All Things Beautiful

We Remember, We Mourn, And We Do Not Forgive

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We Remember, We Mourn, And We Do Not Forgive. Read it all...

Who are you remembering today? Watch it all....

And finally debate it all....

My Father 'The Hero'

 

Today is the 14th Anniversary of my Father's death, always a difficult day for me, no matter how many years go quietly by.... and as I write these words and tears are rolling down my face, I think of My Father and my ultimate hero, the man considered to be one of the most important Serbian literary figures of the 20th century.

Today is also the First Birthday of All Things Beautiful, the blog I started in his honor on the same day a year ago.

To say that I worshiped, admired, and adored him, would probably be the understatement of all time, and not worthy of my friends and family, who know me so well. I think of him often when I have some upstart liberal on my blog falling about, knocking furniture around the room and telling me how I don't understand what fighting for liberty and freedom of speech is all about. Perhaps I don't know or understand this new form of socialism liberals today call their own precious democracy, and perhaps I don't even want to.

They do not know me, nor do they know my family history, nor what we as a family have stood for, for generations, in our small unit nor as the family as a whole. I as a person, am much more defined by my roots, growing up quite literally living the political struggle of Democracy vs. Dictatorship. My Father lived his entire life for democracy; he truly lived and breathed its often poisonous fumes when contaminated with hypocrisy and falsehood spawned from a socialist regime; he sacrificed his own personal freedom and youth for its sake.

David Binder writing for The New York Times

A dozen years after his death Borislav Pekic is acclaimed as one of the greatest writers in the Serbian language [...]

Returning to Belgrade in the waning years of Yugoslav communism, he joined a group of dissidents including Vojislav Kostunica, now president of Yugoslavia, and Zoran Djindjic, later Prime Minister of Serbia, who was assassinated last March. In February 1990 the three men founded the opposition Democratic Party. At their convention Pekic denounced the moribund Communists: "If this system has no moral foundations, principles or laws on which we can all rely equally, it ceases to be legitimate."

Four months later he marched in a demonstration against the ruling ex-Communists of Slobodan Milosevic and was injured in a police charge [...]

My Father used to say that you can never blame others for their cowardice. Everyone has different considerations and aspects to worry about. Some worry about their jobs, some their very lives, some the sponsors who keep them funded. One can only look to oneself and stand upright for what one believes in.

Betrayed many times by close friends, in a totalitarian regime of former Yugoslavia, the most significant of which, resulted in being imprisoned at the age of 18 for forming the first 'Yugoslav Democratic Youth', and sentenced to fifteen years in prison (released after serving five). During this time in prison he conceived many of the ideas later developed in his major novels.

He always forgave his friends and foe alike. He said that they had considerations of their livelihood, which he did not have to worry about due to his privileged background. They feared for their very lives, which my Father had given to the cause of freedom long ago. They had considerations for their families' wellbeing, which my Father did not have (when he married my mother he made his position clear, and she understood that, when I came along I simply was not asked. Heh.)

He forgave them, not because they know not what they do, but because he understood the human weaknesses and survival instincts and embraced them with the true spirit of the courageous man that he was.

The Grave Injustice Of A Senseless Death Sentence

'The Martyrdom of St. Mathew', by Caravaggio, ca.1599, Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

It makes me incredibly sad to think of Father Andrea Santoro, today on the day of his funeral. A missionary fidei donum priest working in Trabzon, Turkey, he was slain in cold blood in the name of Allah. It is very difficult not to feel hatred in my heart at this absolutely senseless murder of a holy man, whose only credential of being a Christian priest became his death sentence. Looking at his photograph, I see a kind and gentle face full of hope and tireless enthusiasm for a cause he made his vocation:

Pope Benedict XVI drew an emotional reaction from the crowd at his regular weekly audience when he mentioned the Italian priest who was killed in Turkey three days earlier.

"We cannot fail to remember Fr Andrea Santoro today," the Holy Father said. The crowd of 8000 people rose for a lengthy ovation in tribute to the slain missionary.

As the applause ebbed, the Pope continued with a prayer for the repose of Fr Santoro's soul, adding a petition that "the sacrifice of his life may contribute to dialoue between religious and peace among peoples."

The Pope disclosed that he had received a letter from Fr Santoro recently, in which the priest offered "a moving testimony to his love and adherence to Christ and his Church." In the letter, dated 31 January, Fr Santoro offered "a mirror of his priestly sould," the Pope said. He indicated that the letter will soon be published in L'Osservatore Romano.

Pope Benedict added that he had read another letter, from a member of the tiny Catholic community in Trabzon, Turkey, where Fr Santoro served. It, too, offered a powerful indication of "devotion and love for Christ," he said. The parishioner's letter asked the Pope to visit the Black Sea port town during his trip to Turkey in November of this year.

The body of Fr Santoro, who was a priest of the Rome diocese, was returned to Rome on February 7. His funeral will be in the Basilica of St. John Lateran today.

Pope Benedict XVI revealed that just yesterday there arrived "a precious letter" of Father Andrea, written on January 31, together with the small Christian community of Saint Mary's Parish. "It is an emotional testimony of love and adherence to Christ and His Church. But, above all, it is a mirror of his priestly soul and reflects his concern for the children."

Although a 16-year-old Turkish boy has confessed to the killing, saying that he was prompted by rage over the cartoons in European newspapers mocking Mohammed, some Christians in Turkey harbour lingering doubts about the crime, Bishop Luigi Padovese of Anatolia told journalists. The bishop explained that Christians in the region, live amid hostility in an overwhelmingly Muslim community. Some Christians question whether the killing was an isolated act, or part of an orchestrated anti-Christian campaign.

Father Andrea we think of you today and pray.

For centuries the liberty to distribute Christian or other non-Islamic texts has been unacceptable in Turkey. In recent years people have been detained and even deported for such activity.

It is one thing for Father Andrea to have been murdered by an individual influenced by the current "religious" riots that have done so much damage and led to various deaths and fear. It is quite another for Turkey's intelligentsia to think that the simple practice of having literature about one's own faith, printed in a language understood by local people, is a questionable activity suggesting criminal behaviour.

Were this simply to be the musings of a journalist, one would count it as just another sound bite. Alas! The idea that Christian literature in Turkish, distributed by faithful Christians, is suspiciously criminal, or at least intellectually unacceptable, prevails among senior army officers, university professors, Islamicist politicians, lawyers, doctors, journalists and many others.

Remembrance of Things Past

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Today we are all New Yorkers again

We remember, we mourn, and we do not forgive. (Please be patient whilst it's loading)

Peter Jennings looses the Fight

ABC News Anchor Peter Jennings died of lung cancer today at his home in New York City. He was 67.
Much loved and admired by viewers and colleagues alike, he will be sorely missed by all. Our thoughts and prayers go to his family today.
"Peter has been our colleague, our friend, and our leader in so many ways. None of us will be the same without him," ABC News President David Westin said.

The Miniature Earth

Today's bomb attacks on London made me think of two things: "How much more can we take?" and  "How much more are we going to take?". And then I remembered making a discovery a few years ago, a simplification of a set of statitics which we all think we know, but statistics that still eventually remain in the abstract. Well I've decided to point you to this albeit classic simplification of a subject which we still ponder about, world's statistics simple enough for us to understand. Make sure however that you wait long enough for the movie to download to enable you to press play.
"If we could turn the population of the earth into a small community of 100 people, keeping the same proportions we have today, it would be something like this:

'You can never be too Rich or too Thin'

 

Nan Kempner, the best known of Manhattan's society hostesses made it her life’s work to test the truth of the Duchess of Windsor’s adage that a woman can never be too rich or too thin. Sadly one of the great society icons  died on Sunday, July 3, at her Manhattan apartment. Having known her socially for some years now, I have, like many others wondered how she managed to stay so wafer thin. "My chef " she said to me once with a wink. For lesser mortals like myself, hiring a chef was the beginning of my demise into constant weight gain, and trying to copy Nan by developing a smoking habit, only resulted in a very chronic and politically incorrect cough. I will miss her.

We Mourn with the Citizens of London

We mourn with the citizens of London.

We pledge to help track down and kill the perpetrators, the planners, and their helpers.

We note that it is 46 months after September 11, 2001, and that Osama bin Laden is still alive and at liberty. That somebody can plan September 11, and remain alive and at liberty provides powerful encouragement to those who think of following in his footsteps--including those who planned, aided, and carried out today's atrocity in London.

More attention to Osama bin Laden and his ilk, please. And less attention to using Osama bin Laden as a pretext for launching hair-brained neoconservative schemes, please."

Brad DeLong

Over 1700 dead Americans, and close to half a trillion dollars later....