Only in Florida: glory to the garish (Sun Sentinel)

I’m a sucker for old pop song lyrics.  That old Simon & Garfunkle lyric is rattling around in my brain as my family returned from a week-long “vacation” (for the kids, not the grown-ups) in Sarasota, where their grandma lives.  They whiled away the hours in the hotel pool proudly displaying their swimming skills to mom and dad over, and over, and over, etc.

Sarasota (and all of Florida as far as I’m concerned) is a strange place.  Quite charming in some respects especially for its old antique historic charm as the winter home of the Ringling Bros. circus and the Ringling family.  There are musty old gems like the Children’s Garden (where I discovered that the founder’s daughter is daughter in law of Seattle Times columnist, Danny Westneat).  There are gorgeous beauties like the Marie Selby orchid garden.  But the new Sarasota can be garish and lurid.  Witness this horrid piece of Soviet-sized public sculpture that graces the most well-traveled intersection in town.  The sculpture is a rip off of a famous historic image of a sailor kissing a girl in Manhattan on V-E Day.

Google search for Coteret blog

Food in Sarasota can range from the perfunctory or just plain awful to the sublime.  We had a lovely meal at Derek’s Culinary Casual in the historic Rosemary District.  The restaurant combines two storefronts with 20 foot high ceilings and elegant decor.  We loved the fact that it was away from the hip, happnin’ Main Street restaurant/bar scene.  This being a town in which the average age hovered around 70 (pharmacies graced every street corner), portions were double what we’re used to in Seattle.

We loved the creamed spaetzle and I had a lucious desert humorously called Smores: chocolate pudding cunningly described as “chocolate pate” on the menu, topped with homemade marshmallow, with a honey graham crust below.

But home is really where I wanna be, as the song goes.

While I was away my Israeli blogging friend, Didi Remez, reported that one of his visitors used the following Google search terms to reach his blog, “Kill Richard Silverstein.”

Maybe it’s time to draw up a last will and testament.  I document weirdness like this because I haven’t been able to get either the Seattle Police Department or FBI to take the threats seriously.  If God forbid something did happen, I want this to be on the public record.

Shirley Shor’s Landslide: too dangerous for Chicago Jews

The abrupt cancellation of the Spertus Museum’s show, Imaginary Coordinates, raises some vital questions about what should be the role of a Jewish museum. Today’s Chicago Tribune notes the Museum has just opened a new $55 million building in the heart of downtown. As such it is reaching out beyond its traditional Jewish audience and trying to impact the city at large including the art world. But can it do so?

Can it be an art museum in the usual sense of the term? If it must pull its punches by cancelling an exhibit most viewers and artists found well within the consensus of political and artistic discourse about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, hasn’t it lost the right to call itself an art museum? It is more a glorified synagogue gift shop displaying mezuzas, prayer books, tallises and other ritual paraphernalia. Such a “museum” isn’t interested in art, so much as expressing some sort of consensus view about Jewish creative expression and identity. Art that has to toe the line isn’t art. At least not art in the traditional free-wheeling sense of the term.

Here is a perfect example of the schizophrenic nature of this conflict as expressed by the chair of the Spertus board of trustees:

Spertus President Howard Sulkin expressed regret that the exhibition caused pain for its core constituents. But he said the concept behind it fit with the evolving mission of the museum.

“A willingness to experiment is incorporated right into our core principles, and we see one of our roles as being a place that inspires dialogue on the critical issues of our time,” Sulkin said Friday.

Yes, but you just betrayed that very mission by cancelling Imaginary Coordinates. So, in effect, you’re not what you think you are. You’re trying to be a real art museum, but constrained by the parochialism of the local Jewish community, which is a terrible shame.

Another Museum trustee further amplified the problematic nature of the conflict it faced:

Marc Wilcow, an institute trustee for 11 years, said the decision to close the exhibition was not based only on donors’ opinions.

“We like to encourage people to think about serious subject matters,” Wilcow said. “Judging from the response from the community we did cross that line unintentionally. . . .”

“When there is a perception that the state of Israel is not being depicted in a balanced way it creates controversy,” he said. “Spertus is not interested in going around and hurting people’s feelings.”

Right. Spertus wants to make people think. But not too hard. And if it does make them think too hard it will recoil from such a commitment. When push comes to shove, Spertus has to toe the line and abandon its artistic principles, if it has any.

What precisely was so threatening about the content of the show? Read below and try to understand how this gets interpreted as “anti-Israel:”

Among the displays was a collection of postcards portraying the ordinary lives of Palestinians working, playing and mourning—an attempt to personalize land disputes as battles for livelihood, not real estate.

A video installation showed a nude woman spinning a barbed-wire hula hoop around her waist against a peaceful backdrop of the Mediterranean near Tel Aviv.

Another video showed a woman driving around Jerusalem asking for directions to Ramallah, a Palestinian town in the West Bank. Everyone gives her different directions and describes Ramallah as far away, when it really is quite close by, illustrating how mental distance can affect the maps in our mind.

Michael Kotzin, executive vice president of Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, said pieces like those videos lacked context. While many pieces highlighted Palestinian humanity, he said others portrayed Israelis as unfeeling and guarded, without noting the dangers Israelis have faced for decades.

He said the exhibition also opened against a backdrop of anti-Israel sentiments in many intellectual circles worldwide.

“The last place the Jewish community should hear echoes of that is a Jewish museum,” Kotzin said. “This is kind of pulling the rug out.”

The rallying cry for all pro-Israel attacks on critical artistic or political expression about Israel is “it lacks context.” This is the same criticism Marshal Bouton used in justifying cancelling Walt-Mearsheimer’s talk to the Chicago Global Affairs Council. Do these people think their audience are children who cannot reason for themselves? Does the Israeli Palestinian conflict need to be chewed and pre-digested like the worms a mama bird feeds her young?

I strenuously object to Kotzin’s claim that because Israel is criticized in “intellectual circles worldwide” this means that you can’t have an art show in Chicago. This is nothing less than the closing of the American Jewish mind. I for one, won’t stand for it. If people like Kotzin want to bury their head in the sand that’s all well and good. But I don’t think any other Jews should stand for it. We can think for ourselves, thank you Mr. Kotzin. We don’t need to be protected from dangerous art, art that makes us think.

I think that Rhoda Rosen, the Spertus’ curator and creator of this show, has a lot of professional questions to consider. Unfortunately, she’s refusing to speak to the media about the closing. I know how important it is to get a paycheck and I respect the fact that she doesn’t want to jeopardize her job. But aren’t there bigger issues at play here? What about artistic freedom? Does she not feel some responsibility to defend her own artistic vision which, after all inspired the exhibit? What about her commitment to the artists she recruited for the show? Does it bother her that either she, or her superiors have, in effect deserted them?

Has anyone stopped to think about how strange it is that an Israeli artist can make art that questions the Israeli “narrative” about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that this art can be viewed in the Israeli art world as well as in Jewish museums around the world including here in the U.S., yet the Chicago Jewish community feels too threatened to see it? What are Chicago Jews saying about the strength of their Jewish identity and commitment to Israel? Is Israel something so fragile that not even Israeli artists should be allowed to question it in Chicago? What a petty, impoverished Jewish world view this is.

In this blog, I’ve noted an important piece of sociological research by Rutgers professor Chaim Waxman about affiliation of Jewish youth with the organized community. One of the salient points Waxman raises to explain the decline of affiliation rates is the close-mindedness of the Jewish leadership. They are the “good old boys” of Jewish life. The rich, old men: the Jewish WASPs if you will. When a 20-something Chicago Jew reads about the Spertus’ decision and notes that it was forced on the institution by those Jewish fatcat donors, do you think that Jewish young person will be more or less inclined to affiliate with our community?

So when you hear Jewish leaders bemoan the loss of commitment by young Jews to the organized Jewish community–tell them they brought it on themselves. People like Steve Nasatir, the philistine Jewish federation president who called the exhibit “anti-Israel,” think they can force these decisions down the community’s throat without there being a price to pay. Well there is a price to pay. And the price is a loss of the next generation.

Hip young Jews look at such closed-mindedness and say: “What do I need this for?” I can become involved in the non-Jewish world and express myself much more fully without being afraid that I will have to censor myself. Young Jews aren’t interested in their father’s Oldsmobile. They are interested in the world at large, which include Judaism, Israel and other Jewish issues. But they no longer have to approach them from within the community especially if that community is so hostile to free inquiry and expression.

I’d like to give the last word to Chicago Jewish resident, Lisa Kosowski, who saw the exhibit and published this comment here yesterday:

I saw the exhibit and I was very moved by it. I am a Jewish Chicagoan and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. I grew up in the Reform Jewish movement, became a Bat Mitzvah, attended Jewish summer camp, been to Israel 5 times (so far), including a year in college, and I’m engaged to marry an American Israeli.

Just as I criticize the current American political leadership, I also openly criticize the policies of the Israeli government, but I would never consider myself “anti-Israel.” I can say with 100% confidence that there was NOTHING anti-Israel about that exhibit. It is shameful that certain members of the Jewish community use their money and power to suppress open dialogue about the conflict in Israel/Palestine.

Yitchak Rabin, Anwar Sadat, and countless, nameless others have given their lives for the mere hope of reconciliation and a just peace. Yet, apparently, the misguided self-proclaimed Jewish “leaders” can’t even look at an art exhibit that they find “painful.” Even worse, they use their money and power to suppress free speech, free expression, and open dialogue for the rest of us. They should be ashamed at the way they spit on the basic principles of democracy, and the traditions and laws of Judaism itself.

SHAME ON THEM!

When I first read the story of Air Trans ejecting the Kulezsa family, including their 3 year old daughter Elly, from a flight because the couldn’t get her seated by the time the crew was ready for takeoff, I was amazed. Amazed that an airline would show so little sympathy for a baby and family facing such a predicament. I wrote a blog post expressing my sympathy for the family and expected a good part of the rest of the world would agree. But somewhere along the way, this story got under people’s skin and became fodder for what I call the Reality News grist-mill, the talk radio chattering classes, and the blog armies of the know-it-all set. The Kulezsas were vilified as boors and parents pistol-whipped by their monstrous 3 year old. Elly was characterized as “spoiled brat” and far worse.

This angry response also characterized my post’s comment thread where almost everyone wagged their finger at the victim family or at me for my response to them. Here are some of the choice ones:

“bratty children”
“You’re stupid.”
“This Richard guy is a boor”
“…people like this family…Pathetic.”
“…this family…with their (uh-hmm) whining.”
“parents were…nearly as bratty as that of their child”
“these people are completely self-absorbed”
“two whiny parents”
“…parents…completely tone-deaf to anyone else”
“they’d worked themselves into such a self-righteous frenzy”
“You self righteous, hypocritical, egotistical, pompous jerk”

When I looked at the blogosphere I found almost no posts agreeing with my view. It was distressing. I wondered why other parents of young children or advocates for children weren’t standing up for this family. When I earlier had written a post about a mother thrown off a Freedom Air/Delta flight for nursing her baby, there was a torrent of goodwill for her and of hostility for the airline. I didn’t expect the same response since this incident involved different circumstances. But I expected something far different than what I saw.

I think Margery Eagan of the Boston Herald is onto something when she notes how those Reality News shows have an insatiable hunger for such “human interest” stories that involve drama and confrontation. And as in the dime store novels of old, there’s always a moral angle–a bad guy and a good one. Never any shades of grey. And when they take hold of a story, they have the clamp-down strength of a shark’s jaws. Once you’re in that meat-grinder, you’ll never get out with your reputation intact. From there, it’s only a short hop, skip and jump to eliciting the worst prejudices and judgmental notions from the know-it-alls who take their cues from these shows.

God, now I’ve insulted lots of people who think Air Tran did the world a favor by kicking off the Kulezsas. I’ll get comments about from some saying their negative reaction to Elly’s behavior has nothing to do with what they saw on cable news. Perhaps. I’m not saying everyone who thinks Elly was a spoiled brat takes their cues from Nancy Grace, Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly. I’m merely making a cultural observation.

Eagan’s column is so dead-on accurate in capturing the important issues for me I’d like to quote from it:

…AirTran reported it was winning the public relations war by about 90-to-1, and Googling the Kulesza name produced 14 pages of commentary, much of it vicious in its criticism of the family, as if they were terrorists, grave robbers, serial killers or worse – illegal aliens!

“Where are those Taser goons when you need them?”
“Next time bring a tranq(uilizer) gun.”
“Just shove the brat in with the luggage.”
“Can’t anybody discipline kids anymore?”

[Dianne] Williamson [who broke the original story], a Telegram columnist for 13 years, says…she’s never gotten such a lopsided response…That is, “85 percent not only support the airline, but applaud it, and the e-mails were so hostile toward the family.”

It’s incredible when you think about it, really.

…Now Julie and Gerry are national poster parents for New Age leniency – two pushovers in a pod – though we know nothing about them, really.

And little Elly? The conventional wisdom is that America’s Biggest Brat is in urgent need of an exorcist.

Neither the Kuleszas nor their in-laws are talking anymore, at least not to me. Can you blame them? Williamson said the Kuleszas seem like a decent enough family who can totally understand why people are upset with screaming kids on airplanes. But they’re still miffed by AirTran’s elephant-gun response, not to mention their own national evisceration.

I mean, what is this about, anyway? Why this fixation with trashing…work-a-day Joes like the Kuleszas?

What’s with these supposed parenting paragons who call radio talk shows, pompous as can be, so holier than thou, and say things like, “Well I am the mother of five children and I would never tolerate such behavior” . . . “Children must learn discipline” . . . “Mothers today just can’t be bothered.”

Oh shut up, will you please? Shut up!

“I had no idea how many children are the products of wonderful upbringings and would never do anything wrong,” said Williamson, tongue firmly in cheek.

Neither did I, since I see unruly little brats with regularity. But I’m not going to start shooting.

I was just listening to Nick Spitzer’s wonderful American Routes as he played Norah Jones’ soulful cover of the Randy Newman classic I Think It’s Gonna Rain Today.” They ironic lyrics brought to mind my reaction to this whole sad story:

Human kindness it’s overflowing
And I think it’s gonna rain today.

Or to quote another great Elvis Costello lyric:

Whatever happened to peace, love and understanding?

Have we become a society of censorious, trigger finger moralists quick to find fault with others, and quick to anger when our prejudices are questioned or challenged by others? I’m afraid so–at least if this sorry incident reflects our impoverished reality.

Boston’s Channel 7 ran this interview with the Kulezsas (video stream) which is hosted at MSNBC. To give you an idea of how divorced from reality some of the hotheads are–a commenter at my earlier post tried to publish this today. After watching the video you’ll be wondering what planet she’s on (unless she watched a different TV interview from this):

I saw an interview with them on the news, and the kid was throwing a tantrum on air! And they acted like it was part and parcel of being a three-year old.

I didn’t publish this or the rest of the intolerant quote because too many commenters already had used terms like “spoiled brat.” You’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it enough.

Nothing stopping you, except the flight crew which just threw you and your 3 year old off that flight.

Air Tran wins the ‘Worst Airline for Children and Families’ award hands down this month for their ejection of Julie and Gerry Kulesza, and their 3 year-old daughter, Elly from a January 14th flight:

AirTran Airways on Tuesday defended its decision to remove a Massachusetts couple from a flight after their crying 3-year-old daughter refused to take her seat before takeoff.

AirTran officials said they followed Federal Aviation Administration rules that children age 2 and above must have their own seat and be wearing a seat belt upon takeoff.

“The flight was already delayed 15 minutes and in fairness to the other 112 passengers on the plane, the crew made an operational decision to remove the family,” AirTran spokeswoman Judy Graham-Weaver said.

In their cold, insensitive treatment of the Kuleszas they join Delta and its ‘Freedom Air’ subsidiary which ejected a nursing mother from one of their flights last November. I tell you, sometimes I think that what these airlines need is to have a few parents and children serve as consultants in their service training program. Airline flight crew and staff who have little or no experience with small children are the bane of the travel experience for flying parents.

Don’t get me wrong–I understand the stress and strain that they’re under. I know that some parents and children test the limits of endurance. I know how obnoxious a wailing child can be. But there’s got to be a better way than to eject a family from a flight.

Here’s the story from the victims’ point of view:

Julie and Gerry Kulesza, who were headed home to Boston on Jan. 14 from Fort Myers, said they just needed a little more time to calm their daughter, Elly.

“We weren’t given an opportunity to hold her, console her or anything,” Julie Kulesza said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

The Kuleszas said they told a flight attendant they had paid for their daughter’s seat, but asked whether she could sit in her mother’s lap. The request was denied.

She was removed because “she was climbing under the seat and hitting the parents and wouldn’t get in her seat” during boarding, Graham-Weaver said.

So you remove a family from an airplane because their daughter was “climbing under the seat and hitting her parents?” It sounds absurd. Since when are children forbidden to hit their parents on airplanes?? Sure it’s not a nice thing to do. But who hasn’t had their 3 year old hit them at one time or another? This wasn’t some drunk passenger hitting on a flight attendant, which is how they’re trying to make poor Elly sound. It was a 3 year old child for chrissakes!

One piece of advice I’d give to the Kuleszas and other fliers is: your toddlers are all 2 years old. You get my drift? That way, even if they wanted to the flight crew would have to allow you to hold your child during takeoff and landing. We just flew two horrific legs from Seattle to Florida and back with children who were just over 2. But for the purposes of these flights they were 2. Our daughter had a fever and diarrhea on the way home and was miserable the entire flight. We even allowed her to sleep on the floor during one landing. It was just that horrific. Luckily, our Continental flight crew was equally understanding. But who knows how they would’ve reacted if we’d told them the children were over 2? Best not to take the chance.

It is, of course, absurd for federal regulations to require a child over 2 to sit in a seat. Certainly, it may be safety-motivated. But how can you communicate that to a 2 year-old? Let’s get real fed bean counters. These are children, not automatons. Sometimes a 2, 3, or even 4 year old needs to be in mommy’s or daddy’s lap during takeoff. They require psychological comforting during such a potentially stressful event.

Kudos to the Kuleszas for giving Air Tran what for:

They also were offered three roundtrip tickets anywhere the airline flies, Graham-Weaver said.

The father said his family would never fly AirTran again.

Let’s start a movement, shall we? Let’s all make commitments never to fly Air Tran again. Then perhaps they’ll hire one of us to teach their staff how to deal sympathetically with child passengers and their parents. If you’d like to give Air Tran a piece of your parental mind, do so here. Or call their corporate headquarters or customer relations department at the phone numbers listed here. And how ’bout a new corporate motto: “Air Tran: only polite children allowed or we’ll chuck your ass.”

The Worcester Telegram (the Kuleszas are from Worcester) runs a terrific follow up article on this story which humanizes this poor family which is being tarred and feathered all over the ignorant blogosphere. The story notes an important fact left out of the AP story: Air Tran, after booting the family, told them that they were banned from flying the airline for 24 hours. Imagine the idiocy! This is customer service?!

Elly’s mother explains in this article that the reason her daughter may’ve reacted so harshly to flying was that the toddler had had an ear operation earlier in the month. The descent on the previous flight she’d flown may’ve distressed her so much that when the family boarded the plane she was reminded of the previous flight and had her meltdown. Doesn’t a child recovering from an ear operation deserve to be cut some slack?

Furthermore, it turns out the only reason why AirTran offered to refund the ticket price was because a reporter for the paper called the airline to ask them about the incident. The same airline spokesperson who’d been so hard-hearted in the above AP story seems to have at least a slight change of heart:

AirTran, meanwhile, has apparently had a change of heart. After the airline received a phone call Thursday from yours truly, an AirTran customer service rep called the Kuleszas, apologized profusely for the incident and refunded them the $595 cost of their tickets.

“We do believe the situation could have been handled differently,” said AirTran spokeswoman Judy Graham-Weaver. “We will use this case as a means to train our agents on dealing with this type of situation on our flights … While there are FAA regulations that mandate all passengers have to be securely fastened in their seat belts before a plane can depart, we need to work with our customers in situations like this to help them — and that is what we will focus on.”

Ms. Kulesza is appreciative of the response, but believes she could have calmed her daughter down, if given the chance.

“It wasn’t like she had a bomb strapped to her waist,” she noted.

You’ve seen all the pictures. You can’t miss those video clips CNN plays over and over ad infinitum allowing you to revel in the catastrophe that has affected tens of millions of around the Indian Ocean basin. But behind the nauseatingly repetitious video clips lies a secret reality that no outlet, not even the serious and distinguished ones like the New York Times are telling you. Danny Schechter has written persuasively about this at Mediachannel.org in his Helicopter Journalism: What’s Missing from Tsunami Journalism.

A second and equally pernicious tragedy besets Sumatra. And this one (almost) no one’s talking about. Indonesia has one of the most corrupt, incompetent and repressive governments in the entire world. Life may not be too miserable for you if you live in a place like Java or Bali. But in the outlying provinces like Irian Jaya and Aceh (Sumatra), life can be a living hell. Subject to the exploitation of multinational mineral extraction companies which use the Indonesian military to bolster their overwhelming control, the local population lives in fear and poverty. Perhaps that is why there are serious insurrections in both provinces.

You remember the genocide inflicted by the Indonesian military on East Timor when it was a “province” of Indonesia? Well, thank God the Timorese overthrew their cruel masters. But at what price? A million or more killed, the island in absolute shambles, an entire people made refugees due to the terror of pro-Indonesia militias. Now extrapolate this to regions like Aceh where the military is now trying to work the same “wonders” as it did in East Timor.

Acehnese call for independence referendum (credit: BBC News)

Currently, in Aceh there is an independence movement called GAM which the army views as terrorists. Many Acehnese are calling for a referendum on the question of independence. The army believes that those who favor a referendum are no different than GAM members. The local commander has said the only thing to do with GAM members is to exterminate them. This is the Indonesian army the world has come to know and love.

Indonesian army patrol in Aceh (credit: International Viewpoint)

In the midst of the tsunami disaster, the Indonesian military continues to carry out raids on Acehnese villages. Imagine the idiocy of this. The military should be fully committed to relief work. It should be doing nothing other than this. And yet it finds the time to continue its repression.

Lest anyone believe that the situation in Aceh is the way it must be, I am heartened to read that there is another nation, equally beset with internal ethnic conflict and war, but which has managed to rise above their internecine warfare in the face of this disaster: Sri Lanka. Read David Rohde’s touching story in the New York Times: In Sri Lanka’s Time of Agony, a Moment of Peace. Here, rebels and government officials, Tamils and Sinhalese have laid aside their weapons of war and taken up the banner of healing. The disaster has moved people throughout the island nation to consider setting aside the conflict in order to embrace the chance for peace. There may be many reasons for the difference between Aceh and Sri Lanka’s response to the tsunami. But I’d bet that at least one of them is that the Indonesian government and military are more fragmented, disorganized, incompetent and corrupt than their Sri Lankan counterparts. There are probably competent, mature leaders on both sides of the Sri Lankan conflict who have the sense to know how far they can go in prosecuting their cause and when it’s appropriate to adopt a different stance (like now).

Another matter that concerns me deeply: those international relief agencies which are attempting to distribute their aid through official Indonesian government channels (including the military) run the risk of seeing much of their aid end up in the hands of rich generals who would be happy to create a lucrative black market in humanitarian relief aid. I imagine it won’t be long before bags of food with the markings of the UN, U.S., Red Cross, etc. turn up on the local black market. I hope I am proven wrong about this. But based on previous bad behavior, I’m afraid that such brigandage is eminently possible. What I want to know is what are these organizations and nations doing to ensure that this does not happen?

Banda Aceh’s mosque in better times (credit: rijaset.net)

While I encourage everyone to give whatever they can to support the relief effort, I’d also encourage donors to search out local independent Sumatran or Indonesian NGOs involved with disaster relief and donate directly to them. I was listening to Democracy Now radio news tonight which presented an eye-[or should I say "ear"] opening segment on the current situation in Aceh. I urge those who want to get behind the headlines to learn of a different reality to visit Aceh: A Victim of Tsunami & Occupation

One of the relevations of this story was the amazing human rights work of TAPOL (which means “political prisoner” in Indonesian). Its website describes its work thus: “Tapol, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign: campaigning to expose human rights violations in Indonesia, East Timor, West Papua and Aceh.” The Indonesian government, of course, views this group as dangerous. In fact, its chairman was assassinated recently as he traveled to Holland to attend a legal seminar. While flying on a Garuda (the official Indonesian airline) flight, his food was poisoned with a massive dose of arsenic (according to an authopsy performed in Holland).

TAPOL is coordinating its own local relief effort in Aceh. To my mind, it would be a perfect locally-based Indonesian NGO to support with our contributions. You can do so through a Paypal account they maintain. Visit this site and click on the Donate Now button. An alternative is a Bali-based group which is sponsoring relief work as well in Aceh: the IDEP Foundation. IDEP is engaged in projects throughout Indonesia that empower local communities through micro-credit cooperatives, sustainable living solutions and environmental education. To contribute to tsunami relief for Aceh through IDEP (using Paypal), click the Donate Now button using the IDEP hyperlink above.

WHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but, sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.

At the foot of these fair mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village, of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant, (may he rest in peace!) and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weather-cocks.

–Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving

(credit: High Tor Hiking Trip/Jason )

I grew up in Rockland County in the heart of the Hudson Valley. As a child, my dad loved to hike locally to unfold the region’s extraordinary beauty and history for me. We hiked throughout Harriman (Palisades) State Park. But the first hike I remember was up High Tor. There are several approaches, but the one he chose was through the High Tor Vineyard, which sits just about a small village called Centenary.

After hiking up the mountain, we were rewarded with an extraordinary 360 degree view of the entire Hudson Valley. It isn’t a particularly difficult climb or steep ascent nor do you top out at a formidable elevation. But the view rivals some of the great peaks for its sweep and scope.

The town of Haverstraw (my father’s birthplace) lay spread out at our feet. I could see the high school where he taught for over 30 years. I could even see his birthplace at 103 Hudson Avenue. There was the railroad line where, as an eager child, I waved at the engineers in the cabooses of all the trains that passed. But most important of all, the Hudson River, one of the great rivers of the world, laid out before me like a wide, waving ribbon cutting through the Hudson Highlands as far as the eye could see. At Haverstraw, the river is 3 1/2 miles wide, the greatest width in its entire run from the Adirondacks to New York City. This is the reason that Henry Hudson anchored in Haverstraw Bay on his return southward journey down the Hudson River in 1609. My dad even told me about one frigid winter when the entire river froze from Haverstraw to Ossining on the other side allowing people to walk from shore to shore.

This hike first introduced me to the majesty of the Hudson. Ever since, I’ve loved mountains more than any other outdoor terrain (now I’ve been in the Sierras, Cascades, Sybellines and others). But the Hudson Highlands will always hold a special place in my heart.

early 1900s image of Haverstraw from High Tor (credit: Town of Haverstraw website)

This is where Rip Van Winkle (in Washington Irving’s story of the same name) laid down for his twenty winks which turned into 20 years of sleep. This is where Benedict Arnold met Maj. John Andre to plot the betrayal of West Point to the British. This is the beloved land which Maxwell Anderson saved from the wrecker’s ball with his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, High Tor (see accompanying play poster–there was also a 1956 film version starring Bing Crosby (!) as Van Van Dorn). This is the land of my father.

High Tor is a national historic landmark and managed by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. A park staff member directed me to Friends of Palisades, an eye-catching website devoted to the parks and historic sites managed by PIPC.

I love this Vincent Laforet New York Times image of the Queen Mary II docking for the first time in New York harbor. The massive perspective of the ship’s prow overshaowing the New York cityscape is impressive.

In March, we went to New York City for an egg donor procedure at NYU Medical Center’s Infertility Program. It was a somewhat stressful experience for all involved, I’d say. But there were loads of times when we had fun. I’ve displayed a few of those times I captured on film here.

From left to right, here are the descriptions:

1. The new Time-Warner Center with Edward Durrell Stone’s landmark building framed by the picture window. We didn’t get to sample any of the fabulous restaurants, but I did walk through New York’s first Whole Foods. Quite nice, and a different layout than the Seattle store.

2. Bethesda Fountain (of Angels in America fame) with Central Park Lake in the background.

3. Willie and Jonah. Willie, the doorman at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Battery Park City, became Jonah’s fast friend during our stay. Willie has an incredible smile, a booming, friendly voice and an enormous love of kids and he made a great impression on Jonah.

4. The Bethesda Fountain “angel”

5. The 9/11 Memorial Quilt displayed at the Lincoln Center branch of the American Folk Art Museum (one of my favorite NYC museums).

For more similar images, visit my photoblog: Into the Great Wide Open