Holocaust

I have received one of those chain letters that drive me crazy.  Usually I just delete them, but this one got to me.  It starts out praising Eisenhower for ordering photos of Holocaust survivors and then it claims that England is about to take the Holocaust out of it's school curriculum to avoid offending Muslims.  

I agree that the holocaust should never be forgotten.  This misleading mass chain letter, however, is full of inaccuracies.  Here's one of many links I found de-bunking it.

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/uk-holocaust-removal.shtml

But I suspected it was nuts before I started checking into it.

First of all, the British people themselves suffered deeply during WWII and remain extremely proud of their resistance to Hitler.  They are not going to forget it any time soon.  Additionally, they are still dealing with the emotional scars that resistance caused.  We are more likely to forget it than they are.  

Secondly, this letter conveniently leaves out the millions of powerless people: homosexuals and people with disabilities and other "non-Aryan" qualities, who were also victims of the holocaust. This makes me suspicious that there is an unexpressed agenda here.  Was it okay for Hitler to experiment on them?  Or is it still okay to hate them?  

Thirdly, why would Muslims find Hitler's regime offensive?  The extremist Muslims we are worried about hate Jews more than Hitler did and have more justification.  (I do not advocate jihad, pogrom, holocaust or other forms of feuding.  I'm just saying that the on-going conflict between Israel and the Muslim world is not creating mutual understanding and respect.)  I personally think the whole point of this letter is in the last line where it warns that 9/11 will soon be forgotten because Muslims find it offensive.  Which makes this a not very subtle attack on Muslims.  Is it okay to experiment on Muslims and put them in camps?  If the people in those initial photos were wearing burkas would those photos be just as offensive?  

There is so much anti-muslim propaganda in our world today that it is very difficult to listen to reason.  We only hear about the crazy people.  Who wants to be judged by the crazy people?  As a Catholic, I certainly don't want to be judged by the Inquisition or the tiny number of sick priests.  Religion is a very tricky thing.  

Finally, Ike is famous for many things, not least of which was his warning about the dangers of the "Military Industrial (Congressional) Complex" in his farewell address.  (His original draft said "Military Industrial Congressional Complex" but he struck Congressional out.  His daughter has said it was because he thought it was counter productive to offend Congress.)  Fear and inaccuracies only give that dangerous alliance more power.  The relevant portion of his speech is found here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY

"Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Alert and knowledgeable.  I would add compassionate.  This letter fuels fear of Muslims and supports the Military Industrial Congressional wars against people who do not even have indoor plumbing.  I am in favor of security AND liberty for everyone.  Unfortunately, there is a balance.  Ultimate security can only be found by giving up liberty.  Give up too much liberty and you once again start to lose even security.  I worry that in this country we are letting our fears talk us into surrendering liberty for a false sense of security.  To a large degree, we have surrendered our ability to think rationally to our fears.  We have given our power to the Military Industrial Congressional Complex just as Ike worried we would.  He was a very thoughtful man and I suspect he would be very unhappy to have his reputation attached to this letter.  By fueling our fears of Muslims, this letter empowers the very people Ike warned us about.

Too often these mass mailings I receive do not seem knowledgeable, compassionate or even alert - they just seem ill-informed and scared.  They remind me of Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing":  "He is now as valiant as Hercules who only tells a lie and swears by it."  

Daughter of a scientist here.  My motto is "Check it out."  I will not forward anything on until I have checked it out.  If I do not have time to check something out or if I am not particularly interested in the subject, I just delete it.  This particular one, since it deals with and encourages hate and fear, upset me more than most.  So I decided to respond.

Sam's Sweater

Problem: Sam has an extremely curved back.  I take him to a chiropractor twice a month, but there's only so much he can do.  He lessens Sam's pain, helps him breathe more deeply so he doesn't get pneumonia and, hopefully, keeps his back from getting worse, but he can't fix what's already happened.

Sam's sweaters rise up about 3 inches in the back because of the curve.  This means, besides the tacky fashion statement, that his waist is often cold because sweaters that fit in front don't cover him in back OR sweaters that cover his back are too bunchy in the front.

 Although his back is also curved from right to left, sweaters seem to lie pretty straight across the back.

So I decided to knit a sweater that actually fits him.  I'm using R2 Fuzzi Felt because I have soooo much of it in my stash and because it's bulky and fast and hopefully warm.  It is 58% nylon, 16% merino wool, 20% Acrylic and 6% alpaca.  That's 22% more natural fiber than the sweaters I buy him at Kohls....

I'm taking a course at Craftsy.com on knitting for curvy figures - by which they mean me - but I'm making Sam my first attempt at curvy knits.  (The course was a Christmas present from my DIL and son.)  My brilliant DIL suggested that I knit it from the top down so I can try it on as I go.  I bought Barbara Walker's book "Knitting From the Top" and started casting on for a v-neck raglan cardigan.  Here's where we are today:

 The offset color is where the raglan seam increases come in.  I'm not sure if I like this or not, I'm going to leave it and call it a design feature.  NEXT sweater...

But I think you can see that already the front is a lot closer to his waist than the back and also that the back is starting to be too small while the front looks just about right.  So I'm going to try increasing an extra two stitches every right side row in the back AND do a short row in the back every wrong side row.  I'll also stop adding stitches to the center front.  Each short row adds two rows to the back and with my gauge, I'll need 9 or 10 to make the 3".  I'm not sure how much wider I need the back to be.  

Victim Impact after 7 years

Last summer I worked on a biography of my dad for the online journal

http://palaeo-electronica.org/splash/index14_3.html. Its November, 2011 issue was dedicated to my Dad. It contains a comprehensive review of his life and his profound impact on several different branches of paleontology. He continues to be deeply missed by the scientific community.

Now I have been invited to contribute to a very different kind of review: the parole hearing of one of the 5 people who ended his life. What relevant contribution can I offer to a parole hearing? It seems to me that what I have to say can best be expressed in an open letter to Ms. K.

Dear Ms. K,

Just over 7 years ago, you had a home and my dad was alive. Then, just after New Year's in 2005, you sat at your kitchen table while your husband and his associates plotted to ransack my father's home for drug money. I heard you took notes.

Mr. S claims that he told your husband and his friend to go at a time when my ailing father was not at home. This is ridiculous since he was mostly housebound. So they chose to go in the middle of the night. They succeeded in ransacking the house and savagely murdering my father.

Here we are 7 years later and I have been invited to write a Victim Impact Statement for your parole hearing. I don't know you. I don't know what the last 7 years have been like for you. I doubt that living in a Women's Correctional Institution has taught you much compassion. Perhaps you have learned to respect other people's property. Compassion and respect for others are the two qualities you need to learn. If you had either, you would never have participated in this inexcusable and horrific crime.

I understand you didn't know that my father had been murdered by your husband and his friend until a few days later. But the basic point is that you do not have the right to take other people's things just because you need more money for drugs. If you and the others had understood that basic fact, none of you would have planned to go over to his house that night in the first place.

But this is supposed to be a Victim Impact Statement. I am only one of the victims of your actions. Let me tell you a bit about what the impact of that night has been for me and for some others.

A large number of paleontologists are also victims of your rash deeds. They still miss him badly. You robbed the world of science of a unique and brilliant man.

My brother still worries everytime he goes out in public with his small children. He has become aware, thanks to the five of you, that the world is not a safe place and that he is helpless to protect the people he loves most from crazy, drug addicted people like the five of you. He copes with terror.

As for me, every year about this time, I have a very strong reaction. Sometimes I don't consciously remember that this is the anniversary of the murder, but my body remembers. I feel horribly sick or I have a night when I am utterly awake and jump at small sounds. Or I feel strangled and suffocated.

I saw the photos of what your husband and friend did to my dad and I heard the description of what it was probably like for him while he died. For a long time, I would dream it was me that it happened to and I would live through his last few moments over and over. I felt horribly guilty that I allowed him to die alone and by violence. It was his worst nightmare. I think I felt that, since I wasn't there for him when he was murdered, I could at least face the horror of his death and stand witness to it.

I think you knew that he was a WWII soldier since you wanted his Nazi memorabilia. Maybe you didn't know he had PTSD. He often had flashbacks of being a POW. I know he expected to die in POW camp. I wonder if, as he lay convulsing and suffocating, he hallucinated that he was back in the Stalag and dying. I imagine he did.

About a year after the murder, our landlady needed some work done on the roof of the building and insisted that I stay home in case the roofers needed anything. All I could think of was that the people who planned my father's murder were roofers! The first day I spent quivering and sobbing in a little ball in the corner of my living room as they pounded on the roof. I was sure they were coming in to murder me. The next day I told the roofers my fears and they assured me that I didn't need to be home for them. I spent the next few days at Starbucks.

This was about when I decided maybe I needed therapy. I have been in therapy ever since. My therapist has helped me let go of my fears, for the most part, and I rarely dream of my father's murder anymore. But only a year ago we needed a new furnace and the man who came to install it reminded me of Michael M. I completely paniced all over again. I called everyone I knew and talked to them loudly so that the installer would know that I was not alone. A good friend came over and stayed with me until he left and that really helped. But I still had trouble sleeping for the next 3 weeks because I was afraid they were going to come back in the night and murder my family the way you all did.

Any day I get mail from the Colorado State Department of Corrections is an automatic signal for my husband to order pizza because I will be in no condition to cook dinner. Yet I can't feel safe unless I know that they will keep me updated on the 5 of you.

We pay for the most expensive burglar alarm system we can afford. It connect directly to the police and fire departments and it has a “panic button.”

7 years ago, I was a confident, cheerful, happy woman. Most days I still appear to be that person. But a hard kernel of fear and mistrust has taken root inside me. It will bloom into full scale panic from time to time unexpectedly. I miss who I used to be.

I am a Catholic. Every week during Mass we say, “Forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who tresspass against us.” And every week when I say that one of your faces pops up in my minds eye. There is no one who has tresspassed against me more than the five of you. And I am supposed to forgive you. This makes me angry.

In the last 7 years, I have come to realize that you hurt me badly and damaged me (perhaps permanently) by your actions. But that was a one time act. As I allow myself to relive it, I am hurting myself over and over again. Some of that I can't help, but some of it I can stop by trying to forgive you. As I let go of my anger and grief and learn to forgive the five of you, I can slowly put an end to the nightmares and the terror. I must forgive the five of you so that I can stop the memories from hurting me any more. I have made some headway in forgiving the five of you for damaging me and my family so badly, but I still have a way to go. My father managed to forgive his captors and become a brilliant scientist in spite of his PTSD. I imagine he would want me to finally forgive the 5 of you so that I can be free from the damage you all did to me. 7 years has not been enough time for me or my family or the scientists to completely move on from that day.

I have no idea whether or not 7 years is enough time for you to be sufficiently punished or whether you deserve parole because I don't know what you have done with yourself while in jail. I am grateful that it really isn't my decision to make. I hope, if they allow you to move to a halfway house, you will manage to live a better life. I hope I never need to hear your name again.

Star Stuff

We've been streaming documentaries about how the universe works and physics beyond Einstein and I've been listening to Richard Feynman on Audiobooks lately.  It's fascinating stuff.  Frankly, I don't understand it at all, but it gives me lots of grist for random philosophical thoughts.

For example: I love the idea that we are made up of star matter and that the cells in our bodies are constantly renewing themselves.  I forget how fast this happens, but all the cells in our bodies are completely different from the cells we had just recently.  The man who said that mentioned how amazing it is that we stay the same even though we have no single cell in common with those we were made of a few days ago.

I've also been sorting, scanning and publishing all the slides my dad left behind.  They go back more than 60 years and there are a lot of them. I can tell you personally that MY cells have not been replicating themselves exactly for the last 60 years.  There is a big difference!  It might be a gradual evolution, but I'm definitely not the same person I was.  Looking at the photo of me beside the fossil "zebra" I found in 1965, you can easily believe that young girl shares no cell with me.

I'm clearly not the same collection of cells as this high school graduate in 1969 either.  Oddly, we have almost the same hairstyle...

You can see more of my family photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/j4zberg if you are interested.

This idea that I move through the universe as a random, loosely connected, bunch of atoms with a bit of consciousness intrigues me.  This bunch of atoms will someday loose their cohesiveness and that flicker of consciousness will shuffle off this mortal coil and um do something else.  (Or not.)

This bunch of atoms I call me landed here and has been traveling through the illusion of time for a bit, but it is closer to the end of this interlude than the beginning.  I'm thinking a lot about that since my 60th birthday.

My parents both were very active into their 80's and I hope to follow in their footsteps.  My mom is still running things, but you can't deny she's slowing down.  So I think it is safe to say I probably have a few decades left in me.  But I'm about 75% done.

Or maybe I'm just 75% ready for the next big thing.

Tax the Rich

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he's not engaging in "class warfare" -- he's just doing the math. But House Speaker John Boehner (BAY'-nur) says class warfare is exactly what Obama is engaging in -- and he says that's not the same as leadership. (End Quote)


President Obama promised to veto any budget plan that cuts Medicare without closing loopholes which create tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.  Speaker Boehner said, "Tax the rich, tax the rich.  That's really not the American way."  Then he went on to say that balancing the budget requires more people on the tax roles, more jobs.


So let's think about this.  What we need is more people working at Wal-Mart, earning less than a living wage and paying higher taxes.  We need more elderly going without medical care because they can't afford it.  We need to keep giving the wealthiest people "incentives" to get richer because "they deserve a break today."  We need to crush unions and collective bargaining because it's all those teachers and fire fighters and police officers being greedy that actually is behind the deficit.  That's the way the Sherriff of Nottingham reasoned and why Robin Hood is still a popular folk hero!


Yet it's President Obama that is accused of "class warfare" and not people like Boehner and the Tea Party?  


I think the "Trickle Down Theory" hasn't actually worked.  Nothing ever "trickles down".   It hasn't worked in the recent past.  It didn't work in the days of Rockefeller.  But speaking of Rockefeller and the Robber Barons, maybe Boehner has a point.  Maybe class oppression IS the American way, it's just not what I learned America was about when I was in grade school.    

Living in the Now

I am struggling to understand this concept.  I do not think I have grasped the essential wisdom of it.  It seems to me that I live too much "in the Now" - tending to whichever crisis is shouting it's need at me most loudly.  Living in the current crisis leaves me with a distinct feeling of claustrophobia.  I do not have room to expand or plan.  I am reactive instead of proactive.

I have read many books which talk about the wisdom of living in Now, but I still do not really understand it.  Part of the trouble, I suspect, is the inherent responsibility of possessions.  I own a house with a roof, for example, roofs need to be replaced on a regular basis and paying for the roof is not something one does without planning ahead.  Where does future planning exist in "living in the Now"?

My chosen lifestyle requires a lot of "giving thought to the future".  I see how Jesus or Buddha or Richard Rohr or Thich Nhat Hahn or Ekhart Tolle etc. have arranged their lives so that they can accept what comes to them with grace and wisdom.  I admire that, but I do not see how I can emulate that.  I cannot take the advice of Jesus to the rich man and sell all my possessions and live the life of a mendicant.  I need electricity to run Sam's machines.  I like air conditioning and heat.  People in Chicago regularly die if they do not have one or the other.  I really don't want to lose Sam or to die myself simply because I didn't plan ahead and budget well enough to pay the bills.

When I look for peace, I rarely find it Now.  I find myself fighting to rise above the Now to get a clearer perspective.  Now is usually terrifying.  There are too many things that need doing Now and most of them seem to be begging me to instantly save them from destruction.  Everyone and every thing in my life seems to need me to do something Now.  If I do not step aside from the current moment and reflect on things other than Now, I descend into chaos.  I cope.  I react.  I loose track of what is important to me.  I lose track of me.

Stepping outside the stream of life, reflecting, planning, pausing, praying, ignoring Now, I find a modicum of peace and the space to untangle the threads that pull me out of shape.  I reform myself and can begin to make decisions about which threads I want to pick up and which ones I want to let drift away in the wind.  But stepping outside is hard.  I need to fight for my solitude - fight myself and my impulse to surrender to the demands of Now.   It is far too easy to allow myself to drift in the chaos of Now and be swept away by the expectations of the people and possessions in my life.

I am learning that "Yes" and "No" are the two most powerful words in my vocabulary and both need to be used with caution.   I need to pause, at least momentarily, and reflect before saying either "Yes" or "No".  When I am swept away by the chaos of Now, I give myself away without thinking and usually it is by saying "Yes" or "No" thoughtlessly.  I am too prodigal with myself when I live in the Now.

And yet, when I listen to these wise men talk about their concept of Now, I realize that they are talking about something substantially different from what I experience.  I think my failure must have something to do with a difference of definition.  I have trouble grasping what they mean.

I think they have a lot less need to feel control and a lot more trust in the universe or God or whatever they call it, than I have.  I do not trust God or the universe to have the same priorities that I have and so I feel a deep need to control or at least try to control at least some of my circumstances.  I realize that God/the universe is more powerful, capable and even ultimately more kind and loving than I am on a global scale, but it seems clear that we are not more important than the lilies of the field and our individual survival is not of paramount importance to that force/entity.  So my individual responsibility is to take care of myself, Sam and my little corner of the earth.  For that, I need perspective and time outside Now to think.

Clearly there's something I don't get yet.

Doing The Math

60 next week.  Ak.  Actually, my knees are 60, the rest of me is still 45.  (Thank you Edgar of BoRics on Ashland near Diversey.)

Charley's cancer really solidified our resolve to figure out what we REALLY want to do in this life.  The goal is for him to retire next summer and for us both to begin doing something that brings us satisfaction and a moderate income.  It's a lot riskier doing something like this at our age with The Sam Factor than it was when we were young and unencumbered.  On the other hand, it may be our last chance to risk everything for a dream. I remember sociologist Tony Campolo once cited a survey of 80 year olds who said their greatest regret was about some opportunity or risk not taken.  So we are getting serious about this.  We're probably going to be 80 in 20 years.  Or 35 years.

The thought that has been repeatedly coming to me is that I am not a beginner.  I have done and learned a lot of things over the decades.  No really.  A LOT.  I'm not starting from scratch.  So all my experience must add up to something, I just have to do the math.

Sadly, math is not my strongest subject!

To get a handle on what/who I am, I've been going over my journals.  This in itself is weird.  I write journals feverishly at times and then not at all for years.  I keep them mostly because we have a house and there's room.  I never actually planned to look at them again.  All I really planned to do with them was destroy them before I die.  But turns out they are very interesting.  (What a narcissist!)  There are several themes that run as far back as the journals.

I love:
Creativity - making lace, jewelry, knitting, general craft stuff.  Music - singing, string instruments, penny whistle, odd percussion instruments from all over the world (http://www.propane.pro/tanks/the-propane-tank-recycled-for-the-drum-circle-0211/).  The wisdom of people with cognitive disabilities.  Children. Learning something (anything) new.

I have a very love/hate relationship with my interpersonal skills; but I am a good leader and a good listener and perhaps a good teacher.  Listening makes me insightful because I can synthesize what I hear from different people, or the same person at different times, into a single thought.  I'd probably be good at negotiation, except I wouldn't like to spend a lot of time in the same room with angry people.

Listening also helps me notice when two people are arguing about two totally different subjects.  Sometimes I can notice this even when one of the people arguing is me! It's a very odd experience and one I really don't know what to do about in the moment it occurs.  It is usually best to first agree with the other person - since their point really has nothing to do with mine - and then cautiously restate my point.  It's funny how often arguments are not about what the participants think they are about.

My journals also point out that I have a lot of fear which is mostly nutty and keeps me from making my dream into a goal.

And I like to write about the philosophy of me.

I don't know what this adds up to, but at least I've defined the value of X.

Experiments For Further Reflection on the eve of my 60th birthday:

1: Charley is going to buy me a ukelele  (I think I'll get a tenor, it has more tuning options)
2: I'm going to go to the beach with my grandchildren and try to blow giant bubbles like this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i-zYdOPG2k
3: With my friend Lawrence from Esperanza (http://www.esperanzacommunity.org) I'm going to paint a picture of "Helen's Bird" as part of the project "Dynamic Duos: Works in Collaboration" which will be displayed in October as part of Chicago Artists Month.