|
|
May 30, 2010
As we celebrate our veterans in the middle of yet another war, I have a story told to me by a friend who rarely talks about his Vietnam expierience. It is with his permission I pass this on.
PINK ELEPHANT
Henry was sixteen when left home in for no particular reason 1963. It was just what impatient young men did. Henry was black, very black. He was thick and muscular, with a penetrating stare and hair with a mind of its own. His gait and demeanor suggested menace, but he was always delightfully cheerful and easygoing. He was what, mythically, white folks feared; a confidant Black man. His restlessness and the belief that he needed to expand his horizons sent him to South Carolina, near his mother’s relatives. After finishing high school and drifting for a while, He enlisted in the Army and never went home again. Continue reading For Veterans
May 20, 2010
 The year escapes me when I try to remember it but the events never leave my memory for long. It was well past midnight and I was still in grade school when my journalist father came in drunk. It was the only time in my life that I saw him like that. He was brought home by a friend who happened to be one of the first black Atlanta policemen. Together they had traveled to the execution of a black man who had been convicted of raping a white woman in a poor white area called Cabbagetown. The woman said her attacker was a well dressed tall light skinned black man. The man they arrested and eventually executed was short and dark. He was a minister as well. The only thing I knew for many years was that my father came home drunk and ended up crying that he had failed to save this man. I was peeking out of my bedroom door watching and listening as my siblings slept and my mother plied him with coffee. Years later I wanted to write about what happened to make my father drink. It became a novel entitled “No Death by Unknown Hands.” Continue reading The Evolution of “No Death by Unknown Hands”
May 8, 2010
 Lessons From Another ‘Long War’
The British stood their ground when they were under terror siege.
New York remains on high alert. There is virtually no one here who does not understand that we and Washington are what we were on Sept. 11 almost nine years ago: the main and primary targets. Last weekend’s events in Times Square demonstrated again that our enemies are persistent and focused if not, in the case of Faisal Shahzad and, 4½ months ago, of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be underwear bomber, very good at murdering. They both appear to have been wayward sons of their nations’ establishments—Shahzad’s father was a retired vice marshal of Pakistan’s air force, Abdulmutallab’s a prominent Nigerian banker—and essentially stupid. But they will be followed by others who are not so hapless.
New Yorkers the past week have discussed all this with appropriate concern. We speak of who Shahzad is—how they found him, how they lost him, how they caught him—and of the sturdy T-shirt salesman, the mounted cop, the airport screener who spotted his name. We speculate about what happened in the moments before Shahzad, his keys still in the car, fled Times Square. But there is no air of panic; we knew we were a target, we have absorbed this information, factored it in, included it as a fact of our lives and concluded there’s little we can do about it. “If you see something, say something” as we’ve all memorized from buses and train stations. Continue reading Lessons From Another ‘Long War’
April 2, 2010
I am a very a good thief. There is nothing I cannot steal.
It is my profession. Nothing is safe from me.
Your darkened home is my domain.
Your purse, your ox, your children, your wife all are within my reach.
All that catches my eye is mine to possess.
Maybe it’s the danger. The thrill of getting caught appeals.
It is all I’ve ever known. It came so naturally.
The darkness is my ally. Continue reading The Good Thief
January 23, 2010
I pushed my way through the corn stalks; curiosity leading the way. From my Uncle Elsie’s farm, I could see another house with barns and a silo. My cousin Vera told me it belonged to her Aunt Ruth. Ruth was my uncle’s spinster sister. My Aunt Gladys was my dad’s only sister and my parents visited them almost every summer. I had never met this aunt and decided in my seven years of maturity that it was about time to introduce myself. So in my Sunday best dress, I marched myself over to introduce myself. The sun was warm that July afternoon and I was full of spunk after spending a morning in church and visiting my ninety plus years grandfather. I was always the adventurous tomboy. Dirt and woods were always calling to me; just a mystery to be explored. So with pink frills and white patent leather shoes, I trekked through the rows of green and gold to find the treasure at the other end.
When I arrived at her gate, I was delighted to see, that her front yard was filled with geese, both big and small. I loved visiting the farms that belonged to both sides of our family, being from the outer suburbs of Detroit. I proceeded into the yard and went straight to her pen to visit with the ducklings. Reaching down, I picked up the nearest one and held it to my chest. Imagine the shock I received when my aunt’s boxer “Queenie” came charging around the side of the house barking at the intruder. I squeezed the duckling a little too hard, not that she wasn’t already traumatized, and she proceeded to excrete her dinner all over my pink frilly front all the way down into my shoes! The hens and ganders were squawking, the baby bit my thumb hard, the dog was digging dirt and barking, and here I was balling my eyes out, when the strangest woman I ever laid eyes on came around the corner. Continue reading Dearest Ruth
January 16, 2010
Sherlock Holmes fans will love this. Written in the style of Conan Doyle, so well that the reader is not aware it isn’t one of his stories, the novel follows Sherlock and Doctor Watson as they take on a seemingly simple case of murder. However, it quickly becomes clear that this is anything but straightforward.
Doctor Watson narrates, and acts, as he helps the famous sleuth to track down clues in this complex crime mystery. Avril Field-Taylor has done her research and takes the reader on a journey which is so well constructed that it is like watching a film of events play out. Set in Devon, Hull and London, with Buckingham Palace playing a role, the story moves rapidly with the trains and Handsome cabs that propel the protagonists through the convoluted plot. The railway stations, backstreets, country houses and, of course, Baker Street, are all described so well that the reader feels at home with them.
The action brings in Mycroft, Sherlock’s brilliant but mysterious brother, the professionally jealous Lestrade from Scotland Yard, the Hellfire Club and Sherlock’s arch-enemy, Moriarty, in a plot which twists and turns without ever losing credibility. The damsel in distress is beautifully drawn and turns out to have more courage and good sense than initially expected, so that the reader really cares about her fate. Watson’s love and concern for Mary, his wife, is very well depicted. And Mrs Hudson gets an unexpected shock when Baker Street is attacked. Continue reading Stuart Aken Reviews Murder at Oakwood Grange by Avril Field-Taylor
November 11, 2009
This morning there was very little traffic coming to work. It’s a national holiday, Veterans Day. Most people have the day off, schools, banks and post offices are closed. We know that this is the day to honor those who have served in the Military but most of us don’t know the history of the date. Continue reading Short History of Veterans Day
November 10, 2009
He was dressed in black from head to toe. Even his back pack and the duffle bag he carried were all without color. Tall but bent over slightly, you could tell age was creeping up on him quickly and he reserved his energy for things other than running for the bus. He walked and the driver waited perhaps out of respect. I’d like to think it was because of the hat.
I didn’t notice it at first because he looked like so many other men is black jackets and black hats on the streets of New York. It wasn’t a fashion statement but the trim and the writing on the hat were gold, green and red. Big letters proclaimed “Viet Nam Veteran” and he looked the part, looked the age. That slight bit of machismo in his ever so slow but precise step was a reminder of the brothers who came back from that conflict with a different mindset all together. He sat in the very front, behind the driver and once he got settled he pulled out a copy of Jet Magazine. I grew up reading a copy of that publication every week. My mother decided that would be the only publication she continued to subscribe to after my father’s death. Continue reading Bus Story: The Man in Black
October 27, 2009
On the eve of the World Series, a life lesson from baseball history. [...]
October 20, 2009
The music came from a place I couldn’t see. Had I been a contestant on that old show “Name That Tune” I would have been a winner in less than five notes. A trumpet somewhere on the upper Westside of Manhattan was beautifully playing “My One and Only Love”. It was a pleasant distraction from the loud music emanating from passing cars. I have nothing against rap or salsa but I get enough of it in my daily diet further uptown. I tried to determine where the sweet notes were coming from but couldn’t so I just enjoyed them as I went about my shopping. Coltrane danced in my head as I remembered his version with Johnny Hartman and once again I was watching my parents and their friends sipping bourbon and cokes, the air filled with cigarette that they knew wouldn’t harm them or the children. A nice warm memory for a slightly cold day. Continue reading Street Story: A One and Only Love
October 16, 2009
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse in: Commentary, Comments & Discussion, Current Events, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Freedom, Geopolitical Events, Heroes, History, Homeland Security, Islam, Military, Morality, Opinion, Religion, Terrorism, The Pundit's Corner
War
During America’s brutal and bloody Civil War, General William T. Sherman said, “War is cruel and you cannot refine it” and “war at best is barbarism.” Sherman is also credited with saying “War is hell.”
Alexander the Great was known to be both a wise philosopher and a fearless conqueror. In the fall of 335 BC, Alexander marched to the gates of Thebes (a Greek city that broke free from his Macedonian empire when Alexander was twenty). He let the people of Thebes know that it was not too late for them to change their minds. The next day, the Macedonians stormed the city killing almost everyone in sight, women and children included. They plundered, sacked, burned and razed Thebes, as an example to the rest of Greece. Alexander did not fight a “refined” war where women and children were spared.
After Alexander conquered the Persian Empire, he ran into trouble in Afghanistan and used the same tactics to quell the rebellious Afghans.
Genghis Khan (1165-1227 AD) was one of history’s more charismatic and dynamic leaders. During his lifetime, he conquered more territory than any other conqueror, and his successors established the largest empire in history. As an organizational and strategic genius, Genghis Khan created one of the most highly disciplined and effective armies known, and this same genius gave birth to the administration that ruled that empire. After he died in 1227, the Mongol armies dominated the battlefield until the empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Adriatic Sea. Genghis Khan, like Alexander, spared no one when he met resistance. When people surrendered, he was benevolent. When they resisted, his armies slaughtered everyone like Alexander’s armies did. Continue reading War
October 14, 2009
She is the fourth of seven children of a single mother who prided herself on being able to get any man she wanted and wanted to pass that singular ability on to her daughters. This daughter says she grew up troubled- one year she and her older siblings were all in jail at the same time. And yet last night the young woman I met was completely changed. Not because she had to, she could have followed her mother’s path of living off society and having numerous children by as many men. The young woman I met last night changed because she wanted to. She told me she had things to do with her life. Continue reading Moving On Up
September 26, 2009
The facts about the Bird Flu, 911 and beyond reprinted in this article, which was in ConspiraZine magazine, and read on their radio show. are very relevant to the Swine Flu Vaccine scheme of today. The official plans currently are for vaccines to be ready Oct. 15th or sometime in December, depending on what they are going to do about adjuvant ingredients in the vaccines. Who knows what the future holds. Baxter’s Bird Flu vaccines contaminated with the Live Virus were discovered before they set off a pandemic with their vaccines. Now, they’re about to do it again, without needing to test normally, be transparent, or be liable. States are taking up the forced vaccine laws Read some of the history leading up to this here related to 911 and martial law and more.
from ConspiraZine Magazine–posted below:
911 and Avian Flu Legislation Were For the Sake of Martial Law: Just Say No to Mandatory Vaccines
In America, we may be on the verge of martial law, the current excuse being the threat of Avian Flu. While remaining calm, we do need to address this potential while we still have the freedom to do so. Perhaps we can stave it off if we look squarely at what is happening, and why. We have to look more deeply into the reality of vaccines, and why they are really being imposed upon us. We can look at 911 to realize that the government will use any deception to control us more. 911 didn’t work to bring total martial law, which is what it was intended to do, so bird flu is now being used to accomplish that state. Martial law is not being used as a last resort because of disaster out of our control. Martial law is the goal, and the disasters are hoisted on the public for the express purpose of making them give up their freedoms. Let’s not. Continue reading 911 and Avian Flu Legislation Were For the Sake of Martial Law: Just Say No to Mandatory Vaccines
September 21, 2009
Posted by AngelaPoseyArnold in: Current Events, Faith, Family, Freedom, Heroes, Inspiration & Motivation, Life Experiences, Military, Poetry, Religion, Spirituality, Terrorism
Since 2004 I have been involved with “Amazing Grace, Ministry to the Troops”. We send packages to Chaplains and soldiers, and individual letters and cards to actively deployed and wounded American troops. [...]
September 14, 2009
 Friday is Payday!  Kickin shirt! Walmart? This is one of my favorite “god” questions, mostly due to the reaction I got the first time I asked it. I was talking to a co-worker about his beliefs, mostly because they worried me. He stated that without the threat of “god’s wrath” he would be a very bad person. What? Needing a minute to recoup, and to avoid just telling him he was crazy and he was very likely to be the same nice, hard working guy with or without the existence of a supreme being, I came up with a new line of thought.
So, I asked him what he thought Jesus looked like, we were in the middle of the first Iraq war and were both glued to CNN each night listening to Wolf Blitzer reporting from under his bed in the hotel in Bagdad. Why would that matter? Let me explain.
While there are no surviving pictures or portraits of Jesus of Nazereth, and no reliable descriptions, we can make a few informed inferences. For instance we do know that he was about 35 before he began getting serious about preaching, and achieved his notoriety. Continue reading So what do you think Jesus looked like?
September 13, 2009
Posted by Alan Caruba in: Congress, Current Events, Democracy, Economic Crisis, Energy, Freedom, Global Warming, Governance, Heroes, Opinion, Politics
 By Alan Caruba
There have been many mass marches on Washington, D.C., so the locals know how to make plans to anticipate the congestion and the police are polite and skillful in the science of crowd control. They can afford to be polite because the crowds, no matter how large, are too.
Oh, sure, they shout a lot, but that’s what a protest march is all about. Back in April 1894 unemployed workers known as “Coxey’s Army” showed up to demand that Congress do something. It was the second year of an economic depression that would last another two years, but it was the worst that had hit the nation barely three decades since the end of the Civil War.
Americans know where to head when they are at odds with their government and most know or suspect that the source of their problems can be found in Washington, D.C. and they are always right.
Bloodshed has been extremely rare at such events. On June 17, 1932 a “Bonus Army”, some 20,000 World War One veterans and their families massed in the Capitol seeking advance payment of bonuses from the Hoover administration. The year is significant. It was four years passed the beginning of the Great Depression that began in 1929. Continue reading The Fine Art of American Protest
September 11, 2009
The Children of 9/11 Grow Up
College students talk about how the attack shaped their lives.
by Peggy Noonan
It is eight years since 9/11, and here is an unexpected stage of grief: fear that the ache will go away. I don’t suppose it ever will, but grieving has gradations, and “horror” becomes “absorbed sadness.” Life moves on, and wants to move on, which is painful for those who will not forget and cannot be comforted. Part of the spookiness of life, part of its power to disorient us, is not only that people die, that they slip below the waves, but that the waves close above them so quickly, the sea so quickly looks the same.
I’ve been thinking about those who were children on 9/11, not little ones who were shielded but those who were 10 and 12, old enough to understand that something dreadful had happened but young enough still to be in childhood. A young man who was 14 the day of the attacks told me recently that there’s an unspoken taboo among the young people of New York: They don’t talk about it, ever. They don’t want to say, “Oh boo hoo, it was awful.” They don’t want to dwell. They shrug it off when it comes up. They change the subject.
This week, in a conversation with college students at an eastern university, I brought it up. Seven students politely shared some of their memories. I invited them to tell me more the next morning, and was surprised when six of the seven showed up. This is what I learned: Continue reading The Children of 9/11 Grow Up
August 28, 2009
In a time where politics is fraught with name-calling, paranoia and insult, Senator Kennedy was a man of graciousness and a passionate advocate for the causes and people he believed in. His accomplishments were legion:
- The Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- The Freedom of Information Act.
- The Occupational Safety and Health Act.
- The Americans with Disabilities Act.
- The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009.
- Fought a four-decade crusade for universal health coverage.
- Helped Soviet dissidents.
August 26, 2009
By any human measure, Natalya Estemirova is a hero. Long a human rights activist, she spoke out against government corruption, the harassment and mistreatment of the powerless and dissident, and sought legal representation for those whose relatives were “disappeared”. The single mother of a teenage daughter, she knew she was taking risks. But [...]
August 24, 2009
Blame Scotland and Great Britain for freeing the Lockerbie bomber. [...]
August 18, 2009
Bela Kiraly, 1912 – 2009
Long considered a folk hero in Hungary, Bela Kiraly is the kind of man I admire. A general in the Hungarian army, he was sentenced to death four different times for sedition, spending 4 years on death row. Paroled in 1956, he led Hungarian freedom fighters against the Soviet invasion, escaping into exile with some of his forces when they were overwhelmed.
Aside from all of his accomplishments, which include earning a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, here is what I like about the man, and what makes him a hero to me.
He was a man of honor who stood for the honorable treatment of people. During World War II his unit was assigned several hundred Jewish slave laborers. With the Nazis in power, rather than hand them over for transportation, he put them in uniform and made them part of his troops, saving them from certain death in the camps. He was later honored by Israel for it. Arrested by the Soviets at the war’s end and sent to Siberia with his men, he and a number of them escaped the train and hiked back into Hungary.
During Hungary’s attempted break-away from the Soviet bloc in 1956, he was made commanding general of the rebels while still in the hospital recovering from 5 years of prison for “sedition”.
In 2006, learning that one of the Russian generals who led the 1956 invasion was still alive, he invited him to Budapest to join the 50th anniversary celebrations. When the general declined the invitation, fearing that he might be arrested, 94 year old Kiraly flew to Moscow and spent a weekend reminiscing with his former enemy. Continue reading Bela Kiraly, My Kind of Hero
August 14, 2009
Bernard Loeffke, Major General USA (retired), Physician’s Assistant, visionary, warrior. My kind of hero. [...]
August 11, 2009
Asha Hagi, Amy Goodman, Krishnammal Jagannathan and Monika Hauser
I admire these four women, people who through sacrifice and risk do good for others. I think they deserve to be recognized as heroes. All too often people like them are pushed aside, given little-to-no attention in the media and dismissed as do-gooders and busy-bodies. To me these four women, and the others I will be writing about, are the real heroes. To have the kind of world where all of us can live together, they and others like them are the kind of heroes that will help us create it. You’ll meet a lot of them in this column over the next number of weeks.
How did I discover them? They were winners of the 2008 “Right Livelihood Award”, thought of as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”. They’re my kind of hero.
With her husband, Krishnammal Jagannathan founded an organization called “Land for the Tillers Freedom” that has redistributed land to some 13,000 Dalit women. Known as “India’s soul”, at age 82, she is still active. Her husband, Sankaralingam who is co-founder of Land for the Tillers Freedom was co-recipient, but was at age 95,unable to attend the awards ceremony in Stockholm. Continue reading Four Heroes
|
Books by SWI Contributors
|
River separates life from death
River separates life from death
by Tyree Harris
The following is part two of a three-part series. See part one here.
With faint screams and smoke coming from the forests and villages surrounding, Simon Mudahogora, his sister, and his friend’s family all loaded up into a canoe, which had to be sunk to hide from the Hutu. They were heading to a refugee camp in Burundi, where many other Tutsi fled.
The border between Burundi and Rwanda was marked by a river — a river so dirtied with death that they had to move carcasses out of the canoe’s way to get across the river.
Simon knew he had to stay tough: “There was no crying.”
Crossing into Burundi, however, didn’t mean safety. The group then had to travel through two hours of swamplands, where the Hutu were often hiding and killing fleeing Tutsi. The thick vegetation and knee-high mud trenched and brushed across their fear-riddled bodies. Continue reading River separates life from death