Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Under the "C"


 ©Fox News Corporation

So, perhaps there is justice in this world, after all. Perhaps a monster, who captures, chains, deprecates, enslaves, impregnates and, eventually, murders will face a higher judge than many of us had hoped and clearly at a closer date than we could ever have imagined.

For the four victims in Cleveland, one of whom never survived his or her pregnancy, there probably will be a hollow sense of victory. The thought of knowing their captor would never be freed and would be submitted to solitary confinement for most of the rest of what would have been expected to be a lengthy prison stay, may have strengthened them. Now that sense that he would pay with his freedom and would have time to consider his past actions has been stripped from them by his last cowardly act.

I will never mourn his death, because he doesn't deserve anyone to recall his name in any manner. His crime of making women disappear should be his ultimate fate. The memory of his walking this earth, breathing the same air as his victims and inflicting horrible acts behind closed doors and shuttered windows should be as vacuous as the empty lot where his house once stood.

And so for his victims and their families, their is only one thing to remember and that is to forget. Forget his face, his gait, his smell, his touch, his voice and anything that would ever remind you of his terrible visage. Forget the years of imprisonment and torture as best can be expected. It is only when his memory is wiped away fully from their collective conscience,  they will know the true meaning of justice and a measure of true freedom. Only time and their own sense of resolve will heal their wounds.

So, while news crews today and in the ensuing days will recall his suicide seeking responsible parties to blame, I will try to avoid hearing or watching their reports. I don't want to forget what he did. His crimes were heinous. I just want to forget him, blotting out his memory with the same viciousness that he perpetrated his unspeakable crimes against humanity, not just women. 

In the end I wish that those who survived their ordeal can free themselves from the bonds of years of hopelessness and despair by knowing that today it is truly over. Today they have something to live for: freedom and self-determination...and life, something their tormentor will never have. Like the Romans who sewed salt into the fields of defeated Carthage, leaving their fields barren, let us strive to make his name and image just as barren in the recesses of our mind. Let us never forget what he did. In the name of his victims, let us make him the non-entity he so richly deserves. It is by these deliberate actions that we will forget and he will disappear forever.


Saturday, June 1, 2013

Whatever became of...?

WYES-TV'S "Steppin' Out" weekly arts and entertainment show with that cad on the right.

These days my old constant companion, the Kosher Computing blog (yes, the very one you're espying now), has been feeling pretty abandoned. It's not the blog's fault. Nay, this once proud blog stood as a testament to my dedication to the writing craft that would permit me to pour out onto the cypher universe my thoughts and musings of the world. I truly loved my blog!

Then, slowly and almost imperceptibly, the number of blog posts began to diminish. The first year I had well over 200 posts. The next year about half that. The third year even less until this year - 2013 - when I have had a grand total of one post and that brought about over the discovery in a drawer of an early piece I had written at least three decades previously. The previous post was my decrying the tragedy in Sandy Hook, Connecticut last December.

What has consumed me is my online work for the Crescent City Jewish News and on Examiner.com as well as my work as a theatre critic/reviewer over the past two seasons on "Steppin' Out," the WYES-TV weekly arts and entertainment program. There has simply been no time to engage my old friend and I am sure this blog wants little to do with me as well now. I'm not saying the blog is jealous of my time spent away, but I can't believe that any entity - no matter how large or small - would feel good about a close friend spending so much time away.

I want to make it up to my blog, but the only way I can do so is to spend time here, reassuring it in any way I can that I'm here now and that I know I'll be back soon.

The truth is I know in my heart (and I think the blog knows deep down too) that I'm lying. Shhhh...let's keep it a secret just between us.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Youth

 "YOUTH"

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind, a product of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity - an appetite for adventure.

Nobody grows old by living a number of years. People grow old when they desert their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.

Worry. Self-doubt. Fear and anxiety. These are the culprits that bow the head and break the spirit.

Whether 16 or 70, there exists in the heart of every person who loves life the thrill of a new challenge, the insatiable appetite for what is coming next. You are as young as your faith and as old as your doubts.

So long as your heart receives from your head messages that reflect beauty, courage, joy and excitement, you are young. When your thinking becomes clouded with pessimism that prevents you from taking risks, then you are old. And may God have mercy on your soul.