Education as National Security

An excerpt from: "A better tomorrow"
by Ehud Barak

(Reprinted from The Jerusalem Post, April 23, 1999)

�As the state enters its 52nd year, I wish to congratulate my fellow Israelis: Jews, Arabs, Druse, Circassians and Bedouins, new immigrants and those who inhabited this land for centuries. I wish all of us, first and foremost, peace and security. We were so close to fulfilling the dream of peace. The one goal that eludes us, the one goal that the founding fathers of Israel set but we failed to attain. "

"But peace and security should not, and cannot, be measured only in military or diplomatic terms. Investing more and expanding the definition of education is national security. Reducing unemployment is national security. Lowering the unacceptable and horrid poverty line figures is national security. Infrastructure is security.�

CIA Goes Organic

Porter Goss, Head of CIA, is an organic farmer. In a bit of agricultural tongue-in-cheek, he complains about �pest training� in a recent interview with Time Magazine. Perhaps the answer to the US problem with �pests� lies in the spade, rather than the sword?

(TIME) YOU'RE INTO ORGANIC GARDENING. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?
(Porter Goss) Mrs. Goss got a little horrified after she started reading the labels on some of the processed foods. We have a farm that [uses] no pesticides, no hormones, no additives--just compost and hard work. And we grow natural. I must say it's very rewarding to see. But the problem is, the critters take half of every plant. They're hard to sell. We haven't trained the critters yet which ones are theirs.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1074112,00.html