Category: LIFE

FOLLOWING OUR MOTHER RUTH: THE STORY OF A CONVERSION

Mikvah
We had a party Saturday.  Ice cream cake, fruit, songs and verses.  It wasn’t exactly a birthday party, but kind of.  It’s very tough to convert to Orthodox Judaism. Rabbis ask you over and over if you’re serious.  You have to study.  You have to read out loud in Hebrew.  You have to answer questions to a board of 3 (male) rabbis.  Then, you have to immerse yourself in a Mikvah. It’s the culmination of several years of study and soul-searching.

So we had a party today.  To celebrate a young woman who had navigated the process and, just this past week, emerged from the waters  – Jewish.  As she spoke to the assembled women she told us not just about her own journey, but, in a way, about our own.  Unable to begin without tears, she decided first to read the passage that seemed to her to describe where she’d been – and where she’s landed.  (Another convert friend of mine told me she’s clung to the same verses   — they have particular meaning to those who choose to become Jewish and "go where we go.")  Standing at one end of a table covered with ice cream cake and fruit
and surrounded by many of the women of our congregation gathered in her
honor, she began to read.

Mother-in-law Naomi is
trying to convince her widowed daughter-in-law Ruth to go back to her own
nation and not suffer with her.

But
Ruth answered, “Don’t ask me to leave you!  Let me go with you.  Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live,
I will live.  Your people will be my
people, and your God will be my God.  Wherever you die, I will die, and that is
where I will be buried.  May the LORD’s
worst punishment come upon me if I let anything but death separate me from you!”

The story represents much of what she feels about her new life.  Her choice: to meet the very demanding requirements of conversion and join the tribe that I was born into and, for much of my life, lived within – accepting my identity as a Jew but very little else. 

In many ways, I have made the same choices she did.  Compared to the way I live now, the Judaism I knew then was an  identity easily moved aside when inconvenient.  Now, after four years of increasingly observant life, my identity is so tangled with my Judaism that there’s no way to pretend it isn’t there, isn’t affecting all I see and every choice I make.  They call it "the yoke of heaven" — acceptance of the rules handed down so long ago.  It looks so weird from the outside, so whether you’re my young friend choosing to become a Jew, or me, choosing to actually live like one, you’re somewhat set apart by your decisions.  Keep kosher – you can’t eat in most restaurants or even at your old friends’ homes.  Observe the Sabbath, you can’t go see Great Big Sea or Bruce Springsteen or a good friend’s 40th birthday party because they’re on Friday night.  Honor the holidays and you may antagonize clients and risk losing business.  And sometimes, friends, and even family, look askance, withdraw or just shake their heads.

Even so, what my friend has chosen — what my husband and I have chosen — what the community of friends we love has chosen – is a life rife with meaning and commitment, with tangible goals to be better, more honorable, more committed beings with an informing value system and sense of purpose. After a lifetime that was pretty successful and often seemed glamorous and highly visible, this is a choice of which I am very proud.  Different from before, but at least as demanding intellectually, ethicially and emotionally as any other stop on my life’s journey.  In many ways, it has allowed me to rediscover the person I used to think I was, and liked – as a writer, a thinker, a wife and mother and friend.    I am grateful that I have found it, and so very glad that this generous and articulate young woman reminded me, through the moving and exquisite reflections on her own choice, just why I made mine.

 

OUR SOLDIERS, OURSELVES: RAPE IN THE U.S. MILITARY

Women_army_2_gunsRemember Private Benjamin?  Goldie Hawn goes from princess to private and grows up.  That 1980 film was a combination of feminism, coming-of-age and just plain funny.  But that’s not how the U.S. military treats its women.  Maybe not then, but certainly not now.  In fact, we’re allowing our soldier sisters to suffer at unthinkable rates.  It’s beyond shameful.  Representative Jane Harman details the horror (no, I am not exaggerating – this is every woman’s version of a horror movie) in this LA Times op ed republished on Alternet.  This is from Harman’s piece:

The scope of the problem
was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA
Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw
dropped when the doctors told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic
say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report
being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued
terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives
have since taken.

Numbers reported by the
Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults
were reported — 73% more than in 2004. The DOD’s newest report, released this
month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from
calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data
from previous years much more difficult.

What level of misogyny, anger, or malignant neglect allows this to be the way we treat 20% of our military?  It’s an insult to their service and to every American woman and yet another shameful chapter in our relationship with those who would protect us.  Does it seem to anyone else that Abu Ghraib and our other abuses of Iraqi prisoners and the abuse of women in our own military both demonstrate a terrible loss of humanity among at least some of our soliders?   

I remember reading a book called ABSOLUTELY AMERICAN, about the meritocracy that is West Point.  There was a time, recently, when the Army, at least, had moved very far from its less attractive traits and was struggling, by training leaders well, to guarantee that abuses did not happen in the future.  I wish I knew what has happened; whether they never got below the surface,  whether it’s the fact that so many of our soldiers are National Guard and just not as well-trained, or simply that there’s a surfeit of anger in our military (and out here, too.)

Beyond the acts themselves, there’s not even much punishment. Here’s more of Harman’s piece:

At the heart of this crisis is
an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks.
According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for
sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to
courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military.
Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge,
and 201 subjects were disciplined through "nonjudicial punishment,"
which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or
received a similar slap on the wrist. In nearly half of the cases investigated,
the chain of command took no action; more than a third of the time, that was
because of "insufficient evidence."

Anyone who pays any attention to this issue, or even who’s ever watched LAW AND ORDER knows that rape is a crime of dominance and hate, not a sexual crime.  That means that every one of those rapes is an act of rage against a woman — and a fellow soldier.  And that in all the years that women have been part of active military duty, we haven’t dealt with that rage.  And that if it’s that prevalent in the military, it’s probably still floating around out here in the rest of the world at a hefty rate too.  And apparently, however far we’ve come as women in and out of the military, just below the surface is something big, angry and very scary indeed.

.

THE PLACE TO BE: ROGER MUDD’S NEW BOOK AND SO MANY MEMORIES

Roger_mudd_book
In 1968, when I was working in the McCarthy Campaign against the Vietnam War, one of the producers traveling with the campaign asked me to come work with her at the CBS News Washington Bureau when the campaign ended.  I was thrilled.  I had, however, no idea how thrilled I really should be. Imagine a 21-year-old, just out of college and the trauma of the riots in Chicago and McCarthy’s loss of the Democratic nomination (yes, we knew it would happen, but not in our hearts), walking through the door of 2020 M St. NW – the august CBS News Washington Bureau — (Walter Cronkite‘s Washington Bureau!) because I had a job there.

Working there when I showed up: Bruce Morton, Bob Schieffer, George Herman, Daniel Schorr, Eric Sevareid, Dan Rather, Marvin Kalb and his brother Bernie... and my mentor and friend Roger Mudd.  They were, really, giants (yes, I know they were all men.  Marya McLaughlin died a long time ago; Leslie Stahl arrived a couple of years later).  CBS News ruled the Hill and the White House and everywhere else inside the beltway.  And we did it with enormous scruples; I was trained to be a journalist by these guys, as well as Bureau Chief Bill Small and Face the Nation Producer Sylvia Westerman.  And have been grateful the rest of my life for the privilege.

Roger wrote a book about those years — it’s called The Place to Be because, really, that’s what the bureau was in those days.  And last night, on publication day, there was a party. It was better than a class reunion.  Everyone from the teen-aged desk assistant (now I think in his 40s) to the Washington director  to the octogenarian make-up lady, to those guys we’ve all heard of, were there.  All having a blast remembering those remarkable years.

I’ve been out of the daily news business for some time, and in a way the party reminded me why.  The classy, funny, unpretentious, smart, great people who taught me how to listen and pay attention, ask questions and check my sources, feed the crew first and never leave a person without getting their phone number… I hate to sound like an old fogey but there really aren’t so many like that any more.  For me, Roger is the dean of all of them, not only because I know him best but also because of his deep sense of honor and love of history, humor, curiosity and devotion to his family, and his unfailing kindness and generosity to me.  It was wonderful to hear everyone so happy and proud for him, glad he’d finally written down some of the historic understanding and institutional memory we all treasure. 

I suppose it’s the same when anyone we love finds special success – a promotion, a graduation, a painting or a no-hitter, for that matter.  But because of what’s become of the news business, because it’s now so much more business than news, because of the great joy and pride we felt and how hard we worked to earn the right to feel it, I felt a special warmth and longing last night: grateful for the opportunity I had to share what is universally regarded as a golden moment in journalism – those years in the Washington Bureau — and so very sorry that it’s so hard to find that gold – any gold — anymore.

THE STORY ELANA (3 years old) TOLD ME AT THE BEACH

Goldilocks
The three bears went for a walk and there was a little girl and her name was Goldilocks from all the dolls and they went for walk and they walked and walked (dancing walk demonstrated here) and then she sit on one of the chairs and it was too hard.  And then she tried the medium one and it was too slowwww and then she found the baby one and she rocked and rocked and rocked and she fell down and the chair broke.  And her tushie got hurt so she needed to go in bed     And she walked and walked up the stairs and then they did something and then she ate her porridge and then she "this bed was too hard" and then "that bed was medium" and "this bed was just right." And the three bears went home and said "who has been eating my porridge?"  And the Poppa said (very loud deep voice, with facial expressions to match) "WHO’S BEEN EATING MY PORRIDGE?"  Then Poppa Bear said "WHO’S BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED?" and then Baby Bear said "THERE SHE IS NOW!!!"  and  she left her shoes and ran away.  And she also…..

Dad can I go outside???

(NOTE:  Elana woke up early Sunday and she and I were visiting and looking out at the ocean while I worked on my computer.  As Elana was leaning over my laptop in great interest her father came upstairs and suggested she "tell Cindy a story and maybe she’ll put it on her blog."  So she did.  And I did.)

FIVE YEARS IN IRAQ – A BIRTHDAY – AND MEMORIES OF VIETNAM

Iraq_anti_war_march
The amazing Queen of Spain, Erin Kotckei Vest, wrote yesterday about her son’s 5th birthday and the war in Iraq, realizing that our country has been at war for his entire life. It’s a moving and troubling meditation on the length and malignancy of this war.  Take a look.

It was strange to read  — someplace between echo and deja vu.  My older son was born the night Cambodia fell; I went back to work at CBS News the night Saigon fell (foreign desk – overnight) and his younger brother was born 2 days after the Iran hostages were taken.  We always knew how many days old he was because Walter Cronkite ended every newscast with "that’s the way it is, the xyz day American hostages have been held in Iran." 

I remember nursing Josh during the horrible last days of the Vietnam war, when they were trying to get orphans out of the country.  One evening at the very beginning of the effort, 78 kids died when their plane crashed.  To this day I remember sitting in a chair, feeding this weeks-old child, watching the broken bodies of some else’s children flung around the crash site, and just dissolving. 

Vietnam_march
I don’t know if it helps or hurts that this is not the first time; although in so many ways it is the worst.  As horrible as the country was during Vietnam, we had our collective rage.  As this picture shows, we also had the innocence that placed carnations
in the barrels of National Guard guns as they kept us at bay.  And we had each other; the opposition to the war, while fractious and divided, essentially understood its unity and its shared issues. Because we’d had teach-ins and gone home and argued with our parents and had to face down counter-demonstrators at marches we had become somewhat tribal – which was bad in some ways but held us together. 

The current administration, in my mind, has made it so much more painful to try to bring change; the worst part being that they should have learned enough from Vietnam not to do it this way!!!  Not original but as I read Erin’s heartfelt post, about her son and about all those in her family serving or having served in Iraq I got angry all over again.  Last time it was arrogance on the part of people like Robert McNamara, but they did not have a Vietnam to look back on and strive to avoid.  They had the model of World War II, the post-war failures that led to the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe for so long, the Marshall Plan and all the other "good wars" and American generosity that informed the very bad decisions they made.  These guys today have had all Vietnam to instruct them and still did this to us.

That’s why this election is so important.  If we had had decent leadership five years ago we might be funding decent learning disabilities programs and well-baby clinics and alternative energy research and, if necessary, wars we DO need to fight instead of burdened by a debt that could very well still be with us when Erin’s birthday boy is in college. 

BLOGHER WANTS TO KNOW STUFF. LET’S TELL THEM

Blogher_survey_graphicI love BlogHer.  It’s become a very important part of my life; its three remarkable founders women whose foresight and commitment guarantees every blogger a voice in its governance, tone and purpose.  Right now, they’re taking a reader survey.  It will help them grow if you take the survey.   So when they ask for survey responses, I say – let’s give them some!  It won’t take long – give it a try.  Thanks.

IS JOHN STEWART A POLITICAL KING (QUEEN) MAKER? DOES COMEDY RULE? SHOULD IT?

Snl_3
I used to run a television newscast for teenagers.  It was tough to get them to pay much attention to the news, so one of the features I experimented with was "If you don’t know the news, you can’t get the jokes." Dennis Miller was doing Saturday Night Update then, and sadly, wouldn’t talk to us, so the idea failed.  It wasn’t that original anyway; humor has always been part of American politics.  But I wanted the kids to care more about it – and I thought that connecting news and cool comedy would help.   I’m pretty sure I was right; political comedy is certainly a factor this year’s campaign.  If you’re my age, you’re probably sitting there thinking "Hasn’t this woman ever heard of Mort Sahl?  Yup.  He’s just turned 80 and his political humor is as sharp as ever.  But he didn’t have a daily "Daily Show" as a podium. Look at this:

 

I started thinking about this because this headline just appeared in the Media Bistro LA edition – which linked to this piece in the Washington Post.  Comedy, at least this year, is an important factor in the campaign.  Of course, Bill Clinton rebounded from one of his many backslides in 1992 with a saxophone-playing appearance on standup comedian and talk show host Arsenio Hall’s show.  This clip, in fact, appeared on Channel One, the show I used to run! 

That was the second time Clinton used nightly talk as a life preserver.  After this disastrous keynote convention speech in 1988

Clinton went on the Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and did the same thing.  Not quite comedy but definitely popular culture.  Carson had a unique impact, too.  A wise Republican political consultant told me he could tell the mood of the country by listening to which jokes audiences responded to on The Tonight Show.  So this year, despite all the fuss about Comedy Central, is not the first time that the worlds of entertainment and comedy have had more than a small role in choosing our leaders.  And those are just in the past few elections. (OH, and don’t forget JibJab. )

Hogarth_the_times_2
We aren’t alone, of course.  The 18th Century British cartoonist William Hogarth, is still taught in political propaganda classes.   This one, The Times, is an example.   

The difference today may be the ubiquitousness of any information that emerges; it’s not just in some elitist newspaper, it’s all over the place.  It may also be the diminished influence of what used to be our respected news media.  Young people (and others) turn to comedy not just because it’s arch, and fun, but because it’s less pretentious and heavy-handed, and treats audience members as co-conspirators rather than as a single passive body. 

I worry that the deflation of our leaders that comes from the Comedy Central syndrome is as scary as it is useful.  Americans like to believe; that’s part of the appeal of both Obama and McCain, I think.  And it’s possible to believe without mindless acceptance.  But if all, or most of one’s information emerges from the acerbic minds of comedy writers, does it undermine any capacity to follow a leader in what are truly perilous times? 

Franklin Roosevelt, through his Fireside Chats and other communications with Americans, was able to bring the country along as war drew closer.  Doris Kearns Goodwin, in NO ORDINARY TIME*, one of my favorite books, tells the story of one chat in particular.  FDR asked Americans, in advance, to get a
map of the world and follow along as he described the current state of the war.  Maps sold
out. And the Americans who had bought them sat there by the radio and followed as Roosevelt spoke.  You don’t need comedy to inspire confidence when you have that kind of respect for your audience.  I guess you could say that FDR was a kind  of rock star who had built such a relationship with Americans during the Depression that  he was in a different situation, but still, it’s a provocative example to place against 5 minute guest spots with Stewart or Colbert. 

This has been long and a bit rambling because I’m trying to think it all out here – and I still don’t have an answer.  I do think it’s going to be interesting to see how long this trend lasts — at least in this incarnation.

*go to the link and search inside under Fireside Chat and map and you will find the story (pg. 319)