Letter to my Friends in America

Dear Friends:

It has been some time since I wrote a letter since we have all these new technologies. There is an app for everything under the Sun yet we rarely talk face to face. I prefer the conversations over a good cup of coffee to a line of text any day of the week.

As you know I remain disconnected from the fantasy world of television. I stopped by to see Anita and she had one of those devices playing. In two hours there were twenty-two violent deaths portrayed on two of the shows. Apparently the programs are in their 9th or 10th season due to people being big fans. I've often wondered what the relationship to watching so much death has to being happy about war.

Later I headed over to see Nash. You remember him from years ago. He keeps his children busy playing video games or watching television. I couldn't help myself from making a comment about the 70 inch screen being plastered with blood from the video games. Nash shrugged and talked about how is doing much better after the third divorce. He and his new spouse are expecting a baby soon. They currently have five children between nine to eighteen years old. I thought it would be prying to ask if the children get confused about the parent thing. I've never believed the village has any control over the wishes of a family.

The Internet remains a great place to meet people and stop for a chat. After the Bush Jr. debacle it is difficult to  believe an election could be so dramatic. I always thought the person with the most votes gets to be the President. That election proved me wrong.

I pulled a short story from my daily journals started when I was fourteen. As children we would spend our summers at the cottage. It was a log cabin deep in the wilderness without electricity. About twenty cottages built on the shores of McKenzie Lake made summ.  er a wonderful experience. Great fishing, swimming, chopping wood along with many other chores gave it a lively time. Evenings sitting near a fire on the sandy beach is embedded deep in my consciousness. My friends and I would talk for hours under the star filled night sky. Everyone except big Tim, age fifteen, were between ten and twelve years old. There was a radar base operated by the U.S. military nearby. The young soldiers, 18 or 19 years old, would often visit for a home cooked meal or to let us kids know the events they planned for us.

 

Our summer cottage at McKenzie Lake

One particular night in August one of the soldiers sat with us at the beach fire. They were always welcome to join us and tell stories. He appeared restless and asked us how fast we could get to the base. We told him it would take less than a ten minute run with Tim declaring he could run faster.

As he looked at each of us words slowly fell from his lips. "There are often problems when adults forget how to talk to one another. We have a situation where a few of them are getting angry with each other. Promise me, the next time you hear the air raid siren, you will run to the base and we will do our best to protect you." We made a promise to him because he was cute too. Nature gave us a hot summer including her wind, rain, thunder and lightning.

When we were back in town I could hear his words as the sirens wailed daily, or more, during September and October. There was no safe place to run so Mom, my younger brother and I huddled under the basement steps. Even today I can hear the air raid sirens in my dreams. Those 13 days during October, 1962 were terrifying.

Despite all the rhetoric spread everywhere today we became friends with the people who played a major role in winning World War II. The cold war ended long ago and I am happy it did. I was re-united with family in Russia and Ukraine after the Berlin Wall came crashing down. For a brief moment I felt a very beautiful sense of peace.

I know you have an important day coming up to elect your next President. This I can promise you as a citizen of the world. I will always be your friend as will the people of Russia. We are counting on you to vote on November 6, 2016 and bring those adults into the room to talk.

I hope before I die those air raid sirens will stop messing with my dreams.

"For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." President John F. Kennedy June 1963

Nikita Khrushchev and President Kennedy hold nuclear peace talks

Gay or Queer and Why it Matters

Some use it to encompass all non-heterosexual, non-cisgender identities. That’s an understandable use of the term – like I mentioned, I interpret it to be partially about giving space for exploring gender and sexuality, and including so many different groups of people demands that space, demands a challenge to stability. Certainly a wide variety of non-heterosexual, non-cisgender folks are queer.

But though queer might cover some part of that spectrum, it is not limited to it. I am not gay nor lesbian nor bisexual nor transgender. I am not anything other than just queer.

There are people who some of you might call straight, if you looked at them and their partners and impose genders onto them, but who are actually queer. And many gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals do not identify as queer.

Like plenty of the names marginalized people call themselves, queer has a fraught history of reclamation, many controversial political implications, and a universalizing aspect that is too contradictory for some.

Source: 3 Differences Between the Terms 'Gay' and 'Queer' — and Why It Matters - Everyday Feminism

Adrian Ballou is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism. A genderqueer writer, artist, activist, and educator who does youth development work both inside and outside the classroom, they particularly enjoy writing and facilitating social justice education and youth organizing curriculum.

Letter to the Editor

People around the world are angry at America for our support for Israel and its mass murder in Gaza. We don’t see it on American TV, but in the past week there have been massive demonstrations all over the world: in London, Tel Aviv and Washington, DC. In Indonesia, Latin America and Turkey.

This saddens me. I am a natural born American. My father and grandfathers fought in both World Wars. My ancestor, George Wythe, signed the Declaration of Independence.

I cannot stomach what my country is doing.

We are giving BILLIONS of dollars of our tax money every year to a state that practices apartheid and genocide.

Israelis complain that Sderot is the target of Hamas’ homemade rockets. Sderot is built on the old Arab village of Najd

, which was ethnically cleansed on May 13, 1948. Over 700 Palestinians were massacred there by Israeli forces.

During the 1948 war

, dozens of Palestinians in Jaffa were DRIVEN INTO THE SEA by advancing Jewish fighters. THIS is why in the past Hamas has advocated reciprocating these massacres. Would we do any differently? We consistently use the deaths of Americans on 9/11 as the reason for advocating war. WE OURSELVES do not practice “turning the other cheek” as Jesus taught!

Today, Israel is using Gaza to test weapons: uranium weapons, DIME weapons, microwave weapons and others. The bright flashes you see in pictures of Israeli bombing of Gaza are white phosphorus, which is internationally outlawed for use against civilians. Israeli jets overfly Gaza (which has NO air defense), deliberately creating sonic booms. The UN estimates over 46% of the children in Gaza suffer hearing loss and severe psychological trauma as a result.

Now, Israel is bombing Gaza after months of starvation and denial of water, electricity and medical attention to its people. Palestinians are being killed, mostly civilian: the number is now over 1000, but how can anyone know how many more bodies lie in the rubble? The American mass media tell us NOTHING of what is going on but you can see the true extent of the slaughter on the Internet. Again, the denial of necessities of life to civilians is against international law.

What would Jesus say? Palestinian CHRISTIANS are targets of Israeli ethnic cleansing, too, yet Christians in this country say nothing even about that.

Israel has been condemned around the world for its war crimes and genocide. The victims of the Nazi Holocaust have now become the victimizers.

I am ashamed that my country is an accomplice to these crimes.

Sent by Hajja Romi

"The lesson of the Holocaust is that when you have the capacity to halt genocide, and you do not, no matter who carries out that genocide or who it is directed against, you are culpable... Jewish Holocaust Survivor”

Reminicing Gay Pride Edmonton while walking along Jasper Avenue with Millie

I was strolling along Jasper Avenue on a warm summer's Saturday afternoon with the sidewalks packed with shoppers. Those were the days in Edmonton when hundreds of independent businesses lined both sides of Jasper Avenue along with the side streets. The working crowd would take a lunch break in the tree-covered park in front of city hall or any number of quiet places downtown. 

Downtown was alive and included Alice the quarter-quarter bag lady. Between 103 and 104 streets, the Bay store took up an entire block on the north side of Jasper with a cinema across the street surrounded by a variety of shops. It was the mid to late 1970s when transit buses ran on a regular schedule. Street parking was available everywhere, making it easy for anyone to drive downtown day and night. The atmosphere of friendliness filled the summer air on this particular Saturday.

As I crossed 103 Street, the sweetest voice asked if I would mind giving a lady a hand. I happily put my arm under hers and glanced at a lovely face decked out in an amazing dress and hat.

"Do those boots of yours click?" she asked. I clicked the heels for her. "Your jeans are a tight fit for this weather." to her I replied "The dress you are wearing is more fit for a ball." 

We were cruising along in front of The Bay store where crowds were loading on and off the buses. The sidewalk was very crowded so I moved this lovely lady closer to me.

I asked "What name shall I address you?"

"Millie Empress I when I'm in Drag and you may call me Paul when I am not doing a Drag Show. Will you come to see me?" she said.

"Empress 1makes an activist and here we are walking along Jasper Avenue with you in full Drag. I love it." replied I.

Millie posed a powerful question to me. "What will you do to make equality for gay men and women, homosexuals, something we can be proud of in Canada?"

"Will you give me a few minutes to understand what must be done?" was my simple reply.

"You can count on Millie Empress 1 for advice at any time. What name shall I call you?"

"Dennis, as in Dennis the menace the cartoon figure." as I grinned at Millie

 We parted company on 105 Street with grand fanfare and adieu.

I did on many occasions ask for advice from our Millie Empress 1. 

I remember Millie for helping to deal with my sexuality. As a recovering Catholic, the doctrine I was taught made me believe that god created junk. I knew better and did learn it was far from the truth. Everyone is born with the ability to love whoever they wish to love. 

People should not fear the government, a landlord, a business or healthcare workers who will not let you visit the one you love. 

It took decades to get any government to listen. One did finally make changes to laws preventing discrimination against homosexual men and women in Canada. It was the beginning of further changes, including people of any gender they wished to be called.

Canada rolled along as a recognized member of the best world economies. Making a modern decision to embrace everyone did not lead to a disaster that some said would happen. 

This is one of the only remaining photos of Millie Empress 1. Love you Paul for starting a tradition carried on to this day.

 

The Koan describes three monks watching a banner flutter in the breeze. One monk observes, "The banner is moving," but the second insists, "The wind is moving." Finally, the third monk says, "You are both wrong. It is your mind that is moving." Zen Buddhism

Dennis A. Cambly 

Further Reading

Play-writer Darrin Hagen about Millie https://wp.me/pWjRa-2Ee

Members of The Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose https://iscwryeg.ca/?p=1900