Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Kicking ash
Storytelling Sad-urday...I’m going to a cousin’s today to help out with her three kids. One is my godson, who is remarkably like his grandfather, who passed away in 2005, and only knew his first grandson for several weeks. He had Alzheimers, but it was the cigarette companies that killed him. A kind, intelligent man who knew suffering and selflessly assisted others from an early age, it’s a crime that he can’t be here to enjoy his grandkids (and vice versa). The only thing that keeps me from greater sadness is the example he set. I’m going to a cousin’s today to help out with her three kids.
Frankly Appalling: “In Holland, Anne Frank is a distinct symbol of the Holocaust and persecution,” CIDI’s public relations coordinator, Tuvit Shlomi, told Haaretz. “The red-and-white kaffiyeh symbolizes Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation. We find this link offensive, false and unacceptable.” The trouble is that Palestinians don’t have anywhere to hide (or that Zionists can hide them). I’ve been to the Anne Frank house, a sobering experience, but maybe this is more the CIDI’s speed: http://tinyurl.com/32erwt
MZ, check out the latest New Yorker, the one with Humpty Derivatives on the cover. There’s a fine article about a Chinese Olympic boxer who uses mixed disciplines.
Posted by Zen Prole on from Urth 02/02 at 10:44 AMGood morning Zen and Mickey and everyone...Mickey, receiving the ashes must feel very mixed with emotions??? I faced the decision, at one time, back to the earth through the soil or cremation and whatever decision is chosen after??? It was disconcerting for me. I feel for you.
And, I have been thinking about stereotypes this morning...from reading and listening. The standardization of thought and behavior, I can grasp. What form of social-conditioning has the greatest impact on human behavior. Could it be religions...I know all social-conditioning is interrelated, with all the various aspects of a given society. Yet, somehow, I feel it’s religions and perhaps exactly how parents interpret religion and apply this to everyday life in a dysfunctional society effecting the younger generation/children. Each religion might have it’s unique teachings, characteristics that effect people more or less and in relation to other society demands/oppressions. Why does person A seem very similar to person B and so on sometimes scarily accurate to the point of speech and body language...???
Posted by joe of maine on from 02/02 at 12:40 PMafternoon Zen, Joe and Mick. Mick, your story got me to writing one of my own and then it became too long for a comment. Maybe I’ll finish it and end up with a short story. Thanks for sharing yours about your mother. Talk you all later.
Posted by JOS on from Oak Park 02/02 at 01:05 PM#4 Sad Saturday Story
Little Gray Kitty Cat wasn’t an ordinary cat. He liked to run up to all of the dogs in the neighborhood and give them a hearty greeting.
We didn’t know what to think the first time we met Little Gray. It was a warm evening last summer when we noticed an animal running directly toward us. Since it was dark, we couldn’t tell if it was a fox, a raccoon or some other kind of animal. It was a little startling.
Once we noticed it was a cat, we were in for an even bigger surprise—or I probably should say our dog was the one left the most taken aback. The cat ran directly to her and started rubbing up against our dog’s legs and tail. There was no inhibition. Our dog tried to back away, spooked by the extreme affability of a type of animal that typically keeps its distance from its canine counterparts.
Eventually, the cat grew tired of entertaining us and we said our goodbyes for the night. We continued our evening walk, joking about our first-ever meeting with a cat who thought it was dog.
During the rest of the summer and into the fall, we would regularly see the cat, who we nicknamed Little Gray Kitty Cat, on our walks. Our dog grew more tolerant of Little Gray’s friendliness. And we grew fond of Little Gray,
associating his greetings as gestures of kindness, even though others may have interpreted them as acts of territorial behavior.After talking with neighbors, we learned that Little Gray’s real name was Leo and that he lived one block over in the corner house. We would go to
neighborhood gatherings where other people had similar stories about the crazy cat who thought it was dog. We heard he would wrestle with our neighbor’s black lab, often pinning him down in play.Little Gray often would follow us home and would do tricks for us, like hanging from the branches on the small tree in our front yard or rolling down the steps leading to our front door. We grew so fond of Little Gray that we would be disappointed when he wouldn’t show up on our nightly walk through the neighborhood.
Late last fall, after not seeing Little Gray for four or five days, we asked a neighbor about him. She broke the horrible news. Little Gray had been run over by a car several blocks to the north. He was dead.
Our hearts dropped when we heard the news. We learned then that he was only a year-and-a-half old, barely past a kitten. We couldn’t stop thinking about Little Gray.
The irony is that Little Gray’s owners probably should have kept him indoors when they realized he lacked any inhibitions. But if they had done that, we wouldn’t have ever met him.
Posted by Mark Hand on from Arlington, VA 02/02 at 05:17 PMHello Expendables. Great stuff...and awesome to have Mark stop by.
Michele and I got out tonight. Saw this:
http://www.filmforum.org/films/dontlook.htmlPosted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 02/02 at 10:31 PMPost Secret, every Sunday:
http://postsecret.blogspot.comPosted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 02/03 at 08:52 AM-
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 02/03 at 09:44 AM
Here’s more news to write home about…
Israel and Egypt colluding to grind down and starve Gaza’s people
Saree Makdisi shows how Israel, with the collusion of Egypt, is systematically grinding down and now actually starving the people of Gaza because it regards Gaza’s 1.5 million men, women and children as “a surplus population it would, quite simply, like to get rid of one way or the other”.
How in hell can this be happening...? Has Washrael gauranteed all these countries free oil...to be sold at extremely high prices to their slaves?
Posted by joe of maine on from 02/03 at 11:12 AMI have to ask: Who with an honest heart cannot help but adore Cynthia McKinney?
Thanks for the link, Mickey!
Posted by Robert B. Livingston on from San Francisco, California 02/03 at 01:55 PMMickey, when I read how shocked you were when you carried the urn with your mother’s ashes up the stairs to your apartment, it reminded me of an urn at our house: it holds the ashes of the first dog we owned after we got married, Muffin. I hope you are not offended - ‘only’ a dog but still .. Alan was going to spread his ashes near Lake Daylesford (Muffin actually passed away a few hours after we returned from a weekend trip to Daylesford in 2000), but still has not done so although we have been living here since June 2004.
And hello to Zen Prole (being German, I should not say much but the way the ‘Holocaust’ has been instrumentalised and is brought up every time someone criticises Israel is obscene IMHO), Joe of Maine, JOS, Mark Hand (are you the Mark Hand of Pressaction.com? We used to be in quite regular email contact, Mark, but then it ‘dropped off’ - really awesome to have you stop by) and Robert B. Livingston. I adore Cynthia, too!
Here is Tony Judt with his intelligent thoughts on ‘The ‘Problem of Evil’ in Postwar Europe’ - he has written excellent and thoughtful pieces on Israel/Palestine, among others. The Holocaust gets a mention in this piece as well:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21031Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 02/03 at 08:06 PMJoe of Maine, #2:
Yet, somehow, I feel it’s religions and perhaps exactly how parents interpret religion and apply this to everyday life in a dysfunctional society effecting the younger generation/children. Each religion might have it’s unique teachings, characteristics that effect people more or less and in relation to other society demands/oppressions. Why does person A seem very similar to person B and so on sometimes scarily accurate to the point of speech and body language...???’
Precisely, Joe! The same could be applied to non-religious people, too, though - all that they have to do is listen to the same shock jocks day after day after day - and then they repeat everything they have heard and believe it. Quite depressing, really.Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 02/03 at 08:55 PM
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