Here is one of my favorite Christmas stories.
I was in Switzerland and Helena and I had gone to Lausanne to take in a performance of Verdi’s Nabucco. We were having dinner at a restaurant down the street from the theatre and during dinner Helena’s phone rang. It was her 9-year-old son Jeremy. He was distraught. Jeremy had some very bad news to tell his mother, but he had to be honest and he had to tell her.
“What is it, Jeremy,” Helena asked, her voice rising with concern.
I could not hear Jeremy’s side of the conversation, but what he told her was that he had been playing with his basketball in the house and the ball went into the crèche.
“Oh, no, Jeremy, what happened to the crèche?” Helena asked her son.
The ball knocked Jesus’s head off.
Oh, God, I thought, Jeremy decapitated Jesus.
I only heard Helena’s side of the conversation, in which she admonished Jeremy that he wasn’t supposed to be playing with the ball in the house and then she tried to tell Jeremy that maybe it could be fixed.
Then she said, “Jeremy it’s not good to have a Jesus without a head.”
Helena was being serious and sincere, but the comment and the way it sounded blew me away. I covered my mouth and laughed out of control and repeated soto voce, “Jeremy, it’s not good to have a Jesus without a head.”
Poor Helena was looking at me lose control and she was trying desperately to maintain her composure and was stifling a laugh. I heard her say, “No, Jeremy, I’m not crying. It’s ok. No, I’m not laughing.”
I tried. I really did.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Some Words to Consider
Some Words To Consider
As President Obama prepares to address the nation – and the world – to lay out his strategy toward Afghanistan, it would help to look back at a recent Bill Moyers show in which he looked back at Vietnam and the thought processes that President Lyndon Johnson went through at the time. The transcript of the program, which consisted almost entirely of audio tapes, is at:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/transcript1.html
But, Moyers concluded with:
Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.
Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.
And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.
And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.
We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes.
In a recent speech, Jim Leach, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, addressed incivility that is permeating the way members of Congress and politicians address one another and run for office. The transcript can be found at:
http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/speeches/11202009.html
But an important point he made:
Citizens of various philosophical persuasions are reflecting increased disrespect for fellow citizens and thus for modern day democratic governance. Much of the problem may flow from the fast-changing nature of our society which has so many destabilizing elements. But part falls at the feet of politicians and their supporters who use inflammatory rhetoric to divide the country. Candidates may prevail in elections by tearing down rather than uplifting, but if elected, they cannot then unite an angered citizenry. Negativity raises the temperature level of legislatures just as it dispirits the soul of society.
How timely as Switzerland votes to ban the construction of minarets. The vote came after a campaign of hate by the Swiss People’s Party. The New York Times editorialized the vote as “disgraceful” and a “vote for intolerance,” adding that if Switzerland’s “residents can succumb so easily to the propaganda of a xenophobic right-wing party, then countries with far greater Muslim populations and far more virulent strains of xenophobia best quickly start thinking about how to counter the trend. If left unchecked, xenophobia spreads fast. Already right-wingers in the Netherlands and Denmark have called for similar measures, and others are bound to be encouraged by the success of the Swiss People’s Party.”
And here we are, with hate and incivility and unexplained wars and mass murders in our own country and people standing by as a young girl is gang raped, our nation’s unemployment rate is in double digits with no relief in sight, divorces and suicides are at record levels among our military.
Isn’t it time for change?
As President Obama prepares to address the nation – and the world – to lay out his strategy toward Afghanistan, it would help to look back at a recent Bill Moyers show in which he looked back at Vietnam and the thought processes that President Lyndon Johnson went through at the time. The transcript of the program, which consisted almost entirely of audio tapes, is at:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/transcript1.html
But, Moyers concluded with:
Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.
Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.
And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.
And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.
We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes.
In a recent speech, Jim Leach, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, addressed incivility that is permeating the way members of Congress and politicians address one another and run for office. The transcript can be found at:
http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/speeches/11202009.html
But an important point he made:
Citizens of various philosophical persuasions are reflecting increased disrespect for fellow citizens and thus for modern day democratic governance. Much of the problem may flow from the fast-changing nature of our society which has so many destabilizing elements. But part falls at the feet of politicians and their supporters who use inflammatory rhetoric to divide the country. Candidates may prevail in elections by tearing down rather than uplifting, but if elected, they cannot then unite an angered citizenry. Negativity raises the temperature level of legislatures just as it dispirits the soul of society.
How timely as Switzerland votes to ban the construction of minarets. The vote came after a campaign of hate by the Swiss People’s Party. The New York Times editorialized the vote as “disgraceful” and a “vote for intolerance,” adding that if Switzerland’s “residents can succumb so easily to the propaganda of a xenophobic right-wing party, then countries with far greater Muslim populations and far more virulent strains of xenophobia best quickly start thinking about how to counter the trend. If left unchecked, xenophobia spreads fast. Already right-wingers in the Netherlands and Denmark have called for similar measures, and others are bound to be encouraged by the success of the Swiss People’s Party.”
And here we are, with hate and incivility and unexplained wars and mass murders in our own country and people standing by as a young girl is gang raped, our nation’s unemployment rate is in double digits with no relief in sight, divorces and suicides are at record levels among our military.
Isn’t it time for change?
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