The year I was born my parents greeted
their first-born child, with three more
to follow at substantial intervals, all
to an immigrant family living in pride and
poverty, escapees from racial bigotry
social and institutional violence seeing
no possible future for themselves where
they were born. It was, coincidentally the
year that Nazi Germany denied the
League of Nation having any business
interfering in the way it treated Jews. In
that year of 1936 Britain's King George
died, making way for the ascension of
Edward VIII; Hitler opened the 4th
Winter Olympics; 4 million French workers
went on strike; racists almost beat Leon Blum
to death; the Hindenburg had its first test
flight; Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles
Jews were warned of arrest should they
attempt to vote; Italy, Austria and Hungary
signed the pact of Rome; Britain, the U.S.
and France signed a naval accord; Italy
firebombed Harar, Ethiopia; Arab
highwaymen near Nablus killed three Jews;
Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Jaffa;
General Francisco Franco began the
Spanish civil war; The "Nazi Games" of
the 11th Olympic
games opened in Berlin;
Benito Mussolini celebrated his "axis"
with Nazi Germany; A British Royal
Commission investigated the underlying
cause
of anti-Jewish riots which the Arab
Higher Committee boycotted; Japan and
Nazi Germany signed the Anti-Komintern
pact; Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Georgia
Kazakhstan and Kirghistan joined the USSR;
Edward VIII
abdicated for Wallis Warfield
Simpson; and humble me was born.
Willingly, eagerly he lent himself and his
unrivalled medical expertise to a mission
few others would undertake, one that
reflected his status in the world of science
as a microbiologist determined to study
and to discover, in a world of passive
agony how to relieve the deadly burden
of pathogenic infection hurtling lost souls
to death as viruses swept the world in
deadly transmissions of historical dimension.
The loss of colleagues to those same morbid
threats, the pain of witness to countless
and growing death counts, the strain of
challenging his medical brain to greater
effort, the wearying hours and endless grief
took its toll sparing his life while urging
relief in alcoholic pacification of misery.
High-functioning, he diagnosed himself as
an alcoholic still capable of high performance
directing with finesse and acuity the vital
work of a world-class laboratory tasked to
solve nature's most malign threats to human
existence. Alcohol in excess taking its
bodily toll, slowly lulling him toward certain
death, he lent himself to a new experiment
to wire his brain with electric impulses
lifting his appetite for alcohol, manageably
restoring his zest for life, grateful for the
opportunity to indulge in ordinary routines.
Still young, another lifetime before him
acclaim resonating for past success and
future viability as a lecturer still in demand
that future was abruptly cancelled. R.I.P.
Granted, he is a loathsomely grubby
human being whose exploits in every
endeavour both personal and business
are replete with blotches of greed and
unsavoury conduct, slathered with outright
contempt for others, all of which make of
him a most disagreeable man. Yet there
is the reality that this man has the
approval of a great public enabling him
in his new guise as politician to ascend
the executive order of first among leaders
of the free world, a public act of trust and
disgust in the actions of those preceding
him in that exalted office. For all of
that it was an exercise in democracy
with unforeseen results yet for every
action there are consequential reactions.
Honour and respect the role of a citizenry
to elect to public office that individual
they deem in their collective wisdom to
exemplify qualities of leadership and
wise counsel. Or oppose his ascension
in the bitterest of partisan reproaches then
employ every conceivable method to
depose his rule and flout the Republic's
devotion to the people's right to select
their government. And flout it they did
in the process devoutly portraying the
man in terms beyond his countless faults
displaying their own wretched descent
into resentful blame absent due cause
as they chose to brandish entitlement to
besmirch constitutional rights in a pique
of rancorous fury that all indices of an
office well administered salvaged him.
Libraries are not merely storehouses
of knowledge and entertainment
for though they are that and more
much more, they are a universe of
wonders awaiting discovery, each
volume a star revolving about their
shelves awaiting the opportunity to
bring to the minds of the curious
worlds they may never have known
existed, through an alphabet of words
and expressions whose content and
sentiment open vast vistas of the
imagination, inviting the reader to
indulge their brains and invest their
time in a pursuit whose outcome is
pure pleasure reserved for leisure
hours of relaxation as you delve into
the experience and locations of those
you will never meet other than in the
pages of absorbing content. There is
nothing mysterious or arcane of the
hunger within awaiting satiation in a
library. The mystery is there, however
how it is possible that some may live
their incomplete lives never perusing
the live print of an absorbing book. In
the final analysis it is the omnivorous
reader whose mind becomes a library.
Suspended in the primal aqueous
security of our mothers' wombs
we take presence in the genetic soup
that forms us, absorb our mothers'
plaintive whispers of accented fear
experience beyond memory the pain
and anguish that will mark our days.
Leavened by primordial nature's
ever-evolving displays of being
and the opportunities we are enjoined
to grasp, complementing destinies
fulfilling souls' desires. In the process
finding elusive pleasures. Discovering
possibilities, clasping them close
and in a lifetime hurling ourselves
into the future, the reality of life.
Neatly side-stepping when we may
the imperial realities of all existence that
inform and forewarn us, even while
we studiously look elsewhere
preferentially remain oblivious
to that long and steady journey
an imperative we cannot deny.
But then, why linger on the distant
inevitability when we can take comfort
in the meaningful present. Impressions are
what form our memory, our being
clasped close to the heart of who we are.
While we are here, the who and what we
are is what must consume our being.
The essential dynamics of human trust
are elemental; sincerity, truthfulness and
open communication. Rare qualities to be
sure when two groups face one another in
an irresolvable struggle where one speaks
of inheritance while the other accuses those
of timeless existence in the disputed area of
being interlopers, false claimants to land
contestants intend to share with none other
than their own. The wisdom of Solomon
put to the test judging whom between them
proffers the more valid argument when it is
an ancient temple dedicated to the almighty
which his era and his order established. Yet
his successors in the land of Judea where
his descendants have never failed to worship
and till the land welcoming an ingathering
diaspora's return are violently assailed by
challengers to a dry and history-dusted land
transformed by their enterprise to verdant
productively arable orchards, yet must turn
their ploughshares to military defence against
counter-claimants adamantly resistant to the
peoples' presence in a land of their own. So
frequently have the offers of apportioning and
friendship been refused the bridegroom is no
longer invested in cohabitation with the
sullen bride, left to bitterly call upon her
extended family to destroy the home that
might, with earned trust, have been her own.
Just so sick and tired of it all, predictable
and unexciting, all the promise in life
doled out to others with half your talent
and personality and it's just so bloody
infuriating. Well, there's this: for quality
excitement, imagine living in a country
whose dictator has spent years bombing
the hell out of people who don't appreciate
his rule. And then there's the suspense of
living in a tiny country surrounded by
other nations prepared to do just about
anything to destroy you and yours aided
and abetted by paramilitaries for whom
there are no rules not meant to be broken.
Right, you skate like the devil and get
that puck past any goalie and on a soccer
field you're the guy to watch. Your charisma
attracts women like monkeys to bananas
but they're not the elite brand and you're
sick of them. You can't afford the thrill
of climbing the Himalayas, much less
passage to the moon or a trip to see the
melting glaciers on Antarctica. You haven't
experienced a tornado, a tsunami, a flood
volcanic eruption or earthquake. Life
could be a blast, but for you it's a bust and
the best you can hope for is secluding
yourself with video games emulating
war and natural catastrophes but it's just
not good enough and you rage revenge
on life, so who needs it? Life was all so
different in the good old days of pillage
and conquest and rape and destruction, so
much to live for. So, furtively, off you go.
