Scalia Links

Did Scalia Really Have an Outsized Influence on the Court?
February 15, 2016 

Scott Lemieux

In response to [Corey Robin's] bolded question [Should his colleagues ever force him to abide by the same rules of liberal civility, or treat him as he treats them, who knows what might happen?], I would just say “nothing.” Whatever the merits of this Stanley Fish-like “liberals refuse to stand up for themselves” argument in other contexts, in the context of the Supreme Court liberals stood up to Scalia perfectly well, and approaching his histrionics with give-’em-enough-rope dispassion seems entirely appropriate. I honestly have no idea how Scalia’s talk-radio tone is really materially relevant to anything. As I said at the time, my fundamental disagreement is that I think Scalia’s “dominance” of the Court has been vastly overrated. When has he ever persuaded anyone who didn’t already agree with him? I don’t know whether Scalia’s insulting language caused it, but O’Connor moved further from Scalia, not closer, over time. From Casey to King, his Republican colleagues have never let the possibility of one of his BLISTERING dissents stop them from doing something they wanted to do. I would also say that, as a matter of rhetorical strategy, to the very limited extent that it matters the calm, rational tone represented by Roberts’s opinion for the Court in King or Ginsburg’s dissent in Shelby County is more effective than Scalia’s increasingly pathetic ranting. 

I’d say something similar about the alleged influence of Scalia’s originalism. First of all, grand theory does pretty much no work in deciding cases. And second, I don’t really see that Scalia has made it all that much more important. George W. Bush’s two appointees have been notably uninterested in grand theory (and, for the reasons stated above, Alito is a scarier operative than Scalia ever was.) It’s true that both sides in Hellermade arguments that largely rested on history, but this is nothing new. Supreme Court opinions have been citing historical factoids when they can help and ignoring them when they don’t for time out of mind. The fact that Heller broke down on a party-line vote anyway demonstrates that which grand theory (if any) Supreme Court opinions use to justify their conclusions just isn’t very important. And to the limited extent that it matters, Thomas, not Scalia, is the justice who cares most about originalism and has done the most to advance it.

Scalia: The Donald Trump of the Supreme Court

Corey Robin

In the coming days, the retrospectives on Scalia’s career and predictions of what is to come will be many; they’ve  already  begun. 

But for me Scalia is a figure of neither the past nor the future but of the present.If you want to understand how Donald Trump became the soul of the Republican Party, you need look no further than Antonin Scalia. Scalia is the id, ego, and super-ego of modern conservatism. He was as outrageous in his rhetoric (his unvarying response to any challenge to Bush v. Gore was “Get over it!”) as he was cruel in his comportment. Sandra Day O’Connor was the frequent object of his taunts. Hardly an opinion of hers would go by without Scalia calling it—and by implication, her—stupid. “Oh, that’s just Nino,” she’d sigh helplessly in response. Even Clarence Thomas was forced to note drily, “He loves killing unarmed animals.” He was a pig and a thug. (Sunstein, by contrast, believes “he was a great man, and a deeply good one.”) And he was obsessed, as his dissent in PGA Tour v. Casey Martin shows, with winners and losers. They were the alpha and omega of his social vision. He was the Donald Trump of the Supreme Court. 

And the second most misunderstood judge of the Supreme Court, as I argued in a lengthy profile of Scalia, which originally appeared in the London Review of Books and which I revised extensively for one of my chapters in The Reactionary Mind. I reproduced that chapter in four parts on my blog. [More at the link]

Gawker: Antonin Scalia (1936-2016)

Antonin Scalia died a failure. He failed at the thing he liked to claim he was doing, and he failed at the thing he genuinely was trying to do. Both failures are captured by the furious and immediate response to his death, as Republican members of the Senate hastily announced that they will preemptively withhold their advice or consent from whoever the President of the United States might nominate to fill the vacancy. 

This is a strange way to honor a man who insisted that his loyalty was always to the Constitution. He was, he said, a humble lawyer, obedient to the texts he was given. He followed the law where it led. To do otherwise was a “threat to American democracy,” as he wrote in his dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges, denouncing his colleagues on the Supreme Court for having denied the people of the states the right to pass laws against gay marriage. 

[Snip] 

The moment he died, his Republican colleagues in the legislative branch stopped pretending he was anything else. All that was left of his philosophy was: How do we get a win out of this? 

That was Scalia’s first failure. His second failure was visible in the Senators’ desperation: Having abandoned judicial persuasion for naked power politics, he never got the power he wanted. He grew more pugnacious and less influential. In the end he was left to fume on the sidelines, writing yet another raging dissent, as Chief Justice John Roberts, a loyal but pragmatic member of the judicial conservative movement, voted to uphold the Affordable Care Act. 

The book is closed on the Scalia wing of the court. It peaked at four solid votes, with the fickle Anthony Kennedy flitting in and out of the majority. Now the Republicans are threatening a constitutional crisis in the hopes of even getting it back to four. There is Antonin Scalia’s legacy. He aimed low, and he missed. [My bold]

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Finally, this revealing New Yorker interview from 2013 tells me all I care to know about this man...

In Conversation: Antonin Scalia
On the eve of a new Supreme Court session, the firebrand justice discusses gay rights and media echo chambers, Seinfeld and the Devil, and how much he cares about his intellectual legacy (“I don’t”).
By Jennifer Senior
Published Oct 6, 2013

What’s your media diet? Where do you get your news?Well, we get newspapers in the morning. 

“We” meaning the justices?No! Maureen and I 

Oh, you and your wife …I usually skim them. We just get The Wall Street Journal and the WashingtonTimes. We used to get the Washington Post, but it just … went too far for me. I couldn’t handle it anymore. 

What tipped you over the edge?It was the treatment of almost any conservative issue. It was slanted and often nasty. And, you know, why should I get upset every morning? I don’t think I’m the only one. I think they lost subscriptions partly because they became so shrilly,shrilly liberal. 

So no New York Times, either?No New York Times, no Post. 

And do you look at anything online?I get most of my news, probably, driving back and forth to work, on the radio. 

Not NPR?
Sometimes NPR. But not usually. 

Talk guys?Talk guys, usually. 

Do you have a favorite?You know who my favorite is? My good friend Bill Bennett. He’s off the air by the time I’m driving in, but I listen to him sometimes when I’m shaving. He has a wonderful talk show. It’s very thoughtful. He has good callers. I think they keep off stupid people. 

That’s what producers get paid for.That’s what’s wrong with those talk shows. 

Let’s talk about the state of our politics for a moment. I know you haven’t been to a State of the Union address for a while, and I wanted to know why.
It’s childish.

"Life Dances Inside a Circle Made By Living, They Say"

This wonderful story is copied from my old blog. The original source appears to have disappeared from the Web so I'm glad I copied it.   The original is still out there, but it takes a looooong time for the Interwebs to find it....

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I love real stories about real people, especially when they reveal a sweetness of spirit in unexpected places. 

Image lifted from the source. 

That ["Life Dances Inside a Circle Made By Living"] is a repetitive line in many of the old Apache prayers. For most of my life I figured it was one of those nice sounding, but essentially meaningless things that they put into prayers. Like the poetic devices Homer would use. It was never simply "Hector" or "Achilles," it would be "Hector of the shining helm" and "Achilles, the swift footed mankiller." The device allowed the person reciting the poem to conjure up the next line or scene. It buys time for somebody in performance.

My daughter has begun her internship. Despite the grueling march of 72 hour shifts, the endless parade of mind numbing sameness that gets punctuated by something wild and critical, she is loving it.

Her only complaint is that the King of the Docs took a look at her name tag with the Apache name Ga'age Biitsahkesh, tried a couple of times to pronounce it and has dubbed her "Gidget." To her dismay the name has stuck. To the other interns, the residents, and the attendings, she is now "Dr. Gidget." I suggested that she start dubbing her collegues "Moondoggy" and "Ratfink" which provided a tired chuckle but little consolation.

To tell you the rest of the story, I have to tell you this one.

The winter of 1958 on the White Mountain Apache Reservation was hard. Unusually heavy snowfalls, very low temperatures and a sudden freeze all contributed to the dangerous misery there. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was not responding to the pleading of the people for help and aid. They ignored the missionaries who were trying to keep our tiny school going. It was a Mormon year that time. One of the "teachers" was from a Mormon Ward in Mesa.

Their Bishop, his family has asked that I not name him, because they are old school Mormons who believe that doing good, and caring for your fellow human beings is something that should be expected, it is not something to be celebrated, so I'll just call him The Bishop, hearing of the plight on the rez, opened his Bishop's stores. This is something that the Mormons take very seriously. They encourage their members to keep a year's supply of canned and preserved foods, and each Ward's Bishop has control of an even larger storage.

The Bishop opened his stores. He directed the members of his Ward to gather at the storehouse, bringing their trucks and vans. They loaded them down with food, blankets, and warm clothes. They drove 350 miles from Mesa to the rez. They began to distribute those badly needed items. They did this without preaching or doing anything but try to find out where what the greatest needs were. When they had finished, they drove back to their home, loaded up again, and drove back.

Countless times during that bitter winter, they would load up their vehicles and drive the long bad roads to us. The Bishop contacted other Bishops and the Church President and even the Prophet in Salt Lake City. The efforts of those people saved our people. Washington would have let us starve. The government was still crying poor from fighting WWII and Korea. All of our cries for help fell on ears that were turned deaf by lack of funds and the ability to do anything.

The Mormons, but especially the Bishop refused to let that happen. I have my own differences with the LDS church. Even as offshoot sects of Christianity go, they have some really bizarre ass tenets of faith. I dislike the theocracy they have forged in Utah, I object to their meddling in politics.

With all of that though, I must say, the majority of Mormons that I have met were plain old good human beings. They are capable of great compassion, and limitless generosity. They spent an entire winter driving up to our rez to share their bounty and their food with us for the simple reason that we were hungry and they knew it.

Another program that the Mormons had was the "Indian Placement" program. They would take promising kids off of the reservations and house them with Mormon families so that we could attend high schools that had little luxuries, like teachers, and books.

The Bishop, when my cousin, the brilliant attorney, and I were at high school age, made it possible for us to enroll in placement. He went so far as to pull strings which made it possible for us to attend the same high school and be housed in the same neighborhood. He was kind enough to look the other way when my cousin and I would openly defy one of their most sacred rules by speaking to each other in Apache. We lied a little bit, we told him that he had been given an Apache name by the people and that the name was "Inago'it Ditah Tazhii." We told him that the name meant "Give Away Food Eagle," it really meant "Generous Turkey." White people like Indian names that say Eagle. It makes them feel all special and stuff.

No matter what measure of disapproval or even anger I might work up for the Mormons, I know that I owe them, and especially The Bishop, a debt that can never be truly reconciled. I owe not only the measure of the help they gave me and my people. I owe them my life. I owe them for allowing me to get a decent education, which they did after they made sure I didn't starve to death.

I will oppose them when they meddle in politics, but I will never do so without curbing any anger. I owe them that.

So, here we are with Dr. Gidget in one of her 72 hour runs. She goes in to see a patient, it's a 70ish year old man. She recognises the name, and the city he's from. She asks him straight out if he is any relation to The Bishop. The old man tells her "That was my father."

Dr. Gidget says "Your father saved my father's life."

They spent a long time talking about old times. The old man, as a boy, had made that long trip up to the rez many times. He says that he remembers our family from those trips and from when my cousin and I were living with members of his Ward while we went to high school.

My cousin and I sent flowers to his room the very next day. Our card wished him a full and a speedy recovery.

The life that I have lived has been danced truly within a circle made by living that life. Most of the cycles and spirals don't have such a tidy arc. There's a lot more jazz than Bach in my soundtrack.

Even with the reputation that the Apache have as fierce warriors from a ferocious warrior's culture, something that most folks don't know is that to go to war, with neighboring tribes, with other Apache, with anybody, the warrior's first had to get the approval of a council of grandmothers. The grandmothers try, in their council, to consider the impact of present decisions down through five to seven generations.

The rough, tough, badass of the world Apache warriors, wouldn't go to war unless their grammies said it was OK. It worked well for us.

I'm not sure what the meanings of all this are, maybe you can offer some meanings in the comments. I know that I am trying to take more care in the things I do today.

Yexaaiidela, go deyah, tc'iindii.
(having been prepared, he walks, they say)

Obama and the Arrests of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladić

This appeared at my old blog seven and a half years ago. In light of events now current it continues to be prescient. To put it into context, this was during the presidential campaign of 2008. After a long contest, Hillary Clinton conceded the nomination to Barack Obama June 7, a few weeks prior to this post.

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[This post is quite long but it could be the best work I did in 2008. The reader is asked to be patient as the parts of a surreal sequence of events is described. Skip the afterthoughts if you wish (I tend to get off track sometimes) Until then the content is convoluted but coherent.]

Radovan Karadzic, arrested yesterday as a war criminal, is one of many such criminals hiding in plain sight around the world. (BBC, H/T View from Iran)

Was his arrest brought about by a tipping point in public opinion in that part of Europe? And if so, is that shift in public opinion a spinoff of anything done or said by Barack Obama?

It is clear that the impact of his image and the mere promise of an Obama presidency in America, is bringing about about changes in public opinion abroad. Look what appeared last week in Sofia Echo, a Bulgarian weekly: [Link goes to the paper but the article is no longer on line.]

US Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama has congratulated Serbian president Boris Tadic and prime minister Mirko Cvetkovic on the formation of the country’s new government.

In a statement on his website, Obama said that he wished the new government in Belgrade “success in tackling the problems that have for too long kept Serbia from achieving its great potential”. 

Late on July 7, Serbia got a cabinet after two months of hard coalition bargaining. A total of 127 members of parliament of the 250-seat Serbian assembly approved the government composition that Cvetkovic had proposed earlier in the day along with the cabinet programme, after which the new ministers were sworn in. 

In the statement, issued on July 8, Obama said that “Serbs have moved through several painful chapters in their long and proud history”.
Citizens of Serbia are eager for progress, democratic development and economic growth, Obama said. 

“In May, voters expressed their desire for a European future, a vision that has been confirmed by the Serbian political leadership through the formation of a government that shares these aspirations. The Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union provides the foundation upon which the new government can build. A Serbian government that devotes its energies to this hopeful vision can count on my full support.” 

Obama said that “real progress of course requires positive and responsible relationships with all of Serbia's neighbours, including Kosovo. Relegating inflammatory rhetoric and provocative actions to the past is essential to achieving this. An Obama administration together with our European partners, will work to ensure that all regional actors adhere to such standards”. 

“All Serbs in the region, no matter where they reside, can see their lives improve by active participation in legitimate political institutions at all levels. 

“Rest assured that, as President, I will work with all international and local actors in Kosovo to realise the full array of protections for Serbs there, including enhanced competencies for Serb municipalities, unfettered and undisturbed access and operation of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and the right of return and restoration of property for all refugees and displaced persons.” 

Obama said that building a better future also required honouring obligations from the past. 

“The recent arrest of Stojan Zupljanin was an important step in this direction. I call on the new government in Belgrade to exert maximum efforts to apprehend the remaining fugitives wanted for war crimes, including General Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.” 

Obama said that Serbia and the United States traditionally had enjoyed warm relations as partners and allies. 

“It is time for our countries to return to the shared values and mutual respect that served us so well in the past. My administration will look for a vibrant partner in Belgrade with which we can together cultivate our relationship,” Obama said.

This piece is dated July 13.

Obama is quoted as calling specifically for the arrests of Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.
Karadzic was taken into custody yesterday, a week later. And this morning NPR suggests that Mladic may not be far behind.  

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[Edit: It turns out Ratko Mladić remained at large nearly nine more years. But now, January, 2016, he is finally in custody. I may be the only person to notice, but I count this as another notch on Barack Obama's belt. As this post documents, he called for it years ago.]

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(Since the end of open hostilities following the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, these men have moved about unmolested because apprehending them creates problems for the authorities. Security is already tight because their supporters are not famous for patience or tolerance.)

This story is low-hanging fruit for whatever ambitious young journalist wants to pick it. As I've said before, I'm just an old guy blogging, and if I can see it, anyone can.

Here's some garnish for the salad:

[The following links now go to OFA which apparently continues to maintain contact with the writers. Fortunately I copied the following contents for later reference.]
From the Obama website, a harvest of three thousand plus links that mention "serbia:"

Milojko's Blog: March 2
Serbian students addressing Barrack Obama in order to support his new policy towards dialogue and tolerance has imposed a nonviolent action in Belgrade, Less than ten days since US embassy in Belgrade is stormed, another face of Serbia has addressed to US public - supporting Barrack Obama. Kosovo instability in Serbia is widely recognized as Clinton Dynasty failure, by most of the Serbs, bringing unrest, riots and instability in Balkans, the region which has developed towards democracy in last 8 years, after a series of Civil wars, and NATO military intervention, led by Bill` Clinton`s administration in 1999. Spatial envoy for Balkans at troubled 90ties was Richard Holbrook, widely recognized as "arrogant cowboy", Serbian immigrants in US, settled largely in Chicago IL are very supportive of Barrack Obama, including few superdelegates. Only seven days after mobsters has burned US embassy in Belgrade, with 1 protester dead, young Serbs has put the Obama next to Kennedy, widely recognized as friend of this part of the world. Young Serbian Student Leader Simon Simonovic has stated to media covering this public action that "after announcing new political course, including new policy Towards Cuba, Barack Obama gives hope to Serbs that US will treat us with more common sense and less arrogance" . We think that Obama should be aware of this support, and thinking about the re-building friendship with Serbia!

Post from More Peace Corps - Less Defence Dept:
Serbia arrested one of the most notorious war criminal yesterday. He was indicted twice by the U.N. tribunal on genocide charges stemming from his alleged crimes against Bosnia's Muslims and Croats. Former high ranking US State Department official, Richard Holbrooke estimated that Radavan Karadzic is responsible for the deaths of 300,000 people in former Yugoslavia. Without him there probably would not have been a war or genocide in Bosnia. He is in custody now, leaving only about 5 indictees, including Ratko Mladic remaining at large.  

[This EOL link, like the one above, no longer has the content on line.] http://news.aol.com/article/top-war-crimes-suspect-captured/92904?icid=100214839x1206002457x1200314734

The EU presidency (currently held by France) was quick to comment that this arrest is "an important step on the path to the rapprochement of Serbia with the European Union".
Reconstruction in all of former Yugoslavian countries that were most affected by the 1992-95 war (Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia) has been slowly poking along. This arrest may prove quite helpful to Serbia to push along reconstruction efforts. Bosnia and Serbia are definitely countries that could use Peace Corps Volunteers that have a business profile and background. There are tons of jobs for American entrepreneurs.

At last !By Nesic Mladjan - Jan 7th, 2008 

This comment from the writer came eight months later. 

We belive in you Obama. Because Serbia and America have a great democratic future, if you winn. We pray for you, and we need support of your country. We still believe that our country is able to survive. Please, help us Obama. America is our new hope !!!Everybody are talking about Europe, but i would say there is a new era, a new hope for living in peace. Just a little more understanding needed Obama.Just a little more help to democratic Serbia.Democratic Serbia need your support.We are giving you all our heart to winn. God bless America, God bless Barack Obama and his family. 

From a group called Serbs4Obama This group is to facilitate interaction among anybody interested, all around the World, to support Senator Barack Obama to become next President of USA. It's formed with only ONE goal, to make this country and this World a better place with more hope and compassion. It is time to think about health, education, environment, integrity, help for ones in need - not only about $. Thank you everyone for your time and dedication and donation, let's help make this happen.

I haven't taken the time to sift through this amazing collection of cyber-flotsam. But the little I have seen gives me a flashback to a day in New York, October, 2002, just a few weeks after the World Trade Center tragedy.

As I stood at a chain-link fence shrouding what they called "Ground Zero" I saw endless notes and messages fastened to that fence from people all over the country. There were prayers, poems, messages of condolence and hope, some in pen, some typed, many from children in crayon... but I couldn't allow myself to read them. One or two at a time was all I could manage because my eyes filled with tears. Even now the memory of that moment returns and that same emotion swells in me. Just knowing that so many other people shared the grief was a powerful realization.

Nesic Mladjan's link above, composed back in January, with its awkward English and the innocent, bright-eyed hope that only shines from the faces of young people, gives me the same feeling I had six years ago in New York. In the aftermath of the unfinished business of the military conflict that tore his part of the world (like the misbegotten adventure in Iraq) which cost the lives of so many, both military and civilian, the image and message of Barack Obama does, in fact, bring hope -- audacious hope, if you will -- that the future can bring about change (there's that word again) for the better.

And that's why I think Barack Obama had something to do with the arrest of Radovan Karadjic. How can anyone question this man's acuity in foreign policy? What kind of "experience" trumps this?

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Afterthoughts...

One reason this item jumped out at me was that I followed closely the collapse of Yugoslavia at the time it was happening. Targets on the backs of people in Sarajevo, complicated maps of the ethnic and religious mixture of the region, history and all that... I also discovered Misha Glenny, a BBC journalist who seemed to be the best informed source of information and author of the most current book available at the time.

This BBC report puts yesterday's arrest into perspective.
[This link is still active, with a video.]

The next year refugees began coming to America and I hired two to work in the cafeteria. They were surprised to find that I knew something of the events that led them there (most Americans did not... nor do they to this day) and they were model employees until they were hired away to other jobs with higher pay.

(This is normal for many people working at or near the minimum wage. I never imagined that a newly hired employee serving on a cafeteria line, cleaning tables or washing dishes was making a career move. What most companies derisively refer to as "turnover" is nothing more than the normal workings of the lower edge of the economy. It is also why I have no problems with increases in the federal minimum wage. But I digress...)

Having filled out any number of I-9's validating "green cards," I was surprised when I saw different identification. It was the only time I saw something like a brown shipping tag with a stamp (no photo) from the State Department, not the INS, identifying them as refugees. They also had new Social Security cards and permission to work. They were sponsored by a local church group which is why they were in the Atlanta area instead of one of the places where others might be found who spoke the language.

Which reminds me of religion. One of these ladies was Christian and her friend was Muslim. They didn't know each other before they arrived but their common origin was more important than their religious identity.

So-called religious conflicts seem to be an opportunity for tyrants and extremists to bring out the worst in others. What happened in Serbia and the rest of the Balkans is not very different from what is happening in the Middle East or Africa. The names change, the races change, the confessional identities change, but the theme remains the same.

There, but for the grace of God, go we.

MLK Day -- Personal Remembrances

For the King holiday here are some personal memories of Martin Luther King, Jr. not likely found elsewhere.  I started collecting them in 2007 and have added mention of times I was on duty at the Cumberland Mall Piccadilly Cafeteria (now closed) when we served members of the King family.

A few years ago NPR's All Things Considered (2007) Michael Rose, director of the Atlanta History Center spoke with Michele Norris about having seen Dr. King in Miami in 1965...

I was with my friend, Gary Herwald. We and a bunch of high school buddies had come down from the North for out last Spring Vacation (it wasn't yet called "spring break") before going off to college. 

Gary and I were standing in a little shopping concourse at the hotel just wandering around. There was a man looking in a window of one of the stores. Among all the people in casual resort wear, he was the only person wearing a business suit. He also was the only African-American.

Gary said to me, "Is that who I think it is?"
I said I thought so. And so we walked over. 

Gary was the one who worked up the nerve to ask him, "Excuse me, sir. Are you Martin Luther King?" 

And Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that yes, he was. He wasn't that hard to spot. He was coming off a pretty good year. He had started 1964 on the cover of Time Magazine as Man of the Year. He had ended 1964 by being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On this day in the Florida hotel he was thirty-six years old.

He was alone. Gary and I were the only people to approach him. Gary said, "I just want to tell you how much we admire you." 

Dr. King, smiling and making a small joke, said "You boys aren't from Florida, are you?" 

We talked for a few minutes. Nothing earth-shattering. And there was no way to know, of course, that three Springs later he would be dead....

This little eight-minute clip is worth that much of your time. It illustrates how deeply just a momentary encounter can effect someone for a lifetime. There must have been some connection between this encounter and Michael Rose's job at the Atlanta History Center.

The connection between Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi needs no explanation, so here is another story from Mort Reichek, retired journalist blogging at The Octogenarian. This snip is from his story but there are more details at the link.

I recall walking on Chowringhee one day in the fall of 1944 when the atmosphere was anything but tranquil. As I passed the Maidan I encountered an enormous mob of people crowded into the park. The noise was overwhelming. The following day, the local newspapers estimated that at least a million people had been crammed into the Maidan. 

I cautiously approached the crowd to find out what has happening. I quickly learned that a thousand or more yards in front of us, the legendary Mahatma Gandhi was standing on a raised platform and making a speech. Gandhi, the major political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, had been released from a British prison several months earlier. He rarely visited Calcutta, and his scheduled appearance that day had produced the enormous audience that I saw. 

Scores of loudspeakers had been installed across theMaidan's grounds so that the crowds far removed from Gandhi's platform might hear him speak. I assume that he was speaking in Bengali or Hindi. But I doubt whether the locals packed in at the edge of the park near me could possibly hear Gandhi's words. Nor was it even possible for any of them to clearly see "the Mahatma" so far off in the distance. (Gandhi's first name was actually Mohandas, but he was popularly called Mahatma--meaning "great soul"--a fitting title for a man who was worshipped by India's masses as a living saint.) 

A man standing next to me offered me the use of his binoculars so that I might catch a glimpse of Gandhi, who was standing on the platform so far away. At 5'10" I was taller than most of the people crowded around me. I was therefore able to see this great man in person, although the view was not exactly well focused. 

Gandhi was famed for preaching the doctrine of non-violence as the means of gaining India's freedom from British rule. (I am writing this as the nation celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which seems so appropriate since Gandhi was the inspiration for Dr. King's own political philosophy.) 

Indeed, the next day's newspapers reported that Gandhi's speech called for the Indian people to avoid violent action in their struggle for independence. Ironically, his message meant nothing to the young Hindu fanatic who assassinated the 79-year old Gandhi four years later because of the Mahatma's conciliatory attitude towards India's Muslim minority.

As in the case of Michael Rose's encounter with Dr. King, this other equally famous man was to be assassinated four years later. These two stories, though from very different origins, seem to have striking similarities. And in the Cotton Patch tradition I offer them to my readers as Living Epistles about Saints that walk among us. Mort passed away four years later but his stories were always part of my reading diet until then. Speaking of saints, Mort had a story entitled MEMOIR: How my Dad downed a Nazi dirigible and became a "saint." It's not about MLK but it's a great read for those who have time to learn about the Jewish tradition of lamed-vavnik.

The Octogenarian mentioned in passing Mother Teresa and her work in Calcutta. When I worked with a senior community I had the privilege of knowing a delightful woman who had served in India many years before as a medical missionary. She told me that when Mother Teresa began her ministry she had to learn, among other things, how to do hypodermic injections and it was to the medical missionaries she came to learn that skill. You don't have to go far to find a saint. You just have to pay attention and look for clues.When I am tempted to abandon principles the rest of the world dismisses as unrealistic, I remind myself that in an evil world good still sometimes prevails.

My own personal recollections are not about MLK but his family. Three or four times during my training with Piccadilly in 1976-77 the family came to eat at the cafeteria where I was manager on duty, always mid-afternoon on Sunday. They ate together in the part of the dining room with long tables, partly to accommodate five or six people, but also for relative privacy. King's mother, Alberta King, had been killed a couple years earlier but Daddy King, as he was called, was usually along. The first time they came Daddy King sent for the manager on duty. He wanted me to know who he was, that he planned to pay for their meals by personal check and he didn't want to have any trouble as they left. He was polite but firm, a man who knew how to avoid problems. I never engaged them in conversation and considered it my duty to insure they enjoyed their meals without being bothered or even identified.  Also, we lived in downtown Atlanta at that time and our oldest daughter attended C.W.Hill Elementary School. One of her classmates was a member of the King family (I'm not sure who) and we were honored when she was invited once to go to a birthday party for him.

~~~~~

Daddy King had good reason to be cautious when they went to Cumberland Mall. He and his party were well aware that Cobb County was known to be one of Atlanta's emphatically white Northern suburbs. When MARTA (Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) was being formed, Cobb county voters made it clear they wanted nothing to do with it, so none of those busses (and later trains) were routed into Cobb. That changed later, beginning with a few express connections, but even at this writing CCT (Cobb County Transit) remains separate from MARTA.

Our cafeteria patrons included a couple of notable black leaders, Andy Young and Julian Bond, but conservative whites outnumber blacks by a wide margin. Congressman Larry McDonald (later killed when KAL 007 was shot down by Russian interceptors) and his family dined there when he was in town, and his parents ate dinner with us several times a week.  J.B. Stoner, a famous segregationist later convicted of bombing black churches, came in a few times. He walked with a conspicuous limp and ate in the back of the dining room, preferring to stay as much alone as possible in a public place. Lester Maddox and his wife Virginia were regular customers, and I remember him handing out flyers on the MLK holiday reminding people of the birthday of Robert E. Lee. (January 19). He remained an unrepentant segregationist the rest of his life, traveling out of his way to eat in my cafeteria in Smyrna, I suspect because so many of my customers knew him from his days at his restaurant in Atlanta, the Pickrick.

I regret amending these anecdotes to my MLK Day recollections, but they are an important piece of the history of segregation that made his movement necessary. And they must not be forgotten.

Leila Abu-Saba, 1962-2009

Leila Abu-Saba aka The Dove, was among my most treasured links when I started blogging in 2004. It was a couple of years before I came across her posts and she was taken by cancer soon afterward, but her gentleness and insights never faded. I was honored to be included among her "blog buddies."
Here is how she described herself:

The Dove's father is a Lebanese Christian immigrant, with relatives spread out from Lebanon to Australia. Her mother is a Southern WASP whose family lives in Virginia, Texas and other parts. The Dove's father's Christian Lebanese village is right next door to a Muslim Palestinian refugee camp, built on what was once our family farmland. The Dove is married to a wonderful man who does bear a Scottish surname but is halachically Jewish, via his lovely mother, who has a large and supportive family. The Dove herself grew up in the Midwest and South, but spent many long summers and one school year in Lebanon as a child; also lived in Cairo, Egypt for a junior year in college. Full disclosure: a 4 year marriage to a Muslim Egyptian in her 20s gave her an inside view into upper class Cairene families, and an appreciation for secular modern Muslims and their relationship to Islam.

The following two essays are especially good.

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Hello Kind World

I just wrote a post at Daily Kos in response to somebody else's "Goodbye Cruel World" Diary. The diarist was facing loss of job and house, and said she might not be able to go online any longer; hence "goodbye cruel world" of Daily Kos. I called my response Hello Kind World.

There's always hope. Let me tell you that I am living with metastatic breast cancer. When they found it last year, it had spread throughout my liver, a 1/2 inch tumor in my lung, and onto rib and spine. I am now 46 with two young sons and a loving husband.

I just finished eleven months of chemotherapy in which I got infusion every week, three weeks on, one week off. 33 infusions. Took the starch out of me (as well as all my hair down to the eyelashes). Pet CT Scan shows the lung nodule is gone - no trace of it; the bone lesions are sclerotic i.e. healing, not spreading; and the liver lesions are inert, back to scar tissue. Nothing "lights up", i.e. nothing is active and cancerous. My blood counts are now "stone cold normal" according to my oncologist. So I am off chemo and I get to go on about my life, under close supervision and taking oral medication.

Today I listened to my friend's feedback on the 260-page draft of my first novel, which I had finished writing during chemo. I'm ready to get to work on the next draft! Then I picked up my kids from daycare, fed them, checked homework, read to them and put them to bed, all by myself. (Hubby was at a work-related dinner). First time I've had them on my own in over a year. I handled it! I even enjoyed it, which means my energy level is good. This is a blessing and a reprieve.

Now let me back up and tell you about a family tragedy. 23 years ago my uncles and cousins in Lebanon were chased from their homes during a bad patch of the civil war. They all fled with what they could put in their cars. My 83-year-old grandmother refused to leave her house - hit my uncle with her stick when he tried to evacuate her. She was killed during a mob attack on the houses of our village. A Muslim friend (we're Christians) went in and found her the next day and buried her for us. Meanwhile my two uncles, their wives and three teenaged kids per couple were living out of their automobiles in South Lebanon. They got plane tickets and visas to the USA and arrived with suitcases and $3,000 cash per family.

My Lebanese-American father and American mother, state employees in NC, took out a lien on their house to help stake my uncles to small businesses. My uncles and their families shared a tiny rental home that belonged to another uncle. Ten people lived in a 3 BR house with one bathroom, after living all their lives in big spacious houses with gardens. My dad gave them $500 a month cash for groceries, and in 1985 that was serious money; he was still putting my brother through private college at the time.

My uncles lost everything. They had to start over in America where people saw them as foreign, alien. They had prestige in their traditional society but in America they were middle-aged refugees, nobodies. All of them - uncles and wives - buckled down to work.

In ten years they built successful businesses - a grocery store and a gas station - bought beautiful homes, and of course repaid all loans from my dad and others. All of them had to do manual labor: flip burgers, pump gas, sweep floors, make change for customers. They had been middle class, teachers and bank managers in Lebanon. They had to work hard with their hands and they did so. Their kids got educated and moved into the world as Americans, most of them with professional degrees and positions.

The sadness of my grandmother's violent death hung over us for long years, and yet I always feel she chose how she wanted to die. I think she understood what she was facing. She preferred to die on her farm than be an elderly refugee.

Friend, you are facing great loss, but you have so much. You have your health (I hope). You have your daughter. You have parents with the resources to take you in.

Last month I flew to Lebanon, not for the first time since the end of the civil war. I visited with those same uncles and aunts, now returned to their homes. They made plenty of money pumping gas and selling Wonder Bread in the USA, and have turned the wrecked shells of their war-scarred houses into mini-palaces. Their quality of life is fabulous. They miss their kids who all live in the States, but they are survivors. They enjoy the olive harvest and the friendship and community of our ancestral village. I saw people I had not seen in thirty years of war, dislocation, disease, family tragedy and more. I was so grateful that I got to make this trip - that I survived advanced cancer well enough to fly half way around the world to see my family.

This spring when my fingernails were oozing and I couldn't get out of bed from chemo side effects, when the liver counts stayed elevated and I fended off all talk of survival rates for metastatic patients, I held on to hope. I just knew I was going to get better. I can't worry about whether I'll live 20 years... I am living today, and for today there is always hope.

So please, friend, bless what you have and let go of fear for the future. Today is the only day you have got. You are breathing. Enjoy your breath. You are alive. Enjoy your life. You have a daughter and parents. Love them. Bless everybody who comes across your path. And the work? Whatever. Bless your work, too. Bless your town, your bills, your possessions. You are lucky to be here for all of it. If some of it gets taken away, well fine, something else will take its place. You are an amazing confluence of billions of variables and nobody else is having your life right this minute.

Enjoy! And don't worry about hope. Just breathe and appreciate your breath. Everything arises from that.

Forgiveness

How do you forgive a wrong? and why bother? someone asked in the previous post. Herewith an essay, an attempt, at describing why and how I go about practicing forgiveness.

Forgive:
1. To excuse for a fault or an offense; pardon.
2. To renounce anger or resentment against.
3. To absolve from payment of (a debt, for example).

If someone has done something you think is absolutely wrong, and you harbor anger and resentment, your feelings will cause you harm. Does repressed resentment cause illness? I don't have scientific data for it, but resentment causes all kinds of emotional problems, and those can cause illness. People in physical crisis are often asked to practice forgiving old angers and resentments as part of gaining peace of mind, which contributes to healing.

You could try to forgive your enemies out of a sense of duty or moral righteousness: "to be a good person, I must forgive this criminal." But many of us might question why? Why bother with this charade?

If you only forgive in order to feel that you are doing the right thing, you won't get the benefit of forgiveness. It will be a kind of performance, a fake, an act in the sense of doing something that is not felt sincerely, in order to please or entertain others.

In forgiving, you renounce anger or resentment against someone else. The act of forgiveness, genuine forgiveness, causes a change in the forgiver. Try it. Personally, I have felt a physical release from practicing forgiveness. I also feel emotional relief.

Judy in comments below asks how are we to forgive (for instance) Israelis who cause such suffering to Palestinians in Gaza today? Perhaps an Israeli suffering from the aftereffects of a bombing may ask the same - how to forgive Palestinians who cause his neighbors pain?

This question matters a great deal to me, because I am struggling with metastatic cancer to my liver, and believe that forgiving my enemies will help me heal. My father died in September of 2006, just after the Israeli attack on Lebanon. This war seemed to accelerate his final illness, which proceeded with terrifying rapidity.

The barrage of cluster bombs Israel left upon the fields and mountainsides of South Lebanon has felt like an unforgivable sin to me. Somehow the seeding of the land of Lebanon with a million pellets of death has appeared the most insurmountable obstacle to forgiving and moving on. I associate it with the whole horror of that war and my father's sudden decline and death. The land of Lebanon was poisoned, my father died of poison/cancer, and now here I am fighting innumerable tiny lesions in my liver, like mirrors of the cluster bombs embedded into my organs. Some things feel unforgivable; for me, this is one.

Here is how I can forgive. First of all, it's not me alone. My ego wants to be right. I will not truly forgive of my own unaided will, so I ask that some larger force - whatever you want to call it - help me forgive.

Second, I consider that the persons who ordered and carried out the attacks on Lebanon act out of fear and error. They possess a constellation of ideas about conflict, and about Lebanon and its people, that are simply in error. Those erroneous ideas lead them to harbor fears for their own destruction and that of their people (the Israelis). So, driven by fear and error, these military and political leaders ordered this action which I find so terrible.

Have I ever acted rashly, driven by my own fear and mistaken ideas? Yes. I have never caused so much harm (I hope). I have never killed anyone or caused such destruction. But it's only a matter of degree. I have harbored terrible fears, terrible prejudices, enormous mistakes in judgment or perception that have driven me to irrational behavior. I can forgive myself for such errors (with difficulty). I know I am only human.

Next, I observe people around me, some of whom I love dearly, who also harbor fears that lead them to say or condone actions I cannot accept. Let's give the example of a hypothetical relative (nobody in real life, I assure you), who harbors fears and resentments left over from a terrible mugging on a city street. That person may say things against ethnic or social groups that I cannot accept. I do not accept that person's words or ideas; however I can see how their ideas are shaped by their fears and their history. So I let it go. I forgive them their mistakes. (This example is entirely fictional by the way)

It is not too far to move from forgiving a beloved relative or friend for her/his failings, to forgiving a stranger. If I think I cannot do it, then I imagine my small child. If he is seized with a terrifying fear of some teacher, and expresses hatred for that teacher, and the desire to spear her with his Star Wars light saber, I don't reject my child for this. I try to understand what is driving his fears; at the same time I attempt not to cater to the emotional storm. Let it pass. I can forgive my child for his unskillful reaction to his fear of a teacher.

In forgiving the stranger who has caused so much harm, I also have to stop arguing with myself: but they SHOULD know better. They SHOULD NOT be so fearful, violent, willing to kill for retribution, and so forth.

My job is to give up anger and resentment. I can only do this when I can see the other for the flawed, frightened human being he is - my alter ego.

My enemy is my mirror. "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." I trespass against others and need forgiveness. So must I forgive others for their trespasses. It all goes around and around. The cycle of forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle of violence.

And by the way, it never helps me to say "but he needs to say he's sorry first." Or, "he has to change before I can forgive him." This makes my power to forgive conditional upon somebody else's behavior. I always have the power to forgive. The other party has no power to keep me from forgiveness.

Now if I am trying to forgive somebody who continues to do things that harm me, I don't continue to put myself in the way of that harm. I take what measures I can to protect myself, or remove myself from that person's orbit. Forgiveness does not mean allowing myself to be beaten if I can help it.

"Resist not evil" is a kind of Zen concept. Make yourself like water and flow around and away. Fighting evil directly just gives it power. It doesn't really have power. Let it dissolve in your indifference, move around and away from the appearance of evil as if you are a running stream flowing around a rock and down to the sea. The rock will wear away one day; meanwhile you can keep flowing.