The Sun King and today's CEOs

Picture credits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Louis_XIV_of_France.jpg

http://82.150.138.75/up/large/409.490.6Hfsc4xiagCKSNNbzB4oNho8.jpg

Luis XIV, the Sun King, built the Palace of Versailles at a time when his royal subjects had increasingly difficult life. By the time of the French Revolution, just two generations later, the country had literally no bread to eat.

The breathtakingly pompous Palace of Versailles has over 1,000 rooms. Perhaps, if the Sun King cared about the misery of his people, a 500 room "modest cottage house" would have satisfied his greed. Who knows, if Versailles were built to be half the size, the distant relative of the Sun King, Luis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, could have saved their heads too.

And now, read the following headline:

CEO pay exceeds pre-recession level (AP)

The country, the "Main Street", as politicians like to refer to the plebs, struggles with ~9% unemployment and record real estate foreclosures. At the same time, CEOs received 24% higher compensation in 2010 than in 2009, to the tune of roughly $ 9 M average.

People proudly declare in this country that "greed" is the healthy fuel of the "American  Way".

Is it remotely possible that just a little less greed would be an environmentally healthier fuel for that "American Way"? Perhaps even for that rarely talked about "Planet Earth Way"?



AG Holder says rise in police deaths unacceptable

Image from: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/Guns.jpg

   Last year 162 police officers died in the line of duty. Very few of them were stabbed, ran over by vehicles or beaten to death.

   Most of them were shot dead.

   With guns, typically purchased legally by "low-obedient" citizens.

   Most likely citizens who, on the first place, should never have had guns in their hands legally, or otherwise.

   Holder is working with attorneys and police departments on this "issue".

   But the "issue" should not be addressed by attorneys or police departments.

  

   NO!

  

   It should be addressed by legislators who would make it a law to have thorough background checks on those who purchase guns.

   Such law would reduce the likelihood that dangerous people get access to guns.
   People who claim that they "like to kill" - as a recent murderer who killed his ex-girlfriend and her two children stated on his WEB site -, people who have psychiatric background - like Jared Loughner, whose college requested a psychiatric evaluation before considering readmission, or the Virginia Tech mass murderer had -, or those who committed crimes in the past. The criteria could be further refined, but these categories should serve as a bare-bone minimum to deny gun permits.

   Until a rationale legislative effort is made to keep guns out of the hands of unstable people, Holder can consult all the attorneys and police chiefs he wants but people will continue dying in the hands of "gun owners gone berserk".

   Until a rationale legislative effort is made to keep guns out of the hands of unstable people, the Churches can keep as many prayer vigils for the dead as they want, but people will continue dying bloody, undeserved death in the hands of lunatic gun owners.

   For the rational people it should be incontestably obvious that the practically unhindered access to guns in this country is a crime committed by an entire society.

   For Church goers it should be remembered that Jesus was not a gun owner!

   This country started two wars because nearly 3,000 of its citiezens were killed in 9/11.

   This year alone already well over 2,000 people died here in the USA from firearms.

   So, when will the war on unchecked gun ownership start?

Isreal soils its hands again

Picture credit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10196938.stm

The "armada of hatred" has been handled with the compassion of love, or at least that's what the Israeli military is trying to make the world believe today. 

Sorry, not the world; just the Americans. They think that the US is sufficient to cover up any and all of their dehumanizing and bloody actions against the Palestinians and those who feel sympathetic with them. The rest of the world is tearing up Israeli flags, whereas the American government couldn't even bring itself to condemn Israel for its terroristic action on international waters, against a ship loaded with civilians and humanitarian aid and not having a hint of harmful military cargo on it.

Israel continues to escalate the Middle-East conflict with the brutal actions of its unmatched military. It continues to shift the Muslim world into the hands of the extremists while making all efforts to depict the whole Muslim world as the evil itself. Of course with actions like this, they are also pushing the non-Muslim world toward increasing anti-Semitism; the last thing this unstable world needs these days. 

As I indicated in my previous blog entry, Israel seems to be cutting the branch underneath itself. Instead of acknowledging the very real power of the Arab and world-wide resistance against its policy and utilizing the equalizing force of its mighty military to reach reasonable political solution, it intends to crush all Arab and obviously international resistance by brute force while demonizing its opponents. 
Israel wants to shape the Middle-East to its very own liking with disregard for any opposing views. Such efforts have not been sustainable in history. Furthermore, such strictly might-based solutions are doomed to failure much quicker now then any other time in the historical past, due to technological advances that clearly cannot be kept out of the enemy's hands forever.

Injustice brings forth injustice and today's Israeli action was one of the most glaring injustices of recent times. 

On the long run the United States would only help Israel, and the world if it cares about it, with a quick and unconditional condemnation of today's barbaric Israeli commando action!

Link to the news

Israel: The Champion of free speech...!?

Picture credit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8685930.stm

Noam Chomsky is undoubtedly an original thinker. He is an internationally respected linguist at MIT, an independent and, within the confines of conventional labeling, a liberally inclined political activist whose views you may disagree with but you can ignore them only at your own risk. As you may expect from a master linguist, his true justice-seeking intentions are evident through his exceptionally clear arguments. Every audience should feel honored by being able to listen to him and if you disagree, feel free to test your opposition against one of the brightest minds of our times, as e.g. William F. Buckley Jr., a preeminent voice of American conservatism did it in a 1969 interview.

Mr. Chomsky was scheduled to give a lecture in a Palestinian University but was denied entry from Jordan into Palestine by Israeli authorities. – see link:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/noam-chomsky-american-left-wing-intellectual-denied-entry/story?id=10664920

This action of Israel, in head-on collision with the cherished American principle of right to free-speech, unmistakably demonstrates that democratic principles are far from being the primary concern of today’s Israeli government.

The action at the Jordanian-Palestinian border also provides us with a window at the humiliation the Palestinian people have to endure under Israeli occupation.

Don’t misread me: I am rooting for the success of Israel! No, not because Jews are the “chosen people of God”!... but because of their tenacity displayed throughout history and their undeniable smarts. However, fighting 1 billion Muslims while relying on military might alone, driven by misplaced religious prophecy and narrowly interpreted geopolitical interests, seems suicidal to me.

Mr. Chomsky may have been able to soften the hard path Israel needs to take to integrate herself into the Middle East and indeed into the World. Denying this opportunity from Mr. Chomsky is a short sighted and plain antidemocratic action that should be strongly opposed by the freedom-loving American public and politics!

Elton John's provocative novel proposition about Jesus

Just Jared has a few juicy tidbits from Elton John's upcoming interview with Parade Magazine, but there's one that'll let you know the Rocket Man hasn't lost his verve for controversy.

"I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don’t know what makes people so cruel."

You can check out reactions to the above statement by the flamboyant musical genius: http://www.comcast.net/music/blindedbythehype/10903/

Below is my 2 cents to the discussion.

I am a straight man and used to be catholic. Having experienced the hypocrisy of people claiming Jesus as their Savior, I must say that Elton John might be even correct in his assumption that Jesus was gay: for Him it certainly would not have mattered who you are in love with because he loved all of us... no exception... no sexual preference... no color or nationality... no friend or enemy. He just loved us! At least that's what is written about him in the Bible that I read. Seeing the broadmindedness, wisdom and passion of Jesus as he appears in the Bible, he seems to fit the bill of a gay man much better than of today's so called Christians blinded by their immense bigotry. I applaud Elton John for his clear vision and courage to present this novel idea! 

Photo credit: 9hotelparis.wordpress.com
Picture credit: http://www.optimistique.com/pierre.et.gilles/images/galerie/pg36.jpg

Moments of life: The plum

The resort as it looks today: the plum trees and the bungalows are all gone. The ping-pong table was set up somwhere close to the wooden structure in the back.


There are moments in our life with unique importance. These are shimmers, when time seems to slow down to a virtual standstill, almost like an incidental snap shot. Times, when the world around us turns into drowsily pulsating, dreamy shadows as the moment unhurriedly yet unstoppably carves itself deep into our memory.

Most such moments tend to be linked to fateful events. Few Americans who were alive at the time, would not remember where they were and what they were doing when JFK’s assassination was announced. Similar key events shape the memory of all generations, be it a war declaration, a natural disaster or a terrorist action.

But, I don’t think that these are the most crucial moments of our lives.

How about then, the key personal events: a “big” birthday, the first kiss, pronouncing the ever committing “Yes”, seeing our kicking and screaming newborn child for the first time or yes, getting the sad news of the passing of a beloved one. These moments are much closer to us than those colossal world news and they are destined to shape our future in very powerful ways.

But still no…, I don’t think that these are the most defining moments of our lives either.

The events that have the biggest impact on us are those everyday small jiffies that we frequently don’t even remember of. These moments lurk in the fringes of our awareness and unknowingly jolt us into action day after day. By the twist of fate, one such incidence of my life never crossed the fringes inot the mist of oblivion.
When I was a child, my family used to spend our summer vacation at a popular lake of Hungary, called the Balaton. The lake is quite spectacular at the feet of ancient, extinct volcanic hills. It has always been revered and loved by the people around it, as reflected in the multitude of folk tales about giants, kings and tragic lovers who used to live there.

One summer at the lake remained particularly memorable for me. I was in my mid-teens then and met Judith in our resort where she spent her vacation with her family. She was a dirty blond with a hypnotizing smile, a ticklish laugh and blue eyes that got me lost in them every time I glanced at her. Our gang of like-age youngsters, somewhere between childhood and adolescence, always played together on the grounds of the resort. To my dismal, one other boy in the group also took a liking in Judith and she clearly enjoyed the double attention.

One afternoon we were playing a special game around the ping-pong table. The purpose of the game was to return the ball while running in circles around the table. When you missed the ball, you were out and the game continued until only two of the players were left. The two then played a final short game for “best of seven” to decide who was the ultimate winner. As it happened, on that day my rival for Judith’s favors and I were the two finalists. Naturally, in the group that was watching our duel, there was Judith with her mesmerizing blue eyes following the ball with noticeable excitement. Being about equal players, our exchanges were fairly long and I frequently saw a shimmer of Judith’s probing glances on me, when the return was on my side.

The winning came down to the seventh and final point. I was full with nervous tension. God only knows how much I wanted to win that last point! I pictured myself as Judith flashes her heart-warming smile of admiration at me after my heroic victory. My heart was pumping and I was concentrating on the ball with all my might.

I had a certain slam that I used to be very proud of. To be honest, I lost a lot of points because of that slam but when it worked, it was impressive: as the ball approached the ground and appeared hopelessly lost, I returned it with a powerful top-spin from well below the level of the table. Due to the spin, the bounce on the other side was so fast that nearly everyone missed the return. It was a pretty spectacular move! Thinking that “nothing ventured, nothing gained”, this was the slam I chose to finish the decisive round with. Although the odds were not better than 50/50…, it worked! My opponent, underestimating the speed of the ball missed it and instead he slammed the thin air with his pedal. I heard a few chuckles from the group that intently followed our rivalry.

The sense of victory was complete and sweet. My opponent stepped to me to congratulate and I saw sweat rolling down his face from his hairline. I noticed the surprised and appreciative look on Judith’s face, as our eyes met for longer than ever before.

There were plum trees around us with the chalky blue, ripe plums in reach from the ground. Judith was about to taste one those plums, when, on a whim, she changed her mind… and this is where the moment in slow motion started. With a heart warming, big smile on her face, she slowly gestured to throw me the plum.

I wanted to stop time! I wanted to end life right there, in that moment as the plum made its way toward me, slicing through the air. The space between Judith and me that seemed so vast just a minute ago suddenly contracted and became so intimate that I could see the bright spark in her eyes that appeared bluer than a September sky and deeper than any ocean. I could feel the silkiness of her smooth, blond hair that flittered to the side from tossing me that plum. My clutched fingers gently hugged the plum when it landed in my hand. I was holding it as if it were a hatchling that just fell out of the nest.

I never ate that plum. Somehow I managed to bring it home without squashing and saved it in a box for many years to come. Although it became wrinkled like a raisin, its blue color never faded. Whenever I looked at it, I saw Judith’s ocean-blue eyes, and remembered that afternoon with the plum trees, the ping-pong table and us, kids running around the table trying to impress Judith, whose appreciative glimpse at that moment was not matched by anything in the whole wide world.

Fifteen years later, I got married. Getting ready to move out from our old apartment, I was cleaning my drawers and cabinets when came across the box with the plum. “What shall I do with this once so dear relic of my past?”, I pondered. After thinking long and hard, finally I decided to throw it out the window. “Who knows”, I mused, “one day a plum tree may sprout from it, …a tree that will stand witness for one of those mystifying moments in my life.”

A fateful trip

Photo credit: 
    http://www.mega.nu/ampp/www.tlio.demon.co.uk/mush.gif

This is a fiction about a time when truly fateful events took place. The fiction is open ended as the consequences of those events are...

A fateful trip


Sitting in the black limo with this cold, android like but undeniably handsome stranger, Chris started to question the wisdom of her trip. The traffic was slow and she had plenty of time to rerun the events of the last few days. It all started with a trip she decided on in a whim.


Yes, the trip she expected so much from! The trip that was supposed to clear her father’s name and put an end to her decades-long emotional torment. Was his father really a spy? Was he a man who would have betrayed his country for a fee? Although her father died long ago in a suspicious car accident, these questions weighted on her so heavily, for so long! All her life…


When, as a child they played hide and seek, nobody wanted to hide with her. The children called her the daughter of a traitor. Much later, when she applied for one of the Ivy League universities, they congratulated her for the exceptional personal statement. She got high praise for her colorful language, the elegant simplicity of style and the obvious commitment to her chosen field, corporate law. Then, one of the interviewers asked what she thought about her father's dealings with the Russians at the height of the cold war. When her boyfriend Tod first introduced her to his mother, she quickly managed to bring up her father’s case. "Do you think your father's unfortunate death was really an accident? I know that you were very young then, but the trial made so many headlines those days! They said the Russians would not have made the H-bomb without his help... He must have been such a smart man! But to give all that information to the Russians!?"


Her father's involvement was never really proven nonetheless he was called a traitor in every newspaper, the radio and TV shows of the days.

Only if she knew the truth! All her life, she has been in limbo about the man she barely remembered yet she wanted to look up to so badly. She believed, …no deep inside she was convinced, that her father would not have betrayed his country. She knew that he was the victim of the McCarthy witch-hunt because of his peace activism, …but even if he was guilty! She just wanted know it so that this troubled detail of her life would come to a closure.


And then one day came that phone call. It was placed from Kirkutzk, a small town somewhere in Russia, in a mountain whose name she never heard of, in the Altai. The man who called introduced himself as Vasiljevich and only said this much: "I know about your father and could tell you things that might interest you. If it is important to you, get on a plane and visit me! What we would be discussing can not be done on the phone."


Two days later she arrived to this typical Soviet era town with rows of 4 story concrete apartment buildings and a wide main street where the May 1 marches used to take place. It did have its charm though, thanks to the surrounding gently sloping hills with their thick green forests and a lake that the locals called the "Eye of the sea". Vasiljevich was waiting for her with his capri-yellow Lada, the pride of the Russian automobile industry. They drove right away to Vasiljevich’s small house at the perimeter of the town. The neighborhood was clearly home to the elite of the town with well-maintained houses, clean streets and neatly trimmed gardens.


Vasiljevich showed her into the kitchen, apparently the social hub of the house. There was a basketful of piroshkies on the table freshly baked for the visitor and two empty glasses. “I know Americans don’t like vodka. This is a good wine from my own grapes,” boasted the host as he filled up the glasses. “You’ll see that you like it!” His English was good, with that unmistakable musical, slavish intonation.


“I knew your father” he started, “I followed his trial. I know that he would have received very harsh sentencing had he not died in that accident. … That accident really came as a blessing in disguise for him. I don’t even know if it was really an accident” he mused for a moment.


“I am a father too. My son loves me and respects me as all sons should respect their fathers. I know how heart broken he would be if one day I were condemned for some despicable action. I feel your pain…, that’s why I decided to set the record straight.” He kept a short break again, “…He was not a spy!"


He lifted the glass to his mouth and had a slow sip of wine. He continued in a dreamy way, as he was reliving those old memories. "I was assigned to his case from the KGB and met him several times in the US. True, we tried to recruit him because of his invaluable knowledge of the American nuclear program and his well-publicized disappointment with the strong hawkish influence within the core group. You remember Edward Teller, don’t you?”


He took a deep breath, “I befriended your father and at one point offered him large amount of money for certain information. He became very agitated with me and threatened to give me up to the CIA.” For a moment, he seemed to be gathering his thoughts. “Of course, we had means to prevent him from going to the CIA and I was not afraid that he would do that. We had documents in our hand, some real, some falsified, that could have put him in a very bad position with the CIA. You understand that in this business one needs to be mean and has to take chances, as I did."


His eyes narrowed and was barely blinking as he dipped deeper and deeper into the past. " Later, I tried to appeal to his peace loving inclination. I told him that one superpower having a devastating weapon without any counterbalance is a danger for World peace, no matter how democratic that superpower is. I tried to convince him that, despite the heavy propaganda otherwise, the Soviet Union needed peace and we wanted to win the Cold War without military confrontation. For this however, we had to be able to show strength to get the Americans’ attention. As I remember, this argument almost worked on him. But, at the end he refused any cooperation with us and I never saw him again.”

He kept a short silence again. “We split up really almost like friends… I had tremendous respect for your father because of his superb mind and his honest desire for peace. But the times were not right for such sentiments in those days.” He looked at Chris, “Of course you must know about Oppenheimer.”


Vasiljevich became silent. He finished all he had to tell to this nervously squinting, petit, middle age woman who came here all the way from America to find out the truth about her father.


“Do you have any documentation of what you just said”, Chris asked him.

“These operations were so secret that when the system change came around, they destroyed  everything ever written about them. Don’t waste your time to search the archives in the Kremlin. Nobody knows about it. My bosses of those days are long dead”.

“Would you be willing to disclose what you just told me to American officials?”

“Chris, I love it here. I am old and traveled enough to last for a life-time. I am not going anywhere from Kirkutzk”

“There are ways to contact you without having to leave town. I probably could arrange for that. Would you do it that way”

“Yes” Vasiljevich said. “I would”.

“Thanks! I will be heading back tomorrow and will contact you about the arrangement”. A moment of silence fell between them, as if both tried to take in the significance of what has been just said.

“Vasiljevich” she broke suddenly the silence, leaning close to the old man and giving him a tight hug that a woman can only give to her child. “You know how grateful I am for you!”


She left town with the early morning bus to the local airport, and a few hours later she was waiting to board the New York flight from the Moscow international airport. Suddenly her cell phone rang and an unfamiliar man, with broken English asked for her. “I am Vasiljevich’s son” he introduced himself. “My father had a heart attack this morning Miss, and now he is in the hospital on a respirator. The doctor’s don’t know if he will make it. You are the one who saw him last..., I thought you may want know.” Chris could barely catch her breath and utter, “I am so sorry for your father."


At the exit gate in JFK a tall, solidly built, handsome man approached her in immaculate three-piece black suite. Although he had no dark sunglasses, she was barely surprised when he pulled out a badge from his pocket and flashed it in front of her face. The three letters on the badge were almost screaming at her: CIA.


"Ms. X, we need to talk to you in an urgent matter, please come with me to the office in downtown." There was no point to protest. They sat into a black limo and the driver started his skillful maneuvering in the afternoon rush hour. As if the man was reading her mind, he said: "Vasiljevich is a person of special interest and we know that you met him. We would appreciate if you could answer a few questions about this visit."


Christine's had was spinning. For a while she could not rein in her swirling thoughts but finally it all cleared up. "Two days ago I was a normal, everyday citizen... then, I decided to visit the only man who could clear my father's name, but he gets a heart attack and may not survive…, the KGB documents supporting his recount are shred and now the CIA is going to interrogate me!" Suddenly, she found the whole situation so bizarrely comical that she broke out in a loud laugh. The man looked at her puzzled. Wiping her tears, she explained: "You know, I am starting to question the wisdom of this trip."