The worst President the USA has ever had!

Donald Trump was confirmed as the new “elected President of the United States”, having defeated the former First Lady, Hillary Clinton, in a most vulgar, dishonest, and degrading election campaign the United States has ever witnessed. Countless times in his crummy campaigning, and with noted irony, Trump had the temerity to label his opponent as “crooked”.

 

The swindling, tax-evading, Twitter crazed, Donald Trump deprived millions of their savings and cheated banks out of further billions with his dozens of declarations of bankruptcy. It required a female judge to uncover his sham, the so-called Trump University, but even so, he has not paid a single penny in federal income tax and continues to withhold public information, no doubt until such time as he is able to enact regulations that will enable him to keep his dubious finances a secret as an executive privilege.

 

I felt physically ill as I watched the ignorant majority of Americans falling for Trump as the Germans had fallen for Hitler. How the German industrialists took Hitler’s side and fed him the initial funds for his election in 1933, pushed through by his foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and how Joseph Goebbels, intellectually schooled by the Catholic Order of Jesuits, built the propaganda machine that would sway so many felt like memories of yesterday.

 

The male members of my aristocratic family served as officers in German royal regiments. My elder brother and cousin served as pilots in the Luftwaffe, and while they were shot down in action, I, myself, was spared participation in any combative missions as a fighter pilot, and thereby, I unwittingly survived World War II. In the 1950s, I came to Canada, and now my eldest son is a scientist living in the U.S., giving me more than one reason to hope to be able to count on the USA to guard humanity from a nuclear war which could annihilate the entire human population. The USA, in one way or another, is the most powerful nation in the world and must be given some credit for having so far prevented, albeit precariously, that war which could mean the end of a habitable globe.

 

The United Nations, as a replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, was established on October 24, 1945, at the end of World War II, with the express vision of preventing another such conflict. At its founding, the UN had collected 51 member states, a number which has since grown to 193, but despite its declaration of “eternal peace”, not one day has gone by since that time on which humanity could claim to have achieved universal peace on Earth.

 

Since time immemorial, men, with their God-given energy and strength, have failed to protect and promote generations of people, while the women of the world have given birth to and nourished them, ensuring the perpetuation of a human population that they have mourned with sorrow. Generations have been slaughtered because these women were never given the power to protect their own offspring. Clearly, a new Reformation of humanity is necessary to give rise to a world in which women may have their equal voice and faculty to negotiate terms of peace with justice and fairness at the forefront of every dispute’s resolution.

 

Barack Obama, the first black President of the United States, whose agenda was constantly sabotaged by a Congress dominated by the opposition, but who nevertheless served two full and exhausting four-year terms, maintained his energy to steadfastly produce conciliatory negotiated solutions resulting in peaceful compromises. He left the enemies to live for another day, but paved the way for the great opportunity for the first female President to take over the reins and lead us into a new world order as Germany did with Chancellor Angela Merkel, who by the way was Time Magazine’s 2015 Person of the Year. Obama might have justifiably thought his achievements would be carried on and that Americans would be ready to have a woman rule their nation with peace and harmony, however, he might also have suspected, from experience, that an alternate turn of events would be just as possible. And so it was.

 

 By chance, I recently saw an interview with two formidable women, Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama, who exemplify that women could have the power to “make America great again”. Having celebrated my 91^st birthday, I may not live to see the dawn of a bright light succeed in America, but I am reassured by these ladies and my spirit is lifted, giving me the energy I need to fulfill my purpose with the writing of my philosophy on helping abused women to lead normal lives and the empowerment of women to reach and break the now famous Glass Ceiling coined by Hilary Clinton.

A Thought For You America

The day before the USA independence day, Wordsmith’s Website printed the statement of Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US President (1743-1826):

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deemed them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

Last months the United States has made monumental strides in civilizing humanity, rectifying laws and symbols  of their barbarous ancestors!

 

            The confederate flag, a symbol of barbarous ancestors, has to come down, be displayed in museums, as reminders of the history of slavery, but also of the valiant and bloody war to defend a shameful exploitation of human beings who deserve equal rights and remembrance of the creation of a prosperous and mighty country and its people.

 

The equal right and permission to marry into same sex unions, because, by the nature of things they had been born with a disposition not to participate in the act of recreation, but have the equal right to live, love, and function like heterosexual bonding. To deny homosexuals the rights and happiness of heterosexuals is a regimen of barbarous ancestors.

The equal rights and social integration of people of different colours in society with dignity and love is still being denied by an obsolete white supremacy tradition, a regimen of a barbarous ancestors.

The religious institutions, such as the Catholic Church and the Islamic Religion, which denies women equal status in the celebration of their religion, has to be reformed to give women equal rights in the celebration and worship of their faith, which is denied them by the tradition of barbaric ancestors.

Let the Americans of the USA celebrate their Independence Day in the shadow of threats from Isis and other jihadists. Let them become the Nation that leads us into a new reformation of humanity, whereby they are the first to embrace fully their advancement of humanity to bring peace and harmony to the world – moving forward beyond the tradition of barbaric ancestors still lingering in some minds – at home and certainly abroad.

Let the recent events and sacrifices be the inspiration to move forward! Happy 4th of July.

 

Musings Inspired by my Journey to Vienna Part 2

Vienna Streets

When grandmother died in 1923, there ensued a battle over her estate, a prolonged legal battle waged between expensive lawyers who, having control, began to sell off parts of the estate to cover their own exorbitant fees. My uncle, Ludwig Jauner, who was on my mother’s side, had a friend. This friend suggested that my mother sell the valuable pearl necklace that my grandmother had left her in the interest of salvaging what remained of the estate. My mother agreed, so he took the precious pearls with him to Amsterdam and sold them, but before he boarded a steamer to South America, he sent my uncle a postcard with just one short message:

Dear Mr. Jauner,

I am sorry, but pearls just bring tears.

Your friend, XYZ

My mother had another idea. Just before the lawyers tried to sell my grandmother’s apartment house in Vienna, at Strohgasse 10, she decided she would move there to live and give birth to me. During the journey she contracted puerperal fever and it nearly killed her, however, she recovered under the tireless care of an old friend. They shared a bedroom at the Sacré Cœur nunnery in Baden near Vienna until my mother was well and had borne her child. That lady, whom I called Aunt Liesl, also took care of me and later let me stay at her apartment, rent-free, during my years of study from 1946 to 1949.

When my father sold his share in a business in Salzburg early in the 1930s in order to join his old comrades from the First World War, the family moved to Munich, then to another city in Germany before settling in Berlin. I first attended a boarding school in Bavaria, then went to a high school in Berlin, which, when the Second World War began to rage, transferred its student classes to safer places. I was billeted, along with my classmates, in Leitmeritz, Czechoslovakia, but I applied for military service in the Luftwaffe. However, I had to forego a three-month stint with the Nazi Arbeitsdienst to help build a stretch of highway in the province of Silesia instead. In the meantime, my mother relocated the household, including her two concert pianos, to a villa in Mödling, a suburb of Vienna, to escape the bombing raids.

My Mother

My oldest brother, Benvenuto d’Albert, instead of following the orders of the Swiss government to relocate back to Switzerland and perform his military service there, joined the German Mountaineers troop with his friends. He went to war in Russia and later fought against the partisans in Yugoslavia. On one of his leaves he came to Vienna to stay in our mother’s villa. One night, there was an air raid, and rather than seek refuge with the family in a bomb shelter, he stayed at the house. He had not witnessed the onset of these city bombings, having been on the front lines. Curious, he went out onto the terrace to watch the bomber formations in the sky, but when he heard the tell-tale whistling of the bombs falling, he dove back into the living room and crouched between the two pianos. This decision saved his life. A bomb exploded on the roof and the second floor of the villa collapsed, burying my brother under the debris. The pianos saved his life, but only just, as a bolder from the chimney had lodged itself against his neck and shoulder. He was paralysed for several hours in the hospital and later said that he was probably safer at the front than in the city, although by the end of the war he had been wounded nine times and had earned the golden hand-to-hand combat order, a decoration which was awarded only three hundred times during the course of the whole war.

After that bombing raid, my mother could no longer bear to stay in Vienna. When I completed my service in the Arbeitsdienst, I went back to stay with her for a week, to help pack whatever belongings could be salvaged, then to drive the delivery truck to Salzburg where my sister Wilfriede was living with her two girls. My mother’s things were stored in a farmer’s barn.

I then received my orders to join the Luftwaffe and to report at a camp near Munich on August 23rd, 1943… However, that is another story, to be related some other time, as it does not pertain to my reminiscences of Vienna during my recent trip.

To be cont.

 

The Semantics of Genocide – April 24, 2015 – 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

The eternal flame at the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial in Yerevan

The Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary defines ‘genocide’ as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group”, such as the Nazis’ attempt to exterminate the Jews in the 1940s. Today, however, we must commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, which was the inspiration for the coining of the very word ‘genocide’ by Raphael Lemkin in 1943 or 1944.
Despite Obama’s campaign promise in 2008, that as President he would “recognize the Armenian Genocide”, the White House issued a carefully worded statement at a high-level administration meeting with Armenian groups that avoided using the term ‘genocide’, obviously for political reasons, for fear of offending their Turkish ally. On the other hand, Pope Francis used the word ‘genocide’ to refer to the mass killings of Armenians by the Turks without hesitation or retraction.
In my mind, ‘genocide’ is a specific and considered war effort to exterminate a declared enemy. An act is genocidal when it is carried out not only to obliterate the fighting force of a nation, but to indiscriminately include the killing of women and children. Women and children are essential for the survival and future of a nation and, therefore, require special attention and protection, attention and protection which the criminal and barbaric mind dismisses.

Genoarmenia

During World War II, the mass destructions of the cities of Coventry in England and Dresden in Germany, and the USA’s atomic bombings on Japan, to call a spade a spade, were genocidal acts. The murder of so many women and children in that war cannot be justified with a claimed goal of shortening the conflict or minimizing casualties. In plain truth, it was simple, inhuman carnage. And in the Iraq war, targeted city bombings caused the deaths of countless women and children, deaths that were labelled ‘collateral damage’, a nice, sanitized term, an excuse for unintentional but unavoidable acts of war.
Let us not be deceived by politically correct terminology, by semantics. The words used to describe calculated acts of warfare which include the slaughter of women and children cannot gloss over the face that they are a disgrace to humanity, and whether they are committed intentionally or carelessly, they are pointedly ‘genocidal’.
It all comes down to the persistent sexist attitude of men, considering women as second-class citizens. Instead of granting women, not only equal status in all facets of everyday life, but a superior status in politics to curb the limited male ability to find peaceful solutions, men engage in macho altercations which lead to wars, wars which women in power could and would have avoided. Let men become the champions and guardians of women, at home as well as in enemy camps. We desperately need their enlightenment to turn the hearts of belligerent men to the singular, necessary goal of achieving universal peace, peace which the United Nations has so far, dismally, failed to achieve.

Photos: Goggle images.

Formidable Women – Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958)

On the days preceding and ending with International Women’s Day, I intended to write about four formidable women from history, to remind people of the recognition they deserved but were often denied. However, I had scheduled a memorial service in the local church for the two women who had been dearest to me for March 8^th. Subsequently, preoccupied with remembered loss and sorrow, I was unable to write anything on that very special day.

Now, I am Europe for a month to visit friends and relatives in Austria and Germany, perhaps for the last time. However, I must still tell you, to give her, her due, of my impressions of “The Dark Lady of DNA,” as she was titled by her biographer, Brenda Maddox.

Today, let us remember…

 

Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958)

 

 

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born in London, England in 1920. She was an extremely intelligent child and knew by the age of 15 that she wanted to grow up to be a scientist. She was able to attend a high school which taught physics and chemistry to girls, then entered Cambridge University in 1938 to study chemistry. After she graduated, Franklin managed to obtain a research grant and worked for a year in a laboratory, later becoming an assistant research officer at the British Coal Utilization Research Association (CURA) until 1947.

During her years in Britain, Franklin grew to be a proficient researcher despite her many encounters with prejudice against women. Her next move, however, was most rewarding and came with the respect due. She moved to Paris to continue her research and there learned X-ray diffraction techniques at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de l‘Etat.

With her newfound knowledge, Franklin was offered a three-year research scholarship at King’s College in London to set-up and improve X-ray crystallography in 1951. She arrived while another researcher, Maurice Wilkins, who was already using X-ray crystallography in an attempt to solve the DNA problem at King’s College, was away. Upon his return, Wilkins assumed that Franklin had been hired to be his assistant. This erroneous assumption would deny Franklin any amicable cooperation from Wilkins for the rest of her life.

At the Cavendish Laboratory, Linus Pauling, an American chemist, was working on building molecular models of the structure of DNA. Pauling later cited several reason to explain how he had been misled about the structure, among his reasons, the lack of high-quality X-ray diffraction photographs. Meanwhile, Rosalind Franklin was busy creating some of the world’s best images. James Watson and Francis Crick took up Pauling’s research; Franklin’s results would become the key to their success.

It came about when Wilkins, a friend of Crick’s, showed Franklin’s unpublished research file to Watson while she was on a lecture tour. This action turned out to be the unethical catalyst for the breakthrough which gave the Watson-Crick team the advantage to win the race and gain the credit for the discovery of the structure of DNA. Watson, the thief, had obtained Franklin’s ‘Photo 51’ which allowed him to succeed in building the first accurate model of the DNA molecule. Wilkins, the traitor, wanting credit, was named as collaborator. And Crick, the model carpenter, announced in a local pub that they had discovered the secrets of life and its system of reproduction.

Rosalind Franklin, sadly ignorant of the theft, was collegiality pleased that these predatory men had finally realized a breakthrough. They, of course, did not enlighten her as to her vital contribution. The confirmation of the success took some years, and during that time, Rosalind Franklin, due to radiation poisoning as a result of her work, died of cancer in 1958 at the age of 37.

In 1962, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins for solving the molecular structure of DNA. The men kept silent about the crucial contribution a woman had provided them to win the reward.

James D. Watson, in his self-serving booklet published in 1968, “The Double Helix”, included a whimsical epilogue, finally giving some credit to Rosalind Franklin. He admitted: “…realizing years too late the struggle that the intelligent woman faces to be accepted by a scientific world which often regards women as mere diversions from serious thinking…” Too late, indeed. The Nobel committee, unfortunately, does not grant prizes posthumously.

So, let us celebrate Rosalind Elsie Franklin’s contributions to the scientific world today, in our hearts.