture sequence from David Russell's Three Kings. I wanted to discuss the phenomenon of a popular film making explicit truth claims - e.g. The First Gulf War was about oil and not about helping Kuwait. I also of course wanted to raise the issue of the coming Second Gulf War. Some of the students had seen the film and argued that the dominant message was that of "a job unfinished" and as such the film was in effect preparing the way for the coming war. I looked at the film again, in the light of this comment and had to agree. Not for the first time have my students taught me. regards Gary