books and el salvador

well, one book i am giong through as a liesure book is South America on a shoestring by Lonely Planet. I like to pick it up a few minutes before bedtime and learn about other places, and perhaps give myself an "imaginary" trip to wherever I am reading about. I like learning about the history and background of the countries. A few nights ago I was reading over the El Salvador section. I was stunned to read about their civil war that happened in the 80's. I try to consider myself a decently educated American, with some knowledge as to what is happening around the world.. but I really had no idea of what happened there in the 80's. Perhaps I was too young, but still, it is recent enough that I should know about it. I learned that in El Salvador, 75,000 people died in civil war. There were many brutal deaths, including the killing of preists who spoke out against the government. Another 300,000 people fled the country. Using rough population data, this means that 5% of their people fled, and 1.25% died. If these statistics were carried out to the USA, this would be the same statistical impact as if 15,000,000 people fled the country, and 3,750,000 died. Plus, the US government spent over 6 Billion to help in the conflicts. This post is not about taking sides on the US government, more about me being brought to a pensative place in thinking about how i relate to the world. I also remember being moved in this way when i watched "hotel rwanda". I was again fairly ignorant of what happened over there. Sure i knew there was some strife, but i did not understand the scope of the killings, savagery, and devastations.

I will comment on the other books I am reading in the future:
I am reading or will read:
"no desperdicie su vida" ... the spanish version of dont waste your life by John Piper
"jesus of nazareth" by joseph ratzinger... who is well known as the current pope, Pope Benedict 16
"Bowerman and the Men of Oregon" by kenny moore. this is a biography of the most legendary track coach in the USA. He coached many olympians, and started making running shoes out of some kind of rubber material placed on his waffle iron at home, and eventually co-founded nike.

i wanted to get away from the more "manistream" Christian writers and books for a while.

peace
sj

2 things becoming less frequent in Argentina

ok, so although Argentina has a lot of manifestations and some public unrest here and there about certain issues..... there really has been No MAJOR governmental problems in a while. I'm referring to problems such as military cous, resignation of presidents (forced or not), total economic colapse, etc.
Another thing that seems to have gone by the way side is new posts on Scott Jackson's scottinargentina.blogspot.com blog page. Let 2008 begin with a post within the first 10 days of the year. No, im not sure if i will keep up the rate of 1 post per 10 days. would i like to??? sure. New years resolution? im not a big fan of resolutions..... i did realize i havent been doing some quality reading in a while.. so i bought a few books to read. I wont mention which ones right now, because doing so will give me a reason for another post later!!! hahaha. now taking book read suggestions. comment board is open for book suggestions, or whatever else anyone out there wants to tell me via cyber space.
scott j, down south