Comments and follow up

Hi everybody,

A few weeks ago, I posted an email that I got from a student about spending time in Lebanon.

I did that not as a political statement or manifesto - though some of you appear to have read it as such.

I did that because I thought it was a beautifully written expression of one student's perspective and experience in an incredibly complex, difficult and foreign culture. And because learning doesn't happen just in the classroom, or in the lab, or in the newsroom or studio. It happens on the streets, and in our travels, and in the conversations we have with people whose opinions and world views are different from our own.

I did it because I was pretty sure it would make you all think about something in a different way -- whether you agreed with the perspective or not.

I think I was right.

But I wanted to be sure you understood.