Well, so far the day is living up to it's reputation.   Beware...it is not just a myth.

I lost a  new friend today.  I don't mean lost died, I mean she told me off and made it clear I was not to darken her door every again. ever.

At second glance she was probably not a friend given the way this was done, but damn it I hate when people lash out to make themselves feel better.  Honestly,this is not the first time someone has decided I should go away.  I tend to reach out to people in pain and try to help. Very often having shared some deep painful place in themselves we get to the "let no good deed go unpunished" part and and they are embarrassed at what I know.
My theory is they come to the point where they are uncomfortable that you know them too well and they want to erase you.   I have been erased, well in this case mostly excised. 

I decided the best thing was to go about my day and my job which is really a silly job but it does meet my need to stay productive in my present state of age and crappy health..so I did my daily read of the RSS feeds I subscribe to to keep up on events so I can irritate my congressional representatives with my opinions. 

You have to understand that seeing a monsterous number of opinions passed off as relevent can be a real bummer. As money becomes tighter and harder to find in sponsorship they need to rile the waters of their base by attacking anything that moves. 

Someone put it perfectly yesterday

"On the web you best build an audience by organising a claque and stroking its prejudices. Extend elaborate courtesy to people you agree with and boorish contempt to those who do not get it..."

This comment had forced me into  a long meditative session last night that determined that I would focus on what I could change and stay as far away from the rest as possible.    

But I do see the correlation between being erased and finding a new direction.  It is karmic in that you reach out to comfort even if the the comforted hisses back.  Kind of like a nasty cat...wanting to be petted most of the time and ready to claw you when it suits him.  You can never predict the cats behavior.  You can predict yours.  My control, as my sponsor so fondly pointed out over thirty years ago, ends at my fingertips.  I can control nothing but myself.  Sometimes I get erased, as in the case of the lost friend, other times  I was able to offer help and the help was valued.  It doesn't feel good to be attacked, but it does give me the opportunity to look at myself and make sure I do not do the attacking. To affirm that my interactions are the impression I leave with every single person I come in contact with. I am not reaching out to make a friend I am reaching out because it is the only way I can be peaceful and loving. 

I think my meditative session tonight will be much longer.

Thank you for helping me work thru this and providing a suture tray.  

Peace to all
and...chocolate and love for tomorrow.

I cannot share in this national orgasm of hope.  My failure is not being looked upon kindly by those who know me best.  They feel the least I can do is be less cynical about the prospects for the future.  My difficulty stems from years and years of serious activism.  The person I have been friends with for the longest period teases me that I once had her marching for Chimpanzees in Detroit, and march we did.  We were involved.  We stayed involved.  We are still involved.  She is the basis for the online nick which I have used for many years.  We might not have been born sisters but we were sisters in every sense of the world. She founded an organization that helps inner city children with personal items and sleeping bags to assure that they have a warm safe place to sleep. Because of circumstances I moved frequently and my activism moved with me.   I have lived in Michigan, Florida, California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut,  New York and Maryland.  I have had temporary residences in Georgia and Arkansas.  I have always known the names and phone numbers of my congressional representatives and they regularly have heard my arguments on current issues.   I have argued causes and equality for over 50 years and I have no intention of stopping now.  Barbara Mikulski's office staff in Maryland have actually gone so far as to assure me that I was not alone in my concerns. 

I am not unemotional.  I have sat in the Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta and cried feeling the drama of Martin Luther King and his message, after having seen his poorly maintained gravesite.   I have struggled through the deaths of John, Martin and Bobby.  I have learned that some things we did counted.  The woman in Atlanta who shared a lunch table with me, angered when I said we had not done enough in the 60's said. "Never say that again, you got me out.  I went from a one room cabin in Mississippi to being the head of a department in a major college.  You made that happen".  I have stood silently with people who thought that equality meant equal rights and equal pay.

Yes, thankfully, we will have a new president. This is an amazing period of history that it is a privilege to experience. But after the throngs of people go home from the train stops, and concerts and events of the next week I will still be at my desk gathering the information I will need to make my phone calls on the issues of today.  I wonder how many of the emotionally sated will do anything more than say "they were part of history".  I wonder how many will actually become involved in the process of holding their government responsible.  I wonder how many have any clue how much 1.2 trillion dollars really is.

There was a popular TV show on which a character ranted about the lack of involvement in the last eight years.  "Certainly Americans will rise up and refuse to let this happen"  Will the throngs of  people understand that election fraud,  war in Iraq,  WMD's, Abu Ghraib, Iraqi victims,  signing statements and executive orders,  Katrina, immigration, health care, poverty,  the racism, and lack of education was in fact all of our faults? Will they see the circle of poverty that surrounds the celebratory events of the week to come as they enter and leave the district? Did Obama note the boarded up buildings as he rode the train into Baltimore?

I was asked how I was going to volunteer tomorrow to celebrate Martin Luther King day.  I will not volunteer tomorrow.  I will honor the man upon whose shoulders our new president stands.  I will pray that he understands there were a lot of shoulders, mine and Wren included.

By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem
Last Updated: 5:27PM GMT 07 Jan 2009

Palestinians grieve at the funeral of a relative in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City Photo: AP

Mohammed Shaheen, a volunteer with Palestinian Red Crescent, was in the first convoy of ambulances to reach the site of the blast in Zeitoun since it was first occupied then shelled by the Israeli army.

His testimony confirmed accounts, first reported in The Telegraph, from survivors of the extended al Samouni clan who said they feared between 60 and 70 family members had been killed.

"Inside the Samouni house I saw about ten bodies and outside another sixty,'' Mr Shaheen said.

"I was not able to count them accurately because there was not much time and we were looking for wounded people.

"We found fifteen people still alive but injured so we took them in the ambulances.

"I could see an Israeli army bulldozer knocking down houses nearby but we ran out of time and the Israeli soldiers started shooting at us.

"We had to leave about eight injured people behind because we could not get to them and it was no longer safe for us to stay.'' Mr Shaheen was in a convoy led by a jeep from the International Committee of the Red Cross that made its way down war-damaged tracks past demolished houses to the town of Zeitoun.

Concerns had been growing that Zeitoun had witnessed massive civilian casualties after surviving members of the Samouni clan reached Gaza City three days ago.

They said that after the Israeli army first took the town on Saturday night soldiers had ordered about 100 members of the clan to gather in a single house owned by Wael Samouni around dawn on Sunday.

At 6.35am on Monday the house was repeatedly shelled with appalling loss of civilian life.

A handful of survivors, some wounded, others carrying dead or dying infants, made it on foot to Gaza's main north-south road before they were given lifts to hospital. Three small children were buried in Gaza City that afternoon.

According to the survivors between 60 and 70 family members had been killed by shrapnel and falling masonry.

Convoys of ambulances twice headed to the area to look for wounded but they were driven back by Israeli shooting.

During today's three hour lull in offensive operations by Israel, the ICRC led the rescue convoy in although it took a long time for the convoy to make its way down war-damaged.

According to Mr Shaheen, the death toll was as high as described by the survivors.

  Dahr Jamil  is an independent war correspondent.  We have made contact over the years and I have the utmost respect for his coverage.

 http://dahrjamailiraq.com/

The Monstrosity of War

by Dahr Jamail
January 6th, 2009 

Civilian deaths increase as Israel moves deeper into Gaza. (Photo: Abid Katib / Getty Images Europe)

"Foreseen for so many years: these evils, this monstrous violence, these massive agonies: no easier to bear."
-Robinson Jeffers, American poet

Agence France-Presse reports that the first person killed when the Israeli military began to enter Gaza on Saturday was a Palestinian child.

On Sunday, a Palestinian woman and her four children were blown to pieces when Israeli warplanes bombed their home. They are among the 521 victims (at the time of this writing) of the ongoing air and ground assault on the Gaza Strip by a 9,000 strong force, which the Israeli government has launched on one of the most densely populated tracts of land in the world, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, half of them under 17 years of age.

"The ground invasion was preceded by large scale artillery shelling from around 4 P.M., intended to 'soften' the targets as artillery batteries deployed along the Strip in recent days began bombarding Hamas targets and open areas near the border," Israel's Haaretz newspaper wrote of the onslaught. "Hundreds of shells were fired, including cluster bombs aimed at open areas."

Israel began the military assault on Gaza on November 4, breaking the truce that Hamas had observed for many months. It went on to block food supplies to be delivered into Gaza by the UN Relief Works and World Food Program. The next casualty was the crucial fuel delivery service used to run Gaza's power plant. Finally, Israel banned journalists and aid workers from entering Gaza.

It is important to note that in mid-December, during a visit to Israel, UN Human Rights Investigator Richard Falk called the Israeli blockade of Gaza "a crime against humanity" and a "flagrant and massive violation of international law."

Falk, a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, urged the UN to invoke "the agreed norm of a responsibility to protect a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a Crime Against Humanity." Falk also called for an International Criminal Court investigation of Israeli military and civilian officials for potential prosecution.

For this, he was detained at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport for 20 hours before being expelled from Israel.

As Israeli tanks and ground troops pour into Gaza to engage in the worst kind of combat (should we even measure types of warfare against one another?), urban warfare, the atrocities on both sides continue, and one may assume that the situation will only worsen with time, as it inevitably does in progressive stages of war.

"Operation Cast Lead" as Israel's latest offensive is named, has claimed, since December 27, over 520 Palestinian lives. Gaza medical officials put the number of wounded at over 2,400, most of them civilians.

Hamas rockets have killed five Israelis, one of them a soldier and four of them civilians. As with Israeli attacks that kill and wound Palestinian civilians are a war crime, Hamas firing their grossly inaccurate rockets into Israel, which then wound and kill Israeli civilians, is also a war crime.

According to KPFA radio correspondent Sameh Habeeb, "Around 17 people [from the Al-Atatra family] were killed in Bait Lahia town north of Gaza. Amongst them were several children, two brothers, 20-year-olds and many old men who were all killed by one rocket." Habeeb also reports of Israeli war planes striking water plants, dozens of houses, the use of white phosphorous incendiary weapons and of at least 15 mosques having been bombed. Dozens of people have been killed in the attacks against the mosques. Israeli Foreign Minister Ms. Tzipi Livni explains patiently, "But a war is a war; these things can happen. This is not our intention, but we cannot avoid completely any kind of civilian casualties. But the responsibility for this lies on Hamas' shoulders." The slaughter only compounds the hardships that Palestinians have suffered due to the severe shortages of food and medical supplies accruing from the two-year-old economic blockade imposed upon Gaza by Israel.

In 2006, Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said of the blockade: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."

The UN has warned that there are "critical gaps" in aid reaching Gaza, despite claims from Livni that aid was getting through.

Christopher Gunness, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) spokesman, dismisses the claim that there is no humanitarian crisis as an absurdity. He informs us, "The organization for which I work, UNRWA - has approximately 9 to 10,000 workers on the ground. They are speaking with the ordinary civilians in Gaza ... People are suffering. A quarter of all those being killed now are civilians [the majority of the over 2,400 wounded are civilians]. So when I hear people say we're doing our best to avoid civilian casualties that rings very hollow indeed."

>From Iraq, I had reported on how the US military regularly blockaded cities during military operations, disconnecting power, food, water and medical supplies. Let us not forget the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq followed 12 and a half years of genocidal sanctions against that country, which claimed the lives of half a million children. The people of Iraq, like the people of Gaza, had been placed on a "diet."

Back in Gaza, the International Committee for the Red Cross said on Sunday its medical emergency team had been prevented by the Israeli military for a third day from entering the territory. Here again, is an uncanny similarity with the situation in Iraq, particularly during the two US sieges of Fallujah during 2004, when medical and aid teams were not allowed into the city, and teams already inside were regularly targeted by the military when they attempted to rescue the wounded.

KPFA correspondent Habeeb has reported of Israeli tanks preventing ambulances from reaching the wounded and of three paramedics and ambulance staff having been killed by the Israeli military while trying to rescue a family. Oxfam aid agency also reported on the incident. Journalist activist Ewa Jasiewicz reported, "On 31st December, around 2 am, two emergency medical services personnel were targeted by an Israeli missile as they attempted to reach injured in the Jabaliya region, northern Gaza. The first died immediately, the second soon after of complications from his internal injuries. Two days later, two more medics were injured in the area east of Gaza, again in the line of duty, again trying to reach the injured. Under the Geneva Conventions, Israel is obliged to allow and ensure safe passage to medical personnel to the injured. Instead, Israel routinely targets them."

I am aware that for those who have not experienced war firsthand, an accusation against a supposedly civilized government of the deliberate targeting of medical personnel, who are, in theory, protected by international law, is unbelievable and shocking. But there are others like me who have witnessed such tactics firsthand on several occasions. I saw it being used by the Israeli military during their assault on southern Lebanon during summer 2006, just as I had seen the US military doing in Fallujah in 2004.

Such is the madness of war.

Veteran journalist Robert Fisk describes war as "the total failure of the human spirit."

How can anyone expect the wide-scale butchering in Gaza to be any different when the dogs of war have been let loose? Psychosis, mental illness, the specious "logic" of it all: The fundamental assumption that war can ever solve a crisis is false. Has this not been apparent from the beginning of history?

    "These events of war were performed not by atavistic savages following the code of archaic rituals, but usually by trained troops from societies boasting civilized values, humane laws, moral education, and aesthetic culture. Nor were these acts specific to one nation - typically Japanese, typically American, or German or Serbian ... Nor were they confined to exceptional psychopathic criminals among the troops. No: this is what wars do, what battles are; conventions of rampage on both a monstrous collective and monstrous individual scale, implacable archetypal behaviors, behaviors of an archetype, governed by, possessed by, commanded by Mars."

    -James Hillman, Jungian psychologist, from "A Terrible Love of War"

At this point, it simply must be stopped. No human, no matter what their race, religion or nationality, should ever have to endure the effects of war.

Yet, impotent governments across the world remain unwilling to intervene, some conniving proactively to aggravate the distress of the targeted populations. Egypt has completely closed the Rafah crossing, effectively cutting off aid supplies to the hapless surviving residents of Gaza.

It is the United Nations, however, that must be granted the undisputed crowning glory of impotence. In a move tried and tested for years now, last Saturday evening, the United States, yet again wielding its veto power to protect the actions of Israel, blocked approval of a UN Security Council statement expressing concern at the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas and calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel. Perhaps, there is consolation in the fact that this was no great loss because, had the statement been approved, it would still have remained an empty gesture unable to check the violence.

Frustrated by the untenable nature of the crisis and obviously angered by the veto power of the United States in the UN, president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockman of Nicaragua, blasted the Israeli action, and said, "I think it's a monstrosity; there's no other way to name it ... Once again, the world is watching in dismay the dysfunctionality of the Security Council."

Professor Falk, in a recent article titled "Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe," writes, "The people of Gaza are victims of geopolitics at its inhumane worst: producing what Israel itself calls a ‘total war' against an essentially defenseless society that lacks any defensive military capability whatsoever and is completely vulnerable to Israeli attacks mounted by F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters. What this also means is that the flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, as set forth in the Geneva Conventions, is quietly set aside while the carnage continues and the bodies pile up. It additionally means that the UN is once more revealed to be impotent when its main members deprive it of the political will to protect a people subject to unlawful uses of force on a large scale. Finally, this means that the public can shriek and march all over the world, but that the killing will go on as if nothing is happening. The picture being painted day by day in Gaza is one that begs for renewed commitment to international law and the authority of the UN Charter, starting here in the United States, especially with a new leadership that promised its citizens change, including a less militarist approach to diplomatic leadership."

"And where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury...," said Shakespeare in "The Taming of the Shrew." But one of the worst conflict conditions in the world indicates otherwise. The fury and the fire rage unabated.

http://justworldnews.org/archives/003297.html
Thank you Helena Cobban

Syria has been host to 450,000 Palestinian refugees for decades. (Their families found refugee there from the fighting when Israel was founded in 1948.) More recently, Syria has been host to some 700,000 refugees from the fighting in US-occupied Iraq.

This photo is from a lovely story from Syria about a project in which two choirs-- one made up of Iraqi refugee children and non-refugee Syrian children, and the other of Palestinian refugee children-- came together to sing a program that included Palestinian, Syrian, and Iraqi music.

photo by Ibrahim Malla

Too often, people in the international community think of refugees as, at best, "a problem" to be solved through merely technocratic means, or at worst a "menace", and a potential source of instability. People forget that people who are refugees are every bit as human as those of us who are not (yet) refugees. They have amazing capacities and capabilities that can be either nurtured or stifled by the way they are treated. They have agency, resilience, and amazing capacities to love, to be kind, or to experience the whole range of other human emotions. And they have rights, codified in international law but "honored", too often, only in the breach.

I look at the photo of these children-- who seem to be part of the Iraqi portion of the choir. I imagine the work it took for their parents or older siblings to get them looking so neat and beautiful, even though many of them probably have horrible living conditions. I see the range of ways they're engaging with the task at hand (or looking mischievously around). I look at their joy in artistic creation and in working together. I notice that they're reading words and perhaps also reading music.

Imagine where any one of these children might be in another two, or 20, years time! Will they have returned to their respective homelands and be living a peaceful and productive life there? Might one or more of these children turn out to have real musical talent, now being well nurtured, and end up a Barenboim or a Yo-Yo Ma? Where else might this experience of musical education, group activity, and the nurturing hands of adults lead these kids?

A Happy New Year to people everywhere. And especially, in our conflict-riven times, to all people everywhere who are refugees.

This is from a long time online friend I have never met.  Thanks Herb, you inspire us all.

My friend Michael popped into my office. When he told me he couldn't make it to Nicaragua this year for the Los Quinchos Christmas party his eyes welled up. My wife Pam operates two beauty schools in Managua and he knew that in a day or two we would be traveling there so she could officiate at the annual graduation. He took a deep breath, looked straight at me and said, "As a personal friend, please promise me that ‘all my babies' will get presents. It will be a great party, and you'll bring back plenty of pictures." I agreed, at least to the part about the pictures; but in my heart I knew that I would have to overcome some considerable disappointment from "Mike's Babies."

The Los Quinchos he referred to is a refuge for children in the mountains of Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the western hemisphere. It is one of the projects that are supported by Pronica, a Quaker sponsored organization in which my wife and I play a part. It is not a place for folks who have a passing interest in helping those less fortunate. It is a much tougher place than that. Los Quinchos is a place that, by its nature, melts the hardest of hearts and at the same time demands disciplined dedication. The children who live there were found alone on the streets of Managua, the country's capital. Until they arrived there they have lived a child's life without love, and many of them are addicted to glue which they inhale to quell the pain of hunger. To them, "Miguel" is a combination of father figure, rock star, and generous benefactor. He is their real life Santa Claus, who visits in Deciembre of every year. When he arrives it's officially Christmas at Los Quinchos.

I accepted his request, but I knew success would be in God's hands.

The two beauty schools Pam operates teach young women, who have been forced by poverty to work in the sex trade, a less dangerous way to support themselves. It is a big job and she had traveled to Nicaragua several days before me to work with the staff to prepare for their annual graduation ceremony. When I arrived a few days later she had already learned that the traditional Christmas party at Los Quinchos would not be carried out this year. The powers‐that‐be decided to do something different, and she knew I would be worried about my vow, "as a personal friend" to "Poppa Miguel."

Los Quinchos has several campuses, and the usual procedure was to pick the kids up at the larger campus in San Marcos, take them to Lake Managua, and let them swim, open presents, do a lot of hugging, wish them a "Feliz Navidad," and get them back to San Marcos.

This year's plan was that a busload of kids from La Chureca, in Managua, would ride up to San Marcos, where they would join the other kids and they would have a party together. Sounds simple enough but please let me point out what the arithmetic on this is: about thirty kids from La Chureca would join about forty kids from San Marcos.

Yes, that's a lot of kids and Christmas presents that weren't anticipated. It would also require several additional piñatas filled with loads more candy and a score of other details. If we could get those chores done in a few

hours, there was also the part about the two hour bus ride on unmarked mountain roads, followed by a thirty minute walk through the rainforest with a horde of Spanish speaking affection‐starved kids, who, shall we say, "don't get out much."

San Marcos is a small town some distance outside Managua. "La Chureca" Is not a town. It is a burning, smoking, mountain of stinking refuse about the size of a golf course, within the city itself. It is also home to many of God's poorest people. I am not sure that there are any census takers in Nicaragua, but I am certain there are none who are willing to walk around and count heads in such a terrible place. It is estimated to be more than a thousand souls who find themselves there. With a life expectancy of only thirty five years, by default, most of them are children. They make their way in life, sifting through trash for recyclables that can be sold, garbage that can be eaten, and "johns," who will pay meager amounts of money to sexually exploit the women and children.

When Jesus attempted to describe hell, he used the name Gehenna, which was the place south of Jerusalem where the ancients took children to be sacrificed to the God Moloch. During his time, it was a city dump that was constantly in flames. It is said that if a proper tomb had not been donated, after his crucifixion his body would be left there as refuse. La Chureca is the modern day equivalent of Gehenna.

Fortunately, the people of Nicaragua adapt to changes in schedules with ease. I am not sure how it came about but somehow presents were bought, Piñatas were loaded with goodies, and I, on Saturday morning, found myself sitting on the porch of the Pronica residence, Quaker house, having a casual morning coffee on the not so quiet residential street when a bus load of children arrived a full fifteen minutes early (perhaps a Nicaraguan first). I have always wondered what it was like inside those white busses that the prisoners ride in when one pulled up in front of Quaker house. I realized I was going to have my chance to find out.

Unlike the ones at home, this ancient, smoky, recently hand brush painted white bus, wasn't filled with prisoners as we normally know them. This bus was filled with prisoners of life: children, from the ages of a few months (accompanied by her three siblings and her twenty four year old mother), up to about thirteen, as best I could guess, who by bad luck were born into a life of impoverishment at La Chureca.

Most people confuse poverty with impoverished. That's because most of us spend our lives in a culture that deeply believes in the American dream of success. As such we usually can't accept as fact that the basic structure of some cultures self perpetuates poverty. In other words, these individuals live in poverty with no chance, no ability, and no hope of change; They live in a world where the conception of upward mobility is absent. Yes, I will admit, some do escape, with scars, but nonetheless, they do escape. Then again, some of us end up on MTV, "getting money for nothing and chicks for free." But I don't know any of those people personally. I suppose that given six degrees of separation we all are connected to someone living in both of these extremes, but they are still intangible.

The bus squealed to a stop in front of me with all the noise and commotion of a freight train arriving at a depot. It took me so by surprise that at first I didn't notice that all of the windows were open or absent and peering thru every one of them was a child who was thinking, "Donde es Miguel?"

I took a moment of silence and reminded myself that I had put this whole thing in God's hands. I got on the bus, smiled, waived, and introduced my wife, "Pam Ella" (in Espanola,) and myself as "Hereberto."

You may remember that I mentioned that the bus arrived a full fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. That is a situation so rare and unexpected in Nicaragua that our translator had not yet arrived.

In my panic my mind briefly went back to my arrangement with God reminding him/her that this is in his/her hands, and since that's the deal, now would be a good time to tell me how I inform thirty children who are

raging with yuletide excitement, that Miguel can't make it, Pam and I will have to do, and, oh yeah, they have to sit there and behave for fifteen minutes, and God, please remember, I don't speak Spanish.

I am here to tell you, that God delivered on his /her end of the deal. He/she reminded me that way back I acquired a few, very poor juggling skills (I mean that literally), so a set of keys over the shoulder and caught behind the back, got us through. I guess I should mention that the kids' fascination with my movie star‐looking, drop dead gorgeous blonde, gringo wife being on the bus with them put them a little bit in awe and bought me at least half of those fifteen minutes. I just know, they were wondering if they had ever seen her in a movie.

By being the world's most clumsy juggler, I had produced a half dozen howls of laughter mixed with finger pointing when a motorcycle, shrouded in a cloud of carbon monoxide pulls up, stops, and off gets a rider who even with a helmet on, is easily understood to be curvaceous female. As if she was born on a motorcycle, in one sweep, she dismounts, removes her helmet, shakes her head, and reveals her stunning long, flowing, raven black hair.

She walks over to us, gives Pam a hug, as they had met before and looks at me and says, "Hi, I'm Carmine, I am going to be your translator." My secret voice inside my head is saying, "Thank you God, again."

Back in the world outside my head it is clear that it is going to be a far from ordinary day.

So now everyone is aboard the prison bus which is completely full and, there being no seats left, I am perched on the very warm engine cover riding backwards, looking at a busload of adorable urchins who are looking at me.

I smile as my senses abruptly inform me that this year Santa is not the only one who is covered in ashes and soot from his head to his foot. The thirty elves I am about to spend my day with, spend their life that way, and guess what, every one of them wants to take a turn, sitting in my lap. Oh well, there's plenty of time. I have a pocket full of Purell. God has already proved himself/herself to be paying careful attention, so let's "dash away, dash away, dash away all, " as they say.

We don't think of poor people as being pleasing to the eye, but that's the reality with Latino children. They live inside magnificently beautiful brown skin; they always have bright eyes augmented by long eyelashes and perfectly proportioned Latino body shapes. By the time we arrive in San Marcos, we all smell the same, and I am in love with every one of them.

I am filled with the sheer joy of it all and my inside voice says, "Sorry Michael, with God's help you have given me this day, and I am very grateful for that."

Although I have noticed that none of the dashboard gauges work, and we have to always park on an incline because the starter doesn't work either, the prison bus does its job and after and hour or so we arrive in time for lunch at the Los Quinchos Pizza Parlor.

Every time I hear the oh so popular expression, "Teach a man to fish... etc, my mind conjures up an image of a skeleton on a small deserted island, long dead, but still clutching to a fishing pole. But I must say that popular philosophy is alive and well at Los Quinchos. The Pizza Parlor serves as local restaurant and a vocational program for the kids who work rotating shifts from 11:00 to 7:00 every day. They prepare the dough, wait on tables, etc. It's a potential occupation for them, it puts money in their pocket, it makes money for the school, and it doubles as the bakery for the kids' meals. I should mention it is considered the best pizza in all of San Marcos a town of maybe a hundred people.

I am intrigued and I take my place at the grownups' table, my mind is reeling with potential names for the place: ‘Pizzas for Peace, a slice for a life," or maybe, "we knead money," and on and on.

I didn't have time to find out why we were served bologna sandwiches at a pizza parlor because we were late getting to the party which began with disappointment. The kids were led to believe that they would be able to swim in a real live swimming pool, as opposed to the drainage ditch back in the city. However, when we arrive, the pool is still being cleaned, there is no water in it, and there will be no swimming.

When you live in a dump that is constantly on fire in the relentless heat of Central America, not getting your annual chance to swim in a real pool is a big disappointment. But to my amazement, or should I say, "but what to my wondering eyes should appear," in front of me are thirty kids who take it in stride and move the whole party over to the soccer field and quickly choose up sides. Once again, I am reminded that these kids are in many ways very special, and in case I was doubtful, God has now reassured me that he/she stayed on the bus and is still the guest of honor at our party.

Things went well; there was soccer, dancing, piñatas, smiles, laughs, and presents, lots of presents. All of which required batteries. What a feeling of being a grandfather to these kids as the director of the program, Carlos and I put battery after battery into the toys while long lines of children patiently waited to find out what it is the toy actually does once powered. Oh yes, note to the powers that be, even though they were joyously received, Quakers don't do toy guns. Next year we need to stipulate a peaceful alternative, strange as that may seem to some.

Even though everyone was enjoying themselves, and nothing was wrong, I felt that something was lacking, I had an unfulfilled feeling. Something inside me said that we had not achieved that special status that the Christmas spirit demands. Little did I know that the spirit of Christmas within us had just begun to do its work.

Suddenly an idea popped into my head that was so radical I felt my inside voice screaming "Oh, no!" Please God I know you have been helping out all day, but please don't lead me to that traveling Mexican Circus we saw back in Managua! We can't do that, it's too much, over the top, beyond my ability, and way too scary. I must have sounded to God like Moses saying he/she had the wrong guy, there must be some mistake.

I calmed down a little when the inside voice said, "The bus driver probably won't go for it, maybe that will stop this foolish idea in its tracks." No such luck. For a mere fifty American dollars and a ticket for him and his son, the bus driver had plenty of time. Rats! What other possible deal breakers can I find? How about we can't afford it! The inside voice quickly reminds me that I have a garage full of motorcycles, and taking these kids will cost less than a few of my motorcycles getting an annual oil change; ok, maybe a new engine.

"Ok God, maybe you can stop being so helpful. I want to remind you that once a bus full of deprived kids stops in a parking lot anywhere near a circus, there is no going back."

With that thought, the spirit reminds me that, earlier in the week I received word a friend of mine had quite suddenly lost his son whose name was Andrew, during what should have been a routine operation. This friend had shown a genuine interest in these kids from the dump. I had been thinking all week about what I could do to honor my friend's son. This idea was so far out that I knew in my heart, I was being led to do this. God was up to his/her mysterious ways again. And a way had been way put in front of me. Perhaps I had simply lost my mind but I felt that Pam and I were being led by the spirit to take thirty beautiful, but strangely smelly orphans to a Circus in honor of my friend's son and we were now on a "mission from God."

If I live to be a hundred, I will not forget the look on the guy's face at the ticket office. He looked at me, he looked at the long line of obedient but excited ragamuffins standing behind me, then back at me and his eyes said, "Ok, let's see if I get this, you're an American, who, with your movie star wife, is going to take thirty poor

Hispanic kids to the Circus, and in case that isn't enough, you don't speak Spanish?" Shaking his head, he handed a fist full of tickets to me, and I could have sworn I heard him say, "May God's love go with you."

I thought it would be real grandfatherly to be the one to show these kids their first acrobats, magicians, and white tigers, and it was.

What I hadn't counted on witnessing were the things that will stay with me forever.

The first thing that hit me was that for perhaps the first time in their lives they were in a large crowd of people. Not only was it a large crowd, but in this crowd everyone was well dressed and wearing shoes that fit. These are children who live their lives either outside or in small shacks with no windows. Now they found themselves not only inside the largest indoor space they had ever seen, it was a tent. To them it was magical! One little girl kept looking around at the roof and the stage and the lights and the seats, repeating to herself, "big top, big top."

Pam and I were trying to understand why, regardless of what was happening on stage, they kept running to the door in what seemed to be a panic. They would take a quick look outside, and then run back to their seats. We could only guess that being inside was such a new experience, they had to constantly reorient themselves. It was much more they were experiencing than a circus. They seemed to find it incredible that they were sitting in their own seats legitimately; they hadn't conned anybody to get there; they hadn't snuck in; they hadn't stolen the tickets. No one was going to throw them out and they were free to enjoy the show just like anyone else. They weren't sure that it wasn't a dream.

Pam and I constantly held back tears while the kids showed us a constant stream of what we have long since ceased to appreciate:

Did you ever try to explain cotton candy to a kid who relies on dogs to sniff out a snack among the garbage?

Why are people clapping their hands?

Where does the poop go when you flush a toilet?

What is a concession stand?

You have never been humbled until you have watched children who should be old enough to know better, follow the popcorn vender, and picking up whatever falls to the floor and eating it as naturally as other kids eat French fries at McDonalds.

I realize that I am watching children who have honed the skills they need to survive inside Gehenna, but once outside, they are nearly helpless. It is breaking my heart but Pam and I are witnessing the process of impoverishment. It is no longer a theory to me, all I can think is, "thank you Lord, for the blessings you have given me today."

When the show was over, we moved cautiously amongst the throng and made it back to the prison bus. The Christmas party now seemed complete. One little girl of about three fell asleep in my arms on the way home, as she did, I came to sympathize with Angelina Jolie, and Madonna. In her sleep she would cough every few minutes; it was tough to give her up and I will always pray that she got well, and lived a good life.

The bus stopped outside the dump to waiting parents. There were thirty, adioses and thirty graciases and then it was over. It was starkly sudden. I wanted to hug them one more time and tell them things like, "it will be ok if you work hard; do well in school; I will always love them." But all too suddenly, it was over.

Now, as I sit tapping away at my computer, it is late, I am alone, and I no longer need to push back those tears. Tomorrow I will be back in St Petersburg wondering if all of this really happened. But for now

Merry Christmas Muchachas, Muchachos, rest in peace Andrew, thank you Michael, and God bless us every one

  Thanks NewsDissector and Danny

Not for Christmas but for every minute of every hour of every day: - Imagine - a musical/pictorial tribute to John Lennon: Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man, Imagine all the people, Sharing all the world...   Beatle Lennon's most famous song, released originally in 1971, has been a beacon for peace groups ever since. But - controversially - the song was one of the dozens listed as "lyrically questionable" by Clear Channel after 9/11, alongside the likes of Walk Like An Egyptian by The Bangles and The Clash's Rock The Casbah - but not The Cure's Killing An Arab. If one picture is truly worth a 1,000 words:

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi

 

   

"Mary, Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow"....never mind the rest of the nursery rhyme....

Are you the responsible for the garden even if you didn't plant the seeds?

Yes... and what was sown requires weeding, and only you can pull the weeds Weeding is a dirty job but someone has to do it.   Pretending you are not in a garden of weeds is called denial.  I do not believe you are ready to start pulling because you are not ready to work. You would prefer an easier way. Pulling weeds is dirty work and you are not fond of dirty work. Change comes when you cannot go up, down, around, or thru the granite wall in front of you.  You succumb and it comes when there are no other options.  It is not a choice it is a path that opens out of your own desperation.

I have been told that I may not talk to you about this because you do not want anyone to know.  Tough Shit little girl. The only one you are hiding the truth from is yourself.  You are craving attention and the drama that creates is exhilarating, intoxicating and will eventually lead you down a road of destruction that may or may not be fixed.   "There is the truth you tell everyone, there is the truth you tell yourself, and then there is the real truth."  

I know I have been there and my survival was not quick and it was not easy and I too hated the dirty work of pulling weeds. Being an addict is the easy part, you blame the world and you manipulate the idiots around you.  Learning to live without the fix requires you work the process. It involves caring more about what is going to work for you than how to work the people around you who give you what you want because they love you.  When you actually want the solution you do not show up with a suitcase and a blow dryer expecting to go to summer camp.  You show up in tears begging someone to tell you what they did to get what you need.  You jump off the cliff of the unknown and you take it one day at a time until it is habit.  You change everything that caused the behavior and you remember that you can go back to hell anytime you choose. 

You think people hate you, and some probably have good reason.  You have  done things that deserve that and at some point in time you owe them an acknowledgement of your bad behavior.  Right now you need to get with the program and stop thinking how you can skip the hard part. You think you have all the answers.  Hear this one thing if you do not hear anything else.    You are not well enough to think.

Your family loves you in the only way they know, they are intent on protecting you and your feelings and sadly their reputation.  If they really wanted to help you they would have sought help for you six months ago and they would not have tried to hide it from the one member of the family with 29 years of sobriety.   You will learn that they need a program too. Given my experience I suspect it will not happen soon.  
  

If you are blessed you will find the one person who can make you see the answers are right in front of you.  They look stupid but they work.  They have worked for millions of people for over 60 plus years.  Pick up the 30 day chip and hang on for dear life, because that my dear is what is at stake.

Now my dear ...start pulling.

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?


Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."

The Gandhian Institute in Nagpur, India, describes these words on its website as "One of the last notes left behind by Gandhi in 1948, expressing his deepest social thought."

 

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it's true principles. It is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long oppressions of enormous public debt.... If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake. Better luck, therefore, to us all; and health, happiness, & friendly salutations to yourself.

Thomas Jefferson
June 4, 1798