Mother’s Day, as we know it today, is a more or less genteel day of hopefully kind words and sweet sentiments depending on whether one’s family more resembles the Simpsons, the Partridges or a holy family of schmoos.

But long ago, Mother’s Day in the US burst forth drenched in blood, and buried in bones and graves. It was anything but genteel.

This fiercely special day was set aside in 1870 to make a cry heard round the world from mothers who were demanding that war never be born again.

This special day was called by women who had lost their sons in a war wherein battle fields were like lakes of red from all the fallen. The women had lost their children, and sometimes, for a time, their minds as well– but not their great hearts.

Sometimes people say the title “mother” can only be applied to a woman who has given physical birth. I’d say ‘a blessed mother’ is any woman who reveres life in her own special ways, who cars for life, and who strives to give birth to new life each day in heart and mind and voice.

Here is the gutsy, Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870. It was written by Julia Ward Howe. Would that her voice were still on earth today. Would that her call would still come to life.
Read the rest of this entry »

According to my contact in Yangon, what pitiful supplies are on the ground, have no distribution whatsoever to any of the thousands of villages and tributaries in Burma hit into utter devastation by the tsunami/ cyclone. The Burmese, most poorer than poor before the tsunami, are going on their 6th sunrise without clean water, food, or shelter or medicines.

Meanwhile, it is certain, while the military government gets down their fiddles, the infants and newborns and toddlers grow dehydrated. Without adequate water and food, their mothers’ breasts will have run out of milk, and the children will die from dehydration, an entire generation of young will be gone within a week.

Than Shwe: You cannot keep others from knowing about the mayhem of your country. Burma is on satellite. The floods and the people and the animals can be seen dead and floating and bloated. The living can be seen by satellite also, picking through ruins, entire villages wiped out with no survivors.

Than Shwe, delaying allowing aid workers in, makes you only look more and more unleaderly.

Than Shwe, animals survive by adapting. Animals who can learn new behavior, survive the unforeseen.

Than Shwe, animals who do as they have always done, die.

Than Shwe, open your heart, if not your mind. Be known as a ruler who took care of his people in every way possible, rather than going down in history as the leader who stood by paralyzed and allowed holy people and helpless people, his own kith and kin, to die in misery.

CODA
I hear from my contact in Yangon, that the people on the ground in Burma are begging that international aeroplanes please fly over and drop supplies.

Than Shwe, if they fly, let them fly unmolested. Add no more horror to horror. It’s within your power. Choose honorific over horrific.

Than Shwe, the new respect you would receive then, would be remarkable.

This is our deepest prayer for you Than Shwe, and for the people of Burma… the Central Buddhist Precept:

Deprive no living thing of its life.

The degree to which Beijing yearns for international approval in its handling of the Olympic Games cannot be underestimated, which is likely the reasoning behind the timing of the recent unrest in Tibet. In this tongue-lashing of actress and human rights activist Mia Farrow published just before the unrest in Tibet broke out and after Steven Spielberg withdrew from the Olympic Games, the author suggests that the West has fundamental misunderstanding of China which requires Chinese to speak up for themselves and engage in ‘heated debate with people like Mia Farrow.’ In this op-ed which refers to an article in The Wall Street Journal legally unavailable to any of the readers of this state-controlled magazine, Shan Ren-ping writes for China’s Global Geographic Times:

“The article written by Mia Farrow confuses right and wrong and relentlessly discredits China, but even more frightening, it has begun to change the atmosphere of public opinion in the West. … She has wantonly brainwashed the public’s thinking by seizing the moral high ground. … Now is the time to expose the weaknesses of Mia Farrow and her ilk. They cannot be permitted to wantonly brainwash public opinion. This is not only unfair to China but to the entire world - and especially to Mr. Spielberg.”

By Shan Renping

Translated By Mark Klingman

February 29, 2008

Global Geographic Times - People’s Republic of China - Original Article (Chinese)

For the Beijing Olympic Games, the West seems to be showing us two completely different attitudes. On the one hand, most Western countries have given the Beijing Games a positive evaluation and oppose the “politicization of the Games.” But on the other, some non-governmental organizations and members of civil society still clamor to resist the Beijing Olympic Games.

Among these people, one cause of dissatisfaction is that they believe China hasn’t acted played a positive role in resolving the Darfur problem. So despite the fact that to date, the leaders of over sixty countries have announced that they will attend the Beijing Olympics; and opposing the “politicization of the Games” has become the message of the mainstream of global public opinion - we cannot ignore the voices of average Western people in this matter - especially the negative voices.

Not long ago, American director Steven Spielberg resigned as art director for the Beijing Olympics. On the surface it seems as though he had no choice, and although there is no chance that this will affect the success of the Beijing Olympics - the act does tell us something of the Western misunderstanding of China.

It’s fair to say that for some time now, the director has been under tremendous political pressure. Last year, on March 28, the American actress Mia Farrow wrote a commentary in The Wall Street Journal with language that maliciously accused the Beijing Olympics with being the “Genocide Olympics.” This article was the first time that the Beijing Games and Sudan were hung on the same hook - and beside condemning China, she sought to persuade Spielberg.

She wrote: “That so many corporate sponsors want the world to look away from that atrocity during the Games is bad enough. But equally disappointing is the decision of artists like director Steven Spielberg … to sanitize Beijing’s image.” Even more provocatively, she linked the Beijing Olympics to Spielberg’s own Shoah Foundation for Holocaust-remembrance which he founded in 1994, asking him to be aware that “China is bankrolling Darfur’s genocide.”

Mia Farrow’s article not only confuses right and wrong and relentlessly discredits China, even more frightening is that she has begun to change the atmosphere of public opinion in Western societies: the question of supporting the Beijing Olympic Games has become a moral issue. Once again, Spielberg’s resignation undoubtedly proves that the pressure of public opinion is very strong. It can be inferred that in the next five months, these same people will turn up the pressure on athletes and sponsors alike.

People like Mia Farrow think they have found China’s soft rib - that is, they believe they have found the most opportune place to apply pressure to China. They are wrong! In fact it is their proposed solution to the Darfur problem that is the real soft rib! Now is the time to expose the weaknesses of Mia Farrow and her ilk. They cannot be permitted to wantonly brainwash public opinion …

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of issues that involve the United States.

Is it time for Western leaders to do more than utter disapproval to challenge Beijing over Tibet? François Sergent writes for France’s Liberation, ‘The heads of state could threaten to boycott the opening ceremonies if the massacres in Lhasa continue and if the repression across the country doesn’t diminish. … Athletes also have a role to play. Sport is not a bubble outside of society and its difficulties.’

By François Sergent, Translated By Philippe Guittard, March 19, 2008, France - Liberation - Original Article (France)

By choosing China to host the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), so obsessed with “sports ideals,” couldn’t have made a more political choice. China itself has made its Games a political issue, the symbol of its power, its economic dynamism and its regional hegemony. For its part, the IOC defends itself against any interference. Read the rest of this entry »

Haaretz:

In his eulogy to the eight students gunned down Thursday in a shooting attack at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem, the religious school’s head rabbi Ya’akov Shapira declared the attack “a continuation of the 1929 massacre” of the Jewish community in Hebron. He said the gunman had targeted “everyone living in the holy city of Jerusalem.”

The eight victims were buried Friday afternoon, each with Torah scrolls stained with their blood, in accordance with the Halakhic decision ruled by former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu.

AND

One of the dead was American student Avraham David Moses, aged 16.

AND

Hundreds of mourners, among them family, friends, and public figures, paid their final respects to Doron Maharata, the oldest of those killed Thursday. Maharata, 26, is survived by his parents and six siblings.

Maharata’s family immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia as part of Operation Moses when he was eight years old. Upon their arrival, the Maharatas made their home in Kfar Hitim before moving to Ashdod.

AND

The other victims were named as Yochai Lipschitz, 18, of Jerusalem; Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, of Shiloh; Yonadav Chaim Hirschfeld, 19, of Kochav Hashahar; Neriah Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem; Roey Roth, 18, of Elkana; and Segev Pniel Avihayil, 15, of Neveh Daniel.

Ynet: Terrorists kill 8 in Jerusalem

Two terrorists infiltrate rabbinical seminary in Kiryat Moshe quarter, open fire at dozens of students. At least eight people reported killed. Police still in pursuit of second gunman. Celebrations already underway in Gaza

This is why Egypt should take over Gaza and Jordan should take over most Arab portions of the West Bank. Neither country needs encouragement to rule with an iron hand.

This is why Israeli Arabs (who are Israeli citizens) should swear a loyalty oath to the State of Israel (and not commit crimes against the sovereignty of the state) or face deportation with revocation of citizenship.

Jerusalem Post:

Eight people were confirmed dead in a terror attack at Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, near the entrance to Jerusalem on Thursday evening. According to Channel 2, the “Galilee Freedom Brigades”, which claimed responsibility for the attack, is a Hizbullah-affiliated organization.

Magen David Adom have confirmed 10 wounded civilians, including three seriously. One terrorist was said to have been killed by a student.

Witnesses said that only one terrorist had entered the building and that he managed to fire 500-600 bullets over the course of 4-10 minutes before he was killed.

Although witnesses said only a single terrorist carried out the attack, police were searching the building for an additional terrorist, preventing the entrance of rescue workers. Later Police Chief David Cohen confirmed that there were no additional attackers.

The terrorist entered the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in the neighborhood of Kiryat Moshe carrying weapons. He was not wearing a suicide-bomb belt as earlier reported.

The gunman entered the library where about 80 people were gathered, witnesses said, and opened fire.

Statement from Hamas:

We bless the operation. It will not be the last

Haaretz Report: East Jerusalem resident behind attack

Nine Mercaz Harav students hurt, three in serious condition; most students are high school age

AND

In Gaza City, residents went out into the streets and fired rifles in celebration in the air after hearing news of the attack on the yeshiva.

Was President Bush’s recent tour of Africa just a convenient and thinly-disguised attempt to whitewash an otherwise dismal foreign policy record? Mohammad Jafar Ahmed of Al-Khaleej of the United Arab Emirates writes, ‘By signing agreements and handing out donations to help combat disease at the end of his second term, Bush’s tour appeared to be an attempt to instill memories other than the American catastrophe in Iraq and the quagmire in Afghanistan.’

By Mohammad Jafar Ahmed

Translated By James Jacobson

February 22, 2008

United Arab Emirates - Al-Khaleej - Original Article (Arabic)

In his last months before leaving the White House, American President George Bush remembered of the “Dark Continent,” setting off on a six-day African tour starting in Benin, and moving on to Rwanda, Tanzania and Ghana, and ending today with a stop in Liberia.

Bush’s “farewell” tour, which is the second to Africa of his presidency, was meant to convince the world that he feels the suffering of this forgotten people, presenting himself as an advocate who wants to help them overcome the effects of war, conflict and disease. But perhaps the true purpose was to rescue a legacy tainted with the blood of thousands in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan - the result of his wars and unlimited support of Zionist aggression, in addition to the sanctions he has imposed on a number of countries that have opposed his policies.

The tour was striking in that it didn’t include the real hot spots of conflict on the Dark Continent, notably Sudan, home of the Darfur crisis, as well as Kenya, where the turmoil that has embroiled the nation since the recent elections continues, to say nothing of Chad and Somalia.

Bush’s five-country selection prompts anyone interested Africa’s difficulties to question the meaning and true objectives of his tour and whether it was for political or economic purposes. As Darfur is one of the major preoccupations of the West, particularly in the United States, which kept the crisis on the international agenda until it reached the U.N. Security Council, Sudan can be considered the greatest failure of Bush’s tour; similar to the way Palestine was the great failure after his last Middle East tour, where as result of American cover for “Israeli” crimes, hundreds have been martyred in Gaza and the West Bank.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with out continuing translated foreign press coverage of the United States.

Bizarre is one of the most misused words in the news media, and CNN really hit the ball out of the park with this one:

“A firearms dealer in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Friday confirmed a bizarre link between the graduate student accused of killing five people at Northern Illinois University and the gunman in last year’s deadly shootings at Virginia Tech.

“A Web site used to buy gun accessories by Steven Kazmierczak is owned by the same company that operates a site patronized by Seung-Hui Cho, the company said.”

A coincidence perhaps, but there is nothing remotely bizarre about the link. It often times is easier to purchase firearms and firearm accessories in the U.S. than alcohol, cigarettes or birth control products.

What is bizarre is that so many people refuse to acknowledge that there is a link between the daily gun mayhem in the U.S. and the ready availability of the means to that end.

And while we’re at it, isn’t it bizarre that in our society the solution of the first resort for almost anything that ails you is to pop pills instead of trying to work through the problem, and yet an unfortunate number of people do extremely awful things like Mr. Kazmierczak when they stop popping them?

Déjà vu won’t do. Recurring nightmare is a better description for what happened yesterday on a college campus in DeKalb, Illinois–an armed-to-the-teeth gunman, random shooting, sudden deaths.

This time there were five victims, plus the shooter, who stepped from behind a curtain in a lecture hall and started firing indiscriminately before killing himself on the stage. He had a shotgun, a Glock pistol and another handgun.

Ten months after Virginia Tech, the body count is mercifully lower, but the aftermath will be the same.

A special agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is at the scene, promising to “be urgently tracing the firearms and learning the history of the weapons” to “learn where they came from and how the shooter came to possess them.”

Last April, John McCain responded to the Virginia massacre by saying, “We have to look at what happened here, but it doesn’t change my views on the Second Amendment, except to make sure that these kinds of weapons don’t fall into the hands of bad people…Obviously we have to keep guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens.”

Now, as the Republican nominee-to-be courts the favor of his from-my-cold-dead-hands constituency, will his response be any different? If McCain is consistent, the rest of us will have to mourn the victims without him.

Cross-posted from my blog.

As a woman in a pants suit campaigns to become President of the United States, others are being killed on the streets of Basra for wearing makeup and not covering their faces.

Religious vigilantes have murdered at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city because of how they dressed, the police chief has told AP, and “dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior.”

As American politicians debate the future of the country we invaded almost five years ago, what is happening in Basra, “known for its mixed population and night life” under Saddam Hussein, is a chilling reminder of what we will leave behind, no matter how well the Surge works.

Can the sectarian madness we unleashed be negotiated away by Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad? The Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr controls Basra, but one of his aides blames the murders on “gangs with foreign support to destabilize the city,” while citing the “religious principle that says that wearing makeup and forgoing the hijab (headscarf) in public is a sin.”

“But killing them,” he concedes, “is a sin bigger than this one.”

When President Bush makes his next self-congratulatory speech about bringing the blessings of democracy to Iraq, someone should ask him about the women of Basra and remind Hillary Clinton what she may have voted for in the resolution opening the door to our doing the same for Iran.

Cross-posted from my blog.

UPDATE: It’s been determined that one man wounded five persons and murdered four persons at both churches which are about 60 miles apart. Matthew Murray, 24, a home-schooled son (one of two brothers) of a priminent Denver family did the shooting. Murray was five years ago an ‘associate’ At the Missionary Training Center, but was found ‘healthwise’ unfit for assignment after the 12 week training for missionary work. That Missionary Training Center was the shooter’s first target, befre he traveled to the other churxh and unleashed more mayhem. Today, the Director of the Center said Murray was believed to have been sending hate mail to the Center. Murray’s father is a neurologist and a prominent multiple-sclerosis researcher. More on the story here

At the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Murray killed two sister, ages 16 and 18. Their father was also wounded twice and is in hospital.

The story of the female security guard who killed the shooter, Miss Jeanne Assam, is here… “Security Guard: ‘God Guided Me And Protected Me’”

Today there were incomprehensible deadly shootings at two different churches in Colorado

…one shooting took place just after midnight in the youth dormitory at the Missionary Training Center, in Arvada, Colorado, a city just northwest of Denver.

There, the gunman shot dead two young people in their early 20s, one from Alaska and one from Minnesota. The gunman also seriously wounded two other young people there, one from South Dakota.

All were in a Youth Worship Mission together and were cleaning up after a Christmas party. Their pictures were flashed on television. Many tears. The police were unable to find the shooter.

…The other shooting took place today as noon services were ending in Colorado Springs at the New Life Church, also called by some, The New Life Megachurch, that has 14,000 members, 350 employees and a huge ‘campus.’

The gunman opened fire there (it may be the same gunman that was in Arvada earlier, but this is not confirmed) and killed two persons, one a teenage girl. He shot three others who are in hospital with life-threatening injuries.

The New Life Church had taken an extra precaution after hearing about the Arvada incident earlier in the day.

A female security guard on the scene at the Colorado Springs church, shot the killer dead. (She is currently lauded for saving lives. This is all the info that has been released about her thus far, the sheriff only referring to the guard as ‘her’.)

Now come more televised pictures of the victims’ yearbook photos. More tears. Sheriff with badge. News conference/ gaggle of mikes. Brave. Contained. Tragedy. People in Michelin Tire Man parkas embracing in the freezing cold. Steam rising as network affiliate reporters report. Governor’s message. Senator’s message. People shake when they try to speak.

The New Life Megachurch has had difficult times this past year as it is the church founded by Pastor Ted Haggard, who was let go for engaging with a homosexual prostitute. Haggard was, nonetheless, popular with his church members, and the church was recovering.

Focus on The Family run by James Dobson, is just down the road in Colorado Springs. No doubt the reverberation of this tragedy reached them quickly.

Meanwhile, across the nation, in basements, garages, bedrooms, cellars, attics, living rooms, other disturbed persons write the next or the last entry in their journals of screed. They count and recount the ammo one more time. They know, they just know they are going to abate Evil and set things Right in the world. They use Mapquest to figure out how to get to their targeted ground zero. Perfectly functional, can drive a car. Perfectly deadly, sick as rabid dogs.

And no one notices. Or tries not to. Or says, not my problem. Or says, well, we’re all a little odd. Or just stays away and hopes for the best.

I can only say, that once again, likely the person or persons who were the shooters at the churches, will have had a history of instability that too many did not recognize for its homicidal and suicidal nature, or misinterpreted the severity of what they were seeing.

Personal freedoms are so highly cherished in our country, that sometimes, people do not want to try to interfere, even when they know someone is quite mad and NOT harmless.

In California, even when a person suffering from severe mental illness poses a clear danger to themselves or to others, there are laws that prevent sincerely concerned others from helping the severely ill person get the help they need.

Is it such in our culture that in order to avoid ‘the slippery slope’ of people perhaps wrongfully being detained for a ‘mental health hold’ by their grubbing relatives, that we have accepted continual and unceasing mass murder by seriously disturbed people? Is this the only trade?

Half a century ago, TV created a new kind of American assassin, one who would escape insignificance by killing someone famous–a President or a star like John Lennon–and become famous for doing it.

Now we are in a new phase of this madness, where quantity has replaced quality in selecting victims. After yesterday’s random killing of eight people in an Omaha mall, police report finding a suicide note from the 19-year-old shooter, who had been fired by McDonald’s, saying he was going to be famous.

He joins the Virginia Tech rampage killer who left self-pitying videos in achieving notoriety through mass murder. Perhaps this new stage of insane fame was inevitable. Arthur Bremer, who was just released after 35 years in prison, wanted to assassinate Richard Nixon but settled for Gov. George Wallace because the President was too well-guarded. It’s so much easier to kill numbers of people at random.

In our grief, perhaps we should do with these sociopaths what the media do with rape victims, withhold their names, certainly not to protect them but to deny them the fame that motivated their savagery. It’s the least we can do out of respect for the victims.

Cross-posted from my blog.

The Jewish side of my family lost a number of people in Hitler’s death camps, but for many years there were unconfirmed rumors that a distant cousin — a young boy — had gotten out of the country and was living somewhere. We just didn’t know who he was or where he lived.

Then a few years ago, Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews was published in England. In it, Daily Telegraph correspondent Michael Smith told the story of Frank Foley, an MI6 operative at the British embassy in Berlin in the late 1930s whose cover was passport control officer.

It turned out that Foley, who is touted on the book’s cover as Britain’s Schindler after the legendary Oskar Schindler, managed to arrange transit to New Zealand in 1939 for my cousin, then three years old, and his parents at a time when Jews were, for all intents and purposes, trapped and doomed.

Not coincidental to publication of Foley, my cousin and I finally connected through another family member. A thriving correspondence followed with this most erudite gentleman, a bibliophile and man of the world, lives in a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand, and writes under the pen name of Country Bumpkin.

Mr. Bumpkin has been guest-blogging at Kiko’s House on various goings on — the changing of the seasons in New Zealand, politics, culture and personal reflections. Now 72, he recently returned to Germany for the first time in 68 years. I have excerpted his account here.

It is a touching remembrance of things past and an astute commentary on things present and future.

The Night of The Shattering Glass, otherwise known as Kristallnacht, took place November 9, 1938, marking to that date, the most widespread attack against Jews in peacetime Germany and Austria.

In France, two days prior, a 17 year old Jew had shot a German embassy staffer in retaliation for the egregious treatment of his father and family at the hands of Nazis in Germany.

Hitler seized on that event as opportunity to enact his long planned desire to destroy Jewish houses of worship and the Jews…. parnasah, their ability to make a living.

Thus, on that night, Hitler unleashed his most psychopathic and hate-gorged minions to loot and burn any and every Jewish community in Nazi territory. 267 synagogues were plundered of sacred Torah scrolls, the hand-built temples torched.

100 Jews were murdered whilst trying to defend family and property. 7500 Jewish shops were looted of valuables, left with every window shattered and all remaining fixtures despoiled and set afire.

The Nazi government said the Jews had brought this down upon their own heads, and ordered them to pay one billion marks for the murder of the Embassy staffer in Paris.

The Jews were also charged six million marks to pay for the Nazi’s destruction of their own shops.

Shortly afterward, 25,000 Jewish fathers, rabbis, brothers, sons, students, poets, farmers, sweethearts, and bridegrooms, were dragged from their families, farms, and off the streets.

They were forced to Nazi slave camps, never to be seen again. It was the commencement of an ancient evil, but on a new, relentless scale.

The Nazi plan: To extinguish entire cultural groups, but first to coerce them to become a wage-less workforce for the state’s purposes, until these innocents, unable to work any longer because of starvation and torture, were murdered where they lay.

Near Oswiecim Poland, the Nazis ordered more heatless barracks and factory halls built. Less than eighteen months after Kristallnacht, this death camp, called Auschwitz, was fully packed with blameless souls who were rendered into a river of blood. This flood of humanity was bled out day and night without cease for the next four years.

Kristallnacht stands as one of the central flashpoints… one so large that for those who had the eyes or heart to see it, it could be registered around the world. It was Kristallnacht that catalyzed the Nazi’s spreading stain across Europe and Russia.

The sick psychological ideas underlying the arsons of Kristallnacht leapt from dry mind to dry mind until the malicious ideas caught on that mental tinderwood in each man’s darkest mind, and there, broke into flame, fueling ever more death.

By 1938, Dachau had already been rendering human bones and blood for six years. Now were added six more houses of slaughter in Poland alone, including Auschwitz.

In the years prior, Hitler had ordered Germany’s doctors to euthanize tens of thousands of German children, Jews and non-Jews alike, who were in some way lame or halt, and that ‘operation’ was carried out in full, emptying sanitoriums and orphanages even as many German physicians protested vociferously.

But, death and disposal of ‘inconvenient humans’ had become not only the pattern of the collective unconscious of a nation, but an insatiable hunger. The legends of the vampire do not spring up from a soul being lost.

The oldest vampire legends spring up around those who have murdered, and thereby a ’switch has been thrown’ in them; they developed a blood lust to Read the rest of this entry »

On mission to post-trauma sites, I drag along a raggedy old journal I’ve handwrit over the decades. Inside the old moleskine, well, it’s overheavy with quotes from Heschel, Berry, Lorca, Mechtilde, and others. Freeze-dried nourishment for the climb.

Tonight, here in the Rockies with snow hanging heavy in the white night sky, the big wood owls land on the roof with such a thud that it sounds like a whole man has been dropped from the sky…

I’ve been thinking somewhat wearily, I must get to bed earlier, last night it was just after 5a.m., the night before 4 a.m…. trying to stay up late to write… trying to read and think and write in the interstices left from all other commitments to twenty-nine elses.

But, I’m see once again, from cruising many blogs and their comments tonight, that there are many souls who have need for rest this night that has nothing to do with lack of sleep… for anyone who registers the world with accuracy, these are times, as Wordsworth put it, “The World is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours…”

I’d prescribe for that condition, this to start; From the raggedy notebook, here, take this with water. Tonight, I’ll meet you there:

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

by Wendell Berry

This is a picture of Than Schwe’s latest publicity stunt in Burma, posting in public places, photographs of his innocent victims in chains and often beaten. Each prisoner is forced to hold a sign admitting to their crimes against Than Schwe. They were rounded up for as little as clapping as the monks and nuns marched, for as little as giving food to the holy people. One grim young couple who were arrested, appear to be holding their little child close in their arms. Arresting innocent people and babies. Beating people up. Murder in broad daylight.

Yes, Than Schwe, this is bound to bring you and your family and all who support you, the further dishonor from the world powers that you so deeply seek. Consider it a fait d’accompli. By your own choices, you are disgraced in the eyes of the civilized world.

Over these past weeks, I’ve sent notes by email to all my correspondents and other sources I could find within or near Burma.

In the past 14 days, Silence. Silence now from most all of them.

This is one of my notes sent, and the answer I received today.

Please, do you have any news of the monks and nuns in Burma in the last
week? I write for The Moderate Voice newsblog and have written
several pieces on Burma in the last two weeks. We all fear for the
holy people and those who have supported them. If there is any way
we can help, please let us know. We are in the US. With kindest
regards, this feels like a message in a bottle, Dr. C. Estes

We are sorry but we cannot have any further information.

The brevity of the communiqué, the lack of reference to the question, the word ‘cannot’ is pure code to my ears. This source which was once viable, is now reduced to a sweet politeness that says everything in subtext. My sense tells me this brief wording seems too much like, “Excuse our bloodshed, we are being beaten and killed today.”

Given Than Schwe’s absurdist propaganda released two weeks ago, “reporting” to the world as though we are all mentally defective morons, that he ordered raids of monasteries and there found American flags with Nazi swastikas marked on them, masses of pornography … that Than Schwe thought we would find his diseased 1950s ideas of American outrage to be in any way viable in 2007, is pathetic.

Compared to Than Shwe’s worldwide reputation now as a public assaulter and murderer of innocent holy people, families, elders and the young… by contrast, the Silence coming from the people of Burma seems like a language of its own… ‘the people’s Silence,’ an eloquent language that is true to their hopes and fears, a rarity in a Burma where twenty foot tall lies are daily propped up by little 5 foot-nothing Than Schwe.

There’s a saying in the family of humankind Than Schwe, that the larger the lie, the more easily it topples of its own weight.

Allen Ginsberg, American poet and Buddhist, was also eloquent about dictators like Than Schwe: In a work he called “Wichita Vortex Sutra…”

… war is language,
language abused
for Advertisement,
language used
like magic for power on the planet:
Black Magic language,
formulas for reality —
Communism is a 9 letter word
used by inferior magicians with
the wrong alchemical formula for transforming earth into gold
– funky warlocks operating on guesswork,
handmedown mandrake terminology
that never worked…
…Sorcerer’s Apprentices who lost control
of the simplest broomstick in the world:
Language

© 1966 Copyright, Allen Ginsberg, All Rights Reserved. Wichita Vortex Sutra. New Directions

_____________
CODA
As per the older woman in the foreground of the photo. Don’t ever underestimate old women. They know what’s going on before most anyone else does. The dear child with her, is her reason for ‘reading the air…’ just in case refuge is suddenly needed.

A Conversation with Dr. Jack Kornfield, American Buddhist Teacher trained in Thailand, Burma and India…on Burma, Buddhism, H.H. the Dalai Lama, and non-violence.

Kornfield is one of the foremost teachers of Theravada Buddhism in the West. He was trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India (He is on the far right in the photo). He graduated from Dartmouth in 1967, joined the Peace Corps in Public Health Service in northeast Thailand, home to some of the last forest monasteries of Buddhist monks and nuns.

There Buddhist master Ajahn Chah became his teacher for many years. Returning to the United States, Kornfield took a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and became a founding teacher of the Buddhist Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California.

I met Jack some years ago when we were both teaching at a symposium in D.C. His father suddenly took a turn for the worse, and Jack was called away. I joined in teaching Jack’s group in order to help, and we have had a friendship since then.

Now 62 years old, he is a soft spoken, devout man with a secular sense of humor lurking beneath the surface, a wonderful trait in a religious. He meets yearly with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, and has published twenty books.

Here is a part of our conversation from October 9, 2007, about the use of violence against violence; the potential use of violence to effect change in Burma… from one man’s deeply Buddhist point of view.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés: “Jack, Buddhists often seem simpatico with others I grew up amongst and admired; Amish, Mennonites, Quakers, Dunkards, priests, brothers and nuns of The Holy Cross … most all being people who often managed to act calmly in helping to aright injustices in the midst of mayhem all around. It’s one thing to be calm in a peaceful mountain monastery, and quite another to act calmly on a festering street corner in East L.A.

“But, right now, looking between the worlds at the murderous mayhems of our times, many hearts are breaking for the millionth time, Jack, and this time, it’s Burma again. On the newsblog I write for, Themoderatevoice.com, some thoughtful commenters have said, amongst other cogent ideas, that the Burmese monks and nuns perhaps ought arm themselves and overtake the junta.

“As an old believer, I know a literal warrior pledges to strive to act with courage in the face of scorn, ridicule and aggression… but not to act in violence. Yet, I know there are warrior traditions in my faiths, amongst them, the Knights, and that there is a warrior-monk tradition in Buddhism from times of old too, as amongst some of the Samurai. Neither of these ancient traditions are portrayed well in modern works, seeming instead to have been severed from their mystical underpinnings…

“… But, thinking of the Burmese again, can holy monks and nuns arm themselves in aggression? Can this be integrated somehow in the non-violent heart of Buddhism?”

Jack Kornfield: ”I’d tell you a story about His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. A group of young Tibetans came to the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. They told him they were very distraught by the suffering of the Tibetans, and thought they should go back into Tibet armed. They said, We have lost temples, nuns, monks, our culture. We want Stinger missiles for we have nomads who know the mountains and the Chinese don’t know our mountains, and we can launch from there.

“The Dalai Lama put his head in his hands and wept. He reminded them of the Buddhist precept of no killing, no harming living beings, the precept the Dalai Lama has taught all his life as the incarnate head of Buddhism. His Holiness told the young Tibetans, I don’t know if I have done the right thing; but I’ll step down if I have done it wrong. If I believed I have taught untruth, I would resign.

“I’ll tell you another story. We have in our history as Buddhists, many times of being treated unjustly… Yet, I knew Maha Ghosananda, the holy man of Cambodia. After Pol Pot, one-third of the population of Cambodia was massacred. Ninety-five percent of the monks and nuns were felled.

“We were in Thailand at the time, and traveled to where refugees were from Cambodia. And Maha Ghosananda came as the elder to the refugee camps, and he asked permission from UN to reopen a Buddhist temple right there in the camps.

“It was dangerous to do. The Khmer Rouge were underground in the refugee camps. The KR said to the refugees, You go to this man, this ceremony, and we will kill you later.

“But, there in the midst of thousands and thousands of tiny bamboo huts, Maha Ghosananda rang a sacred bell.

“25,000 refugees came; the ones who’d’ had their village temples burned, the ones who’d survived the murders by the Khmer Rouge of their elders, their children, their sisters, brothers, parents, so that now a family was one grandparent and two children left, or one uncle and one niece, left.

“Mahan Ghosananda chanted in Cambodian and Sanskrit, chanting from the Dhammapada, that Hatred never ceases by hatred, that hatred is conquered by love, that this is the ancient and eternal law…

“25 thousand Cambodians who had not heard the holy scripture aloud in years, were chanting and weeping. Read the rest of this entry »

When you’re the U.S. and the biggest and baddest dog in the global junkyard, you can say whatever you damned well please. But when you’re Japan and deny the Rape of Nanking or Turkey and deny that you slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians, you’re going to catch a lot of flak — and deserve to.

It’s yet again Turkey’s to take heat for an ugly chapter in its history that it simply cannot wish away: The deaths of all those Armenians as a result of deportations and systematic killings in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

Apparently having nothing better to do than looking back incessantly, Armenian-Americans have beaten the drum for years in trying to get the deaths recognized as genocide, as if that will bring back Uncle Aram. With the Democrats more or less having the upper hand in Congress, they now also have some electoral clout to push that agenda.

Turkey’s response has been that all those Armenians, or at least a goodly number, died in slip-and-fall accidents, choked on chicken bones or did each other in. In a word: ludicrous.

In any event, the Greatest Deliberative Body in the Universe has big-footed into the nearly century-old dispute despite President Bush imploring these congressfolk — and appropriately so — to butt the heck out.

In a 27-21 vote this week engineered by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has a large Armenian-American constituency, the House Foreign Affairs Committee declared that the Armenian slaughter was indeed genocide. The non-binding resolution now goes to the full House. (When a House approved a similar resolution in 2000, President Clinton persuaded Republican Speaker J. Dennis Hastert to withdraw it.)

Turkey’s response to the vote was predictable: It recalled its ambassador for consultations and is considering limiting logistical support to U.S. troops in Iraq by restricting access to U.S. bases on its soil.

That is no small matter, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates was quick to note that 70 percent of all air cargo sent to Iraq passes through or comes from Turkey, as does 30 percent of fuel and virtually all the new armored vehicles designed to withstand mines and bombs. (Turkey also is making troubling noises in its long battle with Kurdish rebels who use northern Iraq as their base.)

When all is said and done, the uproar puts Turkey between Iraq and a hard place.

It wants to earn its keep as a full-fledged NATO member in the worst way but needs to save face at home. The Turkey-U.S. crisis also doesn’t exactly cover those congressfolk in glory since Turkey has made enormous strides toward becoming a full-fledged democracy, is one of the few Muslim states to recognize Israel and has been a bulwark against Muslim radicalism.

There are no winners in this one:

* Armenia, which historically has gotten the short end of the stick, and Armenian-Americans need to make peace and move on.

* The Turks, whose denials about what happened to those Armenians seem more childish with every passing year, need to finish growing up.

* And Nancy Pelosi and others who support the resolution need to stop vote counting, which is only making a bad situation worse, and consider the big picture.

Meanwhile, TMV co-blogger Jeb Koogler has a post above, co-blogger David Schraub at The Debate Link provides a good overview of the background and foreground on this one, while Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye recommends that everyone open their archives so the world finally can know what really happened.

I am sorry to bring this picture to you again. But when I ran this sad, sad picture several days ago accompanying articles on the uprising by Buddhist monks and nuns against the illicit Than Schwe regime in Burma, I thought it was a picture of one of the holy people who had been murdered, and I thought it ought be run with dignity.

But, something has been bothering me about the image. Today I realized that I’d been puzzled by something about the colors in the photo ever since I first saw it. Thus today, I was seized with the idea to scan this same photograph into my Imedia software and I blew the image up to nearly full screen size.

I slumped in my chair for a moment then, for suddenly I could see that what had appeared to be this holy man’s dark garment in the middle of his back… is instead a long and broad bone and muscle bruise rising from the base of his cranium and not ending until it reaches near his tailbone, the kind of deep bleeding bruise that comes from being repeatedly crushed with full force by a rifle stock. The skin on each shoulder is blackened, indicating he may have been struck from above while in a supplicating position to his captor.

With the image enlarged, I could see this murdered holy man is wearing no shirt, no pants; all the yellow and gray and black you see is this dear soul’s naked body, the remnant of his red robe is around his neck, his loin cloth twisted at his waist. He may have been on his knees in the mud when he was first tortured, and then fallen prone. It appears one leg is broken.

Then I saw his ears. Dead black, both ears. The only time I have seen ears this color is in the ER when a person’s face has been savagely beaten to a literal pulp. This monk was bludgeoned to unconsciousness and then his body pushed into the river’s shallows where he was either already dead from bleeding through the brain, internal organ lacerations, or else was drowned without ever regaining consciousness. There’s more that points toward, that infers, but this is likely more than enough for now.

Whomsoever murdered him was in a rage, a white-eyed, all-molars glowing, screaming sustained rage. Injuries like these don’t come from falling or from being shot at random or from being struck once. They come from literally being beaten over and over until the victim is dead.

Also, as I pan back from the picture, and deepen the shadow saturation, I get a sense that could we see a panoramic image of this place, this moment, there may have been at least one more body in the water to the right of the frame.

It is a seeming overcast day; there are white dots on either the lens of the camera or in the water; the water is still; it is not raining at that moment; the light is coming from the right and moderately low in the sky. The water looks rich in green algae but swamp like. The shadow of the photographer cannot be seen in the water.

I think of these details and I am there, and it sickens. A man with a pot metal begging bowl up against well-fed soldiers with automatic assault rifles. A young monk who has recently and carefully shaved his head in the tradition of the ablutions of holy men. A very young monk whom you can see is small in stature when compared to the circumference of the river twigs sticking out of the water where he lies.

I have heard regarding the monks, nuns and civilians dragged to the jungle, that Than Schwe, the illicit ruler of Burma, has ordered all dead bodies be burnt to hide the evidence. Where have we heard that before, burning murdered humans to ashes to try to hide the evidence of one’s egregious crimes?

But even ashes can and will speak, Than Schwe. The ashes of the dead are speaking now, through every Read the rest of this entry »

How it goes.

After the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado in 1999 where 12 students and one teacher were murdered by high school seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (who then killed themselves)… many people in the community, in the nation and in the world wondered could more people have been saved? What happened to spread the alarm? Who heard it, who did not? What was the students’ response? The teachers’? What should have been set in place long before? There were many other questions. We might have one more small answer now.

Today, an extraordinary film was released by CNN, a home video made yesterday by a Cleveland Ohio student, Warren Marks, of his teacher and classroom of students at his Success Tech Academy when a ‘code blue’ was called over the loudspeakers. The students in Mark’s math class didn’t realize it, but at that moment, one of their classmates was loose in the school with a loaded firearm.

The students as shown on the video are very slow to react to protect themselves. Precious time is lost until what appears to be an alert teacher climbs up and stands on a desk trying to quiet and focus the raucous students, shouting at them that this is not a joke, to stop laughing, this is to be taken seriously.

More moments before the message sinks in; til the students organize and finally lock down in the classroom. This chaotic and slow response comes in part from the students not immediately having enough specific information about the threat.

For many persons in general, when confronted with alarm, it’s a knee-jerk reaction to initially question or disbelieve there’s a real threat. Despite old media which no doubt will now seek out students who have been proximate to violence before and portray that as ‘the norm’, most students reacted normally… they still expected the inside of the school to be a protected place.

Asa Coon, the troubled 14 year old student who was the reason for the ‘code blue,’ subsequently shot two teachers and two students, and then took his own life. One teacher was shot in the back, one in the chest; the latter teacher having now had surgery and being listed in ‘fair’ condition.

We know the drill.
1. Troubled student
2. Students complained about the student
3. Teachers brought the issue forward
4. Evidence of ill intents found in troubled student’s writing, video, artwork
5. Others tried to intervene but were not supported
6. Other attempted to install precautionary rules /devices in school system
7. Nothing effective accomplished
8. Student gave warnings of impending homicide/suicide
9. Student had known serious mental distress
10. Student kept falling through cracks in terms of containment, help.
11. Harassment, ridiculing, scorning confrontations against/ with troubled student continue by others.
12. Firearm obtained
13. One last straw occurs
14. Psychotic break
15. Murder, suicide.

Everyone in shock.

As well they ought be. The dirty secret is that Read the rest of this entry »