Remembering Thomas Elias Weatherly, Jr.

Thomas Elias Weatherly, Jr., also known as Elias Weatherly and W. died in early July, 2014. The exact date are not known. If he died on the Fourth of July, an appropriate date for him since he believed in the potential of the USA, yesterday and today would be his tenth Yahrzeit. 

There is no obligation for me to say Kaddish for him but in my heart, I do. I remember him as a good man, a man of qualities both positive and negative. He was a man of principle and stuck by them. He was a poet and he was an intellectual. He believed he had a Jewish soul and so he made a sincere effort to study Judaism and eventually became a proselyte. He was working for me at the Strand Bookstore at the time and he was a key member of my team. After becoming a Sabbath observer we had to make arrangements to his schedule. By that time we had become friends, a friendship that deepened over time. We stayed in touch after I left the Strand in 1990 and he moved on to manage the shipping department.

After I adopted my son, Weatherly gave me parenting advice. I, a white Jewish man and he, a Jewish African-American bonded even more deeply since my son is also an African-American Jew. When my son was two, Weatherly gave him a yarmulka that my son loved until he lost it during a toilet training incident. Weatherly found the incident particularly amusing.

He split his last years between New York City and Huntsville, AL where he took care of his late parents' home. When he was in NYC we spoke and sometimes we managed to get together. Our conversations were intense and gratifying, covering politics, economics, race relations and literature. When I learned of his sudden death, I grieved deeply.

Ten years after his death, he remains with me in memory. Remembering the people in my life is important even when they are gone. Whether is is my brother or Weatherly, both of whom passed away in the summer, or college roommates who died in the past two years matters not only because of their qualities but also because of the experiences we shared, experiences worth remembering. I did not light a Yahrzeit candle for Weatherly yet in my mind's eye I see him; tall, taller than me, black with short curly hair, a warm smile, curious look and even glowering, depending on the conversation, and then later with his bushy grey beard, he still lives in my memory though certainly dead and buried in Alabama.

Here is a nice article about his poetry: https://jacket2.org/feature/short-history-tom-weatherly

Here are a few photos, two scanned Polaroids from the early 1980s were previously posted by me after I learned of his passing, the other two were taken less than a year before his death at a kosher Indian restaurant on Lexington Ave. in NYC.

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Why no posts for a couple of months

The short answer as to why I haven't posted is my camera broke. I was hanging out with one of my nieces and my great-niece when I got a this message on the display, "camera error - turn camera off and then on again." I followed instructions and got the same message. I tried everything the manufacturer said to try on their support website, I tried some things that worked for other people on the internet, but nothing worked.

The next day I called support and they referred me to the company that handles extended warranty repair. The tech there walked me through what I'd done and said it would have to come in. The next day I got an email instructing me to send them scans of my invoices and photos of the camera. I did. The next day I got another email asking for photos in a different format. I did that. Then I got a request for another photo, this one of the serial number - mind you I'd already sent that. It took three more emails before they got one they could read even though I could read them clearly. Ok. So be it. 

By now about a week's gone by. Then on the second Tuesday, I get another email with instructions on packing the camera, with the label for the box. I send it out the next morning via UPS and they have it on Friday. They told me they work seven days and that it could take up to 30 days for the repair depending on availability of parts. I still don't know what's wrong with the camera but now they have it.

I check a couple of days later on their website to follow the progress of the repair but their website is very erratic. One time it tells me only that the camera has been received. The next day the same. The day after that it is being repaired. The day after that the update is that it's in Quality Control. Then the same day I see that it's waiting for repair. Two very different messages the same day so I call. The customer support person checks and says they can't find the status except that they've got the camera.

Finally, after three weeks without my camera, I get a status update that it's repaired and will be shipped the next day. Two days later it's back in my hands, all fixed.

The shutter failed and some other part had to be replaced with the new shutter. 

And that explains why I didn't post for about two weeks.

Then I started a project that's been on hold for nearly half a century, which is about five years or so less than I've been writing in my notebooks by hand. I've started typing them and that is what started preoccupying me. Even with the camera back, even with me taking lots of photos, I was short on time to select and write an entry.

But now I'm back. That includes back from road trip that began and ended at Union Station in Chicago and covered parts of six state.

From that trip here's a very few photos. Maybe more over the next few days.

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Three month old thoughts on what's going on now - Antisemitism and PhiloPalestinianism

This post is in two parts. The first part is an essay that I wrote in my notebook on January 10, 2024 shortly after the illegal excavation at the Chabad compound on Eastern Parkway was discovered.

The second part is a small batch of photos of the candle lighting at the Radomer Mutual Culture Center's Holocaust Memorial service. 

Reading this essay the day after attending the service I decided to post it. Some current news events are foreshadowed here and I found ti worth rereading. I hope you do too.

Radomer Mutual Culture Center Holocaust Menorah

1/10/2024

The sudden appearance in the news of Chabad, events at its headquarters and the division between the Messianists and the Chabad mainstream – who may or may not be crypto-Messianists but have some sympathy for Schneerson as Messiah serves as inspiration for the antisemites who’ve come crashing out from beneath their rocks recently. There is a confluence of events that begins with the eternal undertone of Jew hatred and fear in the US, Europe and the Middle East and beyond, there is the joyful reaction to the Hamas terror attack on 10/17 followed by a joyful and hateful outpouring of antisemitism and philo-Palestinianism since the Israeli counterattack into Gaza, there is the anonymity of social media where the worst of many people’s thoughts get expressed without repercussions.

            Among all of these things, only the Israeli’s military’s killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians is open to condemnation though the unbalanced reaction is something else. It can be argued that Hamas is to blame for the civilian deaths, better though to say they share in the blame for spurring the events with their terror attack and then make it worse by using civilians as shields, by hiding their military infrastructure within hospitals, schools, apartment blocks and so on, and by standing as eternal enemies of the rights of Jews everywhere as well as the Jews of Israel to live in Israel.

            I decry and plan on speaking to the unbalanced anti-Israel movement that’s sprung up in parts of the USA and globally and how this is a very thinly disguised form of antisemitism, and at another time I will discuss the long-term failure of Netanyahu’s policies toward the Palestinians and the occupied territories. But not right now.

            Here I want to discuss the ugly antisemitism that social media in particular has fostered. The isolation of the hater is gone as the haters find community online and their communities provide a safe place to express ideas that fester in an individual but grow like a fungus when given approval by like-minded haters. They become a mob and the mob inspires hateful acts upon the innocent.

            We live now at a time when Palestinian lies bear their ugly fruit and find allies among the Nazis, the neo-Nazis, the Christian nationalists, Aryan brotherhoods and self-hating Jews as well. A tunnel illegally dug between two buildings in Crown Heights by militant Messianists becomes fodder for conspiracies that revive the blood libel, revive Medieval hatred that attributed the plague to wells poisoned by innocent Jews, to a piece of bizarre paranoia called grand replacement theory and to the irrational belief that all Jews are behind a conspiracy to rule the world by ruling banking at the same time they desire to destroy the banks as avowed Marxists.

            Is there no way to deal with these libels? These conspiracies? Is there a way to marshal rational allies who will work arm in arm to combat the virulent lies?

            On a side note, I harbor some sympathy for the innocent on all sides of the conflict but I have zero sympathy for the politicians, the military and the criminal terrorists who refuse to see their opponents as humans and then call for massacres, ethnic cleansing and conquest. Do I feel the Palestinians and the Israelis share responsibility for the massacres, for the ongoing war, for the misery and death? Yes, as it proceeds but there was a time when this could’ve been avoided, when peace was possible but the people of good will were pushed aside by militants and fanatics.

            Antisemitism can be confronted and quashed. If we Jews and our allies stand together and fight back when necessary, mock the weak illogic and irrationality of the hate we might drive them back into their holes. We cannot let them go unanswered. Our lives, our security and that of our children and grandchildren depend on how we fight back.

            Antisemitism is a problem that is also personal to me. While I stand against racism, agism, sexism, anti-queer attitudes and actions and generally abhor religious intolerance it is antisemitism that matters to me here. I am a Jew and proud to say it. While I am not a religious person, I honor the traditions of my faith. My parents were victimized by some of the worst Jew Hatred in history yet in surviving the Holocaust they rose above it to raise their family as proudly Jewish and eternally watchful against the Jew hater. They were correct when they told me that antisemitism was and is a chronic problem.

            When I see Jew against Jew as I see in Israel now in the strife between the religious and the secular, in Chabad between the overt messianists and the crypto-Messianists, when I am directly confronted by someone who is as nonobservant as I saying to me that the synagogue I attend is not one but is a church I find it easy to speak up because we are kindred, even if it is disturbing. Judaism is forever tearing itself apart yet it’s managed to survive because when it matters Jews who are polar opposites in belief or observance still recognize their common Jewishness. If this stops then we are doomed.

Donald Trump, the enabler and midtown street photos

Donald Trump has abdicated his responsibility as a public figure with a audience and the media to project his message. He has chosen by his example to enable the worst behavior in segments of his following. It makes little difference if he is right or wrong on a topic, he deliberately spews vitriol about classes of people who are doing little or no harm to anyone, people looking to simply live their lives or have an opportunity to better their life. He plays to the resentment and insecurity of his following to insipre some of them to acts of violence, to threats of violence against opposing voices and a general lack of civility. He supports haters, and enables bigotry. People who might live with their biases and politely accept the differences feel entitled and enabled to attack, whether it's queer folk, people of color who don't speak English well - mind you we don't have an official language in the United States, people who are stranded at the border with the real threat of violence both behind them and ahead of them. 

When the facts disagree with the things Trump says then the facts are wrong and politically motivated to persecute him.

Persecute him? A billionaire, the son of wealthy real estate developer who left him millions of dollars to build his business, a serial sexual molester? It seems he's a victim of not being allowed to do anything he wants to anybody he wants to do it. When the bill finally comes due, and remember this is a man who has stiffed many contractors who worked for him, whose success in business is a trail of bankruptcises and broken promises, a man who demands unquestioning loyalty but will kick a subordinate under the bus, as it were if it serves his purposes, he is a cry baby.

A cry baby indeed. Listen to Donald and hear what he's saying: I didn't do it mommy, they are bullying me. They are after me and I didn't do anything. My people, rescue me from these evil, godless foes.

Looking at the photos of him in criminal court in NYC almost makes me sad. I try to imagine what he might have done if he wasn't so narcissistic, so self-involved and so greedy. I try but sadly, I just can't seem to do it.

Well, the jury is in the courtroom now, and we'll have to see what happens. 

Anyway, it was a lovely afternoon to be in midtown Manhattan this past Friday.

As I came out of the building on Madison Ave. there was a group of people staring up at the JPMorgan Chase HQ construction on Madison Ave. from E.47th to E.48th Sts. and down to Park Ave. It's a massive building and it's been going up for a few years after the two buildings that were on that site came down.

I told them what's going on there, they told me they are visiting from NE England, an hour or so south of York. Very nice people, they let me take their group portrait.

In Grand Central Terminal I stoped at Murray's Cheese in the Central Market. As their smocks declare, they know cheese. I tasted a couple and bought some cheese. Yum. These guys work surrounded by temptation all day long and they love what they do.

Later I was walking in Pershing Square. The couple are from London. She's never been to NYC before and he's been here once for a very short stay. They are loving it. The three men on the bench gave me permission to photograph them and their attitudes show a mixture of pleasure and disdain. They are real New Yorkers! The woman and her dog were standing facing across E.42nd St. The dog was attentive to and enjoying the band that was serenading the street. When the band finished, they applauded themselves.

In the restaurant where I was meeting my youngest for dinner, this man was in town from California on a business trip. He is marketing a controlled substance to the medical industry in NYC where it is under consideration for legalization for medical uses. 'Nuff said.

On the MetroNorth train I got into a conversation with three wonderful Colombians. The younger one, Natalia is an artist living in Barcelona with her partner who is asleep behind Natalia's mother, Christina. Christina lives in Colombia and all three are visiting, staying with a relative in NW Connecticut.

All together, a nice batch of people and one construction photo.

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Trump on Trial in NYC - guilty or not guilty? - updated

 Jury selection is finished and the presenting of evidence by the state, the testimony of witnesses and experts, the examination and cross examination all began today with opening arguments by defense and prosecution in a courtroom in lower Manhattan. The gist of the the charges is that "The defendant DONALD J. TRUMP repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election." This is an exact quote from the document filed by the State of New York against Donald J. Trump. It goes on for quite a few pages describing the various laws he is alleged to have violated, how he planned and had it executed.

On this I want to say these things: 

1. I don't know if the state will be able to present a case that will convince me beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty. I am not on the jury so my opinion of the case doesn't matter in the court but it matters to me. The reason it matters to me is I don't like Trump. I don't like how he lies, how it seems the only person he truly cares about is Donald J. Trump, I don't like how he always presents himself as the victim despite being a major league victimizer. That said, if I was on the jury I would put my dislike aside and judge the case on its merits. 

2. If the state's case on all 34 felony charges does not achieve the beyond a reasonable doubt requirement to find the defendent guilty and I was on the jury, despite how much I dislike everything Trump is and much of what he represents, I'd vote to find him not guilty. On the other hand, if the state's case is strong enough to show his guilt, that he committed some or all of these felonies, I'd vote to convict.

3. What I hope for is beside the point. What happens if he is convicted is going to be interesting, as in the supposedly ancient Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times.

It won't be fun but it will be interesting to watch what happens over the next few weeks in that courtroom downtown. Justice Merchan seems to be a match for Trump, possibly Trump is overmatched by Merchan. I am glad the trial is on now because justice delayed doesn't serve the American electorate.

I am running late so tomorrow I'll post the pictures from my visit to Urban Space this past Friday.

And here are the photos I said I'd post.

Ron Kolm and I spent a very pleasant couple of hours at Urban Space on Vanderbilt Ave, chatting about politics, the state of the world and literature. His book, The Plastic Factory has been published in a German translation by a small, German press in Germany. That is simply great!

I took a few photos. The first two are of a family from central France, then Ron, then two women from Murcia in Spain. I couldn't get them both in focus when they were sitting so I put one of each up. 

The people who work at Urban Space are friendly and efficient. I want to thank them by posting photos of them. The first of these I had trouble with but what the hell, it is ok. The other, I think her name is Tanya, does a great job at the bar.

On my way to Grand Central Terminal I saw these two women asking someone to take a photo of them with their phone. I took one, too.

And then in Grand Central I saw this mother and daughter from Amsterdam. 

All in all it was fun.

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Trump a hypocrite? Surely I jest, right? Wrong.

Who doesn't love a bit of irony in the news? With Donald J. Trump you can be sure he doesn't know came out with his latest product, the large print God Bless America Bible. You can buy one complete with his image, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and the US Constitution and the complete complete King James Version of the Bible. It's got to be the most massively hypocritical thing the past month. 

Friday afternoon I met a friend for a beer at Urban Space. When we arrived it was crowded with a group of Italian high-schoolers, 18 year-olds in NYC for a project at the UN and to do some tourist stuff. They were excited, they were eating burgers and such from the stands at Urban Space and they were friendly. The few I spoke with let me take their photos. Here are some.

After that I trekked down to Curry Hill where I had dinner with some family and then I went to onew of my favorite places to shop for groceries in NYC, Kalustyan on Lexington Ave. between E. 28th and E. 29th Streets. They carry and amazing variety of spices, grains, sweets, prepared food and so much more that I could spend an hour cataloging some of their goods and not be done. I bought some mushroom popcorn, a variety that makes chewy and fluffy puffball shaped popcorn. I made a bowl tonight and it was very popcornlike with just a bit more chew to it than the regular yellow or white kernels from the supermarket.

I took a shot down an aisle. The place is so well stocked with so many things it's almost impossible to stay in focus. And then a shopper who was in a zone shopping their overstuffed shelves for new things to cook and two women, friend, who had moments before been demonstrating to each other what they would do if someone randomly took a punch at one of them. The woman on the right said she run after the assailant.

I got out of there with the popcorn, some Lebanese halavah and some pineapple rings. Whew. If my pack wasn't already fairly full who know how much I'd have bought.

First the youthful Italian vistors, then the Kalustyan shoppers below:

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Super Tuesday anti-hate, anti-Trump rant

To start with somthing calm, this photo belongs at the end but I put it here because it's where I hope America isn't going.

I was unsure what to call this blog entry. It's a rant, it's anti-Trump and it's anti-hate but is it for anything? To Anyway, here's what I wrote:

                                    

It’s so called ‘Super Tuesday” when a number of states hold their presidential nominating primaries. In all likelihood Donald Trump, convicted of civil fraud and sexual abuse and defamation in NY State and is in the hole for half a billion dollars will move closer to being nominated as the Republican candidate for president. This doesn’t say much for the Republican party nor the staunch supporters of a man who tried to lie his way through a coup in 2021, who is reality challenged and here I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that he believes his lies regarding the election he clearly lost. Standing behind a man who has stood only for himself and his so called brand, a man who clearly cannot tell fact from fiction when it comes to himself, a man who flips and flops like a fish out of water – please picture a fish with Donald’s head here – and here are a couple of examples: he pushed the Covid-19 vaccine hard until he realized a substantial part of his base was anti-vax, so he flip flopped himself into coming out against the most substantial achievement of his administration ,and when it comes to a policy regarding personal reproductive choice, doesn’t know which way to turn – a large portion of his base seems to be in favor of no abortions ever even if it kills the mother or the pregnancy is the result of incest or rape yet he knows, and this is evidence that he isn’t as stupid as some make him out to be, that it’s a losing position at the polls, so the dying fish flips and flops and hopes it can make it back to the water. So, what will it be, Flip-Flop Donald? Can you make up your mind? Go ahead, eat that cake, you already have a weight problem so what’s a few more ounces? Oh, you want to keep it too? Well, you figure that one out because I’m not the unsubtle genius that you claim to be.

Donald Trump reminds me of the propagandists of the Stalinist Soviet Union who claimed they invented everything. Donald makes claims about the things he’s done that don’t stand up to scrutiny. I am sure if there’s a cure for cancer, he’ll claim he thought of it years before. He claims to be a great businessman. Tell me then why has he been into bankruptcy six times, fronted a scam university, and managed to build a failed casino? What can I say? Saved by reality TV.  When he fails, it’s never his fault. There’s something wrong with that.

Donald Trump has fooled a lot of people into thinking he’s somebody’s gift from god to America. This puts me in mind of a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” It is obvious Trump manages to fool some of the people all of the time, but are there enough fools to get him elected again? Possible, which doesn’t say much for America. For the sake of our country and the world let us hope some of those fooled open their eyes and see just how much of a con artist he is, and how they’ve been conned and, like Howard, in “Network” get mad as hell and stop taking it from a man who only thinks of himself.

Trump didn’t invent the culture war, I’m not sure who the evil minds behind that one are but he sure is taking advantage of it. Out of one side of his mouth his claims he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, out of the other he spews hate toward Latin Americans, Moslems everywhere, and he doesn’t seem to have much use for Jews despite his daughter being one, Blacks unless he can con them into buying his sneakers, and anyone else the culture warriors deem other, including LGBT+ folk, environmentalists, and people who want reasonable controls placed on firearms. Most irrationally, he calls these people Socialists. Does he even know what that means. I will quote Vizzini here, with irony, “inconceivable.”

Over the years, it seemed America made progress toward learning to live and let live. Nobody would call out a racist who kept their mouth shut, so being polite was a better policy than spewing hate. Trump changed that, giving permission to people to be their worst, coddling the haters, the racists, the homophobes, the xenophobes, the psychotics and the sociopaths. Instead of the better angels, he plays to those whose mouths exude sulfurous fumes. 

So, what happened to rationality? What happened to live and let live? Why has it become permissible to spew this hate in public and then blame those who find it offensive for being the hater? And why are these lies magnified, turning our nation into one that hates half of itself? 

It is obvious that when those in power give permission to act on their worst impulses, people will believe they will be rewarded for their actions. I won’t say Donald Trump is evil though he may be. I will say he’s tapped into the worst instincts of the people and by magnifying them, by exemplifying them and shouting them from his bully pulpit he takes the politics of resentment and entitlement to the greatest depths.

When will people wake up and see how he’s using them? When will people see that he’s turning people against each other, creating hate where there was none before, all the while playing the victim? For most of his life he’s been a victimizer, a man who despises the common person, all the while playing the innocent. He’s been a thief who, when caught claims not that he’s innocent but that everyone does it so why should he be punished? He wants people to imagine they are him, feeling it’s ok to steal from someone you don’t like, to deride and silence people who don’t agree with you or worse, call you out, to threaten physical violence, to even carry it out on people you think are less worthy than you, all the while following your false god.

Look in the mirror and decide if these are the things you want to be.

And think about who is making money off of convincing you to be this sort of hater.

On a less angry but equally emotional topic. Tomorrow evening is the first Yahrzeit of one of my best friends. I was his friend for longer than anyone else in my life. He died not long after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was a very good man, someone who was both loved and who loved. A year later, I still miss him. I will never forget him.

These are a few of the photos I took at his funeral last March.

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I am hoping Haley doesn't drop out of the race - here's a couple of reasons why

I give Nikki Haley credit for guts for hanging in there while Trump keeps winning primaries. But better than guts from my point of view, somewhat left of center are the things she's doing. By staying in there, and continuing to contest the Republican Party's nomination for Presidential candidate she forces Trump and his campaign to spend money and a fairly large chunk of change it is that would be better reserved for the battle against Biden. Anyone reading the headlines knows that Trump’s a miser who hates to pay his bills, a six-time bankrupt but besides that he’s got more than half a billion dollars- that’s more than $500,000,000 for those who like to see the zeros, in judgements against him and his businesses hanging over his orange haired head and for the fraud judgement in NY he’s got thirty days to either find an accredited bonding entity or pony up. The campaign needs money too and Hailey’s making them drain their coffers. 

She also keeps the spotlight on herself at least part of the time and that causes the rather thin-skinned Mr. Trump, not known for impulse control to bristle. Not only does he have to keep attacking her, he's got to worry at least a little that enough undecideds and maybe-Trumpers will stay home come November.  The worst for him is that it's a woman cutting him. So, keep it up Nikki, Trump deserves you.

But I'm not done. Consider the vote totals in the primaries. Somewhere around 40% of Republicans in New Hampshire and South Carolina voted for her. Sure, most of those will vote for whomever the Republicans run but some, maybe many of those will choose to not vote for Trump even if they won't vote for Biden.

These are things to consider, loud-mouthed Donald Trump, even as you find other ways to shoot yourself in the foot with segments of the undecided.

And now, a few photos.

Washington Slept Here

This past weekend was President's Day weekend. On Sunday, 2/18 The Daughters of Liberty's Legacy (DOLL) ran a program at the Elijah Miller House in North White Plains, NY. The Miller House was built in 1738 and was home to several generations of farmers. Elijah Miller joined the local militia. He was killed at the Battle of Brooklyn and his two eldest sons perished from fever during the campaign. 

General George Washington stayed there three times during the Revolution and last Sunday he came back in the guise of an unnamed docent to tell us about his and the army's experience during the campaigns for New York and the Hudson.

I've lived in the area nearly 40 years and I've never been to the Miller House before. It was not open to the public for most of those years. It's restoration was begun in 2019 thanks to legislation sponsored by County Executive George Latimer. The Wikipedia article linked to above is a little out of date. The restoration is ongoing but the house is open for tours by appointment and special events such as this one. Visit this site for information: https://parks.westchestergov.com/historic-sites/the-miller-house

There's not a lot to see but it nonetheless is authentic and it's authenticity and historic importance permeates the place. here's a few photos of the event

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