The Commons

14 VOICES The Commons • February 2009 The Commons • February 2009 VOICES 15
LETTERS FROM READERS
Whom are you protecting
by withholding name?
You write: “Although The
Commons maintains a policy
of publishing commentary under
a contributor’s real name, we
make an exception here to give
readers a glimpse of this difficult
job and the variety of people who
undertake it.”
“On the night shift” [The Commons,
Jan. 2009] is not commentary;
it is investigative reporting.
Who or what was protected by
the reporter’s anonymity?
The Commons has taken anonymity,
which leading newspapers
now limit strictly due to
infamous abuses, to the opposite
extreme, setting a precedent for
further anonymous reporting.
Our freedoms of speech and of
the press entail taking personal
responsibility for our words,
which anonymity shirks. Credibility
becomes an act of faith.
How can an anonymous reporter
be held responsible? An
editor who claims to have taken
care of this has arrogated power
that belongs to citizens in a free
society. The Commons is neither
an arbiter nor an exemplar. It is
just a newspaper that is held to
the same standards of transparency
as any other.
Howard Fairman
Vernon
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Ouch
said “ouch” when I read
I Jim Austin’s piece [“A
contagion on our land,” The
Commons, January]. His
mention of Sarah Palin thinking
Africa was a country and
not a continent was discredited,
and it is widely known
that she actually didn’t say
that.
That should not have been
allowed to print.
Sara Longsmith
Brattleboro
Gaza mercies
Reading the terror of every parent in a photo
New York
For the past few
days, I have been thinking
about the short lives
of three children I saw in a
photo from Gaza published in
The New York Times. In this
picture, the three babies are
laid out on the cold floor of a
morgue, on what looks to be a
plastic floor mat for a car. All
three look peaceful, like my
own babies looked when I used
to tiptoe into their rooms at random
times during the night to
make sure they were breathing.
On those nights, I would
stand by the crib, marveling at
the small person I had helped
to bring into this world, the
perfection of her tiny features,
small dimpled hands, miniature
muscles in her tiny legs -- and I
would let myself run wild with
all the potential of the life before
her.
Sometimes, standing there so
stricken with love for my own
child, the fear would come -- that
frigid reality of knowing that my
life was inextricably bound up
in hers and that I could never
survive in this world without
her. As a new parent, the implications
of such a bond were so
overwhelming to contemplate
that I would quickly tuck the soft
blankets around her small back
and retreat, finding solace in
the mundane world of computer
screens and washing machine
cycles.
The father in the photo of
which I write is now living the
hell of my fears. The caption
tells us that two of those nameless
babies were his sons, and
the third was his nephew. Two
men in the picture are holding
up the anguished father as
he collapses, wearing on his
face the terror of every parent’s
worst fears.
I constantly return to
thoughts of what that father is
doing now, some days after the
click of a shutter made me a voyeur
in his personal hell.
I wonder how he emerges
Proposed preservation
budget cuts shortsighted
Governor Douglas’s 2009
budget proposes to eliminate
land conservation funding
entirely. The governor proposes
a 70-percent reduction to the Vermont
Housing and Conservation
Budget (VHCB) on top of a series
of cuts over the past seven years
that had already meant a more
than $30 million loss. Eliminating
VHCB conservation investments
means a loss of about
$5.4 million in federal funds and
the elimination of the Farm Viability
Program. More info is at
www.vlt.org.
Please contact your state
Kathryn Casa, former managing editor of the Brattleboro
Reformer and interim managing editor of The Commons,
works as senior writer at the American Civil Liberties Union. She
previously served as assistant director of development at Lebanese
American University. To see the photo to which Casa refers, visit
www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/world/middleeast/06scene.html.
each morning from a new fog
of grief; where he finds the will
to live when, every day, fresh
death slaps him with the sharp
contrast of the new lives in his
meager home just a few years
before.
Does he comb through those
memories, picking at the saplings
of his babies’
lives for
some fragile bud
to carry with him?
How does he withstand
the knowledge
of their
final days and
hours -- the heavy
weight of knowing
how their
tiny track suits
became soaked
with blood, why
the smallest one’s
head is wrapped
with a fresh white
bandage, so new it
was not yet dirty,
a marker of the
child’s suffering
before he died.
Rewind that man’s life just a
few hours or days, past the bubbles
of those babies’ laughter,
their new words, their bright
eyes that morning, their small
hands holding the flat brown
bread of a meal no one knew
would be their last. If those simple
images come so readily to
me, how they must buoy that father,
or drown him?
Maybe there is a blessing in
the brevity of those babies’ time
on this brutal planet — a limitation
that mercifully cups the
memories like parentheses.
After all, that father will not
have to bear the recollection of
their first days of school when,
scrubbed, combed, and dressed
legislators and ask them to increase
funding for open space
protection. Vermont’s farm and
forest land is what makes our
state special. Land conservation
creates jobs in logging and farming;
reduces global warming pollution
by causing new homes to
be built close to existing downtowns;
and lowers property taxes,
according to “The Land Use —
Property Tax Connection,” a
study by the Vermont League of
Cities and Towns.
Eesha Williams
Dummerston
ESSAY
The father in the photo
of which I write is now
living the hell of my
fears. Two men in the
picture are holding up
this anguished father as
he collapses, wearing on
his face the terror of every
parent’s worst fears.
in blue uniforms, with oversized
backpacks and lunch pails filled
with cheese and hard-boiled
eggs, they would have set out
on their own individual odysseys.
He will be spared his sons’
confusion as the reality of life
in Gaza dawned on them, as innocence
gave way to understanding,
laughter to anger; as
a child’s-sized world began to
push against the boundaries of
that small, overcrowded, lockeddown
strip of land.
He will avoid the embarrassment
of telling a hopeful son that
there is no money for a dowry
to marry the dark-haired beauty
that caught his eye. He will not
have to watch his sons growing
into idle, angry men with
no work and no future, wondering
about the foreign worlds of
Jerusalem and Cairo, just a few
hours’ drive away.
Yes, that father had to watch
his babies die so very young, but
he has been spared the agony
of watching a lifetime of their
hopes die slowly. In that, at least,
there is one small grace. n
The marriage bed
Williamsville
My husband and I
bought our first bed
before we bought our
first house, which we lived in
for a year before we were married.
The house was an antique
cape, and we moved in before
renovations were complete,
which is how we first started
eating dinner in bed. For about
a month, our bedroom was the
only place clean enough to eat,
so we carried our dinner to bed
and ate there.
Shortly after our marriage, we
had three children in quick succession.
Exhaustion only begins
to explain our chronic fatigue.
Like most other young couples
with kids, we still wanted
to go out once in a while, to
Putney
As I write this on
Martin Luther King
Day, I am elated that a
black American is about to be
inaugurated as my President.
Obama’s approval ratings have
skyrocketed due to the appalling
mess left behind by the
Bush administration. That said,
it is a testament to Americans
that they can look past color
and vote for the man. Martin
Luther King Jr. would have
been pleased that we indeed
voted for the content of his
character rather than the color
of his skin.
I hope that President Obama
will turn his attention to another
great injustice that is occurring
under our government’s
auspices.
Our great Middle Eastern
ally Israel has struck another
in a series of ruthless blows
against the people of Palestine.
That country has methodically
crushed the Palestinian people
under an iron boot.
Roadblocks make travel and
work impossible for most Palestinians.
Tolerance of lunatic settlers
on Palestinian territory is
reminiscent of our own shame
at sending settlers onto Native
American land and then, when
indigenous people tried to defend
their territory, using the
military to slaughter them.
The following is an excerpt
from a speech in the British
House of Lords by Sir Gerald
Kaufman.
“My parents came to Britain
as refugees from Poland. Most
of their families were subsequently
murdered by the Nazis
in the Holocaust. My grandmother
was ill in bed when the
Nazis came to her hometown of
Staszow. A German soldier shot
her dead in her bed.
“My grandmother did not die
to provide cover for Israeli soldiers
murdering Palestinian
grandmothers in Gaza. The current
Israeli government ruthlessly
and cynically exploit the
continuing guilt among Gentiles
over the slaughter of Jews
DEBORAH
LEE
LUSKIN
remember why we liked each
other, to rediscover a little romance
in our lives. But when we
planned for such a night out, we
either couldn’t find a reliable sitter
or we were just too tired to
go. That’s when we started dating
in bed.
We’d have a romp with the
kids, give them baths, read
books, tell stories, and sing
them to sleep. With the three of
them tucked in, we’d pull out a
Deploring the Zionazis
JIM
AUSTIN
in the Holocaust as justification
for their murder of Palestinians.
The implication is that Jewish
lives are precious, but the lives
of Palestinians do not count.
“On Sky News, the spokeswoman
for the Israeli army, Major
Leibovich, was asked about
the Israeli killing of, at that
time, 800 Palestinians — the total
is now 1,000. She replied instantly
that “500 of them were
militants.”
“That was the reply of a Nazi.
I suppose that the Jews fighting
for their lives in the Warsaw
ghetto could have been dismissed
as militants.
“However many Palestinians
the Israelis murder in Gaza,
they cannot solve this existential
problem by military means.
Whenever and however the
fighting ends, 1.5 million Palestinians
will remain in Gaza and
2.5 million more on the West
Bank.
“These Palestinians are
treated like dirt by the Israelis,
with hundreds of roadblocks
and with the ghastly denizens of
the illegal Jewish settlements harassing
them as well. The time
will come, not so long from now,
when they will outnumber the
Jewish population in Israel.
“It is time for our government
to make clear to the Israeli government
that their conduct and
policies are unacceptable, and to
impose a total arms ban on Israel.
It is time for peace, but real
peace, not the solution by conquest
which is the Israelis’ real
goal but which it is impossible
for them to achieve. They are
not simply war criminals; they
are fools.”
Sir Gerald is a Jew.
Israel makes life intolerable
for Palestinians, and when
they fire their unguided missiles
into Israel in a pathetic attempt
platter of cheese and paté, uncork
a bottle of wine, put on our
best pajamas, and climb into
bed.
One memorable New Year’s
Eve, one of our kids woke up
sick and vomited all over our
silk pajamas, so we changed into
our everyday flannels. When
she threw up on those, we were
naked. I was glad we were home
for our baby that night, and we’d
been planning to take off our
clothes anyway; we just hadn’t
anticipated so much laundry.
At first, it was just the two of
us in bed, but when the babies
came, they’d join me to nurse,
and their dad for a burp. Once
they could climb out of their
cribs, they’d come to us in the
to fight back they are invaded
and civilians are targeted.
Despite all the protestations
by Israel and despite their closing
off Gaza to international reporting
they couldn’t stop all
their atrocities from leaking out.
U.N. warehouses and vocational
schools, where refugees were
hiding, have been hit multiple
times.
Homes are leveled, including
one belonging to a Palestinian
doctor named Ezzeldeen Abu
al-Aish. This Hebrew-speaking,
Israeli-trained doctor has been
a vocal arbiter for peace. Three
of his daughters and one of his
nieces were killed when their
home was blasted to rubble by
an Israeli tank. Two other children
were injured. There were
no Hamas fighters in his home,
he said.
This kind of outrage has been
going on for the past few weeks
as the civilian death toll rises
past 800, including more than
200 children.
We hold the purse strings
for the Israeli government. We
can impose our will on the country
and its leaders by withholding
funds. We could dictate
reasonable terms to both sides
in an effort to bring the killing to
a close.
On this Martin Luther King
Day I don’t feel guilty about slavery
because I have never owned
a slave and I have never condoned
the practice. I don’t feel
guilty about the Holocaust because
I wasn’t born when it occurred
but I cried at Schindler’s
List and felt great sorrow for the
descendents of the murdered
Jews.
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morning; we’d make one great
big pig pile and snuggle. Even
now, in their late teens and early
twenties, one or the other of
them will come in while we’re
reading and flop down between
us, just to talk.
I wish I could say we’ve followed
that good advice, never
to let the sun set on our anger,
but my husband and I have gone
to bed angry. It makes for poor
sleep. But our marriage bed
also makes such anger hard to
sustain as we burrow under the
covers in our cold room. The
comfort and reassurance of our
mammal warmth forces us to
drop the grudge, to start talking
it out, even if it’s only in a
whisper at first. As life races by,
we hardly have enough time for
Sir Gerald Kaufman.
I do feel guilty that the government
that represents me is
complicit in the genocide that
is taking place in Gaza. We protected
Muslims in Bosnia in
the ‘90s. Why can’t we do the
same now?
n
Jim Austin (jim_austin@commonsnews.org)
contributes regularly
to The Commons.
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sleep; we can’t afford to stay angry
for long.
We bought our first mattress
set 25 years ago. We’re now on
our third. At first, the box spring
sat on the floor, then on a metal
frame. Now we have a handmade
cherry bed and one of
those new, memory-foam mattresses.
It’s a great place for love
and repose.
So for Valentine’s Day, forget
the chocolate and roses. Just
give me clean sheets, unplug the
phone — and early to bed! n
Deborah Lee Luskin (deb_
luskin@commonsnews.org) contributes
regularly to The Commons.
p Martin Rathfelder