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Christopher Hitchens, earthly existence and heavenly writing.

2011-12-21T08:46:00.000-08:00

"It could be that all existence is a pointless joke,but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so." (Christopher Hitchens in Hitch 22)

Readers sometimes develop very close relationship with authors.Most never meet in person. Yet it often seems so real, so intense -and almost always unilateral.In the past we usually got to know the writing first, then we may have decided to search for the persona behind the work.
Today's multimedia platforms provide us with several encounters. I have "met" Christopher Hitchens on radio first, then on TV and then started to look for his writings.
I have started reading Hitch 22, his memoirs, in the middle of my chemotherapy last summer, and very shortly after, on the eve of his book tour for Hitch 22 he told the world about his cancer. A fellow sufferer, loved and revered by many, despised by some for his views on religion and God.
Word got to him and he was asked in public whether he'd mind if people would pray for his recovery. While he was obviously touched by these gestures, he doubted whether prayer would help.
That was what most of us could do for him.
Reading Hitch 22 during my illness last year, while watching for any news about him brought him intimately close to me. His last contribution for Vanity Fair, an article to appear, ironically in the January next issue was particularly personal to me, as I have gone through some of the procedures at MD Anderson in Houston just a year before. As he said often, he was in stage 4 of his cancer, there not being a stage 5.
Perhaps prayer.
But Mr.Hitchens missed the point of prayer. It helped us in our impotence
to do something, anything for him. And for ourselves, in our pain and concern, lest our existence is a pointless joke.

Ch.13 Getting a job, tobacco picking in Southern Ontario

2011-12-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

On the tobacco farm, 1958 August.
By the summer, the news spread in the immigrant community that in the south part of Ontario there are huge tobacco fields, whose harvest in late summer could present a major new source of income. The terribly hard job of tobacco picking lasts for 4-6 weeks but the pay is exceptional, too.
The tobacco farmers were, for the most part, former Hungarian land cultivators, peasants who came around the turn of the century and were particularly successful growing tobacco in Canada, mostly situated in the area of Tillsonburg and Delhi, Ontario.
The three friends had given up their secure but poor paying, bleak prospect jobs and traveled to the tobacco farms area. Here, in one of the small town’s main square an informal “recruiting” center was set up on a given Saturday morning. It was a real market place for human beings! The local farmers had kept on coming and after an intensive scrutiny, where the judgment had to be made at what the naked eye saw from a physical point of view and after a brief bargaining, which was easy as almost everyone spoke Hungarian, for the daily stipend, the hiring was done.
The farmer wanted only their first names and within minutes they were on the back of a pickup truck speeding to one of the many farms in the area.
Their quarters were prepared in a part of the huge barn, furnished with simple wooden furniture and hay filled mattresses on iron beds. Shortly they were called to dinner which was served on long, covered tables, under huge chestnut trees in the farmer’s courtyard. The “gang” as they were now called consisted of 6 young men. During their short Canadian stay they have never experienced such a generous feast, vying with such a wedding feast that they had occasionally seen in the old country. Any delicacy that could be found and prepared by a well to do farmer in rural Canada with several experienced women chefs and that was steaming on the long table. The gang that to this point hadn’t worked a single hour made a valiant effort to be up to snuff and had achieved an appreciable success putting away most of the food. Tastes and aromas, reminiscent of Hungary came to be savored, almost to the point of shedding a tear or two, after long months in refugees camps and since over a year, in simple circumstances. The son of the farmer had sat with them, too, towards the end of the feast. Michael had a thick accent speaking Hungarian, he was Canadian born, but still managed to detail what was expected of the fresh farm hands.
The start of the tobacco picking season is always determined by the ripening of the so called sandy leaves, near the ground. That year the start happened to be on a Sunday. Only the sandy leaves near the ground can be picked off the plant. As the higher leaves continue ripening, the pickers move slowly higher. During the harvest there are only workdays, without any breaks, except for steady rain. So next day the wake up will be at 5 am, breakfast starts at half past five, so they are on the fields some kilometers away by 7am.
“ But in a few days the picked tobacco will be tied in bunches and placed on long sticks by the women, then wake up will be at 3 am so the tobacco laden sticks can be placed in the huge kiln-houses, for drying” continued Michael.
They didn’t really understand all that, but after the sumptuous dinner and the brief outline as to what will follow in the next few days, they knew that there would be a great need for very rich and nourishing food to cope with work demands.
Their first night on the tobacco farm, near the peaceful, ruminating farm animals, with billions of shiny stars in the August sky could not be spoiled even by the prospect of the early morning call. So close to nature, in such a quiet and peaceful place was such a change for these young men, after months of rather crowded refugee camps and then very Spartan basic city life after their arrival in Canada.
Following the generous dinner the night before, their breakfast was equally fitting and several farm matrons were asking them, one by one, whether they would like omelets from 4 or 6 eggs, with bacon, ham and cheese. By then the gang was getting just a little suspicious of all this attention and generosity ! Shortly after breakfast they hopped up on the cart, pulled by a massive tractor and soon they arrived on the tobacco field. Each green tobacco line spread for up to a kilometer in length, as far as the eye could see.

Tobacco field, Tillsonburg, Canada 1958
Michael had immediately occupied the first row in the field, bent to the ground and with a half circle of his right arm, he tore off the leaves of the tobacco plant. Then, still bent over, he stepped up to the next plant. Then the next and the next…
“You see, only the sandy leaves, the lowest ones you are allowed tear off…” he said looking at their faces for understanding, “…then as they ripen we keep on moving up on the plant. By the end of the season, it will be much less demanding on your backs…” he promised. It seemed simple and logical for these young men, reared in the city.
The six tobacco pickers had occupied their rows and began to work.
Behind them, a docile and “experienced” horse was pulling a wooden sled between the rows into which the collected, “sandy”, tobacco leaves from under their left armpits were carefully placed.
“Don’t break the leaves!” cautioned Michael.
They did not have to advance more than the picked sandy leaves of 10 tobacco plants, so that it can be stated that: they mastered tobacco picking. However, the continually bent backs had started to complain at each next plant, with each step they took towards these plants. After only a half an hour, while continually bending almost to the ground, the pickers believed they could not go on.
But Michael was there and by example he was jumping into one or another’s row, helping out, until somehow, miraculously they reached the end of their first row! At that point the six boys had just fallen to the ground, could only moan from the excruciating pain coming from their backs. Fresh water was brought by Michael and after a short rest they have started a new row.
Every step from now on was a painful maneuver, but goading each other on, the young and tenacious bodies, somehow, with many rest stops they lasted until noon, when Michael, literally picked them up one by one, and brought them back to the farmhouse. Again, a rich table was set up for them under the chestnut trees, but other than a few spoonfuls of soup, they preferred just to lie in the shade. After an hour’s rest, back to the cart and out to the fields. This struggle just to survive the day went on until 5 PM on their first day.
By the time they were back at the farm, they only had strength to wash up from the dust, sweat and the sticky sap from the broken tobacco stems, which dried and matted on their hairy arms, so much so that it simply could not be washed off by soap and water. Frankly, they could not care less about it.
Every part of their body was aching, especially their thighs and backs, so much, that none of them showed up for the evening meal. Within a short time, the whole gang was in deep slumber, awaking only for the pain caused by turning in their sleep.
If the unusual work seemed difficult and caused them pain on the first day, then the stiffness on awakening the following morning surpassed any such experience in their lives. One of the six had politely taken his leave that very morning, and the owner paid him fairly for his one day of work. The other five, overcoming the terrible pain, stubbornly began their second day of tobacco picking. They were still at the “sandy leaves” or sand lugs, as they were called by the farmer and they were still having the greatest pains with each step forward. They were encouraging each other, singing even, and also cursing all those who smoked, blaming them for this inhuman, bestial work! Where did the effort come from after each step taken forward with a back bent almost to the level of the ground, row after tobacco row? They could not explain even today perhaps.
They had overcome the greatest physical challenge of their lives then, in the first days of the tobacco leaves’ harvest. After the second Hungarian had given up and left on the third day, the rest had now stayed just out of spite and sheer bravado. In the meantime Michael had found three new pickers in the nearby town who were experienced, veteran farm hands who joined them and did their job without a word of complaint.
And as the bodies of the newly graduated farmhands adjusted to the physical demands, the muscle cramps abated and the task seemed easier. The veterans educated them on how they should shave their arms so that the sticky, gummy sap of the tobacco plant would not mat the hair on their arms.
Within days the muscles had adjusted, the body accepted and bore the daily punishment, the appetite returned. But by then the women had tied all the picked leaves on long, wooden stick which had to be racked in long, even lines in special places, called kiln- houses to dry. This was done on most mornings when they got up at 3am and emptied and refilled these kiln houses.

Tobacco drying kiln-houses, Tillsonburg,Ont.1958
These simple, wooden, under-roof drying places, with heating inside, were constructed inside of vertical and horizontal beams, resembled more monkey cages than anything else. They had no stairs, ladders inside, while two stories high, the lads, balancing on the horizontal beams, like monkeys handed each other the tobacco laden stick which were placed 3-4 feet apart on the beams, right up to the roof. Only the bravest dared to climb up to the top, one bad move could have resulted in serious injury. On most days the morning program from 3am to 6am was this acrobatic exercise, followed by a generous breakfast and out to the fields. If there was no rain they worked 7 days a week. Their wage was 25 dollars a day, with room and board included, as much as Peter’s first weekly stipend in Quebec City!
As the tobacco was ripening, so did “ease” their daily effort, since the top leaves could now be picked without bending over. It was life’s irony that the most difficult days of tobacco picking happened to be the very first days on the job.
Peter and the gang after several weeks in the country of the August summer in South Ontario were the color of chocolate, muscular and in top physical shape, had graduated possibly from the greatest physical challenge of their lives.

After a “tobacco picking ” session…
At the end of the harvest the Hungarian tobacco grower was satisfied with the boys’ work and paid them all in cash. Those who had survived the first days on the job had to be justifiably happy; their wage seemed like a small fortune. They had heard the stories about those who after many weeks of hard toil wagered all the money in horse races within hours, maybe the very day they were paid. But they had spent days deciding what to do with the money. It seemed they could always find work to look after their daily existence, but the one thing they thought was missing in their lives was the almighty automobile, which stood between happiness (girls) and frustration. Since they could not buy a reasonable car individually, even with the small “fortune” they owned, a few hundred dollars, pulling their money would get them a good used car.
On returning to Ottawa they found a car dealer who would sell them a 1954 Ford Meteor auto. The 4 year old car was in good shape and they believed the dealer that this exceptional automobile was owned by a retired lady school teacher. Since only one had a driver’s license, he taught the other two to drive.
The real purpose of the car purchase was their firm belief that the way to meet local girls was via the ownership of 4 wheels. Of course, the three way ownership resulted in alternating the days or evenings for usage. Of course, the logistics never worked out and the boys remained, for the most part, without significant relationships.

The object of their desire and the owners in their “ Sunday” best

Among the immigrants were many gloomy people who did not know, or realized perhaps only after many years, the opportunities of their new country. Which host country could have made it possible for immigrants capable only of manual labor, without language or professional skills, within a year of their arrival, to have an acceptable standard of living, that a working family could even afford the ultimate status symbol in the fifties, the purchase of a reasonable car?
The wealth from tobacco picking was not all invested in the car purchase, so Peter could realize his long held dream of owning a set of drums. His friend, Andy played on both the piano and saxophone, so their plan was to form a small band, maybe with a third countryman of theirs. However, the “drummer” was only an enthusiastic dreamer since he had no musical training whatsoever. He had practiced diligently in the basement of their flat, especially when the landlady was not at home, since she had many misgivings about the drums when they have arrived, with reason.

The student-drummer, in the basement , Ottawa, 1958
Towards the end of the fifties, when rock and roll was on its peak, light jazz music was not really a desired product. The small and intimate piano bars they had known back in Hungary were not really in vogue in those days. All they could achieve on the field of light music was the occasional Sunday afternoon entertaining the patients in old age homes, gratis.
Perley Hospital, (senior citizens’ home) Ottawa, 1958

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/01/hitchens-201201

2011-12-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

If you have been wandering about how Christopher Hitchens is getting on in his fight against disease, you will get it here "up close and personal."

US military bloggers respond to Paul Krugman's shameful blog.

2011-09-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman, of the NYTIMES, published a truly gutless piece in his blog, titled 'The Shameful Years' (those post-9/11), slandering practically all of the US military. Now the many bloggers from the US military respond, like this one: www.unknownsoldiersblog.com

Ch.12 - May I have the next dance? Learning dance etiquette in the era of rock and roll.

2011-08-24T03:27:00.000-07:00

Even Christmas gifts were given to each employee, a British Columbia commemorative silver dollar, the province where he was originally to be sent from the boat!
The first winter was approaching its end and Peter and his friends, young men in their most virile youth, when they had dared to entertain thoughts of making new friends, which really meant “going out” with girls.
He had a steady job, with a paycheck every two weeks that allowed him to purchase, on a 12 month credit arrangement, a brand new dark blue suit, white shirt and tie. He was happy to take home the new treasures, his first significant purchases in the new world. The new immigrants’ grapevine had suggested that the best place to meet girls is the Saturday nights dances at the local YMCA. The last dance he could recall was in his high school, oh so long ago, on another continent, in a far away land, and even farther epoch. Then the youth was going to these dances in a rather old fashioned way, according to old traditions, both in clothing and behavior. The boys in festive, dark suits, shirt and tie, and cute little dress the girls. Hungary and the other Eastern European countries were carefully shielded from the influences of the “evil” capitalist states in the West, including individual expression and style.
While in the Ottawa YMCA the young guys were comfortably rocking in their jeans and shirts, at home boys of the same age were sweating in their heavy suits and ties.
Peter and his friends were just amazed when a guy would just sidle up to a girl and casually take her by the hand and within seconds they would be furiously jiving away, a form of dance totally unknown to these immigrant boys. However, they recalled the English Dictionaries and language books, written decades before, how these were emphatically teaching the task to be performed:
“We approach the chosen lady, and with slight bow and polite demeanor, we “ask her for a dance “in a clear voice and appropriate manner, thusly: May I please?”- repeated to himself Peter, at least for the tenth time, being very careful of his accent and pronunciation, being very grateful that the verbal plea did not have a single “r” in it, which had been the downfall of so many foreigners, the sure give-away that the speaker is from “some other country”. In the best of cases one was to be a French Canadian, in the worst the foreigner was from some unknown land who was displaced due to the war: a DP!!
The friends were already nervous on this first daredevil move towards “fitting” into society, that is the company of young men and women, due to their accented English, the lack of their dance repertoire caused even more worry. An even more obvious and ominous problem was, that did not even occur to them at first, their clothing was totally out of place and painfully unique in a 1958 YMCA dance hall.
One can imagine what made-for-the-stage appearance was created by the three young immigrants, on the very peak of rock and roll, in their dark blue suits and ties, stiff and obviously awkward, when they entered at opening time, just after 8 PM in the dancehall.
Other than a couple of dozen young ladies and a few chaperons there were no others in the hall, as it turned out the local boys had started wondering in, nonchalantly little later. This time period gave an excellent chance to the girls and their mothers to observe and scrutinize the three funeral directors, standing in a corner and talking with each other. Even though they have felt uneasy at the beginning, over time they have ceased to remain the object of curiosity, while the dancing was starting to liven up. It was entirely certain to all the ladies present that none of them could possibly become the victim of any attempted terror action, emanating from either one of the other strange looking characters.
Finally it was Peter that was able to overcome the inertia they all felt, spiced up by his ever present compulsion to prove himself. He felt confident enough, so he thought, that after a thorough summing up the situation, he had ascertained by quick looks over and over that the chosen lady had absolutely no chance of being asked for a dance by any self respecting young man that evening, our hero had confidently strode up to the lonely wallflower and said:
“May I please?” sounded the expression , mainly to be found in the vocabularies of those studying British literature, but not anywhere in Canada in 1958, in the Northern region of the New World.
Perhaps it was his determined steps, the resolute expression on his face, maybe the lips that were so stubbornly resistant to full opening, that would allow the oft repeated expression to come out properly, but if not any of these then the unimaginable fact, that one of these Mars inhabitants had zeroed in on her of all people, who had not even danced once that evening, and as a result of this impertinence may not dance at all, that was more than bearable!
Since she did not believe her ears, or she did not understand the antiquated expression, struggling between anger and incredulity, she could only hiss through her teeth:
“What?”
Even though Peter had guessed that there was not much chance for the desired dance, in his last desperate moment he had to attempt just once more the well practiced phrase.
Failing to give it one more try, when his two friends have not even made their first move with which to take the first steps to fit into Canadian society, who were so attentively watching their heroic friend and those sitting around the chosen lady watching the unfolding drama, it was simply not possible.
The chance of failing, again, had flashed in his mind for a moment, but the hopes and investments that they have made to get that far, the plans made in the basement flat, the clothing they have bought were stronger. Now going for broke just then, so that the lonely nights and weekends, the movies houses with the 3 films in one show they have frequented, would again fill their free time?
Bowing just ever so deeper than before, and with a shade less volume in his voice, and a little more humility in his eye, Peter had repeated the plea:
“May I please?” and now he had nodded pointedly towards the dance floor, so that the plea would be well understood by this beauty.
It seemed like eternity until this insulted lady had found her faculties and with the look of the coldest Canadian winter, the indifference of the Canadian tundra, and the Brit colonials’ politeness, she uttered only:
“No,thanks!”
By then the sweat beads had pearled up on his face as he was creeping back to the safe sanctuary of his friends. They all knew that much more had transpired here than simply a gal’s refusal to dance on a particular evening. All reverie had become insignificant behind the more than one year that was spent away from their homes, and all things familiar. While up to now the effort was to establish a modicum of existence, this mostly restrained the testing of the boys’ feelings. Now they had to admit that the much desired melting into Canadian society and the potential rewards that this would bring will not happen for some time. The oddly dressed and accented strangers, without their own “cars”, will not easily gain the graces of young, local women.

Michael Medved interviews Congressman McDermott

2011-07-24T10:51:00.001-07:00

The Michael Medved Radio Show, July 21,2011.Hour 3.

If you want to have an insight into the mind of a liberal democrat regarding the debt limit debate,this is just the ticket.All happened during the Michael Medved Radio Show on July 21, 2011.
This is the congressman who visited and courted Sadam Hussein,as the US was pressuring the dictator to come clean aboout his intentions and plans to acquire/build WMD's.
During this interview, McDermott obfuscates, spins and lies about every single issue, question put to him. Medved tried, very diplomatically,to get a direct answer from him several times, never succeeded. McDermott, trying to play smart, though, made a fool of himself, again and again.
Question: would he approve budget reductions without tax increases?
Answer: (after a long,embarrassing silence)he threw another question back at Medved, never answering the original question put to him.
According to McDermott, we have an impasse about the debt limit increase, becasue we have lost our ability to 'compromise'. For 40 years , says he, there was compromise in the US Congress. Right, and the US has ended up with 14 trillions of debt. That is "compromise" for a liberal democrat.
When a listener had phoned in and asked this incredibly slippery "congressman", which part of the cut,cap and balance he didn't agree with (as he voted NO with 97 Dems on the motion), again, after long silence he tried to give a lecture about how he would never accept the possibility of not 'ever' raising taxes, for example, in case of war. When Medved immediately reminded him that the bill from congress (which Medved did read, but apparently McDermott didn't)specifically ALLOWED tax increase by a simple MAJORITY in congress in case of war, and any OTHER tax increase where 2/3 of congress deemed necessary, he had no answer, ignored the remark. Then immediately attacked Mitch McConnell for 'filibustering' every move by the majority dems in the senate.
What a dishonest, transparently fibbing windbag!
Michael Medved remained politely, maybe too politely affable during this sad spectacle of a liberal democrat, who was dodging all questions,exhibiting a callous disregard for any discourse on the issues.
And McDermott dared to utter the word 'compromise'...

Ch.11 Arriving in Ottawa-assimilating into society.

2011-07-23T12:54:00.001-07:00

Ottawa City.

At the railway station he confidently asked for a ticket to „Ottawa”, but it was a struggle for the proper pronunciation of the word. „AA- TOVA” repeated the unfriendly French Canadian cashier, which was not even close to the Hungarian, that is, phonetically pronounced, word.
The new language, particularly its pronunciation had caused great difficulty for most immigrants. The more sensitive souls were maybe embarrassed, or slightly peeved , but many had reacted aggressively in delicate situations, and for them melding into society had become quite difficult. Their language frustrations have exaggerated the many cultural differences between Europeans and North Americans. Some have rebelled against making advances in their language skills over the most dire necessities. Refused to change their lifestyles, were reluctant to even try new dishes. In the extreme cases some looked down on anything that was not somehow „European” in style, taste or presentation.
From salted butter to the huge , but very weak coffee everything seemed second rate and unacceptable. The accumulated frustrations and the refusal to accept local customs and forms like slowly administered poison was effecting some immigrants. The worst conflicts were between the so called „old Canadians”, immigrants who had already spent some years in the new country and the „new Canadians”, folks who had just arrived.
Like most immigrants in Canada or the USA, in a relatively short time, every diligent and ambitious newcomer had achieved a fairly high standard of living. Thus the „old Canadians”, who had most of the initial difficulties behind them, were justly criticizing the grumbling and impatience of the newcomers about accepting life in society. The misplaced refugees of the second world war who made up the largest part of „old Canadians”, unlike the refugees of the 1956 Revolution, often spent long years in camps until they could get visas and fares paid for by some charitable organization.
However, during the splendid train ride from Quebec to Ottawa, problems of assimilation into Canadian society did not cause any mental anguish to the 19 year old. In a few short weeks, this was his second ambitious undertaking in his new homeland, moving to Ottawa, to be with English speaking natives! He had gotten off the train with high expectations. Since the station was in the heart of the city, he had a great chance to do his first sightseeing having but a small bag all his luggage.
Other than the majestic Parliament buildings , the center was quite a disappointment, it resembled more of a small, but up and coming provincial town than the capitol of an immense country. While passing through Rideau Street there were a few dozen or so people in , what seemed, a large empty store, listening to an intense looking gentleman, with an impressive baritone, obviously making some sort of political pitch. Peter could not have understood a single word but the speech seemed convincing and emphatic that was delivered by the gaunt and straight backed orator.
This was his first, if passive, participation in a free, public and democratic opinion expression. Peter happened to be witnessing a campaign speech preceding the 1957 fall elections, where he had experienced, with awe, the participants’ various and amazing reactions to the statements of John Diefenbaker. There were catcalls, too, amid the enthusiastic applauders, cynical remarks and laughter, people in pairs arguing with each other while the speech was being delivered. All kinds of behavior! Only one thing was missing, not a policeman or secret service man to be seen anywhere.
Not the center of the capitol, not the splendid stores on Rideau Street, not the elegant hotels that grabbed Peter’s attention in these first hours of his arrival in Ottawa.
The unfolding, live democracy , people’s open expression of their likes or dislikes as they have reacted to the politician’s words was what seemed so utterly wonderful!
This is, then, a free country!
He could not have known at that time, that the sympathetic orator was to become Canada’s prime minister that fall, and that several years later he would have two personal meetings with Mr. Diefenbaker. One of those meetings happened in a hotel in Saskatoon, as he was having an early morning breakfast. John Diefenbaker called over from his table, asking to join him if he was alone. The eventual winner of several elections and having been prime minister more than once, was just sitting there without any bodyguards, inviting a total stranger to his table! Then and there he had to tell John Diefenbaker the event from Ottawa in the first hours of his arrival, which deeply touched the former prime minister and warmly shook the „new Canadian’s” hand.
A rooming house, full of Hungarians , was run by the „old Canadian”, Mrs. Mitro, was his new home. The Mitro family had immigrated to Canada even before the war, the children were all born in the new country, but to the family’s merit, they all spoke Hungarian. This was even more appreciated by Peter and his friends when subsequently met other Hungarian families whose Canadian born children often did not speak a word, or very little, of their elder’s native language.
So the parents who managed to teach their Canadian born children their ancestors’ tongue were held in great esteem as it was a very difficult and frustrating task.
The Mitro house gave home to mostly single, young men and it was easier here to wrestle with problems of loneliness and the strange, new ways of society. On the other hand, it was to everyone’s disadvantage to be with Hungarians when the English language demanded daily practice. While in their simple work places like cleaning, dishwashing, construction there was some limited chance to practice English, their free times should have been passed with English speakers. Fortunately, the Hungarian rooming house was only a short stop as he had found new employment immediately, in the Royal Ottawa Sanatorium, quite far from the Mitro house. As an „experienced” dishwasher and general kitchen helper he had started to work in the wing of the ambulatory patients, those recovering from tuberculosis.

The Royal Ottawa Sanatorium, August 1957
He had asked for and received temporary quarters, a room near the power plant of the hospital, which he shared with an older Ukrainian immigrant working in the plant. The man spoke almost zero English, but insisted telling Peter his life story every night, in Ukrainian, when he had found out that Peter knew some Russian from his school back in Hungary.
Fortunately, they only met at night, when under the excuse of fatigue he could escape most of the Ukrainian’s endless monologues.
His work had become much more interesting. The ambulatory patients came to have their meals in the large dining hall, all dressed up, which was portioned out by two immigrant women and served by Peter. The meals had arrived from the main kitchen on steam containers on wheels.
Within days a rather pleasant and enjoyable relationship developed between him and most patients, who appreciated the young man’s effort and enthusiasm. This work had the human touch, encouraged the development of relationships with people, particularly with people on the mend from illness.
He learned, and was encouraged, much to his surprise, to call most of the patients by their first names, regardless of age or sex. It was already difficult to do away with the polite form, an essential element of most languages, and now on top of that he was to call these ladies and gentlemen by their first names like “Jim” or “Mary”. He had kept on trying for a while with the Mr. Jim’s and the Miss Mary’s, but the patients have insisted, with a few exceptions, that he is to call them by their first names, that soon enough he was used to this straight forward, natural form of communication, not well practiced anywhere in Europe.
Back in the camp in Melence he met and befriended a young man from the nearby village to Baja, eventually becoming chess partners. Mike had been sent straight to Ottawa, after landing in Quebec. He had worked at construction awhile, but the extremely cold Ottawa winter had chased him to the much less profitable, but warm work environment, the Sanatorium. That made it possible for the pair to seek and find their own flat, close to their workplace.
They have rented the half basement of a simple Canadian house, right next to the washing machine and not far from the furnace. The “flat” consisted of a large bed, a wooden dresser, and they paid 3 dollars weekly, each. But the rented place was close enough for getting to work on foot and it was spartan but warm. There was entertainment, too, besides work and that was provided by Mrs. Sutherland’s weekly language class, in a classroom of the local secondary school. The workplace and self-study brought some progress in this field, but the difficult English pronunciation made real conversation still difficult. Daily language frustrations were plentiful. When they were convinced that they have made some progress, some incident would happen to take their self-confidence away in the field of the mysteries of English pronunciation.
Like it happened one Sunday afternoon, when Peter caught some little kids of the neighbors peeking through their basement window. Forever ready for any practice opportunity for the use of English and always very grateful when native Canadians were to be engaged in conversation, especially kids who are always sincere and well meaning! With great courage he had walked up to the little window, mustering all his language skills and with a broad, encouraging smile he said something like:
“Halo, kiidsz, verr iiiz juur fadderr?” to which the kids answered in unison,
“Ejjjh???”
Peter‘s lips and tongue now in their most coordinated position possible, very slowly, carefully formatting the treacherous and foreigners gravest sound enemy, the “r”s, softening their rough edges, he had repeated the question.
The little kids looked at each other, then the oldest and wisest said:
“We don’t speak French!”
Unavoidably, situations much more humiliating happened due to lack of language skills. On one occasion, when Mike and Peter were traveling on a local bus, they observed that those passengers wanting to be let off at their stops have signaled to the driver by pushing a little button near the door. They also saw that getting off was from the rear. Confident in these important bits of familiarity, the new Canadian passengers coming from the rural areas of Hungary not really having been on any public transportation in the fifties, now felt confident and signaled to the driver that they would like get off the bus at the next stop. The bus stopped and they have patiently waited for the door to open. Since it did not, Peter had pressed, once more, now longer and firmer the little button for the driver. The driver looked up in the rear view mirror and with just a bit raised voice he had said something to them. The door still would not open.
By then the driver was gesticulating with both hands, what’s more now a passenger or two also got into shouting, but the boys still could not figure out the puzzle of opening the door.
The driver then, after pulling roughly on his hand brake, had rushed towards the rear with aggressive steps, and then stepped onto the last step of the door and as if by magic, the door opened. The driver’s less than complimentary remarks were still audible as they were rushing away into darkness.
There was no other solution; they had to start a formal language training course, designed specifically for new immigrants. The evening course led by the very kind Mrs. Sutherland was populated by a rather motley group of new immigrants. From the 50 years old German engineer to the almost illiterate, young shepherd boy from Sicily, there were immigrants from every conceivable nation and age. This multicultural group was to be thought by the ever smiling, patient and brilliant literature teacher, Mrs. Sutherland. This mixed background and nationality was the best asset of the class, as the pupils had no other choice but to communicate with each other in one language only, English. Here, nobody was afraid of making a mistake in pronunciation, or committing a grave grammatical error, everybody was in his or her natural awkwardness for the ordeal of communicating in English. And Mrs. Sutherland achieved results, because most of her charges had enriched themselves to the tune of their own language aptitudes and openness.
The fall season came and that also meant for all Hungarians at home and in foreign lands, that one year passed since the most proud and also the most tragic autumn, the one in 1956.
The Hungarian newspapers, written and printed in Canada, were also available in Ottawa and after Sunday mass they would buy them at the Hungarian church. These became their sources of information from home and the world. Soon the papers were calling all Hungarians in the West to get ready for big protest demonstrations on October 23, the anniversary of the Revolution, in front the various Soviet Embassies. Every able Hungarian was there, with candles in hand at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa. Peter and his friends came with several bottles of red ink, which were tossed at the building’s walls. There was some mild police interference, but not before the building was full of the ugly red marks, reminding the world of the brutal and murderous assault by the Red Army on Budapest a year before.
These demonstrations took place in every major Western city, with exactly the same results, bringing the world’s attention back to the events a year before.
The work in the sanatorium’s serving kitchen was pleasant, particularly due the patients’ kind and appreciative disposition; however it has been a nagging concern for Peter that after all he worked in the ward of patients suffering from tuberculosis. He would not even dare write to his parents about it, since his right kidney was removed in Budapest just 2 years prior, due to an infection with TBC. One can live with one kidney for many years, counseled the famous surgeon, Professor Babics, who during the revolution became the Minister of Health of the short lived revolutionary government. But without any kidney, in the fifties, meant death. The salary in the sanatorium was also lower than out there in the open “market”, so he had decided to seek a new job.
By the time their first, really cold winter had arrived around the beginning of December Peter was already working in the newly built Westgate Shopping center on the edge of town.
The Simpson Sears department store had a large cafeteria which shoppers and staff frequented, and the “experienced” young man was hired in the kitchen of this cafeteria, ran by the huge local bakery, Morrison Lamothe. In addition to dishwashing he had been given extra duties, the daily collection of all the garbage bins throughout the store, daily, before the night cleaning brigade had arrived.
The kitchen chef was German, his assistant Portuguese, the waitresses mostly French Canadian women. The unofficial, but well known “second class” citizens and immigrants made up then, and even today, the serving-cleaning needs of Canadian society. And among these the poorly spoken newcomer Hungarian became the “last” man of the department store. However, it seemed like a promotion, that unlike in the previous job, here he was given every morning a freshly washed and starched white shirt, with not so stylish, but useful striped pants. These little perks counted a lot in the life of immigrants. However, those dirty nails on his hands were hopeless, full of tiny bits of food particles that seemed so difficult to clean, causing great vexation.
The staff of the cafeteria was friendly. They would have their morning coffees together, just before opening and it was impressive for Europeans to experience a uniform acceptance of everybody at the tables. No privileges or exceptions in terms of rank or position, everybody sat with anybody, everybody calling the others by their first names! At least at work, society was without pretenses and formalities.
Around Christmas of 1957, the season’s songs were being played non-stop during opening hours, among them many rock inspired Christmas songs. All that seemed so new and interesting, every experience, every new English word, every new custom, behavior, rock number had continually and incessantly evened the road toward assimilation into society. The initial difficulties and uncertainties, the real and imagined hurts had slowly, very slowly been softened, exchanged for the satisfaction of salaries earned from daily labor, the momentary joys of a successful English dialogue with someone. Just before Christmas the company running the cafeteria had organized a party for the employees. This was his first experience being a guest in a better Ottawa restaurant, served a splendid dinner by - other immigrants.
Even Christmas gifts were given to each employee, a British Columbia commemorative silver dollar, the province where he was originally to be sent from the boat!

Ch.10 Arriving in the New World

2011-07-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

Quebec City,Canada,June 30,1957

The long train was full of Hungarian refugees, coming from several camps in Italy, transporting them to Le Havre, France, where a bit aged, but newly painted ocean liner was waiting for them.
While everyone was excited that finally they are on their way to the new homeland, leaving the continent proved to be very emotional to most, as they had tears in their eyes, realizing that, now, their lives are definitely and drastically changing.
The Italian registered ASCANIA made just one more stop as they have left Le Havre, before charging the open Atlantic, briefly mooring in Southampton and taking on British emigrants, bound for Canada. Peter was standing near the main bridge in the early morning darkness , when had heard the first really British English, which was so very different from the English that was attempted to be taught by a couple of Italian language teachers, just before they were leaving for Canada ( with very poor results). Shortly they were on their way.
Most passengers were present for breakfast that morning in the main dining hall, but as they were heading out to the open sea and the waves were becoming increasingly huge, for most, the voyage had become a new experience that they just as soon not have had! By lunch-time less than half of the passengers were present for the meal and by dinnertime, only a handful of the nearly 400 on board were brave enough to even think about eating. Peter had taken a few oranges to his seriously ill friend, with whom he had become friends since Melence, but the poor soul was just lying on his bunk bed with the greenest of faces, and wanted to die.
The next few days were pure hell for most of the passengers.
They could not eat, became weak, and the waves of the ocean were not getting calmer. It was taking the better part of 6 or 7 days by the time when most passengers have somehow acclimatized themselves to the ever present swaying and dared to show up on deck. Then on the ninth day they caught glimpses of the rather big chunks of ice formations as they were floating by in the mouth of the St.Lawrence where their ship was now steaming to its destination. While it was towards the end of June, the passengers, seeing the ice floats, were expecting the worst as they were getting ready for the June 30th arrival. Every conceivable warm clothing they could find in their meager luggage they put on, including heavy winter socks to brave the docking in Quebec City, it seemed they would be landing on the North Pole!
By the time they have arrived in the early morning hours, the thermometers of the Port signaled near 85 F! Added to this was a humidity index that made the 85 much worse in terms of comfort.
The arrival formalities were conducted still on the ship, they were given temporary id cards, documents. The Hungarian refugees were sorted out according to profession and need for labor in the various parts of the country, and then train tickets were handed out and finally everybody received 5 dollars.

Peter’s Entry Visa and destination in Canada.

Peter was directed to Vancouver, given train and meal tickets that were valid for several days and in his i.d. card they wrote „General labor”. He thanked them and asked the immigration officer where this Vancouver actually was in Canada. The obliging Canadian led him to a huge wall map and showed him the city on the foremost Western part of Canada. In answer to his question they have explained that, by and large, Vancouver is as far away from Quebec City, as Quebec City is from... Budapest!
The very moment within which he had decided that he will not go „that far”, that is „ farther” even from Budapest than Quebec , came back to haunt him for many, many years. Every time he realized that he made a hasty and unwise decision in such a fateful situation. If he knew what were to become the result of this quick decision , surely then he would have accepted it. However, he had declared, almost heroically, that he would rather not go to Vancouver. They accepted , without a word his decision, received his 5 dollars, and informed him that he was to stay in Quebec, there is no other alternative. They offered him temporary shelter in the sailors’ dormitory at the Port until he found a job and living quarters.
He had a quick farewell with his new friends from the various camps in Europe, who were sent to various cities of Canada and looked for his new living quarters in the Port.
He was quickly assigned a top bunk in the dormitory and within minutes he was climbing the steep road to the old center of the city which was just above the port, high up a hill.
This was the summer’s busiest long weekend, both from the Canadian and American side, and the French Canadian city was one of the most popular on the continent. Huge luxury cars were sparkling in the summer heat, throngs of people everywhere, shops, parks, streets. There was noticeable joy and happiness on the people’s faces, music blared from the cars, rock and roll was just coming into vogue that summer of 1957.
Peter had no destination point, but had already made some specific short range plans back on the ship before disembarking. It was not difficult to assess the possible skills and talents that he had to offer, but even if he had any marketable skill the lack of language would have rendered these unmarketable. Lack of both English and French meant the pursuit of an occupation which required no speaking or writing.
His only consolation was remembering the famous stories of (mostly American)millionaires who had started with nothing and through perseverance and a little bit of luck made it to the top, often becoming fabulously wealthy. If on this first day of his new country, a hot and humid day, he was not dreaming of millions , an inner force was pushing him towards the most elegant part of town, until he found himself in front of the famous Chateau Frontenac. One quick look at the hotel and the doorman, who looked like a colonel in full army gear, was enough to discourage him of trying his luck there. But opposite the hotel, on the other side of the corner of the square stood a very elegant restaurant, called the Old Homestead.
The Old Homestead restaurant, side street staff entrance, in 2005, after 48 years.

Awkwardly, but with some gusto he had entered through the main entrance and a well dressed, bearded, smiling man rushed towards him, with what looked like a bunch of files in his hand, and said something which did not sound English or Italian. Peter tried to muster at least some of the English words he had learned.
„Hallo, I...me...want job, I make...good work.”
The Greek owner, who spoke only Greek and French, took a good look at the entrepreneur and without any ceremony he had nodded to follow him. They went directly to the kitchen at the back through the happily chatting and eating crowd of people. The man put a large apron on Peter, led him to a huge sink full of dirty pots and pans.
„OK, you start now.” said the Greek. He never even asked his name. The three young chefs were also so busy that they could not devote any time to the newcomer. The task seemed simple enough. When he had finished washing the big pots, the waitresses were already showing him how to sort out the used dishes brought in from the dining hall, how to feed them into the monstrous washing machine at one end, how to rack them up when the freshly washed and steaming plates and glasses came out the other end. Within hours a certain routine established itself, much like in some wholesale factory. Peter had to smile when he thought of his dad , often admonishing him because he was reluctant to help his mother at home washing-up the few plates after their meal! Well, there was some washing-up to do now!
Was this 19 year old, on a new continent, without language or skill, able to create and sustain an existence?
Fresh off the boat, the young immigrant, in spite of his youth was not unfamiliar with physical work. The fifties in Hungary did not allow too many young people to escape hard work. His mother’s wages were enough only for the basic necessities. What his father could send home from his various jobs in the country was also too little to clothe and school the kids at home. It was evident that if he wanted to go to school in the fall in decent clothes and shoes he had to earn this during the summer. This is how he got a job far away from home, in the newly built „socialist” city of Sztalinvaros.
The communist leaders had planned to change the country from a predominantly agricultural land to an industrial power. The economic base for this scheme was to be able to „purchase” (at high prices)from the Soviet Union raw materials, then turning these into finished products „selling” them back(cheaply) to the Soviets. Buying dearly and selling cheaply was the most blatant exploitation of all the Eastern European countries in the fifties.
The reigning government was ready for any sacrifice to make this insane idea successful. People came from every part of the country to the town named after Stalin, because there was work and the pay was better than anywhere else. So Peter had signed up and became water boy for a team of transporters. The team worked hard, 12 hours a day, with very few days off. They emptied freight ships on the Danube, railway cars, transported cement and bricks and so on.
The boy, still in his puberty, had started learning from the school of life, perhaps somewhat too early in his life, how men had lived off manual labor. He had learned to smoke as the others did in the brigade, heard the first curse words and vulgarisms and saw up close how men, far from their families had behaved, often unfaithful to their wives. He was growing up quickly, indeed.
The weekly good-times had started often even before the week was over, at times his water container would be filled with beer or wine from taverns on the way.
This was how he spent the summer of 1951, from the first day of the school recess to the last days of the summer vacation.

Page from his diary in 1951:”…I got to love people. Now I know what it means to be a worker. I appreciate them more than any other…”

The following summer he had arrived as an experienced „worker” in Sztalinvaros and secured a job as surveyors’ helper, carrying measuring sticks and equipment for engineers. This was a real promotion, but alas less money although he was now a year older.
In the following year, 1953, a new „socialist dream city” was emerging in the North, Kazincbarcika. So the summer school vacation was now in a new venue, even much farther from his home. Here, too, engineers’ helper was the job, now with hands on experience. He lived in workers’ barracks, his window opened up to the courtyard of the adjacent forced labor camp, housing political prisoners, building the „socialist dream”. Every dawn began with the guards’ deafening shouting as they were organizing the ranks of the prisoners, getting them ready for the day’s work. Among these abused souls were priests, university professors, merchants, former army officers, judges, the so called undesirables, class enemies who supposedly threatened the dictatorship of the proletariat!
This is how he spent three summer vacations. But during school year there were some chances to earn some pocket money, too, thus helping the family to cope. The neighbors all relied on him to carry in the wood, coal in the fall that was just dumped in the front of their homes. He had an ongoing job at the house of one his well off friends, too, pumping full with water, once a week, the water tank of their bathroom. The weekly 4 hours of pumping by hand assured him that he could continue his favored sport: swimming and water polo. Since his hometown had no indoor pool for the winter, their practice took them on Sundays , by train, to Pecs, some 100 km's from Baja to the university’s swimming pool.

The junior water polo team, Bajai Honved,1954-front row:+Csere Robi,+Bánhidy Tilu,Galántai „Guszti”,back:Urbán Péter,Szepessy Kálmán,Krikovszki Józsi,Szepessy Laci.
These all day trips came free with train tickets, but food was the responsibility of each participant. The simple, one dish, home cooked meals could not be brought on trips like these, and cold provisions were too expensive for his mother to buy. But with the pumping job he earned enough each week that allowed the purchase of cold cuts and bread for these trips.
In spite of the many months of idleness in the various refugee camps and the hard choice that had to be made on disembarking the boat, it seemed incredible the ease, or perhaps the sheer luck with which , on his first day , at the first chance he could find work! There was no time to be afraid , to be lamenting the difficulties of a new world, strange language , the frustrations that should have surely followed within a short time. If there ever was the first step toward the BIG DREAM, toward life here on the new continent, then right there, in the old town-centre of Quebec, in that restaurant, it was taken.
Within a couple of hours , when the chefs found a little break, they checked out the tall, skinny guy from some strange land. With various sign language, and some words they could share they found out where the new dishwasher came from. Once they knew he has from Hungary, he immediately became a hero! The most famous Hungarian soccer team of all time, in 1954 , had carved into the hearts of ardent fans admiration everywhere in their world by coming second of all nations, barely losing to Germany in the World Cup final.
Peter was celebrated as if he were a member of that famous team. And the 1956 Freedom Fight and Revolution had substantially increased people’s admiration for the tiny country and her people.
The chefs had immediately begun work and within minutes they had Peter sit in front of a long table laden with every imaginable food, most of which was totally strange to the newcomer. After the so called fruits of the sea appetizer, boiled lobster claws, and what looked like raw, bloody slices of beef was served. Peter was able to eat some of these strange delicacies, but others he had to leave due to their bizarre consistencies, not well known to a Hungarian lad on his first day in North America.
But the friendship was instant and warm, which made these first hours on the job very pleasant. The hours were flying by, as more new customers came in for supper and everybody was busy with their tasks. When the last guest was gone, Peter still had the big pots to do, and towards one a.m. in the morning the owner showed him how to sweep and wash up the main dining room while he was busy with the cash register.
By 2 a.m. the newcomer had everything ready, but the owner insisted that he stay the night. They went behind the kitchen, to the storage room where from potato sacks and blankets a makeshift bed was made, being in July the cool room was a welcome change from the hot and steamy kitchen.
There was just one more “new” discovery left on this, for him, historical, day: in the storage room there were boxes and boxes of Coca Cola! The communist government and party in Hungary in the fifties had tried with every means of propaganda to depict the “imperialist West” as the devil. It meant to throw at it the worst possible criticism, whether in politics or culture. Thus the capitalists had used Coca Cola to drug and stupefy the poor working people. Well, Peter had found himself, alone, with boxes of Coca Cola, of which he had heard only bad things, that is, from a teenager’s point of view, exciting things, but never ever tried! He could not resist the temptation and opened a bottle, but after just one gulp from the strange tasting , lukewarm liquid he had enough. Poor imperialists of the West , he thought, you will never succeed with such a dismal tasting “drug”.
In less than 24 hours, the European, “landed immigrant”, said his document, had found, according to his qualifications, employment, friendly co-workers and even without knowing the amount, a salary, he apparently had room and board: what more could an East European guy have hope for in the New World in 1957?
He had tried in the next few weeks to get in to several Canadian Universities via the Immigration Office in Quebec via interpreters, but there were no answers, not at least until he was in Quebec City. Universities and colleges in Quebec had declined to take him on, with full room and board, without tuition fees. They had advised him to try other provinces.
In the meantime days were spent at the Old Homestead restaurant in the French Canadian capitol, from 3 pm until closing, for $25 weekly, plus all the delicious food he could eat and even a place to sleep if and when he wanted.
On his days off, Mondays, he was off to see the few English language films which were showing in the original, with subtitles for the French.
During his short stay in Quebec city only one embarrassing incident happened that remained in memory for a long time. On the second Sunday, before his afternoon shift at the restaurant, he went to mass in one of most beautiful churches. The huge church was full of worshippers, a magnificent organ led a truly amazing choir. He could only find standing room at the back. After the sermon, all of a sudden he had found in front of him a collecting box with a tiny bell attached to it, held by a straight backed and serious looking gentleman. The little bell that rang was sudden, but he had realized instantly that he should now produce some coins and place them in the box. However, only some banknotes were in his pocket that represented to the immigrant a rather big value, his stipend from the work in the restaurant, without any coins.
He could not do this, could not permit himself to take any of those dollar bills and donate them to the church! The man with the collecting box had now stepped closer to him and the little bell had signaled that he should give some money. Embarrassed, but he shook his head. The determined collector was not deterred and shook the little bell once more. With a red face, Peter did not react and the man passed on with a scornful face.
He felt ashamed and did not dare to go to church again in that city.
After some weeks he had said good bye to the Greek immigrants’ restaurant. There was an emotional farewell from his co-workers, who had retained rather bizarre memories of him. They smiled at his method of learning English during working hours by attaching a new list of words to his long dishwashing machine and reciting these words , loudly, each day. They have tried to understand his country’s political history and the recent events in 1956 during their coffee breaks, which he had presented with a mixture of English and Italian words. They understood his reason for moving on so that he could be exposed to a totally English speaking environment, it was his choice. Ottawa, however, did not seem right to them, but they did not mention this to him.
There was one important visit he had to make before getting on his train to Ottawa, in the city of his Canadian arrival. As in many other days, he sought out the most open space in the Port, where the huge ocean liners were docking, and sat on the most comfortable piles of ships’ rope. His eyes were searching, in vain, for the continent he had left behind, so long ago it seemed, in the far distance. Searching for the country which was once again surrounded by barbed wire and minefields, shot away from the world and the revolution’s victorious two weeks. These were painful and homesick hours, the acknowledgement of stark reality, that he was thousands of miles away from his family, friends, from all that gave him his identity so far. To bid good bye to Quebec City, which was his first home on the new continent, in Canada, seemed now almost as bitter as walking out of his hometown on that rainy November day. He recalled his walks here among the big ships during the mornings, before he went off to work, how often he was seriously considering sneaking up on a Europe bound ship and hiding as a stow away!. The loneliness, the strange environment, the daily frustration with the language, and that which was the most difficult to fight, the homesickness that all immigrants feel in the beginning, that had caused many to despair. Those without families and friends had a tougher time in the initial stages of a strange country.
Maybe Ottawa would help to get out of this dark mood!

Ch.9 From Italian refugee camp to...Canada

2011-06-07T14:46:00.000-07:00

Not every young Hungarian volunteered for the US Army. Some were afraid that a war such as the Korean one, can happen again, so the idea did not seem, all of a sudden, so attractive. They had tried consoling Peter in this manner. Then, in a couple of days, after an emotional farewell, several young men were on their way by air to the USA, apparently to San Francisco.

Celebration of March 15, a Hungarian festive holiday, in the Colony.
The first Hungarian national festive day in the Colony was March 15.and was celebrated by the compatriots with the National Anthem and flag, their mind on their loved ones at home.
As a fourth grade student, in 1948, at the time of the 100.anniversary of the 1848 Freedom Fight, Peter remembered well the occasion. That celebration took place in his hometown’s Teachers’ College. The practice elementary classes for teacher-students were also present when the national flag was raised, right in front of the senior choir, led by Professor Arato. These student-teachers taught them to read and write, as well as to behave in class, protecting, guiding them through the 4 years of elementary school.
Peter remembered the sudden spring that exploded from the normally short winter, even promising the prospect of summer in the not too distant future. He remembered the little dispute with his mother, when he wanted to dress in shorts while she insisted on the long pants of the winter, still. But the tears in the eyes of the 10 year old did not last long when he saw the other kids, all in their winter garb. And all of them had the proud, three-colored rosette in their buttonholes, and all knew by heart the most famous Petofi poem written for the occasion of March 15, 1848. They could not really comprehend the day’s significance, the 100 years that had passed since, and the two world wars, one of which had been affecting their young lives as well. These barely teenaged children could only feel the pride of being a Hungarian that the National Anthem on that day is more festive than on other days, that the message of the most famous poem’s of Petofi had a more urgent tone that was valid for all ages and eras.
The inhabitants of the Colony must have all had similar thoughts when only after 8 years of the 100th. anniversary of the 1848 Freedom Fight, were recalling the painful days of the 1956 Freedom Fight and Revolution.
The waiting for some news continued, while some in the Colony had tried to find an occasional job in the local community. Peter and his new friend, Mike, had found in the nearby fishing village a small family store whose front sign must have survived many tens of years. With their rudimentary Italian they have convinced the proprietor to have the store sign repainted. The owner was the most surprised when he went out to the street with them to examine the rather beat up sign and consider the necessity of the offer. So, they have began their task for which they had no knowledge or experience whatsoever. The job which had lasted 3 days did not seem at all long, when compared to the speed of the other work projects in the village. The two fresh paint artists had walked the daily 4 km's , there and back, always passing by a couple of seaside villas being constructed by Italian workers. Somehow it always looked as if these workers were on their lunch break, coffee break or afternoon siestas. But even if they were actually working, they always waved to Peter and his friend and implored them to „Piano, piano...” take it easy, don’t rush, the job will wait for you. In other words, the foreign painters had taken on the local work moral, so that the painting of the store sign, consisting of two words „Pescheria Nonni”, lasted 3 whole days!
Their wage was 5,000 lira for each, which then was the equivalent of 9 dollars. However, the money from the Nonni family had assumed historical perspectives in the lives of the two Hungarians ,then, as this was their first, ever, money earned in the free West!.
The weeks became months from the time passed at the orphans’ resort when a larger group, being offered to settle in Australia accepted and finally left the Colony. In a few weeks the first letters and postcards had arrived from this group, relating their trip that took them more 5 days by several air flights to reach their new home! The ones still in the Colony had chosen Canada, as that was by then the only country willing to have them. Peter made his choice based on the not very scientific criterion by looking at the map and compared the relative distances of the two continents - from Budapest!
Canada was closer.
From his childhood readings he had recalled the red uniformed Canadian Mountain Police, the huge spread of the land across the North American continent, the terrible winters that were worse even those of Sweden. There was one last letter from his benefactor at the BBC, encouraging him, congratulating him on choosing Canada, because „for a young man that is the best choice in 1957. Old Europe is a much more difficult place, we have unemployment in Britain, just go on to Canada.” He managed to notify his parents back home of his decision to emigrate to Canada and his dad sent back a telegram agreeing.

Chapter 8, Refugee Life in Italy, waiting for a v isa

2011-04-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

The advertised hunger strike had quickly faded due to the new group’s obstinacy, when the “Yugo” group appeared for every meal with great anticipation and appetite. Soon they were given their first Western identity document, issued by the Italian Red Cross, stating that bearer is a Hungarian refugee.

Life of the camp on the Adriatic had become routine, but the inhabitants’ thoughts were universally preoccupied with their future. They have already heard in Trieste, which was later confirmed in the Colony as well, that every refugee could settle in any country which would take him or her. All this was happening in the spring of 1957 when in Austria nearly 200,000 Hungarians have been arriving and gaining entry in dozens of Western nations. These countries established certain maximum quotas and these are quickly filled from the Austrian camps. In the meantime the camps in Italy and Yugoslavia were still full of refugees and there remained but two large countries that still had available quotas: Canada and Australia.
Finally, correspondence with the families at home began in earnest, but this proved expensive, as the Red Cross could not finance all the postage. Peter’s father tried desperately with all his friends abroad to help his son an entry into a European country or else get some money for correspondence. It proved to be difficult, except for one willing friend, Gyorgy Urban. He was only a namesake for father and an old friend from before WW2, who had settled in London, eventually finding a job with the BBC. He was answering Peter’s letters and when found out that Peter had expressed eagerness to get to England, perhaps via the BBC in some capacity, he was glad to help.
Gyorgy Urban had arranged for Peter to take an announcer’s voice test and a short entry exam at one of the radio stations in Bologna, possibly leading to a job with the BBC.
Peter was feverishly getting ready for the big day when he could board a train from Ravenna to Bologna, and face his short Western life’s biggest opportunity so far.
At the station in Bologna a very pleasant, young journalist was expecting Peter and drove him immediately to the Bologna radio station. There, after short instructions a Hungarian text was put in his hands and they would record his voice test-presentation that went rather well.
Since the entry exam also called for rudimentary English proficiency, a short English news item was given to Peter to translate into Hungarian, after all the interview and test was for a possible position with the BBC in England.
The sympathetic journalist sat next to Peter and had encouraged him to start the translation, he would help. The first two words to be translated from the English text will be remembered by Peter until his last day on earth. The text had begun: “The government…” But there, in the Italian radio-studio, the 19 year old Hungarian refugee did not know a single word of English! His Italian benefactor tried everything , in Italian, in French to explain, to make Peter understand the meaning of those two first words , perhaps Peter would suddenly understand and write down in Hungarian the meaning…all in vain! And these were only the first two words of the two page translation requirement!
Peter had finally made them understand that it is useless; he does not speak a single word of English. The entry test had to be stopped there.
The empathetic Italian journalist had taken Peter by the arm, sat him in his little Fiat Toppolino and took him home for dinner. There were a number of well dressed gentlemen sitting at the elegant dinner table, and a three course dinner was served by a pleasant woman, who was probably their landlady. The dinner companions were all very polite and have tried to make the guest welcome, but of course Peter’s Italian was only marginally better than his non-existent English, woefully insufficient for any conversation.
In the end, they parted at the railway station and Peter sat in the train with dark and somber thoughts. His mood now reminded him of another “entry test” that took place in Budapest less than year before. In May of 1956 he had tried to realize a long held dream when he had been up for a test at the Film and Theater Arts College. The famous film and theater star of the day, Maria Sulyok had the task of screening some of the hundreds of applicants for a few available places at the school. As with those two English words at the radio station, the minute details of the test in Budapest would never be forgotten:
They called him in from the corridor and Peter entered a simple, little room where sat the star on one chair and a secretary on the other.A small podium in front of them.
“You were supposed to be here yesterday, why didn’t you come then ?”- asked the film star.
“Yes, but I have sent a wire a week ago, that I was in my graduation ceremony yesterday …and I got permission to come today…”
“Graduation ceremony? In what?” –sounded the rather complex question.
Peter’s brain was lightening quick in assessing all the possible answers, including asking for clarification to the “In what”? question. But then he remembered the advice given by professional actors from Kecskemet, with whom he had shared the stage as an extra during their guest appearances in his hometown, that at the entry test one must exhibit spontaneity and quick humor that attests to great fantasy and wit, prerequisites for the performing arts! So, with a great deal of bravado and self confidence, he answered:
“In a dark-blue suit” and was anticipating a rewarding smile.
A numbing silence had fallen. The secretary looked up from her files, and then looked at the star with obvious fright, unable even to guess what the star’s response will be to this obviously impertinent answer!
“In what school you had the graduation ceremony, that is what I wanted…go on, recite something…” snarled the obviously upset prima donna at the scared candidate.
The yearlong preparation consisted of excerpts from the drama Bank Ban and a poem from Arpad Toth that he practiced with his literature teacher even recited to his father several times. There were occasions when he could recite the material to his classmates and on the day of the graduation ceremony, just before this entrance test the recital was done in front of all the graduating classes. All that work and preparation gave him self-confidence, as the delivery was being polished and refined while getting plenty of critical feedback and advice. However, on the critical day, the yearlong preparation was reduced to but a few lines from each work as the slighted diva interrupted him twice, rather abruptly, and said without even looking at Peter, coldly: “We’ll notify you…”
It was not necessary.
The same feelings came back to him in the train to Ravenna, as a year before when Maria Sulyok sent him on his way, and he walked out to the banks of the river Danube.
There, sitting on the stones, in the splendid May afternoon, he was waiting for his evening train back to Baja. All his dreams seemed to have been lost then, as now on the train for Ravenna, everything hopeless. Too many young people at the start of life, do not realize that every experience, every emotion, good or bad, joy, pain, achievement or failure, shame, success come and go on, because that is life. And real unhappiness is when one fights such unavoidable fluctuations in life…
Indeed, the disappointment about the BBC test in Bologna really lasted only a few days, as the young men of the Colony were now excited about new hopes. The news came that US Army recruiters would be passing through camp in a few days, and any young volunteer, by signing up for 5 years, would be immediately transported to the USA. There would be language school while getting the army training, then American citizenship, even opportunities for attending university afterward with generous bursaries.
Almost all young people, then, were dreaming of immigrating to America and this new chance to get there was hope for some. The recruiters arrived promptly in their enormous station wagon, a kind of vehicle not seen before by most refugees. Questionnaires had to be filled out, interviews started with the help of interpreters, followed by medical exams conducted by medical officers. These exams were not particularly detailed, they wanted to visibly check the applicants’ physical shape. When Peter’s turn came he had been casually asked about the long scar on his right side which was obviously the result of a surgical operation.
„I had an operation in March of 1955, when I was seventeen, they took my right kidney out. The kidney had tuberculosis, it had to be removed, but I have been healthy since!” translated the interpreter Peter’s explanation.
The army doctor waited until Peter had dressed and then sat down next to him on the bench. His expression seemed sincere and a bit sad, too, when he had told him that unfortunately Peter cannot join the US Army with one kidney.

Chapter 7, Arriving in Italian Red Cross Camp

2011-04-19T17:49:00.002-07:00

Of the Hungarian refugees staying at the Colonia, Peter’s group was not the first, as more than a hundred were brought here from the overcrowded refugee camps in Austria. The Colonia, built under the Mussolini regime, was a simple, gray, stone based building on the brilliant, sandy beach of the Adriatic Sea. Green, so called Italian maritime, Cyprus was all around the building, criss-crossed by walk and bicycle paths.
The winter of February was mild and pleasant due to the warm currents from the sea, so much so that on Sunday afternoons groups of people from nearby Ravenna waded in knee-deep, rather cool water looking for exotic crustaceans of the sea, which they consumed, with the help of a few drops of lemon, on the spot, much to the total amazement of the formerly landlocked Hungarian onlookers.
The rather forlorn and bewildered group, still carrying the horrors of the Gerovo camp got out of the bus and was touched by the small group of Hungarians welcoming them to their new home at the Adriatic Sea resort. They were moved and grateful for the turn in their fortunes.
The Red Cross nurses on duty were also on hand in their starched uniforms and with their warm smiles, and, it seemed the only policeman of the Colony, Cesare, also.

The nurses of the Red Cross, and their interpreters at the Colony, Feb.1957.

There was the Camp Leadership Committee, a camp physician and a priest, Hungarian cooks and helpers, house-rules. After a short greeting, the new arrivals were informed that while lunch is served at twelve noon, the Leadership Committee had recommended they stay away from meals until the Red Cross Camp Supervisors met certain “demands”. In other words there was a “hunger strike” going on.
The new group who had survived the harsh conditions of the Yugoslavian refugees camp, emaciated and practically deprived of even basic sanitation so far, was asked, on their first day at this seaside resort for Italian orphans to forsake their first meal and join the group in a protest strike! The newcomers were incredulous when they have heard the “demands” which were for more free movie tickets at the local cinema, more than the daily 10 free cigarettes, more fresh fruit on the dining tables and some other “urgent” needs.
It seemed, that some of the propaganda humbug of the “class-conscious workers” who always fought for their “rights” was brought with the escapees to the West. Not only have they brought the right to strike with them, a right that no one was ever able to put into practice at home, but they had the chance, in free Italy, to try out.
There were no acceptable reasons to join the strikers, specially for the group just arriving from the Yugoslavian prisoner of war camp. Nobody should have compelled them, on their day of arrival, to behave like sulky children and support the frivolous demands of the other group.
They did not take long to decide. Even if they could not prevent the strike, not one would take part in this ungrateful behavior towards their Italian hosts.
Soon after getting to their dormitories and getting organized, enjoying the luxury of hot showers, they were dressed in their newly acquired Red Cross donated garments and sat with great anticipation in the long dining hall, half empty due to the strike. Like in Gerovo, the cooks were also Hungarian, as well as the serving staff. Not one took part in the strike, as they were getting small rewards for their work which they did not want to lose. These house-chores were always well appreciated as they took care of the daily idleness on the one hand, but also provided a chance to go out to the markets, meeting and befriending Italians.
Peter’s thoughts were back in his hometown, where his mother must have been just getting ready to serve the fish soups she had prepared each day in the tavern where she worked, his younger brother would come by later and have some of the leftover if there were any. By the time the two-course lunch was served, Peter had also recalled those abundant and special meals he was invited to by his richer friends’ parents in the early fifties, during the greatest trials his family endured. He must write about this in his diary!
This wonderful day, from the arrival in the morning at the Colony, to the walk on the beach in the afternoon did not seem real at all. Why, the day before they were half frozen as they tried to wash up at the cold, outside tap in Gerovo, and were waiting with canteen in hand for the cabbage soup and now they were sitting at the long, white clothed table and enjoyed the two course meal, accompanied with a glass of wine!
Not even the other group’s tasteless invitation for a „hunger strike” could dampen their high spirits. They had gone through too much to worry about whether more than 10 cigarettes were “due” or not for refugees.
After his first ever, unforgettable walk on the seashore Peter had found a quiet corner in the main hall, asked and happily received a splendid notebook and pen, originally deemed for kids in elementary classes. It said on the cover: Bella Copia.

Peter’s diary. On the cover, barely legible, some lines from Petofi Sandor, Hungary’s patriotic poet:

„The school of life is the world
Where much of my sweat is lost,
Bumpy and oh, so hard your road,
Where man oft on the desert trod.
(Translated by PU)

He felt the compulsion, that then, in this splendid environment and mood he continue the diary he had started on Christmas Eve in Gerovo. Then, only bits and pieces of paper were available.
Already at lunch earlier the memories of the immediate past have rushed him and he felt the weight of the distant past that seemed rapidly disappearing amidst ever newer life experiences. Here, in Italy, he had realized once and for all that he had left his birthplace, there is no more turning back.
The Yugoslavs have kept their promise , they were free to go on to the West. He had finally arrived in a free land!
He thought of his dad, forbidden to write, to practice his profession for years, because there was no freedom of the press, who had rushed up to Budapest just 2 days before the Soviet invasion had started. He was ecstatic to restart writing and publishing the small town paper he had been denied since 1948, and now with the revolution being victorious he could write again! He was going to bring the newspaper stock to Baja, but the 4th of November brought the Soviet tanks back to Budapest and dad never made it back to Baja with the paper, hopefully, Peter was praying! For days they could not communicate with the family, and Peter had escaped without ever saying farewell to him.
How bitter his father must be now! He cannot possibly hope that he will ever write again, as a free man, without becoming an agent for the secret police.
Perhaps it was this helplessness of his father not being able to write that pushed Peter to write, to fix his thoughts, to do something, anything , without skill and experience , with a teenager’s undisciplined mind, but he had to – write! Maybe in years, these notes will serve some purpose, so he started to write about his father, the gagged journalist.
Based on the notes from the Diary,Feb.5,1957, at Marina di Ravenna:
„My father had moved to Baja, with my mother and older brother, two years before my birth, in 1936. Then 34 years old, this journalist left the Zalai Kozlony in Nagykanizsa and moved to the provincial town of Baja, to try his luck. It was an open secret in the family that he had personal reasons for this sudden move. My birth took place in a rented house and the next 18 years, until I have left the country I would be passing my life in this rented house.
Father had managed first one and then two weekly papers’ publication, where he had done most of the writing, all of the editing and looking after the circulation as well. In spite of the ’owner’ and ’publisher’ titles he could never make any fortunes with the papers, never owned a home, but secured a reasonably decent existence for his family, at least until 1948.
Father’s days were consumed by running after advertisers and the printing process, his only „means” of production was an ancient typewriter and a bicycle that substituted the telephone in those days. The bicycle served as transportation and provided, as well, for his only hobby which was fishing on the Danube.
The nights from my childhood are still vivid in my memory, when dad wrote his articles amid umpteenth cigarettes and several strong espressos, late into the night. This was a family business. Mother prepared and maintained the subscribers’ list and the two boys were sent to the railway station twice a week to post the bundled and addressed copies of papers to the neighboring villages.
After the Russian army had occupied the country towards the end of WW2, a fairly democratic system of government was established, with multiparty participation and free elections, for awhile. However, the communist party had difficulty asserting itself as the main party by legitimate means, they have resorted to subvert democracy with ever increasing rough, and later deadly tactics. All this of course with the support, if not the instigation, of the Soviet Union. By using the so called „sliced salami” tactics, the multiparty system slowly became a one party system, where any opposition was simply jailed, or worse.
By 1948 there was only one legitimate and substantial force to stand in the way of the communists: the Roman catholic church, representing more than 85 % of society, led by the staunch defender of his church and flock , Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, Primate of Hungary, the Vatican’s representative.
This was the only rival to the slowly developing, ruthless dictatorship of Matyas Rakosi and his conspirators.
One outstanding , single event and the last one from this era that had signaled the beginning of the darkest period in Hungary’s sad history was the Days of the Virgin Mary, held in my birthplace, Baja, in June of 1948. When the communists’ and socialists’ most famous and drummed up day, the first day of May, celebrated around the world by their ilk, had attracted a couple hundred sympathizers to the main square of Baja, the Days of Virgin Mary , led by Cardinal Mindszenty had hundreds of thousands in days of prayer and devotion in the same small town!
This is what irritated most the only political party in power and government then, this is what initiated the most brutal oppression of church and anyone not bowing to the Soviet puppets in Hungary!
The two weekly journals of Baja in June of 1948, Bajai Hirek and Delvideki Kis Ujsag, which were written and published by my father, had two special editions, in tens of thousands of copies, for these unprecedented celebrations in our hometown. The pilgrims came from every part of Hungary, including sections that were chopped off Hungary, as a result of the infamous Trianon „peace” accord, so that they all could pray together with the Primate Mindszenty against the ever increasing menace of Red dominance!
Father was there, in every ceremony, reception, religious procession so that he could record these historical events for his two journals. He was able to write up and send to the press his latest notes of the key events, so that the thousands of participants could take home their festive journals of those days in Baja.
I still see him on the main square, on the side of the ceremonial platform taking notes while the solemn ceremonies were taking place, led by Cardinal Mindszenty. By evening a huge crowed filled all the main streets of town, thousands of candles lit the happy and devout faces. That same night dad wrote and sent to press the special edition that could be on the newsstands next morning.
The day after the special edition was on the newsstands; my father never made it home that evening. As we found out it later, the State Secret Police had arrested him and locked him up in the local headquarters on Toth Kalman street. He was never formally charged with any crime, indeed what could have been the charge? That he had reported the events of those days in his legally published newspapers?

“IMPOSING WERE THE DAYS OF MARY IN BAJA” said the headline in the Délvidéki Kis Újság.
What was certain, that his bi-weekly, provincial newspapers would never again appear in any news stand. His journalist permit was taken away, his rented printing shop was closed forthwith, and never again could he publish a word until his death in 1989.
In the following weeks he suddenly became an aged and tormented man, disappearing for 24-48 hours from time to time. His children, my brothers and I, knew nothing of these days and nights not spent at home. Only much later mother had told us that dad was on frequent “questioning” sessions at the station of the secret police and was being “persuaded”, often with night sticks, too, to accept the “offer” , that of becoming a reporter at one of the national, daily newspapers in Budapest, the Magyar Nemzet. In exchange they only wanted “information” about the other employees’ possible “anti-state” behavior.
It is not known when, how soon would have Gyula Urban be broken during or after these “persuasion” sessions, his family being starved and emotionally tortured daily, and accepted like many others in those days, the vileness into which they were forced.
Within a few weeks five prominent physicians of the small town had certified and declared that Gyula Urban, former journalist, is suffering from a serious mental condition and was immediately locked up in the hospital’s most secure mental ward. This is how my father escaped from the hands of the State Secret Police in late 1948, just before the most shameful court proceedings started against Cardinal Mindszenty, subsequently sentencing the Cardinal to prison for life on totally false charges of espionage!
It was those five courageous physicians who collaborated and saved my father from the vileness that he, like many others, most probably, eventually would have succumbed to, but it meant 18 months of total isolation from the outside world, even shut up from his family, until the Secret Police had given him up. After his mental ward imprisonment he could no longer find a job in Baja, so the inevitable breakup of our family started then, in 1951, when he had to travel to the newly built “socialist” cities, where practically anyone could find employment. He lived in workers’ hostels; saw his family infrequently, for days only, while our family had gone through hardships and worry. For awhile even our house was being watched, especially in the evenings until one day my mother could not stand it any longer and verbally attacked the surprised character lurking in the shadow. He disappeared in minutes and from then on we were of no interest to them.
My mother who had raised three children had to find employment for the first time since married my dad, first was a cleaning woman then a cook in a local tavern.
These were my family’s difficult years, which for many other families could be many times more dramatic and serious between 1948 and 1956. Those preoccupied with the search for the triggers of the 1956 Hungarian Freedom Fight and Revolution should only examine the lives of these families in the last 8-10 years.”

Chapter 6, 'To the West, Feb.4, 1957' for the first time

2011-04-05T17:19:00.000-07:00

TO THE WEST-FEB.4, 1957, TRIESTE, ITALY.

On that wintry day in February an open transport truck carried the 62 refugee-volunteers to the border of Italy and Yugoslavia. The mountain road with its frozen surface seemed treacherous enough, so that it took some time to get on to more stable terrain. Its passengers were still feeling the embraces and well wishes, and a few concerned looks, of their compatriots who remained behind the barbed wired camp in Gerovo.
Did they make the right decision?
By the time the truck had stopped just meters from the border, the guards had to help them off the high truck as most of them were stiff and frozen from the open journey.
After some formalities, at the guards’ encouragement, the group slowly walked towards, first the Yugoslavian barrier that was then raised for them, and then through no-man’s land to the Italian barrier which was raised, also, for them to pass through.
Those 25 meters of no man’s land between the two countries became the group’s most cherished distance ever traveled in their lives!
Every step they took brought them closer to a new life they were soon to begin. The stern warning of the Italian consulate officials that they will have to remain in Italy, the prospect of unemployment did no longer matter to them.
The short road they had to take without their armed guards was the first free steps of these Hungarians since they have arrived in Yugoslavia.
One could imagine the affect of this disheveled, unshaven, pale faced group on the Italian officials waiting for them on the other side! They could still smell the unpleasant fumes of the diesel truck behind them; they could still feel the somber and perhaps envious looks of their guards on their backs as they were crossing over.
But their determined steps attested to their will and desire to accept whatever was to follow, no matter what, there was no returning now.
The emerging light from the fog had shined on a site for the 62 Hungarians that they could not have imagined in the last several weeks. Behind them closely were their former guards and the stark border office that looked more like a fort than an office. But ahead, on the other side stood a long caravan of sedans and ambulances from which white coated doctors and nurses were rushing to meet them, grabbing them by the arms, helping them to the vehicles. Not much was said, but smiles and warmth in their eyes spoke all the more. Soldiers or police were hardly visible, and the few present were helping them to get in the cars, just like the medical people.
Hot chocolate, oranges and cigarettes were offered in the cars. There were Hungarian interpreters among the Italians, who were changing cars from time to time to benefit all the refugees with their translations.
The translators told them that, naturally, they are being transported to a temporary refugee depot and in a short time they will be going to whatever destination they desire and would be available to them, in the West. The warnings by the Italian consulate lasted only so far!
The shabby refugee group found itself within a short time on an entire floor of a luxury hotel in Trieste. Warm baths, barbers at the ready, used but clean clothing was waiting for them and haircuts and shaves later the group would have looked reasonably acceptable on the streets of Trieste.
But most importantly, paper and pens were available so that their families would finally get their quick and enthusiastic letters, postcards, that they were well, in the free West, in Italy. After so many weeks of incertitude this was the biggest gift they could imagine. These letters, postcards were immediately mailed by Italian Red Cross personnel. It was just early afternonoon by the time the group cleaned up and wrote their letters, then met in the lobby of the hotel. They were grateful for this change in their lives and a few had tears in their eyes. The group was escorted to nearby restaurant for their main meal of the day.
They walked to this luxury restaurant in the heart of Trieste, where a whole section was closed off to them. Since not one of them spoke a word of Italian they had let the restaurant serve them at will, and were patiently awaiting their first ever Italian meal, in the free world.
It was only natural that the first course was pasta or a spaghetti in this case. And it was also certain that none of them ever had real spaghetti before, but the exciting aroma and their hunger for tasty food after so many months overcame their suspicions and started as cultured men, with fork and knife to attack the unknown delicacy. Unfortunately, the tiny bits and pieces of spaghetti after their diligent use of the knives and forks had made their task quite difficult, so the first course lasted a very long time. The serving team of the restaurant had been very patient with them and were even attempting to teach a few of the Hungarians the intricate maneuver of eating long pasta with a fork and spoon, of all things, not with knives!
After this abundant meal they were taken by several cars to the Trieste railway station where they boarded a train for Ravenna.
The station was full with crowds of people, most of who came out specifically to greet and glimpse at the Hungarian refugees. They have heard that the group was arriving from Yugoslavia on their way to Ravenna. Trieste was so close to the once, and only, Hungarian seaport Fiume, that many had felt a special kinship with historical Hungary. Fruit baskets and small gifts were handed to all, whose faces were now smiling for the attention and love that surrounded them. Indeed many felt an overwhelming humility and respect for the Italians of Trieste for this manifestation of their care and concern.
Peter, like the others was in a heightened emotional state since their arrival in this wonderful Italian city. But after so many vicissitudes, the absence of his family, the fate of mother and his younger brother who were left in Baja without a man in the house, who now are facing the harsh winter in the poorly heated, old house, weighed on him still.
All this, in a totally new world. And Trieste, with the cavalcade of Vespas and sedans on the roads, the rich store windows, the elegant men and women with their obvious carefree attitude, how different all this was from the sad, and gray Hungarian small towns, with their somber moods. Especially, the openness and unabashed joy on peoples’ faces in Trieste, by contrast, was so striking.
The train was warm and comfortable. Peter leaned out the window and grasped a man’s hand as it was extended to him from below. The couple, speaking Hungarian, came out to the station to meet the group, like the others from Trieste.
“Welcome in Italy, God bless you all, we pray for you, all Hungarians…where are you from?”
“I am from the South, a small town…” said Peter
“Yes, but which one…?”
“I am from Baja…” and the man’s face lit up…
“My mother is from Baja…we are both from Baja…and mother still lives there , today, in that town…maybe you know her…she lives on Budapest Road….the widow of Poth Gotthard?”
“Mrs.Poth? My God, … dear sir, she is our landlady, we have been renting her house for years…every month I take the rent to her, Mrs.Poth…that cannot be true!”
The train was long into the night and Peter was still thinking about the incredible meeting of the Hungarian couple in the station, before departure for Ravenna. His first hours in the West, his first meeting anyone there with whom he can communicate and they turn out to be the son of Mrs.Poth and his wife, from Baja! As they recounted the story, the son was born in Baja and after the war, in 1946 he had gotten out and settled in Trieste, here he opened a pasticeria, a coffee and cake place.
They were on the train the whole night when finally they arrived early morning in Ravenna. The local Red Cross was waiting and had them transported to the nearby Marina di Ravenna, by the Adriatic Sea.

Chapter 5 of Without Illusions

2011-03-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

GEROVO, DECEMBER 19, 1956.

After several hours they got off the train and were put on trucks covered with crude tarpaulins. Within an hour up ever steeper, serpentine mountain roads the trucks stopped: they were at their destination, near the village of Gerovo. It was already dark when they were ushered in the poorly lit, bleak buildings, surrounded by barbed wire, armed guards and their dogs. Only later they have found out that that their new home was this former prisoner of -the second world - war camp. The barbed wire and the guards made sure that there would be no contact between those that were fleeing the communist dictatorship in Hungary and the local population. Theirs was not the first group to arrive in Gerovo and soon the camp had swelled to more than 500. The men got separate dormitories from the women and small children, on simple hay and blanket surfaces, some 50 to a room. While the corridors contained simple latrines, only a few cold running water taps were available inside and others only outside the buildings. Since these were the first days of December in the high mountains of what is known as Slovenia today, the cold water wash ups in the outside always took place in a hurry. They were still lacking a change of clothing, shaving and haircuts were only available on a barter basis with those who had brought some of these items with them as they were fleeing. The common “currency” in camp became the daily portions of cigarettes that each adult received. As Christmas was approaching most people tried to achieve some semblance of cleanliness and hygiene, the clever ones were “operating” their makeshift barbershops.
Groups of Hungarians were arriving daily from other parts of Yugoslavia, too. Since the Western radio broadcasts into Hungary, in Hungarian, were giving an account of the fate of all refuges, both in Austria and Yugoslavia, more or more Hungarians living in nearby border towns tried to flee before the iron curtain would be reinstalled again. The UN had taken an active role for, at least, drumming up interest in the plight of these political refugees and the compensation, for example, to Yugoslavia started to pour in.
There were rumors that so many dollars per day were advanced to the Yugos for their expenses, but none knew for certain. Suffice it to say, that there was a huge difference in terms of the living conditions between Melence and Gerovo.
Meals were just above subsistence, produced in a kitchen staffed by Hungarians, so Hungarian bakers did bake bread on the premises. The refugees under the watchful eyes of Yugoslavian soldiers ran all services. Provisions were guarded and doled out each morning. Kitchen and cleaning help came from the dormitories and were provided extra portions in meals and in the most coveted form of currency of the day: cigarettes. The daily rations were 7 cigarettes per head but those on service duty got 20! Non-smokers had commanded the market, as heavy smokers would swap anything for extra smokes. For most camp inmates the days were spent idling around thus the inevitable card games have sprung up, the currency to win or lose was, of course, cigarettes.
The camp had one common, large meeting hall, where occasionally the refugees could watch some old film. They also held meetings here to discuss camp related issues, whether these originated from the refugees or from the camp command.
On everyone's mind there was but one principal preoccupation, when and where will they eventually end up? By late December of 1956 most everybody had believed that they would be allowed to leave Yugoslavia to the West. But where?And when? For the time being, they could not even leave the machine-gun and barbed wire fortified compound. They had no channels for the news from or about Hungary. Then, sporadically a letter or telegram would arrive and actually be delivered to the addressee from Hungary. Apparently, the Red Cross had managed to facilitate some communications between the refugees and their families back in Hungary. There were also a couple of dozen of Hungarians who could not stand the cold and the unsanitary conditions and asked to be returned to Hungary. They carried messages and news to the families left behind, most of whom had news of their family members who had escaped from Hungary. The news that the escapees were doing relatively well, at least they were alive and hoping to immigrate to the West, were gratefully acknowledged.
Christmas of 1956 found some Hungarian refugees in the former prisoner of war camp, their first Christmas a foreign land, behind barbed wire. Everyone in the camp dreaded the thought of finding themselves in this circumstance and the mood was somber, anxious. A brave young man risked being caught and ventured up the hillside during the night, within the walls of the camp, to cut down a small pine tree. The tree was going to be the only Christmas tree in the compound, but the guards caught the man and locked him up in a cell for several days.
The refugees were left to their own devices to celebrate the holy days.
A group of men, who came from a small village and have been performing the scene of Bethlehem on the eve of Jesus ' birth, knew their lines and roles by heart. They got together, made makeshift costumes and decorations, then went from dormitory to dormitory and performed to a teary and grateful audience. The performance was based on folklore taught and maintained song and text, giving an account of that Holy night in the town of Bethlehem.
That Christmas may have been the poorest and darkest for some in their lives, but it was also the most sincere and heartfelt spiritual experience, especially under the circumstances, for many others.
Peter, eighteen years old, continued to keep a diary during those days, too, which was fabricated from bits and pieces of paper and here is an excerpt about Gerovo, around Christmas of 1956:
" ... Barbed wire, guard towers, guards with machine guns and a really antagonistic attitude, we call them the darkness of the Balkan . There are a few decent men among them, like Misha, the captain. But the others are the embodiment of hate and distrust; I don't know why they do not like us? Maybe because there are some among us who behave rather badly? That may be an explanation, but why do they hate all of us? The most hostile is Pero. Soon after our arrival we became enemies. He kept on shouting and threatening and we were silent at first, then we started to talk back and give him a hard time every chance we had. He behaved really badly, he deserved it. He carried on to such an extent that eventually his own commander got rid of him, which we were happy to see! The other unsavory character is the one responsible for the firewood Nicola. He is a miser, a soulless character. We have to deal with him only at the time we have to go for firewood by the side of the building, fortunately, but then it is after long sessions of bargaining and begging when he finally consents to a few pieces of wood. Apparently, the wood belongs to him and is paid for his wood. So, in a nutshell this is our relationship with the Yugoslavs in camp ... and now when I look back on 1956, when I make my yearly evaluation ... it is certain that this year has been the most eventful of my life! After the terrible ice-flood in the spring, I matriculated, attempted two university entrance exams, my first full summer vacation of being home and not working as before, and of course the revolution which was more than all the other events together and resulted in my escape ... and now at Christmas I realize that I have never spent more than 2 months away from home, and never spent Christmas without my family.... I wonder how difficult is the English language going to be? Provided that I ever get to the United States! I am afraid it's going to take a long time ... since I am planning to earn my money speaking and writing.... I have no big demands, dreams -only to live normally, study and help the family I left behind. That is my only wish! That will all depend on me, people would say. I certainly will try my best. Only would I just be able to begin... My God, how many times will I be disappointed in life, in people until then? I will try to use my life experience, because I have some. In spite of my young age I have gone through much… here in camp people are so diverse. Have to say without exaggeration that a large part came here without clear regard to their action, seeking adventure, excitement, nevertheless I am hoping.... they will prevail and work hard, where work will be appreciated and compensated and will be really free .... I remember when years ago I was looking at a map and, always looking for America, finding the cities and tried to imagine the “land of opportunities!" Half believed these stories ... and now I will, perhaps, be convinced myself.”

The refugees kept on arriving steadily, many from Baja and vicinity, among them students and teachers also, from Peter’s secondary school, acquaintances from all generations. Among the teachers his most recent high school teacher, also his swim and water polo coach, Pigele. These home-towners have helped to ease their homesickness and brought some recent news from some families.
He was happy to recognize a few classmates from his older brothers’ class of 1950, who were imprisoned under a “political conspiracy “charge in the early fifties. These were freed in the first, victorious days of the revolution. Meeting these young men brought back the memory of his very first fencing master, the saber fencer and coach, Jozsef Kosztolanyi, who was the chief defendant in that political trial, subsequently hanged by the ruthless Rakosi regime. The character, humanism and professional skills of Kosztolanyi forever set an example to emulate throughout his disciples’ life.
Life in Gerovo was becoming full of anxiety, waiting for a bite of nourishment and a chance for some personal hygiene. They left their homes with the clothes on their back. Now, several weeks away from the last bath or haircut time was becoming a cruel toll for existence on the most primitive level. Eventually, around the middle of January of 1957 some warm water showers were installed in one of the buildings, which helped conditions somewhat.
One of the first opportunities presenting for leaving the camp was the visit by the Italian consulate officials who, while inviting refugees, had set a quota for taking a group of Hungarian refugees to Italy. They have emphatically stressed that since Italy is under dire economic conditions due to losses in the war, job opportunities would be few and that once in Italy, the refugees must then stay, traveling to other countries will not be possible. In other words, anyone dreaming of Switzerland, America or Australia should not bother to sign up for Italy, they should keep on waiting in Gerovo.
Peter and some others decided to accept the chance, in spite of the stern warning by the Italians that the refugees will not be able to leave Italy, and that life in Italy was difficult with unemployment being high. All this seemed so unlike the dreams the refugees were nurturing that very few volunteered to accept the "offer" by the Italians. Most would rather stay and bear the hardships than go to a poor country like Italy, with no chance of getting to a richer country later.
Peter and some other “veterans” of Melence and Gerovo had a different opinion. He had been an influence on the group, voicing his conviction that the West is the West, where freedom must prevail, where man’s free will cannot be denied, there cannot exist iron curtains and minefields. They must not miss this opportunity, the only one at the time. While they were dreaming of other opportunities, expecting better offers from the West, only 62 inmates of the camp in Gerovo of now nearly one thousand accepted the Italian invitation.
This is how Peter recorded the day for his second trip to a foreign land:
"We have left the "island of our dreams", Gerovo, at 4 A.M. The month and a half I have spent here will not be among my best memories. I cannot say that I have starved here, that I have suffered physically. But it wasn't good. Uncertainty, anxiety, animosity! One does not talk about it anymore, trying to forget - but I cannot bring myself to this. I need time, time spent in civility and normalcy…after all this was my first real test after the “socialist summers” of Sztalinvaros and Kazincbarcika…”

Without Illusions, Chapter 4, Refugee Camps in Yugoslavia

2011-03-27T20:39:00.001-07:00

MELENCE, NOVEMBER 16,1956

The trip to this place, called Melence, was quite long. It was near the Rumanian border, far from Hungary and it normally served as a summer resort for coalminers. There were already some two hundred Hungarian beds, six to a room. Communal bathrooms were at the end of the corridor. They ate in large communal dining rooms with Yugoslavian civilians serving them. But they could not leave the compound and there were no visitors of any kind.
Life in the camp had assumed a routine while every day, newly escaped Hungarians were quickly filling up the remaining empty rooms. Towards the end of November the compound was full. None of the service personnel spoke Hungarian so there was no communication between them and the refugees.
What everybody was anxious to find out: how were things back in Hungary, and what will be their fate. No one could be sure what the future held for these refugees. Inevitably, the rumor had started that when the Soviets had finished squashing the uprising, they would make sure that communist Tito would hand over all these "refugee-hooligans" and repatriate them to their just fate. All hoped that these remained just rumors!
Thus the mood in the camp was not altogether positive, until a day late in November when Peter had been called, as it was his turn, for a session of interrogation with a Yugoslav intelligence officer.
This was a young, bilingual officer, with a decent demeanor and attitude toward this young Hungarian. On that day he was smiling and pleased with himself as he put the usual questions to Peter for the umpteenth time: how many Russian tanks were on the highway to Yugoslavia, how did the Russian soldiers behave in Baja, did they talked about plans for Yugoslavia, did they see any Russian soldiers in the villages near the border, did the Hungarian revolutionary leaders talk about plans or desires to retake the formerly Hungarian territory that now belonged to Yugoslavia? What did they hear in the radio, what parties were in the making to change the one-party system?
On and on with same questions for hours on end.
When he had enough of the obviously negative answers he paused for a moment, offered Peter an unknown brand of extremely pleasant, luxury cigarette and said:
"You are a bunch of lucky bastards . " and seeing, even expecting the puzzled look on Peter’s face, he continued" Comrade Tito had decided to let all of you go to the West, wherever you wish, whatever country will take you, America, West Germany whatever. "
Peter just sat there, speechless, and could not understand the enormity of what had just transpired. Why, all the refugees had been certain they would go on to Western nations, who had been taking refugees via Austria for some day now, certainly since the Soviet started their counter-offensive against Budapest on November 4th.
Why did this intelligence officer say what Tito had decided to do?Just now? Why? The officer explained:
"Your Prime Minister, the revolution's Imre Nagy had sought refuge in the Yugoslavian Embassy just after the Soviet offensive on Nov4th. On the 22nd he and his cabinet members were given safe conduct out of the Embassy.. Only to be immediately..., arrested and whisked out of the country. despite an agreement and promise of safe conduct ... this is what this new Hungarian government did and Comrade Tito will now let all of you go to the West."
Peter had returned to his room and sat on his bunk, relieved, but stunned by the realization that, apparently when the events had quieted down they were to be returned to the Hungarian authorities and no doubt severely punished for their escape attempt! And now, Tito would allow them to go on to the West!
Only through the next several months and years did these refugees comprehend the international drama that took place in Budapest on November 22, 1956.
The legitimate prime minister of Hungary, his closest aides and advisors, their families were promised safe conducts to their homes in Budapest from the diplomatic protection of the Yugoslavian Embassy and all of them were arrested as soon as they left the Embassy!
The Hungarian refugees in Melence and by then in many other places in Yugoslavia as their numbers have eventually grown to 16,000, owed their free passage to the West to Marshal Tito, who had been affronted by the unprecedented action of the Soviet and their Hungarian collaborators!
The Hungarian refugee camp in Melence these days had still managed to look after the swelling numbers of the inmates. While the food and shelter was quite adequate, soon other needs became apparent. Most refugees had come without any luggage, so they were lacking any change of clothing. They received one towel each on arrival and they made do with washing and, drying and wearing the same clothing over and over again. It seemed that camp management was not planning for the long term with these refugees, and neither did the “guests” plan to stay!
In the meantime, as became apparent later, tens of thousands of refugees kept on arriving mostly in Austria, but a few thousand in Yugoslavia, too. The camp in Melence became full in no time at all.
Within days all the refugees from camp were put on trains and Peter and his compatriots soon had achieved their first “visit” to a European capitol: Belgrade. Their train had stopped for an hour in the capitol of Yugoslavia, they were not allowed to get off and the rather disheveled group of Hungarians did not raise any curiosity in the station as they were hanging out the train windows. Then the train took off and their guards would only say that they were going to the “mountains”.

Happy Birthday US MARINES!

2011-01-31T20:35:00.000-08:00

http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/11/10/happy-235th-birthday-u-s-marine-corps/

Without Illusions, Chapter 3, The Escape

2011-01-25T20:12:00.000-08:00

THE ESCAPE.
November 15, 1956
They met at the Calvary cemetery.

It has been a gray and mournful day and not only because fall was slowly accepting the inevitable approach of winter, but even the most optimistic among them was giving up hope for the miracle. It was becoming evident that no one was coming to help preserve the exuberance born on October 23; no one could stop the retribution and repression that was soon to follow.
Fall had come and the three inseparable friends were still in their hometown as neither was admitted to university. As planned earlier that day, they met on the outskirts of the town by the ancient cemetery on this dark and sad November day.
Their daily lives were already so tied to each other that it was only natural that all three would escape together and stay together, forever. It would have been unthinkable otherwise. These youthful bonds are often stronger than allegiance to family; a few years spent together seem like a lifetime.

The three friends in the spring of 1956, III.Bela Gymnasium, Baja, Hungary

Laszlo was waiting for the other two, his face reflecting the weight of the worry he had spent the day with. He could not forsake his parents, leaving them alone to care for an older brother, paralyzed and impaired since birth. He had his first test of adulthood that day. The other two, now sullen and worried lest they, too, will change their own minds, have hurriedly said farewell and took off into the night.
They walked in silence on the dark and wet country road. Were they aware of their decision to leave the country that night, maybe captured and interned, maybe succeeding to cross the border and never to return again? Almost certainly neither did feel the enormity of their decision. Their wet faces, the silence that surrounded them in the countryside and the steady rain that was falling only underscored their plight. However, their faces would have suggested that they knew that with each step they were changing their lives forever.
They only had an idea how far the Yugoslavian border might be from their home town of Baja, but these eighteen year olds did not consider that 5 or 6 extra kilometers should be a problem if their assumptions were maybe too optimistic. So they walked out of the town onto the old provincial road leading south. Within minutes they were soaked from the rain when out of the wet darkness an old milk truck appeared to slow down for them and come to a screeching stop. They were permitted to jump on the back, next to the empty milk containers and although the rain now seemed fortified by the speed of the camion, their progress towards the border had improved.
An old villager in the last village where they got off the camion showed them the approximate direction toward the border, wished them luck and hurried back into his old farmhouse. They were in the middle of huge cornfields and found the walk now excruciatingly slow due to the huge and heavy mud-boots that quickly formed on their shoes. The wet ground was almost knee deep in black mud. They have lost any sign of direction and had the feeling after a couple of hours of struggling on that they were walking in circles. There was no sign of anything resembling the border. Only little piles of what looked like tents made of corn stalks, every 100 meters or so. It must have passed midnight, when in the distance ahead they have spotted what looked like faint light and contours of a low farmhouse. They have decided to knock on the door, as their sense of direction for the border was totally lost.
The man who appeared at the door was wearing long underpants and shirt covered by a roughly made fur vest, which he was clutching with one hand. He appeared calm and friendly in spite of the late hour and the sight of the soaked and mud covered young men. They have greeted him in the only language they knew and were rewarded by a response in the same language. Did this mean that after all these hours of walking in the muddy cornfields they were still in Hungary?
"Welcome and step inside from the rain" - said the man. Inside was just one rather small, wooden beams covered space. An oil lamp was the only light that revealed what they could smell immediately entering, the presence of animals. The sight and smell of a peacefully ruminating cow, two goats and several chickens, ducks and geese. As their eyes were now getting accustomed to the light they spotted the huge earth and bricks made oven, with a large extended shelf on which various forms of humanity was spread out. Several children with curious glances, some asleep undisturbed, and their mother were examining the strangers. This sudden change from the miserable November night out there was welcome indeed and only in later years thought Peter that at that moment, if the information they were seeking from the farmer had confirmed that they were still on the Hungarian side of the border, they may have stayed with this decent farmer and his family until daybreak and then perhaps turned back and give up their objective of leaving the country. Perhaps.
As it turned out, the good man had assured them, they have been for some one kilometer inside the territory of Tito's Yugoslavia. While neither of these young adventurers had even imagined a trip to a foreign land some weeks before November 15, but if they had, this imaginary trip would have been, most certainly to some exotic European capital, certainly arriving by an international express train to an exciting railway station, perhaps arriving by taxi at a famous hotel and greeted by a polite and smiling doorman, offering help with their sizeable luggage. Instead, their first contact ever with a foreign land was a farmer in his underclothes, greeting them in Hungarian and inviting them in to his stable and home in a one-room house, encouraging them to sit on a wooden bench next to his warm oven and cow. Still, it could not have been more pleasant and encouraging.
There was no need for any explanation. By their question the farmer seemed to have understood immediately their situation and was already pulling on his rubber boots saying that he would be gone awhile and fetch the Yugoslavian border guards. If there was any concern in what would follow next it was not felt at that time since the warmth of the oven and curious looks from above the oven shelf took all their attention. The kind farmer was gone in no time at all.
And so their introduction to a foreign land was now a historical fact. Some thirty minutes later they heard the sound of a car and within a minute the farmer and two soldiers, with machine guns and shinny battle helmets appeared in the doorway. They were ushered outside with obvious gestures so quickly that they had no chance to say a word of thanks to the farmer or say farewell to the spectators on top of the oven. The rain was still falling and the dark seemed even more impenetrable than before. The boys were made to stand about ten meters from each other, hands in the air, and one of the soldiers had quickly searched them, top to bottom while the other had watched with his machine gun in the ready.
Their identity booklets were taken away.

They did not speak too much; a Serbian word here and there was all they could hear. When the frisking was over they just stood for what seemed like eternity. As their arms were getting tired they slowly let them fall down but the soldiers did not object so they just stood in the rain and waited. This was the most frightful time of their entire border crossing, since they could not imagine what would transpire next. Why are they standing like this, apart and with their backs to each other? What will they do with them? Why are they not trying to communicate with them? What will happen? During this long wait, their thoughts were focusing on every possible outcome that could come before dawn would break. They were hoping that no harm would come to them most of all since in the days leading to crossing the border Radio Free Europe was continually broadcasting about many Hungarians escaping, including to the South, Yugoslavia.
Anxious minutes followed in the dark night. Peter thought of his family, then suddenly recalled his first encounter with gun-toting soldiers. Much later he wrote down the incident with the Red Army in the diary that he continued even in the refugee camps:

“The Red Army had occupied Baja in March of 1945 without any resistance, since the only southern bridge over the Danube had been bombed by the allies some 2 years prior to that, so the town had served no strategic importance to the retreating Germans. A 7 year old kid probably could not understand the nuances of whispering and worried adults’ conversations while they were huddling around their radios, listening to broadcasts about the ongoing war. However, I still remember the striking contrasts between what my father believed about the approaching Red Army and what our neighbors did.
The prevailing opinion was that these soldiers were an uncultured, pillaging and unmerciful bunch of thugs, better to be afraid of and avoid them, if possible.
The only exception voiced, characterizing the “liberators” so was my dad’s. He had advanced to the Red Army, too, his basic humanistic belief of decency and honor in everyone, particularly since our town prior to the Russians’ advance had been full of the soldiers of the Werhmacht who had set up camp in the town’s marketplace and had been peaceful with the civilian population.
So optimist that he was, my father could hardly wait, so that after months of waiting and uncertainty he could finally take a long walk in the center of town, albeit now under the “protection “of a different occupying army.
He had shaved off with great care his beard of many months that made him look much older and respected, and in his freshly ironed suit and trademark, colorful bowtie he would have made a dashing and impressive figure on the soldiers of the Red Army.
So that any soviet troops , even from a distance would judge dad to be a peacefully walking , unthreatening gentleman , he got me scrubbed and dressed with similar care, much to the vehement protestations of my mother, that “ for God’s sake don’t take the kid to those wicked Muscovites!”
Using the logic that during the previous night, as the Russians were moving into town, we had not heard even a single gunshot, father remained undeterred that Baja was “visited “by well meaning and peaceful soldiers. What’s more, any journalist worth his salt should feel his duty to rush to the scene and record events with the reliability of the eyewitness.
My father desperately tried to sell all this logic and reasoning to my mother, even though just weeks before that he was contemplating of fleeing Baja for the West, as did some of the families in the neighborhood , expecting the worst from the soviet “liberators”.
So, as a final act of insurance for good will, father decorated his cigar pocket with a silky handkerchief. Always a careful dresser in those days, but even more of a zealot for personal hygiene! The rigors of cleanliness he made sure were adhered to by his children come war or hell. Just as an example, my older brother and I became acquainted with the taste of ordinary house soap during the war, as neither bath soap nor toothpaste was available , so the morning and evening wash-ups were followed by vigorous tooth brushing with horrible tasting, homemade soap rubbed on our toothbrushes!
So the impeccably dressed gentleman took the hand of his clean scrubbed son , carefully threading the chain of his cherished pocket watch into the left pocket of his vest and with determined steps took off on our street in the direction of the center of town. The sleepy looking soldiers lying about on top of the armored car right on the first corner of our street were, a bit reluctantly, returning my father’s enthusiastic waving of hand. Most probably they were so surprised by the sudden appearance of this representative of the decadent West with his child that their sleepy gawking did not result in any action, but kept silently witnessing the parade.
Little further up the street two foot soldiers appeared, dirty and dusty with the famous Russian “guitars” on their shoulders. Dad cheerfully repeated the now well rehearsed greeting with the waving arm, to which he has added a striking “Welcome to our hometown” on his clean baritone voice. – He sang well, particularly after a glass or two.-
The stocky one of the two, with a somewhat oriental face approached my father, his eyes riveted to the shiny pocket watch; he then grabbed the chain and said in Russian: davai chas! While my dad did not understand the words , there was no mistaking of the intention because the soldier now decidedly pulled on the chain to which my father responded by taking several steps back onto the middle of the street, not ever letting my hand go with his left hand, and holding on to the chain of his watch with the other.
The uneven struggle could not have been going on more than a few seconds, but it seemed like eternity. I wonder whether it had occurred to my father, then, even for a second that the machinegun against his chest could have gone off, or in a lesser event its gunstock lands on his head, I don’t know.
The fact remains, that this self conscious and open-armed country writer had forsaken any common sensibility and reason, almost heroically defended his personal possession, against very poor odds while holding on tightly to my hand!
It remains a mystery at that moment that the arrival of a high ranking officer in an open jeep was God’s will or just a flick of fate.
The car came to a screeching halt in the middle of the street, to the point where the struggling soldier and civilian with kid in tow found themselves. In response to the officer’s loud cry the soldier let go of the watch’s chain and the sudden change in the relative opposing forces resulted in father’s falling to the middle of the street, still with kid in tow.
Terrible shouting had followed, but only from the lips of the officer as the soldier being reprimanded could only stay in stiff attention. We could not understand the officer’s apparent dressing down, but it was evident that father had escaped with watch and kid for the time being.
My dad had to realize that the neighbors’ doubts and anxiety about the approaching Red Army proved to be correct. With quick steps, still holding on to me with force, we returned to our house, where father had collapsed on the stool in the kitchen, both hands holding his face. He sat there, trembling, for the longest time, and even as a kid I understood that a whole world had collapsed in him that day.”

Soon the boys’ worries were somewhat relieved when in an hour of waiting, a much bigger military car approached and what looked like an officer of some rank approached and motioned them to get into the car.
For the next hour or so they were driving across farm roads, then onto a highway and by the time dawn was breaking, the car was approaching the town of Subotica. Just before the WW2 broke out in this part of the world the town was called Szabadka and belonged to Hungary, Peter was taken by his father there on an exciting motor train from Baja when we was little. He remembered the lunch they ate at the Szabadka railway station and that his dad ordered a dessert that they both liked so much they asked the chef for the recipe and taken it home. The dessert was called Aranygaluska and became a favorite in their household from that time on.
How long ago was it, when the whole family, the three boys and the parents sat at the Sunday meal, 8 or 9 years? And when again, if ever, will they sit at that table, all five of them?

The car came to a stop at what looked like the local police station and they were taken to an office where they could take some of their wet clothing off and spread them out on chairs in front of the stove. They had been offered hot tea and cigarettes. Shortly a man appeared to take notes of their impromptu visit to the Republic of Yugoslavia, speaking fluent Hungarian he told them they are not the first Hungarian “refugees”, as he called them, to seek asylum in Yugoslavia, some six hundred have crossed over in the last 10 days or so.
More are expected, so much so that there is no more room in this small town for them and they will be transported shortly to another place designated as a refugee camp.
How I became a “refugee”, Peter had asked himself. The revolution that exploded just three weeks before was centered in Budapest and the bigger cities. The smaller towns and villages witnessed mostly sympathetic demonstrations and sent food and medicines and other immediate aids, as best as they could to the capitol. The local high school students that graduated in the spring of 1956 and were rejected by the strictly controlled universities and colleges were still in Baja that fall and enthusiastically joined the local factory workers and students. They marched together to the nearby army barracks and begged the conscripted young soldiers to join the revolution and discard the hated red stars on their caps and uniforms. When they had successfully persuaded the reluctant and frightened conscripts to join, they then marched with them to the next army barrack, where some professional soldiers were stationed. Soon the weapon magazines were opened and anyone who wanted, found some weapon and ammunition, so now the small town had its instant revolutionary army, and named themselves National Guard.
Peter, now in possession of a Russian made machine gun, had reported to the Mayor’s office, in the center of the town Revolutionary Committee and received his only official assignment. Somebody instructed him to go to the main square and supervise that all the students who regularly commuted from the nearby villages by bus are to be properly returned to these villages, as there was tremendous confusion, everyday life became chaotic.
Schools soon closed and the students were all on the streets. One evening Peter joined a group that went to the town’s main park, where Stalin’s much hated statute was erected right in the middle of it. The enthusiastic group had uprooted the statute following the example of the destruction of the immense Stalin statute in Budapest, carried it to the nearby canal and had tossed it in from the bridge.
It was difficult in the calm of a small town to follow the bloody fight that was ongoing in Budapest. Many had wanted to get to the capitol 16O kilometers to the North, but there was no transportation, no trains running.
Following the fourth of November attack on Budapest by some 3000 Russian tanks, Soviet armored vehicles and tanks had arrived in Baja as well. Senior high school students and some others just out of the local high school had planned an attack on the few tanks and armored vehicles that were stationed on the strategic squares in town. Some had hid in the square of Toth Kalman, in the attics of apartment houses with their light weapons, mostly machine guns and rifles. The attack was to begin precisely at 6 PM one evening, somebody was to start firing and then all would join in. It must have been divine intervention, as was acknowledged by all later, that no one had started firing, no one dared to begin the shooting. The armored units would have caused a blood bath against the totally inexperienced students, probably killing many innocents in the apartments below, too.
The news of the fighting youth in Budapest, then, became even more heroic and tragic to the population of these small towns.
In the subsequent days amidst the news of the evolving tragedy of the revolution, only the disappointment and the anger remained with the people. Small groups of agitated people filled the little town’s main walking street, mainly to exchange any news that may have come from the capitol. One such evening in the early days of November and after the Soviet invasion of Budapest, Peter was suddenly accosted by one of the well known communist sympathizers in Baja. He had cynically asked Peter where he had hid his recently brandished machine gun.
While this incident did not leave his thoughts, the decision to leave the country was not due to this. But all of this seemed very far and quite meaningless in the light of his present situation in Yugoslavia.

From sheer panic to hate, the left keeps it up on Sarah Palin.

2011-01-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

The tragedy in Tuscon was barely sinking into people's mind when a new assault began on Sarah Palin. First, it was the sheriff in Tuscon who had a rant about talk radio, television being responsible for the senseless murders. Then the broadcasting, blogging left put their 'crosshairs' on Gov.Palin. Why?

The euphoria of the Obama campaign winning in 2008 over the formidable Clintons was soon translated into winning the polls over John McCain. Then came the GOP convention and the bombshell annoucement: Sarah Palin nominated and accepted to be the running mate of John McCain!

A successful,working class, small town mayor, Palin became the Governor of Alaska. She was attractive, articulate, passionate, family oriented, pro-choice, not in words only, but by shining example, she was an immediate, national political star. The Obama machine was incredulous, after seeming unstoppable, the immediate polls showed McCain surging ahead for the first time. There were just two months to go to election and Palin was rescuing McCain's faltering campaign!

The scare, felt by both the Obama campaign and the supporting cast of the MSM,was now becoming sheer panic. Within days the counterattacks concentrated on destroying Palin. In addition to maligning and campaigning against "Bush/Cheney", Palin was added to the hate list.
Obviously, the measures to defeat McCain/Palin worked.

So, from the initial scare of Palin rescuing the McCain campaign, to Sarah Palin's ever increasing popularity today, the relentless campaign by the left media and Democratic operatives is to further marginalize, damage her at every opportunity.
They cannot understand or believe her immense influence on middle class America and are leaving no chances for her becoming, again, a formidable opponent to any Democrat in the future.

This is how the left evolved from the panic of the Obama campaign at first, caused by Sarah Palin's emergence on the national, political scene into the ongoing, permanent hate campaign against her. The 'scare' has not gone away, it will remain as long as Sarah Palin enjoys the following of millions.

Christopher Hitchens:Miss Manners And the Big C

2010-12-17T18:58:00.000-08:00

Ever since I was felled in mid-book tour this summer, I have adored and seized all chances to play catch-up and to keep as many engagements as I can. Debating and lecturing are part of the breath of life to me, and I take deep drafts whenever and wherever possible. I also truly enjoy the face time with you, dear reader, whether or not you bring a receipt for a shiny new copy of my memoirs. But here is what happened while I was waiting to sign copies at an event in Manhattan a few weeks ago. Picture, if you will, me sitting at my table, approached by a motherly-looking woman (a key constituent of my demographic):

She: I was so sorry to hear you had been ill.

Me: Thank you for saying so.

She: A cousin of mine had cancer.

Me: Oh, I am sorry to hear that.

She: [As the line of customers lengthens behind her.] Yes, in his liver.

Me: That’s never good.

She: But it went away, after the doctors had told him it was incurable.

Me: Well, that’s what we all want to hear.

She: [With those farther back in line now showing signs of impatience.] Yes. But then it came back, much worse than before.

Me: Oh, how dreadful.

She: And then he died. It was agonizing. Agonizing. Seemed to take him forever.

Me: [Beginning to search for words.] …

She: Of course, he was a lifelong homosexual.

Me: [Not quite finding the words, and not wishing to sound stupid by echoing “of course.”] …

She: And his whole immediate family disowned him. He died virtually alone.

Me: Well, I hardly know what to …

She: Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I understand exactly what you are going through.

This was a surprisingly exhausting encounter, without which I could easily have done. It made me wonder if perhaps there was room for a short handbook of cancer etiquette. This would apply to sufferers as well as to sympathizers. After all, I have hardly been reticent about my own malady. But nor do I walk around sporting a huge lapel button that reads: ask me about stage four metastasized esophageal cancer, and only about that. In truth, if you can’t bring me news about that and that alone, and about what happens when lymph nodes and lung may be involved, I am not all that interested or all that knowledgeable. One almost develops a kind of elitism about the uniqueness of one’s own personal disorder. So, if your own first- or secondhand tale is about some other organs, you might want to consider telling it sparingly, or at least more selectively. This suggestion applies whether the story is intensely depressing and lowering to the spirit—see above—or whether it is intended to convey uplift and optimism: “My grandmother was diagnosed with terminal melanoma of the G-spot and they just about gave up on her. But she hung in there and took huge doses of chemotherapy and radiation at the same time, and the last postcard we had was from her at the top of Mount Everest.” Once again, your narrative may fail to grip if you haven’t taken any care to find out how well or badly your audience member is faring (or feeling).

It’s normally agreed that the question “How are you?” doesn’t put you on your oath to give a full or honest answer. So when asked these days, I tend to say something cryptic like “A bit early to say.” (If it’s the wonderful staff at my oncology clinic who inquire, I sometimes go so far as to respond, “I seem to have cancer today.”) Nobody wants to be told about the countless minor horrors and humiliations that become facts of “life” when your body turns from being a friend to being a foe: the boring switch from chronic constipation to its sudden dramatic opposite; the equally nasty double cross of feeling acute hunger while fearing even the scent of food; the absolute misery of gut-wringing nausea on an utterly empty stomach; or the pathetic discovery that hair loss extends to the disappearance of the follicles in your nostrils, and thus to the childish and irritating phenomenon of a permanently runny nose. Sorry, but you did ask … It’s no fun to appreciate to the full the truth of the materialist proposition that I don’t have a body, I am a body.

But it’s not really possible to adopt a stance of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” either. Like its original, this is a prescription for hypocrisy and double standards. Friends and relatives, obviously, don’t really have the option of not making kind inquiries. One way of trying to put them at their ease is to be as candid as possible and not to adopt any sort of euphemism or denial. So I get straight to the point and say what the odds are. The swiftest way of doing this is to note that the thing about Stage Four is that there is no such thing as Stage Five. Quite rightly, some people take me up on it. I recently had to accept that I wasn’t going to be able to attend my niece’s wedding, in my old hometown and former university in Oxford. This depressed me for more than one reason, and an especially close friend inquired, “Is it that you’re afraid you’ll never see England again?” As it happens he was exactly right to ask, and it had been precisely that which had been bothering me, but I was unreasonably shocked by his bluntness. I’ll do the facing of hard facts, thanks. Don’t you be doing it, too. And yet I had absolutely invited the question. Telling someone else, with deliberate realism, that once I’d had a few more scans and treatments I might be told by the doctors that things from now on could be mainly a matter of “management,” I again had the wind knocked out of me when she said, “Yes, I suppose a time comes when you have to consider letting go.” How true, and how crisp a summary of what I had just said myself. But again there was the unreasonable urge to have a kind of monopoly on, or a sort of veto over, what was actually sayable. Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centered and even solipsistic.

So my proposed etiquette handbook would impose duties on me as well as upon those who say too much, or too little, in an attempt to cover the inevitable awkwardness in diplomatic relations between Tumortown and its neighbors. If you want an instance of exactly how not to be an envoy from the former, I would offer you both the book and the video of The Last Lecture. It would be in bad taste to say that this—a pre-recorded farewell by the late professor Randy Pausch—had “gone viral” on the Internet, but so it has. It should bear its own health warning: so sugary that you may need an insulin shot to withstand it. Pausch used to work for Disney and it shows. He includes a whole section in defense of cliché, not omitting: “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” The words “kid” or “childhood” and “dream” are employed as if for the very first time. (“Anyone who uses ‘childhood’ and ‘dream’ in the same sentence usually gets my attention.”) Pausch taught at Carnegie Mellon, but it’s the Dale Carnegie note that he likes to strike. (“Brick walls are there for a reason … to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”) Of course, you don’t have to read Pausch’s book, but many students and colleagues did have to attend the lecture, at which Pausch did push-ups, showed home videos, mugged for the camera, and generally joshed his head off. It ought to be an offense to be excruciating and unfunny in circumstances where your audience is almost morally obliged to enthuse. This was as much an intrusion, in its way, as that of the relentless motherly persecutor with whom I began. As the populations of Tumortown and Wellville continue to swell and to “interact,” there’s a growing need for ground rules that prevent us from inflicting ourselves upon one another.

My first experience with the US Army...

2010-11-11T16:58:00.001-08:00

was in an Italian Red Cross refugee camp after the 1956 Hungarian Freedom Fight. One of the quarter million Hungarians escaping to the West after the brutal Soviet oppression that followed our 2 weeks of freedom, I was awaiting my fate. Which country will take me and when? One day the US Army came to the camp to recruit young men.If accepted, it meant immediate air lift to California, language/army training, and in 5 years US citizenship, perhaps a trade, or officers' school. DREAMS for any one of us then.
I have so wanted to be accepted, but I failed even a cursory medical due to the only one kidney I had.
The medical officer sat down with me for a few minutes and embraced me, as I was inconsolable. Most of my young friends were leaving within days to the land of our dreams.
I did not understand a single word of empathy from this medical officer, but his warmth and encouragement were un-mistakable:I will get to the US some day....

Who is the most prevalent racist in the land?

2010-07-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

My wife had become an American last Friday and we happily rushed home with her brand new certificate and an application for new voter registration in our county. After all the primaries and elections are just around the corner and she had waited 8 years for her vote in her adopted land.
Other than the obvious questions for residency, birth dates etc.there was a line of open choice questions about our RACE! Whether black,white, Asian/Pacific, Hispanic, White non-Hispanic. Mark only one it said.
The more we looked at this preposterous requirement for " new voter registration" the more perplexed we became.
What, race? Why? Whose business is this? How dare they ask such a question, which is expressively forbidden on a job application, rental form or any other formal request for information.
As one registers to vote government has a right to note my "race"? What purpose does it serve? It cannot be logically explained, so it must be for some sinister purpose.
This kind of heavy-handed directive speaks of pure racism and a potential to abuse that information.
Seems to us, that it is government that is most preoccupied with the race card,whether in various forms of directives,legislative "agendas" or quotas.

Is Christopher Hitchens offended by prayer?

2010-07-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

When we found out from Mr.Hitchens that he was struck by cancer some of us responded spontaneously, the only way we could, by offering our thoughts and prayers for his recovery. For those already suffering from the disease and the inevitable side effects of treatment, our understanding and appreciation of what he is going through these days would be even more personal, even more immediate and real.
I was diagnosed with lymphoma in late March and the response from family, friends and even strangers to this day, in terms of prayer and positive encouragement, has been overwhelming and humbling.
As one of the many followers of Christopher Hitchens I have responded on Twitter with offers of prayers when I heard the news. Mr.Hitchens joined some of my sick friends and relatives for whom I spend a few minutes of silent prayer daily. Of course, as everyone who followed his writings and debates I knew full well that he was an ardent atheist. However, that I would be committing a grievous crime by praying for an atheist never occurred to me. Until I have received the first of several, at first mild then increasingly nasty tweets, taking me to task for “inflicting pain on a very sick (atheist) man” with my prayers. The self-appointed atheist zealot who so indignantly lashed into me for “prayers”, a Brazilian woman living in DC, carried on with her hateful tweets for a couple of days,literally tried to deny my right to thought and concern, if it included the notion of prayer.
Prayer is thought dressed in love and concern.
While I strongly believed in my inalienable right to pray for whomever and whatever I choose, a distant and somewhat nagging self-doubt crept into my mind. What if Christopher Hitchens, would find out and indeed resent, even feel hurt by my prayers?
Thankfully, and so timely for me, the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show, just today, aired a superb interview with Mr. Hitchens, where one of the very first questions from Hugh was concerning prayers for an atheist and how would Mr.Hitchens respond. Predictably, decent men are not necessarily defined by their religion or lack thereof.Mr.Hitchens said that he was touched by people offering prayers, even though he was not convinced they would help, but certainly could not hurt.
That was enough for me.

Public housing, food stamps are not enough...

2010-07-05T14:12:00.000-07:00

Heard on National Public Radio,around 8.15 A.M., on July 5,2010:

A new "social" experiment is ongoing in New York City. About 50 families are involved with a budget figure, which was not mentioned (financed by taxpayers, of course).The purpose of the ongoing study is to find out how cash, paid directly to families for certain "achievements" in the areas of school attendance,tests/exams, dental/doctor visits, influence results.
In one family a high school teenager was interviewed who proudly stated that he "earned" 3000 dollars in the past 12 months for attending classes, passing exams. When asked about how he spent the money he listed among his purchases an i-pad and "designer" clothes. His mother also joined in the interview and expressed her pride in the teenager. The listeners than were told that the single mom had public housing, welfare checks, food stamps and free medical care for her and the two children.She also added that for each preventive dental/doctor visits she received additional 200/300 dollars per occurrence. Oh yes, there was also a "boyfriend" in the picture, too, presumably the children's father.

What hope or motivation is there for this family to ever get out of the "public assistance" system, which allows, corrupts already the young,as in this family, to expect society to pay for not only shelter,food, medical care, but also for "school attendance" and passing exams?
The moral irresponsibility for the enablers of this perpetual cycle of dependency is unforgivable.

"Freedom is not free...but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share".

2010-06-02T12:45:00.000-07:00

From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan

From the Sand Pit it's freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains , along the Dar 'yoi Pomir River , watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.
I also glance at the area around my buns every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but the scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.
The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water. That requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware. We bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement.
It's all about intelligence. We haven't even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.
I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on his throat as I spit into his face and plunge my nickel-plated Bowie knife through his frontal lobe. But you know me, I'm a romantic. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Afghanistan blows, man. It's not even a country. There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, there's no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.

Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army. That's it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu, if that's your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those 'tent cities of the walking dead' is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.

I've been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks, and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtuns, for over a month-and-a-half now, and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of 'em, are Huns... actual, living Huns. They LIVE to fight. It's what they do. It's ALL they do. They have no respect for anything, not for their families, nor for each other, nor for themselves. They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's barbarism. Cavemen with AK-47's. Then again, maybe I'm just cranky.

I'm freezing my buns off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice, and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours. Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban 'smart.' They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is 'cunning.' The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines. They are sneaky and ruthless, and when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart. Pfft. Yeah, they're real smart.

They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.

OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon, so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice, but I'm good at it.
Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move on with your lives. The story line you are getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter bull, and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We've got this one under control The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here, because you have no idea what we're doing, and really, you don't want to know. We are your military, and we are doing what you sent us here to do.

Saucy Jack
Recon Marine in Afghanistan
Semper Fi
"Freedom is not free, but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of
your share. Captain J.E. "Ned" Dolan, USMC"

Send this to ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS so that people here will really know what is going on over there.-

A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America ' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.' That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.'

Open letter to Vice President Biden

2010-05-31T11:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr.Vice President, Memorial Day, 2010

Your, now infamous, speech in Brussels some days ago to EU dignitaries has been singularly insensitive and insulting not only to Washington,D.C. but to the fallen heroes of the United States armed forces who had given their lives to protect freedom in this land and securing freedom in many other lands.

This is part of what you said:
“As you probably know, some American politicians and American journalists refer to Washington, DC as the “capital of the free world.” But it seems to me that this great city, which boasts 1,000 years of history and which serves as the capital of Belgium, the home of the European Union, and the headquarters for NATO, this city has its own legitimate claim to that title.”

Neither Washington nor Brussels are the “freedom capitals of the worlds”. The United States, as the land of freedom, from the Civil War to the present day war in Afganistan,can only make that claim.
Ever since this Administration took office White House speech writers have tried to outdo each other to openly question American exeptionalism, particularly in the quest for freedom at home and abroad. Your speech in Brussels, was a particularly sad and inappropriate example of that just days before Memorial Day. Not far from Brussels lie the vast beaches of Normandy where large US sacrifices paved the way for a prosperous and free Europe, for a free Brussels today. No concentration of modern day institutions or colorful history can make a “claim to that title.”
You refer to “some American politicians and American journalists” as you so unabashedly attempt to ingratiate yourself with your hosts, while belittling all in the United States. But explain your claim and the motivation for it to the survivors of concentration camps, the millions of war displaced, the East European refugees as they have risked their lives to escape to freedom, the Muslim victims of genocide in the Balkan, the desperate boat people of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and the present day Cuban refugees. Do you believe that any one of these freedom yearning people had visions of the capital of Belgium as the “capital of the free world.”?
You owe an apology, most of all the people of the United States for your unfortunate remarks about Washington, D.C. symbolizing the land, as well as an apology to freedom loving people everywhere.

Sincerely yours,

Part 4 of my book,Without Illusions, an immigrant's journey

2010-03-31T18:41:00.000-07:00

Part 4.

Soon the boys’ worries were somewhat relieved when in an hour of waiting, a much bigger military car approached and what looked like an officer of some rank approached and motioned them to get into the car.
For the next hour or so they were driving across farm roads, then onto a highway and by the time dawn was breaking, the car was approaching the town of Subotica. Just before the WW2 broke out in this part of the world the town was called Szabadka and belonged to Hungary, Peter was taken by his father there on an exciting motor train from Baja when we was little. He remembered the lunch they ate at the Szabadka railway station and that his dad ordered a dessert that they both liked so much they asked the chef for the recipe and taken it home. The dessert was called Aranygaluska and became a favorite in their household from that time on.
How long ago was it, when the whole family, the three boys and the parents sat at the Sunday meal, 8 or 9 years? And when again, if ever, will they sit at that table, all five of them?

The car came to a stop at what looked like the local police station and they were taken to an office where they could take some of their wet clothing off and spread them out on chairs in front of the stove. They had been offered hot tea and cigarettes. Shortly a man appeared to take notes of their impromptu visit to the Republic of Yugoslavia, speaking fluent Hungarian he told them they are not the first Hungarian “refugees”, as he called them, to seek asylum in Yugoslavia, some six hundred have crossed over in the last 10 days or so.
More are expected, so much so that there is no more room in this small town for them and they will be transported shortly to another place designated as a refugee camp.
How I became a “refugee”, Peter had asked himself. The revolution that exploded just three weeks before was centered in Budapest and the bigger cities. The smaller towns and villages witnessed mostly sympathetic demonstrations and sent food and medicines and other immediate aids, as best as they could to the capitol. The local high school students that graduated in the spring of 1956 and were rejected by the strictly controlled universities and colleges were still in Baja that fall and enthusiastically joined the local factory workers and students. They marched together to the nearby army barracks and begged the conscripted young soldiers to join the revolution and discard the hated red stars on their caps and uniforms. When they had successfully persuaded the reluctant and frightened conscripts to join, they then marched with them to the next army barrack, where some professional soldiers were stationed. Soon the weapon magazines were opened and anyone who wanted, found some weapon and ammunition, so now the small town had its instant revolutionary army, and named themselves National Guard.
Peter, now in possession of a Russian made machine gun, had reported to the Mayor’s office, in the center of the town Revolutionary Committee and received his only official assignment. Somebody instructed him to go to the main square and supervise that all the students who regularly commuted from the nearby villages by bus are to be properly returned to these villages, as there was tremendous confusion, everyday life became chaotic.
Schools soon closed and the students were all on the streets. One evening Peter joined a group that went to the town’s main park, where Stalin’s much hated statute was erected right in the middle of it. The enthusiastic group had uprooted the statute following the example of the destruction of the immense Stalin statute in Budapest, carried it to the nearby canal and had tossed it in from the bridge.
It was difficult in the calm of a small town to follow the bloody fight that was ongoing in Budapest. Many had wanted to get to the capitol 16O kilometers to the North, but there was no transportation, no trains running.
Following the fourth of November attack on Budapest by some 3000 Russian tanks, Soviet armored vehicles and tanks had arrived in Baja as well. Senior high school students and some others just out of the local high school had planned an attack on the few tanks and armored vehicles that were stationed on the strategic squares in town. Some had hid in the square of Toth Kalman, in the attics of apartment houses with their light weapons, mostly machine guns and rifles. The attack was to begin precisely at 6 PM one evening, somebody was to start firing and then all would join in. It must have been divine intervention, as was acknowledged by all later, that no one had started firing, no one dared to begin the shooting. The armored units would have caused a blood bath against the totally inexperienced students, probably killing many innocents in the apartments below, too.
The news of the fighting youth in Budapest, then, became even more heroic and tragic to the population of these small towns.
In the subsequent days amidst the news of the evolving tragedy of the revolution, only the disappointment and the anger remained with the people. Small groups of agitated people filled the little town’s main walking street, mainly to exchange any news that may have come from the capitol. One such evening in the early days of November and after the Soviet invasion of Budapest, Peter was suddenly accosted by one of the well known communist sympathizers in Baja. He had cynically asked Peter where he had hid his recently brandished machine gun.
While this incident did not leave his thoughts, the decision to leave the country was not due to this. But all of this seemed very far and quite meaningless in the light of his present situation in Yugoslavia.

I have serialized my book, here is Part 3...

2010-03-13T16:47:00.000-08:00

Meeting my first Soviet soldier,in my hometown in Hungary.

“The Red Army had occupied Baja in March of 1945 without any resistance, since the only southern bridge over the Danube had been bombed by the allies some 2 years prior to that, so the town had served no strategic importance to the retreating Germans. A 7 year old kid probably could not understand the nuances of whispering and worried adults’ conversations while they were huddling around their radios, listening to broadcasts about the ongoing war. However, I still remember the striking contrasts between what my father believed about the approaching Red Army and what our neighbors did.
The prevailing opinion was that these soldiers were an uncultured, pillaging and unmerciful bunch of thugs, better to be afraid of and avoid them, if possible.
The only exception voiced, characterizing the “liberators” so was my dad’s. He had advanced to the Red Army, too, his basic humanistic belief of decency and honor in everyone, particularly since our town prior to the Russians’ advance had been full of the soldiers of the Werhmacht who had set up camp in the town’s marketplace and had been peaceful with the civilian population.
So optimist that he was, my father could hardly wait, so that after months of waiting and uncertainty he could finally take a long walk in the center of town, albeit now under the “protection “of a different occupying army.
He had shaved off with great care his beard of many months that made him look much older and respected, and in his freshly ironed suit and trademark, colorful bowtie he would have made a dashing and impressive figure on the soldiers of the Red Army.
So that any soviet troops , even from a distance would judge dad to be a peacefully walking , unthreatening gentleman , he got me scrubbed and dressed with similar care, much to the vehement protestations of my mother, that “ for God’s sake don’t take the kid to those wicked Muscovites!”
Using the logic that during the previous night, as the Russians were moving into town, we had not heard even a single gunshot, father remained undeterred that Baja was “visited “by well meaning and peaceful soldiers. What’s more, any journalist worth his salt should feel his duty to rush to the scene and record events with the reliability of the eyewitness.
My father desperately tried to sell all this logic and reasoning to my mother, even though just weeks before that he was contemplating of fleeing Baja for the West, as did some of the families in the neighborhood , expecting the worst from the soviet “liberators”.
So, as a final act of insurance for good will, father decorated his cigar pocket with a silky handkerchief. Always a careful dresser in those days, but even more of a zealot for personal hygiene! The rigors of cleanliness he made sure were adhered to by his children come war or hell. Just as an example, my older brother and I became acquainted with the taste of ordinary house soap during the war, as neither bath soap nor toothpaste was available , so the morning and evening wash-ups were followed by vigorous tooth brushing with horrible tasting, homemade soap rubbed on our toothbrushes!
So the impeccably dressed gentleman took the hand of his clean scrubbed son , carefully threading the chain of his cherished pocket watch into the left pocket of his vest and with determined steps took off on our street in the direction of the center of town. The sleepy looking soldiers lying about on top of the armored car right on the first corner of our street were, a bit reluctantly, returning my father’s enthusiastic waving of hand. Most probably they were so surprised by the sudden appearance of this representative of the decadent West with his child that their sleepy gawking did not result in any action, but kept silently witnessing the parade.
Little further up the street two foot soldiers appeared, dirty and dusty with the famous Russian “guitars” on their shoulders. Dad cheerfully repeated the now well rehearsed greeting with the waving arm, to which he has added a striking “Welcome to our hometown” on his clean baritone voice. – He sang well, particularly after a glass or two.-
The stocky one of the two, with a somewhat oriental face approached my father, his eyes riveted to the shiny pocket watch; he then grabbed the chain and said in Russian: davai chas! While my dad did not understand the words , there was no mistaking of the intention because the soldier now decidedly pulled on the chain to which my father responded by taking several steps back onto the middle of the street, not ever letting my hand go with his left hand, and holding on to the chain of his watch with the other.
The uneven struggle could not have been going on more than a few seconds, but it seemed like eternity. I wonder whether it had occurred to my father, then, even for a second that the machinegun against his chest could have gone off, or in a lesser event its gunstock lands on his head, I don’t know.
The fact remains, that this self conscious and open-armed country writer had forsaken any common sensibility and reason, almost heroically defended his personal possession, against very poor odds while holding on tightly to my hand!
It remains a mystery at that moment that the arrival of a high ranking officer in an open jeep was God’s will or just a flick of fate.
The car came to a screeching halt in the middle of the street, to the point where the struggling soldier and civilian with kid in tow found themselves. In response to the officer’s loud cry the soldier let go of the watch’s chain and the sudden change in the relative opposing forces resulted in father’s falling to the middle of the street, still with kid in tow.
Terrible shouting had followed, but only from the lips of the officer as the soldier being reprimanded could only stay in stiff attention. We could not understand the officer’s apparent dressing down, but it was evident that father had escaped with watch and kid for the time being.
My dad had to realize that the neighbors’ doubts and anxiety about the approaching Red Army proved to be correct. With quick steps, still holding on to me with force, we returned to our house, where father had collapsed on the stool in the kitchen, both hands holding his face. He sat there, trembling, for the longest time, and even as a kid I understood that a whole world had collapsed in him that day.”

I have serialized my book, here is Part 2.The Escape.

2010-03-02T18:27:00.000-08:00

The three friends in the spring of 1956, by the fall their lives would change forever.

THE ESCAPE.
November 15, 1956

It has been a gray and mournful day and not only because fall was slowly accepting the inevitable approach of winter, but even the most optimistic among them was giving up hope for the miracle. It was becoming evident that no one was coming to help preserve the exuberance born on October 23; no one could stop the retribution and repression that was soon to follow.
Fall had come and the three inseparable friends were still in their hometown as neither was admitted to university. As planned earlier that day, they met on the outskirts of the town by the ancient cemetery on this dark and sad November day.
Their daily lives were already so tied to each other that it was only natural that all three would escape together and stay together, forever. It would have been unthinkable otherwise. These youthful bonds are often stronger than allegiance to family; a few years spent together seem like a lifetime.
Laszlo was waiting for the other two, his face reflecting the weight of the worry he had spent the day with. He could not forsake his parents, leaving them alone to care for an older brother, paralyzed and impaired since birth. He had his first test of adulthood that day. The other two, now sullen and worried lest they, too, will change their own minds, have hurriedly said farewell and took off into the night.
They walked in silence on the dark and wet country road. Were they aware of their decision to leave the country that night, maybe captured and interned, maybe succeeding to cross the border and never to return again? Almost certainly neither did feel the enormity of their decision. Their wet faces, the silence that surrounded them in the countryside and the steady rain that was falling only underscored their plight. However, their faces would have suggested that they knew that with each step they were changing their lives forever.
They only had an idea how far the Yugoslavian border might be from their home town of Baja, but these eighteen year olds did not consider that 5 or 6 extra kilometers should be a problem if their assumptions were maybe too optimistic. So they walked out of the town onto the old provincial road leading south. Within minutes they were soaked from the rain when out of the wet darkness an old milk truck appeared to slow down for them and come to a screeching stop. They were permitted to jump on the back, next to the empty milk containers and although the rain now seemed fortified by the speed of the camion, their progress towards the border had improved.
An old villager in the last village where they got off the camion showed them the approximate direction toward the border, wished them luck and hurried back into his old farmhouse. They were in the middle of huge cornfields and found the walk now excruciatingly slow due to the huge and heavy mud-boots that quickly formed on their shoes. The wet ground was almost knee deep in black mud. They have lost any sign of direction and had the feeling after a couple of hours of struggling on that they were walking in circles. There was no sign of anything resembling the border. Only little piles of what looked like tents made of corn stalks, every 100 meters or so. It must have passed midnight, when in the distance ahead they have spotted what looked like faint light and contours of a low farmhouse. They have decided to knock on the door, as their sense of direction for the border was totally lost.
The man who appeared at the door was wearing long underpants and shirt covered by a roughly made fur vest, which he was clutching with one hand. He appeared calm and friendly in spite of the late hour and the sight of the soaked and mud covered young men. They have greeted him in the only language they knew and were rewarded by a response in the same language. Did this mean that after all these hours of walking in the muddy cornfields they were still in Hungary?
"Welcome and step inside from the rain" - said the man. Inside was just one rather small, wooden beams covered space. An oil lamp was the only light that revealed what they could smell immediately entering, the presence of animals. The sight and smell of a peacefully ruminating cow, two goats and several chickens, ducks and geese. As their eyes were now getting accustomed to the light they spotted the huge earth and bricks made oven, with a large extended shelf on which various forms of humanity was spread out. Several children with curious glances, some asleep undisturbed, and their mother were examining the strangers. This sudden change from the miserable November night out there was welcome indeed and only in later years thought Peter that at that moment, if the information they were seeking from the farmer had confirmed that they were still on the Hungarian side of the border, they may have stayed with this decent farmer and his family until daybreak and then perhaps turned back and give up their objective of leaving the country. Perhaps.
As it turned out, the good man had assured them, they have been for some one kilometer inside the territory of Tito's Yugoslavia. While neither of these young adventurers had even imagined a trip to a foreign land some weeks before November 15, but if they had, this imaginary trip would have been, most certainly to some exotic European capital, certainly arriving by an international express train to an exciting railway station, perhaps arriving by taxi at a famous hotel and greeted by a polite and smiling doorman, offering help with their sizeable luggage. Instead, their first contact ever with a foreign land was a farmer in his underclothes, greeting them in Hungarian and inviting them in to his stable and home in a one-room house, encouraging them to sit on a wooden bench next to his warm oven and cow. Still, it could not have been more pleasant and encouraging.
There was no need for any explanation. By their question the farmer seemed to have understood immediately their situation and was already pulling on his rubber boots saying that he would be gone awhile and fetch the Yugoslavian border guards. If there was any concern in what would follow next it was not felt at that time since the warmth of the oven and curious looks from above the oven shelf took all their attention. The kind farmer was gone in no time at all.
And so their introduction to a foreign land was now a historical fact. Some thirty minutes later they heard the sound of a car and within a minute the farmer and two soldiers, with machine guns and shinny battle helmets appeared in the doorway. They were ushered outside with obvious gestures so quickly that they had no chance to say a word of thanks to the farmer or say farewell to the spectators on top of the oven. The rain was still falling and the dark seemed even more impenetrable than before. The boys were made to stand about ten meters from each other, hands in the air, and one of the soldiers had quickly searched them, top to bottom while the other had watched with his machine gun in the ready.
Their identity booklets were taken away.

They did not speak too much; a Serbian word here and there was all they could hear. When the frisking was over they just stood for what seemed like eternity. As their arms were getting tired they slowly let them fall down but the soldiers did not object so they just stood in the rain and waited. This was the most frightful time of their entire border crossing, since they could not imagine what would transpire next. Why are they standing like this, apart and with their backs to each other? What will they do with them? Why are they not trying to communicate with them? What will happen? During this long wait, their thoughts were focusing on every possible outcome that could come before dawn would break. They were hoping that no harm would come to them most of all since in the days leading to crossing the border Radio Free Europe was continually broadcasting about many Hungarians escaping, including to the South, Yugoslavia.
Anxious minutes followed in the dark night. Peter thought of his family, then suddenly recalled his first encounter with gun-toting soldiers. Much later he wrote down the incident with the Red Army in the diary that he continued even in the refugee camps.

To be continued.

I have serialized my book, here is Part 1....

2010-02-24T20:02:00.000-08:00

Without Illusions, an immigrant's journey published in 2008.

I have written it in both, my native Hungarian and English. It is a modest recollection of early impressions and stories of a young man arriving in the New World from communist Hungary after the 1956 Hungarian Freedom Fight.

I will serialize here the chapters, hoping to illustrate many of the issues in today's democracies of the West, as they are being challenged by "progressive"thinking, such as the role of individual responsibility and economic and political freedom of opportunity.

Part 1.

THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION AND FREEDOM FIGTH.
TORONTO, OCTOBER 23, 1966.

On the tenth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight, a solemn remembrance took place on the gray and stormy shores of Lake Ontario. The place, in front of the Toronto Exhibition Grounds, was the newly named Budapest Park.
Peter was hearing the words of the invited civic and Hungarian community leaders, but his thoughts as those of many of the other refugee-immigrants present were back in the days of October, 1956. The bloody crush of the revolution and the subsequent Soviet occupation, the return of hopelessness and despair and for all those here in Budapest Park, their escape from Hungary. They thought of the fallen in the fights, the executed martyrs, the imprisoned and those whose lives were ruined. Their somber faces testified to the humility they felt in celebrating, freely, in this, their adopted country, thinking of their relatives and friends who remained behind barbed wire and minefields. And they were thinking of their last 10 years in their new and challenging environment.

As events proved later, in many homes of the country thousands of mostly young people, students, factory apprentices and workers were considering fleeing the country.
The compelling thought of leaving their homeland was not conceived only by the events of 1956 October. These events only made the escape to freedom a real and immediate possibility. The utter failure of the regime in the preceding years, the lies and the dictatorship that led to the revolt and the inevitable defeat that followed solidified for many to leave this land for something that was surely different and more humane to man.
Many had tried in the past, against all odds, to cross the borders illegally, a few made it, but many perished or were captured and sent to prison for trying to escape the “communist paradise”.
So the idea of leaving the homeland had come to many years before the heady days of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
The murderous circle of the tanks around Budapest brought about making these vague notions of the “Free West” an actual plan on and after November 4th. 1956.
In the ensuing days the country heroically resisted the Soviet hordes, but succumbed eventually and to many, the plan of leaving this beaten country assumed action.
The numbers are not exact but it is assumed that nearly a quarter of a million Hungarians, mostly young people, decided that their dreams of a free society can only be found to the West of Hungary and have left the country.
This story is just one of many, each unique and fascinating, yet each being a replica of many untold refugee stories in the annals of history, each being its own individual Odyssey and each followed by another and another over the years, in all the continents, over the entire history of mankind.

To be continued.

Obama's first year, a scathing review by...

2010-01-23T18:12:00.000-08:00

Conrad Black in The National: Jan.22,2010

Incompetent Obama teeters on the edge.

The burning question after the Massachusetts Senate election is whether the administration responds by making a course correction to survive politically by jettisoning its policy core and cleaning up its methods, or 'doubles down,' as President Obama has implied, and escalates the ideological and guerrilla war for direction of public policy. This was a referendum on the Obama administration, including health care, not just on health care. Even less was it just the rejection of an astonishingly unappealing candidate, predestined to glory as a trivia question. John F. Kennedy took that seat with lashings of his father's money in an anti-Brahmin revolt against Henry Cabot Lodge in 1952, and was reelected by 864,000 votes in 1958. In the intervening years of Teddy Kennedy, the Democrats could have won with a candidate not confined to two legs and one head. This was less a wake-up call than a Te Deum for a dying and sweaty dream.

The president has three principal problems. He is well to the left of the public and of what he promised the voters in 2008, and it is an old, passe leftism, that is authoritarian, deviously presented and was discredited in this country decades ago; the sort of nostrums that caused Bill Clinton and others to become 'New Democrats.' He is increasingly perceived as having credibility problems and of being cold, cocksure, narcissistic and intoxicated by what he modestly called 'the gift' of his own articulation. And as president, he has been quite, and quite surprisingly, incompetent.

The second of these problems seems to prevent the president from appreciating the last. The only serious domestic initiative to show for the last year is an obscene stimulus bill that has had to be defended by the spurious supposition of 'jobs saved' since, contrary to promises, unemployment has risen by over five million after it was enacted. That target could have been attained without squandering 787 billion borrowed dollars.

Current economic projections call for massive debt increases of $1 trillion a year for a decade, with huge money supply increases that will make history not only by their size but, according to forecasts, by their non-inflationary nature, accompanied by tax increases that will, also miraculously, not retard recovery from the recession. No audible sane person believes this arithmetical fairy tale, including, one dares to hope, the president himself. It is a recipe for guaranteed stagflation and currency devaluation.

The administration bought wholly into the unproved claim that carbon emissions are causing global warming, but global warming has not, for the last ten years, been happening. The president padded around the Copenhagen global warming conference trying to generate enthusiasm for $100 billion annual transfers to the Mugabes and Chavezes, as well as the Chinese (the world's largest carbon emitters), as conscience-alleviating payments for the carbon emissions of the economically advanced countries. America's fellow culprits found less tangibly burdensome expiations. So will America.

Mr. Obama must have noticed that the science and the politics were wrong, and that the arithmetic was too. The whole concept, like his promotion of renewable energy, his cap-and-trade bill, his redesignation of carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and his pursuit of complete nuclear disarmament, is mad. It was a worthy encore to the president's previous cameo appearance in the Danish capital, where his and his wife's prodigies managed to bring Chicago in fourth in contention for the 2016 Olympics, (out of four competing cities).

In foreign policy, engagement with Iran and North Korea, appeasement of Russia, over Georgia and missile defense, attempting to bully Israel and to deny that there was an agreement between the Sharon and Bush (Jr.) regimes over settlements, and siding with Chavez and the Castros in the Honduran crisis against constitutional democracy and America's legitimate interests, have all failed, practically and morally, at least without knowledge of indiscernible and unlikely, contrary intelligence.
There have been no initiatives to reform NATO, the UN, the IMF, all in need of modernization, and there has been a regrettable delay in launching the long-promised and necessary measures to turn the Afghan operation into a success, while the U.S. and its allies have been milling about, losing ground and taking increasing casualties.

The fumbling over Guantanamo has been another fiasco, as attorney general Holder has acknowledged that it is an exemplary prison. But Obama has been entrapped by Teddy Kennedy's unfounded identification of Gitmo with Abu Ghraib. The president's reaction to the near disaster of the panties-terrorist in the skies over Detroit began with waffling from a Hawaiian luau, and gained altitude agonizingly slowly.

No one is audibly lamenting the retirement of George W. or throwing shoes at his successor's head because he speaks in sentences, but this president is bestriding the world as a flake, cow-towing to the Mikado, apologizing for President Truman's use of the atomic bomb, criticizing Roosevelt and Churchill's uninclusive approach to winning World War II, and Churchill and Eisenhower for disposing of the pajama-clad hysteric Mohammed Mossadegh as head of Iran.

And instead of sending the Congress completed bills and drumming up public support for them, as legislatively successful past presidents like FDR, LBJ, and Reagan did, he just rolls a Christmas tree into the Capitol Rotunda and invites Reid and Pelosi and their vacuum-cleaner committee chairmen to festoon it with their favorite pork baubles. Stealing the Alaska Senate election with the fraudulent prosecution of Senator Stevens, (since retracted), the Minnesota Senate election with the fraudulent recounts against Senator Coleman, and the unchallenging seduction of Senator Specter as he was circling the Republican primary drain in Pennsylvania, to get 60 Democratic senators, enabled the public purchase of party loyalty, the dismissal of sincere moderates like Senator Olympia Snow, (whose furrowed brow is a mortal challenge to Botox), for a bad health care bill that is not a reform. This was not what was thought to be meant by the slogan 'Yes we can!,' is not leadership, and the people, even in Massachusetts, don't like it.

It has been a year of fecklessness, amateurism, and posturing. Less that is useful has been accomplished by this president in his first year than by any president since Herbert Hoover, and he was ambushed by the Great Depression after seven months.

President Obama rose with astonishing speed from a more improbable sociological provenance than any of his 42 predecessors, an alumnus both of the genteel finishing school of Harvard Law and of the Chicago boiler room for hardball politicians. Neither his radical nor sleazy connections stuck to him. He deftly made an unspoken arrangement to liberate white liberal America from its guilt complex over historic treatment of African-Americans, and to banish the down-market Al Sharptons, Jesse Jacksons and Charlie Rangels as black spokesmen, in exchange for a one-way ticket to the White House. With this implicit, non-refundable offer in his back pocket, he almost effortlessly seemed to take the Democratic Party away from the Clintons and rode the trends, the economy, and the sclerosis of his opponent's campaign straight into the White House, with professional skill and elegance.

Withal, this president seems overwhelmingly confident, strangely detached, and, as Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan's leading speech-writer, and now one of the leaders of the Obama Buyers' Remorse Movement, wrote, 'cold and faux eloquent.' He is fluent and sonorous, but rather vapid. And now, Maureen Dowd, foxy doyenne of New York Times columnists and pin-up girl of the D.C. Democratic establishment, niece of FDR's top fixer, former co-leader, with Michelle, Caroline Kennedy and Oprah Winfrey, of the Obama massed, synchronized cheerleaders, has apostacized and reviled the president as a nasty egotist. When A Democratic president has lost Ms. Dowd and the Kennedys' Senate seat, it is time to return to the drawing boards.

If the president has a Damascene rendezvous with the real wishes of the American people and turns the White House bowling alley into a cram-course charm school, he can be a popular and successful president yet. An excellent bi-partisan health care bill that really is a reform can still be had and would be hugely admired, especially after this debacle. If he wants to double down on what we have seen in the last year, he will leave the White House in a submersible in three years.

For all the claims that the Republicans are too influenced by religious zealots and country club knuckle-draggers, the administration may be in the hands of 'redistributive,' pacifistic Kool Aid drinkers. If it is, the Republicans will have to elevate their 2012 presidential candidate this year. The office may, 213 years after the retirement of George Washington, actually seek the (wo)man, but not from what is conspicuously on offer now, from either party.

National Post

I used to be a fair cook, then I married...

2010-01-16T19:31:00.000-08:00

and my cooking became redundant, as it were. My wife is a talented and courageous cook.Did you know that you need courage to cook really well, that venturing into unknown fields of gastronomy is full of danger, at least it's full of challenges?
So, I became a temporary bachelor in these past few weeks and having been accustomed to exceptional fair at home, I have resisted going out to eat more than necessary, which meant: cooking again.
Nothing exceptional in this, many men cook, and some are masters of the art. But I have noted after a few dinners how unintentionally international my preferences for food have become. A few examples (recipes forwarded on requests):
From top to bottom:

American cod,wild rice with mushrooms with wine sauce (Hungarian Cserszegi Füszeres)

Hungarian beef paprikash with American grits

American steak, cooked in the living room fire place (don't tell my wife, an important game was on tv)

Norwegian smoked,wild salmon farfalle with Russian vodka sauce

Hungarian bundas kenyer(aka french toast)with Canadian maple syrup

Belated, 2010, New Year's resolution....

2010-01-11T19:46:00.001-08:00

Don't act beyond your capacity to repair.

The last 10 years, so well summed by...

2010-01-11T19:31:00.001-08:00

Conrad Black: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/26/conrad-black-what-a-dismal-decade.aspx

What a dismal decade.

As we say farewell to this rather dismal decade, which opened with Millennial celebrations of a New World Order and The End of History, and has been thoroughly disfigured by terrorism, economic stupidity, inept political leadership and untrammeled vulgarity of public tastes, I dare to hope for somewhat better things (for the world as well as my family and self).

Readers will have noticed that Copenhagen was about as complete a mockery as was forecast, here and elsewhere. Thousands of protesters, festooned with banners about the water level in Tuvalu, and dressed as polar bears and seals, inanely screaming at the earnest Global Coolers, had to be restrained by the gentle Danish police.

Most of the world’s most odious leaders were present, demanding trillions of dollars to assist them in green development. Zimbabwe’s infamous Robert Mugabe, who has violated every clause of the Clarence House agreement which conferred independence on Rhodesia, and has terrorized the country and reduced its standard of living by 99%, accused the advanced nations of trying to disguise the baleful effect of their carbon emissions on all mankind behind trivial concerns about the absence of human rights in Zimbabwe.

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, now challenging Fidel Castro (“Papa Castro” to the Trudeau family) as Latin America’s shabbiest tyrant, announced the death of capitalism, to the rapacity of which he imputed the impending destruction of the world’s environment, as well as the dissipated prosperity of his own oil-rich country which he has master-minded.

The chief spokesman of the aggrieved despots, Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir (whose country’s government’s cupped hands are dripping with the blood of a million victims of domestic genocide) dismissed a European offer of $11-billion to promote green industrial growth in the Third World as a pittance.

I can’t be the only person who wondered if sincere dupes of this nonsense, from the Prince of Wales to Elizabeth May, have the remotest idea of what mayhem they have brought down on the world. At least Al Gore has made a lot of money from it. Indeed, it must be said that this unlikely man has had the greatest revenge of anyone ever wrongfully deprived of the U.S. presidency, except perhaps Richard Nixon. Gore has grown rich, eminent, won a Nobel Prize, completely disrupted the world and turned international relations into a gigantic slap-stick farce. The absence of evidence that global warming is actually occurring, and that human activity affects the world’s temperature at all, was scarcely mentioned. The real result, however, is the pledged objective of not permitting the world’s temperature to increase more than two centigrade degrees by 2050. Since it has only risen one degree in the last 35 years, and not at all in the last ten, this should be safe enough. The heads of government fellowship will pat itself hydraulically on the head and back, and money will be handed over to the toads of despotism when pigs fly and shrimps sing.

This must be the supreme coruscation of what Malcolm Muggeridge christened the “great liberal death-wish;” a canard about a fraud, invoked to impoverish the world’s advanced countries in favour of its most rancid despotisms, which have already squandered and embezzled a trillion dollars of Western aid; all for a nonsensical purpose, solemnly agreed to, and then ignored.

For the first time in the history of the U.S. Presidency, Mr. Obama had to badger a foreign head of government to meet him (China’s premier Wen). Last year, shoes were thrown at the U.S. president. This year we had self-abasement before the Japanese Emperor and (unsuccessful) supplication to the Chinese. If this trend continues, by the end of this new decade, the U.S. president will be invited to international meetings as a shoe-shine boy.

The great stars of Copenhagen were the Chinese and the Canadians. The Chinese strutted and gloried as a mighty economic growth story, a super-power presumptive, while leading the G-77, as the under-developed countries now modishly style themselves, out of the conference in protest against the supposed miserliness of the advanced countries. China has staged the greatest act of international pocket-picking in history, beggaring the U.S. by dumping trillions of dollars of cheap goods in it, which the United States bought with money largely borrowed from China. And as it spurned the importunity of the United States at Copenhagen, and basked in the adoration of the Third World, its leaders po-facedly demanding hundreds of billions of dollars to clean its economic growth, while refusing the donors the right to monitor the use of the money.

All Canadians should be proud of Stephen Harper. Of all the leaders of serious countries, he is the most conspicuously skeptical of this great eco-scam. This is Canada’s finest foreign policy hour since Mackenzie King supported Charles de Gaulle’s takeover of St. Pierre and Miquelon from Vichy at Christmas 1941, against the mindless opposition of the U.S. state department.

The flip-side of this controversy is the emerging U.S. economic miracle, which at this point officially promises increased taxes, faster economic growth, 50% to 100% annual increases in money supply without inflation, for a decade of trillion dollar annual federal budget deficits without seriously raising interest rates, or devaluing the dollar. All 18 wheels will come off this impossible contraption, in all directions of the compass. And all numerate people, including, presumably, the unfathomable Timothy Geithner and the fabulist President whom he serves, know it.

I predict that in a decent interval after his confirmation as Federal Reserve chairman next month or February, Ben Bernanke will announce that the central bank will no longer buy the treasury notes that finance this orgy. The United States cannot drink itself sober. China has now passed on the pleasure of continuing to buy low yield instruments of a country that is doing the necessary to convert its currency into wall paper, if not toilet paper. The Federal Reserve is buying the treasury issues that finance the federal government’s deficit-straight additions to the money supply — the most familiar form of currency debasement and rampaging inflation, from the times of Caligula to Juan Peron and Robert Mugabe.

Obama and Geithner will scream like wounded banshees that Bernanke has betrayed them on how to deal with what they will portray as George W.’s messy leavings, while Bernanke devalues the dollar by about 15%, raises interest rates to about 6% and requires federal government spending cuts of about $500-billion annually, largely from a revisitation of entitlements and some sales and transaction taxes that the Congress will have to agree to in conference as an emergency compromise between the parties. The health care charade of buying individual senators with from $100-million (Christopher Dodd,), to $3-billion (Bill Nelson of Florida — not Ben Nelson of Nebraska who folded at $100 million) can’t slice this Gordian Knot. There will be fewer lawyers and investment bankers in the U.S., and more savers and investors, and if the politicians don’t ruin it again, market forces will shape up the U.S. to meet the Chinese challenge. But both job creation and economic growth will be slow in a transitional period.

In the Christmas spirit of shriving and confession, I thank Anita Kern for pointing out, re my Copenhagen column two weeks ago, that the Silver Skates was not written by Hans Christian Andersen, though he had some similar story titles, but by the American Mary Mapes Dodge, and was about Holland and not Denmark. And I have been intermittently trying for many weeks to apologize for the reference in my column about the visit to Canada of the Prince of Wales, for the reference to Nelson Mandela marrying the widow of Mozambican President Maputo. It was president Machel, and Maputo is Mozambique’s capital. I have no way here of chasing up Andersen’s short story titles, and I believe the Maputo error was editorial, but in the interests of the season, I take these allegations for myself, a character-enhancing process with which I have become familiar in this decade, but do not recommend.

Good riddance to 2009. Let us all have a splendid 2010.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/26/conrad-black-what-a-dismal-decade.aspx#ixzz0cMidGLR0
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Looking for the coziest place in the Grand Cayman...

2009-12-13T19:36:00.000-08:00

Lovely Turtle Nest Inn, truly your home away from home.

I have found it, when I was planning a few days of snorkeling in the Caribbean.Many exotic places offered good deals, but what struck me about Turtle Nest Inn, after I have read encouraging views about it in Fodor,NYT and Trip Advisor was its size and location. There are only 11 self contained apartments, fully equipped kitchens,all conveniences, including free internet service. And, the deals that you should be able to get from Marlaine and Alain, the proprietors, include the use of a small car that you pick up at the airport on arrival. The Inn is only 10 miles from the airport and you drop off your car as you leave the island and fly home.
You do need a car to get into "town" and the famous 7 mile beach area, just to see how the huge and expensive hotels manage to look after hundreds of guests in each...The 7 mile beach is located on that part of the island, its public area is huge with the clearest water and sand in the Caribbean. There are shaded picnic areas with tables, sweet water showers and changing rooms, all free. Your car will be handy as you go to the supermarkets to pick up your provisions for the duration, and of course going out to dinners to the many restaurants in and out of town.
I have driven all over on the small island, looking for the best snorkeling, which I have found, as the good people of the hotel told me: right in front of my oceanview apartment!

The highlight of my trip was an afternoon catamaran trip to Stingray City at the outer reef. Our guide and stingray "trainer", Simon, a bag full of squid in hand showed us how to "embrace" the tame and playful stingrays in shallow waters, some of them weighing 50/60 pounds! What man and animal (and fish) will do for food! Their soft underbellies were a texture like giant portobello mushrooms, while the top part coarse and rough. So much fun playing with them. Before sailing back to port we had a chance to check out the reefs out in the open with our masks and pipes.

All in all, if you are looking for a wonderful, friendly inn, the Turtle Nest is it in historic Bodden Town on Grand Cayman. Bring your gear, books and laptop and have fun.

http://www.turtlenestinn.com/

This is John and Donna, forever smiling and happy to see you and help you with any questions or requests.

Your own private beach, you may not see another soul all day here, perhaps another guest from Turtle Nest Inn.

The care of your health in the US and other countries...

2009-12-03T17:37:00.000-08:00

I have been blessed with relatively good health in my life journey through five countries and various forms of government...and health care.
In preparation for a visit with my neurologist I had been asked to get an MRI and a neck Xray. My experience of getting these two diagnostic tests today compel me to write, no, shout to the people of the USA: appreciate, dearly,and fight for retaining the highest quality of health care in the world today!Stop any effort to radically change the present aspects of US health care.

I am on Medicare and Blue Cross/Blue Shield, premiums of both I pay every month.
My experience today:
I have been able to ask for the day I wanted the tests, whether morning or afternoon appointments, almost to the hour that I wished. On arriving, within 10 minutes the paperwork was completed and within 40 minutes my MRI was done, of which 20 minutes were passed in the actual chamber itself.Remember, less than an hour!
Then, I was sent to the next office for the neck Xray, but the total procedure was 19minutes from the moment I have walked in the office. With the films of these tests in my hand, right after they were taken, now I will see the specialist I have requested at the time of my appointment, secured for almost to the day and time convenient for me!

I have met cheery, kind and professional workers in both places, who made me welcome and feeling cared for. Total time spent for both of these sophisticated test was less than an hour and a half.

You may not be surprised about all this, but my state of reference for similar procedures embraces living in a communist country, in so called social democracies and a neighbouring capitalist country with "universal care or single payer" system.

None of those countries can compete with the present day
health care in the United States.Yes, the tests would have been completed perhaps in all those other countries,in some with run down equipment,in others with long fights for getting timely appointments, with crowded waiting rooms, overworked and unfriendly staff, long waits for the results to be communicated to the preordained specialist.

Yes, there are aspects of health care that need improvement, in any country, but present day health care for the vast majority of people of the United States is superior to any in the world. That is my experience after having lived in one of the worse systems as well as in some of the more reasonable ones.

Climate debate, perspective and revealing video...

2009-12-02T18:16:00.000-08:00

I have received an insightful blog and accompanying video on "climategate" on twitter and it is the best on the subject. Please read , but watch carefully all 28 minutes of the video, and then share it with all concerned people.

http://annis47news.blogspot.com/

Transformation of America....

2009-11-30T21:43:00.002-08:00

I have received this text in an email, author is unknown, the facts , however , speak for themselves:

The CHANGE:

Transformation of America.......

The Fundamental Transformation of America

When Obama wrote a book and said he was
mentored as a youth by Frank,
(Frank Marshall Davis) an avowed Communist,
people said it didn't matter.

When it was discovered that his grandparents,
were strong socialist,
sent Obama's mother to a socialist school,
introduced Frank Marshall Davis to young Obama,
People said it didn't matter.

When people found out that he was
enrolled as a Muslim child in school and his
father and step father were both Muslims,
people said it didn't matter.

When he wrote in another book he
authored “I will stand with them (Muslims)
should the political winds shift
in an ugly direction.”
people said it didn't matter.

When he admittedly, in his book,
said he chose Marxist friends
and professors in college,
people said it didn't matter.

When he traveled to Pakistan,
after college on an unknown
national passport,
people said it didn't matter.

When he sought the endorsement of the
Marxist party in 1996 as he ran
for the Illinois Senate,
people said it doesn't matter.

When he sat in a Chicago Church
for twenty years and listened to a preacher
spew hatred for America and
preach black liberation theology,
people said it didn't matter.

When an independent Washington organization,
that tracks senate voting records, gave him
the distinctive title as the "most liberal senator",
people said it didn't matter.

When the Palestinians in Gaza,
set up a fund raising telethon
to raise money for his election campaign,
people said it didn't matter.

When his voting record
supported gun control,
people said it didn't matter.

When he refused to disclose who
donated money to his election campaign,
as other candidates had done,
people said it didn't matter.

When he received endorsements from
people like Louis Farrakhan and
Mummar Kadaffi and Hugo Chavez,
people said it didn't matter.

When it was pointed out that he was
a total, newcomer and had absolutely
no experience at anything except
community organizing,
people said it didn't matter.

When he chose friends and acquaintances
such as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn
who were revolutionary radicals,
people said it didn't matter.

When his voting record in the Illinois
senate and in the U.S. Senate
came into question,
people said it didn't matter.

When he refused to wear a flag,
lapel pin and did so only
after a public outcry,
people said it didn't matter.

When people started treating him as
a Messiah and children in schools
were taught to sing his praises,
people said it didn't matter.

When he stood with his hands over
his groin area for the playing of the
National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance,
people said it didn't matter.

When he surrounded himself in the White house
with advisors who were pro gun control, pro
abortion, pro homosexual marriage and wanting to
curtail freedom of speech to silence the opposition
people said it didn't matter.

When he aired his views on abortion,
homosexuality and a
host of other issues,
people said it didn't matter.

When he said he favors
sex education in Kindergarten,
including homosexual indoctrination,
people said it didn't matter.

When his background was either
scrubbed or hidden and nothing
could be found about him,
people said it didn't matter.

When the place of his birth
was called into question,
and he refused to produce a birth certificate,
people said it didn't matter.

When he had an association in Chicago
with Tony Rezco, a man of questionable character,
who is now in prison and had helped Obama
to a sweet deal on the purchase of his home,
people said it didn't matter.

When it became known that George Soros,
a multi-billionaire Marxist,
spent a ton of money to get him elected,
people said it didn't matter.

When he started appointing czars
that were radicals, revolutionaries,
and even avowed Marxist/Communist,
people said it didn't matter.

When he stood before the nation
and told us that his intentions were to
"fundamentally transform this nation"
into something else,
people said it didn't matter.

When it became known that he had
trained ACORN workers in Chicago
and served as an attorney for ACORN,
people said it didn't matter.

When he appointed a cabinet members
and several advisors who were
tax cheats and socialist,
people said it didn't matter.

When he appointed a science czar, John Holdren,
who believes in forced abortions, mass
sterilizations and seizing babies from teen mothers,
people said it didn't matter..

When he appointed Cass Sunstein as regulatory
czar and he believes in "Explicit Consent",
harvesting human organs with out family consent,
and to allow animals to be represented in court,
while banning all hunting,
people said it didn't matter.

When he appointed Kevin Jennings, a homosexual,
and organizer of a group called gay, lesbian, straight,
Education network, as safe school czar and it became known
that he had a history of bad advice to teenagers,
people said it didn't matter.

When he appointed Mark Lloyd as diversity czar
and he believed in curtailing free speech,
taking from one and giving to another to spread
the wealth and admires Hugo Chavez,
people said it didn't matter.

When Valerie Jarrett was selected as Obama's
senior White House advisor and she is an
avowed Socialist,
people said it didn't matter.

When Anita Dunn, White House Communications director
said Mao Tse Tung was her favorite philosopher
and the person she turned to most for inspiration,
people said it didn't matter.

When he appointed Carol Browner as global warming
czar, and she is a well known socialist working
on Cap and trade as the nations largest tax,
people said it doesn't matter.

When he appointed Van Jones, an ex-con and
avowed Communist as green energy czar,
who since had to resign when this was made known,
people said it didn't matter.

When Tom Daschle, Obama's pick for health
and human services secretary could not be
confirmed, because he was a tax cheat,
people said it didn't matter.

When as president of the United States,
he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia,
people said it didn't matter.

When he traveled around the world
criticizing America and never once
talking of her greatness,
people said it didn't matter.

When his actions concerning the middle-east
seemed to support the Palestinians
over Israel, our long time friend,
People said it doesn't matter.

When he took American tax dollars to
resettle thousands of Palestinians
from Gaza to the United States,
people said it doesn't matter.

When he upset the Europeans by
removing plans for a missile defense system
against the Russians,
People said it doesn't matter.

When he played politics in Afghanistan by
not sending troops the Field Commanders
said we had to have to win,
people said it didn't matter.

When he started spending us into a debt
that was so big
we could not pay it off,
people said it didn't matter.

When he took a huge spending bill
under the guise of stimulus
and used it to pay off organizations,
unions and individuals
that got him elected,
people said it didn't matter.

When he took over insurance companies,
car companies, banks, etc.
people said it didn't matter.

When he took away student loans
from the banks and put it
through the government,
people said it didn't matter.

When he designed plans to take over
the health care system
and put it under government control,
people said it didn't matter.

When he set into motion a plan
to take over the control of all
energy in the United States
through Cap and Trade,
people said it didn't matter.

When he finally completed his
transformation of America
into a Socialist State,
people finally woke up..........
but it was too late.

Any one of these things, in and of themselves does not really matter.. But.... when you add them up one by one you get a phenomenal score that points to the fact that our Obama is determined to make America over into a Marxist/Socialist society. All of the items in the preceding paragraphs have been put into place. All can be documented very easily. Before you disavow this, do an internet search. The last paragraph alone is not yet cast in stone. You and I will write that paragraph. Will it read as above or will it be a more happy ending for most of America? Personally, I like happy endings.

If you are an Obama Supporter, please do not be angry with me because I think your president is a socialist but there are too many facts supporting this.. If you seek the truth you will be richer for it. Don't just belittle the opposition. Search for the truth. I did. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Constitutionalist, Libertarians and what have you, we all need to pull together. We all must pull together or watch the demise of a society that we all love and cherish. If you are a religious person, pray for our nation.

Never before in the history of America have we been confronted with problems so huge that the very existence of our country is in jeopardy. Don't rely on most television news and what you read in the newspapers for the truth. Search the internet. Yes, there is a lot of bad information, lies and distortions there too but you are smart enough to spot the fallacies. Newspapers are a dying breed. They are currently seeking a bailout from the government. Do you really think they are about to print the truth? Obama praises all the television news networks except Fox who he has waged war against. There must be a reason. He does not call them down on any specifics, just a general battle against them. If they lie, he should call them out on it but he doesn't. Please, find the truth, it will set you free.

Our biggest enemy is not China, Russia, Iran; no, our biggest enemy is a contingent of politicians in Washington DC.

"The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." --Greek historian Plutarch (c. 46-120 A.D.)

Political correctness in the armed forces...and the Ft.Hood massacre

2009-11-26T09:28:00.000-08:00

I have received this email on Nov.25 from friends. It is a shocking letter from someone in the armed forces,who wishes to remain anonymous, for obvious reason, fearful of his career.

"Political correctness was responsible for the death of thirteen people at Ft. Hood. Of this I am certain. I have watched political correctness at work in the military for more than three decades while serving in two different military branches. I may not have seen it all but, I have seen quite a bit of it.
Aside from academia and the civilian government workforce, there is no place else in America where political correctness is as rampant as military. The rules of political correctness are not listed in military regulations. It is like knowing where to find the chow hall. Everyone just knows.
Press reports indicate Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan grossly misbehaved for years. Not only wasn’t he seriously reprimanded, but he was actually promoted in spite of engaging in behavior that would have quickly ended the careers of others. Many of us who have witnessed similar behavior know what occurred. Hasan’s activities were virtually ignored because he is Muslim.
Politically correctness is a major cancer in today’s military. There are favored minority groups that are given special rights, privileges and treatment not available to non-minorities. Military awards are one example. Sister services -- the Navy and Marine Corps -- have between them at least 15 awards reserved only for women or minorities including Black Engineer of the Year, National Organization for Mexican American Rights Meritorious Service, and the Society of American-Indian Government Employees awards.The Army’s hands-off approach toward the Muslim Hasan contrasts significantly with how Defense officials have handled those practicing mainstream religions. Hasan was a medical professional serving in a sacred role administering to the most vulnerable; yet, he was proselytizing to his patients about Islam. In spite of this, he was twice promoted.
About the same time Hasan was preaching Islam to the wounded, complaints arose of alleged proselytizing by Evangelical Christians at the U.S. Air Force Academy. A major Pentagon task force was dispatched, investigated and found a "perception of religious bias." Nonetheless, nearly six years after complaints first arose at USAFA, Christian activity at the school is still closely scrutinized.
Military political correctness is rampant much closer to the nation’s capital. The U.S. Naval Academy is to train young adults to serve in the combat arms of the Navy and Marine Corps. However, Superintendent and Vice Admiral Jeffrey Fowler -- apparently unaware that the U.S. is engaged in two wars -- states his number one priority is to increase diversity. Fowler is not alone in pumping up multiculturalism. Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen claims diversity is a “strategic imperative.” Following the Ft. Hood massacre, Army Chief of Staff General George Casey was seemingly more concerned about preserving religious diversity in the Army’s ranks than in weeding out soldiers who kill other soldiers.
Naval Academy officials promote the fact that 35% of this year’s freshman class is comprised of favored minority groups: Hispanic, black, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Native American. Twenty percent are female. Admissions officials privately acknowledge they are directed to dramatically increase these percentages each year. This should be easy to achieve since about one-half of the admissions department is devoted exclusively to minority recruiting.
This overemphasis on minority recruiting is both misguided and completely unnecessary considering the USNA admissions process. All 100 Senators and each member of the U.S. House representing 435 diverse Congressional districts nominate youngsters. It may be the single-most diversity-focused college acceptance program in the nation.
Still, it does not appear to be enough for USNA officials. Only about one-half of each incoming freshman class is admitted through the Congressional nominating process, giving the school unfettered discretion in picking the other half.
Naval Academy Professor Bruce Fleming, who served on the admissions board, has reported it has an unofficial two-track admissions process in which nonwhite candidates are graded against easier admissions requirements than white candidates. Fleming claims USNA admits some minority students who are incapable of performing college-level work.
Gender-based political correctness has fostered a poisonous atmosphere, according to numerous midshipmen. The previous Superintendent, Vice Admiral Rodney Rempt, implemented a policy unprecedented anywhere else in the entire military.
Female midshipmen who allege they were victims of sexual misconduct would be given blanket immunity for all rules violations in return for identifying alleged perpetrators. The consequence is that females caught violating regulations would immediately allege they were sex victims sometime previously. It became a Get Out of Jail Free card that was abused repeatedly. According to multiple sources, the blanket immunity program is still in effect.
Scores of females who abide by the rules are understandably angered by this discriminatory policy. The unintended consequence is that many male midshipmen will not associate with any females in order to avoid one-day becoming the target of a baseless allegation. This is a classic example of the breakdown of unit cohesion.Recently, USNA launched a sexual assault response team staffed almost exclusively with female officers. According to a source, the presumption of the team is that males are always the guilty perpetrators and females are always the innocent victims.
Earlier this year, thousands of pages of Navy documents detailing sexual and other misconduct cases were reviewed by The (Annapolis) Capital. The school practiced a double-standard when punishing men and women guilty of identical offenses. Males were frequently dismissed from the academy and sometimes required to reimburse the Navy upwards of $100,000 in school costs while females generally received only light punishment. In one five-year period, every male midshipman accused of sexual assault but acquitted in a military court martial was still kicked out of the academy, a form of double-jeopardy.
Political correctness has led to officially-sanctioned discrimination against non-minorities. Consider the case of the USNA color guard, the six midshipmen who carry the U.S., Navy, Marine Corps and Naval Academy flags during ceremonial events and home football games.
This year, the color guard was invited to perform at game 2 of the World Series in front of a national television audience. However, two of the six midshipmen who had been longtime members of the color guard were fired the day before the game and replaced with two newcomers. The offense, they were told, was being white males. The new members were a female and a first-generation Pakistani-American. One can only wonder if a similar fate will befall the Navy football team before it plays in a nationally-televised New Year’s Eve bowl game.
The Naval Academy makes no effort to hide its bias toward promoting only female and minority faces. The school’s 60-second “Fulfill Your Destiny” recruiting video, which has played prominently on television the past two years, has not one discernible white face in it except in the distant background. The commercial features two Hispanics, two blacks and an Asian. The video is not representative of the actual student body.
The question arises as to what the Naval Academy will do when President Barack Obama follows through on his promise to end the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” prohibition against homosexuals openly serving in the military. Will USNA pursue minimum quotas of male homosexuals, lesbians and transgender students?"

The writer is a Colonel (or Navy Captain) stationed in the Washington, D.C. area who desires to keep his identity withheld in order to protect his career

Healthcare in Hungary, today, con'td.....

2009-11-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

20 years after the demise of communism, there is still "universal" hc. Over budget and under in terms of results, every year.
So, how does one go about, say, having elective surgery? Free on paper but the choice of the specialist will be influenced by the money you will have to come up with.Virtually every preoperative visit involves some out of pocket payment. There are no published rates, of course, so people ask around, find on the grape wine the "tariff".Exchanged into USD the "going"rate for a consultation is between 25 and 50 dollars. For the operation between 50 and 200 USD. Remember, the average pension is between 200 and 500 dollar per month. And well paid workers take home $1000 per month.
Do you need an MRI or Xray in a hurry, you will pay out of pocket. The wait for a "free" test may be long.
If you don't know the "rates", you ask around. Somehow the "right" rate is always found from others.
The reason for out of pocket fees is the low pay doctors, nurses get from the government. The squeeze on costs by any government is on-going. Hospitals lack decent budgets, labs need new equipment, new drugs come to the market.
HC budget almost never takes into consideration the progress of times, innovation in a centralized, state controlled system.
Private physicians, clinics, labs are available, if you have the money up front. Needless to say the best trained personnel and the most modern equipment is in the private sector.

In honor of the fall of the Berlin Wall.November 9,1989-2009

2009-11-06T14:35:00.000-08:00

On the healthcare insurance debate...

2009-11-01T20:40:00.000-08:00

I would like to add a few notes.All of the Eastern European countries under communist rule till 1989, when the wall and system collapsed had socialised medicine.One would expect that, like many other inefficient, corrupt social programs "universal" healthcare would have been changed to an efficient,patient centered program. In fact, remember that Americans, none of these countries have been able to get rid of socialized medicare to date. Many reasons for this. First it has been free for all pensioners. Those who are employed pay a small amount, employers pay a big chunk. None of the contributions, and they have been steadily rising, cover the need, so all healthcare budgets spend over budget. There has never been enough money to cover expenditure, and hc is the biggest contributor to the overall deficits of all these countries.
The biggest political fights in every election and in every budget debate is over the cost of national hc. There are center left and right parties. Which party would you guess is for privatizing (improving) socialized hc? Here is the paradox: socialists and liberals want to get rid of socialized medicine and centre right parties agitate for retaining socialized medicine!
Just a word about socalized hc. Almost from thee beginning, if you wanted the best medical and medicinal help you'd better have the money for it. Whether it was a choice of doctor or medicine,a treatment, a hospital stay, an operation those with cash always had the best available service and product. To this day corruption, paying under the table is the EXPECTED way to get the best treatment. Budgets have been so overspent that in Hungary today,when you go in the hospital you better take your towel,spoon, soap, and medicine as you may not get any of those things. Choice of surgeon will depend on the money you come up with. Of course you will always get some treatment. But you will be at the end of the line. And you better reward the nurses who look after you, as their pay is so low they need money from the patients to live. Most medicines are available, but for the best ones you will pay a high co-pay. It is not unusual for a pensioner to make choices from the various drugs that he is prescribed and get only one or two as the monthly total maybe more than his pension.
Dental care is "free" on paper, in fact most dental treatments are performed by private practitioners or those employed by the state, but you still pay them.
Since the iron curtain came down, socialized medicine is still around, even if it had improved from before 1989.
Changing that system for private insurers is a politically daunting exercise.

A short visit to Moscow...

2009-10-08T18:33:00.000-07:00

and here are my impressions. The last visit, also of short duration took place some 12 years ago. Then, as a representative of a rich multinational,(5 star hotel) and now just a simple tourist (3 star hotel).
In 2009, Moscow must be the biggest employer of police forces and security guards.They are everywhere. Just the whole city is in uniform. Every store, every office building, sometimes whole streets are blocked by gates and security guards. On the one hand, it is reassuring to feel so protected, but who are they protecting?The people on the streets, or the store owners, offices? From whom is the danger? Political or run of the mill criminals?

I was pleasantly surprised at my ability to recall a long ago acquired, but almost never used Russian. At first I have struggled, but by the second day I got into it and became bolder in my conversations with total strangers. Anybody I have stopped for direction or information became an instant friend and guide. People under 25 generally knew a few words of English, but with the rest I had to manage with my Russian. Even the younger ones knew less English than I knew Russian , so we generally continued in Russian. Like all natives when addressed in their own tongue, they were delighted.

On one occasion I needed help in the labyrinths of the Moscow Metro, a massive system of transportation with many opportunities to get lost or get off "track". The young Russian lady may have been 20 or so, very pleasant and helpful. After a few attempts at English we agreed that my Russian was better. It so happened that my destination, after several changes on the subway system, was the same as hers. So we have travelled together for some 30 minutes, and chatted.The metro was noisy and too crowded for any meaningful conversation. But when we have arrived at our final station there was a huge downpour so we had to stay inside the station. Then we really got into talking. She was a second year university student,studying something like urban planning. Obviously, all her conscious life began after the demise of the Soviet union. Yet, I was so sorry to find that she had almost no clue about the past before her.She didn't know who Solzhenitsyn or Pasternak were, their significance, the years of the thaw and what it must have meant at least for her parents. But she knew all about current pop culture, American Idol and the rest.

It was a beautiful, but sad episode for me meeting this lovely, modern Russian girl, yet finding that the very recent and fateful past had not affected her at all.

There are small annoyances....

2009-07-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

in life that may not warrant a second thought,but I would not be truthful if I didn't confess to more than just occasional flashes of vexation when confronted with some of these. So, as suggested in some "How to..." book self-help chapter, one is to make a list of stuff, sort of taking out the sharp edge of, for example,"annoyances" and ,if so inclined, "deal" with them as they occur. Easier said than done. The list will be easy to prepare, dealing with individual items will present difficulties. Here it goes.

1./Having been preoccupied with being physically active all my life and particularly when I was at the height of my own "self-importance", career-wise,I have often complained about the lack of time and space for working up a good sweat. Whenever I have felt bad enough and lethargic enough, I could always find a half an hour, for at least a strenuous walk, or taking the stairs for several flights, until time and space was available for a workout. So, here is one of my earliest and most persistent annoyances:meeting and watching overweight, out of shape sport coaches, trainers in charge of young or not so young sport lovers,aspirants. I always felt embarrassed in their place and I'm sure in some cases there may have been legitimate reasons for being such a poor example to their pupils. For the rest there is just no excuse, none.

2./The ease and comfort of shopping in today's supermarkets compared to the weekly produce market in my hometown many years ago is such a pleasure. On entry you have a huge cart or a smaller basket, stroll through the isles and pick out your your products, go to the cashier pay and wheel out your cart, find your car, transfer the stuff and...what do many people do with their carts? Some leave them by the side of their cars, some wheel them up to the nearest curb and may manage to leave them securely behind, or not. Very few people take the time, probably less than a minute,to wheel the cart to its designated "parking pad". Some supermarkets employ cart collectors whose job is to find and arrange these wayward carts from huge parking lots. The carts left idly behind are a real menace to people, cars, children.
Still, many just seem oblivious to the potential damage and just leave them anywhere. So thoughtless,impolite,dangerous.

3./ You are walking on a busy sidewalk and all of sudden you come upon a small gathering of people, anywhere from 3 to several who are literally blocking the whole sidewalk. They may have just met, or stopped as a group for a short meeting, whatever.You try to go around them, maybe even step off curb and still, they don't move and are oblivious that others are blocked. So thoughtless, rude.

4./ Do you have small annoyances? Perhaps something that I may be guilty of...

A picture...

2009-07-15T22:27:00.000-07:00

from the 50th Anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising, 1956-2006

I was honored by the University of Toronto...

2009-07-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

the other day, by inducted into U of T Sports Hall of Fame.

This was quite a surprise, since the reason given for this honor were my fencing results in my rookie year, 1962/63. I was the intercollegiate champion in saber that school year.

During the induction ceremony I had the privilege of meeting former truly great champions, olympic medallists and the Dean of the Faculty of Physical Education, Bruce Kidd, a Canadian sport icon. He presented me with the certificate.

It was required of the inductees to say a few words at the time and there is a YouTube video here you might like to watch, it's only 3 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9dFRBxS3k8

A personal note on the events in Iran...

2009-06-25T15:44:00.001-07:00

During the spring of 2007 I have spent some time with young fencing coaches from various countries at the University of Budapest,Faculty of Physical Education. I was helping the instructor with the translation from Hungarian to English ( the common language of all participants). I got very close to the personable Iranian fencing coach, A. He and I have spent some meals together after the classes. Never having any intimate knowledge of Iran I have been given a comprehensive review of Iranian society of the day (2007), the aspiration of her very young people. It was an eye opener. I was assured that the vast majority of Iran's population hated the oppressive theocracy that they were forced to live under. That her people, especially the young, some 65 % of the population just wanted a secular, free society and friendship with the world , including the USA.
The recent popular uprising against this oppressive regime bore out this notion I was privileged to hear from my new Iranian friend.

The year 1959

2009-06-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

Consider: It was the year when the microchip was introduced, the Food and Drug Administration held hearings on the birth-control pill, IBM marketed the first business computer, a passenger jetliner took the first nonstop trans-Atlantic flight, and America joined the Russians in the "space race." It saw the rise of free jazz, "sick comics," the New Journalism, and indie films; the birth of Motown, Happenings, and the Generation Gap; the Lady Chatterley trial that overthrew the nation's obscenity laws; the U.S. Civil Rights Commission's first report, which sparked the overhaul of segregation laws—all this bursting against fears of a "missile gap," the fallout-shelter craze, and the first U.S. casualties in the war in Vietnam.

From the book: 1959,The Year Everything Changed, by Fred Kaplan

Love all of these one liners:

2009-06-06T20:20:00.001-07:00

Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland ,Ohio
"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.. It is the most-requested column I've ever written." My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't s crew up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their
journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood.. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give it time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's,we'd grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

About my book...

2009-05-02T20:47:00.000-07:00

Find it here:

http://eurobird.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-should-say-something-about-my-book.html

Amazing Grace....

2009-05-02T20:44:00.000-07:00

Amazing Grace

"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me....
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

T'was Grace that taught...
my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear...
the hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares...
we have already come.
T'was Grace that brought us safe thus far...
and Grace will lead us home.

On the first day of May

2009-05-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

GOP hopefuls in 2010 in Congress must present SOUND alternatives to 3 major Obama objectives beginning this fall! Not negatives. That is probably the only way to interest a public enamored by the "we can" president. His 3 pillars of the future of the US are education reform,healthcare reform and energy regulation/reform. These three objectives must be countered with sound, viable alternatives.
People cannot fathom 1, 2 or 3 trillion dollars in terms of size, particularly if projected 10/12 years ahead.Lot of people will assume that the big 3 objectives, regardless of cost will be of benefit to the nation. Critiqing them will not suffice.The same objectives will have to be rationally developed and presented with expected results and cost/benefit analyses. Then stay on message. For the whole year until the November elections. Put him and his party on defensive.

What is marxism...

2009-03-23T09:57:00.000-07:00

I have found this excellent piece on the web that I would like share will all: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/what_is_marxism.html by Steven Plaut

March 16, 2009

What is Marxism? By Steven Plaut

Marxists claim that Marxism is a science. It is not. It is a sort of pagan religious cult. It is a theology. It is a form of superstition.

Marxists claim that Karl Marx understood capitalism and economics. He did not. They also claim that the entire validity of Marx’s set of theories on all subjects rests ultimately on how valid Marxist economic thought is. Marxist economic thought was completely wrong.

Marx claimed that all products contain value that is directly proportional to the amount of labor embodied within them. He was wrong. All the rest of Marxism is based entirely on this mistaken and falsifiable premise.

Marxists claim that the operations of markets have a natural tendency to spawn monopolies. They call this “monopoly capitalism.” In reality, markets have a natural tendency to break up and undermine monopolies. Almost all monopolies under capitalism are those set up by governments stifling and interfering in the operations of markets.

The most harmful monopolies in modern economies are the labor unions.

Marxists claim that corporate monopolies are growing in importance and in power. In fact, monopolies have been losing power and strength under capitalism for well over a century.

Marxists think that large corporations collaborate and operate power-sharing arrangements among themselves. They do not and cannot. Large corporations compete, undercut, and threaten one another’s market shares every day. As one of many proofs, just look at the number of inter-corporate law suits.

Marxism is based on conflict between “social classes.” But social classes do not exist at all. This is not to say that there are not richer folk and poorer folk all about. It only means that all the richer folk share no collective common interests, and the same is true for all the poorer folk.

Marxists claim that people’s ideas and ideals are dictated by property relations. They are wrong.

Marxists and socialists in general care a lot about the distribution of material wealth. But they have no idea how to bring about the creation of the material wealth that they wish to redistribute. They just assume it all gets produced all by itself. That is why people in communist regimes starve.

Marxists claim that workers are oppressed in capitalist societies. Workers in communist societies always try to sneak out into capitalist societies. No one in South Korea is trying to sneak into North Korea. The Berlin Wall was not built to keep West Germans from sneaking into East Germany’s collective farms. Cubans in Florida do not steal boats to seek asylum in Cuban collective farms.

Marxists claim that lower-income people support the Left and that higher-income people support the Right. Generally the opposite is the case. Let’s not forget the Hollywood Left.

Marxists claim that capitalism creates “crises of surplus,” where materials build up that cannot be sold. They are wrong. Surpluses just cause prices to drop.

Marxists claim that capitalists do not work and that workers do not own capital. That is why they comprise “social classes.” But nearly all capitalists work, often in work days with very long hours. Meanwhile, a huge portion of capital is held by workers themselves through their pension funds and other institutional investment intermediaries.

Marxists claim that businesses are owned by a small closed clique of capitalists. Actually, most businesses are “public,” meaning they are owned by shareholders and anyone at all can be a shareholder in them.

Marxists claim that capitalism cannot be democratic. But every single democratic society on earth is predominantly capitalist. Not a single communist regime was ever democratic. Communists take power via military coups and military conquest, not via elections.

Marxists claim that capitalists use violence to protect their perquisites and privileges. In truth, Marxists in power use violence to protect their perquisites and privileges. They use violence to suppress opposition wherever they manage to seize power, including violence against opposition groups of workers. It is conservatively estimated that 100 million people were killed by Marxism and by Marxists in the twentieth century.

Marxists claim that people are prisoners of their material circumstances and of their classes of birth. Tell that to the limousine Marxists, the endowment-fund Trotskyists, and the tenured socialists.

Marxists claim that all workers share common interests and shared goals, making them into a “class.” In reality, they share nothing in common and have no common interests.

Marxists think that all capitalists share common interests and get together in large stadiums every few weeks to plan out a program to achieve those. In reality, if capitalists were ever to congregate in such a stadium, they could agree on absolutely nothing, not even on the price of the beer. There is no single issue in economic policy over which all capitalists have the same position or share the same interest.

Marxists claim that workers in capitalist societies feel “alienated.” In reality, pampered children in capitalist society feel alienated because capitalism produces wealth, makes material comfort possible, and so creates the opportunities for idleness and leisure that lead to recreational feelings of alienation.

Marxists think that if you earn more money than me, it means you are exploiting me. In reality, it means you are more talented, harder working, better skilled, and luckier than me.

Marxists think that if one person has more wealth than a second person, it can only be because the first one stole the wealth of the second. Ditto for richer and poorer countries.

Marxists think that only things matter in economics, meaning tangible products, and so services do not. They believe that big products are more important than small products, big industries being more important than small industries. They also believe that consumer goods are superfluous and should not be produced much. All those ideas are why the quality of life and the standard of living are so miserable under communist regimes. In wealthy countries, small- and medium-size enterprises are the main engines for producing wealth.

Marxists do not see why workers should need to be allowed to vote. The interest of workers is always defined as whatever those claiming to speak in the name of the working class happen to support and desire.

Marxists think that socialism works. It does not. The only form of “socialism” that has not produced mass impoverishment and starvation is Scandinavian capitalism merged with a bloated “socialist” welfare state.

Marxists claim that most Marxists come from the working class. In reality almost all Marxists are the pampered children of middle class and wealthy parents. There are more Marxists today on the campuses of some American universities than in all of eastern Europe.

Marxists claim that under Marxism everyone receives according to his needs and contributes according to his capabilities. In reality, under Marxism everyone receives according to whatever the entrenched party apparatchiks decide their needs are, usually sub-sustenance levels of consumption, and the same people decide what are your abilities, generally assumed to be your ability to work endlessly at whatever you are told to do without getting paid much. To put this differently, in the absence of positive incentives, no one is capable of doing anything and everyone’s needs are infinite.

Marxists think that “experts” can tell what needs to be produced. They cannot. That is why Marxist experts produce starvation. In some cases Marxist starvation has produced cannibalism. There is not a single Marxist scholar or expert on earth who could produce a pencil by himself.

Marxists think that efficiency in production can be achieved by terrorizing factory workers and communal farm members. While terrorizing them, it has never successfully achieved efficiency that way. People are always smarter than the terrorizing officials and manage to thwart them.

Marxists believe that economic incentives do not matter. That is why they think there is no need to pay people more for working hard or exerting effort. It is enough to appeal to their “class interests.” That is why people starve under communism.

When a Marxist speaks of “dictatorship of the proletariat,” he means he thinks he has the right to use violence to impose his own arbitrary dictatorship upon members of the working class and upon everyone else, without asking for their approval or votes.

Marxists claim that Marxism is fundamentally democratic. In reality it is always fundamentally anti-democratic.

Marxists pretend to be in favor of the working class collectively owning all property. In reality Marxists always steal the property of members of the working class and turn it over to well-paid party apparatchiks.

Marxists think that Marx understood economics. In fact, virtually all Marxist “theories” were completed debunked 160 years ago. Marx was wrong about virtually everything he wrote on economics. It is more difficult to say whether he was correct about anything in sociology, but that is more a commentary on the nebulous and muddled nature of sociological thinking.

Marxists see no need at all for “finance capital.” That is why they always steal everyone’s savings in communist societies. It is also why workers in communist societies hide their savings in banks in capitalist societies.

Marx did not have the slightest inkling about what determines wages of workers in markets. He had even less understanding of what determines prices.

Marxists use the term “concrete” whenever they do not know how to finish a sentence, or whenever they have no idea of what is being discussed.

Marxists think that women live better lives under Marxism. That is because they never speak with any women who grew up under communism.

There is not a Marxist on earth who has actually read and understood Karl Marx’s tedious book “Das Kapital.” You can read a summary of the book on Wikipedia, written by people who did not read it either. In reality, Marx had no idea at all even what capital is.

Marxists often want to abolish the family, but that is because they became Marxists in the first place as a way to antagonize and irritate mommy and daddy.

Marxists believe that people living under Marxism lose interest in religion. They do not.

Marxists believe that in every voluntary transaction, one side wins and the other loses, and so it is impossible for two sides to profit from it. That is why they think you should be told what to buy and how much you should pay for it.

Marxists claim that capitalist countries engage in imperialism. But since World War II the largest empires of imperialist conquest were those headed by Marxist regimes.

Marxists believe that there are no real conflicts of interest between the workers living in different countries and speaking different languages or coming from different cultures. That is without a doubt the very stupidest idea of all coming from Marxism. In any case, that is why Marxism is generally spread only via military conquest.

Marxists think that capitalism makes people greedy. Actually people living under communism become much greedier because they are poor and desperate.

Marxists claim that Marxism is a science. It is not. It is today little more than a form of mental illness.

Steven Plaut is an economist and teaches business administration

The Star Spangled Banner...

2009-03-16T21:12:00.001-07:00

The Star Spangled Banner Lyrics
By Francis Scott Key 1814

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave

Guantanamera...

2009-03-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera,
Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera.

Yo soy un hombre sincero,
de donde crece la palma,
y antes de morirme quiero,
echar mis versos de alma.

Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera,
Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera.

Mi verso es de un verde claro,
y de un carmín encendido;
mi verso es un ciervo herido,
que en el monte busca amparo.

Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera,
Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera.

Con los pobres de la tierra,
quiero yo mi suerte echar;
el arroyo de la sierra,
me complace más que el mar.

Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera,
Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera.
Guantanamera, guajira ...

The book and my picture...

2009-02-23T20:46:00.000-08:00

I should say something about my book...

2009-02-04T13:20:00.000-08:00

published in the spring of 2008. In fact, this blog came to life at the insistence of friends that I should continue with a"sequel". This blog is obviously not that. But it is writing and as so many have discovered, it is its own reward. And , foremost, it is learning about myself and the world around me.
About my book.
"Without Illusions" is written in two languages, Hungarian and English, which in a way aptly illustrates my life. Born in Hungary and leaving at the age of 18, my life early on separated into two halves. The early years in the relative safety and warmth of my family and then my life without it. I left the country on my own.
The generosity of the free West, following the tragic defeat of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight, in my case, provided for a few months in various refugee camps and a free passage to Canada in 1957. Some other refugees were less fortunate and some fared much better.
So my time after leaving my birthplace started a new, strange, exciting and at times frustrating phase. On the negative side obvious was the lack of English or French language, which in Canada mattered. But I was young and healthy and sure of myself in terms of the future, in spite of the fact that not only I could not speak or write in either language, I didn't have any skill or profession.
An honest assessment of my situation after disembarking from the boat in Quebec city is the only praise I will allow myself for that time. Although it may seem simplistic and self-evident now, it was then a sudden, but sober realization that in order to eke out an existence in the new world I will have to rely on my two hands and not much else for the foreseeable future. So,I have started out in the "second" phase of my life, as it were, "without illusions".
Why should an East European refugee have had any illusions on arrival in Canada, in 1957? Because he escaped from a brutal, communist dictatorship to one of the freest, richest and most promising of Western democracies on the planet!
And here is my message, dear reader in 2009, wherever you are: not for one minute I imagined that over and above the free boat ticket and the "Landed Immigrant" visa, for which I am ever so grateful, have I expected anything more from the Canadian government or society! I have never felt that I was a victim, that anyone owed me anything. Like millions of immigrants to the new world before me, we were grateful for the opportunity.Oh, please do not misunderstand, I would have been happy to receive a free furnished room or flat, a monthly stipend until I learn English or French and then a good job. But, as I said, I had none and not dreamt of any illusions about my future life in Canada then.
The miserable days in the fifties that led to our revolt had toughened and readied us for life.
This adventure, that started in the fifties and culminated in the immigrant's first years in Canada, is what my book is about. The reason I wrote it in two languages was letting the descendants of the thousands of Hungarian refugees to Canada and the USA know the struggle their parents and grandparents faced some fifty years ago. Many never learned to speak Hungarian.
Although published in Budapest, the book is available in a couple of Hungarian bookstores in Toronto.

For a new year we make resolutions...

2009-01-08T14:55:00.000-08:00

which need not be grandiose to be meaningful. So, here are my very ordinary , but to me paramount points to keep in mind, every day of the year. These are not original thoughts, but they are just so meaningful I had to report them here:

Kiss your mate at least twice a day
Leave a quick note just to say “hi,” or “I love you”
Never do anything you wouldn’t want your partner to know
Be fully present when they need to talk or share something important
Make the effort to spend some time together each day
Give a compliment
Make your partner feel important
Smile

In memoriam, Anna Maria Figini...

2008-12-28T12:48:00.000-08:00

the Italian Red Cross nurse, passed away this morning after a short, painful battle with cancer, in Bologna, Italy.
The Hungarian refugees who were handed over by the Yugoslavian border guards to the Italian Red Cross in February of 1957, met Anna at the door of the Red Cross camp in Marina di Ravenna.
For the disheveled group that we presented to the welcoming Red Cross nurses, Anna's bright and warm smile will live forever in my memory. For many of us she was symbolic to all the love of family, friends and country that we left behind after the 1956 Hungarian Freedom Fight.
The lack of common language was no obstacle for Anna as she instinctively knew whatever any of us wanted to say or ask for.
She never stopped smiling, never showed impatience, never stopped caring for us. As time passed in camp, she had managed to teach most of us a few words of Italian and soon we were old friends. I remember telling her - much to my astonishment - the story of my family with the fifty some odd Italian words that she taught me. When I got stuck at any point she would patiently help me find the right word or gesture. We were communicating!
We have spent some five months in the Italian Red Cross camp with Anna being on duty virtually every day during that time. When time came to sail off to some distant land as the refugees found a welcoming country, parting with Anna was almost as painful as leaving my mother and little brother at home in November of 1956.
It seemed like leaving home all over again, and it was evidently painful for Anna as well. We promised to keep in touch.
While in person communication was possible with hand and facial gestures coupled with the few words of Italian, writing from far away Canada became much more difficult. My Italian was just not good enough for the written word and my English didn't exist yet. The correspondence was mainly in postcards with just a few words, although dear Anna wrote what later I found to be encouraging letters to keep on learning and working and eventually finish university in my adopted land. With time we lost contact.
On the fiftieth anniversary of my stay in Italy I wrote to the Italian Red Cross and asked if they could find Anna Figini.
I have given up hope of hearing about her when some eight months later I have received a letter, from Anna!
She was now retired and a grandmother, living in Bologna and so happy to have received my query from the Italian Red Cross. We were both elated and I promised to visit her and her family in Italy, we had so much to tell each other of the last fifty years! Then I have called her and we were even more happy to hear each other's voice. This time I was fluent in Italian and we had a great conversation.
The next letter, some three weeks later, from Anna had devastating news. She had been diagnosed with a rapidly developing form of cancer and was undergoing severe chemo and radiation therapy.
When I called her again, she was barely able to talk, but it was she who had consoled me...
This morning I had called her in Italy and her sister told me that Anna passed away, just hours before my phone call.

Christmas day 2008 is almost...

2008-12-25T19:27:00.000-08:00

history and the media around the world has been mellow or silent on this day.However, by morning on Boxing Day, readers and viewers will be treated to the usual fair of sensational news items, or at least controversial subjects to stir up reader interest. One can count on The Guardian in the UK for leading the way. First,they publish the full "Christmas message " to the world of Ahmadinejad. As if, next to the messages of queens and statesmen around the world, the Iranian crackpot would be of some significance. Then, having insulted the Britts and sundry they have a lunatic salivating on the prospects of going after key figures of the US administration as they hand over the reigns to the new president on January 2oth. A controversial journalist, (Bring Home the Revolution:the Case for a British Republic), Jonathan Freedman is agitating for a "reckoning" of Bush and "his cronies". He is aghast over the treatment of the innocents at Gitmo and advises key members of the US admimistration not travel abroad as they surely would be arrested by justice seekers like Freedman.
Lefties the world over first try to bring about a "revolution", failing that they latch onto cases of "crimes" against humanity.
Only one thing is common to all of these Freedmans and shoe-throwers: they are all living in free democracies.

Christmas morning...

2008-12-25T04:37:00.000-08:00

tea almost ready, Crosby, Andy Williams, Julie Andrews, like close friends, are singing their hearts out...just a few hours ago it was classical Christmas music by Handel, Schubert, Verdi and Bizet sung by Renee Fleming. No one can smile and make you warm all over as Fleming. She glows and her voice penetrates the innermost part of your soul.
So, there is no shortage of earnest talent to put you into the mood. Still. Worrying news creeps into the morning, as various portals feel it is their duty to serve up at least a bit of reality, lest you get carried away...am trying to resist reading anything impersonal. Get stuck in a blog by Instapundit. Travelers around the globe are cited. How this holiday the hotels, restaurants, exclusive resorts are all half full or less. No doubt, the loss for those making a living for these services the reality is painful or soon will be. But for the ones staying home this holiday may not be all that bad.Those staying away are at home. Count your blessings. If you could not get to spend for this Christmas get-away, count your blessings. If you are healthy and at home and not travelling, count your blessings. Shed a tear for those who are neither at home nor at a resort this Christmas.

Dec. 22, 2008 on Fox News...

2008-12-22T17:13:00.000-08:00

The best line by Charles Krauthammer that evening : "The vise president's role in the Obama administration will be diminished and it will suit the man (Biden)..."

Recent visits to Spain...

2008-12-14T16:34:00.001-08:00

after so many years of conscious neglect due to dislikes of bullfights,dishonest cabdrivers and a general state of chaos in the big cities, produced a new vision of the country and her people, for the better.It all started in Barcelona a couple of years ago, then Madrid last year, Ciudad Real this spring and finally an afternoon in Cartagena just a few weeks ago. On each trip one pleasant surprise after another. There are no better , cheaper and more efficient connections between airports and city centers.The intercity trains are spotless and comfortable, and fast.
The most unexpected event that will stay with us for a long time happened in Cartagena.Our ship stopped for a few hours and we took off to visit the old town, walking for hours. Near the ship's docking we looked for a supermarket to buy a case of mineral water to take on board. But there wasn't a store in sight, so one of our fellow travelers (not the political kind)stopped a middle aged lady on a bicycle for directions. A long discussion followed in Spanish accompanied by arms and fingers pointing to several directions, but all target stores apparently in far away places.
Finally,the kind lady of Cartagena jumped on her bike and indicated to our little group to stay put for a while, she'll be back.Realizing this complete stranger's intention, we ran after her and literally forced her to take our euros, as our bona fides
Within ten minutes she was pedalling back where she'd left us, carrying several sacks of bottled water!
We were in a such an awe at this wonderful gesture, that her tight hugs to each one of us didn't register with us even while she was getting back on her bike and soon disappearing in the port's traffic.

What species is that "eurobird"?

2008-12-10T18:09:00.000-08:00

A few years ago,shortly after moving to Florida from my European assignment and effectively retiring from my long-term employee within a few days,I was accosted on the tennis court by already retired residents. After a few pleasantries and introductions , one of them said to me after hearing that we'll be here only in the winters: "So, we have another snow-bird here!"
Having lived in Canada, too, for some 21 years I knew immediately the kind of bird I was taken to be. And it almost fitted the description. I was, in fact, a Canadian, I was going to live in Florida during the winter only, I talked "funny" (at least as compared to real Floridians). However, it wasn't a perfect fit.
Not wanting to sound snobbish, but feeling the weight of responsibility to explain myself, without a moment of hesitation I have found the best possible answer to the friendly gentleman calling me a snow-bird.
"Actually, I am a euro-bird" and being quite surprised myself at this instant creativity, I looked around with a confident smile that bordered on unintended impertinence.
The expression just created a species hitherto unknown to me, or, apparently anyone else in the group. There was a moment of silence and to my utter relief another gentleman came to my rescue asking whether we go to Europe in the summer instead of "up North".
The rest is history.
Yes, we actually have a home on each continent and about the same time when the snow-birds return to their summer nests, the euro birds head East to Europe.
Without confusing my dear readers,I have to add that my genes have quite a bit of snow-bird-y characteristics as well,since come the North American spring I feel a calling from "up North" and I often heed that irresistible call and "fly up" to one or another Canadian community. (To visit can-birds, naturally.)

The alleged sale of the US Senate seat...

2008-12-10T16:18:00.001-08:00

and the other disturbing news of the day: Italy bails out ailing parmigiano cheese makers. While the soap-opera quality of the latest news from Chicago merits , at least, a disapproving frown, the plight of Italian Parmesan makers is first-rate drama that ought to deeply disturb pasta lovers around the globe! And we are numerous. Imagine, one day finding no Parmesan cheese on your favorite supermarket's shelves! There is no more Parmesan, all producers are in Chapter 11, outcome of court supervised production of the dairy delicacy is in serious trouble. No harsher fate can be imagined to decent pasta lovers, everywhere.
However, the present Italian government is to be complemented on fast action saving Parmesan promoters, at least for now, by buying up and distributing to charities some 100,000 wheels (77 pounds each) of the golden delicacy.
No messy fight on the floors of congress, no partisan party politics, when it comes to messing about Italians' pasta and de rigour ingredients, quick legislation and implementation is the result.
US lawmakers should consider the present agony of bailing out automakers ala the Italian Parmigiano example by answering just one question: is the automakers bailout as important to this great nation , as the bailout of the Italian Parmigiano makers?
Please, don't rush to a hasty conclusion...

Strangers May Cheer You Up, Study Says, NYT

2008-12-07T15:39:00.000-08:00

If true, what a responsibility this puts on your shoulder!

Tosca and Pagliacci

2008-11-26T18:01:00.001-08:00

Tosca "How the stars seemed to shimmer..."

E lucevan le stelle, e olezzava la terra stridea l'uscio dell'orto, e un passo sfiorava la rena. Entrava ella, fragrante, mi cadea fra le braccia. Oh! dolci baci, o languide carezze, mentr'io fremente le belle forme discogliea dai veli! Svani per sempre il sogno mio d'amore... L'ora e fuggita e muoio disperato! E non ho amato mai tanto la vita!

How the stars seemed to shimmer, the sweet scents of the garden, how the creaking gate whispered, and a footstep skimmed over the sand, how she then entered, so fragrant, and then fell into my two arms! Ah sweetest of kiss, languorous caresses, while I stood trembling, searching her features concealed by her mantle. My dreams of pure love, forgotten forever! All of it's gone now! I die hopeless, despairing, and never before have I loved life like this!

Pagliacci, "Laugh off the pain..."

Recitar! Mentre preso dal delirio,non so più quel che dico,e quel che faccio!Eppur è d'uopo, sforzati!Bah! sei tu forse un uom?Tu se' Pagliaccio!
Vesti la giubba,e la faccia infarina.La gente paga, e rider vuole qua.E se Arlecchin t'invola Colombina,ridi, Pagliaccio, e ognun applaudirà!Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il piantoin una smorfia il singhiozzo e 'l dolor, Ah!
Ridi, Pagliaccio,sul tuo amore infranto!Ridi del duol, che t'avvelena il cor!

On With The Show
Go on stage, while I'm nearly delirious?I don't know what I'm saying or what I'm doing!And yet, chin up! I'll try harder.Bah, you think you're a man?You're just a clown!On with the show, man, and put on your white-face.The people pay you and you must make them laugh.And if Harlequin should steal your Columbine,laugh, you're Pagliaccio, and the world will clap for you!Turn into banter all your pain and sorrow,and with your clown's face hide grief and distress...Laugh loud, Pagliaccio, forget all your troubles,Laugh off the pain that so empoisons your heart.

home, again...incipit vita nouva...

2008-11-25T19:51:00.001-08:00

"To every loving, gentle-hearted friend ": Mozart's Rondo in D, K485
(find part of it on YouTube, played by Annie Fischer, then you will search for the whole piece until you find it...then you will send the link to all your friends...

Inspired by poetry...

2008-10-16T01:39:00.000-07:00

in the form of a fairy tale...from the golden hand of the great Arany...the story lying dormant on the shelves...the moment of need not accidentally forces open the pages...to fill with awe and joy...back to childhood with the speed of light...was worth the wait all these decades...evens the dull day...manyfold...and the next

Birth-of-a blog edition

2008-10-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

It will happen to you, too...one day you decide to set one up...hesitate at the title , then at the url...then it just falls into place...naturally...the results are instant feedback to the analyst...you are (con)figured...and in print...open to all curious...fortunately, you are not that interesting...not in depth...but...got stuck at the profile when realized connections to total strangers...via our liking a certain film or music...who is he...wonder...she in Scotland liking Bergman...we have this in common... imagine...kinship, just like that...