Tuesday, January 27, 2015

The World MUST Remember 70 years ago in Auschwitz...

I read this today in Fox News.  it hit me in the middle of my heart and mind.  So, just sharing with you... and you know why... but I always get chills when I read about this time period in the World’s history.  

It is almost with disbelief that such a monsterous thing could happen on the World stage.  

As the article says, so many people no longer have any real knowledge of what happened to millions obliterated from life by Hitler and the Nazis.  When bad men ruled the Earth... “Never forget!”  is emblazoned in my mind... and I wasn’t even there.  

I recall visiting the Diaspora in Israel many years ago.   I can never forget.  So, I would like all of you to remember also... and teach others to “Never forget!” also... because if we forget, it can happen again....
P


A survivor looks back on Auschwitz 70 years later



Seventy years ago I was in a Nazi concentration camp.
Since then, I’ve seen tyrants and dictators enter and exit the global stage. Yet as the world prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation, it is perhaps well and right that we reflect on how the Holocaust shocked the moral imagination on a scale the world could scarcely fathom.
Why ponder such things? Because for far too many, the Holocaust remains a mystery.
A major poll taken last year of 53,000 people found that just 54 percent had ever heard of the Holocaust. Knowledge of Auschwitz is likely even more limited, particularly among young people. Past surveys have shown that nearly half of Britons had never heard of Auschwitz. Some schoolchildren even thought Auschwitz was a type of beer
Here at home in America a debate erupted last year when a teenager posted a smiling selfie at Auschwitz. Whatever your opinion on the appropriateness of her actions, I was at least pleased to be reminded that some young Americans still visit the Nazi concentration camp to learn history up close.
In 1944, my family and I stood in line before Dr. Joseph Mengele—the Nazi physician known as the “Angel of Death”—as my mother, grandparents, two sisters, and baby brother were all sent to the left to be burned in Hitler’s ovens. My father and I were sent to the right.
I, too, visited Auschwitz as a teenager. In 1944, my family and I stood in line before Dr. Joseph Mengele—the Nazi physician known as the “Angel of Death”—as my mother, grandparents, two sisters, and baby brother were all sent to the left to be burned in Hitler’s ovens. My father and I were sent to the right. 
The first night inside Auschwitz my father said we must separate because together we would suffer double. “On your own, you will survive,” he told me. “You are young and strong, and I know you will survive. If you survive by yourself, you must honor us by living, by not feeling sorry for us. This is what you must do.” That was the last time I ever saw my father.
I’m grateful for my father’s words of grace and guidance. They echo in my heart even still. It’s a cruel thing, feeling guilty for surviving. But my father erased any future guilt and replaced it with purpose. It was a gift only a father’s wisdom could give. It gave me a reason to go forward, a reason to be. It does still.
Part of heeding my father’s words involved replacing the horrors of my Holocaust past with a life spent creating beauty in the form of hand-tailored suits for U.S. presidents, Hollywood films, and the world’s most influential men. In fact, my first sewing lesson took place in the Auschwitz concentration camp laundry when I accidently ripped the collar of Nazi soldier shirt. A guard beat me before a kind older inmate taught me how to sew a simple stitch to repair the torn shirt. It was hardly the ideal tailoring apprenticeship, but it was my first lesson in a skill that became my livelihood.
But at 86, another part of honoring my father’s wishes requires being a voice for the voiceless. Indeed, as parents, educators, and citizens, we must all do our part to help ensure that “Never Forget” remains much more than a threadbare catchphrase that gathers dust and loses meaning with each passing year.
For example, many people are surprised to learn that Auschwitz was actually a complex comprised of three main camps and dozens of satellites. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s statistics estimate that between 1940 and 1945, at least 1.1 million Jews and 200,000 of Hitler’s undesirables were sent to the Auschwitz complex. Of those, 1.1 million were murdered. As I’ve notedelsewhere, that number would have been far greater were it not for the courage of the American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who traveled around the world to defeat a moral darkness that consumed at least six million Jewish souls.
That’s a lesson worthy of remembrance. The 70th anniversary of the liberation marks that moment when freedom conquered barbarism through sureness of virtue and strength of will. Sadly, as recent events reveal, that remains a lesson humanity must learn and relearn from generation to generation.
The word Holocaust means “sacrifice by fire.” May the memory of the millions who were engulfed in the flames like my family never be forgotten. 

Martin Greenfield is author of "Measure of a Man: From Auschwitz Survivor to Presidents’ Tailor" (Regnery Publishing, November 10, 2014).

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Where, oh where, is our tax relief???

Obama Lullaby... or Lament

 
So, where is the tax relief for the remnants of the middle class?

... as promised and promised and promised by the Great Obama???

Where is it?

 
Did it go to Obama's new set of golf clubs?

Pelosi's face lift?

Reid's eye surgery?

Rick Perry’s brain surgery?

Where is the middle class tax relief?

I can't see it.

The IRS can't see it!

So, where is it?




Friday, January 16, 2015

Reality of Islam in the world

Sharia Law is a danger to everything we hold dear and sacred in the United States.  

There is a huge mistaken belief that Islam is a peaceful culture and religion.  Nothing is further from the truth.  Radical Muslims are trying to get Sharia Law approved in various US states and other countries.  Alabama voters recently voted against it.  Wise choice.

Once upon a time these Islamic beliefs weren’t such a problem for the US because Islamic countries were more primitive, backward and restricted to their Mid-Eastern regions, but now they have the means, capability and fanatical desire to be more global in their hostile actions. 

In short, we are targeted more by Islam and it will only get worse.  They want to kill all infidels and that is how they see Americans.  We continue to be too politically correct with all immigrants entering the US and it is a big mistake.

The world has become smaller and we must become more alert and ready to eliminate every and any threat.  There is no alternative.

Anyone who doesn't see Islam as a huge threat to the US is extremely naive or lying to themselves and to others.  I include President Barack Obama in that description.




Friday, January 9, 2015

Democrats and Republicans...




“A big difference between Democrats and Republicans is that the Democrats blatantly tax and spend and don't try to hide it, while the Republicans tax and spend but they call it fees, penalties and toll roads.”
                                                                                  --- Peter Stern


Thursday, January 8, 2015

Texas Gov.-Elect Greg Abbott Cons the Masses


Gov-elect Greg Abbott talks a good game, but he is like so many Conservatives when it comes to picking and choosing what rights they want to defend and when they want to defend them. 

As soon as the oil companies are permitted to and want to take our
lands for mineral and oil rights, or when a city, county or the state
wants to take our land to build through a new toll road,  Abbott and
legislators will work against Texas homeowners and their property
rights and/or will not pay top dollar to take that property from us.

I'm all for government staying out of our lives, but right now Democrats AND Republicans at state, county and city levels tell us what to do and they determine what rights we can keep and what rights they will remove for their own gain.

Confucius tells us to "Beware of the man who blows hot and cold with one breath." 

Greg Abbott is such a man.




Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Another Texas Push for School Vouchers

TEXAS PUBLIC EDUCATION
ANOTHER TEXAS PUSH FOR SCHOOL VOUCHERS


pstern

7:30:28 PM on 7 January 2015
 
It never ends...
 
Once again the Texas Legislature and their special interest cohorts are pushing for School Vouchers, saying that they would save Texans $billions.
 
Every couple of years the same bunch of basset hounds go into legislative session howling for school vouchers.  I suppose, if they keep doing it long enough eventually they will get it.   Sen. Donna Campbell is the newbie on the voucher block, but the rest have been doing it for decades.
Small wonder why they want vouchers.  Legislators and other officials would do anything to divert the State's constitutional obligation to provide a quality education for Texas children.
However, if you are going to have public education, then do it right!
Public schools need to return to basics, more of the reading, writing and 'rithmetic and also teach some good ol’ life lessons on how to get a job, write a resume and how to become a worthwhile citizen.
That is what public education should be.... but the Conservatives love private schools and yet  Sen. Campbell along with Rep. Jimmie Aycock and otherGOP legislators want to give private education more regulations.   Nothing like a conservative Senators and Representatives wanting more regulations over private schools... [makes me goose-pimply all over]  So much for smaller government.
Asked about vouchers recently, state Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen and chairman of the House Public Education Committee, said “it will certainly get discussed — always does” but described imposing state standards on private schools as a complicating factor.
“We require curriculum control, we require teacher quality control, we require all sorts of regulations,” he said. “If I could be assured somehow that there was good quality control that followed the state money, then I’d certainly be willing to talk about it. As far as turning the money lose without any control — I’m pretty hesitant to do that.”

Anyway, aren't "state standards" a huge part of the problem inherent in public education, so legislators now want to do the same thing to private education?  Doesn't sound very smart to me.
If you don’t want public education, then get rid of it and let people pay for private schools and dump the responsibility onto the parents to educate their children... but the Liberals love their public education.   So?  What now?