See here.
There, that's settled. Or is it?
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Why Mexico City
Someone on Facebook asked why my parents got married in Mexico City.
Since it's too long an answer for Facebook, here goes.
My father got his master's degree at the Columbia University Journalism School. He was not yet 21 years old. He graduated at the top of his class (1939) and was one of three recipients of a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. This gave him the opportunity to travel and write for a year.
He headed for Europe in June. He knew by then that he wanted to be a foreign correspondent. He traveled through Western Europe, then Eastern Europe and the USSR and back to Western Europe. Well, if you remember your world history, you remember what started happening on September 1, 1939. World War II broke out.
My father had hoped to stay and find work as a war correspondent, but despite his letters of recommendation, he couldn't find a job, and he went home, not on a Cunard liner as he had on the way over, but on a freighter taking refugees back to the U.S. Among the passengers was my father's cabin-mate --not by choice-- who turned out to be, so he said and my father had no reason to doubt him, Prince Felix Yussupov. You may remember him as the man who killed Rasputin. My father notes in his memoir that he "had never before met anybody who had killed a man, let alone boasted about it. Sharing a cabin with him was fun on an otherwise tense voyage, but I didn't sleep too well thinking about my new friend, the murderer." (p.23)
FoAoH decided to finish up his fellowship in Mexico City, so off he went. There were many estadounidenses there at the time: Mexico was warm, welcoming, and inexpensive. It was also, as my father discovered, desperately poor, and the Mexico City metropolitan area was already crowded then with a population over five million. He started freelancing and stringing (working part-time) for several newspapers and news services.
After he'd been there for a while, MoAoH got sick of waiting up in Brooklyn. She'd finished college by then, so, as I like to tell it, she said to her parents "Bye-bye, I'm going to marry FoAoH!" Okay, it wasn't entirely like that. My parents had both turned 21 by then, it was now early 1940, and my father saw that they could live quite well on under $15 a week, so they decided that they would get married sooner rather than later. My father wrote a letter to my mother's father, as one did in those days, and promised he would take good care of her. They had known each other for years so my mother's parents knew my father was a trustworthy sort, and they knew my parents wanted to get married. People didn't "get engaged" in those days, at least in my parents' circles. It was the Depression and nobody was buying or showing off diamonds on their left ring fingers, and my mother's family was never terribly conventional anyway, though they certainly believed in marriage.
My parents met at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York. They didn't become sweethearts till college but were in the same group of friends in high school. Like many in their high school --mostly children and grandchildren of Jewish immigrants-- they attended public colleges: she went to Hunter College, which was all women at the time; he went to City College, which was all men. Both of those schools were way uptown in Manhattan, of course, and my family's version of "In my day we had to walk five miles to school in the snow, uphill in both directions!" was "It was the Depression, we lived at home, and we took the subway to school an hour and a half in each direction." Three hours of commuting a day to get an education. My mother is the one who talks about this.
My father was editor of the college newspaper and helped get a corrupt college president on the road to resignation, but that is another story and you can read it in FoAoH's memoir. He went on to a private university (Columbia) for professional journalism study. My brother also went there, years later, and I contemplated doing the same but didn't.
Back to the Mexico story. My mother took the bus down to Mexico City from New York. Yes, the bus. More like buses. I think her first stop was Indianapolis because she had an uncle there. Not sure whether or where she stopped after that, but it was a five-day trip. At any rate, she got to Mexico City safe and sound on a Friday, and the following Tuesday she and my father were married.
They married at the American Embassy because they were patriotic young people and wanted to be married on American soil. But the Ambassador wasn't empowered to officiate at weddings (unlike some other foreign diplomats) so they got a Mexican Justice of the Peace. Only civil marriages were valid in Mexico. A wedding at the JP's Registry office would cost two pesos, but they decided to splurge and go for the 32-peso wedding, which is what it cost to get married outside the Registry. 32 pesos in those days was about 8 dollars.
Foreign Service officers couldn't officiate at marriages but they could witness them (in the church that's the same thing, so I don't quite get the distinction, but there you have it) and issue a certificate of marriage so in addition to the Mexican wedding certificate, my parents got a U.S. certificate (for one dollar extra). I'm not sure whether the Consul General or the Ambassador signed the piece of paper, but they were both there. The Ambassador at the time was Josephus Daniels, a former Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson who was a former newsman -- how appropriate. I remembered he was a Southerner, but what I had forgotten and just re-read in the Mexico chapter of the memoir is that he was the founder-editor of the Raleigh News & Observer. That's Raleigh, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, my paternal grandparents had expressed the desire for my parents to have a Jewish wedding ceremony, so several days later PoAoH located a rabbi, which in Mexico City was not so easy, and he witnessed and officiated at a religious ceremony. It was in Spanish and Hebrew and they had a sheet or a tablecloth for a chuppah (the traditional wedding canopy) and my father didn't have a kippah (yarmulke) so he used a handkerchief tied at four corners. The part of this story I love is that the rabbi lived on Jesus Maria Street. Now there's a title for a novel: The Rabbi on Jesus Maria Street.
Parents of Acts of Hope did have a little reception with a wedding cake. The cake was the work of two Greek-American pastry cooks from Manhattan who after fighting in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (i.e. against Franco's forces) had settled in Mexico and opened a restaurant and bakery.
My father's memoir doesn't say and I haven't asked my parents, but it occurred to me a few years ago upon re-reading my father's description that these guys, Nick and Mike, were probably a couple. But maybe they weren't.
The cake had two white doves on top.
The big story in 1940 in Mexico was, of course, Trostsky's assassination, and my father, as a freshly minted journalist, got to cover it. There was a substantial cast of characters in the background shenanigans leading up to the assassination, including an American woman who had been one of Trotsky's aides. My father was stringing for the Jack Starr-Hunt News Service and among their clients was the N.Y. Daily News tabloid, which could care less about the politics of the story. Who cared if Stalin's arch-enemy had just been killed? The Daily News fired off to my father a cable that read "RUSH 1,500 WORDS GIRLIE ANGLE." Welcome to highfalutin foreign correspondent work.
After a few months in Mexico, with the fellowship year over, my parents returned to the U.S. and Brooklyn, where both their families lived. My father got a stop-gap editing job at the Brooklyn Academy of Music while hunting for a real job in journalism. At last, after six months, a real job materialized, and off my parents went to Herkimer, New York (for those of you who don't know, that's in the boonies, at least from a New York City perspective) where my father worked on the Evening Telegram newspaper for the magnificent sum of $35 per week.
The following year Pearl Harbor happened and my parents moved to Washington.
But that is another story.
Since it's too long an answer for Facebook, here goes.
My father got his master's degree at the Columbia University Journalism School. He was not yet 21 years old. He graduated at the top of his class (1939) and was one of three recipients of a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. This gave him the opportunity to travel and write for a year.
He headed for Europe in June. He knew by then that he wanted to be a foreign correspondent. He traveled through Western Europe, then Eastern Europe and the USSR and back to Western Europe. Well, if you remember your world history, you remember what started happening on September 1, 1939. World War II broke out.
My father had hoped to stay and find work as a war correspondent, but despite his letters of recommendation, he couldn't find a job, and he went home, not on a Cunard liner as he had on the way over, but on a freighter taking refugees back to the U.S. Among the passengers was my father's cabin-mate --not by choice-- who turned out to be, so he said and my father had no reason to doubt him, Prince Felix Yussupov. You may remember him as the man who killed Rasputin. My father notes in his memoir that he "had never before met anybody who had killed a man, let alone boasted about it. Sharing a cabin with him was fun on an otherwise tense voyage, but I didn't sleep too well thinking about my new friend, the murderer." (p.23)
FoAoH decided to finish up his fellowship in Mexico City, so off he went. There were many estadounidenses there at the time: Mexico was warm, welcoming, and inexpensive. It was also, as my father discovered, desperately poor, and the Mexico City metropolitan area was already crowded then with a population over five million. He started freelancing and stringing (working part-time) for several newspapers and news services.
After he'd been there for a while, MoAoH got sick of waiting up in Brooklyn. She'd finished college by then, so, as I like to tell it, she said to her parents "Bye-bye, I'm going to marry FoAoH!" Okay, it wasn't entirely like that. My parents had both turned 21 by then, it was now early 1940, and my father saw that they could live quite well on under $15 a week, so they decided that they would get married sooner rather than later. My father wrote a letter to my mother's father, as one did in those days, and promised he would take good care of her. They had known each other for years so my mother's parents knew my father was a trustworthy sort, and they knew my parents wanted to get married. People didn't "get engaged" in those days, at least in my parents' circles. It was the Depression and nobody was buying or showing off diamonds on their left ring fingers, and my mother's family was never terribly conventional anyway, though they certainly believed in marriage.
My parents met at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York. They didn't become sweethearts till college but were in the same group of friends in high school. Like many in their high school --mostly children and grandchildren of Jewish immigrants-- they attended public colleges: she went to Hunter College, which was all women at the time; he went to City College, which was all men. Both of those schools were way uptown in Manhattan, of course, and my family's version of "In my day we had to walk five miles to school in the snow, uphill in both directions!" was "It was the Depression, we lived at home, and we took the subway to school an hour and a half in each direction." Three hours of commuting a day to get an education. My mother is the one who talks about this.
My father was editor of the college newspaper and helped get a corrupt college president on the road to resignation, but that is another story and you can read it in FoAoH's memoir. He went on to a private university (Columbia) for professional journalism study. My brother also went there, years later, and I contemplated doing the same but didn't.
Back to the Mexico story. My mother took the bus down to Mexico City from New York. Yes, the bus. More like buses. I think her first stop was Indianapolis because she had an uncle there. Not sure whether or where she stopped after that, but it was a five-day trip. At any rate, she got to Mexico City safe and sound on a Friday, and the following Tuesday she and my father were married.
They married at the American Embassy because they were patriotic young people and wanted to be married on American soil. But the Ambassador wasn't empowered to officiate at weddings (unlike some other foreign diplomats) so they got a Mexican Justice of the Peace. Only civil marriages were valid in Mexico. A wedding at the JP's Registry office would cost two pesos, but they decided to splurge and go for the 32-peso wedding, which is what it cost to get married outside the Registry. 32 pesos in those days was about 8 dollars.
Foreign Service officers couldn't officiate at marriages but they could witness them (in the church that's the same thing, so I don't quite get the distinction, but there you have it) and issue a certificate of marriage so in addition to the Mexican wedding certificate, my parents got a U.S. certificate (for one dollar extra). I'm not sure whether the Consul General or the Ambassador signed the piece of paper, but they were both there. The Ambassador at the time was Josephus Daniels, a former Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson who was a former newsman -- how appropriate. I remembered he was a Southerner, but what I had forgotten and just re-read in the Mexico chapter of the memoir is that he was the founder-editor of the Raleigh News & Observer. That's Raleigh, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, my paternal grandparents had expressed the desire for my parents to have a Jewish wedding ceremony, so several days later PoAoH located a rabbi, which in Mexico City was not so easy, and he witnessed and officiated at a religious ceremony. It was in Spanish and Hebrew and they had a sheet or a tablecloth for a chuppah (the traditional wedding canopy) and my father didn't have a kippah (yarmulke) so he used a handkerchief tied at four corners. The part of this story I love is that the rabbi lived on Jesus Maria Street. Now there's a title for a novel: The Rabbi on Jesus Maria Street.
Parents of Acts of Hope did have a little reception with a wedding cake. The cake was the work of two Greek-American pastry cooks from Manhattan who after fighting in the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (i.e. against Franco's forces) had settled in Mexico and opened a restaurant and bakery.
My father's memoir doesn't say and I haven't asked my parents, but it occurred to me a few years ago upon re-reading my father's description that these guys, Nick and Mike, were probably a couple. But maybe they weren't.
The cake had two white doves on top.
The big story in 1940 in Mexico was, of course, Trostsky's assassination, and my father, as a freshly minted journalist, got to cover it. There was a substantial cast of characters in the background shenanigans leading up to the assassination, including an American woman who had been one of Trotsky's aides. My father was stringing for the Jack Starr-Hunt News Service and among their clients was the N.Y. Daily News tabloid, which could care less about the politics of the story. Who cared if Stalin's arch-enemy had just been killed? The Daily News fired off to my father a cable that read "RUSH 1,500 WORDS GIRLIE ANGLE." Welcome to highfalutin foreign correspondent work.
After a few months in Mexico, with the fellowship year over, my parents returned to the U.S. and Brooklyn, where both their families lived. My father got a stop-gap editing job at the Brooklyn Academy of Music while hunting for a real job in journalism. At last, after six months, a real job materialized, and off my parents went to Herkimer, New York (for those of you who don't know, that's in the boonies, at least from a New York City perspective) where my father worked on the Evening Telegram newspaper for the magnificent sum of $35 per week.
The following year Pearl Harbor happened and my parents moved to Washington.
But that is another story.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Quoted in The Tablet
The Tablet, whose articles you can't read online unless you subscribe, is probably the best Catholic periodical on the planet, or one of the best. It is certainly one of the most respected in the Northern Hemisphere and perhaps beyond. Published in England, weekly, thoughtful, thorough, independent.
Like all periodicals I'm sure they are struggling to stay afloat, so that may be the reason for the Web gatekeeping. Either that or the spammers and trolls.
At any rate, a dear friend wrote me yesterday morning with the news that I had achieved fame: The Tablet quoted me! More precisely, it quoted a passage from When in Doubt, Sing. Even more amazingly, the passage in question was in the good company of the Psalmist, Meister Eckhart, and Thomas Dorsey!
Ad majorem Dei gloriam!
(But good for the ego too during a hard week.)
Oh - it was in last week's issue.
(A new issue is just out with comment and analysis on the latest Catholic/Anglican brouhaha.)
Here are the quotes as they appeared:
The living Spirit [name of the feature / column]
[and an image of a dove which I can't seem to transfer here]
Both perfectionism and self-forgiveness bear a direct relation to our understanding of God. The first step of prayer is telling the truth about who and where we are. It is also, at the same time, learning the truth about who and where God is. We are the ones who tend to place limits on the mercy of God. Prayer involves a capacity to stretch our imagination, to imagine and therefore to begin knowing a God who is not a projection of our own self-condemnation … The idea that prayer is somehow a production (in the economic or in the theatrical sense – both are destructive) will take us away from prayer.
Jane Redmont
When in Doubt, Sing
(Sorin, 2008)
Our steps are
made firm by the Lord,
when he delights in our way;
though we stumble, we
shall not fall headlong,
for the Lord holds us by the hand.
Psalm 37: 23-24
If you have failings, then ask God frequently in prayer if it may not be to his honour and pleasure to take them from you, for you can do nothing without his help. He gives to each according to what is best for them and most suitable. If we are to make new clothes for someone, then we must make them according to their dimensions, and those which fit one will not fit another. We measure everyone to see what fits them. So too God gives everyone the best thing of all according to his knowledge of what is most suitable for them. Indeed, whoever trusts him entirely in this, receives and possesses in the least of things as much as they do in the greatest.
Meister Eckhart: selected writings
(Penguin Classics, 1994)
When the darkness appears and the night draws near,
And the day is past and gone,
At the river I stand,
Guide my feet,
hold my hand;
Take my hand, Precious Lord,
Lead me home.
Thomas Andrew Dorsey
(1899-1993)
Like all periodicals I'm sure they are struggling to stay afloat, so that may be the reason for the Web gatekeeping. Either that or the spammers and trolls.At any rate, a dear friend wrote me yesterday morning with the news that I had achieved fame: The Tablet quoted me! More precisely, it quoted a passage from When in Doubt, Sing. Even more amazingly, the passage in question was in the good company of the Psalmist, Meister Eckhart, and Thomas Dorsey!
Ad majorem Dei gloriam!
(But good for the ego too during a hard week.)
Oh - it was in last week's issue.
(A new issue is just out with comment and analysis on the latest Catholic/Anglican brouhaha.)
Here are the quotes as they appeared:
The living Spirit [name of the feature / column]
[and an image of a dove which I can't seem to transfer here]
Both perfectionism and self-forgiveness bear a direct relation to our understanding of God. The first step of prayer is telling the truth about who and where we are. It is also, at the same time, learning the truth about who and where God is. We are the ones who tend to place limits on the mercy of God. Prayer involves a capacity to stretch our imagination, to imagine and therefore to begin knowing a God who is not a projection of our own self-condemnation … The idea that prayer is somehow a production (in the economic or in the theatrical sense – both are destructive) will take us away from prayer.
Jane Redmont
When in Doubt, Sing
(Sorin, 2008)
Our steps are
made firm by the Lord,
when he delights in our way;
though we stumble, we
shall not fall headlong,
for the Lord holds us by the hand.
Psalm 37: 23-24
If you have failings, then ask God frequently in prayer if it may not be to his honour and pleasure to take them from you, for you can do nothing without his help. He gives to each according to what is best for them and most suitable. If we are to make new clothes for someone, then we must make them according to their dimensions, and those which fit one will not fit another. We measure everyone to see what fits them. So too God gives everyone the best thing of all according to his knowledge of what is most suitable for them. Indeed, whoever trusts him entirely in this, receives and possesses in the least of things as much as they do in the greatest.
Meister Eckhart: selected writings
(Penguin Classics, 1994)
When the darkness appears and the night draws near,
And the day is past and gone,
At the river I stand,
Guide my feet,
hold my hand;
Take my hand, Precious Lord,
Lead me home.
Thomas Andrew Dorsey
(1899-1993)
Friday, September 11, 2009
Family time
Brother of Acts of Hope and Beloved of Brother of Acts of Hope are flying in from Europe on Saturday and we are converging on Parents of Acts of Hope. I get in a day before the Siblings do. I will be in New England for barely two days because I teach first thing in the a.m. on Mondays, but the far-flung Acts of Hope family makes the best of short amounts of time, so we are all happy happy happy. "All" being the two older generations. The two younger generations (Nephew the Elder, Nephew the Younger, their partners, and two kidlings) are off in their usual faraway countries.
Blogging will be scarce, but I will at some point put up the promised "write the media" post in the "DO SOMETHING for Health Care Reform" series.
I'll be with media types all weekend, so we'll see if they have any advice on this beyond the ideas I have collected or cooked up already. Lots of folks in the news biz in the Acts of Hope family, at least in the two older generations. The young 'uns didn't want to touch journalism with a ten-foot pole. Then again, one of them is in the wine biz, so we are grateful. The Really Young 'Uns may or may not go into journalism. At this point they are just busy being Really Young.
Shabbat Shalom and happy weekend, everyone.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Listen up! Howard Zinn, once again, with a healthy reminder to the citizenry
I quoted Howard Zinn and referred people to his "Election Madness" essay during the presidential campaign till I was blue in the face.
It won't hurt you to re-read that essay. Seriously.
Previous related posts on this blog:here and here and here and here.
Now Zinn has a follow-up for all those of us who are starting to gripe about the President and the new administration. Once you have read the essay to which I refer above, read the follow-up, "Changing Obama's Mindset," which just came out.
Same message: It's up to us. Politicians, even the most exciting of politicians, are still politicians. We're the citizens. We've got to act. End of speech. (Mine. But read his, it's better.)
Both are essays were published, on paper and online, in The Progressive, where Zinn is a columnist.
More on Howard Zinn here. One of my heroes.
By the way, his A People's History of the United States has now been adapted for young people (with Rebecca Stefoff).
Tolle lege. Or if you want the Anglican version of that: Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
It won't hurt you to re-read that essay. Seriously.
Previous related posts on this blog:here and here and here and here.
Now Zinn has a follow-up for all those of us who are starting to gripe about the President and the new administration. Once you have read the essay to which I refer above, read the follow-up, "Changing Obama's Mindset," which just came out.
Same message: It's up to us. Politicians, even the most exciting of politicians, are still politicians. We're the citizens. We've got to act. End of speech. (Mine. But read his, it's better.)
Both are essays were published, on paper and online, in The Progressive, where Zinn is a columnist.More on Howard Zinn here. One of my heroes.
By the way, his A People's History of the United States has now been adapted for young people (with Rebecca Stefoff).
Tolle lege. Or if you want the Anglican version of that: Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Saberi freed on appeal
I had a hunch this would happen, and it did. Good.Off three to second of two all-day department planning meetings (a.k.a. "retreat").
Four more days and we are "off the clock."
Monday, April 27, 2009
The banality of evil, here at home
Frank Rich's column is a must-read.
And his evoking of Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" is right on.
This is not about somewhere else or someone else.
Shame, writes Dorothee Sölle --quoting Karl Marx, actually-- is a revolutionary emotion.
It's time we felt some of it.
... We’ve learned much, much more about America and torture in the past five years. But as Mark Danner recently wrote in The New York Review of Books, for all the revelations, one essential fact remains unchanged: “By no later than the summer of 2004, the American people had before them the basic narrative of how the elected and appointed officials of their government decided to torture prisoners and how they went about it.” When the Obama administration said it declassified four new torture memos 10 days ago in part because their contents were already largely public, it was right.
Yet we still shrink from the hardest truths and the bigger picture: that torture was a premeditated policy approved at our government’s highest levels; that it was carried out in scenarios that had no resemblance to “24”; that psychologists and physicians were enlisted as collaborators in inflicting pain; and that, in the assessment of reliable sources like the F.B.I. director Robert Mueller, it did not help disrupt any terrorist attacks. ...
... as additional fact-finding plays out, it’s time for the Justice Department to enlist a panel of two or three apolitical outsiders, perhaps retired federal judges, “to review the mass of material” we already have. The fundamental truth is there, as it long has been. The panel can recommend a legal path that will insure accountability for this wholesale betrayal of American values.
President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won’t vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai. The White House, Congress and politicians of both parties should get out of the way. We don’t need another commission. We don’t need any Capitol Hill witch hunts. What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.
Emphases mine, in boldface.
And his evoking of Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" is right on.
This is not about somewhere else or someone else.
Shame, writes Dorothee Sölle --quoting Karl Marx, actually-- is a revolutionary emotion.
It's time we felt some of it.
... We’ve learned much, much more about America and torture in the past five years. But as Mark Danner recently wrote in The New York Review of Books, for all the revelations, one essential fact remains unchanged: “By no later than the summer of 2004, the American people had before them the basic narrative of how the elected and appointed officials of their government decided to torture prisoners and how they went about it.” When the Obama administration said it declassified four new torture memos 10 days ago in part because their contents were already largely public, it was right.
Yet we still shrink from the hardest truths and the bigger picture: that torture was a premeditated policy approved at our government’s highest levels; that it was carried out in scenarios that had no resemblance to “24”; that psychologists and physicians were enlisted as collaborators in inflicting pain; and that, in the assessment of reliable sources like the F.B.I. director Robert Mueller, it did not help disrupt any terrorist attacks. ...
... as additional fact-finding plays out, it’s time for the Justice Department to enlist a panel of two or three apolitical outsiders, perhaps retired federal judges, “to review the mass of material” we already have. The fundamental truth is there, as it long has been. The panel can recommend a legal path that will insure accountability for this wholesale betrayal of American values.
President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won’t vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai. The White House, Congress and politicians of both parties should get out of the way. We don’t need another commission. We don’t need any Capitol Hill witch hunts. What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.
Emphases mine, in boldface.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Pulitzer prize winner's story didn't (and doesn't) get play
Oh ye seekers and defenders of truth and right, have a look at this Glenn Greenwald story on David Barstow's Pulitzer-winning investigative reporting -- and why we're still not hearing about it.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Dave Walker nails it
We don't report or comment much on "As the Anglican World Turns" here since plenty of other bloggers do, but the one and only Dave Walker has deftly sketched the latest GAFCON public event for the Church Times. Enjoy. Read Dave's accompanying text here.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Roxana Saberi tried and jailed in Iran
This news is all the more shocking because I have heard Ms. Saberi on the radio many times.
As regular readers of Acts of Hope know, I am particularly moved by stories on the jailing of journalists because so many members of my immediate family are or have been journalists themselves.
Roxana Saberi, a U.S. citizen, is the daughter of an Iranian father and a Japanese mother. She has been reporting from Iran for several Western news organizations. The government of Iran has accused her of spying.
If one of the international human rights organizations starts a letter campaign, I will follow up here.
Photo: Agence France-Presse
As regular readers of Acts of Hope know, I am particularly moved by stories on the jailing of journalists because so many members of my immediate family are or have been journalists themselves.
Roxana Saberi, a U.S. citizen, is the daughter of an Iranian father and a Japanese mother. She has been reporting from Iran for several Western news organizations. The government of Iran has accused her of spying.If one of the international human rights organizations starts a letter campaign, I will follow up here.
Photo: Agence France-Presse
Saturday, April 4, 2009
April 4: two MLK anniversaries and a third, with the Freedom Seder
The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 3, 1968, before MLK gave the last speech of his life. Photo: Ken Ross via American RadioWorks. He was assassinated the following day.Today is the anniversary of the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.
It is also the anniversary of the "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" speech which he gave exactly a year before, on April 4, 1967, at the Riverside Church in New York City.
Although I have posted the speech before, I post it here again for those who have not read or hear it. The link includes audio as well as transcript text. The speech is long but well worth pondering.
A good feature on the last year of King's life (the "Beyond Vietnam" speech, the Memphis sanitation workers' strike, et al.) is here, courtesy of American RadioWorks. It includes both text and audio.
And, with thanks to my colleague the Rev. Susan Redfern Spencer (also here), via Facebook, the note below from the Shalom Center and YouTube video:
On April 4, 1969, the first anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, the third night of Passover, hundreds of people of varied racial and religious communities gathered in a Black church in the heart of Washington DC to celebrate the original Freedom Seder. For the first time, it intertwined the ancient story of liberation from Pharaoh with the story of Black America's struggle for liberation, and the liberation of other peoples as well.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Seder and to address one of the greatest dangers ever to face the human race --the danger of "global scorching" worse than the traditional "Ten Plagues"-- The Shalom Center has initiated a New Freedom Seder for the Earth was scheduled to sponsor it in Washington DC on March 29, 2009. Here is more information on the original Freedom Seder and the New Freedom Seder for the Earth. (You can download the text of the Seder for the Earth at that last link.)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
"Stimulus: More than bread alone"
A good op-ed on the need for a stimulus package for the arts in the new administration, by an old friend of the Acts of Hope family whose work has occasionally appeared here. Thank you, Jerry.
Stimulus: More than bread alone
by Jerry M. Landay
The Providence Journal
There's a rumor that President Obama plans to create a new cabinet position — secretary for the arts. Should he do that, I for one will shout to the skies: Bravo! Bravissimo!
You may reply: “Surely he’s got more important priorities.” Think again.
Read on here.
(P.J., you will like the Isak Dinesen quote.)
Stimulus: More than bread alone
by Jerry M. Landay
The Providence Journal
There's a rumor that President Obama plans to create a new cabinet position — secretary for the arts. Should he do that, I for one will shout to the skies: Bravo! Bravissimo!
You may reply: “Surely he’s got more important priorities.” Think again.
Read on here.
(P.J., you will like the Isak Dinesen quote.)
"Swinging on a V-Disc: Jazz in WW II"
It's Saturday night at home with cat and catch-up. Also rest, food, music, and a little writing. NPR Girl has the radio on, of course. I have just listened to a great show on the weekly Riverwalk Jazz about the recordings made for GIs during World War II by the greatest U.S. artists. Some of the recordings survive (the masters were destroyed, since the artists were promised that no one would make commercial use of the recordings --they had given their time and talent for free-- but some people kept the discs) and the show played many of them.
The Riverwalk Jazz Listening Room is here.
The Riverwalk Jazz Listening Room is here.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Bishop Robinson on "Talk of the Nation" right now (and archived later)
I just turned on "Talk of the Nation" on NPR and +Gene Robinson will be on the show. The lead was about the fact that his prayer didn't broadcast. The show will also be talking about the state of the Episcopal Church and MLK Day.
Show website is here. If you miss the show you can listen to the archived audio in a few hours.
Show website is here. If you miss the show you can listen to the archived audio in a few hours.
Here's what HBO did not carry: Bishop Gene's prayer, loud and clear
Post this widely, friends.
Here is a YouTube of Bishop Gene Robinson's prayer yesterday at the Lincoln Memorial, with related reporting by various media.
Tip of the warm winter hat to the Episcopal Café.
Since it's not a YouTube of HBO's show, it will stay up. HBO has already challenged copyright on the Pete Seeger YouTube, so YouTube had to take that down. Speaking of that verse on "private property" in "This Land Is Your Land..."
Here is a YouTube of Bishop Gene Robinson's prayer yesterday at the Lincoln Memorial, with related reporting by various media.
Tip of the warm winter hat to the Episcopal Café.
Since it's not a YouTube of HBO's show, it will stay up. HBO has already challenged copyright on the Pete Seeger YouTube, so YouTube had to take that down. Speaking of that verse on "private property" in "This Land Is Your Land..."
Monday, January 5, 2009
Gaza
(First two paragraphs slightly edited from a comment over at PJ's.)
Yesterday at my "other church" (the one where I am three Sundays a month till May-ish) the rector (always a fine preacher) preached about Gaza and the refugee baby Jesus and the love of all humankind. That wasn't when I cried; I was actually distracted half the time. At the Prayers of the People we prayed for everybody on the planet including people serving in the armed forces, and in this congregation they name about four or five people specifically after the general prayer so people must have relatives on active duty.
And then we did what we do every single Sunday after communion and have been doing since the latest wars began (wars in the plural, yes): we kneel and sing "Dona Nobis Pacem" (the full round, several times) as a prayer for peace. I wept and wept while singing. Big fat tears rolling down my face into my mouth, singing for peace. All of us kneeling.
Yesterday at my "other church" (the one where I am three Sundays a month till May-ish) the rector (always a fine preacher) preached about Gaza and the refugee baby Jesus and the love of all humankind. That wasn't when I cried; I was actually distracted half the time. At the Prayers of the People we prayed for everybody on the planet including people serving in the armed forces, and in this congregation they name about four or five people specifically after the general prayer so people must have relatives on active duty.
And then we did what we do every single Sunday after communion and have been doing since the latest wars began (wars in the plural, yes): we kneel and sing "Dona Nobis Pacem" (the full round, several times) as a prayer for peace. I wept and wept while singing. Big fat tears rolling down my face into my mouth, singing for peace. All of us kneeling.
* * * * * * *
I want to remind people that there is a diversity of views within Israel and that there are active dissenters there. There is also diversity in the U.S. Jewish community. Let me draw your attention to two organizations that used to be one but are now separate and both serve important purposes.
Jewish Peace News (JPN) offers an excellent news roundup to which you can subscribe on e-mail (free) by first going to JPN's blog here. Their sources are diverse. The mainstream media, whatever that is these days, does not expose us to this news. Neither, much of the time, does the alternative media, whatever that means. We do hear about the suffering of many --and there are so many more whose tears and deaths and fears we will never see or hear-- but we don't hear much about work for peace and voices of protest. Do have a look at their blog, where you can find subscription info and samples of the news they send out.
Which leads me to the second organization (which as I recall gave birth to the first, and, to no one's surprise, they are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is where I first heard of them), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). They send out e-mails too, but they also have a website which I urge you to visit.
On the JPN website, in addition to news from Gaza, you will find information about the recent campaign in solidarity for the Shministim, who are the young conscientious objectors in Israel. They are very young (high school seniors) and look as if they could be your children or mine and they have gone to prison for refusing to participate in unjust military actions.
There's also a helfpul "New to the issue? Start here." link. It leads to a FAQ on "Israeli Palestinian Conflict 101." You will see it is primarily aimed at the Jewish community since this is a Jewish organization, but it's worth reading if you are a Gentile, too.
There are also media campaigns (there was and is one about the news blackout on Gaza, which long predated the current military action; things have been very bad in Gaza for a long time and we haven't been hearing enough about it) and statements condemning anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry. JVP also has a news blog called MuzzleWatch: Tracking efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy.
If you are press, or even if you are not, there are fact sheets here about JVP and its mission.
So remember these names: Jewish Peace News and Jewish Voice for Peace, and stay informed.
Jewish Peace News (JPN) offers an excellent news roundup to which you can subscribe on e-mail (free) by first going to JPN's blog here. Their sources are diverse. The mainstream media, whatever that is these days, does not expose us to this news. Neither, much of the time, does the alternative media, whatever that means. We do hear about the suffering of many --and there are so many more whose tears and deaths and fears we will never see or hear-- but we don't hear much about work for peace and voices of protest. Do have a look at their blog, where you can find subscription info and samples of the news they send out.
Which leads me to the second organization (which as I recall gave birth to the first, and, to no one's surprise, they are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is where I first heard of them), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). They send out e-mails too, but they also have a website which I urge you to visit.
On the JPN website, in addition to news from Gaza, you will find information about the recent campaign in solidarity for the Shministim, who are the young conscientious objectors in Israel. They are very young (high school seniors) and look as if they could be your children or mine and they have gone to prison for refusing to participate in unjust military actions.There's also a helfpul "New to the issue? Start here." link. It leads to a FAQ on "Israeli Palestinian Conflict 101." You will see it is primarily aimed at the Jewish community since this is a Jewish organization, but it's worth reading if you are a Gentile, too.
There are also media campaigns (there was and is one about the news blackout on Gaza, which long predated the current military action; things have been very bad in Gaza for a long time and we haven't been hearing enough about it) and statements condemning anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry. JVP also has a news blog called MuzzleWatch: Tracking efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy.
If you are press, or even if you are not, there are fact sheets here about JVP and its mission.
So remember these names: Jewish Peace News and Jewish Voice for Peace, and stay informed.
* * * * * * *
So much for blog break. I am still in hiding working on writing projects till mid-month and not really posting in a fully attentive way. The cat is doing better at it than I, and she has an Epiphany sermon for you. Also, I will post in a couple of days a link to my new essay at the Episcopal Café. I'm really still on break and not all there. But I cannot stay silent about Gaza.
Godde help us all.
Godde help us all.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Hugh Mulligan, RIP
The Acts of Hope family had some fond moments of remembrance for colleague Hugh Mulligan this weekend during our little reunion. At least one of us (Brother of Acts of Hope) had worked with him and all of us knew him or had met him. Most of us are or have at one time been in the news business, hence our acquaintance with this fine reporter. Father of Acts of Hope was outraged that the New York Times did not pick up on Mr. Mulligan's death and that the Boston Globe published an obituary a week after the death actually occurred.Hugh was quite a character, a New Yorker with the Irish gift for language, great curiosity and wit, and the proper amount of panache. With a name like Hugh Aloysius Mulligan, you also know he had a Catholic connection. See here for the official Associated Press obit. Rest in peace, Hugh.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Life with the old liberals, continued
Here we are again, on a Friday evening, having watched Bill Moyers. The show ended early because of the public television fund-raiser.
Tonight we watched in the bedroom rather than the living-room. My parents are both 90 now and tire more easily. I sat between them on the bed and massaged one of my mother's hands for a while (she has a lot of arthritis) and pumped my fist in the air when Russ Feingold, whom Moyers was interviewing, said something eminently sensible.
This was another show worth watching - if only for Moyers's fine introduction, which summed up with wit and accuracy the buzz around the Obama appointments. I am posting it below. Short and punchy.
After that came an interview with Feingold, bless his heart, who explained what being a progressive means if you are from Wisconsin, and who went on to have an intelligent conversation with Moyers about the Constitution, Obama, and other tiny topics. Two intelligent people speaking in complete sentences about the well-being of the nation. What a concept.
Then, after a little fund-raising break, came the second half of the show with Mark Johnson's musical project, Playing for Change, and if you haven't heard of it (I had not) you are in for a treat. It is one of the most heart-warming enterprises out there, and I do mean out there, since Johnson has traveled the planet for a decade and the project links people together in song (when in doubt, sing!) and instrument-playing across national and economic and religious and cultural boundaries.
Here's the Moyers introduction (read it aloud to get the full effect - and I dare you not to laugh at least once):
No sooner did President-elect Obama begin announcing his appointments to office than the chattering classes of print, the airwaves and cyberspace began The Great Debate:
Ah-hah, some said, this proves he will govern right of center. Karl Rove cackled with glee, and even Rush Limbaugh — from his underground bunker — hailed Obama's choice of Hillary as a shrewd political masterstroke.
Establishment Democrats watched the parade of familiar faces and exclaimed: we're back! Not so fast, shouted the Obama net-root activists who pounded their keyboards with fury all year. "In his heart you know he's one of us," they're saying. These appointments will give him cover to channel FDR.
And from their lofty perch above it all, Obama's fellow Brainiacs twirled their Phi Beta Kappa keys, smiled and said "Foolish ideologues." You know intellect will carry the day! And as always, corporate chieftains the country over rubbed their palms in anticipation of a New Age of Pragmatism, crossed Republicans off their Christmas list, and started writing checks to Democrats.
And Obama's not even President yet!
Moyers continues:
Meanwhile, the people most uncertain of where they stand right now are that political species known as progressives. They hold a healthy distaste for the orthodox ways of the Washington elites who seem to have a permanent grip on how things work, no matter who wins the election.
Progressives are holding their fire right now, giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, but unsure whether all those establishment figures Obama is gathering around him — largely from the Clinton administration — represent a brilliant strategy of co-option or a signal of his true intent.
So what does the leading progressive member of the United States Senate think about all this? We'll ask him.
Full transcript of the show here.
Brother and his Dearly Beloved arrive tomorrow.
P.S. Wireless internet in the retirement community!
Tonight we watched in the bedroom rather than the living-room. My parents are both 90 now and tire more easily. I sat between them on the bed and massaged one of my mother's hands for a while (she has a lot of arthritis) and pumped my fist in the air when Russ Feingold, whom Moyers was interviewing, said something eminently sensible.
This was another show worth watching - if only for Moyers's fine introduction, which summed up with wit and accuracy the buzz around the Obama appointments. I am posting it below. Short and punchy.
After that came an interview with Feingold, bless his heart, who explained what being a progressive means if you are from Wisconsin, and who went on to have an intelligent conversation with Moyers about the Constitution, Obama, and other tiny topics. Two intelligent people speaking in complete sentences about the well-being of the nation. What a concept.
Then, after a little fund-raising break, came the second half of the show with Mark Johnson's musical project, Playing for Change, and if you haven't heard of it (I had not) you are in for a treat. It is one of the most heart-warming enterprises out there, and I do mean out there, since Johnson has traveled the planet for a decade and the project links people together in song (when in doubt, sing!) and instrument-playing across national and economic and religious and cultural boundaries.
Here's the Moyers introduction (read it aloud to get the full effect - and I dare you not to laugh at least once):
No sooner did President-elect Obama begin announcing his appointments to office than the chattering classes of print, the airwaves and cyberspace began The Great Debate:
Ah-hah, some said, this proves he will govern right of center. Karl Rove cackled with glee, and even Rush Limbaugh — from his underground bunker — hailed Obama's choice of Hillary as a shrewd political masterstroke.
Establishment Democrats watched the parade of familiar faces and exclaimed: we're back! Not so fast, shouted the Obama net-root activists who pounded their keyboards with fury all year. "In his heart you know he's one of us," they're saying. These appointments will give him cover to channel FDR.
And from their lofty perch above it all, Obama's fellow Brainiacs twirled their Phi Beta Kappa keys, smiled and said "Foolish ideologues." You know intellect will carry the day! And as always, corporate chieftains the country over rubbed their palms in anticipation of a New Age of Pragmatism, crossed Republicans off their Christmas list, and started writing checks to Democrats.
And Obama's not even President yet!
Moyers continues:
Meanwhile, the people most uncertain of where they stand right now are that political species known as progressives. They hold a healthy distaste for the orthodox ways of the Washington elites who seem to have a permanent grip on how things work, no matter who wins the election.
Progressives are holding their fire right now, giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, but unsure whether all those establishment figures Obama is gathering around him — largely from the Clinton administration — represent a brilliant strategy of co-option or a signal of his true intent.
So what does the leading progressive member of the United States Senate think about all this? We'll ask him.
Full transcript of the show here.
Brother and his Dearly Beloved arrive tomorrow.
P.S. Wireless internet in the retirement community!
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