ONE MONTH AFTER THE ASSASSINATION OF ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND AND HIS WIFE, IN SARAJEVO, AUSTRIA-HUNGARY DECLARES WAR ON SERBIA --

AND THUS "THE GREAT WAR" BEGINS -- IT IS THE SUMMER OF 1914.

One hundred and two years have now elapsed since that pivotal date in world history, and almost every aspect of 'the world as it was then' has completely changed. Where there was once no faster communications technology than the telegraph, there is now television live by satellites, and broadcast and cable;

much of the world can also be linked by FM radio, while voice messaging can be sent and stored by computer networks.

Millions of people can see events in real-time or by clips that be retrieved by those same networks -- on their tablets or their smart-phones. When was the last time ( if ever ) that anyone could read about an event only via a paper telegram ???

Newsletters have multiplied while slick news magazines have dwindled !!

Books are still useful, but how many teens or 'tweens' have ever spent a rainy afternoon with a novel by Charles Dickens or with Agatha Christie ?? And who was Ernest Hemingway ??

Oh, sure, the name of Adolf Hitler means something evil, but does the name of Samuel F.B. Morse evoke the great painter or does it evoke the brilliant inventor ???

And do we know that nearly 700,000 men were killed or wounded in the summer of 1916, in the battles around Verdun, in the second year of 'the Great War' as the war to end all wars was only half-way through ?? And has humanity put war aside ???

Do we know, really know, what we want of our political leaders ?

Or are they just giving us war by a different name ???