This Sunday morning, thoughts and singing "Early Morning Rain"

Sunday…I can think of a number of Sunday songs that have been popular but today it is Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” that I am singing, especially since I only have a dollar to my name.  It is raining and quiet and truthfully I wish I could be anywhere but here today.  Wish I could hop a “Jet Plane” and go to some place quiet where there is no news programs, no starving people, no Ebola, no war, no missiles coming in, no sadness.

The news has brought WWIII closer in my estimation.  The media needs stories and just placing this out in the public sector I fear encourages bloodshed.  I can’t imagine killing anyone or anything… think of walking down your street and shooting people or blowing them up because they go to a different church.

Religion and Nationalism have cause more deaths than can be counted by normal means.  We hail our warriors as heroes…and yes those that have to serve are… if they protect us. But why should they have to protect us? 

Towns and cities destroyed because of hatred… Who owns the land?  Who has rights to the water?  Who is right - who is wrong?

If we could all live by that old-fashioned “Golden Rule”…do unto others, as you would have them do unto you the world would be a different place.

What kind of man can kill a child or pass it by as it cries for help because of his nationality or religion????  What sort of person can run over an animal in the road for fun? 

Nothing has changed under the sun since the world began I am sure… but shouldn’t we all learn and become wiser?  Why is it we can’t learn from our mistakes?  What is the main fault of man?

People are worried about climate change…maybe we should be more worried about changing how the world views itself… If climate change occurs and wipes this era of man from the earth… really would that be a bad thing???

All things I am thinking about on this the last Sunday in July 2014…

“You cant jump a jet plane, like you can a freight train.  So I best be on my way… In the early morning rain!”

Holocaust Rembrance Day, Fort Ontario, and Safe Haven Museum a place to visit!

With all of the hatred being spread daily on Facebook, via the airways, and beyond, I thought it was time to step back and review for a minute what hatred has wrought across the world.

Sunday April 7^th through the evening of April 8^th is Holocaust Remembrance Day.  It has a special message regardless of our faith … but because of our humanness as members of mankind.  We have celebrated the Emancipation Proclamation this year, and so we should take time to reflect on all oppression and all enslavement…faith based or otherwise… even including ignorance.

We receive daily messages on Facebook about hatred of gun control, abortion rights, Second Amendment rights… but none of it really brings home the story of mankind’s evil side.  That part of us that exudes hatred or extreme dislikes for anyone or anything that opposes our own view - whether it be religious or political.

We here in CNY seldom have an opportunity to revisit information on the Holocaust unless it is part of our family’s history, nor do we take the time to consider its implications in a way that perhaps could change how our children behave in adulthood.  We do however have a great resource if we wish to have a ‘hands-on” learning lesson… that resource is the Safe Haven Museum in Oswego.

The museum does not dwell on the horrors of the Holocaust…  though it is there, what it does is focus on is the USA and our response to the displacement of people as each of the WWII concentration camps were liberated by our troops.  The short 37-minute documentary actually allows children who lived through the Holocaust tell their story in a humanistic and sometimes humorous way…  they having been dropped from the horrors of war into a Displaced Person Camp at Fort Ontario.  It also gives us hope as they explain the kindness of the Oswego people and its children. 

I include here links that I hope you will follow to pieces I have written on the Safe Haven story, and a video of the museum from my History Stars Productions Company!

http://www.examiner.com/article/a-visit-to-safe-haven-museum-oswego-an-important-piece-of-our-history

Video and story below!  

http://historystarproductions.com/blog/safe-haven-at-oswegos-fort-ontario/

The week in review, MLK Day, Lincoln, Guns & Gordon Lightfoot

This week has been another week of bitter and mean comments about guns, the president, elderly on social security - labeled as living off the system, families needing food stamps because of job loss or poor paying jobs, fracking, Hurricane Sandy relief, war, choking smog in China, snow in Europe, heatwave in Australia, death in Syria and Mali…. and on an on.  I just could not stand it …so I off’d Facebook comments that bothered me…..and tuned out the news.

Martin Luther King Day and the Inauguration are on the same day… I found that almost ironic.  The hatred and bigotry that he faced is still here today, it has just resurfaced because we have a “black” president. … Humorously he is half white so why not call him a “white president”?

It occurred to me that instead of going after food stamp people who are poor or elderly and need it, perhaps we should check those on programs that can afford to buy multiple guns and ammunition that cost over $1 per round?  I pondered this whole situation…no answers!

I wondered if the biggest haters of the newer gun laws were those who had run-ins with the law and were afraid they wouldn’t pass the background check...motivated by FEAR!!

The movies this week brought Lincoln into view.  The new Lincoln movie has shown a light on Lincoln as a “saint” of sorts and “Great Emancipator”, yet I know he was a racist of sorts…he only wanted to preserve the Union at all cost knowing slavery was the Union’s most divisive problem…and cost it did… almost 600,000 people died in that bloody conflict…

Really... it wasn’t until MLK and the peaceful freedom marches and the desegregation movement took place ... that blacks could finally see a small light at the end of the tunnel.

So I slunk around the house all week chopping wood to relieve the stress by day and took out my old guitar and sung a few songs at night…The one song that kept coming back to me was by my favorite...Gordon Lightfoot...it is called “Too Late for Prayin’”…. and says it all eloquently in a nut shell…..

**Please take the time to view this video and listen to the words…friends, foes, teachers, preachers, poets, workers, haters, and everyone.  There is a message….and some harsh truth for us all to ponder!!

The Dalai Lama - What a great week for CNY

Well the Dalai Lama was in CNY this week and the 77 year old Holy Man managed to capture the hearts of all.  His message was especially interesting to me....for years since I was a child I dreamt of meeting the High Lama of Tibet and climbing to the city in the mountains where he lived.  I had all sorts of dreams then and to this day I often paint pictures of high peaks.  I laugh because my mother who slaughtered words sometime called him the "Deli Lama"...and I tend to do the same thing out of humor.

I would have loved to have been at one of his panel discussions or at the concert at the Carrier Dome..but unfortunately I could not...

In these weeks of debates and news stories on Iran, Syria and Afghanistan... talk of war was cheap and my feelings are that we like to talk about war in terms of helping people out... At a dinner recently when I mentioned the death toll of soldiers in Afghanistan one person said.."Well they are paid soldiers"....mercenaries..

Well we all too often forget the other deaths.."Collateral Damage" they are called.  So I went on line to find a figure of those civilian deaths in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars ....go ahead type it into Google and be shocked!  Some estimates vary but one thing does not, the number of soldiers killed is minimal in comparison to the thousands of citizens killed by and trapped by war.  This does not mention the horror of these scenes to the children living in it..those children who will no doubt hate the invaders.....and not understand what it was about..Religion???Hate??? Or was it OIL???

So to me the Lama's message is like prayer sent out to the ether above....understanding and education and learning about one another, and excepting one an-others faith, institutions, culture and need - are the only ways to make peace in the world.... Hatred, bullying, rattling sabers and talking war only brings out the worst in people and in countries who also feel patriotic to their country, customs and beliefs.

I came from that crazy group of people called the "Love Generation".."Make Love not War"....  Where have we gone?  Have we forgotten Viet Nam.. Is it because soldiers join and are not drafted?  War is War!  But for War there must be better reasons than a boost to the economy or threats like.."Weapons of Mass destructions"- or OIL!

Let's all look at each other in this world that is growing smaller every day..in a different light... Let us teach our children to do it...let us reach out to others in a more peaceable way daily... Maybe in something simple like toning down the rhetoric on line on the different candidates for a start!