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I had posted sometime back about the excellent Smithsonian article concerning the “Monuments Men” of WWII and last night had the chance to see the excellent documentary , “The Rape of Europa” about these wonderful men. It is scheduled to be recast on Nov. 26th at 12:00 am & at 8:30 pm. See here for the PBS page with extra features and links to other sites.
I was always extremely proud of America for doing “our bit” to help stop the horror that was Hitler but watching last’s nights documentary left me feeling something more, something deeper. In the words of one man, badly paraphrased, art is what elevates us from the animals. Now animals are a lovely integral part of our lives, but I mean animal in the tooth and nail sense~ and not one of them has carved “David”.
The stories of the cities of Florence, Pisa, Paris all especially touched me, how the cities all felt “not me, our buildings, our culture, our art are too special to the world” and how ultimately they discovered war respects nothing. Except in the most rare circumstances and  the United States has been and still is a leader in this area. The story of how we bombed with such care only the railroad in Florence~ the single most accurate bombing of the European theatre. The story of Pisa and Camposanto, the monumental cemetery, that was the reason people went to see the Tower before the War, is the stuff to break your heart. To know that the American “Monument Man” who lead the effort to scour the ashes of the bombed out buildings for the bits of the frescoes that covered those wall is entombed there, still overlooking the restoration, makes your heart soar.
For all their vile, the Nazis liked a clean trail~ so they simply declared an owner of what they wanted “criminal”, confiscated their property, declared it ownerless  and took it as their own.
To learn of the mousy little woman, Rose Valland, who miraculously evaded execution, kept her post at the Louver, and kept watch as the Nazis moved 1000’s of pieces of art into their collections. Unbeknownst to then she spoke fluent German, and with an iron memory went home each night recording what family had been robbed of what art piece and where the Germans sent it. That diary enabled many families to reclaim what the Nazis stole.
The story of the Jewish art touches you the most, how as the Army worked desperately to get out of the “art business” and most of the looted art was returned to the correct countries or people~ rooms of menorahs, furniture, canvases,  all with out homes or families added another layer to what exactly happened in Europe. Eventually most of these items were returned to Jewish museums.
The story of what one German man does now, restoring a bit of humanity to an inhumane situation, shows that, as a species we can learn from our mistakes. He restores stolen art to Jewish families. We watch him as he “acquires” a collection of Torah crowns (the silver ornaments that sit a top the posts), scours records, graves and finally finds relatives in America to return them to.
The Hermitage in Saint Petersburg did a heroic attempt to save what they could~ some 40 workers starved in the basement protecting what was left there during the siege of the city ,but ultimately the Nazis looted the building down to the bare wood~ even the Czarina’s famous “Amber Room”. During the wars last days they  took back what was theirs and more. Today the work of restoring what is the rightful property to it’s owners continues.
In 2006 the family of Gustave Kilmet received six of his paintings.
Please explore the many fascinating features at the PBS we page and you will not regret watching “The Rape of Europa”

“These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world… and then we f&%#ed the end game”~~~ Charlie Wilson

Based on the 2003 book by George Crile the true story of a Texas congressman, the 6th richest woman in Texas, a rogue CIA operative and the mujahideen, the Afghan Freedom fighters.
Rotten tomatoes .com gives this an 82% on the tomato meter.

Directed by Mike Nichols, screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, and staring Tom Hanks as Wilson, Julia Roberts as Joanne Herring and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Gust Avrakotos.
Wilson a womanizer, a drunk, a drug user, considered one of the least effective Congressmen of all time, nonetheless he was brilliant, charismatic, charming, loved the under dog and loved his country.
Joanne was a Christian, an extreme right-winger, a Houston social light, smart, a behind the scenes mover and shaker, an honorary consul to Pakistan. , with a passion for the Afghan people.

Gust a rogue CIA operative who, along with “three other guys”, worked on the U.S. covert Afghan cause, went against the CIA grain but believed in the Afghan people.
Their united hatred of Communism, their personalities, their passions and their synergy pulled off the biggest covert war in United States history. Together they increased the covert ops funding from 5 million dollars to 1 billion and built a lose coalition of Israelis, Egyptians, Pakistanis to supply arms to the Afghans.

After the Afghans won their war~ the only nation to defeat the U.S.S.R. in war~ we lost interest and refused to spend 1 million dollars for schools or help rebuild their country. That action left Afghan open to outside influences that some believe became the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

“”Gust Avrakotos: There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. the boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later The boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "how terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful."
Charlie Wilson: Now the Zen master says, "We'll see."

Are we really this nuts? Where does this leave separation of  church and state?
More here.

This has been my point from Day One.

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Last night I was privileged to watch the PBS program Masterpiece Contemporary, “God On Trial” go here to watch this thought provoking piece for a limited time.
The story is based on what may be an actual occurrence or an urban myth that rose out of the horror that was the Holocaust, in the Auschwitz camp in particular.

The group has been sent to the doctor, some sent left, some right they know some are marked for death but it remains unclear exactly who will survive. On what may well be their last night on earth, they hold a trial~ has God broken the covenant with the Jewish people? They appoint a Head of the court, the father of the court and a Dayan or questioner, all required to convene a rabbinical court and begin to try the issue.

What follows are the basic questions most ask themselves about God and as each prisoner revels his own personal story we see how so many different conclusions are reached.

Does one keep faith, hope and follow the laws of God? Is God (whatever that term means to you) fair, just or disinterested? Can we judge God~ or each other? Can the actions of a few move God to inflict suffering? Can there be good that comes from that suffering? Does God need us as much as we need her/him? Does belief make one sane or insane? Does God suffer with us?Can we ever know the mystery?
The questions keep piling up, the answers as varied as the humans are.

Then as each man marked for death is lead to the “showers”, in the end faced with complete loss, faith is all they have left.

They find God guilty of breaking the covenant~ that the Jews were not held special, that this Holocaust would surly be the death of their race ….but the Jewish people are still here.

No matter where you land on the scale of religion or belief this finely acted play will make you think. I recommend it highly.

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This place became my "home" for expressing my personal nightmare,please forgive me for yet another exercise in that attempt. I need to vent,to rant to "get it out"....no response is needed.Nonetheless know that you have my thanks for reading this....

I began this exercise to “map my way “out of grief and loss~ naively so I now know~ it has become clear to me that to endure it is my only option.

Each day that passes from that awful year of my “reverse pregnancy”, those nine months when both my sons escaped me, I fool myself. The hours, the days slip pass, even though they are never far from my heart, it is as if a scab or a scar covers that wound, as if the tendons that hold me in my form begin to knit together again…..and out of nowhere something shatters that illusion.

This morning, a beautiful clear clean dawn~ and I am ashamed of myself. The phone rang with what is essentially wonderful news~ another young woman I watched grow up is to give birth, a shower invitation extended to me. This is the daughter of one of my longest held male friendships, yet through divorce and space the daughter and I had kept in sporadic contact ~ but not a word after my boys’ deaths. The mother was also a friend, but time and changes kept our relationship in the past. We have not spoken either. After the initial burst of good feeling… my shame begins. Another woman gets to be a grandmother ~how can I be so envious? How can I be so selfish? Why do my thoughts become so egocentric? It is the bleeding from my soul that will never cease …but is such a base and low thing I have become…I fail myself, my beliefs~ my code of ethics.

 A fresh round of self-inflicted blows begin, I am at war again inside myself. I am only human, but I am better than this, what has happened to me may yet drive me mad, but I have the skills, the faith, the hope to rise above my pettiness. The conscious ~ my better Self~ has a defense against each pathetic thing my base self mutters from the darkness of my heart. I know how this war will end and I will better for having fought it yet again.

My fear is in facing these women, saying the words aloud again; desperate to hold back the tears (how can one cry at a baby shower?), facing the wall of pity tinged with fear, and finding myself assuring them it is all right. When I know it is far from all right, that each of us must face our own darkness, that life is hanging by a thread, the sword swinging ever closer. That sentiment is on no welcome baby card nor should it be.

The beginning of motherhood is so full of fear, so many worries (mostly unfounded) but there I will sit proof for all to see that the worst can and does happen. My hope is to prove that one can survive even this.

I pray for grace, strength, courage and the wisdom to be a beacon of light and not one of despair.

I am sorry to say that there have been some instances of gloating winners and sore losers, going even beyond the moment when Barney the White House dog bit a Reuters reporter.

For instance, there was the matter of Senator Lindsey Graham. In the fervor of the final week of the campaign, Graham basically promised to drown himself if Barack Obama took North Carolina. When I wrote that we did not really expect Graham to follow through, a number of readers took exception.

“A promise is a promise,” wrote John Kaseley of Bonita Springs, Fla.

“Can’t we at least throw him in the lake?” asked someone else.

There are two problems with this attitude. First of all, you cannot be angry with Republicans for supporting the Republican presidential candidate. It’s like getting angry at squirrels for climbing trees. Second, and far more important, Graham is not actually going to drown himself, so you might as well get points for urging him to stay out of the water.

In the good old days, victorious politicians did not have to worry about currying good will. Their defeated opponents were sent to work out their issues in the Libyan salt mines. That doesn’t happen much anymore, so let’s try to be gracious.

Sure, it was an intense campaign. Of course, regrettable things were said in the heat of the moment. My mother and my sister Patti, for instance, had an argument about the prospects of the local Republican congressman that culminated in my mother betting her house that he would be re-elected. But when he lost, Patti generously announced that she had decided to let Mom stay in residence. I think this is the spirit we should all be trying to emulate.

Still, there is a fine line between good sportsmanship and being played for a sucker. I am thinking of McCain’s other BFF, Senator Joseph Lieberman, who not only endorsed the Republican ticket and spoke at the Republican convention but also said, in the course of the campaign, that unlike McCain, Obama did not always put his country first. Since Lieberman is part of the Senate Democratic caucus, all this is not normal like squirrels climbing trees. It’s more like squirrels breaking into your house and setting fire to the sofa.

On the other hand, the most Lieberman accomplished with months and months of nonstop campaigning was to push McCain support in his home state of Connecticut to 38 percent. Treachery is bad, but inept treachery is easier to get over. Since Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, needs the vote, you could understand him telling Lieberman that he’s still welcome.

Lieberman, however, apparently is demanding that he also be allowed to keep his chairmanship of the homeland security committee. CNN reported that he turned down appointments to less prestigious posts and went home to mull his options. I know what you’re wondering, but Lieberman did not promise to drown himself if Connecticut failed to go for John McCain.

The Republicans are being way more nasty to Sarah Palin than the Democrats are to Lieberman. They’ve been portraying her as both a shopaholic and a woman who walks around in nothing but a bath towel, a hillbilly who’s also a prima donna. The leakathon climaxed this week when Fox News’s Carl Cameron announced that Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Palin says this is untrue. But the worst part is that if these people get any meaner, we’re going to wind up feeling sorry for her. This is not something we are looking forward to, Republicans, and we will resent you for it.

Another bad role model on the postelection manners front is the House minority leader, John Boehner, who called Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s future White House chief of staff, “an ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center.”

The only possible argument for this kind of language was that it was actually not all that inaccurate.

Still, nobody should want to be first in line to trash an administration that doesn’t even exist yet. Would it have killed Boehner to say something conciliatory? Something like: “It will be good to see a familiar face in the new White House, and I want Rahm to know that I am not mad anymore about the time he bit me on the ankle.”

Setting a much better example, Senator Graham called Emanuel “a wise choice” who “understands the need to work together.” Of course, Graham is undoubtedly hoping that if he’s nice enough, the Democrats will forget about you-know-what.""

Comment From: nobama08

I just got to know. Your kids, was it drugs?

From my guest book~ as you felt it was important enough to ask,but kept deleting my answers,  I feel it is important enough to answer publicly.

No it was not drugs. My eldest died from heart disease and the youngest from the flu.

So ~no smoking kids! Please treat the flu as a serious issue,because it is.

Best wishes to you nobama08 in the future.

Please feel free to use this place for any deleted comments.

We like to think voter fraud is a joke,something that "can't happen here"...from here

""Charges of voter registration fraud were made during a news conference in Bakersfield Wensday.

"The chairman of the California Democratic Party says a Southland firm has been working in at least eight California counties, including Kern, tricking Democratic voters into registering as Republicans.

Art Torres says paid signature gatherers have been registering Democratic voters to sign a petition to stop sexual predators from getting out of jail.

"Depending on the circumstances, they tell the voter the petition is not legal unless they re-register as a Republican. It's simply unacceptable to have this kind of slamming going on in California or anywhere in the country," said California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres.

The man allegedly behind the voter fraud scam is 25-year-old Mark Jacoby, who works for the firm Young Political Majors.

Jacoby was arrested two weeks ago in Ontario on two felony counts of perjury and voter registration fraud, related to statements he made on his own voter registration form.

The California Republican party called the case politically motivated and a "drive-by" attack on Republican registration efforts.""