Power Play

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person…”                     
Mother Theresa

Young love ...

Lynsey Addario for The New York Times  Rafi Mohammed, 17, is held in a juvenile prison
in Herat for trying to run off with his girlfriend, Halima Mohammedi.

In Afghanistan, Rage at Young Lovers

By JACK HEALY in the New York Times Published: July 30, 2011

HERAT, Afghanistan — The two teenagers met inside an ice cream factory through darting glances before roll call, murmured hellos as supervisors looked away and, finally, a phone number folded up and tossed discreetly onto the workroom floor.

It was the beginning of an Afghan love story that flouted dominant traditions of arranged marriages and close family scrutiny, a romance between two teenagers of different ethnicities that tested a village’s tolerance for more modern whims of the heart. The results were delivered with brutal speed.

The girl's father, Kher Mohammed, with his head in his hand,
wants the government to kill her and her boyfriend.

A car burned by a crowd during a riot that took place
after the police rescued two teenagers from a group of
men who had demanded that they be hanged or stoned
for their relationship.

This month, a group of men spotted the couple riding together in a car, yanked them into the road and began to interrogate the boy and girl. Why were they together? What right had they? An angry crowd of 300 surged around them, calling them adulterers and demanding that they be stoned to death or hanged.

Read the New York Times article. It's stunning.

Understanding a culture different from your own is a challenge. As the young lady says, “We are all human. God created us from one dirt. Why can we not marry each other, or love each other?” It's a fair question.

After America, there is no place to go.

Kitty Werthmann survived Hitler.

“What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or read in history books,” she likes to tell audiences.

“I am a witness to history.

“I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history.

“We voted him in.”

If you remember the plot of the Sound of Music, the Von Trapp family escaped over the Alps rather than submit to the Nazis. Kitty wasn’t so lucky. Her family chose to stay in her native Austria. She was 10 years old, but bright and aware. And she was watching.
“We elected him by a landslide – 98 percent of the vote,” she recalls.
She wasn’t old enough to vote in 1938 – approaching her 11th birthday. But she remembers.
“Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.”

No so.
“In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25 percent inflation and 25 percent bank loan interest rates.

Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs.

“My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.’

“We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933.” she recalls. “We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living.

“Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group – Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone in Germany was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back.

“Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.

“We were overjoyed,” remembers Kitty, “and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.

“After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.

“Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.

“Then we lost religious education for kids."

“Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school.. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,’ and had physical education.

“Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail.”

And then things got worse.

“The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free.

“We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.

“My mother was very unhappy,” remembers Kitty. “When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination.

“I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing."

“Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time, unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler.

“It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy."
“Then food rationing began."

“In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death. “Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men."

“Soon after this, the draft was implemented."

Young Austrians

“It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps,” remembers Kitty. “During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys.

“They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines."

“When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat."

“Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service."

“When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers."

“You could take your children ages four weeks old to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, seven days a week, under the total care of the government."

“The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.

“Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna."

 “As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80 percent of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families."

“After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything."

“When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full."

“If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries."

“All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

“We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables.

Austrian kids loyal to Hitler

“Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands.
“Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control."

“We had consumer protection, too."

“We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, and then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it."

“In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated."

“So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work."

“I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van."

“I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months."

“They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness."

“As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia."

“Then they took our guns."

“Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily."

“No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up."

“Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.”

Kitty Werthmann

“This is my eye-witness account."

“It’s true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity."

“America is truly is the greatest country in the world.
“Don’t let freedom slip away.
“After America, there is no place to go.”

The Gap - how it happened

Many things that happen on Wall Street and in
London’s financial district are “socially useless,”
says Lord Adair Turner, chairman of Britain’s
Financial Services Authority

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. ~ Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President

"The financial industry grew rapidly in recent decades, as did the sums of money with which its players speculated on the prices of stocks, commodities and government bonds.

The products they developed to turn money into even more money become more complex.

At the same time, the risks they were willing to accept became incalculable." ~Der Speigel

The sector’s high salaries tend to attract the best and brightest university graduates. The members of this youthful elite don’t devise new products that make people’s lives better, nor do they found new companies that further progress.

Instead, these young financial wizards invest a great deal of money and effort to develop sophisticated financial products, the sole purpose of which is to generate more profit for both their employers and, ultimately, for themselves — sometimes at the expense of other market players or even their customers.

Many things that happen on Wall Street and in London’s financial district are “socially useless,” says Lord Adair Turner, chairman of Britain’s Financial Services Authority (FSA). The values that are created there are often not real or of any use to society, Turner adds. 

Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, once remarked that the only truly useful financial innovation in the past 20 years is the cash machine.

Once upon a time ...

Once apon a time, in a coreign fountry, there lived a geautiful birl whose name was Rindercella. Now, Rindercella lived with her mugly other and her two sad blisters.

And in this same coreign fountry, there was a prandsom hince. This prandsom hince was going to have a bancy fall, and he'd invited people from riles amound, especially the pich reople. Rindercella's mugly other and her two sad blisters went out to buy some drancy fesses to wear to this bancy fall, but Rindercella could not go because all she had to wear were some old rirty dags.

Finally, the night of the bancy fall arrived and Rindercella couldn't go. So she just cat down and scried. All at once there appeared before her, her merry fodgither. And she touched her with her wagic mand ... and there appeared before her, a cig boach and hix white sorces to take her to the bancy fall. But now she said to Rindercella, "Rindercella, you must be home before nidmight, or I'll purn you into a tumpkin!"

When Rindercella arrived at the bancy fall, the prandsom hince met her at the door because he had been watchin' behind a widden hindow. And Rindercella and the prandsom hince nanced all dight until nidmight...and they lell in fove. And finally, the mid clock strucknight. And Rindercella staced down the rairs, and just as she beached the rottom, she slopped her dripper!

The next day, the prandsom hince went all over the coreign fountry looking for the geautiful birl who had slopped her dripper. Finally he came to Rindercella's house. He tried it on Rindercella's mugly other ... and it fidn't dit. Then he tried it on her two sigly usters ... and it fidn't dit. Then he tried it on Rindercella ... and it fid dit. It was just the sight rize!

So they were married and lived heverly after happers. Now, the storal of the mory is this: If you ever go to a bancy fall and want to have a pransom hince loll in fove with you, don't forget to slop your dripper!

And then there's the story of the Pee Thrigs, ... but that's another story.

This was a Hee Haw gag from mid-century; my dad used to tell us the story this way when we were kids. 

Youth Rises

Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani schoolgirl
activist who was the victim of an assassination
attempt by Taliban

Oriana Lopez Uribe, Mexican youth
activist for sexual and reproductive
health services and information.

I'm encouraged by today's young folks.  Given the chance, they tackle the hard tasks like the teen blogger who took on the Taliban in Pakistan..  And look how they've done as a youth movement in the Arab States.  They jump on board with new technology without missing a step.

"In Mexico, brave HIV-activists are blogging to inspire others with their stories. In many countries, human rights activists are using social media to raise awareness and action. In Macedonia, street artists are using their art to provoke emotions in young people elsewhere. A young rape survivor in the United States used local radio to raise awareness and say – enough is enough, are you with me?"

A 90 Days Christian Youth

Fasting and Prayer for a

new Nigeria

Peace activist Tawakkul Karman has been a key

figure among youth activists in Yemen. She was

a prominent critic of Yemen's President Ali 

Abdullah Saleh even before the mass uprising 

erupted against him in January. Since 2007, she 

has organized small-scale protests to demand 

greater rights for women and freedom of the press.  

The 32-year-old mother of three is the first Arab

woman to win a Nobel prize.

A question for the younger folks...   

You've got connections; some of them on the far side of the world now thanks to social media.  Do you feel connected to your peers across religions, nationalities, traditions and cultures? The question goes beyond how many peers you've befriended on Facebook.

Serious-minded young people. In Nigeria. In church.

Worth knowing: Is their happiness your happiness? Is their hardship yours to deal with, too?   Their struggles with unemployment, hunger, climate change, conflict; are these now on your plate?

Today, we are all part of a big, interconnected family. Actions taken in your country have an impact on other parts of the globe, our common home.

We're connected everywhere. Virtually, we are there and they equally are here. There is no Planet-B.