Galveston

Today I'm reading the news about Hurricane Rita, hitting the Texas town of Galveston. Fortunately the devestation was no where as bad as in New Orleans when Katrina hit a few weeks ago. Yet this was not the case in the year 1900 when 6000 residents of Galveston perished.

Jim Webb is one of my favorite songwriters. His list of well known songs is endless.

Not many people realize that his song "Galveston" is about a soldier that was caught up in the Spanish American War that occurred from February 1898 to December of the same year. Within just 3 short four line verses and a chorus the feelings of soldiers everywhere are expressed. The fear they have of losing their lives and their yearning to be back home with those that they love.

Galveston, oh Galveston, I still hear your sea winds blowin'
I still see her dark eyes glowin'
She was 21 when I left Galveston

Galveston, oh Galveston, I still hear your sea waves crashing
While I watch the cannons flashing
I clean my gun and dream of Galveston

I still see her standing by the water
Standing there lookin' out to sea
And is she waiting there for me?
On the beach where we used to run

Galveston, oh Galveston, I am so afraid of dying
Before I dry the tears she's crying
Before I watch your sea birds flying in the sun
At Galveston, at Galveston

Glen Campbell's voice and the wonderful guitar melody played on a Danelectro 6 string bass, and Webb's arrangement make this one of the memorable songs of all time.

Obituary for Simon Wiesenthal

Simon Wiesenthal survived the Nazi death camps, but was haunted for the rest of his life by the need to track down those responsible for them.

Born in Lviv, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, into a family of Orthodox Jews, Simon Wiesenthal survived the Soviet invasion of the area in the late 1930s, and suffered the arrival of the Nazis in 1941.

As a young architect, Wiesenthal watched his mother being transported away for execution. He believed his wife Cyla had died too. In fact, she had escaped persecution by pretending to be a Pole.

He spent four years in concentration camps, once spared by a firing squad that stopped before it reached him.

Unaccounted for as the advancing Red Army pushed into Germany, Wiesenthal was forced to march westwards by his SS guards. The survivors of this arduous trek were liberated, finally, by American troops at the Mauthausen camp in Austria, in May 1945.

Holocaust horror: Wiesenthal's drawings He cried from loneliness and then dictated a list of 91 names of camp officials. He later tracked down more than 70 of them.

In 1947, Wiesenthal helped establish a centre in Linz, Austria, devoted to collecting information for use in future war crimes trials. Despite the successes of the Nuremberg trials, many of the Nazi regime's most notorious killers remained unaccounted for. And while the Cold War brewed between East and West, Nazi hunting fell from the political agenda. 

Dispirited, Wiesenthal closed the Linz office in 1954, Worldwide network . But his enthusiasm was rekindled with the capture by Israeli agents of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the so-called Final Solution.

Buoyed by the trial and execution of the Nazi technocrat, Wiesenthal opened the Jewish Documentation Centre in Vienna. Collating sightings and tip-offs from a worldwide network of sympathisers, human rights activists and even former Nazis themselves, he pursued the 90,000 people named in the German war crimes files.

Both the Wiesenthals survived the war. His biggest success was bringing Franz Stangl to justice in West Germany in 1967. Stangl was commandant at Treblinka where an estimated 800,000 Jews died. In all, he was believed to have brought 1100 war criminals to trial.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, set up in the United States in 1977, has pressed for the extradition of numerous war crimes suspects, as well as campaigning for the rights of Holocaust survivors and an end to pensions for SS officers.

In 1986, he succeeded in having gypsy representatives included on the Holocaust Memorial Council in Washington DC.

His biggest disappointments were his failure to secure the capture of Gestapo chief, Heinrich Muller, and Auschwitz doctor, Josef Mengele, who died in Brazil in 1978.

Dogged perseverance, Simon Wiesenthal's career was not without its controversial aspects. He was accused of egocentricity by those who claimed he took more than his fair share of credit for the arrest of Adolf Eichmann. He was also involved in a personal spat with the former, and first Jewish, Chancellor of Austria, Bruno Kreisky.

Eichmann's capture rekindled Wiesenthal's enthusiasm. Wiesenthal objected to Kreisky's overtures to a far-right Austrian party leader to save his coalition government.

Kreisky, a socialist, falsely accused Wiesenthal of having collaborated with the Gestapo at the end of the war. Wiesenthal also fell out with the World Jewish Congress when he refused to support their case for blacklisting the former UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, who had sought to become Austrian chancellor.
He dismissed the WJC's allegations that Waldheim had assisted in the deportation of Jews during the war.

But his dogged perseverance in hunting down those who had colluded in the most barbarous of crimes made him a legend in his lifetime. He always claimed he sought justice not vengeance.

"I might forgive them for myself," he once said, "but I couldn't speak for the millions they killed."

Wiesenthal authored a book, "Sunflower -On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness ."

The premise of this book is based on a day when doing slave labor in Nazi concentration camp that Wiesenthal was taken from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the S.S. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to and obtain absolution from - a Jew.

This unusual encounter and the moral dilemma it posed raise fundamental questions about the limits and possibilities of forgiveness. Must we, can we forgive the repentant criminal? Can we forgive crimes committed against others? What do we owe the victims? Twenty-five years after the Holocaust, Wiesenthal asked leading intellectuals what they would have done in his place. Collected into one volume, their responses became a classic of Holocaust literature and a touchstone of interfaith dialogue. 

This revised edition of The Sunflower includes 46 responses (10 from the original volume) from prominent theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China, and Tibet. Their answers reflect the teachings of their diverse beliefs - Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, secular, and agnostic - and remind us that Wiesenthal's question is not limited to events of the past.

The Word Of God Will Not Return Void

This was on the AP wire today.

An interfaith group released a new textbook Thursday aimed at teaching public high school students about the Bible while avoiding legal and religious disputes. 

The nonprofit Bible Literacy Project of Fairfax, Va., spent five years and $2 million developing "The Bible and Its Influence." The textbook, introduced at a Washington news conference, won initial endorsements from experts in literature, religion and church-state law.

American Jewish Congress attorney Marc Stern, an adviser on the effort, said despite concern over growing tensions among U.S. religious groups, "this book is proof that the despair is premature, that it is possible to acknowledge and respect deep religious differences and yet still find common ground." 

Another adviser, evangelical literature scholar Leland Ryken of Wheaton College, called the textbook "a triumph of scholarship and a major publishing event." 

The colorful $50 book and forthcoming teacher's guide, covering both Old and New Testaments, are planned for semester-long or full-year courses starting next year. The editors are Cullen Schippe, a retired vice president at textbook publisher Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, and Chuck Stetson, a venture capitalist who chairs Bible Literacy. 

The 41 contributors include prominent evangelical, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish and secular experts. Religious lobbies and federal courts have long struggled over Bible course content. To avoid problems, Bible Literacy's editors accommodated Jewish sensitivities about the New Testament, attributed reports about miracles to the source rather than simply calling them historical facts and generally downplayed scholarly theories -- about authorship and dates, for example -- that offend conservatives. 

Educators know biblical knowledge is valuable -- 60 percent of allusions in one English Advanced Placement prep course came from the Bible -- and that polls show teens don't know much about Scripture. Yet few public schools offer such coursework, partly due to demands for other elective classes, partly over legal worries. The U.S. Supreme Court's 1963 decision barring schoolroom Bible recitations said that "the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities" if "presented objectively as part of a secular program of education." The textbook follows detailed principles in a 1999 accord, "The Bible and Public Schools," brokered by Bible Literacy and the First Amendment Center, a nonpartisan program of the Freedom Forum devoted to constitutional liberties. 

That accord is endorsed by seven major educational organizations and Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups. Stetson said "the important thing was not to compromise on peoples' beliefs. They are what they are." To Schippe, the key to effective education is respect for the biblical text, constitutional law, scholarship, various faith traditions and divergent interpretations. 

The new textbook was tested in two high schools. Bible Literacy will offer online teacher training through Concordia University in Portland, Ore. The First Amendment Center's Charles Haynes told the news conference that public schools constantly ask him for advice on what Bible course material to use but he's had nothing he could recommend -- "nothing, that is, until now." Haynes says the only previous textbook, decades old, was inadequate because it treated the Bible only as literature, slighting its religious significance. 

Another program, favored by evangelical groups and used in hundreds of schools, comes from the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools of Greensboro, N.C. It provides a teacher's outline with the Bible itself as the textbook.

There Will Be Poor With You Always

This past Sunday night there was a fellow on public radio that was introduced as an expert in the field of dealing with the poor of our country. His beef was concerning the situation in New Orleans. In his opinion the reason that Katrina was such a travesty was due to racial inequity and poverty. We needed to band together and do so much more for the poor. He went on to say that the poor of our nation are ignored and placed in communities away from the middle class and rich all because of the prejudice of the middle class and rich. If only we would offer a hand and a handout to these unfortunate multitudes their lives would be so much improved and a blight would be cast away from our nation. Birds would sing, the Sun would come out, the air will once again be pure and all men would be equals. He laid blame at the feet of the hard working and educated that our country is home to so many that are impoverished.

Jesus said that "there will be poor with you always." There is a good reason that He made that statement.

We have generations of folks that go from cradle to grave seemingly content to exist on welfare. The drop out rate in high schools is unbelievable as is the truancy rate in many schools. As far back as in the 1980's I was shocked to learn that the local high school was allowing students to "intern" at Wendy's and McDonald's. The reasoning the schools offered was the kids were studying a valuable industry, food service and they were supplementing their family's income, since "Dad" was not a factor in many families since the parents were never married. By working, the kids also got free meals. However the school also was the recipient of tax money from the state, since the kids were considered "students" as opposed to mere drop outs working at Wendy's and McDonald's studying a valuable skill in the fast food industry, supplementing their family income and getting free meals. Why didn't the school set the goals a little loftier?

This weekend as I listened in amazement to a public radio news program I realized that their reasoning supported the fact that, "the poor will always be with us."

The show reported that a few weeks ago those housed at the Houston Astrodome were offered the chance of a life time by several different States. The States were eager to make a difference for the unfortunate folks that had lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. The State of Colorado set up a booth in the Texas facility. Colorado offered to anyone displaced by the hurricane a 3 bedroom house with all appliances and furniture with no mortgage for a year, free home owner insurance for a year and also family medical insurance for a year, free education, free groceries and clothing. They would be guaranteed a job at either Wal-Marts or Coca Cola. During the first week, out of the tens of thousands housed in the Astrodome only two families took advantage of this opportunity. The State of Florida made a very similar offer at their booth. Thirty-five families signed on to move to Florida. Why the difference? Florida was warm and they equated Colorado with the entertain. During the second week more people did sign on for the move. A total of 35 signed on to move to Colorado and 48 to Florida. The rub with Florida is that you are back in Hurricane Alley. I would assume that other states were there with similar offers. The only downside is that within a year, the person would have to assume responsibility.
So why out of all those stuck living in the Astrodome did only 83 families want a life changing "hand up" that involved some initiative and decision on their part? I may be wrong, but what I am thinking is many there were stuck in the mindset of welfare and the monthly government check , Medicaid, food stamps etc. Responsibility is not an option.

The fellow on public radio failed to understand that we all have to work for what we have? It certainly is very, very hard to break away from the cycle of poverty especially for a young, female with children and have no man to support you financially, emotionally and be a father to his offspring. All individual situations are differing. But there are those that have no work ethic and no desire change this attitude.

Jesus said, "There will be poor with you always."

Mennonites

I belonged to the Church of the Brethern for a brief period of time. They were a humble, loving, sweet and peaceful people. This is a poem by Julia Kasdorf, from her book "What I Learned from my Mother"

Mennonites

We keep our quilts in closets and do not dance.
We hoe thistles along fence rows for fear we may not be perfect as our Heavenly Father.
We clean up his disasters. No one has to call; we just show up in the wake of tornadoes with hammers, after floods with buckets.
Like Jesus, the servant, we wash each other's feet twice a year and eat the Lord's Supper,
afraid of sins hidden so deep in our organs they could damn us unawares, swallowing this bread, his body, this juice.

Growing up, we love the engravings in Martyrs Mirror: men drowned like cats in burlap sacks,the Catholic inquisitors,
the woman who handed a pear to her son, her tongue screwed to the roof of her mouthto keep her from singing hymns while she burned.
We love Catherine the Great and the rich tracts she gave us in the Ukraine, bright green winter wheat, the Cossacks who torched it, and Stalin,who starved our cousins while wheat rotted in granaries.

We must love our enemies.
We must forgive as our sins are forgiven, our great-uncle tells us, showing the chain and ball in a cage whittled from one block of wood while he was in prison for refusing to shoulder a gun.
He shows the clipping from 1916:
Mennonites are German milksops, too yellow to fight.
We love those Nazi soldiers who, like Moses, led the last cattle cars rocking out of the Ukraine, crammed with our parents—children then—learning the names of Kansas, Saskatchewan, Paraguay.

This is why we cannot leave the beliefs or what else would we be?
Why we eat 'til we're drunk on shoofly and moon pies and borscht.
We do not drink; we sing. Unaccompanied on Sundays, those hymns in four parts, our voices lift with such force that we lift, as chaff lifts toward God.

Where Is the Outrage?

If an event such as this happened in the United States, would the ACLU speak up? We have plenty of historical preservation societies that are protesting destruction of old buildings. There is a public outcry if a church or synagogue is demolished. Why is the Church not speaking it's voice? Solomon's Temple was desecrated in much the same manner. What was that about history repeating itself? Nothing really changes, does it?

GAZA CITY — Palestinians surged triumphantly into demolished Jewish settlements in the
early today, torching empty synagogues and firing shots into the air, as the last Israeli soldiers withdrew after 38 years of occupation.

The troops' departure marked the final step in the government's decision to leave Gaza, which
Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War, and opened an era laden with uncertainty for the coastal enclave's 1.3 million Palestinian residents. Having evacuated about 8,500 Jewish settlers last month and overseen the razing of their homes, the 3,000 Israeli soldiers moved out before sunrise in convoys of tanks and armored personnel carriers. As they left, calls went out from mosques declaring Gaza's "liberation."

"This is a day of happiness and joy that the Palestinian people have not witnessed for a century," President Mahmoud Abbas said.

At the former Netzarim settlement in northern Gaza, one of several places where crowds pushed past cordons of Palestinian police after the Israeli troops had left, thick clouds of smoke darkened the sky at dawn.

Men made their way around the demolished community on bicycle, donkey and foot, scavenging door frames and toilets. Some in the crowd tied the flags of the largest militant groups — green for Hamas, black for Islamic Jihad — around their necks as capes.

"It's ours now, and I had to come out to see it with my own eyes," said Raed Dashan, 29, of Gaza City.

Celebrating Palestinians set fire to the synagogue in Netzarim, and there were reports of similar torchings in Morag and other locations. Palestinian security forces appeared to have decided not to use force and instead let the celebrations play out, although it was unclear whether they could have held back the crowds if they had wanted to.

The Israeli Cabinet held its final vote on the pullout Sunday. Within hours, Israeli military commanders in the Gaza Strip had lowered their nation's flag, and the first convoys of armored vehicles began carrying equipment out of the territory.

In a last-minute reversal, the Cabinet voted to leave intact more than two dozen synagogues in the former settlements, despite warnings from Palestinian Authority officials that they could not ensure their protection. Palestinian officials announced late Sunday that they would demolish the buildings.

Palestinian leaders' displeasure with the Israeli Cabinet's decision on the synagogues prompted them to boycott a hand-over ceremony with Israeli commanders at the Erez crossing between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip.

Last month, Israel evacuated all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four tiny communities in the northern West Bank', an area its forces also seized during the 1967 conflict. The moves marked the first time Israel had abandoned established settlements in areas the Palestinians hope to make their own state.

Preparations for the troop pullout unfolded Sunday in an atmosphere of historic significance, with Israeli commentators assessing the long Israeli presence, and ordinary Gazans, especially those living in towns and villages nearest the former settlements, expressing plain joy.
"We're so, so, so happy," said Yehiyeh Bashir, a 55-year-old father of nine whose house in the village of Deir al Balah overlooked the settlement of Kfar Darom. He and neighbors pulled up white plastic chairs and sipped tea, watching the slow, rumbling movement of Israeli tanks in Kfar Darom, now a wasteland of rubble.

A carnival air hung over much of Gaza. Teens keeping lookout shouted excitedly to one another whenever a tank began moving. Women ululated in celebration, and car horns honked. Trucks mounted with speakers moved through the streets, playing Palestinian nationalist songs and waving Hamas or Islamic Jihad flags.

Controversy over the synagogues within Israel's government crackled until the last minute, when the majority of Cabinet ministers reversed course by voting against demolition after intensive lobbying by rabbis who opposed the razing of the houses of worship. Private homes in the evacuated settlements had already been demolished.

The 14-2 Cabinet vote overturned a 15-month-old government decision to destroy synagogues as part of the evacuation.

The Cabinet decision to leave the synagogues in place crossed party lines, but commentators said the shift appeared to have been influenced heavily by maneuvering in Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon''s conservative Likud Party.

The party's hard-line central committee will meet in two weeks to decide whether to hold an early primary and, Israeli analysts said, ministers were mindful of how the synagogue issue would play out among its members, many of whom are religiously observant. The tide began to turn late last week, when Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who previously had spoken in favor of demolition, announced that he now opposed destroying the synagogues. On Sunday, Sharon said he too had changed his mind.

The decision left the fate of the synagogues in Abbas' hands. Palestinian officials had turned down an earlier Israeli request that they act as caretakers because of concerns that they could not prevent militants from defacing the synagogues as symbols of the Israeli presence.

"It is a very unfair decision to put us in a situation where if we demolish them we will be doomed, and if we don't, we'll be doomed," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. "This is the last thing we want."

Other critics said desecration of the buildings by Palestinians might spur Jewish extremists to attack Muslim houses of worship in retaliation, setting off a new cycle of conflict.
The Cabinet's vote was its last on the Gaza evacuation, which has dominated political debate in Israel for a year and a half. Sharon proposed leaving Gaza, the scene of frequent clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants, as a way to reduce friction and allow Israel to focus on retaining its much larger settlements in the West Bank. On Sunday evening, Israeli soldiers lowered their nation's flag in a ceremony at the army's Gaza division headquarters near the former settlement of Neve Dekalim.

"This is the beginning of a new chapter," the division's commander, Brig. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, said during the solemn, 20-minute event. "The strip is being transferred to our neighbors. It's the beginning of a new reality, which only the future will tell what it holds for us."

It remains to be seen whether the Israeli troops, once departed, will stay gone for long.
Israel has promised to respond harshly to volleys of rockets or mortar shells fired by militants from Gaza into southern Israeli communities. Israel also could strike if it sees the Palestinian Authority as doing too little to rein in fighters or arms smuggling.

Abbas has orchestrated seven months of relative quiet by coaxing militant groups, particularly Hamas, into halting their attacks. But Israel wants him to confront the militias more forcefully, saying Palestinian leaders' success in subduing armed groups will help determine whether future peace moves are possible.

"For the first time, not only in 38 years, but ever, Gaza is given the opportunity to act like a state, with its own regime," Giora Eiland, Israel's national security chief, told Israel Radio on Sunday.

But Palestinians say it is premature to declare an end to Israel's military occupation until it gives up control of border crossings and allows them to reopen the airport and construct a seaport.
"By reserving itself the ability to invade the Gaza Strip and by maintaining control over Palestinian airspace, territorial waters and most importantly its borders, Israel will continue its military rule over Palestinians," Civil Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan said in a statement.

775th Field Artillery Battalion - 3rd Army

I just got back from enjoying a few days with my Dad's old Army buddies. There are only about 10 of these guys left and they are all in their 80's.Most enlisted when they were 18 or 19 years old.

It was a pleasure to sit with them and hear about their lives during those days. I'd like to share the stories, but I've been sworn to secrecy. However I will drop a few hints. Digging foxholes ain't no fun at all, questionable beverages, cow procurement and midnight requisitions.

I salute you guys. And Smokey, I sure miss you.

5 YEAR OLD GRANDDAUGHTER MUST HAVE A PIN

I find life in this age to be ludicrous! Nowadays children have to pass an admission examination to be accepted into kindergarten. They learn to use computers when they are three years old. I know this because we purchased a computer program for kids ages 3-5. And my sweet little pumpkin has to have a four-digit personal identification number to get ice cream for her school lunch.

Princess Hope has just started kindergarten. Since the kids go all day, the school provides lunch for the kiddies, but they need to bring 50 cents if they want to buy ice cream. And who doesn't want to buy ice cream? To make sure everyone is honest, fair and accounted for, when the kindergartners buy ice cream bars, they have to type in a PIN into a computer that is connected to the cash register. (Perhaps the school sell the list of names to Equifax and Hope will start getting little kid junk mail)

In reflection, when I was five we didn't get ice cream. We did get milk, in a 1/2 pint glass bottle. A dangerous, extremely breakable glass bottle and heavy glass bottle. We also got a black cookie. A very hard black cookie. It was supposed to be chocolate. It was just black. It wasn't even sweet. Probably because we were facing the Cuba problem, the Bay of Pigs and a shortage of cane sugar in those days. Yep what we got was this hard flat cookie, a black cookie, a cookie that built character. We didn't get ice cream. Not ever! When someone had a birthday, we got milk and black cookies. There were no computers to enter in a four digit PIN code. I think we had an abacus, but no one showed us how it worked. It was in the toy box. We were deprived...I guess. No ice cream, no computer PIN code, no computer. There was no computer because there were no computer chips in 1958. No one invented computer chips. However we sat in the lunchroom and dreamed of chips. Chocolate chips. The ones in the cookies that the rich kids in the private schools were having with their half-pint bottles of milk. No hard black cookies for them. No dodge ball either.

Instead of paying for our milk and black cookies through electronic funds transfer, we used the bucket method. The milk money bucket. It was wooden, small and had a rope handle. We had to kick in 3 cents every school day for milk and black cookies. .. into the bucket.

A year later when I was six and in the first grade I was strong armed by Dr. Douglas Stephens DDS. School lunch was 35 cents a day. It was good too. I have memories of the cafeteria line that featured a five gallon tub of government butter. Real cholesterol clogging butter. Delicious! The ladies put huge gobs of it on my mashed potatoes. There was also a five gallon stainless steel bowl of grape jelly. My friend Jim freaked after seeing "The Blob." He couldn't face that jelly anymore. Large quantities of jelly gave him the jibblies.

But I digress. Dr. Stephens DDS, who was also six at the time let me know in no uncertain terms that he wanted 5 cents from me everyday. He might have collected enough money from me to pay his way through dental school had not the lunch lady contacted my Mom inquiring when she was going to get busy and pay my past due cafeteria bill. The account was delinquent and Miss Sprouse wanted it brought up to date immediately or legal action would be taken. This ended Dr. Stephens DDS reign of terror and this was the first in a long line of bills to come, bill collectors and folks that have strong armed me.

In 1958 I never had to learn a PIN. Heck a PIN was something in Grandma's sewing kit. But now Hopie has to have a PIN to access her ice cream account. We've come a long way baby!