A story of innovation and determination caught my eye earlier this week, and I'm please to be able to pass along information about this new orphanage in Battambang, set up through the efforts of a young Australian woman who refused to walk away from other peoples' misery.

Tara Winkler came face-to-face with the reality of Cambodian orphanhood and the dire and despicable circumstances that often come with, took a minute to re-think her life; then dedicated herself to making a bad situation a lot better.

Four months ago she started up an orphanage for kids who needed an honorable and safe home, and did it in record time, and plans to build it into a self-sustaining eco-village. Good for her.

You can learn more about the home here, and contribute to it, should you so wish, here.

Seems many reporters are into giving history lessons on Cambodia these days in response to a speech from President Bush in which he reportedly made false claims about the circumstances that prompted the onset of Pol Pot's reign of terror.

This is one of the clearest examples that lays out the facts as an attempt to correct the one-plus-one-equals-not-true that's being dished up for public consumption when attempting to draw comparisons to Iraq and the war in Vietnam.

Seems it actually needs to be pointed out that the Khmer Rouge did not come to power and kill off close to 2 million of their own people because the US stepped away from the conflict in the country next door.

Here are the facts:

· The killing fields were real. The genocide against their own people was committed by the Khmer Rouge.
· The Vietnamese - the Communist Vietnamese - were the people who went in and put a stop to it.
· The United States then supported the Khmer Rouge.

If you'd like to study a bit further, read the article in the link above, this from Jamie Shawcross, this from Barbara Shelly, or this very long and detailed lesson called, "The Killing Fields of Honest History".

And speaking of the Khmer Rouge, the defense team for the former head of torture and prison chief of the horror chamber that was S-21, Kaing Guek Eav, aka Duch, are arguing against his continued detention.

He's the only one of the KR elite to have been held, and has been in prison for eight years, so someone must think it's worth a try to get him out before they put him back in ... should the trials ever really get going, that is.

Personally, I'd let him rot, and I'd have the rest of the top Khmer Rouge guys rotting with him.

On a more positive note, this report from a US Navy Sergeant named Ethan E. Rocke (Is that a cool name, or what?) gives a peek into the day of medical officers working in Kampon Som.

“We come out here and we care. That’s our mission, and we do it well. As Americans, we are very blessed. We’re such a strong country, and that’s why we provide this humanitarian relief, because we can and because we should. You can’t provide everything, but to touch somebody’s life, that’s special. They will cherish this; they will remember this.”

That's pretty darned cool.