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

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.

Alliance of Civilizations

Second convening of the UN Alliance of Civilizations today in Istanbul. Great choice for President Obama to be in Istanbul although the US is not a member of the UN subgroup. The UN alliance has a multiplicity of members but I feel it builds from the mediterrenean heritage. Much focus on the middleEast. Have been very pleased Obama would visit Turkey as it really is a central point in our world. European/Asian, heir to the Ottoman empire, a country on the verge of being part of the advanced industrial nations. Makes great diplomatic and economic sense!

pastel drawing, 1985 Turkish Children's Day parade in NYC.

peace, hugs, compassion

Turk thoughts March 08, 2009

President Obama is making a brilliant decision to visit Turkey this April after the G20 summit in London! Turkey is one of the countries that I look at in keeping some paradigm about the world. I have known a number of Turks over the years, and I read theorists who see Turkey as that bridge between the Europe and Asia.

1987 pastel of a graduate school friend from Columbia University. She and I would pal around a lot. She came with me to visit my Mom and siblings one holiday. She came to a Citibank company picnic with me one summer. We were residents at the International House. She worked in television. She was one of the political refugees from the Turkish Army coups in the 1970s. She came to NYC from Paris. One of the many who could not go back home. Dunno what happened to her... she moved to Queens and we lost touch.

This past year I read Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul! Wow, such a fascinating read! A book I lived through, looking up references online, looking at my own memories in other ways. A fascinating book.

From my SIPA days, I have thought about the end of the Ottoman empire and the absence of a muslim political entity in international politics. The Ottoman empire was cut up into pretend nations by the European powers after WWI. Today we have nations such as Iraq, almost 100 years old, part of the Ottoman empire for centuries, and still the power vacuum. The whole mideast and the Muslim world does not have that power it had as an international broker for centuries. We have yet, as a world community, to figure that power gap out. Today, we have Iran versus Saudi Arabia, orthodox versus modernists say in Lebanon, and the sad legacy of no resolution for Palestine.

I think it quite astute that Open Society aka the Soros Fund, has an office in Istanbul. Turkey plays a significant role by its years of brokering as a NATO member and part of other multinational relationships. Not only the Ottoman legacy, but also the years of Turkish emigration in the EU. The Turk presence particularly in Holland and Germany. I am quite pleased by Obama's decision!

peace, hugs, compassion