Nicholas Berg's name will forever be associated with the gruesome manner of his death, a low point in a very low time. Today, The New York Times published a story describing Berg: "An adventurous entrepreneur and religious Jew, Mr. Berg had a passionate belief in capitalism's power to transform poor nations. He really believed, friends and relatives said, that he could help rebuild that war-shattered country one radio tower at a time. It was a vision that almost immediately aroused suspicions." The story then details the many mysteries that surround Berg's presence in Iraq. To some Berg looks like a spy. They cannot understand the forces that would impel someone to act the way he did. To his family and friends, Berg was simply idealistic, and he clearly found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Consider this:

He attended Cornell University, distinguishing himself in engineering courses, a faculty adviser said. But his defining semester came in a small Ugandan village, where he spent the spring of 1998 in an exchange program. There he was exposed to poverty he had never imagined, friends said. He turned his inventiveness to good use, fashioning a brick-making machine to help villagers stabilize mud huts. In letters, he described schemes to help the Ugandans market mushrooms and make bricks from indigenous materials. "He was shaken by his experience," a friend, James Wakefield, 52, said. "He had nothing but a pair of pants, a shirt and boots when he came home. He gave away his clothing."

If you cannot imagine people like Nicholas Berg, people who want to change the world one idea or one good work at a time, I am sorry for you.

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