Fraternité -- Now More Than Ever

11/20/2015

It took a week
before I could even link
the horror in Paris
with my little site.
Then, in my head,
I formulated a tribute to Paris,
But it turned out,
I had written it, last January.

http://www.georgevecsey.com/home/nous-sommes-tous-francais

I cannot write another one
about the deep shuddering joy
of being in the City of Light
On a Friday evening.

One ex-pat friend,
Living in La France Profonde, wrote me,
“No one does life better than the French.”
That’s why they are targets, he added.

Another friend is flying over, next week.
“It'll be my little contribution to saying %$&# you
to the murderers who tried to take the city away from those of us who cherish it
and what it represents.”

I won't write about the narrow streets
Or the aroma of coq au vin in the mist.
Better I write about the French people
Who spoke to us in English after 9/11
and made room for us on the Metro.

Now I watch survivors like the beautiful couple on Anderson Cooper,
the woman's face haunted
the young man (a model, I looked it up),
volunteering sympathy for Syrian migrants, who have their own misery.

Another man lost his lovely wife
In the music club
and wrote a tribute to her,
And promised to live without hatred.
Is it possible?

The young man volunteered that he understood the plight of Syrians, also.

JEFF FROM JERSEY, YES NEW JERSEY

11/20/2015 09:38:14 pm

There have been many examples of Profiles In Courage. With his letter to those who killed his wife, Antoine Leiris joins this legion of brave individuals who have taken a stand. His words will become, no, have become a part of French history and of being human.

Brian Savin

11/20/2015 09:52:53 pm

I have a friend named John who has visited me every month or so for the last few years. He comes with a holy book and often with a friend. All my life I have welcomed John's predecessors as well as the youngsters who do mission for another group. I believe in domestic mission work. I respect them and profit by their visits. Everyone of them I have met I am certain is a force for good. John has been special. He is an older Black man who I suspect has seen much in his life that informs his thoughtfulness and intellect. He truly believes that there is an evil force in this world that can't be reckoned with. Remember the stories about the Devil from childhood? John believes they're true in essence and spirit. The more I listen to John the more drawn I am to his sophisticated simple beliefs. He asked me recently, what do I think about his view that there is Evil in the world. I said, John, it's certainly hard to argue with. That's my view. I'm not built to abide moral relativism. And I don't think any human is.

Sam Toperoff

11/21/2015 06:04:58 am

So wise and good of you to put Antoine Leiris' challenge at the top of your essay. It is one of those rare, rare moments in life when true words are acts of courage that will sparkle like stars to guide anyone who chooses the difficult path to human transcendence. And of course such a path is a choice. When I first read it and he said he has no time for murderers because his son was waking up from his nap, I lost it.
The way to defeat a death cult is with an affirmation of Life. No?

Anyway, thanks once again, George.

Mendel

11/23/2015 02:19:43 am

"The way to defeat a death cult is with an affirmation of Life. No?”

Last week, near Jerusalem, a father and son were murdered by Arab terrorists. This Thursday night - Thanksgiving - their daughter/sister will be married. A newspaper ad invited the public to join the celebration. In Hebrew, the root of “comfort” means “regret” or “to change perspective.” Choosing life is a deliberate act of living.

ThorALarsen

11/24/2015 10:52:29 am

Thor A. Larsen( thoralarsen@aol.com )11/24/2015 08:44:19
Hello Geroge,

The comments I shared with you in the January, 2015 blog:
George,

Paris will always be our favorite city to visit. It was the first European city Arlene saw when we went there in April 1966, staying in a very inexpensive hotel ($6/night) near the Champs-Alysee. (my favorite photo of Arlene was taken when she entered the circular, tiny elevator dressed for an evening on the town. I have kept the photo on my desk since 1966!)
We were able to spend about 5 days that time and returned in 1979 with our two children.
In each visit, we were overwhelmed by its beauty and charm.
It has been on our list to return, and I would like to return this April to enjoy this magical city, not to be intimidated by the recent tragedy as we were never intimidated to frequently visit NYC!
Thank you for reminding us of this unique city!

We were fortunate to visit Paris 6 months ago and we will be returning for an extended stay in a couple of years. The terrorists cannot weaken our love for this unique city. BTW, I developed this love in high school where I studied French, and you know the high school.
Our prayers are for the beautiful people in Paris.

George Vecsey

11/24/2015 10:57:23 am

Thank you all for your comments and the reaffirmation of life. What we feel about Paris goes beyond the basic senses and into an appreciation for being.
Note to Thor: I took French for five years, between Junior High 157 and Jamaica. They did not do much conversation -- real life -- but they must have been good at grammar and conjugation because I can still read some books and papers with a dictionary. (I get more smiles and responses and even praise in Spanish and Italian; I think it's cultural.) But to be able to work through an article in La Liberation or L'Equipe is a gift from Jamaica High. GV

Gene Palumbo

11/25/2015 01:52:44 pm

Antoine Leiris's words brought this to mind:

We will match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. We will not hate you, but we cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children; send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities and drag us out on some wayside road, beating us and leaving us half dead, and we will still love you. But we will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And in winning our freedom we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process. . . . The victory will be a double victory: We will defeat the evil system and win the hearts and souls of the perpetrator of the evil system.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Comments are closed.

QUOTES
Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Fraternité -- Now More Than Ever

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