Review of The LAST CALL: RISE and FALL of PROHIBITION--1870 to 1933 by Daniel Okrent

A meticiulous, highly detailed accounting of how PROHIBITION came about along with other Reform movements in during that dramatic, controversial, and tragic period of time. What odd bedfellows though.

The huge effort to ban the importation, making, and using of acoholic beverages in the U.S. came about along with the Progressive era efforts at Moral Uplift by government force, for the restricing of immigration of eastern Europeans (Italians, Poles, Slavs, etc.), and Asians, Jews, and so on, many efforts to 'clean-up' corrupt government, attacks against other modern reform movements...

And, weirdly, a very strong support for the Ku Klux Klan (since it also was against alcoholic drinks, Roman Catholics, Jews, Blacks... The 1920's beginning in about 1914, there was an incredible 20thc century rise of that racist organization! The KKK was strongly
supported by Methodists, Baptists, even some Quakers (such as a large Quaker meeting in Indiana, where the lead pastor, a woman, invited about 30 white-robed KLANSMEN to the front of the meeting house!)

Of course, even President Woodrow Wilson supported Jim Crow laws! As a southener, when he came to power, he quickly SEGREGATED the Federal Government and soon violated 'freedom of speech' rights, etc.

Very strange. If you want to understand how all of this could happen, read this tragic very suspenseful 60-year history, The Last Call by Daniel Okrent.

Photos:

Will You Back Me Or Booze?” Propaganda Poster; with a photo of New York City Deputy Police Commissioner John A. Leach, right, watching agents pour liquor into sewer following a raid during the height of Prohibition
Women’s Holy War, published by Currier & Ives, 1874, via Library of Congress, Washington D.


Before settinly into weeks of intense reading, I had already known quite a bit about Prohibition.
But I very quickly learned how little I actully knew of the specifics--how it came about, of why it happened, and of why it so woefully failed--the only time an admendment to the Constitution was later repealed!


Another shocking

Book Review: LIONESS: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel by Francie Klagsbrun

Lioness is well worth reading. One learns a lot about the history and leaders of Israel from a different perspective, a different angle than the usual history of a nation.

From Golda Meir's inpoverished, troubled early life in the Soviet Ukraine, to about 10 years as an immigrant in the U.S., to her abandoning that middle class life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to go pioneering in the British ruled Palestine after the Great War--what a fascinating life journey.

She left the conveniences of American life in Milwaukee to live in a tiny rental in Palestine where conditions were primitive, worse than her childhood in the Ukraine. She had to handwash all of her clothes, and do laundry for others for meager pay, etc. The Palestine Mandate for immigrants were harsh, impoverished, with diseases such as malaria, and dangerous.

Arabs resented and opposed the huge numbers of European Jews who were immigrating into what had been their Muslins' land for almost a 1,000 years (since the Muslim Conquest). The population in the 19th century had been 85% Muslim, 11% Christian, and 4% Jewish.

The area was often lawless, though administered by the British as a mandate. It was like living pioneering days of the 19th century on the Oregon Trail in America. But instead of Apaches and other indigenous tribes, there were Arab raiders and Muslim mobs who attacked and massacred Jewish civilians. And during the 1930's and later, Arab leaders supported Nazi Germany.

I learned and understand so much about that era and about Golda Meir, and have already started to reflect upon various important themes in the biography. Francie Klagsbrun has written a powerful account of her life.

The most vitally important theme is about the nature of Golda Meir's (and other famous immigrants) absolute devotion to establishing and focusing on the state of Israel. They were extremely dedicated to Zionism. Too much so thought the German Jewish thinker Hannah Arendt who wrote that Golda Meir’s total commitment to Jewish nationalism was an “idol.”

Though, fortunately, Golda, didn’t take her absolute commitment to Zionism to the murderous length that Irgun, Lehi, and other Jewish extremists did.

But she did seem to relegate nearly everything and everyone to Zionism's commitment to create the state of Israel, and to a secondary degree to worldwide socialism. Her fervent dedication led her many times to unhealthy personal sacrifice, to such deep involvement and obsession that she mostly ignored and failed her young children, was unfaithful to her husband, and then abandoned him.

Sometimes, she made immoral and unjust decisions. One was to abort her first infant, because naving a child would have gotten in the way of her fervent political goals. Besides, she knew she had to work much harder than other leaders because she was the sole woman in a male-dominated group. Her life does show how choosing a finite object to ‘worship’ such as one's nation or one's ethnic-culture is an idolatrous form of group egotism.

Though Klagsbrun’s book is a very good effort, and is mostly interesting, definitely well worth reading, and isn’t as dry and is seldom boring, it does slow down at times. Like so many government-leader biographies, the book spends many pages describing the bureaucratic meetings, political-infighting, political procedures, propaganda and deception, etc.

One serious lack in the volume is there is hardly any of details or stories of Golda’s personal life other than hints of her adulteries against her husband, affairs with other Israeli leaders, etc. Evidently, Klagsbrun was unable to find significant evidence and stories of her private life.

Good biography.

Evaluation: B

Dan Wilcox

EL PASO RALLY'S POLITICAL CONTRADICTIONS

El Paso

The chubby woman in a blue Pontiac
Jerked up alongside our country’s curb
Where members of contrary rallies stepped
Placarding decision street
In planned parents' hood.

One protester crossed our line,
To ask her, "What do you need?"
Bordering near to hysterical, she yelled,
“You’re wrong!” her face taut and
Yanked back from the cleft.

With drowning eyes, she shouted
“I wish I’d never been born.”
So much for ‘boarders’
And backwards wet with rivers
Walled out from us.

Then she jammed her shift's gear
And sped away, not even glancing
At Trump's declared wall or down
To her remaining child next to her,
Confused and missing her seat belt.



First pub.
in Unlikely Stories IV
in different form

Where Does Graham Get Evidence that Sanctuary Cities Are Like Hell?

Where is Christian leader Franklin Graham getting his evidence from?

How are sanctuary cities turning into "just a little picture of Hell"?

According to 4 academic studies undocumented people don't increase crime or substance abuse.
See this at
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/02/607652253/studies-say-illegal-immigration-does-not-increase-violent-crime

How are progressives who show compassion for the impoverished, the persecuted, the oppressed guilty of being "Godless"?

How are such caring leaders contrary to God?

Franklin Graham is also head of a charity, Samaritan's Purse. So why is he so against helping undocumented immigrants, who are working hard, raising families, etc. living in the United States?

Graham said, "...I do want Christians to vote and I want them to ask God before they vote, who they vote...and turn the state [California] back to God..." He also has said that Christians need to stand up against California's "Blue Wall."

It appears this is another case of Graham's support of Donald Trump's polices. Even when it comes to Trump's repeated adulteries, Graham says it's "nobody's business," yet Graham claims that Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama are "Godless" even though they haven't divorced, aren't self-centered, and don't use obscene speech.

Please stand up for refugees. "Rescue the perishing, caring for the dying..."

In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox

Talk About Tragic, Hypocritical, and Contrary to Its Founder's Wise Words

Look at the tragic selfish, unkind, unjust, and immoral position that White Evangelical Christians hold toward accepting refugees:

These devout Christians claim that they follow Jesus who told the Parable of the Good Samaritan and who spoke the Sermon on the Mount,
YET
they strongly refuse accepting and helping refugees.

Notice that these U.S. Evangelical Christians are the most opposed of any group to helping the abused, the impoverished, the persecuted, the helpless!!


Don't look to their selfish and fallacious religion for truth, justice, or hope.

Instead, consider these wise words:

In the LIGHT of kindness, compassion, generosity, help, and rescuing,

Daniel Wilcox

From Abandoned to Hope: An Undocumented Immigrant Teen

Abandoned when he was only 5 years old, Daniel Morales lived and somehow managed to survive on the streets in a Latin American country despite all the crime, poverty, and other dangers.

Finally, as a teen when faced with threats to join a gang, Daniel did what so many refugees have done, he rode the "beast"--on top of trains up through Mexico to the U.S., a very dangerous journey.

Yes, there are horrific stories, too, of the criminals that Daniel managed to avoid. Some of the latter also enter the United States illegally and get lots of front page news because of their immoral actions including rape and murder. But they are a minority.

It's time that we Americans focus on the HOPE stories, the innocent Dreamers whose only crime is sneaking across a border in order to escape crime, poverty, and injustice.

Daniel is one such incredible narrative of hope.

How he managed to get into the U.S. is unknown, but it can be imagined from reading daily news of arrests of illegal immigrants every week along the Mexico-U.S. border.

Hannah Eash-Gates, Daniel's legal representative and former member of Mennonite Voluntary Service, said, Daniel "is relentlessly positive." According to her, Daniel is "incredibly bright. Even without a formal education, taught himself to read and write."

Daniel and Hannah met at the Refuge and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) in San Antonio, Texas where Hannah worked for MVS.

"In the two years it took for Eash-Gates to help Morales achieve legal permanent residency status, he made it on the honor roll and learned two languages!"

Read more about helping undocumented immigrants and others in the Mennonite magazines, Extending Beyond, Beyond Ourselves, and the websites of Mennonite Central Committee.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Giant Image of Toddler Peers Over U.S. Border Wall

A giant toddler structure built by French artist JR peers over the U.S. Border Wall to California from Tecate, Mexico. The wall extends at least 650 miles.
Photo from JR

"Now, as an artist, I think that it's amazing that the piece arrived at a moment when it creates more dialogue because the idea itself is to raise more questions."
--JR

The French artist got the idea to create the massive border photo from a vivid dream he had of a toddler peering into the U.S. So he went to Mexico and sought out a family who would let him erect a huge picture on their property.

Finally, he met a Mexican mother living along the border wall who agreed to his plans. JR said, "There was a little kid looking at us the whole time with two hands on the side of his crib looking at us...he looks exactly like that kid I dreamed of.' "

That toddler, Kikito, is only 1 year old. He has "no idea that's a wall that divides people — he has no idea of the political context," JR imagined. "What is he thinking?"

"...we know all the implications, what it represents, how it divides. But for a kid, I didn't have the answer."

“I said hello to the little kid, and we played a little. But, I didn’t think of photographing him.”

However, soon after as he drove away, it suddenly hit him that Kikito reminded him of the little kid in his dream so he turned around and drove back to the woman's house. "He's the little kid." So he took the toddler's photo and enlarged it to a gigantic size.
-
"...within days of the Trump administration's decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program protecting 800,000 immigrants, JR erected a massive artwork towering dozens of feet above the existing wall.

The boy, hair swept to the side and focus drawn by an unseen object, peeks with evident interest from the Mexican side over the slats of the wall at...California, as if looking over the railing of his crib."

"Basically, we had to build a bigger wall to make this [U.S. Border] wall look ridiculous."
--

"Most of the people, [who see the wall, or even drive there] if you read the comments, [were] not talking politics or they didn't mention the name of the president. It was about people."
--

JR hopes that his border project will continue to bring people to the wall, to talk through the metal slats, even after he takes down his art. He has 1 million Instagram followers.

Already, "visitors on both sides chatted through the slats of the fencing and passed phones back and forth to photograph each other. People on the US side took selfies through the holes of the wall with visitors on the Mexico side. At that moment, the wall almost became invisible.

"Two smiling men in beards hold up a phone as they stand in front of fence; on other side, you can see women smiling and making the peace sign with their fingers. People on the US side of the border take selfies through the border wall with people in Mexico on the other side, just below JR’s art installation." Sonia Narang/PRI

“I think that’s the most interesting part, the fact that it connects people.

I always love to think as an ethnologist,” said JR. “The fact that you went there, and you tell me that people exchanged their phones through the fence and it created interaction between people that would never talk, for me, that’s the most amazing part of the project.”

The toddler's mother "from her window now looks up to see the massive silhouette of her child every day."

"She said, 'you know, it's my son and I can recognize him, but I hope for the others, it represents any kid, any person — anyone that has dreams, and dreams that are not alienated by any political vision or any prejudice...'"
from Heard on All Things Considered
COLIN DWYER
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/08/549491208/as-boy-peers-curiously-over-border-wall-his-artist-asks-what-is-he-thinking



In the Light of HOPE and Sharing, NOT dividing with walls,

Daniel Wilcox

Guest Post: Illegal Aliens--What is this "Crime"?

GUEST POST: from-- What Is This "Crime," Really?
BY Orson Scott Card

10-year-old ill girl, who has lived in the U.S. since an infant, arrested by ICE at a hospital where she just had surgery. She was taken to a detention center:-(


"Since the only crime most of these people are committing is simply being here without permission, we would give them a reasonable way to get that permission without losing everything else in order to get it."
--

"A fifteen-year-old boy...has been yearning for his driver's license for a long time.

But today all thoughts of waiting for his license are out the window, because his little sister cut herself and he can't stop the bleeding. His parents aren't home.

So David puts his sister in the car and, holding a towel on the wound to apply pressure, he drives the car one-handed out onto the road and goes as fast as the car can go, heading for the nearest medical emergency center.

...a state trooper sees him driving too fast and pulls him over. David tries to explain that he's only driving illegally in order to save his sister's life, but the trooper doesn't listen.

He drags David out of the car and handcuffs him and yells at him...

David..."My sister is bleeding to death! Let me get her to the hospital!"

But it's as if the trooper is deaf to anything David has to say."
--

"I'm sick at heart about the number of Americans, including friends of mine who should know better, who are proud of being exactly like that state trooper, when it comes to the question of illegal immigrants.

"They have no right to be here in the first place. If we give these people amnesty and let them stay and apply for citizenship, we only encourage more illegal immigration in the future. Besides, they use up our welfare and add to our school costs without paying taxes!"

In vain do the immigrants try to explain that their families were desperately poor, doomed to continue to live on the edge of starvation, and the only hope was America ... which wouldn't let them in.

Why can't we look at what these people are actually doing? Why can't we see the bleeding child in the passenger seat, and realize that most of these illegal immigrants are doing precisely what you or I would do in the same circumstances?
--
So what is this vile crime of "illegal immigration" that requires us to throw out hard-working people...?

It consists of crossing over an arbitrary line that somebody drew in the dirt a century and a half ago. On one side of the line, poverty, hopelessness, a social system that keeps you living as a peasant, keeps your children uneducated and doomed to the same miserable life you have -- or worse.

On the other side of the line, plenty of jobs that are going begging because nobody who lives on that side is desperate enough to work all day for a wage so low. But the wage is enormous to you. It would save your family's lives, give you hope for your children...

Wouldn't you take any risk to get across that line?

*
We Americans, what exactly did we do to earn our prosperity, our freedom? Well, for most of us, what we did was: be born.

Yeah, we work for our living and pay our taxes and all that, but you know what? I haven't seen many native-born American citizens who work as hard as the Mexican-born people I see working in minimum-wage jobs in laundries and yard services and intermittent subcontracting projects and other semi-skilled and unskilled positions.

I have no idea which (if any) of the people I see doing this work are legals and which are illegals -- but that's my point. Latin American immigrants, as a group, are hard-working, family-centered, God-fearing people who contribute mightily to our economy.
--

"But they come here and commit crimes and live off of our welfare system!"

Wait a minute. Who is "they"? All of the illegal immigrants?

Only a certain percentage of them. But when we round up illegal immigrants, do we make the slightest effort to distinguish between those who commit crimes here, those who scam the system to get welfare, and those who are working hard and living by all the rules?

No. We send them all home. There is, under present law, no special treatment for illegal immigrants who, during their time in the U.S., work hard and don't take anything from anybody without paying for it.
--

And yet most of the illegal immigrants commit no crimes, but instead live frugally and work hard. In fact, I dare say that many illegal immigrants work harder and obey our social rules more faithfully than a good many citizens whose right to live within our borders is unquestioned.

And if all you can say to that is, "It doesn't matter, send them all home, give them no hope of citizenship because we don't want to reward people for breaking the law to enter our country," then here's my answer to you:

Let's apply that standard across the board. No mercy. No extenuating circumstances. No sense of punishment that is proportionate to the crime. Let's handle traffic court that way.

The penalty for breaking any traffic law, from now on, is: revocation of your license and confiscation of your car. Period...Driving 70 in a 65 zone on the freeway? No license, no car.
--

No mercy, no exceptions, no consideration for the differences between traffic offenders.
--

"But it wouldn't be fair!" you reply.

That's right. It wouldn't be fair. Yet that's exactly the same level of fairness that I hear an awful lot of Americans demanding in order to curtail the problem of illegal immigration.
--

The only thing that makes illegal immigration a problem is that it's illegal. If we simply opened our southern border the way all our borders were open in the 1800s, then would there be any continuing burden?

Most of these immigrants would still work hard, only now they would have their families with them and the money would not drain away to Mexico. Those who prospered would pay income taxes. So economically, there would be an improvement.

Some would freeload off the system...There is no major immigrant group that has not spawned its criminals. Irish, Germans, Italians, Chinese, Russian Jews...

And yet we would have regarded it as a great injustice to throw out all the immigrants from each of these groups, just because some of them committed crimes. In this country, we have a long tradition of punishing only the individual who does wrong, not his entire ethnic group.
--

So what, exactly, would be the cost to us of an open-door immigration policy? What evidence do we have that the immigrants who would flood across our boundaries would be any worse than the waves of Irish, German, Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian, Russian, Polish, Japanese, or British immigrants?
--

By one perfectly rational reading of history, the whole southwestern quarter of the United States actually consists of unjustly conquered territory in which the native inhabitants -- the legal citizens -- were torn apart from their fellow citizens to the south, and our immigration policy consists of denying Mexicans the right to access lands that were historically theirs, and where former Mexican citizens who were involuntarily annexed to the U.S. were long oppressed and discriminated against.
--

There is no historical basis for any American to claim the moral high ground when talking about Mexican immigration to the United States.
--
Since the only crime most of these people are committing is simply being here without permission, we would give them a reasonable way to get that permission without losing everything else in order to get it.
--

Why in the world do we regard that as a crime?"

by Orson Scott Card
Go to his website to read the rest of his important essay:
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2006-06-25-1.html
--

Especially, we need to give the Dreamers--little kids and infants brought here many years ago--the chance to stay here and become citizens.

There ought to be NO MORE tragic debacles of justice such as ICE, recently, arresting a 10-year-old ill girl after her surgery and taking her to a deportation center, even though she has lived in the U.S. since being brought here as an infant!

NO MORE splitting up of hard-working families as uncompassionately happened this last month in Michigan and Illinois. In the one case a hard-working professor who has lived in the U.S. for over 30 years, was arrested after dropping his kids off at school:-(

Consider Card's wise words of wisdom which strongly counter all the other narrow, self-centered Christian nationalism of 'U.S. First, First...'






In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Lady in Our Garden

The Lady in Our Garden

A picture-post-card date near the swirling
Serpentine sway of the wide Schuylkill River

Meandering through Central Philly's park garden,
Towered over by leaning elms, while 3 long canoes
Swift by to the paddling of Ivy League collegians.
Gazing at my dear companion in our garden

My Friendly girl, Karen, chestnut-caped round
In waist-length hair like a swaying black ephod,
Vivid in her red chambray shirt and blue jeans,
Is an aspiring concert violinist but converses
Passionately of King's March to D.C. in 3 months.
Listening to my dear companion in the garden

I, the principled drafted objector, work for Uncle Sam
With forsaken kids confined to sterile mental wards
Disturbed by parents' wrong living, but still am
So youthfully focused on my beautiful girlfriend’s
Figured shape than humanity’s ship of state.
Desiring my dear companion in our garden

We sit cross-legged on a wide lush parkway green,
Getting ready to eat our carefully bagged meal
Of 2 peanut butter and grape sandwiches
As we discuss war’s ravages in far-off Nam
And Bob Dylan's 'hard rained' croons.
Loving my dear companion in the garden

But then I inhale a fuming putrid odor;
Twist my neck and see this bagged lady in a filthy rag
Of a dress lunging slowly forward, hanging
Onto her ugly mesh of a shopping bag, her rancid
Stench to high heaven wafts and I pinch my nose.
Focusing instead on my companion in our garden

But lo and hold it! my violinist instead rises
And welcomes that old hag, “Hi Lady, will you join us
For our delicious Sunday snack here in the warm sun?”
The homeless alien sprawls haggardly on our grass,
Her wretched, spotted, shift wrinkling on her scraggly legs.
Karen gazes at this unknown companion in the garden

I am all upside-down in my face as this invader,
This illegal, reaches out a grubby, dirty hand,
Grabs one of our 2 sandwiches, and half crams
It in her narrow jaws, chews open-mouthed and teethed,
Me fuming at this chomping ugly interloper.
Separating my dear companion in our garden

But then awake, remembering almost too late,
The very old story about the least of these, turn,
And finally join my dear musician's psalm,
We a communing 3 of human kind,
Under those verdant swaying trees of compassion.
Sharing, so dear companions in our Garden


--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in The Oak Bend Review
in different form;
in selah river, a collection of Daniel's
published poetry.



In the Light of Sharing,

Daniel Wilcox

Save the Dreamers!

"Meet Larissa Martinez. She was the 2016 valedictorian of McKinney Boyd High School, and is on full scholarship to Yale. She is bright, hardworking, and is a credit to her family and community."

"She is also in danger of being deported at any moment. She was brought to America with her mother, who was fleeing an abusive alcoholic husband."

DACA is Literally the LEAST we can do: Here's Why Ending it is Stupid

"Dreamers are an economic boom"

"Dreamers have passed background checks, paid fees, stayed in school, obeyed the law, attended college, paid taxes, and served in the military. Dreamers and their families pay taxes just like everyone else, but in most cases they are not eligible for many of the benefits and services that citizens receive especially when it comes to education. Most are not eligible for federal or state aid."

"Extending hospitality to the dreamers costs America exactly nothing. In fact it’s a huge net gain to the economy."
by Tim Suttle

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paperbacktheology/2017/09/daca-is-literally-the-least-we-can-do-heres-why-ending-it-is-stupid.html#DJv7eB6Yhl2ThrXI.15



In the Light of Compassion and Hope and Dreaming,

Daniel Wilcox

Help Free Young Adult Asylum Seeker from El Salvador

Urgent need from Amnesty International:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/urgent-action-help-free-young-asylum-seeker-with-reported-brain-tumor-usa-ua-5417

"Urgent help on behalf of Sara Beltran Hernandez, a 26-year-old mother
of two from El Salvador who is fighting for her freedom."

"Back in El Salvador, Sara suffered serious
physical and psychological
domestic violence, including sexual abuse.
Sara also received death threats
from a gang leader and gang members
who are believed
to have killed people in the past."

“I knew [the gang leader] would not stop until she killed me.” —Sara Beltran Hernandez

"Sara fled this violence and abuse and sought asylum in the U.S."

"Instead of treating her with compassion and considering her claim, U.S. immigration authorities imprisoned Sara in a detention facility in Texas, where she’s been held for 15 months."

"URGENT: Call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement now to demand that Sara be released.

"Sara has been in a U.S. jail since she arrived 475 days ago."

"After she collapsed in jail earlier this month, Sara was transferred to a hospital, where she says a doctor told her she had a brain tumor."

"For several days, Sara’s lawyer and family were denied access to Sara or information about her condition, including medical records. Sara has now been transferred back to a detention center."

"As President Trump’s aggressive immigration orders begin to be implemented, we must do everything we can to ensure protection for people fleeing violence, like Sara. We are working to ensure that people with asylum claims are given a fair hearing and are not treated like criminals while their cases are processed."

"Help Sara now: she must be released and given the treatment she needs.
Thank you for taking action,"

Margaret Huang
Executive Director
Amnesty International USA
--


Please write for refugees such as Sara Beltran Hernandez.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Abortion and Immigration: A Different Quakerly Take

First, look at and reflect on two situations (If you already know a lot about the controversies and dislike poems, skip half way down to the Take):

El Paso

The chubby woman in a blue Pontiac
Jerked up alongside our country's curb
Where members of a silent vigil stepped
Placarding decision avenue.

One protestor crossed our line,
To ask her what she needed.
Bordering near to hysterical, she yelled,
"You're wrong!" her face taut and
Yanked back from the cleft.

With drowning eyes, she shouted,
"I wish I'd never been born."
So much for 'boarders'
And backwards wet with rivers.

Then she jammed her shift into gear
And sped away, not even glancing
At the clambered wall or
Down
At her remaining child
Ensconced next to her,
Missing her seatbelt.



-First pub. in Unlikely Stories

--

A poem created from New York's news, from the persona of a girl, lost but then...

The Daughter's Return

Behind the Purple People Eater
Down on the Lower East Side
From the Garden, I smoked
And tried to calm myself.

Turning and turning and turning...

A high school female so mature
For my age, I had used a false I.D.
And entered the rock club
With several gal friends.

Turning and turning and turning...

I looked at chipped nail polish
on my thumb and flicked ashes
Down to the icy pavement,
Disappearing into

Turning and turning and turning...

The grimy snow shoved
Against the brick building by some
Janitor. Ice glistened from a blue
Light above the club's alley door.

Turning and turning and turning...

I clenched up--another painful after
Contraction, and hugged my loose skirt,
Aching and still disoriented
From earlier when I had washed

Turning and turning and turning...

Off the blood in the small porcelain
Sink in the empty lady's room,
After disposing of my underwear
And my wet jacket, I had sat on

Turning and turning and turning...

Leaning against the beige stall
Shoving and shoving.
But now I flicked the butt
In the snow and pushed past

Turning and turning and turning...

The squat cook in the tiny kitchenette
And through the girls' door again,
Leaned into the mirror on the wall
And applied heavy shadow

Turning and turning and turning...

Around my wandering eyes,
Straightened my skimpy skirt,
Stared in the mirror for more
Moments, then undid another

Turning and turning and turning...

Button on my navy blue blouse.
I sprayed a dash of Estee Lauder
On my sweated body and shoved
Through the door but thought of--

Turning and turning and turning...

Baby of mine, now hidden,
Stashed in the Giants' jacket
Shoved far down in back
In the trash dumpster.

Turning and turning and turning...

I blinked, clinched my fingers,
But licked my lips and then sauntered
Back into the darkened club
Where gyrating flesh

Turning and turning and turning...

Channeled the crashing drums,
And I scanned the sensed mesh
Of moving flashed skin
Prodding for a night man.

Turning and turning and turning...

That's when I slumped down
Collapsing to the floor
Only to wake later
Turning in...
The Hospice of the Virgin.


-First pub. in Word Riot



Usually, when people discuss or debate the topics of anti-abortion versus pro-abortion and anti-immigration versus pro-immigration, the huge emphasis is on religion, politics, science and economics and the opposition. Which is okay; actually not because it becomes so ideological.

Those long complex contrary explanations and debates are understandable. But given how much insufferable heat and harm they cause, and how little light gets shown (now and in the past), it seems unlikely they have really helped women, infants, poor Americans and immigrants.

Consider a different perspective, A DIFFERENT TAKE:

How about all of us humans look at abortion and anti-immigration from the standpoint of Friendly ethical truths--generosity, empathy, compassion, and non-violence?

Would this not be a discussion changer?


No longer would these two scalding potatoes be divisive, all about “OUR” rights (mothers who want to abort and Americans who want to keep immigrants out) versus the needs of others (unwanted fetuses and illegal immigrants).

Nor would scientific facts or economic factors or theological claims have much of a show.

Let’s skip the much debated argument about whether a human at conception has a “soul.”

Let’s also skip the economic/political belief whether or not an invisible border between countries is real. Often, of course, nationalists make it visible with a high wall or security fence. Check out the U.S. El Paso border with Cuidad Juarez, Mexico or Israel's with Palestine.

How would a generous person, a compassionate person, a non-violent person deal with the unwanted fetus and the suffering mom, the unwanted illegal alien and the suffering out-of-work American who worries others (from elsewhere) will take away his job?

And don’t speak of murdering pre-born infants. Many of the aborted are barely out of the cell stage. According to Planned Parenthood, "64.5 percent take place within the first eight weeks" of pregnancy.


10 weeks

On the other hand, pregnancies aren’t “unwanted tissue” like some pro-abortionists claim. Brain waves start in about the 6th week. By 7 weeks, it will be able to open and close its fist and already can grasp an object! Sucking the thumb has been documented at about 7 weeks, too. She/he will soon be squinting, frowning, and grimacing with his/her face.

Again, think about my central point:

How about we look at abortion by a pregnant woman from the perspective of generosity, empathy, compassion, and non-violence?

How about we stop using pregnancy as a political football and return the controversial topic to the doctor and the pregnant woman?

How about we look at immigration from the standpoint of generosity, empathy, compassion, non-violence?

Would this be a discussion changer?

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Rescue the Perishing, Care for the Dying...The Best Way to Help Syrian Refugees

Read the Vox article “The Best Way the US Could Help Syrians: Open the Borders”

By Dylan Matthews

“Bombing is rarely the best way to help people.”

“Morality in foreign policy isn't about bombing bad guys. It's about helping people. And usually, the best way to do that won't involve bombings at all.”

Here’s a brief excerpt:

“Ultimately, the choice was whether to commit tens of billions of dollars, and tens of thousands of US ground troops, to implement a strategy that might have toppled Assad and saved thousands of lives, but which also might have made the conflict even more brutal than it's been. The latter was probably more likely, in fact. The cost would have been considerable in any case, and the benefit very uncertain. Compared with the benefits of letting Syrian refugees into the US, which we know are great, and the costs, which we know are small, that's not a very attractive proposition.

The best humanitarian interventions don't involve the military.

Cash transfers are an extremely effective humanitarian intervention that doesn't involve the military at all.

But [military bombing] enables a strange hypocrisy. The humanitarian interventionists who would've attacked Syria, and now mourn our failure to do so, aren't [increasing our] foreign aid budget in general, perhaps to 1 percent of gross national income, like Sweden, from merely 0.2 percent.

They're not calling for reforms that make it easier for USAID and other aid agencies to spend on highly effective projects that reduce child and maternal mortality. They're not calling on the US to eliminate all quotas and tariffs on goods from poor countries, as well as farm subsidies that make it harder for poor farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to export their goods. They're certainly not calling for a massive expansion in levels of immigration to the US from...the world's absolute poorest countries.
--
Plenty of people in Washington like restricting immigration, especially low-skilled immigration from poor countries. Plenty of people in Washington like the idea of cutting the foreign aid budget, or perhaps eliminating it altogether.

But it's not too late to help refugees. The boats are still sailing, and sinking. Children are still dying. People are still suffering. It's not too late for the US to heed the International Rescue Committee's call for us to resettle 65,000 refugees, not the paltry 1,434 we've resettled so far. It's not too late to do the International Rescue Committee one better and let in 200,000, 500,000, 1 million even. It's not too late to make Syrian refugees' lives dramatically better.
--
Morality in foreign policy isn't about bombing bad guys. It's about helping people. And usually, the best way to do that won't involve bombings at all."

by Dylan Matthews

http://www.vox.com/2015/9/4/9258149/syria-refugee-humanitarian-intervention
END OF EXCERPT

Yes, what if the U.S. and many other wealthy countries such as Saudi Arabia, Germany, Iran, and many others drastically reduced their weapons and bombs budgets and funneled that money into restoration, reconciliation, development, and in the short-term immigration and refugee rescue?

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

"The Past Is Never Dead" and the Great Hope of One Brief Essay

Is “it true that living in the past---to be a kind of…Miss Havisham—can be bad for the mind and the soul, preventing us from engaging in the battles and causes of our own time”?1

Depends on how long we live in the past and for what purpose. According to Jon Meacham, “When we are at our best, history and heroes enable us to look ahead, not backward. We are the sum of the stories we tell ourselves…memory” creates the present and then the future.

First the negative, then the positive, the hope:

“History is bunk. History is myth.”
Henry Ford

“…If you didn't know history, you didn't know anything. You were a leaf that didn't know it was part of a tree…The purpose of history is to explain the present…tells us what is to be ignored, or discarded. That is true power - profound power.”
Michael Crichton, Timeline

“History is a contest of evidence…like archaeology: you need to dig.”
Patrick Lockerby

An historian thinks about the "dead" past in order to reveal our relationship with a past that lives in us.
Anon.

“The past is never dead; it’s not even past.”
William Faulkner

Then quotes of hope:

“Stories are the center of the human condition. Everybody dreams. Try to dream in nonfiction.”
Jim Trelease

“If you believe the impossible, the incredible can come true.”
Phil Alden Robinson, Field of Dreams

And so forth, maybe…

“The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope.”
Winston Churchill

“…the past should give us hope”? How unlikely.
It’s been my avid vocation, but misfortune, to read hundreds of scholarly books on history, especially about Christianity. From Jesus Wars2 to the Great War to First-Strike Iraq, history of the Christian sort mostly brings tragic sorrow and despair. Not that Islamic or Hindu or secular history is any less horrific.

Another writer wrote that history is HISstory, meaning, of course, that history is God’s story—that God sovereignly ordained/caused/willed/predestined whatever has come to ‘past,’ and what is, and what will be.
3(To see my honest reaction to that statement see footnote.)Unlike what Churchill says ought to be, the more one reads the past, the more one’s hope will often fade, weighed down by millions of gutted bodies, of so many horrific wrong turns.

If it weren’t that “the past is never dead; it’s not even past” but very present, it would probably be better not know the despair of the past.

But, leave all of that in the past:-)

Here's a silver lining, a redemption of actions that show how one single action by one individual human--the writing of a brief essay--can bring great hope and change to the world.

How did Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and many other social reformers of the 20th century come to act as they did for peace, justice, and compassion?

The central past event was one short essay of American literature, "On Civil Disobedience," by Henry David Thoreau. This brief reflection written n 1848 against the U.S. invasion of Mexico, though unknown by most Americans, has had more impact on world history than all other American literature, except for the Declaration of Independence. And the essay continues to influence events and will do so into the future.


Follow the links to see how the essay has changed millions of peoples lives since it was written.

1848, New England
Written against the Mexican War and against slavery
|
1920-1948, India
Used by Gandhi to obtain freedom for India from England
|
1938-1943, Germany
Considered by Bonhoeffer as a way to oppose Hitler
|
1950's, the World
Banned by every U.S. library around the world during McCarthyism
|
1954-1968, USA
Stated by King to be the central factor that moved him to help start the Civil Rights movement

|
1963-1974, USA
Used to oppose the Vietnam War
|
1955-1992, South Africa, USA
Method of opposition to oppose Apartheid of South African Government
|
1960-1990's, California
Adopted by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers to seek just working conditions and pay

|
1960's-1998, USA
Practiced by both pro-abortion and anti-abortion groups
|
1950's-1990's, the World
Used by people to oppose nuclear weapons and chemical weapons

1990-to the Present
Used by protesters against oppression by both Palestinian and Israeli governments, against the Gulf War, First-Strike Invasion of Iraq, immigration deportation, economic disparity, etc.


What historical past has inspired you to live now and to hope for the future?

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

1"From The Stories We Tell Ourselves" by Jon Meacham, Newsweek, July 7, 2008
2Jesus Wars by Phillip Jenkins, a history of the twists and killings of early Christianity
3To hell with that. What an obscene joke.

Deporting Illegal Children

Deporting Illegal Children in Texas and the Rich Man and Lazarus

From Roger Olson's blog, "Illegal Immigration of Children..."--

"The problem is often framed as “those bad Latin Americans who want to come and take what we have” rather than as “we rich Americans who show off our luxury and want to keep it all to ourselves.”

As a Christian, I ask my fellow Texans and others (many of who consider themselves Christians) to consider Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Who are we, America, in the parable? Who are the Central American children standing or sitting on one side of our border or the other?

Recently a Christian man in my town, very well known, a “pillar of the community,” purchased a partially built mansion on the edge of town with twenty-three thousand square feet of living space. He is finishing it. By all accounts he’s a very good man, a respected family man, church members and philanthropist. But twenty-three thousand square feet? When not far away is a camp now inhabited by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Central American children being held indefinitely because they crossed our border without permission looking for a tiny bit of that affluence—just enough to live a human life.

But the solution is not just individual charity; the only real, long-term solution can only be a massive rededication of our American ingenuity and productivity to solve Central America’s economic problems. Over the last century and a half we, the United States of America, have directly or indirectly invaded Central American countries numerous times (look it up using Google or any internet search engine!) to protect our economic interests.

What if we instead “invaded” them to enhance their economic interests? What if we cut back our extremely bloated “defense” budget and devoted the savings to creating a corps of young men and women to go to Central America for only one purpose—to build schools, housing, medical facilities, etc.?"