Thursday, December 27, 2007
Step outside and into adventure – Upper West Side, Manhattan
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Attending the Friday dress rehearsal of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera – not an easy opera to like, of which more anon – put us on the Upper West Side at lunchtime, not bad timing for doing some long neglected shopping. You might well ask, why, since we East Midtown people have everything. Not so, UWS Broadway is where you go, to Harry’s at 83rd Street for winter boots and the Town Shop at 81st for fitted undergarments. So, girdling our loins, we started the trek north on Broadway, west of Lincoln Center.
Broadway is pretty dull to 72ND Street, institutional, big shops, then it gets more individualized. In the mid-70s you reach the famed Fairway supermarket, a long stretch of joined stores with big outdoors racks of vegetables and such, not too neat. Then comes Citarella, the famed fish and meat emporium. That is where you begin to see people carrying bright orange- lettered Zabar’s bags, a warning that the great brand-name deli is near.
But before reechoing Zabar’s at 80th Street, there is H & H Bagels, the “Like no other bagel in the world” claimant. There are three food items I test diners and delis on, bagels and Caesar salad (the third escapes me, for now), and this was the appropriate time to test the product at the source, after hearing many “we sell H&H” declarations. Bagels were all that this entire store sold, besides soft drinks in ceiling-high coolers. Ahead of me were two school-girls, each buying a bagel. Interesting, suitable to schoolchildren’s taste? - I had heard more than once that H&H product is too sweet. The bagels were $1.20 apiece, and announced as available in one more store, on 46th Street.
Eventually, testing the H&H “Everything” bagels against our . Metro supermarket’s deli product, 89 cents for two, I found little difference. Both were NY size (that can be up to 5oz, 350 calories), medium crusty, the H&H a bit less dough-ey. My tastes were formed by Zooky’s Deli, once on 17th and 3rd Ave, where you watched the bagel rolling, pre-boiling and baking on long wooden rods, and learned to eat them cool (hot and sticking to your teeth is déclassé). This was sharp contrast to the product of my Bronx-Grand Concourse youth, a glazed egg bagel, which I liked when I knew no better. Nowadays I also see a New Jersey bagel, soft and flavored and favored by the ignorant. Avast, tradition-breakers, you are ruining a heritage. Bagels need a preservationist, like Jack Taylor, to protect our tradition.
Anyway, on to Zabar’s. The store runs half a block long, in joined buildings. The smoked fish are as expected, superb. The mail-order catalog is 32 pages, and they have houseware specials, announced on the PA system by a clipped voice that might have been ordered up by Henry Higgins to represent New York (we just saw Pygmalion at the Roundabout, closing in December). The best bargain is a coffee mug for $1 plus tax, with the familiar Zabar’s orange logo, advertising smoked fish and cheese.
We did stop at their little deli, to have a cup of coffee and a container of whitefish salad (comes with a roll of your choice, $3.75) at the center family table. A well-dressed thin lady, apparently the mother of a physician, was instructing a youngish doctor and her husband in the intricacies of internship at Montefiore Hospital, and the perils of practicing family medicine in New York. When the largely silent couple left, one could head two savants disputing the inside facts of Nixon’s 1972 trip to China. Ah, the West Side!
Having decided against taking home a Reuben corn beef panino with Swiss cheese on fresh foccacia bread ($4.98), we stepped outside. There was a half-block long ray of picnic tables, laden with displays of shrink-wrapped books, all new or nearly new, with handwritten lengthy price labels (Philip Roth’s Human Stain was marked “Only $18, compare to $29.12 at B&N”). There was also a foot-high spider robot with fiery eyes stalking the sidewalk and terrifying small dogs – a wow.wee RoboQuad from Canada, yours for $100, tax-free. Yep, that’s UVS.
The subway trip from 79th Street back home, with transfer at Times Square, once more proved that the young people of New York are decent and polite, despite bad press. Several youngsters, mostly young Asian, Black and Hispanic women, were observed offering their seats to elders, with smiles and without prompting. Genuine, not just the holiday spirit.
As for the latter, the platform performers were out in full force, in the Times Square transfer area between the 1/9 and the R /N trains , the Jaz Band, an Asian ensemble with a nimble clarinetist offering fast beats, and a black shirted group of gymnasts doing somersaults and spins while standing on their heads, and the usual Far Eastern string players in nooks here and there, strumming amplified Haydn. All normal .
Attending the Friday dress rehearsal of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera – not an easy opera to like, of which more anon – put us on the Upper West Side at lunchtime, not bad timing for doing some long neglected shopping. You might well ask, why, since we East Midtown people have everything. Not so, UWS Broadway is where you go, to Harry’s at 83rd Street for winter boots and the Town Shop at 81st for fitted undergarments. So, girdling our loins, we started the trek north on Broadway, west of Lincoln Center.
Broadway is pretty dull to 72ND Street, institutional, big shops, then it gets more individualized. In the mid-70s you reach the famed Fairway supermarket, a long stretch of joined stores with big outdoors racks of vegetables and such, not too neat. Then comes Citarella, the famed fish and meat emporium. That is where you begin to see people carrying bright orange- lettered Zabar’s bags, a warning that the great brand-name deli is near.
But before reechoing Zabar’s at 80th Street, there is H & H Bagels, the “Like no other bagel in the world” claimant. There are three food items I test diners and delis on, bagels and Caesar salad (the third escapes me, for now), and this was the appropriate time to test the product at the source, after hearing many “we sell H&H” declarations. Bagels were all that this entire store sold, besides soft drinks in ceiling-high coolers. Ahead of me were two school-girls, each buying a bagel. Interesting, suitable to schoolchildren’s taste? - I had heard more than once that H&H product is too sweet. The bagels were $1.20 apiece, and announced as available in one more store, on 46th Street.
Eventually, testing the H&H “Everything” bagels against our . Metro supermarket’s deli product, 89 cents for two, I found little difference. Both were NY size (that can be up to 5oz, 350 calories), medium crusty, the H&H a bit less dough-ey. My tastes were formed by Zooky’s Deli, once on 17th and 3rd Ave, where you watched the bagel rolling, pre-boiling and baking on long wooden rods, and learned to eat them cool (hot and sticking to your teeth is déclassé). This was sharp contrast to the product of my Bronx-Grand Concourse youth, a glazed egg bagel, which I liked when I knew no better. Nowadays I also see a New Jersey bagel, soft and flavored and favored by the ignorant. Avast, tradition-breakers, you are ruining a heritage. Bagels need a preservationist, like Jack Taylor, to protect our tradition.
Anyway, on to Zabar’s. The store runs half a block long, in joined buildings. The smoked fish are as expected, superb. The mail-order catalog is 32 pages, and they have houseware specials, announced on the PA system by a clipped voice that might have been ordered up by Henry Higgins to represent New York (we just saw Pygmalion at the Roundabout, closing in December). The best bargain is a coffee mug for $1 plus tax, with the familiar Zabar’s orange logo, advertising smoked fish and cheese.
We did stop at their little deli, to have a cup of coffee and a container of whitefish salad (comes with a roll of your choice, $3.75) at the center family table. A well-dressed thin lady, apparently the mother of a physician, was instructing a youngish doctor and her husband in the intricacies of internship at Montefiore Hospital, and the perils of practicing family medicine in New York. When the largely silent couple left, one could head two savants disputing the inside facts of Nixon’s 1972 trip to China. Ah, the West Side!
Having decided against taking home a Reuben corn beef panino with Swiss cheese on fresh foccacia bread ($4.98), we stepped outside. There was a half-block long ray of picnic tables, laden with displays of shrink-wrapped books, all new or nearly new, with handwritten lengthy price labels (Philip Roth’s Human Stain was marked “Only $18, compare to $29.12 at B&N”). There was also a foot-high spider robot with fiery eyes stalking the sidewalk and terrifying small dogs – a wow.wee RoboQuad from Canada, yours for $100, tax-free. Yep, that’s UVS.
The subway trip from 79th Street back home, with transfer at Times Square, once more proved that the young people of New York are decent and polite, despite bad press. Several youngsters, mostly young Asian, Black and Hispanic women, were observed offering their seats to elders, with smiles and without prompting. Genuine, not just the holiday spirit.
As for the latter, the platform performers were out in full force, in the Times Square transfer area between the 1/9 and the R /N trains , the Jaz Band, an Asian ensemble with a nimble clarinetist offering fast beats, and a black shirted group of gymnasts doing somersaults and spins while standing on their heads, and the usual Far Eastern string players in nooks here and there, strumming amplified Haydn. All normal .
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Be a shelter volunteer for the homeless
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Although our lives have radically changed as the result of the events of 9/11, one thing remains constant: the need for night shelter for the homeless of our city increases. This neighborhood should feel proud. We are the best, the kindest, the cream. We live in one of the most socially caring and hospitable areas of the city, and we support not only 10 hospitals, 8 methadone clinics, 2 major city homeless shelters and a big welfare office, but also several church- and synagogue-based overnight stay facilities.
These facilities are run quietly, without disturbance to the neighborhood, yet they provide a palpable service to the needy. How do they work? Well, there is an organization, The Partnership for the Homeless, started in 1982. It helps to get the non-vagrant type homeless, men and women, off the streets of NYC, and into drop-in centers, where they are screened and tested (all tubercular persons are sent to therapy), medically cared for, given meals, sent to rehabilitation training and transported at night to shelters, in churches, synagogues and armories. This is paid for by private donations as well as city, state and federal funds.
The Partnership takes care of 1200 men and women, utilizing 10 drop-in centers and it calls on 105 shelter facilities, in all 5 boroughs. Seven of the drop-in centers are in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn and one in Staten Island. The guests in our shelters either have become homeless involuntarily - they were burned out or lost their jobs - or can no longer take care of themselves in low pay jobs, such as dishwashers, kitchen help, casual labor, because housing costs too much. Some have addiction, physical or mental problems. For the rehabilitable our efforts can and do lead to return to the mainstream, for the sick - to eventual permanent housing. The Partnership has located housing for more than 300 individuals and families a year, and provided furniture.
Getting back to the call for action, in this immediate area we have four volunteer-staffed overnight shelters, all non-sectarian, each accepting 8-15 homeless guests a night - Brotherhood Synagogue (Leah Glasser 674-5750), St. George's Church (John Hackney 646-541-5830), the Friends' Meeting House (Sylvia Friedman 673-8316) and the Madison Avenue Baptist Church (Melvin Bell 685-1377). Friends' and St. George's shelters are year-round. They all need volunteer workers - male and female - to stay overnight with their homeless guests, once a month or more frequently, or to be part of the welcoming crew. The work is simple, non-hazardous and very gratifying.
I shall describe the procedure at Brotherhood.
The guests sign up for a shelter at the drop-in center, and are transported by a city school bus, which delivers them, with a checklist, to the church or synagogue, between 8 and 9 PM. The volunteers, a coordinator and a sexton will have set up cots (fresh linen every night), sandwiches and coffee, and will welcome the guests, who are usually tired, want to wash themselves, have a bite and go to bed after the meal, before the 11 PM lights-out. One or two volunteers - plus the sexton - sleep in the shelter overnight, separate from the guests. The volunteers are there to provide assistance in cases of need. At the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter I recall no more than four instances over 25 years that the volunteers had to obtain help for a guest with a problem during the night, none threatening. Between 6 and 6:30 AM the volunteers will make toast and serve, with tea or coffee. By 7 AM the volunteers will have gone home or to work, after the guests have been picked up by the city and returned to the drop-in center.
Most overnight volunteers, working people, come to work at the shelter at 8 PM in their sweat clothes or dungarees and carry a dress or suit for use next day, if they are going to work directly. They have a full night's sleep, and no one has ever complained of having been ruined for the next day's activities. On the contrary, this has been a heartening experience for the volunteers, an opportunity to do good, hands on. It is not like giving $50 to a charity, good but indirect. Talking with and cheering up people who have less than we gives us an opportunity to assess our place in the sun.
Volunteers come back time and again because doing good feels good. We are not just chessboard figures, we do things, we make good things happen. Call the shelter providers, try volunteering for one night. You will find out what life is like, out there, hear stories that make the listener appreciate one's own life.
For some 25 years Wally Dobelis has been an elected member in the Partnership for the Homeless, and until the past few winters he has been the coordinator of volunteers for the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter. He and the T&V family wish you Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Joyous Chanukah, a Glorious Kwanzaa and good health and happiness for the coming New Year.
Although our lives have radically changed as the result of the events of 9/11, one thing remains constant: the need for night shelter for the homeless of our city increases. This neighborhood should feel proud. We are the best, the kindest, the cream. We live in one of the most socially caring and hospitable areas of the city, and we support not only 10 hospitals, 8 methadone clinics, 2 major city homeless shelters and a big welfare office, but also several church- and synagogue-based overnight stay facilities.
These facilities are run quietly, without disturbance to the neighborhood, yet they provide a palpable service to the needy. How do they work? Well, there is an organization, The Partnership for the Homeless, started in 1982. It helps to get the non-vagrant type homeless, men and women, off the streets of NYC, and into drop-in centers, where they are screened and tested (all tubercular persons are sent to therapy), medically cared for, given meals, sent to rehabilitation training and transported at night to shelters, in churches, synagogues and armories. This is paid for by private donations as well as city, state and federal funds.
The Partnership takes care of 1200 men and women, utilizing 10 drop-in centers and it calls on 105 shelter facilities, in all 5 boroughs. Seven of the drop-in centers are in Manhattan, two in Brooklyn and one in Staten Island. The guests in our shelters either have become homeless involuntarily - they were burned out or lost their jobs - or can no longer take care of themselves in low pay jobs, such as dishwashers, kitchen help, casual labor, because housing costs too much. Some have addiction, physical or mental problems. For the rehabilitable our efforts can and do lead to return to the mainstream, for the sick - to eventual permanent housing. The Partnership has located housing for more than 300 individuals and families a year, and provided furniture.
Getting back to the call for action, in this immediate area we have four volunteer-staffed overnight shelters, all non-sectarian, each accepting 8-15 homeless guests a night - Brotherhood Synagogue (Leah Glasser 674-5750), St. George's Church (John Hackney 646-541-5830), the Friends' Meeting House (Sylvia Friedman 673-8316) and the Madison Avenue Baptist Church (Melvin Bell 685-1377). Friends' and St. George's shelters are year-round. They all need volunteer workers - male and female - to stay overnight with their homeless guests, once a month or more frequently, or to be part of the welcoming crew. The work is simple, non-hazardous and very gratifying.
I shall describe the procedure at Brotherhood.
The guests sign up for a shelter at the drop-in center, and are transported by a city school bus, which delivers them, with a checklist, to the church or synagogue, between 8 and 9 PM. The volunteers, a coordinator and a sexton will have set up cots (fresh linen every night), sandwiches and coffee, and will welcome the guests, who are usually tired, want to wash themselves, have a bite and go to bed after the meal, before the 11 PM lights-out. One or two volunteers - plus the sexton - sleep in the shelter overnight, separate from the guests. The volunteers are there to provide assistance in cases of need. At the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter I recall no more than four instances over 25 years that the volunteers had to obtain help for a guest with a problem during the night, none threatening. Between 6 and 6:30 AM the volunteers will make toast and serve, with tea or coffee. By 7 AM the volunteers will have gone home or to work, after the guests have been picked up by the city and returned to the drop-in center.
Most overnight volunteers, working people, come to work at the shelter at 8 PM in their sweat clothes or dungarees and carry a dress or suit for use next day, if they are going to work directly. They have a full night's sleep, and no one has ever complained of having been ruined for the next day's activities. On the contrary, this has been a heartening experience for the volunteers, an opportunity to do good, hands on. It is not like giving $50 to a charity, good but indirect. Talking with and cheering up people who have less than we gives us an opportunity to assess our place in the sun.
Volunteers come back time and again because doing good feels good. We are not just chessboard figures, we do things, we make good things happen. Call the shelter providers, try volunteering for one night. You will find out what life is like, out there, hear stories that make the listener appreciate one's own life.
For some 25 years Wally Dobelis has been an elected member in the Partnership for the Homeless, and until the past few winters he has been the coordinator of volunteers for the Brotherhood Synagogue shelter. He and the T&V family wish you Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Joyous Chanukah, a Glorious Kwanzaa and good health and happiness for the coming New Year.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Muslim women want to save the world
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Bismillah hir Rahman ir Rahim -in the name of the Infinitely Compassionate and Most Merciful – is a citation of a prayer in the Qur’an that is not often heard in a synagogue, except that it was used by the Prophet Solomon, son of the Prophet David and builder of the first Temple in Jerusalem (known by Jews and Christians from the Bible as King Solomon, ruler of the United Kingdom of Israel, 970-930 BC) to address the Queen of Sheba. So says the Qu’ran (my research).
It was last heard in a temple, the Brotherhood Synagogue, on November 30, 2007, as spoken by Asma Jamil Sadiq, M. D., F.A.A.P., the Pakistan-born Director of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Beth Israel Medical Center, in an introduction to a lecture about the role of women in Islam. She sees Islam, as most Muslims do, as a merciful faith based on five pillars: the testimony of faith called shabada (“there is no God but God and Muhammad is his messenger”), daily prayers (5), charity, fasting and pilgrimage.
Muslims believe in the Oneness of God, the God of Abraham (named more times in the Qu’ran than Muhammad), of Moses (“the friend of God”), of Ishmael, Isaac, Jesus (“the spirit of God”) and the God of Muhammad (“the messenger of God”).. This according to Hadith, the words of Muhammad in a discourse between him and Archangel Gabriel. Questioned on the essentials of faith, Muhammad listed five items of belief: faith in the oneness of God, faith in all the prophets, the angels, the scriptures, and a hereafter.
The prophet Muhammad is seen as a reformer by Muslims and non-Muslim historians. He protected and raised the status of women, the right to own property, to get education, to work, to marry, to divorce, banning the infanticide of the girl child. The issue of the four wives is mentioned in the Qu’ran more as a restriction, and in a certain historic time, to protect the rights of orphans and widows. The command was to treat them all equally, and if this is hard to abide by, to marry only one. Muhammad’s first wife and employer (he was a caravan leader), Bibi Khaditija, was 15 years older, and proposed to him. Married 25 years, they were monogamous and had six children, of which four daughters survived. Upon her death, he married several wives, and his last wife, Bibi Ayesha, was the codifier and interpreter of the Hadith, and the guide in the teaching of the Sunna.
Islam spread to all ancient cultures of the East, Persia, Byzantine, India, South East Asia, and Islamic tales are full of women as Queens, Saints, Sufi Shiekas, Guides, Scholars (Muftis!!) and jurists (Judges). The wearing of Burqua/ Hijab is a part of a local tribal tradition. Women reign in Pakistan and Bangla Desh, and ride scooters and are nearly 50% of the work force in Malaysia and Indonesia. Listening to Asma projects one into the world that we would love to be in. She wants Muslim faith and the Qur’an to be read holistically, not in phrases and passages. I’m sure she is thinking of the latter chapters, when Muhammad, after many years of placid revelations, actively went to fight for his faith and converted the polytheistic Meccans, meanwhile also turning against the Christians and Jews, who resisted his conversion.
Today, though, the Muslim women are the progressive force against what Asma calls the hijacking of her faith. This is the attitude of by far the majority of Muslims, although a strong expression against the Islamic radicals is dangerous. They kill collaborators in Israel and Iraq, and the American and British moderates have been fearful to raise their voices. But the moderates are rallying, particularly women, and ASMA (2001, American Society for Advancement of Muslims) has strong advocates for education and rights of women. Dr. Masouda Jalal, physician and 6th strongest candidate among 17 men in the 2002 jirga against Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan (she refused a vice presidency) is an example; Dr. Nafis Sadiq, advisor to the Secretary general of the UN, and Baroness Uddin, first Muslim woman member of the British House of Lords (since 1998) are examples of the women who labor to move Muslim women through education back to their true religion. Since 2006 there is WISE, Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality, an even more pin-pointed organization. As to whether the prevailing opinions of moderate Muslims can redirect the schisms, one can only point to Christianity that has split in 200 directions since the first Pope – but in the last 50 years they have learned to work on common goals. It will take a long time for Muslims, the changeover must be from within, the alternative of a war is too destructive to contemplate .
Merry Christmas Season, Happy Chanukah and a glorious Kwanzaa, for everybody, from the staff of T&V!
Bismillah hir Rahman ir Rahim -in the name of the Infinitely Compassionate and Most Merciful – is a citation of a prayer in the Qur’an that is not often heard in a synagogue, except that it was used by the Prophet Solomon, son of the Prophet David and builder of the first Temple in Jerusalem (known by Jews and Christians from the Bible as King Solomon, ruler of the United Kingdom of Israel, 970-930 BC) to address the Queen of Sheba. So says the Qu’ran (my research).
It was last heard in a temple, the Brotherhood Synagogue, on November 30, 2007, as spoken by Asma Jamil Sadiq, M. D., F.A.A.P., the Pakistan-born Director of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Beth Israel Medical Center, in an introduction to a lecture about the role of women in Islam. She sees Islam, as most Muslims do, as a merciful faith based on five pillars: the testimony of faith called shabada (“there is no God but God and Muhammad is his messenger”), daily prayers (5), charity, fasting and pilgrimage.
Muslims believe in the Oneness of God, the God of Abraham (named more times in the Qu’ran than Muhammad), of Moses (“the friend of God”), of Ishmael, Isaac, Jesus (“the spirit of God”) and the God of Muhammad (“the messenger of God”).. This according to Hadith, the words of Muhammad in a discourse between him and Archangel Gabriel. Questioned on the essentials of faith, Muhammad listed five items of belief: faith in the oneness of God, faith in all the prophets, the angels, the scriptures, and a hereafter.
The prophet Muhammad is seen as a reformer by Muslims and non-Muslim historians. He protected and raised the status of women, the right to own property, to get education, to work, to marry, to divorce, banning the infanticide of the girl child. The issue of the four wives is mentioned in the Qu’ran more as a restriction, and in a certain historic time, to protect the rights of orphans and widows. The command was to treat them all equally, and if this is hard to abide by, to marry only one. Muhammad’s first wife and employer (he was a caravan leader), Bibi Khaditija, was 15 years older, and proposed to him. Married 25 years, they were monogamous and had six children, of which four daughters survived. Upon her death, he married several wives, and his last wife, Bibi Ayesha, was the codifier and interpreter of the Hadith, and the guide in the teaching of the Sunna.
Islam spread to all ancient cultures of the East, Persia, Byzantine, India, South East Asia, and Islamic tales are full of women as Queens, Saints, Sufi Shiekas, Guides, Scholars (Muftis!!) and jurists (Judges). The wearing of Burqua/ Hijab is a part of a local tribal tradition. Women reign in Pakistan and Bangla Desh, and ride scooters and are nearly 50% of the work force in Malaysia and Indonesia. Listening to Asma projects one into the world that we would love to be in. She wants Muslim faith and the Qur’an to be read holistically, not in phrases and passages. I’m sure she is thinking of the latter chapters, when Muhammad, after many years of placid revelations, actively went to fight for his faith and converted the polytheistic Meccans, meanwhile also turning against the Christians and Jews, who resisted his conversion.
Today, though, the Muslim women are the progressive force against what Asma calls the hijacking of her faith. This is the attitude of by far the majority of Muslims, although a strong expression against the Islamic radicals is dangerous. They kill collaborators in Israel and Iraq, and the American and British moderates have been fearful to raise their voices. But the moderates are rallying, particularly women, and ASMA (2001, American Society for Advancement of Muslims) has strong advocates for education and rights of women. Dr. Masouda Jalal, physician and 6th strongest candidate among 17 men in the 2002 jirga against Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan (she refused a vice presidency) is an example; Dr. Nafis Sadiq, advisor to the Secretary general of the UN, and Baroness Uddin, first Muslim woman member of the British House of Lords (since 1998) are examples of the women who labor to move Muslim women through education back to their true religion. Since 2006 there is WISE, Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality, an even more pin-pointed organization. As to whether the prevailing opinions of moderate Muslims can redirect the schisms, one can only point to Christianity that has split in 200 directions since the first Pope – but in the last 50 years they have learned to work on common goals. It will take a long time for Muslims, the changeover must be from within, the alternative of a war is too destructive to contemplate .
Merry Christmas Season, Happy Chanukah and a glorious Kwanzaa, for everybody, from the staff of T&V!
Friday, December 07, 2007
What odds for Peace on Earth?
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
There are many glad tidings for the holiday that celebrates Peace in the World. To begin locally, our area has another record – we have the most dangerous site for pedestrians and bicyclists in the city – the intersection of 33rd Street and Park Avenue. You might ask how that piece of news qualifies as good, and I will tell you, forewarned is forearmed. Know when and where not to jaywalk, and where to drive defensively.
Segueing into the big world, the same thought applies to the Venezuelan election, where strongman President Hugo Chavez lost by 49 to 51% his bid for a lifetime presidency. Venezuelans know democracy. After wining independence from Spain in 1819, New Granada split into Venezuela, Ecuador and eventually Panama. Strongmen ruled until 1959, and their democratic successors did not flourish. Army officer Hugo Chavez tried a military revolt in 1992, but failed, and did not gain elected presidency until 1999. His Democratic Socialism has drawn followers, but not enough. Democratic Socialism, with nationalized industries and increased social care and support for other Latin American socialist revolutionaries is causing budgetary imbalances that worry the ordinary voter. Whether Chavez, who tearfully submits to the popular judgment, will really stop striving to rule the Latin world remains moot. But, forewarned, etc…
Contrast that to Putin, whose United Russia Party won a sweeping parliamentary victory, setting the stage for a parliamentary election of a president of Putin’s choice for four years, after which he will be reelected. As good as a dictatorship, nyet? Apparently the Russians, after 16 years of democratic ups and downs, are willing to go with the native son who produces oil prosperity for many. Meanwhile, news on Iran. The US National Intelligence Estimate declares that the Iranians stopped working on a nuclear device in the Fall of 2003. That’s good news, but the National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley warns that Iran’s ability to acquire a nuke remains a serious problem, and Secretary of Defense Gates warns that the Revolutionary Guard continues to stir up the Iraqi Shias. How do the other players take this news to the bank? As expected, President Ahmadinejad homes in on the idea that his country has been misjudged since 2003, when President Bush labeled it, along with North Korea and Iraq, as members of an “axis of evil.”
Parentheticaly, that was particularly painful to the Iranians, since the Persian Shias, opponents of the Sunni Talibans, had offered $500M to support the rehabilitation of Afghanistan (they spent over $2000 by mid-2006). Expectations are that the moderates in Iran will use this opportunity to resume the negotiations recommended in a “secret letter” of 2003 with offers of compromises, forwarded to the US by our Swiss go-betweens. It was rejected by Washington, as a probable forgery. Other reactions? From the UN, Washington insists that Germany, France, Russia and China still remain concerned about Iran’s nuclear potential. In the US Presidential contest, our NY candidates, the anti-Iran Clinton and Giuliani have dropped some stature (as have Bushite Republicans in general), while Barak, who wants to negotiate, has gained.
The big question is whether Iran is likely to negotiate in good faith. The Bush supporters claim that any concessions will be used by the Ayatollahs to work on uranium enrichment program and to build delivery vehicles, to enable resumption of nuclear weapon work on short notice. The positive thinkers maintain in Iran there is rising concern over the impact of the hardliner Ahmadinejad’s threats, the results of consequently incurred sanctions, and the risk of foreign military reaction. Add to it his neglect of the economy that has caused joblessness and boosted inflation. The concern is so wide-spread that Iranian moderates can and do protest and demand political reform without fear of retaliation. They note that the average Iranian is not angry towards Americans and wants peaceful settlement.
Why the anger toward the US government? Well, remember that the US engineered the revolution against the nationalist Prime Minister Muhammad Mosadegh in 1953 and put Reza Pahlevi back as Shah. The modernist Pahlevi was oppressive and offended the traditionalists, who revolted in 1989, under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, with students arresting and keeping captive 52 American embassy employees for 444 days, until after the 1981 installation of President Reagan. Meanwhile, taking advantage of the disruptions, Saddam Hussein had occupied some disputed Iranian oil territory, gassing Iranians and starting a war (supported by the US after 1983) that lasted until 1988, and cost up to a million Iranian lives. An opening for talks was offered by the Iranians late in the Clinton presidency, and in 2000 Secretary Albright made a public apology for the American roles in Iranian history, only to be greeted by the Ayatollahs with harsh accusations. Obviously, the Iranian internal strife goes on, but one should expect direct negotiations well before January 2009. Happy Holidays!
There are many glad tidings for the holiday that celebrates Peace in the World. To begin locally, our area has another record – we have the most dangerous site for pedestrians and bicyclists in the city – the intersection of 33rd Street and Park Avenue. You might ask how that piece of news qualifies as good, and I will tell you, forewarned is forearmed. Know when and where not to jaywalk, and where to drive defensively.
Segueing into the big world, the same thought applies to the Venezuelan election, where strongman President Hugo Chavez lost by 49 to 51% his bid for a lifetime presidency. Venezuelans know democracy. After wining independence from Spain in 1819, New Granada split into Venezuela, Ecuador and eventually Panama. Strongmen ruled until 1959, and their democratic successors did not flourish. Army officer Hugo Chavez tried a military revolt in 1992, but failed, and did not gain elected presidency until 1999. His Democratic Socialism has drawn followers, but not enough. Democratic Socialism, with nationalized industries and increased social care and support for other Latin American socialist revolutionaries is causing budgetary imbalances that worry the ordinary voter. Whether Chavez, who tearfully submits to the popular judgment, will really stop striving to rule the Latin world remains moot. But, forewarned, etc…
Contrast that to Putin, whose United Russia Party won a sweeping parliamentary victory, setting the stage for a parliamentary election of a president of Putin’s choice for four years, after which he will be reelected. As good as a dictatorship, nyet? Apparently the Russians, after 16 years of democratic ups and downs, are willing to go with the native son who produces oil prosperity for many. Meanwhile, news on Iran. The US National Intelligence Estimate declares that the Iranians stopped working on a nuclear device in the Fall of 2003. That’s good news, but the National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley warns that Iran’s ability to acquire a nuke remains a serious problem, and Secretary of Defense Gates warns that the Revolutionary Guard continues to stir up the Iraqi Shias. How do the other players take this news to the bank? As expected, President Ahmadinejad homes in on the idea that his country has been misjudged since 2003, when President Bush labeled it, along with North Korea and Iraq, as members of an “axis of evil.”
Parentheticaly, that was particularly painful to the Iranians, since the Persian Shias, opponents of the Sunni Talibans, had offered $500M to support the rehabilitation of Afghanistan (they spent over $2000 by mid-2006). Expectations are that the moderates in Iran will use this opportunity to resume the negotiations recommended in a “secret letter” of 2003 with offers of compromises, forwarded to the US by our Swiss go-betweens. It was rejected by Washington, as a probable forgery. Other reactions? From the UN, Washington insists that Germany, France, Russia and China still remain concerned about Iran’s nuclear potential. In the US Presidential contest, our NY candidates, the anti-Iran Clinton and Giuliani have dropped some stature (as have Bushite Republicans in general), while Barak, who wants to negotiate, has gained.
The big question is whether Iran is likely to negotiate in good faith. The Bush supporters claim that any concessions will be used by the Ayatollahs to work on uranium enrichment program and to build delivery vehicles, to enable resumption of nuclear weapon work on short notice. The positive thinkers maintain in Iran there is rising concern over the impact of the hardliner Ahmadinejad’s threats, the results of consequently incurred sanctions, and the risk of foreign military reaction. Add to it his neglect of the economy that has caused joblessness and boosted inflation. The concern is so wide-spread that Iranian moderates can and do protest and demand political reform without fear of retaliation. They note that the average Iranian is not angry towards Americans and wants peaceful settlement.
Why the anger toward the US government? Well, remember that the US engineered the revolution against the nationalist Prime Minister Muhammad Mosadegh in 1953 and put Reza Pahlevi back as Shah. The modernist Pahlevi was oppressive and offended the traditionalists, who revolted in 1989, under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, with students arresting and keeping captive 52 American embassy employees for 444 days, until after the 1981 installation of President Reagan. Meanwhile, taking advantage of the disruptions, Saddam Hussein had occupied some disputed Iranian oil territory, gassing Iranians and starting a war (supported by the US after 1983) that lasted until 1988, and cost up to a million Iranian lives. An opening for talks was offered by the Iranians late in the Clinton presidency, and in 2000 Secretary Albright made a public apology for the American roles in Iranian history, only to be greeted by the Ayatollahs with harsh accusations. Obviously, the Iranian internal strife goes on, but one should expect direct negotiations well before January 2009. Happy Holidays!
