Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Rosh Hashanah 5772/2011 events!

"God Hates Fags" poster carrying ChristianDominionist"Jews"/rapturers going to LGBT events in South Carolina, I read in an rss feed, today. Oy! Four of my building ones looking all determined today! Their plan was to pass out anti-christ and jews for jesus pamphlets today, start of rosh hashana. Of course, to pass out in NJ. Security will not allow them to pass out at Temple Emmanuel, Central, in NYC! Interesting they dont pass out anti- Muslim tracts in the building. No surprise when it happens! My sister had a book on the faiths of our Founding Fathers for Dad. I took it as her attempt to make our Dad think beyond the Catholic Church is futile at his age 85.Whoa atheists among them! Who wrote the text in my link.

As ever my ex-Dean pal reminded me of her RoshHashanah story. Her most despised administrator (him only with a state college BA running grad school programs) married a very wealthy professor. The academic would cry to her about having to hide being a lesbian, find a husband or lose her wealth! oy. another "expert" on trafficked women and domestic abuse! Dunno his real story but dumping his wife and kids meant a big pew at a power synagogue where the publically "so in love couple" walk hand-in-hand! True Marcus Bachmann! "Pray the Gay away" or "Pay the Gay away" or just too big sadistic liars? Small minded selfish petty people actually albeit they got big budgets to work with! I always say.. compassion is oft so lacking in social work with the at all costs careerism.

My friend's Rosh Hashanah story so bothers me. Not the duplicitness or lack of morals but the behavior is so discordant with 90% of Jews I have known. I went to social work school because I had such admiration for two of my mentors, both Brooklyn Jewish kids! And I initially forgot my third, a former CPUSA activist, orphaned and raised in New Mexico! Of course I have also known so many remarkable Muslims in a Western world of Islamphobia! (Of course da Catholic and Buddhist nuns rule! So many admired West Indian Anglican preachers, Dutch humanists.....)

OMG, I forgot my favorite Hunter College SSocial Work grad, former CPUSA member, stalwart of the Jane Addams founded International Women's League for Peace and Freedom, who worked in a Jewish Child Care program. An orphan raised in New Mexico! My demonstration going pal!

Fortunately always compassionate wise people living in our midsts

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Christian Dominionists and AIDS

oy today my building's Christian Dominionist rapture wannabees leaving pamphlets on "what would you do if Jesus knocked on the door?" No doubt, I would go on psych meds as I would be hallucinating! I have been blessed! I always remember sitting with over a thousand AIDS patients as they died. At times, the nun, a nurse and I oft only there. Many of the deserted had lovely "Christian" families too embarrassed, bourg, or caught up in their own salvation. Who would really want to spend eternity with people like that? The universe allowed me to have glimpses into the meaning of others. I have zero doubt these "sinners" had angels cradling them!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Remembering response to AIDS 1983 to 2011

November 1983. The first conference in "meeting the challenge of AIDS" sponsors included Hunter College School of Social Work. Year 2 of the epidemic. TY Hunter for being the first social work school to be involved in the professional and community response. (My alum school was in major "homosexual panic" and denial). Love the paradigm shifts I have seen in 30 years although always endless need to advocate, organize and respond. Sadly, I see so many of the sponsors are now dead from the virus. RIP

Names Project AIDS quilt at today's San Diego AIDS Walk, 23 September 2011! Quilts displayed at several AIDS Walks around the world today! The most amazing textile art movement in the late 20th century, and a major community organizing project in our world to remember.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Thirty years social work.. September 1981


1981, September. From 1981-82, was elected the Columbia University School of Social Work Student "Newsletter Editor". This month I have been emailing with another grad who was the best collaborator 30 years ago! She is now a social work professor. I am sending her duplicate originals that I still have. So happy to have her to send along!!

Thirty years ago! Such paradigm shifts but I also see longstanding social work interests. Each month sections such as: legislative alerts, viewpoints, student caucus news, job info, resources, calendar! These are nuts/bolts in student life today. Legislative alerts, viewpoints, resources are critical in social work practice. Case to cause!

Thirty years ago, I see we were writing about Reagan... ugh, and "return to the Dark Ages". Very perceptive in light of the 30 years to that ideology resulting in the GOP nihilists of today.

Wow a lifetime of social work, Columbia, knowing wonderful committed people! I am grateful!

review Sophie Scholl: the Final Days

The film continues the ouevre of revisionist films that fantasize the Deutsch Volk opposition in National Socialist Germany. The story is real but the manipulation of images is to make Germans feel good about a horrific past. I kept thinking of the dissonance with the diaries of Walter Klemperer, the Nazi fanaticism in his university, his jail time, and recording the daily solidarity of Germans with Hitler into 1945.

The history of the White Rose could be brilliant with the critical thinking of say a Fassbinder, Edgar Reitz, or Wim Wenders. The film makes history feel good for those in Triberg, Flensburg, Passau who reconcile the kindly opa who did his duty in the Gestapo and genocide in the heimat.

On a petty level, Sophie's jam on da bread in jail looks better than what I am eating today in 2011 USA. Her bed is so fluffy! No rats, no filthy toilet. In reality, Sophie went to court with a broken leg from the torture. The film makes the polite Gestapo make NYC police officers look even thuggier. I felt the memory of Anne Frank betrayed with those longing looks at the sky! The film is kitschy but complete revisionism in its work. Amazing that Germany submitted this for an Oscar!

I have been to every Lander. It is amazing to see white German reactions when 2 or more Black folks get together! The film does not fit with my lenses. Perhaps I have known too many Jewish refugees, contemporary German exiles, Turks living in Germany, or Americans who have lived in Germany. I am an Auslander, and really do not value normative Deutsch mentalite. I love Munich but it is not Paris, London nor New York with a vibrant diversity of peoples as well as histories.

Is the film good for domestic German TV.. yes! Is it art or critical thinking.. no. The gemeinshaft was suffocating! Forgive the filmmaker Sophie! I think the filmmaker would make a great story of the lives of Marianne Hoppe and Gustav Grundgens, perhaps the ultimate Deutsch film couple!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Continuing their Legacies, those dead from AIDS

Emails on Newark Museum quilt show ignoring the Names Project, the most significant textile and community art project of the late 20th century. Appalling in Newark, NJ, home to the first hospital program for kids with AIDS; 2nd largest provider of hospital services to people with AIDS in US. I know at least 35 people in my building dead of AIDS in the past decade. Museums may have teaparties but a punch in the face to the legacy of those who died in the face of hate. We all have their legacies

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Remembering WTC on 9/11, ten years later







Images of the WTC from 1976




Before the WTC 9/11 days

For most of my life 9/11 is the day my maternal grandfather died in 1965 at only age 61 (b.1904), in Chicago IL. The wonders of modern medicine would have kept him alive today, but he died of complications from a stroke in the 1950s. I remember circumstances around his death such as the funeral home, relatives. He is here with his daughter, my Mom on her wedding day in 1952. My grandfather was a pipefitter, yet he was dead before the WTC. I dunno know if he ever got to New York City in his life. My grandmother stayed in their apartment at 5225 West LeMoyne, Chicago. They had moved there on their return from California in 1963 or 64 until about 1984, when she became ill. For many years I have a recurring dream wandering around their neighborhood. However, I looked at photos online of the building and neighborhood today. The photos bear no resemblance to my dream images. The images seem more akin to the area of my Mom's maternal grandmother.. Addison and Kedvale, Chicago. Memories. RIP and always love for you!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Post Labor day "summer" fast pastels




Rainyday fast sketchs in da building store.. #90, 91 and #92.
#90 Los Arboles.. loved looking and sketching the shapes and colours in those trees this summer! Newark can be so lush.. certainly Branch Brook Park!

#91 Rain.. started with a fast sketch of a woman walking but couldnt figure out how to finish. She reminded me of my talk with a neighbor about the harrassment of Muslim women at an amusement park recently.. being denied rides if one wore the hajib. Dunno but outrageous harrassment, certainly a host of law suits to come. Maybe the drawing is just an angel...

#92 Remembering 2001. Somehow the work reminded me of the monolith in Kubrick's Space Odyssey 2001, and then the realization that 2001 was also the tenth anniversary of 9/11/01. Our new world reality, post 9/11.
Finally thought about the ending to the summer drawings now that it is post LaborDay. Looking for a regular social work opportunity (will teach part time). I also need to be around more social workers as the current political climate is so outrageous. Amazing that the Republican nihilists are so intent on getting rid of our first AfricanAmerican President, roll back social rights, and destroy the economy for the enrichment of the oligarchs.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Jack Benny, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson


Found an autograph of both Rochester and Jack Benny on the same paper (a Waldorf Astoria card). My Aunt Agnes and Uncle Ed routinely went to corporate sponsored dinners in NYC and around the country for his job in advertising. Amazing social history...

"Gaily, Jack Benny"

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Summer email postcards/photos



This summer, a host of auto tour emails of sites in Utah, Colorado from a Cali buddy.

Now, snapshots as he visits his parents (now in their 80s) in Memphis.
Love the baby boy photos from 1960/61 Huntsville, Alabama!

Especially love him and his baby bottle but it is not uploading right, but I posted.

awwww!

"Queen Mary" and "Princess of Canada" 1950s cruise story


Happy Birthday to my Aunt Agnes, born September 3, deceased in the 1980s. The photo of her and my Uncle Ed on the "Empress of Canada" in the 1950s. An amazing ocean liner from what I have read online. Have to investigate more and add!! I also posted the passenger list of a Cunard trip they sailed.

The ship was originally named Empress of Japan but renamed upon WW2.

The Queen Mary first class passenger list is amazing social history. All the Mr and Mrs with no female name. Master this and that young guy. Mrs. x with maid. The Sirs, Ladyships, Lordships.

RIP the loved Aunt Agnes (and Uncle Ed). They lived at 2 Fifth Avenue, NYC, during the time of their cruises. My Mom spent most of her childhood summers staying with them, mostly on the UES when they lived off 5th in the East 80s.

My sense is that the Empress cruise took place after my Uncle retired in the spring of 1954, so probably 1954-58. In 1958, they sailed on the Queen Mary. 1958 was a big year as my GreatGrandMother died. And, my aunt/uncle donated the construction of Owens Hall, Our Lady of the Woods College, outside Terre Haute, Indiana. His sister was the Mother Superior.

Sent photos to my Uncle in Southern California (The last living brother of my deceased Mom). He and my Aunt go on at least a cruise a year. Waiting to hear his reaction to the photos.