Neighborly connections

 

Am I a good neighbor? I'd like to think that I am. When I hear the word "neighbor," I often think of the last line of Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall": Good fences make good neighbors. Living in an apartment building I don't have an actual fence, of course, but there certainly are metaphorical ones. Like many New Yorkers, I generally don't engage in more than a "Good morning" when I meet a neighbor in the elevator or lobby of my building.

I consider myself an introvert. I like other people, in fact I love some of them, but I also enjoy my own company. I remember reading a long time ago that one of the differences between extroverts and introverts is that extroverts draw energy from others, while for introverts like me, too much human interaction sucks the energy right out of us. If I'm at a social gathering and it's too "peopley" I may soon yearn to return home, cuddle with my cat and take a nap. 

I'm not a complete loner and do enjoy the company of people I know, especially in smaller groups. For some strange reason, I've been interacting more with my neighbors of late, and not just those who live in my building, but the neighbors I encounter on my daily strolls, including the hungry, the homeless and the immigrant. 

I need only walk a few blocks from my home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to encounter someone sitting on the sidewalk begging. I rarely give these people money but if I have food on me I may offer them some, or if I'm in a particularly gregarious mood, I may offer to buy them a meal. A couple of weeks ago, I encountered a young man with a cardboard sign that said (in English) "help me get food for my son" or something like that. A child of about 8 or 9 years old was with him. My first reaction was irritation -- that he was using the child as a prop -- but something about either the man or the boy melted away the negative feeling and I decided to offer my help. I asked what he would like to eat but quickly realized that he spoke only Spanish. I've studied French, Italian and German, but never Spanish, though I've learned a few words from volunteering at a local food bank. Through a combination of my broken Spanish, a little Italian and some sign language, I was able to convey that I would get him sandwiches with "huevo, queso y jamon" and some orange juice. I walked a couple of blocks to a diner to get the sandwiches, then stopped at the grocery store and bought a large container of OJ. When I returned with the food and juice both he and the boy said "thank you" in English. I then inquired in my Italo-Spanglish where he was from (Venezuela) and how long he had been here (3 months). I walked away with the joyous feeling of having done a good deed, and it honestly made my day. 

A few days later, I made both myself and a senior gentleman (perhaps homeless, perhaps just hungry) happy when I bought him the slice of pizza and Sprite he had requested. This man spoke perfect English so that wasn't an issue. I asked his name and told him mine, then walked back home with a smile on my face.

Several days after that, I had a less satisfying encounter with a stranger who seemed to be in need of help. It was the middle of the afternoon and I was on my way to the post office in my neighborhood, when I was stopped by a young man who appeared in some distress. He didn't look homeless (his clothes were clean) and he didn't smell bad or seem crazy. I decided to stop for a moment and listen to him. He said he had been jumped and robbed of his wallet and train ticket and just wanted to get back home to Westchester, after having spent a night on a park bench. He said he filed a police report but they didn't help him or give him money to get home. (I don't know whether that's something police usually do.) Anyway, giving him the benefit of the doubt, and trying to retain my faith in humanity, I pulled out my wallet and handed him all the change I had, along with a $5 bill. He saw that I had a twenty and asked for it, but I said I couldn't give him that. He then got irate, insisting that I could afford to give him the twenty, and started cursing at me. I was still stunned as he walked away (with the $5 and change). All I could think to respond was, "very nice language!" as the man and his f-bombs faded into the distance. I felt foolish and angry that I had been suckered so easily, but resolved not to let this incident sour my view of humanity, or my impulse to help. Next time, I may not be so willing to give a helpless fellow human any cash, but I will continue to offer food and kindness on occasion to my neighbors on the Upper West Side, or farther afield, be they homeless, migrants, addicts, or even the occasional scammer. Bad people need to eat, too.

Why are my friends and family so weird?

I love my friends and family, honestly I do. But almost every single one of them irritates (or sometimes infuriates) me. Obviously, no one is perfect, not even me, but recently, I've become more aware of the flaws and foibles of those I love.

Maybe it's me -- maybe I'm becoming less tolerant and more crotchety. Or maybe it's the increasingly polarized and hostile environment we live in, especially as November 5 approaches. Or maybe they're all just weird. 

Now as you're reading this, don't try to figure out whether you (my beloved friend or family member) are one of those people to whom I am referring. Are you the one with whom I cannot discuss politics or religion? Are you the one who seems to "know it all" and loves the sound of his or her own voice? Are you and I constantly disagreeing on the most trivial of subjects? Do our conversations, messaging chains or social media exchanges nearly always result in a futile argument?

I've been making a conscious effort to be a better person -- not that I was a bad person previously. Perhaps it's the influence of Ethical Culture, as I've been attending meetings more frequently of late. As noted above, none of us are perfect, and there's always room for improvement. I believe that one is never too old to be open to new ideas and adjust one's attitude and behavior as warranted. 

I've come to realize that analyzing the faults of others is actually a useful exercise, and does not have to generate negativity. Even the act of writing this blogpost has inspired me to look inward, as well as outward. I will continue to examine, adjust, tolerate and reflect on the imperfections in both myself and others. As discussed in my previous blogpost, to do good is my religion, and I will strive to help and inspire others, and to spread love, not discord. 

Peace out.

Seeking spirituality and finding my religion

There's a spectrum in spirituality -- from Atheist to Agnostic; from Deist to Theist. People define spirituality and religion in different ways. For many, a deity must be involved, and there are degrees of religiosity -- from casual acceptance of a general theology (e.g. identifying as "Christian" but without attachment to one of the three main branches) to steadfast adherence to a specific dogma or denomination. I've written a few posts here that touch on religion: "Death - the dreaded D word", " You never know what you might find in the Bible", and "Identity." If you read those you will likely get some insight into my beliefs (or lack thereof) on such concepts as god/God, science and the supernatural.

I am among those who believe that a deity is not required for someone to be spiritual or even religious. Sometimes in trying to explain my beliefs to others I get bogged down with semantics. How do we define spirituality? How do we define religion? My take on it (and it's my blog so that's what counts here) is that we can all decide the definition that feels right for each of us. I generally tell people who ask (and it comes up more often than you might think) that my religion is Unitarian Universalist Ethical Culturist. I am a member of two fellowships: The Unitarian Church of Staten Island and the New York Society for Ethical Culture. They do not contradict each other in any meaningful way, only in style and expression.

In casual conversation with people who don't know me very well, I sometimes just for brevity's sake say I'm agnostic or not religious. Many of my family members are devoutly attached to a specific theology (Fundamentalist Christianity for the majority of the folks on my father's side of the family, and a few Reform Jews on my mother's). Neither of my parents were "religious" in the colloquial meaning of the word, but that's a conversation for another blog post.

But if I channel the spirit of Thomas Paine, I can (somewhat) confidently say that I am indeed religious. I am also a spiritual person, even though I don't believe in the supernatural. Paine said, "...to do good is my religion" and that is the way I try to live my life. I have explored various religions and continue to debate with myself the existence of a god or gods. But with 60+ years of life experience, I've come to understand that I don't have to answer the age-old questions -- does God exist and if so what does He want from me -- to practice my two religions of Unitarian Universalism and Ethical Culture. Not all members of my community consider Ethical Culture a religion, but again, that's really just semantics. Call it what you want, but ultimately, what matters to me is not what you believe but what you do. Deed before creed.

OH MY GOD! Intoxicating earworms and the seduction of music

 “OMG” by José Iglesias is one of my current earworms (you know, those songs that annoyingly get stuck in one’s head). Released in June, the song quickly hit the top of the Latin pop charts. For those of you who follow baseball, yes, I mean that José Iglesias. Exuberant and joyful, "OMG" has become the song of the summer for Mets fans like me. I don’t understand most of the lyrics (aside from the few English words, including the refrain, “Oh My God”), but I found the Spanish lyrics online and used Google to translate. Iglesias has been killing it on the field with amazing slugging and stellar defense – as of July 15th he had an OPS of .999 in 79 at bats – and now he’s a Latin pop star! He was even invited to sing at MLB’s Home Run Derby this year.

An earworm can be anything from a catchy pop tune to a rousing patriotic march to a serene and ethereal aria. If there are lyrics, it doesn’t matter whether it’s sung in a language I understand. I’ve studied French, Italian and German, and can understand a little bit of Spanish (similar enough to Italian), as well as some Yiddish and Dutch (both Germanic languages). But Helmut Lotti’s interpretation of the Russian National Anthem, and Shai Abramson’s rendition of “Eretz Tzvi” (in Hebrew) – sung in languages I don’t understand, whether written or auditory – fill me with delight at the musicality and passion with which they are performed by these extraordinary vocalists. The mood of the melody can range from the sublime – “Ombra mai fu” from Handel’s Serses – to the ridiculous – Snollebollekes’ “Links Rechts” (especially as danced to by the Orange Army in the streets of Berlin).

 

I cannot quite fathom the persistence of earworms in the brain – what they signify, what purpose they serve, or how to get rid of them. Mine play in my head like a mixtape on a loop, hopping from one song or orchestral piece to another, with seemingly little control from my conscious mind. Usually the only effective way to evict an earworm is to replace it with another. Then to YouTube I go, searching for a mesmerizing tune to kick out the old song and replace it with a new one, which will then play until my neurological needle spontaneously shifts to another melody, and then back again. As I am composing this blogpost right now, Cecilia Bartoli’s rendition of “Ombra mai fu” (see above) continues to play in my brain. If the largo of that aria becomes too sedating, I can up the ante (and the tempo) by switching to something jazzier, like “Daydream Believer” by the Monkeys or Paul Russell’s “Lil Boo Thang.” And though I’m neither British nor religious, mentally playing a patriotic hymn like “Jerusalem” or “I Vow to Thee, My Country” (particularly as intoned by Ramin Karimloo) is a sure way to elevate the mood.

 

I’ve previously written several posts about music, both here and on my other blog, “World War II…with a German accent.” For reasons I don’t fully comprehend, there is nearly always a soundtrack playing in my head, like some sort of cerebral tinnitus. It seems to have a mind of its own, so I think it’s best that I learn to live with it, and enjoy humming along.

There is no nice way to kill someone

On January 25, 2024, Alabama crossed the threshold into the “cruel and unusual” with the execution by nitrogen hypoxia of convicted murderer Kenneth Smith. After the Supreme Court declined to intervene (over the objections of the three liberal justices), Mr. Smith became the first prisoner in the United States executed by this method. Despite claims by Alabama state lawyers that this method of execution would ensure “unconsciousness in seconds,” the five Alabama journalists who witnessed the execution reported that Mr. Smith “shook and writhed” for at least two minutes before beginning to breathe heavily for several minutes. According to one of the journalists, Lee Hedgepeth, Mr. Smith’s head moved back and forth violently in the minutes after the execution began. “This was the fifth execution that I’ve witnessed in Alabama, and I have never seen such a violent reaction to an execution,” Mr. Hedgepeth stated. This was the second time Alabama had attempted to kill Mr. Smith. In a failed lethal injection in November 2022, he was strapped to a gurney but the executioners were unable to find a suitable vein.

Death penalty proponents will argue that whatever pain and distress the murderer suffered in his last few minutes on earth paled in comparison to the agony of his victim and the monstrousness of his crime. For full disclosure, I am an opponent of capital punishment and have been for most of my life. There was a time when I questioned the usefulness and morality of executions and hedged in my opposition after a particularly grisly and senseless murder that occurred in New York City many decades ago. During a robbery, several employees of a fast food restaurant were forced to lie on the floor and were then shot in the back of the head. One can also point to such monsters as Adolf Hitler as examples of criminals whose acts argue strenuously for the ultimate penalty.

My opposition to capital punishment was reaffirmed about 20 years ago after reading Scott Turow’s non-fiction book, Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty. Too many individuals have been exonerated from death row in the United States since capital punishment was reinstituted by the Gregg v. Georgia decision in 1976. (That reversed Furman v. Georgia, in which SCOTUS found the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972.) There is also indisputable evidence of a racial and economic bias in the application of capital punishment in the US. Members of minority groups, as well as poor people, are much more likely to be sentenced to death compared to affluent or white people who are convicted of similar crimes. I am convinced that there is no fair way to apply the death penalty, and furthermore, it is much more costly to the state than life imprisonment. It may seem counterintuitive, but it is actually cheaper to house and feed a murderer for the rest of his life than to execute him, due to the complexity of the appeal process in this country. Then simplify the appeal process, I hear you say. That would only increase the likelihood of an innocent person being put to death, as I believe has already occurred in the decades since Gregg v. Georgia.

The United States is nearly alone among Western democracies in retaining the death penalty. Of the 193 member states of the United Nations, only 28% maintain capital punishment in both law and practice, while 55% have abolished it completely, including the most recent abolitionist countries of Papua New Guinea, the Central African Republic, Sierra Leone and Kazakhstan. According to Amnesty International, the United States is the only nation in the Western Hemisphere that carried out any executions (18 of them) in 2022. The Russian Federation, by comparison, has not carried out an execution since 1996 and there is currently an indefinite moratorium in place, making it de facto abolitionist. Countries with the highest number of executions per year include China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Application of the death penalty is at best problematic and at worst inhumane. After a period of dithering some years ago, I have returned to my Ethical Culture roots in opposing capital punishment on both religious and humanitarian grounds. As a young child I attended Ethical Culture Sunday School, and still recall reading Algernon Black’s The First Book of Ethics, a children’s book which deals with a number of moral issues including the death penalty. Besides the moral quandary of taking a human life, something I feel we have no right to do, capital punishment as it is carried out in America is far from error or pain free, and cannot be equitably applied. From hanging to electrocution to lethal injection, most methods used in the US have fallen short of being reliably swift and painless. Some experts posit that death by firing squad would be the most humane method, but we have eschewed it for decades, likely because although we as a species sometimes thirst for blood, we don’t actually want to see it. The sensibilities of those charged with carrying out executions, as well as those who must witness them, have apparently been figured into the choice of method. There really is no nice way of killing someone, and I suggest that it is not worth the cost or trouble, when life without parole is a pragmatic and just alternative.

*****

Note: I wrote this post before I read the excellent piece in the New York Times about one death row inmate's spiritual journey. If you like my blog, I think you will find this of interest too:

NYTimes.com: An Atheist Chaplain and a Death Row Inmate’s Final Hours

Why cats are better than boyfriends

 

Ah yes, the age-old question... Which is better -- a cat or a boyfriend? And so as not to be sexist or speciesist, one can readily substitute "dog" for "cat" and "girlfriend" for "boyfriend."

I have been a widow for over 18 years, and have not had a boyfriend (unless you count the month I dated Steve in the summer of 2007) since before I married my late husband in 1992. 

Since May 2021, I have been sharing my home with Dexter, a rescue kitty whom the vet guesstimated was about 3 years old at the time he was taken off the streets. I had not had a pet of any kind in over 30 years, and the last time I had shared a home with a cat was in 1986 when I was still living at my father's house. (My first apartment was only a couple of blocks from my dad's house, so I could visit his kitties whenever I wanted.)

I have compiled an easy reference table, so that you can compare the relative merits of "cat" vs. "boyfriend" (or "dog" vs. "girlfriend" as the case may be):

I trust you will find this table useful. You may wish to consult it before committing to your next feline or hominoidean relationship.

From warmongering to peacekeeping – symbols/cymbals of war and peace

I have always found men in uniform particularly attractive, and military parades can be an uplifting spectacle. I recently posted a link to the Großer Zapfenstreich ceremony in honor of Angela Merkel’s departure as German chancellor. It is a beautiful tribute if you like that sort of thing, which I do.

 

Yet as a peace-loving person, I wonder why I’m so enthralled by military ceremonies. Isn’t it really about glorifying war and making cannon fodder palatable? Why must we dignify bloodshed? We rightly honor soldiers who have risked and sometimes sacrificed life and limb protecting our country. My own father served in World War II in the US Army in Burma, China and India. Fortunately, he was in the signal corps and never had to shoot anyone, or get shot at himself. My dad never considered himself a pacifist, and felt that the war he served in was a just one. Yet some of my earliest memories are of him and my mom taking me and my brother to anti-Vietnam War rallies in the 1960’s. As a small child, I understood that war was bad and peace was good. I feared that my brother might be drafted someday; he was 16 when the war ended. Having grown up in wartime, I assumed that war was a normal condition that could go on indefinitely.

 

As an author of World War II fiction, I have done a lot of research on that war, particularly on the German army since one of the main characters in my first novel is a German soldier. I’ve read numerous soldiers’ memoirs, as well as books about the Third Reich, its victims and its perpetrators. I’ve also studied the German language and am interested in German culture and history – an appeal spurred both by my research and by my German-American ancestry.

 

My interest in things German and the allure of things military logically intersect in my enjoyment of pomp and ceremony as performed by the Musikkorps der Bundeswehr and in the precision drills of the Wachbataillon beim Bundesministerium der Verteidigung. Perhaps my recent purchase of the “Unterm Schellenbaum” CD is not entirely surprising.

 

For those not as immersed in military history as I am, the “Schellenbaum” (also known as the “Jingling Johnnie,” “Turkish crescent” or “Chapeau Chinois”) is a fascinating musical instrument used by the armies of various nations for centuries. Today’s German defense forces are one of the few in the world who retain its use. You can read more about the instrument here.

 

The Wehrmacht had its own version of the Schellenbaum, with horsetail plumes in the black, white and red of the Nazi flag. Some people still get the Wehrmacht (the German forces during WWII) mixed up with the Bundeswehr, today’s German military, who employ the tricolors of the Federal Republic of Germany – black, red and gold – in their Schellenbaum and in other emblems.

 

 

Abroad, and even inside Germany today, many are apprehensive of the spectacle of uniformed soldiers, marching in lockstep to martial music and reverently displaying national symbols. I wrote a blogpost many years ago in which I discussed the aversion some Germans have to displays of national pride and patriotism. This is understandable considering Germany’s not-too-distant history of belligerence and militarism.

 

Today’s Bundeswehr serves as a defense force, and not as an aggressor, if that can possibly be avoided. The participation of the German military in such conflicts as the Afghan war as a member of NATO’s security force, and as part of the UN mission in Mali are considered peacekeeping operations. Germany’s contingent in the Mali mission was the largest of any European nation, with a slightly larger contribution of soldiery than that of China, a country with 17 times the population of Germany. The US contingent was tiny, if measured on a per capita basis.

 

For your edification and entertainment, here are a few YouTube videos about the Schellenbaum, German military history, and the Bundeswehr. Even if you don’t understand the German language, you may find them of interest:

 

How to assemble a bell tree (German Schellenbaum) - Navy Musikkorps Kiel and the jingling Johnny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHhjmtUvUwE

Schellenbaum - Jingling Johnny - assembly, usage, disassembly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnqRh16nlnI

Protokollsoldat aus Leidenschaft - Zugführerin (“female platoon leader”) im Wachbataillon der Bundeswehr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aZeI2r5ZUY&t=114s

Mali returnees roll call on December 15, 2023 in Wunstorf:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=RTRv-9ffqv4

German Empire - Gangsta's Paradise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJIUZSHRToE&t=283s

*****

This is the first “dual-post” that I am simultaneously publishing on both of my blogs: “Musings and discoveries” and “World War II…with a German accent.” You can view my other blog here: 

https://lisbetheng.blogspot.com/