Ukraine Community Day at Penn

 

Prometheus Choir

Yesterday, I went Ukrainian Community Day at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia.

By the time I arrived, I could only watch the performance on a video screen in the lobby with others who arrived late.  Which made me very happy to see that the Ukraine event had filled the auditorium which has seating for more than 900.

On the wall of the lobby hung fourteen drawings under the title Etching Room 1: Safety Instructions. 

Safety Instructions is the first-ever U.S. exhibition for Kyiv-based artists Anna Khodkova and Kristina Yarosh, founders of the print studio Etchingroom1. Infused with subtle humor and sharp sarcasm, Safety Instructions is an artistic exploration into the fragility and transience of safety within the modern world. Employing diverse techniques, including etching, silkscreen and drawing, the 14 graphic works on display make their public debut in this very special exhibition.

On view through June, Safety Instructions is part of Ukraine: The Edge of Freedom, exploring the country’s stunning artistry and rich cultural history while uplifting artists calling attention to the challenges the nation has been facing.

Honor Guard: Real Military Life

 

I recently had a Red Rose Veterans Honor Guard service on a cold afternoon in Lancaster. We all arrived before our time to report. The time we gather is a half hour before the graveside ceremony begins.  

We practice the ceremony for a few minutes. We concentrate on the very precise way we fold the flag.  Then in a very military way, we wait.  This particular ceremony happened right on time. I have been to others that were delayed from a few minutes to almost an hour.  

All of us are required to leave our phones in the car, so we actually talk to each other. And we don't take selfies.  I have my phone shut off in my jacket pocket because I ride a bicycle to the ceremonies. I am the only one who has ever ridden to the ceremonies, so there are no bike rules.  

At the most recent ceremony I attended, I met another Tanker.  He is younger than I am so we trained on and served in different tanks.  But we still spent years in turrets and had a lot of fun talking about "the best job we ever had."

After I left the active duty Army at the end of1979, I grew a beard and was a civilian for almost two years.  Then I joined a reserve tank unit for three years. I was not ready to re-enlist in the active-duty Army, but 12 weekends and two weeks in the summer sounded just right, especially because I could fire tank guns at least twice a year.  

Now that I am well past any sort of military service, participating in a ceremony to honor fellow veterans a few times a month gives me a lot of joy, and just enough feeling of being back in the military. 

March for Ukraine on Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia

 

More than a thousand people gathered on the famous steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art today to support Ukraine in its war against the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. 

The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about the event today. A very good article. 

The marchers lined up with three long flags forming a procession that stretched several hundred meters along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway between the art museum and the Franklin Institute.

More than Two Thousand Mark the 2nd Anniversary of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine at the Lincoln Memorial

 

Today more than two thousand people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on the Capital Mall in Washington DC to mark the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  

The event celebrated the courage and tenacity of the people ofUkraine in their struggle against Russian invasion and atrocities.  

It was clear from the signs, that while the majority of Americans, more than 70%, support Ukraine in its defense of its own nation, Trump and the cowards who worship him want to abandon Ukraine and all other American allies.  

Glory to Ukraine!!!

President's Day Standing with Ukraine at the Pennsylvania State Capital

Today I went to the Human Chain of Solidarity with Ukraine on the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capital in Harrisburg.

We stood from 5-6 p.m. facing the setting sun in the west.  The Capital dome was lit in rose and amber by the setting sun as the assembled group sang the Ukraine National Anthem.  

Many of those attending are Ukrainian, some refugees, some American citizens working help Ukraine from here.  

On Saturday and Sunday this week, many of us will be in both Washington D.C. and Philadelphia at events marking the second anniversary of  the Russian invasion.  

 

I am re-reading "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. I am 300 pages into the 1996-page Pevear and Volokhonsky translation.

Tolstoy was a lieutenant in the Russian Army during the Crimean War (1852) and writes about war with the horror and humor of a combat veteran.

In the first war section of the book, the Russian army meets the French in Austria just after the Austrian army is smashed by Napoleon. The Russian general Kutuzov has beats Napoleon in the first battle, but is forced to retreat. One of the cavalry squadrons attacking the French includes the young cadet Nikolai Rostov.

Rostov draws his sword and rides to the attack with his squadron in his first combat action. In moments his horse is shot from under him and falls on him. Rostov's arm is bruised and possibly broken in the fall. His arm is numb. He struggles to his feet holding his limp arm. He sees French soldiers running toward him. He realizes they are going to capture of kill him. His thoughts are a swirl. He thinks, 'Everyone loves me. My mother, my sisters. My friends. How could they want to kill me. I have a happy life.'

He snaps out of the reverie and runs, escaping in trees and shrubs at the edge of the battlefield.

In that swirl of confused thought, Tolstoy captures the crazy extremes of combat. One moment the young soldier is riding to glory, the next he thinks of his mother on the point of death.

I cannot judge the veracity of the scenes in Moscow parties and dinners, but they come alive for me in the backstabbing intrigue of the powerful.

Tolstoy is amazing.

David Bentley Hart in 2011: "the devil is probably eerily similar to Donald Trump—though perhaps just a little nicer."

David Bentley Hart, Eastern Orthodox Theologian

From 2003 to 2020, the Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart wrote a column for First Things magazine.  

In 2011, Hart ended one of his columns with a comment on Donald Trump.  Hart continues to hold his low view of the former President. The essay ends with a 46-word sentence comparing The Donald to The Devil.   

By the way, First Things magazine now leads the worship of Trump for conservative Catholics.  

Here is Hart on Trump:

... Donald Trump... You know the fellow: developer, speculator, television personality, hotelier, political dilettante, conspiracy theorist, and grand croupier—the one with that canopy of hennaed hair jutting out over his eyes like a shelf of limestone.

In particular, I recalled how, back in 1993, when Trump decided he wanted to build special limousine parking lots around his Atlantic City casino and hotel, he had used all his influence to get the state of New Jersey to steal the home of an elderly widow named Vera Coking by declaring “eminent domain” over her property, as well as over a nearby pawn shop and a small family-run Italian restaurant.

She had declined to sell, having lived there for thirty-five years. Moreover, the state offered her only one-fourth what she had been offered for the same house some years before, and Trump could then buy it at a bargain rate. The affair involved the poor woman in an exhausting legal battle, which, happily, she won, with the assistance of the Institute for Justice.

How obvious it seems to me now. Cold, grasping, bleak, graceless, and dull; unctuous, sleek, pitiless, and crass; a pallid vulgarian floating through life on clouds of acrid cologne and trailed by a vanguard of fawning divorce lawyers, the devil is probably eerily similar to Donald Trump—though perhaps just a little nicer.

 

Six Easy Pieces by Richard P. Feynman

 

Reading Richard Feynman gives me the feeling that I can understand a little bit of the mystery and beauty of science.  I thought I would read the short introductory paperback before deciding whether I should attempt the three-volume Feynman Lectures on Physics.

After reading QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, I wanted to read more of Feynman and again have that feeling I could really comprehend modern physics. It is like riding in a strong tailwind on a bicycle.  I am zipping along above 25mph and can think for a moment I am really that strong, at least until I turn into the wind and feel merely human again. 

Feynman give me a science high.    

In the first lecture, Atoms in Motion, he says, 

    Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again, or, more likely, to be corrected.

On page 2, I know what science is. Two pages later the section titled Matter is made of atoms begins:

If in some cataclysm, all of the scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creature, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact whichever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms--little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling each other upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.

Entertaining and brilliant.  The rest of the book bubbles with insights, elucidating basic physics, showing the connections of all the sciences to each other, then a chapter on energy in its many forms, followed by gravity--the weakest force, ending with quantum mechanics. 

I am going to read another Feynman book this week. 

How General Erwin Rommel Rationalized Supporting Hitler

I am reading a book about the careers of the of the most well-known generals of World War II. All of them were decorated young officers in World War I. They made the army their career, serving in diminished armies until the late 1930s when war put all three in command of great armies.  

Rommel is known as the Desert Fox, really his worst performance as a commander, and for joining the failed plot to assassinate Hitler after in 1944.  But he was for Hitler before he turned against him.  His path to making peace with Hitler has chilling parallels with today.   

From the book:

In 1932, the Nazi Party's achievement in becoming the largest party in the Reichstag was not greeted with concern by the Army Officer Corps, but with hope. Although I do not like their methods, wrote Oberst Karl Kuhn of the General Staff in his diary in November 1932, most of my acquaintances see developments as good for Germany and good for the army.  

Most of the soldiers seemed to agree, although most seem more concerned with the implications for their pay and accommodation. The officer corps had reservations about the Nazi Party and its leadership, the tub-thumping rhetoric of Adolf Hitler feeding widespread distrust of the former First World War corporal, but many were willing to see what the Nazis could come up with to solve chronic German problems.  

Berlin based Oberstleutnant Paul Uckleman wrote in his journal that he thought Hitler is no gentleman and described his colleagues as brutes, thugs, and men on the make, using vile tactics and supporting questionable policies. Nevertheless, Uckleman also wrote that perhaps Hitler is the man to destroy the Communists and help revive Germany and the army.  

It was a view that seems to have reflected Erwin Rommel's own thinking about the Nazis. Hitler and his party were distasteful, but they were better than the alternatives in their offer of an enticing vision to end internal crises, bolster the economy and provide a muscular nationalism that would break the Versailles Treaty shackles reinvigorate the armed forces and redraw Germany's borders. As Rommel’s biographer Ralf Georg Reuth has argued, the most influential part of the army hoped that Hitler would become vanquisher of the discord that had traumatized German society since 1918. 

The Purpose of Life? To Live--Yogi Sadhguru

Yogi Sadhguru

A friend sent me a YouTube link of Yogi Sadhguru answering the question, "Does life have a purpose?"

His answer surprised and delighted me. Although I have read widely in Jewish, Christian and Buddhist literature, Hindu teachings never attracted my interest. But Yogi Sadhguru could be Rabbi. He has such clarity.  If you are interested, you can either listen to the YouTube video above or read the transcript below.  

"Does life have a purpose?"

No. 

Isn't it fantastic that if there's no purpose, you have nothing to fulfill, you can just live? 

No, but you want a purpose? And not a simple purpose. 

You want a God-given purpose. It's very dangerous. 

People who think they have a God-given purpose are doing the cruelest things on the planet. 

Yes or no. 

They are doing the most horrible things and they've always been doing the most horrible things because when you have a God-given purpose, life here becomes less important than your purpose. 

My life is important. Life is important. When I say life. I'm not talking about your family, your work, what you do, what you do not do at your party. I'm not talking about that. 

A life, this is life, isn't it? Life is within you or around you. The ambiance of life. You are mistaking the ambiance of life for life, your home, your family, your workspace, your party. This is all ambience of life. This is. Not life, isn't it? 

Yes or no. 

You're mistaking the ambiance for the real thing, no? Life is important. Because that's the only thing you know. You don't know anything else. Do you know something else? Rest is all imagined stuff, isn't it the only thing there is? That this is being and alive and that's all there is. So, is this important? 

It is of paramount importance. Not you as a person. That's not important, but you as a piece of life is very important. Because that is the basis of everything. When I say that is the basis of everything in the universe exists for you. Only because you are, isn't it? 

Yes or no. 

The world exists for you only because you are otherwise it won't exist. In your experience. So, in every way, this is important. So, what is the purpose of this? 

See if you had a purpose and if you fulfilled it after that, what would you do? After that, what would you be bored? It is just that life is so intricate and so phenomenally intricate. That if you spend 10,000 years looking at it carefully; you still will not know it entirely. If you spend a million years looking at it. With absolute focus still you will not know it in its entirety. That's how it is. 

Is there a meaning to it? The greatest thing about life is that there is no meaning to it. This is the greatest aspect of life that has no meaning to it, and there is no need for it. To have a meaning. It's the pettiness of one's mind. That it is seek a meaning. Because psychologically you will feel kind of unconnected with life. If you don't have a purpose and meaning. 

People are constantly trying to create these false purposes. Now they were quite fine and happy. Suddenly they got married. Now the purpose is. The other person. Then they have children. Now they become miserable with each other. Now the whole purpose that I go through, all this misery is. Because of the children. Like this it goes on. These are things that you are causing and holding as purposes of life. 

And is there a God-given purpose? What if God does not know you exist? No, I'm just asking by chance. I'm saying in this huge. Which God is supposed to be the creator and the manager of these 100 billion galaxies, in that this tiny little planet? And you suppose he doesn't know that you exist? What to do? Possible, or no? I'm sorry I'm saying such sacrilegious things. But is it possible, or no? 

What if he doesn't know that you exist? What if he doesn't have a plan for you? Suppose he doesn't have a plan for an individual plan for you. Don't look for such things. The thing is the creation is made in such a way. 

That creation and creator cannot be separated. Here you are a piece of creation at the same time, the source of creation is throbbing within you. If you pay little attention to this process of life, you would not need any purpose. It will keep you engaged for a million years. If you want. There is so much happening. So much means so much unbelievable things are happening right here. If you pay enough attention. A million years of existence, it will keep you busy. Or more. 

Right now the need for purpose is come because you are trapped in your psychological structure, not in your life process. Your psychological structure functions from the limited data that it's gathered within that it rolls. And right now. 

Your thought and emotion has become far more important than your life, isn't it? So isn't it so? So because of this you seeking. A purpose as an. Escape from the trap that you have set for yourself. It is a trap set by you. You can easily come out of it. If the trap was set for you by somebody else, difficult to come out because they'll set the trap in such a way that you cannot come out, isn't it? I'm talking about life, not marriage.  

So this is a trap set by you. This is easy to come out, but that is the whole thing. Why it is so difficult is now you're identified with the trap. 

You like it. 

You like it because it gives you a certain sense of safety and security and protection and individual identity if you. Build a cocoon around yourself. It gives you safety, but it also imprisons you. Walls of self preservation or also walls of self imprisonment. When it protects you, you like it. When it restricts you, you do not like it. 

That is why we have doors. We like the wall because it's protecting us. But we have doors, so that way we can open it and get out when we want to. It doesn't matter how nice it is, we still want to go out, isn't it? So that is how it is with every trap that you set. It doesn't matter how nice it is, you still want to go out. 

So the psychological wall that you have built which gives you some sense of identity, which gives you some sense of being a person, an individual person, and which gives you security. Beginning to experience it like a trap somewhere, you want to break it. So one way of not breaking it is to find a purpose. 

Those who find a purpose in their life, they become so conceited. 

They will live within their own traps forever, thinking that they're doing the most fantastic thing. First thing you need is balance. If you have balance. Then you can try if you don't have balance it's better you stay on the ground. It's not safe for somebody who is not balanced to climb high. It's best you stay close to the ground. 

You should not climb. 

So first thing is to establish a balance. Then you're losing your psychological structure. Then you're losing your psychological structure without balance, which lot of people are doing today. 

Why does somebody want to drink alcohol or take a drug. Because it loosens your psychological structure. And makes you feel liberated for a moment but without the necessary balance. You have not worked for the balance, but you got freedom. Freedom without balance is destruction. Anarchy, isn't it? 

So first thing is to work for is balance an enormous sense of balance. Where even if you dismantle your psychological structure, you can simply live here, dismantling your psychological. Structure is an important process because that is your trap. That is your security. That is your stability. At the same time, that's your trap. Because the walls are set, you feel secure, but that's also your trap. 

If you dismantle your trap. You also dismantle your security, isn't it? You also dismantle your sense of purpose. You also dismantle everything that matters to you. So that will need balance without balance if you dismantle it you will go crazy. 

But don't look for a purpose because if you look for a purpose you're seeking madness. If you find one. You are surely mad? If you think you found a purpose in life you for sure have gone crazy. Because only the insane people have purpose. People who have purpose are insane in many ways. These are things that you create in your mind and believe it's true, isn't it? 

Right now, fighting for my country is my purpose. Right now, if it's necessary, I will fight knowing fully well it's an unnecessary bloody fight. Just then you will fight only to the extent it's necessary. If you think this is your purpose you would want to destroy the whole world for. What nonsense you believe in, isn't it? Something is needed. We'll do it. With absolute involvement, there's no other purpose. 

The purpose of life is to live and to live totally. To live totally does not mean party every night to live totally means before you fall dead every aspect of life has been explored. Nothing has been left unexplored. Before you fall dead even if you do not explore the cosmos, at least this piece of life, you must know it in its entirety. That much you must do to yourself, isn't it? That's living totally. That you experienced the whole of this, all dimensions of what this is. You did not leave anything untouched. You just do that. That will take a long time. 

That's enough. A good enough purpose for you.

 

Supporting Ukraine on Capital Hill--Meeting Lawmakers

At Congressman Lloyd Smucker's office 

(my representative), advocating for aid for Ukraine

Yesterday, I joined members of the American Coalition for Ukraine to ask members of the Congress representing Pennsylvania to support the Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression.  The group I was part of visited the offices of Congressman Lloyd Smucker, Senator Robert Casey, Senator John Fetterman, and Congressman Guy Reschenthaler. 

Our message: Ukraine needs ammunition and missiles urgently.

The response from each of the staffers we met with was support for Ukraine, but then came the various expressions of regret.  The Republican congressmen face opposition within their own party.  The phrase "in the current climate" summed up that regret saying in effect, We wish we could do more, but..."

Both of the senate staffers were in support of Ukraine and fighting against Republican opposition in both the Senate and the House. We heard Senator Fetterman is "extremely disappointed" with the "dysfunctional House of Representatives."  He considers the abandonment of Ukraine support by Republicans "reprehensible" and "unAmerican."  

When I was at the last Ukraine Action Summit October 22-24 of last year, the Fetterman visit was the best. He stood with us on the steps of the Senate and declared complete support for Ukraine. I wrote about that visit here. For those of us who spent six years protesting Senator Pat Toomey, the best result of our protest is that Toomey did not run for re-election and John Fetterman took his place in the senate.  

Fetterman is just as strong on his support for Israel.  The walls of his office are covered with posters of the hostages taken by HAMAS terrorists on October 7. Those released are on one side, those still held are on the other.  

I have another Congressional visit tomorrow. I will write about that as soon as I can.  

I believe Ukraine is the front line of the defense of freedom and democracy against Russia and her authoritarian allies in Iran, China, North Korea, Hungary, Turkey, and all of those within America who support tyranny.  

Dark Tourism

 

Monument in the Dachau Concentration Camp

Tonight after services at my synagogue, I talked to a member of the congregation about about visiting Nazi death camps.  She never visited a death camp. She is thinking about joining a tour led by our Rabbi that will visit several death camps in 2025.  

We talked about how much death camps were part of the towns and cities where they were located.  Auschwitz is inside the city area of Oswiecim, Poland. Both times I went to the camp I thought how strange it was to hear the bells of the Catholic Church while walking through a death camp.  

The Flossenburg camp is in an area that was very pro-Nazi in Bavaria. the camp was part of the community. The camp managers bought food and other supplies locally, as happened at most death camps, and made no effort to hide the slave labor and death in the camp. 

A couple of years ago, I spoke to a professor who studies Dark Tourism: visiting places known for death and tragedy.  Ten visits to nine different camps and a dozen other museums and memorials put me right in the definition of Dark Tourist.  

Tonight the Rabbi talked about January 12, 2024, as the 100th day since the terrorist massacre, mutilation and kidnapping of more than 1,400 Israelis.  At every death camp, the guides make clear that all Nazi death camps had other prisoners in addition to Jews. But at every camp, Jews were the lowest of the various prisoners. They were most likely to be tortured and humiliated by design or by whim.  

When HAMAS terrorists invaded Israel torture and sexual violence and mutilation were the plan. The Holocaust began with humiliation and led inevitably to extermination. HAMAS has the same agenda. 

May the IDF destroy them completely.