Fell, Jumped, Or Pushed

Maybe the jury is still out on whether Humpty Dumpty fell, jumped, or was pushed. 

Of course, it's very easy to say affirmatively any one of these, but that doesn't necessarily make it true (even when there is a children's rhyme or bumper sticker that goes with it). 

I think the point is that this is what investigations, witnesses, evidence, and a trial is for...to figure out the truth. 

He says, she says...or as Judge Judy says, "It's a lot of who shot John!"

It's good not to jump to conclusions, especially when opinions may be subjective, biased, or have hidden agendas. 

Heck, even if Humpty Dumpty was pushed, they still couldn't put him back together again, but at least someone should pay for the bad yoke. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Fell, Jumped, Or Pushed

Movement For Human Rights

IF

1) you are a dissident living in a country that suppresses basic human rights

OR

2) you are a person seeking to help others suffering under authoritarian regimes

THEN

consider signing up at Movements.org, an organization that connects people in need of human rights help with those wanting to provide assistance. 

After you create a profile, which is given a star rating depending on a vetting process, you can post requests for help or offers of services to help others. 

Available services for "advice, contacts, training, and services," include those from:

- Lawyers
- Journalists
- Technologists
- Translators
- Policy Makers

The great Soviet Jewish dissident, Natan Sharansky, who spent 10 years imprisoned in a tortuous gulag, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Movement.org is a "transformative approach to an old problem" for collecting and trying to get information on human-rights abuses to reach the free world and to seek justice and freedom. 

While dictators looks to suppress freedom of speech and information flow, social media is combating it, and Movements was provided a grant from Google, I believe, to do just that. ;-)

Movement For Human Rights

Solidarity For All Our Children

The global Jewish community has been rocked by the abduction of 3 teenagers (ages 16, 16, and 19) by Hamas, a terrorist organization that rejects peace and is dedicated to "obliterate" Israel . 

I saw a photo someone posted on Facebook where it said that the families of these boys had empty seats at their beautiful Shabbat table, and I couldn't imagine the grief of the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, and other family and friends of these poor children.

Walking in the community around Washington, D.C., I see signs such as this with "Bring Back Our Boys" with ribbons tied to trees--and I am deeply moved by people's expression of grief and hope. 

This all happening just weeks after another extremist Muslim group, Boko Haram, abducted over 230 Nigerian schoolgirls, and the rallying cry for "Bring Back Our Girls."

I read how the these girls are being threatened with being sold in a massive human trafficking crime against humanity and can only imagine the rape and other torture they must be enduring by their captors. 

I remember as just a child in day school seeing photos and videos from the Holy Land of what these types of terrorists did to their victims--it was horrific!

Aside from the general torture, beatings, isolation, and starvation, I saw images where they literally wrapped their prisoners in barbed wire, including their genitals--it was not just grotesque, but pure and utter evil. 

I never forgot these images of unbelievable cruelty, and wish only for the return of all these children and for the people that would take them to be brought to true justice. 

May G-d have mercy on all our children!

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Solidarity For All Our Children

Driving Identity Theft

It's been only about 4 months since my mom passed, and now my dad becomes very sick from chemotherapy and ends up in the hospital for a week.

His red and white blood count were extremely low, but thank G-d, the doctors were able to save him.

However, he is in a drastically weakened state and now looks like he will need regular assisted living just to get by every day. 

This has been horrible to see someone who has always been so strong, smart, and there selflessly for all of us, to be in this condition. 

We found a nice place for him, but even the nicest place isn't his place and doesn't allow the independence he (and we all) always cherish. 

On top of it, I get a letter in the mail with more than half a dozen tickets on his car.

It's impossible, because he hasn't been driving due to his illness.

We run down to check his car, and sure enough someone stole his plates (and replaced them with another set). 

They did this to his car that has handicapped tags.

In the meantime, they are driving around through tolls and doing G-d knows what.

The police were helpful--they came as soon as they could--took a report, the plates that were switched onto his car, and dusted for fingerprints.

I will never forget standing there just after my joint surgery--when not three hours before, I thought to myself, maybe things are finally calming down. 

Hopefully, the police will catch whoever did this. 

In the meantime, I take comfort knowing that G-d is the ultimate police force. ;-)

(Source Photo: Dannielle Blumenthal)

Driving Identity Theft

# Bring Back Our Girls

A fundamentalist Muslim terrorist group, Boko Haram, kidnapped 276 schoolgirls this week in Nigeria. 

After torching their village market, killing more than 300 people, razing 100 houses, destroying 500 vehicles, and attacking their boarding school, Boko Haram is threatening to sell these innocent children. 

Please speak up for those who can't!

We need to defend human rights and support women's and children's rights.

No more abuse, no more discrimination, no more hurt. ;-)

(Source Comic: Andy Blumenthal)

# Bring Back Our Girls

Jewish is Super

So with the shooting at the Jewish Community Center in Oakland Park, Kansas this week right before Passover, and the near simultaneous "grotesque" targeting of Jews by pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, we are reminded that while Jews are no longer slaves in Egypt (thank G-d), we are still unfortunately targeted by evil people around the world. 

In the Kansas City incident, I read how the white supremacist shooter went right up to a lady visiting her mother at the old-age home and asked her "Are you Jewish?" And when she replied in the affirmative (even though she was not), he shoot her dead on the spot. 

It turns out this lady was an occupational therapist that helped blind children...what kind of monster would just murder someone (anyone) like this? 

Similarly in eastern Ukraine, leaflets are being handed out demanding that Jews register in the government office, pay special taxes, and declare their property or face deportation. Here too, we witness the devilish markings of some that are repetitive of their deplorable past as Nazi collaborators, concentration camp guards, and murders.  

I read yesterday, that not only Jews, but Christians are being targeted in the Middle East with churches burned, those of faith being driven from their homes and ruthlessly murdered, except in Israel where the Christian population is actually increasing and thriving. 

While Superman may not be Jewish (I know of no Jews on planet Krypton), being Jewish is super--and for that matter being any person of faith and dignity is super!  Hate mongers and murders of today, like the evil oppressors of yesteryear--know that truth and justice and the 10 plagues of Egypt are just a {pow!} and {bam!} away--believe it! ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Jewish is Super

Will You Take The Next Exit Or Not?

I'm not really into the psychic stuff. 

First, I learned in Yeshiva that we are not supposed to divine the future. 

Second, I don't think we're supposed to know what we're not supposed to know--it take the edge of the challenge in life (almost like trying to gain an unfair advantage in going through life's ups and downs, which is how we learn and grow). 

Third, I think there are a lot of charlatans out there (not everyone, but a lot). 

But one idea recently, from Sylvia Brown, has got me thinking. 

The idea is that we each have Exit Points in our lives--"precise times and ways when we'll leave here and go Home again." 

Brown says we each have 5 of these exits planned in our lives--"and we can use any one of the five we want, as we go along, depending on whether or not we feel we've accomplished enough of what we wanted from this lifetime to begin with."

Thinking back to my own life, I can clearly see times when it seemed like my number was up.

Each occurrence was dramatic and looking back now, sort of surreal. 

During these exit points, I know that I was just inches from death and that G-d brought me back. 

This is where I differ from Brown, I don't think it was my choice to live or die, but I think it was a time of judgment, when G-d decided whether to let me live on (although, perhaps, I had some input as far as G-d is concerned).

The exit points are not escape hatches like from the Matrix, where we can choose to stop or "exit program," but rather times in our lives when we are given the opportunity to go on or not. 

Also, I think the decision of whether we stay or go is based in part on whether we've accomplished our mission, but also on those around us who will be impacted--that's why it takes G-d to figure out all the combinations and permutations to make the call. 

Bad things happen and people die suddenly and violently or even excruciatingly slow and painful deaths--and in other cases, people survive to die another day--we really don't know what is going to happen. 

Part of not knowing tests us--sometimes to our limits and perhaps for some even beyond (although I was taught in Yeshiva that G-d never gives us more than we can handle). 

We live, we die, and perhaps we live again i.e. through reincarnation--a mechanism of ultimate justice and learning. 

Will G-d permit us to continue as ourselves in this go around, to come back as another in a future spiral, or is it really "game over"?

I thank G-d for letting me live to continue my journey--I still have so much to learn here and now--what the future brings, only the merciful Almighty knows. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Will You Take The Next Exit Or Not?

On Friends and Enemies

Over the weekend, I read/heard two great quotes about the nature of friends and enemies:

1) The first was from Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal where she reminds us of a political rule that "Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate."  Really this applies in all of life, a few real friends may last over an entire lifetime, but most others are transient, such as in school, at work, or in a community, but when you leave that place or circumstance, the friendships often do not persist. However, enemies seem to last forever, where people never forget when they feel they've been wronged and these people may actually seek each other out and even join forces to get their contemplated revenge. The fight is not always fair or just, but people's feelings when they think they've been wronged, hang in the air, like the stench of decaying carcasses. Something to beware of. 

2) The second was from a martial arts movie called Ninja 2 where one of the characters says to a martial arts expert, whose wife was brutally murdered, "The man who seeks revenge should dig two graves." Upon which, the martial artist wittingly responds, "They'll need to dig a lot more than that," and in the movie, the Ninja exacted his revenge on the drug lord and his gang for the murder they committed. 

My impressions are that we should try to be good people and have a broad positive influence in the world. With some people, we will find true friendship--and very often, there is an almost unexplainable chemistry to this, where it just clicks--and it's as if we've known this person not only in this lifetime, but in prior lifetimes as well. In other cases, the friendships are more temporal based on shared circumstance, camaraderie, or even an alliance or sorts, and these really are not sustained when one or both parties move on. And that's okay, not every friendship is deep and forever. 

In terms of enemies, you know it when you have it. Again, chemistry may play a role or one person may have indeed wronged the other. Sometimes, people can learn from making a mistake, they can apologize, commit to do better in the future, and there can be forgiveness. In other circumstances, the blood between people is bad and won't get better, because there is scarcity, misunderstanding, bias, or even blind hatred. In these cases, it often seems as if no amount of communication, negotiation, or bending over backwards will resolve it. You can try--it's always worth a try--but be prepared to circle the wagons and defend yourself, if all else fails. 

Finally, a wrongful act can be so brutal and egregious that at times it seems that only a "joust to the death" will do, but revenge in the end, does not bring anybody back or undue the harm done. Yes, when justice is done, the world seems somehow righted and the fallen can be released from their painful throes and go on in peace, and maybe the evil aggressor will be prevented from hurting others in the future. In the end, the smell of peace is the sweetest of all, when we can live and let live. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

On Friends and Enemies

Unjust Justice

The Wall Street Journal quotes U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf who offered advice to young judges, as follows: 

"It's not your job to save the world. Do law, leave justice to Clint Eastwood."

What a notion he has--that it is not a judges job to mete out justice--how (oxy)moronic!

Instead, the judge says that is for vigilantes like Clint Eastwood's role in Dirty Harry (or perhaps Charles Bronson in Death Wish).

While I understand that the law is the law, you would think that a judge's role is to not only ensure that it is applied evenly, but also that it is meted out fairly.

As it says in the Torah/Bible (Deuteronomy 16:20), "Justice, Justice shall you pursue."

It is not enough for the "justice system" to enforce laws brainlessly, but the role of the judicial branch is to interrupt the law so that justice results.

What a contrast to even the bumbling inspector, Clouseau, in the movie, The Pink Panther, who knows "Yuri, the trainer who trains," but some of our judges don't seem to know that they are judges who sit in judgement. 

So much for "jurisprudence"--but without any prudence!

Doing law, without pursuing justice is like dehydrated water in this picture--empty and good for nothing. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Unjust Justice

Some Game This Is

I remember as a kid, my grandfather lived down the block from us on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. 

He was old and not in the best of health with a heart condition, hearing aids, and more. 

One day, he was coming home from the bank, and he went into the elevator in his building. 

He was followed by a punk, who after the elevator door closed, proceeded to grab my grandfather and choke him until he was unconscious. 

The thug took his wallet and left my grandfather on the floor of the elevator. 

Now, today I saw on the news about the Knockout Attack Game--and some "game" this is.

The attacker runs up behind the person unbeknownst and with full force slams their fist against a person head, knocking them unconscious, and when successful, this is done with one punch! 

In other cases, an entire gang will attack, punching and kicking a victim until they stop moving. 

While I couldn't locate the exact video that happened in a neighborhood in NY to a Jewish woman, this video of an attack on a Muslim girl in London about a year ago, approximates it very closely. 

While some victims of these attacks end up with broken jaws, skulls, shattered teeth, internal injuries, bleeding and more, others are not so lucky and end up dead. 

I never forgot what happened to my grandfather and the cowardly schmuck that attacked this old, helpless man--but at least, he apparently did it for the money. 

In these knockout attacks, when they ask the attackers why they do it, the response is for the fun and laughs. 

What a commentary of our society, when people brutally attack other people--not for money, revenge, self-defense, or principle--but simply to see others needlessly suffer and to take a form of intense joy in it. 

Perhaps, there are certain crimes for which the L-rd above must look down and mete out his own version of justice, in a way that restores order to this world of hope and despair.

Some Game This Is

Pleasure At Pain

Why do people laugh and feel pleasure at other people's pain and misfortune?

The Wall Street Journal (20 August 2013) reviews the book, The Joy of Pain, on this topic. 

Schadenfreude is the German word for feeling pleasure at the calamity of others.

And we see people laugh, point, and otherwise gloat when others are hurting physically, emotionally, financially, and so on. 

When they fail and you succeed, you feel strong, powerful, self-confidant, and that you were right--and they were wrong!

Feelings of pleasure at other people's pain is partially evolutionary--survival of the fittest.

It is also a function of our personal greed and competitiveness--where we measure ourselves not by how well we are doing, but rather relative to how others around us are faring.

So for example, we may be rich and have everything we need, but if someone else has even a little more than us, we still are left feeling lacking inside. 

Thus, we envy others' good fortune and take pleasure in their misfortune.

In a sense, our success is only complete when we feel that we have surpassed everyone else, like in a sport competition--there is only one ultimate winner and world champion.

So when we see the competition stumble, falter, and go down, our hands go up with the stroke of the win!

Anyway, we deserve to win and they deserve to lose--so justice is served and that makes us feel just dandy. 

How about a different way--we work together to expand the living standard for all, and we feel genuinely glad for others' success and real empathy for their pain, and they too for us--and we go beyond our pure humanity to something more angelic. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution for Lukas Vermeer)

Pleasure At Pain

Rape Crisis Nation

I've been wanting to capture this in a photo for some time. 

I took this picture from a moving Metro train and one with incredibly dirty windows at that. 

It is the phone number for a 24-hour rape crisis hotline.

Underneath the phone number is a picture of a hand picking up a telephone to call. 

It is written as graffiti on the wall facing the train tracks. 

And around it are radio towers, telephone polls, what looks like transformers, and a barbed wire fence.

It is quite an ominous setting for the ad placement. 

To me, rape is one of the most horrendous and brutal crimes. 

Ironically, it physically and emotionally violates a person through the very means that most people make love and life. 

My first exposure to rape was in the opening scene to the movie Death Wish, where Charles Bronson's wife and daughter are brutalized--I saw this movie as a little boy and it left a huge imprint on me. 

Over the course of my life, I have known people who have been both raped and molested and it changed them forever. 

I found these rape statistics online, and even though rape is down 60% since 1993, 1 out of every 6 women in this country experiences a rape or attempted rape at some point.

Also, it means that 20 years ago, the percentage was about 26% or 1 out 4.

The Atlantic-2 years ago--reported similar numbers with 18.3% of women who were raped or where rape was attempted. 

Honestly, I think the numbers may even be higher, since so many cases go unreported, and according to the American Medical Association is one of the most unreported crimes. 

The numbers are outrageously high for a western, modern, civilized country or any nation!

What is even more shocking is that the U.S. is listed as the 6th highest country for reported rape. 

Perhaps a large part of this is because we report more frequently in this country, but also maybe because we are more free and affluent and thereby, people are able to partake of vices such as alcohol and drugs, which are associated with sexual violence. 

Rape is a horrific act and in medieval times, the crime of rape was often punished with castration or even death.

In Death Wish, Bronson became a semi-crazed vigilante and sought out his own form justice.

Today, in real life, we provide the victims a hotline number to call and the rapists--if they even get reported--and caught, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced--may get some time or not, who really knows, but we should all care. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Rape Crisis Nation

Sweet Sweat, Bitter Blood

General George S. Patton had a saying that "The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war."

And while we shouldn't sweat the small and unimportant stuff in life, we also can't afford to overlook those things that are really important like our health, spiritual well-being, modest prosperity to care for ourselves and loved ones, and of course ensuring freedom and justice for all people. 

It's a balancing act to do everything and it takes hard work to try and be successful on so many fronts of life.  

Some success strategies:

- Be aware of what's going on around you--we live in a dynamic world and things are constantly changing.

- Work hard to always have a positive impact--it's too easy to be negative and cynical, give up trying, and throw in the towel.

- Learn from mistakes--everyone makes them.

- Hope for the best, but also train and prepare for the worst--because you never really know. 

Overall, I think the picture above says it well: It's better to sweat in training, than bleed in battle. 

So listen to the General: sweat now--really work it and don't be afraid to push your limits--you'll be glad you did, when the time comes and it really counts. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Sweet Sweat, Bitter Blood

The Nature of Envy and Ambition

I watched a really good movie the other day called "The Violin."

It was about a civil war in a South American country where freedom fighters are vastly outnumbered and outgunned and an old violinist tries to smuggle weapons and ammunition to his people in his violin case. 

At one point in the movie, their village in overrun by the army, and the boy's mother and sister are killed. 

The little boy asks the grandfather to explain the horrible life events that have befallen them to him and the grandfather tells how G-d created the world with good people as well as people the are envious and ambitious and those people sought to take everything away from the others--no matter how much they accumulated, they wanted more.

I thought about this with respect to a quote I had learned in Yeshiva that "absolute power corrupts absolutely"--that those who have unbridled power and ability, will use it without limitation and in wrong and harmful ways to others, because they can.

Envy and ambition and power--can be used for good--when people see others succeed and are motivated to work hard and do their best too. 

But when people become blindly consumed with it for its own sake--they can't stand anyone having more than them or even having anything--they think they should just as well have it all--then they will not just work hard to achieve it, but they will act out against others to unjustly take what they want and as much as they want. 

My father always taught me never to be jeoulous of anyone. He told me that if you knew what really went on in their lives--what their basket [of good and bad] was--you wouldn't trade places with them in a million years. 

And I believe he was right. Often when I know someone only superficially and their life looks so grand and "perfect," it is tempting to think they have it all or even just better, but then when you get to know their life challenges--sickness, abuse, death, loneliness, and other hardships--you realize how things could always be a lot worse and how truly lucky you are. 

Of course, there will there always be people who are superficial, materialistic, and can't control their urge for power and things--and they will try to take more than their fair due and by force if necessary. In the end, will it bring them real fulfillment and happiness, the answer is obvious. 

I believe it was my Oma (grandmother), a survivor of The Holocaust, who used to say "count your blessings"--she was right. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

The Nature of Envy and Ambition

Rape Outrage!

On the Night of December 16--coming home from watching a movie at the New Delhi Mall, a 23-year old woman was savagely gang-raped and her male companion, who tried to defend her, was beaten while on a bus being driven around the Indian capital for 45 minutes!

I iust want to stand with those protesting against the barbarism of the people who brutally gang-raped, tortured, and grotesquely inserted a metal rod inside her, causing her such bodily damage that even a team of eight specialists at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore that specializes in multi-organ transplants, could not save her. 

The woman had such severe internal injuries that most of her intestines had to be removed, and according to CBC News, she suffered from organ failure, a lung infection, as well as brain damage. 

After the rape, torture, and beatings, the victims were stripped and thrown off the moving bus.

It is sick and evil that the driver not only stood idly by and did nothing to help her, but has been charged as well in the actual rape!

I am deeply saddened not only by the gang rape, but also according to the Daily Times that they happen with such frequency that they are "rarely [even] reported in the Indian press." 

This is another wake up call for people of good conscience to stand against those that commit evil and to not be silent in the face of such atrocities.

The cries of this woman, and other victims of violence like her, can be heard throughout the world. 

She will not be forgotten, and to those savages may justice be done--in this world or the next by the all-mighty G-d who hears our prayers.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Daniel Crompton)

Rape Outrage!

Walking In All Shoes

Thinking about life and death and the concept of reincarnation. 

While I have heard the belief of some that reincarnation is the ultimate justice machine--if you treat others well, you come back well off, while if you treat them badly, you come back in their situation. 

So the classic example, would be if you have the opportunity to give charity, and do so, genoreously, then you are rewarded in a next life with riches, but if you are miserly, then you come back poor--to learn the lessons of charitable giving. 

However, I wonder if this concept goes even much further.

Does our journey ultimately takes us not just to occupy some positions if life, but rather to every role and status, illustrative of all peoples--so that we learn from the eyes of everyone. 

The world  is round and the number of perspectives around it are as varied as the people, races, cultures, and nations they come from. 

As the saying goes, "don't judge me until you walk a mile in my shoes," perhaps we are indeed given the opportunity to walk in a large representative sample of those. 

When the see the world not from where we sit today in life, but from where others are perched, we can get a whole new perspective on issues and ideas--we can learn true empathy, caring, respect, and justice.

Almost like having G-d's vantage point, we can learn to see the world from a multi-cultural perspective, where each person, tribe, and nation is infinitely valuable--where each holds the key to a perspective and lesson that we must all learn before our journey comes to a conclusion. 

Live life and learn well--there is much to see, hear, and experience, and no one has all the answers or is all righteous--like a large mosaic, we all have a piece. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Fernando Stankuns)

Walking In All Shoes

Not Just Another Killing Field

I took this picture a number of weeks ago of an artistic American flag with a peace symbol over it--and this is a wonderful goal and we wish for the day for all the world. 

However, today is not that day, as it is understood that Iran and Hezbollah were behind, as in President Obama's words, a barbaric attack on dozens of innocent Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. 

This terrorist attack resulted in the deaths of at least 7 people, including children and pregnant women and the wounding of over 30 others. 

This occurred eighteen years to the day since the attack that killed 85 civilians at a Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Moreover, it is almost the 40 year commemoration in September since the attack that killed 11 Israel athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. 

As former President Bush stated after the 9/11 attacks, "Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done."

May the souls of those murdered innocent civilians rest in peace, and may those who targeted and sponsored them pay the price they've earned for themselves. 

We should not and cannot accept a world where getting on a bus or a plane or going to the office, pizzeria or the like is just another terrorist killing field. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Not Just Another Killing Field

What Are People Hungry For?

In the Hunger Games, the storyline is of the common people being punished for rebelling against "The Capital" generations ago, by having to put up male and female "Tributes" (kids age 12-18) from each of 12 districts to fight it out to the death, while the rich and powerful in The Capital watch, laugh, and enjoy the equivalent of the gladiators in the Coliseum. 

The Games offer a restricted hope to the people--as hope is seen as "the only thing stronger than fear." In this movie, the hope for winning the games is supposed to displace the fear of the central authorities over their subjects as well as any real hope of change, equality, and justice for the masses. 

What the kids and adult fans of this movie seem to be lining up and cheering wildly for with this box-office smash hit is the main character Katniss Everdeen who defies the corrupt politicians and affluent capitalists by fighting not for her life in The Hunger Games as much as for the dignity of the common people in the districts.

From the beginning, Katniss become the first ever to volunteer for the games to take the place of her less adept, younger sister, Primrose, who is selected from District 12; Katniss put her life on the line to save her sister's life.

And all along during the movie, Katniss refuses to be a pawn in the game and simply kill or be killed, but she rises above the fight and acts all the time with humanity, caring for other tributes and generally refusing to hurt others, unless her life is threatened and she literally has no choice. 

For example, she cares for a younger girl from District 11 who eventually is speared to death by another tribute hunting them. 
Also, she cares for her companion from District 12, Peeta, who is injured, and she risks her life to get medicine to save his. 

At climax, Katniss is ready to commit suicide, rather than continue playing to the evil dictates of the authorities. 

Katniss comes from the poverty and ordinariness of the district people. However, her fighting spirit, humanity, and ability to outwit not only the other tributes, but the evil leaders--who play the tributes (and districts) off each other for their own power, permanence, and punishment of the lower class--makes her a hero among the masses who are at the ready to revolt at her simple salute to the people. 

What I thought was going to be a kids movie that would put me to sleep, turned out to be an uplifting experience watching an old, familiar theme of Rocky the fighter win against all the odds, but in this case with the added twist of defying a corrupt government and elitist culture.

I think this movie is appealing to people at exactly a time now where the 99% are simmering and fed up with the shenanigans of the 1% and elements of both the Occupy movement and Tea Party are looking for principles of freedom, justice, and dignity to be restored.

The Hunger Games is not just about the dystopian future society that doesn't exist today, but rather about a historical perspective of people who are craving for the proverbial "dirty politicians" and "greedy capitalists" to put aside their games, agendas, excuses, and pots of power and gold for a more utopian society where all people are created equal and treated fairly with hope anchored in reality. 

(Source Photo: Adapted from here)

What Are People Hungry For?

Human Trafficking Hurts Everyone

A few years ago, I saw the movie Taken (2008) about a 17-year old girl kidnapped in Paris and sold into prostitution. Fortunately, in this movie, the teenage girl's father is a retired CIA agent, and he is able to get his daughter back and inflict some serious punishment on the traffickers. The scariest scene in the movie that's been shown repeatedly in the trailer is where the girl is hiding under the bed pleading with her father to help her, when she is discovered and pulled roughly from underneath to disappear into this netherworld of child trafficking and sex abuse.

This week, I saw another movie called Trade (2007) with a similar theme, where a 13-year old girl is abducted outside her home on the streets of Mexico City while riding her new birthday bicycle. The scenes of sexual abuse, violence, forced drugging, and more were enough to send me for an emotional deep dive. In the movie, while other innocent women are trafficked, abused, and murdered, this little girl is saved by her brother and Texas cop who join forces to rescue her (and other children found behind a secret door in the same house) from being sold into sex slavery. 

At the conclusion of the movie, the tagline comes up about 50,000 to 100,000 girls, boys, and women being trafficked annually to the U.S. to be pimped out or sold for forced sex--and more than 1 million are trafficked annually across international borders against their will.

According to The Department of Homeland Security U.S. Customs and Border Protection, "There are at least 12.3 million enslaved adults and children around the world at any given time." I would guess that these numbers are quite understated given all the silent victims around the world that have been silenced by fear, coercion, and violence and so we don't even know about them and their plights. 

Further, The Department of State's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons has many good resources including information, tips, and training located at that site. 

I've attached, at the top, the phone number of the Customs and Border Protection hotline to report human trafficking. There is also a non-profit hotline at the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.

While this is frequently portrayed as women's issue and it is, it is also a family and societal issue that affects all of us. When a women or child is abused, the impact goes way beyond the individual.

I know that I can certainly not understand how anyone can inflict these cruelties on others. Money doesn't explain it. Circumstances doesn't explain it. To me, there must truly be such a thing as evil in this world, and unfortunately, we are all witnesses to it.

Look out for others, the way you would want them to look out after your own--maybe together, we can help tilt the scale in favor of the victims.

Human Trafficking Hurts Everyone

The Evil That Men Do

This time I barely know what to write, except that I have been very upset the whole week.

I watched this multiple award-winning movie called The Stoning of Soraya M.

Have you seen it yet? 

It was one of those life-changing events for me that taught me about (in)justice, adversity, and purpose.

It is a 2008 film that was adapted from a book by a French-Iranian journalist. 

It is based on a true story about a journalist whose car breaks down in a remote Iranian village.

There, he learns from a decent, well-respected women, Zahra about the nefarious plot and stoning death (read murder) the prior day of her niece Soraya M. 

Soraya is targeted by her abusive husband Ali who wants to divorce her in order to marry a 14 year old girl in the village. 

When Soraya refuses the divorce knowing that she and her children will be destitute without Ali, she suffers violently, both verbal and physical abuse. 

Soraya is asked by the mayor and Mullah of the village to help (as a job) a recently widowed man with his house and son and she is kind and generous to them--she appears a genuinely good person, the diametric opposite of her sorely evil husband.

However, Ali uses Soraya's kindness to the other family to turn against her and he concocts a story of infidelity by Soraya and the man; he cajoles and threatens the others to go along and bear (false) witness against Soraya. 

Soraya is condemned to death by stoning in a mockery of a "trial" behind closed doors that she is not permitted to attend or even be represented at--the mayor, Mullah, and her own father decide she is too die for her treacherous infidelity to her husband--based on a complete fabrication!

The men and boys in the village go "crazy" chanting for her death, that G-d is great, and preparing carts of stones for the carrying out of the (in)justice. 

Soraya has a heartfelt goodbye with her two young daughters, while her two older sons--who are turned against her by Ali--prepare to participate in the stoning. 

Aunt Zahra tries everything to save Soraya, but cannot stop the crowd from carrying out their false retribution on her. 

They march Soraya to a dirt yard, where the hole has been dug for her.

They tie her hands, and bury her to the waist.

She is given the opportunity to say a few last words and asks completely bewildered as we all are, how could her neighbors, friends, and family--who know her (the real her, the truth of who she is), do this to her. 

But just when you think, the story will end--in her death or sudden saving--the movie surprises with a blow by blow showing of her brutal stoning death.

Her own father throws stone at her, but misses. Then her evil husband Ali takes aim and hits her twice right in the head and she is bleeding from a hole there. Then her own sons.  The "religious" Mullah.  Only the widowed man she had helped, refuses. All the other townsmen and boys throw stone after stone for what seems endless minutes as her face, head, torso, spine is crushed, shredded, torn.  

When her husband checks to see if she is finally dead, she is still somehow able to partially open one eye--he jumps back in horror that the "witch" is still alive and then she is overwhelmed by rocks from everyone all at once, putting the final end to this poor woman's life. 

Soraya was given one of the worst deaths that can be imagined--long, painful, literally "in your face" and by virtually all the people she loved and cared about--and all based on a complete lie!

To show the woman that their infidelity will not be tolerated, the men make a Colosseum-style event to the gruesome death and then add to that punishment that Soraya is not allowed to be buried, so that the dogs end up eating her remains.

After watching this movie--this life event--that happened to Soraya and G-d knows how many other helpless women who are violently mistreated, abused, and even murdered, I could not get the image of Soraya buried waist-deep in the ground, taking hits stone by stone, and bleeding out from her mangled body. 

I did not sleep (well) this week and I am still emotionally recovering from this movie. 

Thank G-d, the journalist escaped with the recording to tell the story of Soraya M. and all the other tortured women (and men) out there.

I know that I am deeply shaken by the graphic portrayal in this movie and of the injustices that are done, the evil that seems to prevail, and the pain that is left behind.  

Only faith in G-d's higher purpose for us--to learn and grow through all adversity--and of some ultimate justice and the reward of the righteous and punishment of the evil can fill this wound where I myself feel like I've been stoned too. 

(Source Photo: here)

The Evil That Men Do