Freitag, Juli 29, 2016

The Waiting Game

July 29/2016
Two close friends have been treated for cancer lately, one we buried 2 days ago. He suffered from leukemia and died within 2 months following the diagnosis.

The 2nd. one, a former lady riding friend of mine, had a severe accident breaking her pelvis and head over a year ago falling in her home and had been in a nursing home after her recuperation time. She had been a strong smoker and during her healing time was diagnosed with lung cancer, going through chemo and all what comes with it. I often visited with her in the nursing home, but then we had always been in her room. Yesterday, on account of  the nice  weather,we decided to sit in the garden and for me that really turned into the little horror picture show. Those poor desolate figures sitting around waiting fo a ridiculous game of throwing a ring into the middle of a circle, that measely,small glass of mean tasting water which was handed out (they were generous,I got one too) the leery fat man in his huge wheelchair who kept pulling stupid jokes all the time, thinking he was the bull in the ring of poor old cows....and then the 3 little ladies, sitting at the other end of our table, one pulled out a game of MENSCH ÄRGERE DICH NICHT , setting the board up and for a start dropping the little figurines to the ground, which I picked up..and then..oh horror..asked me if I would like to join in. I denied, very politely and told them that already as a kid I hated that game.
And then I told my friend I had to leave (could not stay another minute)
and going out I begged the Lord that I would never end up in a place like that, told him that I had not been so bad that I deserved this.
No joking, the only way you could get me into a place like that would be when I had lost my mind.

Mittwoch, Juli 27, 2016

The Pride of a Nation

july 27/2016

Listening to the speeches at the election conventions you are confronted on the democratic side with brilliant , on the republican side with biased spiteful words, but all those speeches have one thing in common...they are full of patriotism and pride of the United States.

Now...I have been a child who grew up mainly after the 2nd world war and what I mostly learned about my country was that it started a war and that we have to live with and pay for a tremendous collective guilt. This, I think, is nothing to be proud of in your formative years. So over the years growing up I tried to develop myself into an openminded, interested ,unbiased individual, who started to be critical about her own country in the first place. And that brings me back to my point of viewing other countries and especially the United States.

O.k..America never lost a war in this and the previous century, but they have failed miserably in countries like Vietnam, Iraque and Afghanistan p.e.  and they have not, till up to day managed to solve the problem with a minoity of their people whom they call african americans. The ancestors of those people have been brought to ,at that time America, against their will, have been  kept as slaves and after they had been "freed" not integrated but left apart and alone without a chance to develop themselves into free people with equal rights. O.k. now you have a black president but alone the fact that he is called a "black" president speaks for itself.

So to be honest, I do not see a reason in this excessive pride in this country which is excercised at those conventions.
 Mistakes  and that goes for all over the world, should not be swept under the carpet  but should teach us to strive for a better world.

I wish in the case of the US elections I could say...might the better one win, but I see no better one and I see one who will ruin the country and the world.


Freitag, Juli 08, 2016

Insight of an Outsider

July 08/2016
I have been born an raised in Germany. As a child who had been growing up during hardship times for Germany  I watched this Nazi country step by step making efforts to turn into a democracy. I was eager to experience and learn about foreign countries, their people and the way they live. I have been to the United States to different states about twenty times and everytime I had been overwhelmed by the beauty of the landscape and the friendliness of the people. Never once (except for my last trip) I met  and talked to a black person face to face. Of course I saw black people in the cities, but for me they were the same  like seeing an asian or east indian person. They ..for me..were Americans living in America. But then, with social media, I met a young black lady and over the years I got to know her a little bit (a lovely, brave ,bright and diligent woman) and  through her made the aquaintance ( by internet) with quite a few of her black friends. And suddenly a completely different way of life and thinking opened up to me , as a matter of fact a completely different America . Up to then I had presumed people just live ,according to life standards , next to each other, but there were different neighbourhoods,different churches, different schools and even different universities. And if you looked at pictures, the crowds of people were pure black, seldom you saw a white face. And the presumed superiority of the white communities I found strange and frightening. That black people had to be afraid for their lifes and that of their children just on account of the colour of their skin in a country which called itself the "land of the free"....incomprehensable!
This really got me to thinking about the trouble boiling up right now and where the white people stand in this. There must be enough sensible white people around who would be shocked and full of compassion! 
...And that brings me back to the beginning of my story. America is such a huge country and many states are just not confronted with this problem. For them it is far away like in another land. Therefore they do not think about it,let alone care. 
It really appears that there are two Americas. Will they ever unite?
People will have to learn that if you cut  yourself you bleed the same, black or white.