Yes, Pope John Paul II's death is big news but in the last week news covering all aspects of the deceased Pope's life and death has all but evaporated other news.
The Iraq War which he oppposed is off the front pages. Why isn't the War he opposed covered in as much detail as the news surrounding Vatican events around the Pope's passing? We know more about what the Pope is wearing and who is in the audience viewing him as a deceased person than how many died in Iraq.
I remember when Eleanor Roosevelt died some admirers wanted to build a statue of her.
Others closer to her stated it was not appropriate to build a physcial memorial but more beneficial if people respected and continued in having compassion for people and having her interest in all aspects of bettering the world's negative social conditions. Milllions throng in long lines to see the Pope's body lying in state. More could be done if the spent the same time and money fulfilling some of the Pope visions for society and I don't mean the morality edicts about birth control, abortion, celibacy for priests, and lack of opportunity for women in the Catholic hierarchy but am talking abou this vision for a better future for poor people and the rest of us around the world.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Monday, April 04, 2005
Saturday, April 02, 2005
When I didn't see the Pope but I heard the commotion
I have a story to tell about The Pope John Paul II. In the Winter of 1989 my partner, Mina, and I and two Lesbian friends of ours visited Rome. Our two friends convinced Mina and me, both of us secular Jews, to visit the Vatican. We were duly impressed and glad we went, although much overwhelmed by the size of the place and the various bejeweled possessions and sacred objects contained inside the Vatican museum. After the visit to the main public rooms in the Vatican and the open spaces outside, we returned to our small hotel which was located across from the Pantheon, a sacred temple that is now a Church where many famous personages are buried in above ground sculpturally decorated sarcophagi.
There is also an open place below the Oculus of the Dome, the open air hole in the dome, in the Pantheon where a special New Year's Eve musical service was to take place. That evening we decided to go to hear the choir singing at the Pantheon urged on by one of our friends, who was raised Catholic. Before we left the hotel, one of the guests who mistook me for a "sister" Catholic, I guess I look Italian, and who was visiting Rome from the Boston area told me about a particular Church I should visit which she thought was quite special. When I told her I was going to a musical service at the Pantheon, she became quite excited as it further confirmed that we were on the same mission in Rome. I didn't have the heart to enlighten her to who or what I was so I left it at that.
We went to the Service at the Pantheon, a former Roman Temple. Three quarters of the way through the musical service, which included a choir singing in their beautiful monotone voices and also included several archbishops carrying scepters and spreading incense, we heard a commotion outside. My first impulse was to get up and go outside to look as a number of others did but I didn't want to disrupt the service in any way especially since I am a nonbeliever so I stayed in my seat. Then the noise became louder and we heard cries of Il Papa! Il Papa! Finally the service was over. We ran outside and saw the Pope Mobile across the Square moving away from us into the distance. He had just been outside the doors of Pantheon and the crowd was now dispersing.
I really could not make the Pope's figure out from where we stood. We had missed the Pope. When I got back to the hotel, the woman who thought I was a "sister" Catholic came up to me excitedly. Did you see the Pope? He was here. Did you see him? Yes, I said. I saw him. And we jumped up and down together. The Boston woman said "He looked strong. He is tall." Yes, I said. He is large and tall, Big. I will never forget the time I missed seeing the Pope but heard all the commotion. And think of it, a nice Jewish girl like me.
There is also an open place below the Oculus of the Dome, the open air hole in the dome, in the Pantheon where a special New Year's Eve musical service was to take place. That evening we decided to go to hear the choir singing at the Pantheon urged on by one of our friends, who was raised Catholic. Before we left the hotel, one of the guests who mistook me for a "sister" Catholic, I guess I look Italian, and who was visiting Rome from the Boston area told me about a particular Church I should visit which she thought was quite special. When I told her I was going to a musical service at the Pantheon, she became quite excited as it further confirmed that we were on the same mission in Rome. I didn't have the heart to enlighten her to who or what I was so I left it at that.
We went to the Service at the Pantheon, a former Roman Temple. Three quarters of the way through the musical service, which included a choir singing in their beautiful monotone voices and also included several archbishops carrying scepters and spreading incense, we heard a commotion outside. My first impulse was to get up and go outside to look as a number of others did but I didn't want to disrupt the service in any way especially since I am a nonbeliever so I stayed in my seat. Then the noise became louder and we heard cries of Il Papa! Il Papa! Finally the service was over. We ran outside and saw the Pope Mobile across the Square moving away from us into the distance. He had just been outside the doors of Pantheon and the crowd was now dispersing.
I really could not make the Pope's figure out from where we stood. We had missed the Pope. When I got back to the hotel, the woman who thought I was a "sister" Catholic came up to me excitedly. Did you see the Pope? He was here. Did you see him? Yes, I said. I saw him. And we jumped up and down together. The Boston woman said "He looked strong. He is tall." Yes, I said. He is large and tall, Big. I will never forget the time I missed seeing the Pope but heard all the commotion. And think of it, a nice Jewish girl like me.
Angels in America: See it!! (playing on HBO again)
I happened to catch the last 1/2 of Part I of the video made for tv titled Angels in America directed by Mike Nichols in 2003 on HBO TV. It reminded me how absolutely great Angels was to see the first, second and third time round. Yes that is how much I loved that movie. And, yes I did see the original play in LA and I liked it then too, although I felt the video version improved my understanding of the themes and symbolism. I have a friend who hated the movie and have known other people who really didn't care for it or were kind of neutral about it. I have never been able to understand this as my lover and I were absolutely enthralled with everything about Angels.
Angels captured the feeling of what the AIDS epidemic was like for people affected in the 80's. The religious exploration and heavenly drama that haunts the main characater Prior Walter is so full of feeling it knocked me over emotionally. Everything that happens in the movie including the exquisite acting of Al Pacino's playing Roy Cohn is surreal. That included Meryl Streep's portrayal of Ethel Rosenberg and her entrance early in the movie as an old Jewish Rabbi (male) is quite
surprising but good.
I need to take the time to see the whole movie a fourth time when I have the 5-6 hours of time again to put aside for seeing this brilliant cast again. I wonder if it is the period of time that is depicted by the video and the focus, on Gay males, Jewish New York characters, the McCarthy period, the religious questioning, the racist bluntness portrayed by the Roy Cohn character, the compassion toward Roy that both Ethel and the Norman character display toward Roy if that is what it is. I'll never understand why everyone doesn't see Angels as the best, the absolutely best of its kind ever. If you haven't seen it, please do but don't let me know you didn't like it. That would be too much to bear again.
Written by Tony Kushner, Directed by Mike Nichols, Acted by Al Pacino- Roy Cohn Meryl Streep- Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz/Hannah Porter Pitt/Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg/The Angel Australia Emma Thompson- The Angel of America/Nurse Emily/Homeless Woman Mary-Louise Parker- Harper Amaty Pitt Jeffrey Wright- Norman 'Belize' Arriaga/Mr. Lies/The Angel Antarctica Patrick Wilson- Joe Pitt Ben Shenkman- Louis Ironson/The Angel Europa James Cromwell- Doctor Henry Brian Markinson- Martin Heller Robin Weigert- Mormon Mother Jeff Aaron- Park Patron Justin Kirk- Prior Walter/The Man in the Park.
Angels captured the feeling of what the AIDS epidemic was like for people affected in the 80's. The religious exploration and heavenly drama that haunts the main characater Prior Walter is so full of feeling it knocked me over emotionally. Everything that happens in the movie including the exquisite acting of Al Pacino's playing Roy Cohn is surreal. That included Meryl Streep's portrayal of Ethel Rosenberg and her entrance early in the movie as an old Jewish Rabbi (male) is quite
surprising but good.
I need to take the time to see the whole movie a fourth time when I have the 5-6 hours of time again to put aside for seeing this brilliant cast again. I wonder if it is the period of time that is depicted by the video and the focus, on Gay males, Jewish New York characters, the McCarthy period, the religious questioning, the racist bluntness portrayed by the Roy Cohn character, the compassion toward Roy that both Ethel and the Norman character display toward Roy if that is what it is. I'll never understand why everyone doesn't see Angels as the best, the absolutely best of its kind ever. If you haven't seen it, please do but don't let me know you didn't like it. That would be too much to bear again.
Written by Tony Kushner, Directed by Mike Nichols, Acted by Al Pacino- Roy Cohn Meryl Streep- Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz/Hannah Porter Pitt/Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg/The Angel Australia Emma Thompson- The Angel of America/Nurse Emily/Homeless Woman Mary-Louise Parker- Harper Amaty Pitt Jeffrey Wright- Norman 'Belize' Arriaga/Mr. Lies/The Angel Antarctica Patrick Wilson- Joe Pitt Ben Shenkman- Louis Ironson/The Angel Europa James Cromwell- Doctor Henry Brian Markinson- Martin Heller Robin Weigert- Mormon Mother Jeff Aaron- Park Patron Justin Kirk- Prior Walter/The Man in the Park.
Land of The Elderly Old (LA times opinion)
The article below highlights important issues for those growing older today. Great Commentary.
April 2, 2005 E-mail story Print Most E-Mailed
VOICES / A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES
Bumpy Travels in the Land of the Elderly Old
LA times April 1, 2005
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMENTARY
By Rose T. Monroe,
Rose T. Monroe earned her master's degree in psychology at 75, after a number of other careers.
Not everyone reading these words will be able to book passage on a trip to the Land of the Elderly Old. Still, since 2000 the world has been adding 795,000 people a month to this unchartered territory, according to the Census Bureau's booklet "An Aging World." In 1919, when I was born, the average life span was 54.7 years. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, it was at a high of 77.3 years in 2005. Worldwide, women live longer than men, although surveys show men are catching up.
But, male and female, the Census Bureau's "elderly old" — those 85 and older — comprise 4.9 million Americans.
Rich or poor, whatever color or religion, when you reach those years, you face many questions. If you're physically OK, you wonder how long you will be able to maintain your current lifestyle. If married, you wonder what changes you might have to make financially and physically if one of you becomes ill or dies. What if you can no longer care for yourself? Have you checked out retirement and assisted-living facilities to know their costs, their pluses and minuses? When should one or both of you stop driving? What if you have to ask your children for support?
The 21st century is forcing us to add new questions. What happens if our Social Security benefits disappear?
The monthly cost of everything, including medical insurance, increases every year. This year, my husband's and my medical costs equal half of one of our Social Security checks.
We who grew up during the Depression have a difficult time with the changing value of money. How could what we thought would last a lifetime have shrunk so fast?
And then there's this business of losing our memory. Cancer used to be the scare word when our parents were aging. Now it's Alzheimer's. Every "senior moment" becomes a fearful symptom.
Why isn't a part of the world adjusting to the increasing number of people who wear hearing aids? Those automated phone systems help businesses lay off workers, but our brains, which process speech more slowly every day, get lost in their instructions.
And what about those new packaging geniuses: They beat out terrorists for scaring elders with arthritic fingers. Cataracts and macular degeneration are words more familiar to us than the names of movie stars.
We laughingly claim the territory is not a place for sissies but fight off the Depression, which we beat in the 1930s. Now it's returned as a different beast.
What we miss the most is a sense of integrity. Growing up, our parents taught us, "There's no free lunch." We have been given almost 40 more years during our lifetime. But we have friends celebrating their 90th, 100th even their 105th birthdays. Are these extra years a joke, a test or a punishment?
These are the thoughts troubling this member of the Land of the Elderly Old.
Youth have replaced us as the revered ones. It was
ever so, the sages say.
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made ….
Are we equal to the task?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
April 2, 2005 E-mail story Print Most E-Mailed
VOICES / A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES
Bumpy Travels in the Land of the Elderly Old
LA times April 1, 2005
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMENTARY
By Rose T. Monroe,
Rose T. Monroe earned her master's degree in psychology at 75, after a number of other careers.
Not everyone reading these words will be able to book passage on a trip to the Land of the Elderly Old. Still, since 2000 the world has been adding 795,000 people a month to this unchartered territory, according to the Census Bureau's booklet "An Aging World." In 1919, when I was born, the average life span was 54.7 years. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, it was at a high of 77.3 years in 2005. Worldwide, women live longer than men, although surveys show men are catching up.
But, male and female, the Census Bureau's "elderly old" — those 85 and older — comprise 4.9 million Americans.
Rich or poor, whatever color or religion, when you reach those years, you face many questions. If you're physically OK, you wonder how long you will be able to maintain your current lifestyle. If married, you wonder what changes you might have to make financially and physically if one of you becomes ill or dies. What if you can no longer care for yourself? Have you checked out retirement and assisted-living facilities to know their costs, their pluses and minuses? When should one or both of you stop driving? What if you have to ask your children for support?
The 21st century is forcing us to add new questions. What happens if our Social Security benefits disappear?
The monthly cost of everything, including medical insurance, increases every year. This year, my husband's and my medical costs equal half of one of our Social Security checks.
We who grew up during the Depression have a difficult time with the changing value of money. How could what we thought would last a lifetime have shrunk so fast?
And then there's this business of losing our memory. Cancer used to be the scare word when our parents were aging. Now it's Alzheimer's. Every "senior moment" becomes a fearful symptom.
Why isn't a part of the world adjusting to the increasing number of people who wear hearing aids? Those automated phone systems help businesses lay off workers, but our brains, which process speech more slowly every day, get lost in their instructions.
And what about those new packaging geniuses: They beat out terrorists for scaring elders with arthritic fingers. Cataracts and macular degeneration are words more familiar to us than the names of movie stars.
We laughingly claim the territory is not a place for sissies but fight off the Depression, which we beat in the 1930s. Now it's returned as a different beast.
What we miss the most is a sense of integrity. Growing up, our parents taught us, "There's no free lunch." We have been given almost 40 more years during our lifetime. But we have friends celebrating their 90th, 100th even their 105th birthdays. Are these extra years a joke, a test or a punishment?
These are the thoughts troubling this member of the Land of the Elderly Old.
Youth have replaced us as the revered ones. It was
ever so, the sages say.
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made ….
Are we equal to the task?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, April 01, 2005
Why Would a Feminist Support Michael Schiavo?
Why would any feminist support the right of the husband to make a life and death decision over the fate of an uncomprehending brain damaged wife in the absence of a living will? Feminism values the struggle for equality in relationships whether that relationship be between a woman and man, a woman and a woman or a man and a man. When a person enters into a committed kind of relationship in this case a marriage. the assumption exists that in the future many important decisions can and will be made that can affect both parties and in the event of illness or death the spouse unless stated otherwise will make those decisions unless there is evidence that the wishes of the spouse were contraindicated.
If Michael Schiavo were in Terri Schiavo's condition and she was the healthy one and it was clear this is what he wanted, then it would be Terri making the decision to pull or not to pull the feeding tube. If a wife or any person does not trust her male spouse, she has the right to give the right of decision making to another person. The same is true for a male spouse. It could be argued that since there is an unequal relationship between husband and wife in society, that there is a danger that this right is being abused or has the potential to be abused by the male spouse for selfish reasons. This may be true and the system as it stands is clearly not perfect.
In any case, even if one thinks heteterosexal marrage implies ownership of a wife by a husband, the alternative of allowing parents to decide over the legitimate spouses's right to make decisions is just as wrong, for according to this kind of thinking the decision making would fall to the father and then one is talking about two men fighting for the right to make a decision over a vulnerable woman's life. Giving the state or parents or even grandparents rights over a legal spousal relationship or domestic partnership undermines the basic freedom of the individual to make the original choice about who she or he decides is the primary person and co-decision maker in her or his life.
The answer here is not to give the state or parents or grandparent more rights but to strengthen the rights of the individual to make her or his own decisions about who she or he wishes to trust to make life and death decisions whether that be husband and wife, same sex partners, or friends trusting friends. I would hope in this case that the feminist perspective and humanist perspective are one and the same which should be to support the right of the individual to create the kind of primary family bonds he or she chooses. Legally, these family type bonds come with legal implications and should not be entered into without forethought.
I welcome other opinions, given that I am not an authority on the law and there are many strains of feminist thinking when it comes to family issues.
If Michael Schiavo were in Terri Schiavo's condition and she was the healthy one and it was clear this is what he wanted, then it would be Terri making the decision to pull or not to pull the feeding tube. If a wife or any person does not trust her male spouse, she has the right to give the right of decision making to another person. The same is true for a male spouse. It could be argued that since there is an unequal relationship between husband and wife in society, that there is a danger that this right is being abused or has the potential to be abused by the male spouse for selfish reasons. This may be true and the system as it stands is clearly not perfect.
In any case, even if one thinks heteterosexal marrage implies ownership of a wife by a husband, the alternative of allowing parents to decide over the legitimate spouses's right to make decisions is just as wrong, for according to this kind of thinking the decision making would fall to the father and then one is talking about two men fighting for the right to make a decision over a vulnerable woman's life. Giving the state or parents or even grandparents rights over a legal spousal relationship or domestic partnership undermines the basic freedom of the individual to make the original choice about who she or he decides is the primary person and co-decision maker in her or his life.
The answer here is not to give the state or parents or grandparent more rights but to strengthen the rights of the individual to make her or his own decisions about who she or he wishes to trust to make life and death decisions whether that be husband and wife, same sex partners, or friends trusting friends. I would hope in this case that the feminist perspective and humanist perspective are one and the same which should be to support the right of the individual to create the kind of primary family bonds he or she chooses. Legally, these family type bonds come with legal implications and should not be entered into without forethought.
I welcome other opinions, given that I am not an authority on the law and there are many strains of feminist thinking when it comes to family issues.
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