She Looked So Happy

Though I was not surprised by the terrible and tragic news of Benazir Bhutto's assassination yesterday, I am still very shaken and sadden by the event as also my parents are. My parents admired her too. Yesterday morning my dad admitted that he had long felt great admiration for Bhutto because of her beauty and intellect. Last night when I arrived home from my part time evening job, my mother had apparently been standing in front of the television in our den for a long time time avidly watching news reports on several channels about Bhutto's death. Mom told me that Bill O'Reilly of FOX NEWS had been ranting as usual, but this time about how they had in his words, "killed that beautiful woman." Though she was long past the slim college student or the stately leader, Bhutto was still beautiful even though she had put on weight in these last years and looked matronly. Here she is less than a minute before the attack. Indeed she looked so happy. So unsuspecting that so much horror was about to happen to her and some of her supporters.

Today it was reported that Bhutto did not die from bullets to the neck and chest as previously thought. She apparently was critically injured when the suicide bomber who shot at her detonated his bomb, the force of which threw her up against her vehicle's sunroof's lever and fractured her skull. Here are more photos of before and the aftermath of the shooting and the bombing.

Today Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest beside her father. Her dramatic and epic life is over and now she is a figure of history. In a interview not too long ago, she revealed that even though she believed she must go back to Pakistan to carry on her life's mission, she was afraid. Several weeks ago when I went to see the movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age, there was a scene in which Queen Elizabeth I expresses a degree of fear when she learns that her ex-brother-in-law, Philip II of Spain, has sent the Spanish Armada to attack England. She knows that if England is defeated, she will probably be captured, imprisoned, and perhaps executed as a heretic. I was surprised that mighty and iron Elizabeth I would have a moment of weakness, but she was human and so was Bhutto. Aren't we all, but those who are special and who impact lives are able to reach a point that is larger than life and defeat their internal fears and weaknesses. Bhutto must have done this. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in one of his last speeches that he was not afraid or worried because he had "been to the mountain top and seen the promised land." When people learn to believe and care about something bigger than themselves they can attain this level of courage.

In a society and world that is fast becoming desensitived to happenings like Benazir Bhutto's death, what I write here is meaningless and irrelevant to too many. The attitude seems to be to just to live, sit back, self indulge, and willingly accept the next batch of carnage, devastation, trivia, and degradation; accept the next batch of lies.

Fearsome times are coming, I believe. Only those with spirits like Dr. King, Bhutto, Mother Teresa, and the other greats and Romantics will truly see the promised land. The rest will be swept away.

A Romantic Dies

I had no intention to write today because blogging for me, who plan to be a serious writer and who have had some things printed in newspapers in my town, is rather like junk food and other forms of instant gratificaton. But the news I woke up to this morning was both a shock and not a surprise. I could only feel a surge of intense sadness and lament the viciousness and chaos that this world is descending into day by day, week by week, and year by year.

After receiving a phone call from my former hairdresser, my mother told me, "Someone over there has been killed."

"Who?" I asked wondering just exactly where over there is.

Mom said, "Someone in Pakistan."

"Who! Musharraf?!"

"Benazir Bhutto."

"Well, didn't we both say a few weeks ago that they are going to kill her?"

We did predict it just weeks ago, and now less than three months after her return from a 8 year exile in Dubai Benazir Bhutto the former two time prime minister of Pakistan, daughter of one of Pakistan's most influential families, offspring of former president and prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was cut down today shortly after a rally by bullets and possibly a bomb in the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan . She was only 54. Two years ago on the same date, December 27th, my grandmother also died.

In our society we talk too often and place too much importance on role models. Often the role models youngsters hail as their's are not people to be admired for any significant reason. However, despite her flaws, Bhutto was a person to be emulated for her courage, tenacity, brilliance, vision, grace, and spunk. After looking at her official website site shortly before her homecoming on which a suicide bomber targeted her and narrowly missed, I had planned to write to her and tell her how I really admired her for her courage. Her life was epic in proportion. Her father had been tried and hanged, betrayed by a man who had been his friend. She spent close to 7 years in prison under both house arrest and in a jail cell. One of her brothers died under mysterious circumstances in France. Just a few years ago, her other brother died in a shoot out. Her own mother blamed her for the death of her second son, but later they were reconciled.

Bhutto was the first elected female head of state of a Muslim country. I marvel at how in America where women have independence, a woman has still not been elected president, and probably will not be for years to come. We have no real power houses with such credentials like Bhutto here. Oxford and Harvard educated, Benazir Bhutto was both charismatic and beautiful. She is a modern day Romantic heroine akin to Joan of Arc, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Elizabeth I of England, and Queen Marie of Romania.

To many of us who did not know her, to have left the safety and calm of Dubai for the vicious climate of unrest in Pakistan may have seemed like pure recklessness on Bhutto's part. She has left behind children who are teenagers, a husband, and a sick mother. Why did she go back there from self imposed exile to her death which came in just a few short weeks? From here on the outside, I can only say she did so because she felt she had a mission, and somehow and someway that mission must be comsummated in her troubled homeland even if she had to shed her own blood. There were probably other myriad reasons why she returned, but I do know that some of us realize we have a purpose and a destiny that go beyond ourselves.

Already Pakistan is on red alert because some of her supporters have vowed revenge. Would Bhutto have liked this? I doubt it since she seemed to stand for peaceful change, but at the same time she knew she was up against the tiger which if cornered would lash out mercilessly. I hope that her supporters will not forget so quickly what she symbolized. So much in this world seems to be ruled by the law of the jungle nowadays. When one more personage of bravery is gone like Bhutto, the world continues to descend into a more dark and dangerous place, and like we predicted her death, I predict that the world will continue to swirl into a more ugly, scary, and terrible phase.

Good night Sweet Princess.

Santa Claus, who is St. Nicholas

Another Christmas has come and gone and as usual the true meaning of Christmas has been nearly totally missed by the people who should most be concerned about its' meaning and also that that meaning be preserved. Each year I shake my head about what has happened to the meaning of Christmas in my country. This Santa which I saw in a catalog at my job over a week before Christmas got me to thinking.
Dressed like a Russian boyar, I found him highly appealing because I love traditional Russian arts, crafts, and architecture. I own two matryoshka or nesting dolls, one which is traditional with the doll-like face, and another which my Russian friend sent as a Christmas present several years ago and which begins with Lenin (he is the baby on the inside) and ends with Putin. Santa here is hand carved, painted in Russia and sold by a company called Lenox.

Boyar Santa is so delightful that if I owned him, I would not want to stash him away all year to only bring him out for display a few weeks at the finale of the year. He is more than an ornament, but a work of art.

Christmas also should not be an exercise or ritual we do which culminates on December 25th. Also the "Christ" in Christmas should not be replaced by some dull, lifeless, generic "X." Christ was the ultimate giver in world history. Also Santa Claus who is really St. Nicholas was a giver, a real person, and a Christian. Cute and sweet as Boyar Santa is, if there must be a Santa at Christmas time, his true story should be known.

St. Nicholas, or as we have reduced him into Santa Claus, was a 3rd century saint who suffered, was imprisoned, and survived the last and one of most ferocious of the Roman persecutions against the early Christian church. Last year, EWTN or Eternal World Television Network aired a cartoon about St. Nicholas which was extremely moving even though it was for children. It showed Nicholas, a man dedicated to Christ, who patiently suffered for it, and eventually triumphed.

I hate to see Christmas progressively and systematically being denigrated by so many. We in America who are Christian whether Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox have helped in our own way either by greed, ignorance, or silence to allow the religious and very Christian message of Christmas and Santa Claus be slowly erased. Nativity scenes are seen by some as politically incorrect and offensive. Now people who really do not know Christianity are assigning meanings to Christmas which are dangerously flawed. Some of these people have good but misguided intentions, and others have intentions which are highly sinister.

I see days approaching when we may have to face what St. Nicholas did in the 3rd century; maybe then will the message of what December 25th originally stood for be recovered and celebrated in our hearts and minds. It may end up being the only two places where it will be celebrated.

The Saint Nicholas Center is a website which contains a wealth of information on Santa Claus/St. Nicholas and the true meaning of Christmas. View it here.

The Romance of It's A Wonderful Life

The Romantic clip above is from the movie It's A Wonderful Life. This 1946 classic was a regular fixture on American television each Christmas season during the 1980s. At Christmas it was not unusual during that decade for the movie to be playing every evening on several TV channels sometimes at once. The showing of the film was eventually reduced because of copyright laws, and today if the the film is shown at all, only NBC is licenced to present it once a year mainly on Christmas eve.

The idea for me to write this post was actually e-mailed to me by Ardent of Ardent Observations which came at a very timely time since this is the Christmas season and little did she know It's A Wonderful Life is one of my all time favorite films and Jimmy Stewart, who plays the main character, is one of my favorite old actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood. During the heyday of its' frequent showings, I actually watched It's Wonderful Life at least 20 times. A few years ago I purchased the the film on VHS, but by that time I had overdosed on so many viewings of it on the tube, I actually have never viewed the video. It lies in storage with some of my other videos and DVDs. However, before New Year's has come and gone I hope to set aside time to watch it. And guess what?! Wonder of wonders, I have actually found the entire full length film online which can be watched here entirely free. But before watching it, get a taste by viewing the clip.

When It's A Wonderful Life was released, it was one of the few Capra films that was a box office flop. It was not until the 1980s that it actually became a Christmas cult favorite. I remember being hardly able to wait for each Christmas season to come so I could watch the movie over and over again. In the 1980s I had passed the age of waiting for Santa to bring me the latest neat toys, so It's Wonderful Life was the treat I anxiously waited to behold. The main character George Bailey stood for everything I believed in and still believe a person should be. He was generous, honest, and selfless. George Bailey grows up and lives his life in the small American town of Bedford Falls. It is a bittersweet tale with a shade of Dickens about a regular goodhearted guy with big dreams, but because of various unforseen circumstances, he cannot live out the life he plans. Nevertheless, his life impacts many people around him in a positive way over the years. It is only when George is about to toss it all alway that an angel from heaven is sent down because of the prayers of family and friends. The angel Clarence who is trying to earn his wings shows George what the world would be like it he had never been born. In the end, George comes to realize that despite the disappointments and setbacks, he is not a failure, but has actually had a "wonderful life."

There are many messages in It's A Wonderful Life which makes it still very relevant even today over 60 years after its' making. The importance of sincerity, family, community, giving, self sacrifice, are all messages that are as timeless as the reason for the season. George Bailey may not be or will ever become a rich man like the vindictive and dishonest Mr. Potter who is the town millionaire and who really cares for no one but himself and his riches, but George has more: a big heart. Today in a world where so many care only for themselves (even when they pretend not to), and when so many lack a word or transparency, It's Wonderful Life's message is one that is more important than ever. The qualities of George Bailey which I cited above is very much a part of the many qualities which I feel define a "Romantic:" uniqueness, uprightness, vision, selflessness, openness, imagination, courage.