Trash Is Evidence of Governance

The political situation that hits me on a most personal level is local garbage. Why is that poor people’s streets are filled with garbage? When I walk down my street, there is garbage mixed in with the leaves. We can’t blame the City for this. I watched a hearing on public television where Boston’s Mayor Menino was pretty much imploring Boston residents to use garbage bags! Street sweepers do come by regularly to clear up the debris, but they can’t be responsible for picking up people’s lawns.

The immortal Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: “Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.”

One of my enduring memories of Zurich, Switzerland, the city where my mother was born, was the sight of people awake at 7am vacuuming their window frames. I mean, who in America vacuums their window frames? Maybe the Arabs. The women in Dearborn, Michigan will certainly be found well before noon sweeping if not vacuuming the sidewalk in front of their homes. 

Yet even this can be made into a complex issue! Friends from Beirut explained to me the vast differences between sidewalk upkeep between Sunnis, Shias, and Christians in Lebanon. 

What are the factors that influence a person’s interest in keeping up appearances? I am guessing that home ownership plays a great role in determining the amount of energy spent in sweeping the sidewalk. When you own something, it represents you in this world. So it is quite likely that those who rent are less likely to care if passersby have to gag as they walk past. 

Personal organization is probably key. If the inside of your home is chaos, you are less likely to venture outside to control the chaos out there. The amount of leisure time probably also plays a role. The essence of Middle Class America includes weekends free to tend and prune the garden. When people are working two or three jobs, there is less interest in “the lawn” and more energy spent on getting food on the table.

What could possibly be done to beautify the neighborhood? One approach would be to increase government: perhaps fine people for non-compliance of some basic standard, or at least make more trash receptacles available to the public, which would be managed by paid employees. 

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated while giving a speech in support of the garbage workers strike. He said the people who remove the trash from our community are as important as doctors, because their work prevents disease. You can’t argue with that!

But on my street it’s not just about the weekly garbage pick-up. People seem to be sitting on their porches just throwing cigaret butts towards the street. After garbage day is over, their lawns remain strewn with bottles and wrappers. Why don’t people clean up in front of their homes?

Possibly, what is needed is a non-government neighborhood organization to educate everyone about the importance of recycling and reducing waste. I’m guessing that nothing short of peer pressure would convince many of my neighbors to think about their waste.

Recycling receptacles are free for anyone who wants them from the City. All you have to do is care enough to make a phone call, and separate your food containers from your food remains. If you really truly care enough you can even separate your food waste and compost it in the yard.

All of this is so simple, so what lies between us and environmental responsibility? School children are being educated about the importance of where we put our waste, but they can only do so much to convince their parents.

A lot of the issue really does have to do with personal pride. When you buy, say, a pack of rice mix, you cook the rice and then you have a packet as well as a box to dispose of. It does take some small amount of effort to separate the plastic packet from the box. The box is recyclable. 

A lot of American housewives worked hard in all their free time to get the government to take responsibility for these boxes and cans. A lot of mothers were worried about the garbage pile-up, and rightly so. We live in a country where the people can actually make a difference when it comes to these essential issues. We should support those people who made the effort to do the right thing.

When you see a person litter, what does it make you think about that person? Why do people go about their lives as if it’s someone else’s job to pick up their waste? Are we barn animals? How do we go about explaining to our loved ones and neighbors the importance of such matters?

I truly do not know. But I think it’s interesting to ponder the question, is such a simple matter a sign that we need more government or less government? Whichever we choose, what are we willing to do to see this problem through to its resolution?

Psychoanalyzing Pharaoh

Today we commonly ask, “How could the Germans remain silent during the Holocaust? How could they live in denial? How could they?!” Although a few did risk their lives to reach out to those against whom Nazi violence was directed, the vast majority were patriotic citizens.

Technically, wiping out a civilization is called “genocide.” So, what is the difference between a Jewish supporter of Zionist Israel and a German supporter of Nazi Germany? The difference is that unlike in the 1930s and 40s, today there is no barrier to receiving accurate news reports. There is no Jew or Gentile who could honestly say they had no way of knowing what the Jewish homeland was doing to the Palestinians. If he does not know, it is because he does not care to know.

The Germans, by contrast, had very little access to public information except via government-controlled radio. A memorial in Munich, Germany remembers a professor and a few college students who were executed by the Nazi regime for throwing fliers out of the classroom window publicizing the war crimes of their government.

Today I see American Jews, at far less risk of peril for speaking out than what would have faced an outspoken Nazi opponent, remaining in blank-faced denial about the erasing of Palestine from the map. They want us to believe that the land simply “came to be known as Israel.”

Zionists around the world are praying and waiting for their inheritance of Biblical lands to be claimed in its entirety, without delay, in order to implement the “redemption of Israel.” Then, they believe, there can be peace on earth. Therefore, they see Palestinians as obstacles to peace.

A letter to the editor published in The Jewish State, a small New Jersey newspaper, states: “Unless and until the Palestinians stop teaching their children the virtues of jihad, martyrdom, and the destruction of Israel, the Palestinian children, cute as they are, remain my virulent enemy and I will not spend much time lamenting their demise if and when they are taken out as collateral damage.”

How can it be that this monster who seethes with hate and feels no remorse, can perceive himself as reasonable, ethical and moral? Helplessly, the world watches as many of Palestine’s best and brightest are simply ‘knocked off,’ not by a random act of terror but by the painstaking deliberations of the state military apparatus. Yet the Zionist continually feels that he is the one who has been wronged, that his violence is always and only provoked by the other. What is at the heart of all this abusive behavior?

An essay written by an American fourth grader attending Hebrew School reveals the murderers’ hidden inferiority complex: “Why do people treat Israel as if she is less important than other countries?…I cannot answer why people would treat any country as if it counts as less than another…We need to stretch out our hands to pull the Israelis from the pit into which the terrorists have thrown them. We must also show the terrorists that we will not allow them to take over our country.”

The Israeli Declaration of Independence refers to “the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land.” I find it curious that the founders of the Jewish state proclaimed as sovereign over the land not the Lord God but to themselves, with their proclaimed “natural and historical right” to take possession of it. Their entire argument for rebuilding Solomon’s Temple also seems to revolve around the idea that this will show the world that the Jews are really something.

 “This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.”

Jabotinsky wrote: “To the hackneyed reproach that this point of view is unethical, I answer, ‘absolutely untrue.’ This is our ethic. There is no other ethic.” (1923).

So, is Zionism a struggle for Jewish supremacy or a struggle to be as good as other nations? On one hand, the Jews declare their absolute uniqueness, and then they declare that they want to be like everyone else. Is the only way for Jews to get beyond their imagined second-class status is by declaring themselves God, making others into second-class citizens and founding a nation over their graves?

The story of Moses and the Pharaoh tells us that God destroys civilizations for their cruelty. Pharaoh is described as one who “transgressed beyond bounds in the lands, and heaped therein mischief (on mischief). Therefore did thy Lord pour on them a scourge of diverse chastisements” (Quran 89:11).

Many Muslims consider the discovery of Pharaoh’s mummy in 1898 at Thebes to be a warning specifically to the Jews from God. This Sign is the fulfillment of a Quranic prophecy where Allah says to the Pharaoh: “This day We (have decided to) preserve your body (from destruction) so that you may become a sign to (a people) who will come after you, for most people are heedless of Our signs” (10:92-93).

No country based on a racist ideology, which imposes a tyranny of one ethnic group over the others, has any need to exist as a nation among other nations.

Warding off the Evil Eye

People often think it’s silly to worry about protecting yourself from other people’s bad thoughts. Personally, I never would have believed it myself about the Evil Eye, or that other people’s thoughts could potentially harm me, except that I watched my newborn baby die in my arms while I nursed him, for no scientific reason – no cause of death was ever determined by autopsy – but something spiritually intense was definitely going on in the room. My cat’s hair was standing on end, her eyes had turned red, and she was hissing and glaring intensely at the child that I had just brought home from the Birth Center. I had never seen my cat this way, she looked like a demon. I was terrified. This was not the cat I knew. Unfortunately my husband had left me alone in this whirlwind of negative energy. Then my baby just stopped breathing and suddenly died.

Later on I learned that there is an ancient belief, shared by many Muslims, that the djinn can enter a cat and suck the life out of a baby. For this reason many people try to keep cats away from newborn babies. They hang Ayat al Kursi over a baby’s bed or recite it to keep away the Evil Eye. At the time I had no idea this level of vigilance was required to protect my child’s life! I was totally prepared in all other ways for the basic needs of a newborn. If I look back now, I realize that more than one person held my baby during his short life of 19 hours, who are causing deliberate pain in my life to this day. There were other people who never wanted my marriage to happen. I have no idea how many people prayed against me or wished harm to fall upon me and my firstborn son. The lesson I have learned is to be more aggressive about protecting myself against harm.

Yet during times of stress our defenses can become compromised, even when we know what to do. This week after completely floored by some totally undeserved accusations and hateful words, I was like a train derailed. I got so sick that I was sweating and shivering, while the person who had originally upset me continued to behave in a ruthlessly unkind manner, almost seeming to delight in causing me distress. When people get you down, they actually manipulate you into hurting yourself sometimes. Not eating, not sleeping, becoming enraged in reaction to their lack of respect. So now I’m back to square one in terms of building up the fortress which is my personal space.

Perhaps the most important thing, after praying for healing for ourselves and our loved ones, is to spiritually protect our homes. The djinn congregate in dirty places, the Prophet (pbuh) told us, so vacuuming up those cobwebs on the ceiling and taking care of things long left undone can help dispel the repressed, negative energy that is symbolized by our procrastination.

It is important to keep track of what comes into your house and what goes out of your house. If you feel a negative association with a gift given to you by someone who seems like they might not wish you well, get rid of it. Burn it, throw it down the toilet or into a river, or at least wash it, with a prayer. And take a bath. I’ve been told, if someone who you suspect dislikes you gives you food, especially sweets, don’t eat it. If a gift disturbs you emotionally because every time you look at it you have to relive some old memory, at least put it away so you don’t have to look at it anymore. If you must send your children to visit people who do not wish you well, make sure you pray over them before they leave and also purify your doorstep in some way so that all who enter into your dwelling will shed whatever bad thoughts might be with them.

How do you purify a doorway? A home? I am sure lots of people would tell me it’s wrong, but this is what I have learned from experience can help get rid of children’s nightmares and other negativity. Some people recite prayers over water and sprinkle the water in every corner and doorway of the home. Some people recite prayers and wave smoke at every corner and doorway of the home. I personally find that the beauty of fresh flowers in a vase helps counteract the ugliness of Satan. The basic idea is to ask God to keep evil out of your home and to keep you and your family safe. Even when you are not at home, you can visualize some kind of force field of light surrounding your home. If you don’t have energy for all of that (like me right now, because I’m sick), just say a prayer and ask God to protect you “from the evil of the envier when he envies.” The hadith recommend reciting Ayat al-Kursi and the four Qul’s. Reading the Psalms of David works for a lot of people. Most importantly, do something. Intention is everything. You don’t have to be an enlightened or perfect being to pray for protection. It does not require religious observance or sinlessness. But it could lead to that.

Lice Happens

This week, I am unable to come up with any deep observations on politics, psychology or spirituality, because my daughter came home with lice. Those parents who have gone through this know how embarrassing, time consuming, and stressful it can be. I even got a second call from the school nurse telling me I didn't do a good enough job picking out the nits. Both the nurse and my daughter's kindergarten teacher spent time removing lice eggs from my daughter's long, beautiful hair. I am grateful, and humbled.

I guess my eyes must be going bad, and the evening lighting in my apartment isn't that bright, but I am truly doing the best I can. After shampooing myself and four children with the recommended medication and combing through everyone's hair, I have been doing laundry around the clock for the past two days, losing sleep - all the while my youngest engages in “cute” antics like dumping corn starch all over the living room, peeing on the carpet, and well, you know what it's like to have kids. This article is devoted to parents facing the stress of lice. As if we didn't have enough to worry about.

I remember bursting into tears the fifth time my kids got lice from visiting their cousins in Queens. A nice Pakistani lady calmed me down reminding me it's no big deal. It is often humiliating to be found with lice in your family, because lice is common in places where people have less access to running water. It is associated with being poor and dirty. However, lice are very happy to live in clean people's homes too. Lice live on the scalp, sucking your blood. But they do not die from shampoo. So even if your children bathe frequently, they could get lice. If you are diligent about brushing your children's hair often while looking closely at the scalp and each strand of hair as you comb through it, you might catch the lice sooner than if your kids' hair stays braided or messy.

If you catch lice early, you will find white little bubbles about the size of a pencil dot sticking to shafts of hair near the scalp. You have to use your fingernails to slide the egg down the hair shaft and remove it. If lice goes on for a long time left untreated, you will find little crusty brown dots stuck to the scalp that require a fingernail dig to dislodge. In any case, as soon as you realize all these eggs are in your child's hair you have to use the lice shampoo, and then manually search through every blade of hair. And wash your hands afterward of course. We might think: Who has the time for this???!!!

It is part of primate biology to be vulnerable to insect parasites, but God created biology with some interesting psychology mixed in! Monkeys and gorillas comb each others' fur and pick out insects (and eat them) as a way of showing love and affection. They can sit together for hours, just exchanging their beingness with one another, providing a little gentle skin massage to their beloved in the process. I knew a woman whose husband had such fond memories of his mother searching his hair for lice while he lay his head on her lap, that he enjoyed his wife to pretend to look for lice as part of their mating ritual! That woman is now an elected official – so don't let the fear of real or imagined lice hold you back.

It takes a lot of love to pick nits out of someone's hair. And a lot of time and patience. Single parents definitely face a challenge because there is no one around to comb through their hair, after they have combed through their children's hair. Some barber shops will help out on the sly. But it is always a situation where you are begging someone for a serious favor!

Hazrat Ali said (something like) that he KNOWS there is a God, because every time he makes plans, something else could happen. You might have thought you were going to reorganize your recipe box this weekend. But instead, you are dealing with life. I mean, lice.

The Question of the Pill

“If a man breaks a relationship with you because you would not allow him to participate in the sexual act, you can be assured that he did not love you from the beginning.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr. 1957


There has been a lot of discussion in the news recently about funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides cancer screenings as well as abortion to low-income women. The question of abortion funding has elicited outrage and accusations that women’s rights are under attack in the same way that minorities are under attack by lack of civil rights. Therefore, advocates on both sides of the issue have looked to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for insight.

The Reverend supported birth control for African-Americans as a way of alleviating poverty. MLK was the first recipient of the Margaret Sanger award for his support of Planned Parenthood in 1966. However, abortion was not one of Planned Parenthood’s services then as it was illegal, and birth control was only being promoted for married couples at that time. MLK made his personal opinion regarding sexual behavior quite clear in a 1957 advice column, where he told a young woman:

“I think you should hold firm to the principle of premarital virginity. The problems created by premarital sex relationships are far greater than the problems created by premarital virginity. The suspicion, fears, and guilt feelings generated by premarital sex relations are contributing factors to the present breakdown of the family. Real men still respect purity and virginity within women. If a man breaks a relationship with you because you would not allow him to participate in the sexual act, you can be assured that he did not love you from the beginning.”

“Abortions are destroying us as women,” Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., told The Final Call.

Ms. King is a pro-life advocate and the director of African-American Outreach for the New York-based Priests for Life ministries. Alveda King became an outspoken anti-abortion activist after having experienced more than one unhappy abortion in her teen years. She now believes that “the Negro cannot win if he’s willing to sacrifice the futures of his children for immediate personal comfort and safety.” King considers Planned Parenthood to be the “number one killer of African-Americans.”

In 1996, Planned Parenthood reported that “Blacks, who make up 14 percent of all childbearing women, have 31 percent of all abortions.”

The Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973 legalized abortions in America and since then, Black women have accounted for between 13-15 million abortions, making them five times more likely to have the procedure than their White counterparts. From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions occurred nationwide.

It is meaningful to note that “Roe” – the actual woman who was responsible for legalizing abortion in America – seriously regretted the political use of her pregnancy. Roe is now an outspoken anti-abortion advocate! Her conversion to Christianity was influenced by anti-abortion protesters around her clinic who chatted with her during her cigaret breaks. They explained to her about the true value of the human soul and the possibility of divine redemption.

Anti-abortion activists take amazing amounts of abuse from the public that only a Muslim would understand. Once in a while somebody listens. One young Black single mother told me that her unborn child saved her life. Being pregnant changed her – for the better.

As complex as the abortion issue remains, the issue of birth control is even more complicated. When left to our own natures, the human female body is capable of producing about one child per year. In the olden days, this could mean 14 or more children, and often, premature death. Just producing enough nutrition to create and sustain that many lives was the central challenge in every woman’s life.

Classic country singer Loretta Lynn wrote a song in 1972 called “The Pill” that was banned on all the radio stations. She sang:

“You …promised if I’d be your wife you’d show me the world

But all I’ve seen of this old world is a bed and a doctor bill.

I’m tearing down your brooder house ‘cause now I’ve got the Pill!”

The availability of birth control that is not dependent upon a male partner’s cooperation has made a huge difference in the lives of women. The past forty years have demonstrated that women who do not have too many children are capable of competing with men, and sometimes, excelling them in all realms. At the same time, the existence of birth control has contributed to a certain level of male expectation that is divorced from the concept of a meaningful and committed emotional relationship.

What is never discussed are the health consequences. Every type of Pill, or injection, or NuvaRing can cause cancer, seizures or heart attack, and will certainly increase your Candida growth of yeast while killing the good bacteria in your digestive system, just like taking antibiotics. It’s like being an alcoholic or a foodaholic eating way too many sugary foods. Yin/Yang balance is health. Birth control causes a stress upon your immune system. If you have, or will develop, any kind of immune issue, taking hormonal birth control medication will affect that. Be particularly alert to increased risk of cervical and breast cancers, heart attack and strokes, high blood pressure, gall bladder and liver disease, decreased bone density, yeast overgrowth and infection and increased risk of blood clotting.

The counter-argument in favor of hormonal birth control is that the process of pregnancy and birth is also dangerous and potentially life-threatening. I don’t know about you, but if I had the choice between cancer and another child, I know what I would choose. But you never get to make those choices with rear view mirror hindsight.


Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based freelance writer. karinfriedemann.blogspot.com

Are Walls Necessary to Protect America?

In the coming presidential election, one of the issues being discussed is how the United States should protect its borders from illegal immigrants from Mexico. As a first generation European-American, I feel somewhat uncomfortable placing my legal rights above those whose ancestors have resided on this continent for perhaps 10,000 years – although I can also understand that there are probably some very real problems associated with undocumented residents placing a burden on taxpayers. While I have no quick answers, I can state with certainty that the US-Mexico border wall makes me very uncomfortable, given its similarities with the Israel-Palestine Wall, which has caused so much human suffering including the deliberate starvation of innocent populations, who WANT to work.

My own family was divided for 40 years, unable to visit one another, by the Wall that separated Western Germany from USSR-occupied Germany. This Wall was topped with barbed wire and decorated with automatic machine guns that were programmed to shoot anything that moved. Like the Palestine Wall, people dug tunnels underground to escape, while visitors had to wait in traffic jams for hours, getting their cars searched by soldiers, just to obtain a temporary travel pass. My father’s cousin even served prison time for “possession of a Bible.”

I went to the former East Germany in 1993 for a visit. My nearly deaf and blind great-uncle in Saxony told me he had lived through four different governments in his lifetime. He told me the only thing he could say for sure in the wisdom of his old age was that things always change. Sometimes you have everything, other times you don’t have enough. But if you wait, times will eventually change. He was not sure that Capitalist Germany was going to be better than Soviet Germany. Because of the Wall, he was never able to travel, and now that he could travel, there was no point since he could barely see. He told me that he had known enough of war and had no desire to see the next century. He died in his sleep on New Years Eve 1999.

Family friends had amazing stories: their idea of a vacation was to travel to the hilly countryside to glimpse the land on the other side of the Wall. One day, they threw a message in a bottle into the sea to try and connect with the outside world. It ended up in Norway! A family in Norway began to write letters to this family trapped in Germany and they established a great friendship. As soon as the Wall came down, our German friends couldn’t wait to buy tickets to visit Norway. So I can truly sympathize with the issues faced by both Mexicans and Palestians: The personal humiliation involved with one’s freedoms being hindered by a cement monstrosity cannot be quantified. It may help to view the historical facts associated with today’s present reality.

La Voz de Aztlan (the Voice of Mexican-American Californians) states on its website, aztlan.org

“As a consequence of the 1839 westward imperialist expansion by Anglo-Saxons and other White European settlers that was fueled by the diabolical and racist notion called Manifest Destiny, the Republic of Mexico ended up losing over half of its territory. Manifest Destiny was utilized to justify the massacre of many native American Indian tribes and to rob Mexico of Alta California, Tejas, Nuevo Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. Manifest Destiny was the evil concept held by racist expansionists that God had given Whites the right to conquer and “civilized” the Mexican and Indian “savages” in order for them to establish a nation from coast to coast. It is exactly the same Satanic ideology that European Ashkenazis Zionist Jews are using to dispossess native Palestinians of their territory in the Holy Land.”

They conclude that their intention “is also to unite with the Islamic nations that are suffering from the same oppression meted out by the White colonialist and imperialist interests, such as Iran, Palestine and others.”

This may seem like a radical position, but the facts speak for themselves. La Voz editorializes:

“Another of the most glaring similarities is the incarceration policies of youths by the dominant culture. Presently, the survival of the Palestinian people is being threaten by the selective incarceration of the bravest, strongest and most productive members of the group… the incarceration of Raza youths, is also having the effect of destroying the family structure of our communities. In many cases, children are being left fatherless in the critical stage of their development. Targeting by the police of Raza youths is similar to the targeting of Palestinian young males by the Israeli Armed Forces.”

Jewish landlords are accused of “ethnically cleansing” Mexicans from downtown Santa Ana, California, while links are made between the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a Jewish terrorist group, border control vigilantes and CIA drug smugglers.

I think enough questions remain to make it important for Muslim Americans, especially those from immigrant families, to come to an understanding of the historical realities facing Mexican people today. The strong opinions voiced by many of today’s politicians regarding “border control” are covering up some very real political and racial issues that we need to understand, from both sides, before coming to any conclusions.

Debating Prisoners' Release

Two bills have been introduced in the Massachusetts House and Senate,
which are meeting a lot of protest from the local community,
especially among those of color. House Bill 3811 and Senate Bill 2504
would implement a “three strikes” sentencing policy. The issue is
currently in conference with state legislators, elected officials, and
criminal justice advocates.

The bill would require anyone being charged with certain offenses a
first or second time to serve two-thirds of their sentence before
being eligible for parole, while a third offense would receive the
maximum prison sentence without possibility of parole. The Senate bill
is more lenient than the House bill, as it introduces some leniency
towards drug offenders and targets only dangerous or violent
criminals. The House bill considers any and all felony convictions as
counting towards the three strikes. Opponents are being asked to
contact state lawmakers in hopes of revising these bills so that
prison times will not be extended for non-violent offenders.

State Representative William Brownsberger received a standing ovation
at a recent panel discussion on the “three strikes” bills for saying
this “isn't a black and Latino issue, it's a human issue.”

Nancy Gertner, a retired judge from the US District Court for the
District of Massachusetts, wrote in a recent editorial in the Boston
Globe: “Why is Massachusetts moving in a direction opposite that of
other states -- retaining life without parole for juveniles, refusing
to enact post conviction DNA testing statutes and more recently,
proposing a new version of the discredited “Three Strikes and You’re
Out” crime approach?... Existing get-tough policies have pushed our
system to the breaking point.”

Gertner is particularly “mystified” by the Massachusetts legislature's
repeated rejection of DNA testing: “No one is interested in the
imprisonment of an innocent man.”

Overcrowding averages 143 percent over capacity; one unit at MCI
Framingham is even at 331 percent over capacity. Judge Gertner
concludes that “if the new law increases the prison population as it
is likely to do, the Commonwealth will have to build more capacity
fast – costing $100,000 per cell. This is on top of the $1 billion a
year the state spends on incarceration. Worse yet, since the current
system is too strained to meaningfully invest in keeping prisoners
from reoffending, we are doomed to keep paying to house some of the
same prisoners over and over.”

Mississippi and Texas have implemented far more intelligent reforms.
By reserving prison space for the most violent and instituting
rehabilitation programs for low level offenders, Mississippi has cut
its prison population by 22 percent, saving roughly $450 million,
according to one study. Texas enacted similar reforms in 2007, saving
an additional $2 billion. Crime rates in both states have
substantially declined.

Massachusetts does not have the death penalty, but it is the only New
England state that enforces life without parole for juveniles. Arnold
King has served 40 years of a life sentence for a shooting that
occurred when he was a teenager. While serving his time, King worked
hard to educate and improve himself, and became a valuable member of
the community. The former Massachusetts furlough program used to allow
prisoners temporary leaves of absence from prison in order to work,
participate in educational programs, visit family members, obtain
medical treatment, look for work upon release, attend a funeral or
other valid reasons. King went on 30 furloughs, during which time he
worked actively with the Rainbow Coalition, interned at the State
House, did a number of speaking engagements trying to curb youth
violence, and he was even married at Jamaica Pond while on a furlough.
His brother, Kazi Toure, states:

“Prisoners, piecing their lives back together, truly benefited from
this humane rehabilitation program as a way of reacclimating back into
society. But the program was shut down. Everyone who was a lifer was
pulled back behind the wall - where they have remained.”

While there has been a reduction in clemency towards prisoners who
have tried to better themselves, there has been an increase in the
practice of reducing prison time or releasing prisoners – in exchange
for acting as an informant. For example, a man named Johnny Martorano, who
admitted to killing 22 people, was released from prison after
serving just 12 years, because he gave information about Dan Connelly,
the FBI agent, who let Whitey Bulger, the Rifleman Flemmi, and Stevie
Selemmi commit whatever crimes they wanted including murder for the
FBI, in order to get information about other crimes. Similar deals
have been given to supposedly dangerous Muslims incarcerated for
terrorism related offenses: they are often given softer sentences in
exchange for incriminating old friends.

Why are prisoners who are no longer a threat to society being kept
locked up, while other prisoners, including serial killers, are being
set free in exchange for information? There needs to be more public
involvement and oversight of the process by which prisoners are
granted or denied a second chance at life. Three-strikes laws don't
protect the community but collectively punish taxpayers. They reduce
incentive for good behavior, and increase the financial and emotional
calamities experienced by the families of those incarcerated, who live
in our community.


Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based freelance writer.

A New, Humane Approach to Zionism

I used to enjoy musings on the "insanity" of Zionism, trying to psychoanalyze the condition, but I am now starting to wonder if we should start to consider Zionism as a type of autism. As in, a neurological deficit, and not a psychiatric condition caused by a trauma like the Holocaust.

The stereotypical autistic genius and the Zionist mind are very similar in so many ways:

- ability to function impressively in some realms while lacking common sense
- lack of empathy - while at the same time possessing a self-image of being a decent person
- inability to put himself in someone else's shoes - even if needs are explained, it does not "compute"
- compartmentalization of the mind - learning does not infer wisdom to another area of experience
- appreciation of cute animals/cries during movies yet oblivious to the real life needs of others
- unwilling to make any effort to alleviate a human's suffering - if it is caused by himself
- reacts with outrage and counter-blame when someone mentions what he did
- will not cooperate, even if it is in his own best interest
- reluctance to enter into any human relationship unless the other person is "useful"
- sense of entitlement or delusions of grandeur
- imagining others as lesser beings made to serve oneself – no sense of gratitude
- the self-explanation for harming others is always that he is "merely existing" or "surviving"
- constantly tries to get other people's sympathy for being a clueless victim of unfortunate circumstances, so that people will give him money/credibility

Scientists are still trying to understand how the human brain can malfunction. Some people's brains are found to be abnormally active in certain regions while abnormally inactive in other regions, compared to typical left and right brain activity. The autism label is used to separate people with neurological disorders from people whose antisocial behaviors may have other causes. For example, Chronic Oppositional Defiance is considered a psychiatric condition, even though it is nearly identical to Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome, considered a type of autism.

Autistic children can often be recognized at a very young age by their inability to understand what another person is pointing to. This is because the child CANNOT imagine herself in another person's shoes in order to guess at what he might be pointing to. It is a true disability. It is not a psychiatric condition. It cannot be cured. The person truly cannot imagine another person's point of view.

If an autistic person recognizes that he has a problem understanding others' point of view, he can learn to use his intellect to compensate for lack of intuition, for example by memorizing social rules and following them legalistically rather than understanding right and wrong on an intuitive level.

However, there is probably no limit to how the brain can analytically reinterpret even something as simple as the Ten Commandments, so that they only apply to certain people, or certain cases. Historical events can be ignored and the person who remembers what happened is labeled as "delusional."

I have found this same level of intellectual disconnect when talking to Zionists. They are seemingly unable to follow a logical argument through to its conclusion, but rather short-circuit, become defensive and irrational, and create distance, much like many good autistic people act when you try to make them understand a logical, linear argument.
They can see things in so many multi-dimensions that life becomes so complicated that something like mopping a floor - a linear progression of a series of acts aimed at a specific goal - becomes so overwhelming that they just don't even bother trying to do it. They just act helpless until someone else does it for them. A successful autistic adult (like Bill Gates) is one who is skilled in getting people do things for him while he concentrates. Autistic people try to maintain control over all circumstances, due to a rigidity of thought.

Once you realize another person is incapable, not just unwilling, to negotiate solutions – you have to change tactics. You cannot have a cooperative relationship based on human equality with an autistic individual because the neurotypical person will always be compensating for the autistic person's unwillingness or inability to reciprocate, and their refusal to negotiate constructively. Rather than keeping their agreements, they often just invent a new personality that doesn't "remember" having that conversation before. Just like an Israeli peace treaty!

We Americans have been negotiating with a people incapable of caring about our point of view. We have to see clearly that we are in a caretaking position. We are not dealing with human beings who we can talk to on our own level. The fact is, Israel is a country that would never have survived without our financial generosity. It is not a “normal” country. Israel is pretending to be normal the way a person with Aspergers pretends to be normal - so very cruel to those upon whom she so heavily relies.

Zionists have a certain mental deficit. We must decide as a people to stop begging them for empathy. We will stop trying to make agreements with them in good faith. Then, we will stop suffering from feelings of rage, hurt, and hate. We are the caretakers of Israel, like them or not. If we don't step up to the responsibility, and admit our adversary has a serious problem, no one else will.

Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based freelance writer. Karinfriedemann.blogspot.com