As the leaves turn and the United States waits to see if the new season will also bring a new president, this month’s issue of ITF brings you stories of change, both resisted and embraced, from far and wide.

Beginning in Vietnam, Uzi Ashkenazi explores through photography the everyday traditional practices that  persistalong the Red River — despite the destruction brought by war and industry. Halfway around the globe in Nicaragua, the plight of tradition is more grim, as Anthony Vaccaro shows the violence wrought in a battle between indigenous peoples and Mestizo farmers for precious rainforest land in Who owns the forest?. In Colombia, where customs are maintained even in the face of fear and lawlessness, love makes a gringo, Andrew Blackwell, contributor to our Through the Looking Glass travel channel, play along.

Meanwhile, somewhere in a Middle Eastern county torn by armed struggle, a doctor and his family find their loyalties under fire. In her short story, How we live and die, Lise Strom autopsies the betrayal of the medical profession, of family and friends, and of morals that happens in wartime.

Back on U.S. soil, Patsi Bale Cox examines a different war — one waged by feminists against their detractors over the raising of boys — in her essay Our sons. And in a special follow-up to last month’s photo essay A good day for Grant, parent Geoff Lanham writes about newly explained challenges he faces in raising his son.

Finally, we look at current developments in this nation’s politics as columnist Henry Belanger bemoans the sad compromises required by the media’s devotion to “balance.” Later this month, on October 18, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and InTheFray advisory board member Bob Keeler will put in his two cents on the upcoming election, while ITF Contributing Writer Jairus Victor Grove reviews Rebecca Carroll’s book Saving the Race: Conversations on Du Bois From a Collective Memoir of Souls, which explores how our changed society looks at Du Bois’ work today.

The final wisdom on change? Let’s end with Churchill’s dictum: “There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.” Happy voting.

Nicole Leistikow
Managing Editor
Baltimore, Maryland

Nicole Leistikow