Posted by voolavex in birthday, mother, serial monster, funeral, life baggage, loss, dead, death certificate, despicable, Domestic Violence, guilt, Mann & Mann, marriage, murder, My Mother, serial monster, Social Issues.
Tags: death certificate birthday, funeral, life, loss, mother, murder, police, serial monster, women
Back in the days when domestic disputes were shameful and unreported, my mother was the dead body in a domestic murder.
In a small blue-collar town in Massachusetts. On January 24, 1978. It was a long time ago and it was a moment ago. It was the tragic finale to many phone calls and plane ticket reservations and telephone commiseration for a mother who simply couldn’t. She fought back, she screamed, she saw a doctor, she drank, but she could not leave with my two much younger siblings, or the pony or the house or the lingering affection she carried for a man who was a serial monster. Bigamist, philanderer, narcissist, sociopath and murderer. One sib says many calls of service were made to the local police – their hands tied by 1977/1978 concepts and legalities. Another sib tells of death threats made to them on the night of my mother death. I did not know anything about this part. I only knew my mother wrote and cried and simply said “he” had a girlfriend and she was confused and didn’t know what to do. At 54 she was probably menopausal. Not much to go on. She didn’t want to move out with the children or leave the pets and the laundry list of excuses women have conjured for time immemorial. I was in Los Angeles and not welcome in her house. (Actually on February 10, 1958 I was no longer welcome in her life. At 12, I thought it was because he really loved her.) I blame myself for not listening harder and asking more questions. And I had no idea that physical violence was part of the picture. Neither of my siblings (19+ and 15) called me to ask for help. My mother had pride that went before all else. Including her funeral.
Her death certificate from that time reads COD: undetermined. A residual fear stops me from requesting a new one. She will still be dead.
She was only 54. Today is her 95th birthday. May I say she was beautiful and gentle and kind? May I say by the time I arrived at her house, anything of sentimental value that had belonged to her was gone? That her grieving husband knew I knew and it was not pleasant? That I swallowed my rage, stepped back and stayed for the children ( I am my mother’s daughter)? That I drank and sobbed and that the tables overflowed with funeral meats and that 200+ attended her funeral in Boston? That mourners continued; people I never knew, arrived in tears? That it was the same funeral home by her high school best friend’s parents? Mann & Mann. That I had played as small child in their huge house upstairs? That my family went back as close friends of the Manns? That the grieving husband read a sickening tribute?. And that my own father wept with me in stunned sorrow?
In 1978, it was simply another domestic dispute. Perhaps still in the local police records – on paper in a box; with so many others of the time.
There was no investigation. I knew of no interviews with siblings. That police never asked me anything. My grandmother thought it was a heart attack. She had just lost her only child. Was it mine to reveal? Information continued to seep through and very long after I found out the history of the man she had married in 1958. From his children; who loved my mother. I should have wondered more about the words of my dear step-brother who walked in, in 1978, crying, and said to me, sotto voce, “what did he do to her?”
I have always known it was murder. I have always known he patiently waited. I knew she did not wash down 40 or 50 pills with vodka. She didn’t ever take Darvon and that’s what they found. I know he sat beside her and watched. I have no idea how he managed to make it happen. He died five years later; alone in a rented apartment in Lawrence; the other woman long gone. He was soup when they found him. Dead five days of a heart attack in a fall from the up high liquor shelf. One he needed a step stool to reach. In a closed apartment on a sweltering summer day.
He was short and bald and had good teeth.
I could kill him again and again for his crime but she would not have wanted that. And dead never ends. They would have been married twenty years on that February 10th.
She has been gone 39 years. Since the day my broken heart and endless anger met all at once. And no one of us leftover has ever been able to move on. We try to unpack that valise, only to realize that some things travel with you forever, in your life luggage.
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Posted by voolavex in Social Issues.
Tags: Christian, death, Earth Day 2015, GOP, greed, Jews, Mars, money, murder, Muslims, Religion, religious right, Republican
I skipped March. It was in like lamb and out like a lamb and I did not hear the Baaa. I woke up very angry. Earth Day. Wow. I remember the first one – now we talk more and still fuck up. Everyday should be earth day on earth. Every single day. And we know it but we are small minded, greedy and wasteful and there is a tipping point. We are teetering. When it first became a day of “Saving the Planet” I was very excited because my generation tried hard. We did more than talk – but talk is cheap. We are a cheap species. We have created more and more waste and crap and bad stuff and we are not even imagining an end to it.. What will stop eventually is us. And I doubt it will be a single thing that happens – I simply think we will tip and stay tipped. That was one thing I was angry about. I also am going to try not to rag on the GOP handlers about greed and hating the less moneyed folks; the 1% who are using the planet like they own it. I suspect they do in large parts. They do not want to give up a penny of their money and this is a given. If the other 99% of us starve, rot, shoot, stab and cheat each other – they do not give a good goddam. They are playing the Jesus Card because it is there. They are the folks who have enabled the rest of Religion Card players to sit down at the game. My tribe – will find itself becoming crypto-Jews (think Inquisition) because they are too embroiled in money politics to see what is happening. Muslims of real faith should practice real love for their almighty. Everyone should be free to believe or not and the rule of civility is about ten things and the rest is commentary. The balance of power and money for the Muslims is so skewed I can almost see why they are angry and commit murder. Almost. And their 1% can fix it but they won’t. This country is a shame, a snare and a delusion. We are NOT going to leave the planet and colonize Mars. We are going to dissolve in our own filth, waste and murder. There will be no Lord to help and there will be no Rapture. It is looking pretty bleak. And guess what – even those in “power” will be powerless. All their money will be useless and that is a tragic irony because all that money could fix many problems and still create revenue streams for them. If you have no customers, you will make no money. Enabling the 99% is the cost of business. Growing the consumers is what grows the business. I will continue to sinle out GOP members who piss me off. I am angry and not even started – but this is how I feel right now on Earth Day 2015. Comments are welcome. Stream of consciousness is about all I can say for my screed. Feel free to screed too.
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Posted by voolavex in Terror.
Tags: burn at stake, Charlie, CharlieHebdo, Christians, French, Je suis Charlie, Jews, Mayan, Mumbai, murder, Muslims, Paris, peace, Terror, war
It is an event that struck not just at Paris, but at the hearts and minds of reasonable humans worldwide. We are all Charlie. And we should always be Charlie from this moment on because we do not seem to get it without vicious attacks like this one to remind us that we are not safe in our only home. This is the only place we can be. There is no default planet to escape to and set up life right now. And probably won’t be in any reasonable future. This is it and we are threatened – on every front. We have raped and destroyed this planet. Assaulted her and used her and do not yet seem to know we cannot just toss her away. And this is bad enough to imagine – but the events in Paris are yet another reminder that we are engaged in a conflict that is a clear and present danger – to anyone who is not in line with the agenda of terror. Why does this shock and stun us every time an attack occurs. It shouldn’t.
War is a condition of mankind. Peace on Earth is a construct and an individual desire because it has NEVER been part of history. In recorded history there has never been peace on earth. Perhaps peace for a while in some places – but the planet has been in constant turmoil since history has been recorded. As a species we like to rape, pillage, murder, enslave and terrorize others. The scriptures of almost every faith on this world are dripping in blood – perhaps Buddhism is an exception – but it too came to be in bloody times as well. Did we crucify, toss to the lions, smite, riot, plague and burn at the stake every chance we got??? We sure did! About all that changed was the effectiveness of the means.There are few tribes or clans or peoples that have not fought back against something. And usually with violence.
So why did Paris stun us to the core? Because this is what it takes to keep us awake. Lost lives and bloodshed. And because there are some places in our hearts and mind that seem sacrosanct. Paris is one. And the invasive attack on Charlie Hebdo was up close and personal. It told all of us that we could be in our work, our homes, our daily lives, in the City of Light suddenly into darkness and we could BE Charlie. Multiply each lost soul by billions and we are all Charlie – going about our daily business, at the water cooler or lunch or in the park. This is the world we live in today. Not much different than any other world except we are in the here and now. We did not see people burned at the stake or heads rolled in Mayan bowling games – we see this now as hearsay in books. Today, people are lashed in public for ideas that are not “acceptable” to the some and therefore must be punished as a warning to the many. But bowling games or caning – where is the difference?
France warns the French Jews in particular – but they might also warn the French Muslims who do not support terror as well. They might point out that cathedrals and chapels are also at risk. They are all Charlie too. This carnage in no way diminishes the carnage already visited upon the 21st century in its short life, but we should reflect long and hard on what it does accentuate. We are a planet of monsters and a species who carry this dark capability all the time. The very good are rare and precious. The Nobel Peace Prize is treasured because those to whom it is given are rare and precious. Hitler was not an anomaly – he was just single-minded and in a better position to plot his course. And the media was better. And now the media is the messenger in an instant of all that is wrong and whatever is right. They do not achieve parity. Mumbai was a siege that last for days not even 10 years ago. As we coast between slaughters expecting peace to give us a chance. Imagine.
What I think and don’t say is that – but now I will – is – in the long history of my own faith – and until the 1900’s – despite ongoing plans for annihilation – my tribe did not do this. Current history may be a charged debate by those pro-and con Israel – but that is not the issue – the issue is that my tribe did not rain terror as recourse or payback or spite in more cases of threat and murder than recorded consistently on this planet. If the Christian prophet advised turning the other cheek – we epitomized doing it. Perhaps the hideous lesson in this is to understand how people are punished for what and who they are and think and how terrifying living under those circumstances has been for millennia. And how some face it honorably and others murder instead. I would suggest that people of any faith – not just mine, be careful . This may just be the terror that all the previous terror in history has begotten.
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Posted by voolavex in chasids, despicable, Jews, Politics & Religion, Social Issues.
Tags: Caylee, death, dying, families, grief, Jews, Leiby Kletzky, murder, Orthodox, Religion, sisters, yarmulke
I have been lazy and busy for the last few month – wasting perhaps valuable and pithy thoughts on FB. But today my heart is broken and I am in mourning for a little boy I do not know. His name is Leiby Kletzky and he would have been 9 years old next week. Now he is dead. Like most of this country I paid some attention to the trial of Casey Anthony – an ordeal almost 6 years old and one that resulted in an acquittal based on lack of a case. The DA in Orlando screwed up. Whatever we learn now about this matter will always be fraught with doubts but Casey Anthony is protected by double jeopardy so she may be a pariah – but she will go on her way. I don’t much care to be very honest.
Today I got an email from a list I am on called Hatzolah – a volunteer Jewish ER service and this one caught my eye. It told of a little boy walking home from day camp in borough Park Brooklyn who was kidnapped, murdered and dismembered by a member of the same neighborhood. This happened yesterday – not three years ago. Leiby was a little Orthodox Jewish lad with glasses, a yarmulke and sidelocks and sneakers coming back from day camp. A little boy. The family’s only son. His mother was on her way to meet him but he got lost and a man with a similar look drove by and we imagine Leiby asked for directions. Leiby got into the car. We will never know what he said but tonight he will be mourned and buried.
The man presumed innocent until proven guilty Levi Aron is a quiet, religious loner who lived in his parent’s home. He was not married and he worked full time. He only known crime was pishing in public. I suspect most men have done this. One can only assume that there were very dark parts in his head and where his soul might have once been. He has supposedly admitted to what he did to Leiby. What he did was so heinous and ugly you can read the tabloids to get the details. A parent should never know such things can happen to children. Such things should never happen.
While I write this I am waiting for the real press to tell us about Leiby and his short but beloved life. The sisters who must have adored him, the mother who treasured him; the father who planned in his heart for the 13th birthday on which he would become a man. I am waiting for the outrage and the anger and the fury that accompanied the death of Caylee Anthony. A child no more or less precious than this little boy. I am waiting for the outcry, the keeners, the wailers, the sign carriers who will demonstrate for Leiby and I know I will be even sadder because none of that will happen. And I would ask you who have loved any child to make sure it does. Because it matters just as much.
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Posted by voolavex in sex.
Tags: abortion, birth control, clinic violence, contraception, family planning, federal funding, murder, pro-choice, religious right, tax payers.
The link below and an email alert made me aware of yet another stealth attempt on our civil and individual rights under the current creature and his minions in the White House (and of course, the bunker). Quietly and in the usual sneaky manner(sound familiar) Human Health Services is attempting to write and pass a rule that equates (as in: makes the same as; as in: no difference than, as in no matter what your personal needs or choices are and the taxes you paid in) abortion and contraception. Now just as boldly as the neocons lied and went to Baghdad and Afghanistan and just as blatantly as they lied about Niger + yellow cake uranium – they are trying sneak to this one into law before the Dark Ages hopefully ends in January 2009. This is it in a nutshell – I suggest you read the entire article through this link I have posted:
Reproductive rights advocates issued a collective condemnation Tuesday of a draft proposal by the Bush administration to set new restrictions on domestic family planning programs. Under the draft proposal, federally funded hospitals and clinics that provide family planning services would be required to promise in writing that they will turn a blind eye to health care providers’ views on abortion and certain kinds of birth control, such as emergency contraception.
The proposed rule defines abortion as “any of the various procedures–including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action–that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantatation.It goes on (see link) http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=3672
Now have a look at the number of countries that allow choice to take place. Third World countries, backward countries, G-8 countries, civilized countries, countries out of control. I have to lump this country into last three because it is all those things or has been before 2000.
http://www.pregnantpause.org/lex/world02.htm
Is there any doubt in your minds that Mrs. Laura Bush used birth control or that her twin daughters do? I have no doubt. But it’s no one’s business. Have they had abortions – hopefully not – but that’s no one’s business either. We have idiotic contradictions in our laws that should embarrass us as a country and people, yet they exist and they are still being written. The attention to sex, pregnancy and birth however ends at the baby itself. Which is what I intended to write about. That’s Part 2. Nonetheless –
We have the ever brilliantly thought out blanket term statutory rape defined this way:
Statutory Rape Is Illegal Sexual Activity Between Two People When It Would Otherwise Be Legal If Not For Their Age: In accordance with the FBI definition, statutory rape is characterized as non-forcible sexual intercourse with a person who is younger than the statutory age of consent.
In other words going all the way with a senior when you’re a junior in high school is a crime and vice versa. This doesn’t allow for any circumstances that would mitigate such an act. And there are circumstances that do mitigate it. And we all know it.
No amount of self-righteous pontificating ever really keeps it from happening. The archaic term “unwed mother” used to be a designation for knocked up teens who were in loooove.
Shotgun marriage is legal – including the gun in many states – a forcible marriage to legalize the possible statutory rape and remove the stain of “unwed motherdom”. Is all this getting tiresome? It goes on and on and on. Completely neglecting the medical and hormonal facts of adolescence and puberty and the sexual images that are rammed down the throats of kids in general by the media and make “criminal sex” look really really fun. {This by the way has nothing to do with rape – the criminal act of attacking and forcing a person to submit to sexual intercourse of any kind.}
So why are we all being forced by some tax payers to relinquish our right to choice anyway? Even Antonin Scalia finds this a problem (he, a Catholic with 9 children). Why are abortion clinics unsafe at any semester and why is my uterus their business?
Ask the fanatics of the Religious Right. The Guardian of Heathen souls in danger of Satan. For the record, I don’t think any of these far right religious fanatics and would-be oppressors really care if anyone burns in hell. Yet they seem to devote more time to hell than they do to the Savior (theirs, not mine) though and without rotten souls to feed the fires they could soon find themselves stuck with what? You couldn’t have the Rapture without Armageddon and if we all went upward – who then would be to blame for anything. The Masons, I guess. Damn, even the Catholics discontinued Limbo – realizing no doubt how stupid it sounded to anyone with a pulse. The point is that ours is most definitely not a secular government and it’s engine is the Religious Right. And we all know just how pious and deeply spiritual our politicians particularly when it comes to dipping the old wick.
Our sexual laws are confusing and in some cases Middle Eastern in their scope. Now they are attempting to lump birth control into law as illegal in terms of federal funds at the very least and when and where does it end?
My advice:
Don’t have an abortion. Absolutely do not have an abortion if you find the idea horrible. Don’t do it. No one is forcing it on any woman who wants to be pregnant under any circumstances. Choose to have your baby. Do it. Rich, poor, young, old – have your child. That is what the overwhelming majority of Pro-Choice advocates believe. There are no pro-abortion groups in this country. Why would anyone want to force a person to have an abortion if she didn’t want it. It’s her choice – which seems, somehow, more reasonable than bombing a clinic and murdering medical personnel to save the unborn. And in the spirit of accepting personal responsibility for one’s actions – why not allow those women who do regret their choice at some point, to seek consolation in prayer or in a psychiatric office and get on with it. But as wrong and awful as trying to force an abortion on someone – why make that same person act out their woe and anger on an innocent baby because they didn’t want to have a child?
I do not even try to fathom the mentality of these self-righteous selectively violent people who love these babies so much, but I do know that if this rule about abortion and contraception are smuggled onto some other bill or law being written – I will have list of all the countries that do allow choice and I may just move to one of those. FYI – Canada does and it is a lovely place to visit.
Part Two of this post will be later this week. I’m really angry about this one.
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Posted by voolavex in Uncategorized.
Tags: assassination, Benazir, Bhutto, Jinnah, murder, Pakistan, Rawalpindi
I have been watching the events unfold in Pakistan and it makes me wish I were in Spain or even better, Mars.
I find the death of Benazir Bhutto disgusting. I find the Pakistani government’s “take-out menu” causes of death an insult to her life. I think it hardly matters at this point what made her dead. She is out of the race. The revolving theories of the murder only make Pakistan look more confused than it already seems to be. I think Benazir was a sincere idealist and probably the best hope for Pakistan at this point – but her violent death was in the cards – no matter how they try to spin the cause – she was marked the day she set foot on back on Pakistani soil. The culpable killers have only strenghthened her cause and made her a martyr – don’t cry for her, Rawalpindi, – she has not left you.
As it happens I had just finished a well-written, but tedious biography of Jinnah by Stanley Wolpert when this assassination occurred. Ms. Bhutto’s wish for democracy and freedom in that country , bravehearted and genuine they may have been, are about as realistic as Muhammad Jinnah’s when he all but forced the British and the Indians into creating Pakistan in 1947. Religious constituencies are not a natural breeding ground for democracy. It is not written in the holy books nor has it ever been practiced successfully in the world to my knowledge. Fundamentalists are driven by something so visceral and unstoppable that the thought of relinquishing Godly control to the ideas of free choice and free will simply doesn’t seem to coincide. As Jinnah got older and more frustrated with first the Raj, then Gandhi and Nehru – his demands for a separate Islamic “democracy” called Pakistan became more and more shrill and desperate. He had spent his entire adult life as an Anglophilic barrister – he was admitted to the Inns of Court in 1893, passed the bar, joined Lincoln’s Inn and headed back to Bombay to practice the Indian adaptation of English Common Law. He espoused the desire for a free India for some time but gradually found himself, after some years, not in the cause of Indian freedom to swaraj (self rule) – but to some misbegotten idea that Muslims in India would be nothing more than second class citizens if they joined the Quit India movement – thus setting the stage for yet another Muslim homeland (how many are there now?). With his elegant dress and speech it is hard to imagine Mr. Jinnah being treated as a second class anything. Yet, he envisioned a place where Muslims would live in freedom and democracy and where the practice of any religion would be allowed. I think the Muslims of India should have reconsidered his plan. From the heartbreaking day of Partition until this very moment – Pakistan has been a nation without a nationality. I have no doubt, nonetheless, that Mr. Jinnah’s vision inspired Ms. Bhutto.
There will more death and more rhetoric. Bush will talk himself into his usual smirking, imbecilic platitudes and mention the war on terror as often as he can. The 2008 candidates will swarm on it like rats at a landfill and for the foreseeable future, Pakistan will be the center of the world. Keep watching. It’s between Afghanistan and India.
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Voolavex 