Middle East Riots

I've been watching the news coverage of the riots in Cairo and Libya and am disgusted, not only by the riots, but also by the lame excuses given for this behavior. 

The CLAIM is that a little known movie about mohammed sparked the "outrage" by members of this religion of peace.  This movie has been available for viewing for about six months, but they only became outraged by it on September 11.  Isn't that interesting?

Why are we hearing apologies for someone's exercising his freedom of speech instead of what we Catholics hear when we are offended, "It's art".

A few years ago  an "artist" had his depiction of our Holy Virgin Mary depicted as a black madonna (no problem there) who was surrounded by images from blaxploitation movies and close-ups of femal private parts cut from porn magazines and elephant dung attached to the painting (big problem there) had his painting exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum.  Catholics protested, but there were no riots and no apologies.  We were told this was art to be appreciated.

This same Brooklyn Museum had a video depicting ants crawling over the body of a stylized Jesus.  Again, no riots and no apologies.  It's just art, freedom of expression.

There is a movie being planned which is based on a book Jesus of Nazareth which was written in 2010.  This movie depicts Jesus, not as the son of God, but as a politician who was the product of a rape of Mary by a Roman Soldier.  There were no riots about the book and I'm sure there will be none about the movie.

It's time to face the fact that the residents of the Middle East DO NOT LIKE US and no matter how much we apologize to them or give them things, they never will like us.  We shouldn't strive to be liked, we should strive to be RESPECTED.

To use the phrase that Christians hear when we find movies and paintings offensive, "Get over it, it's art".

My prayers are with the families of the four killed by Libyan savages.

9/11 Remembered

I've just finished watching tapes of the attacks of 9/11. It's just as frightening now and as it was then. As the towers fell, a reporter said the exact words I heard on the walk uptown, "They're gone". That's all anyone could say, that was enough.

In the days that followed we were all in shock as we were glued to our TV's watching over and over the planes and the dust covered people running for their lives. Some memories of that day come back occasionally. Today, I remembered that my son was on a construction site in Brooklyn watching through binoculars as "debris" fell from the buildings when he realized in horror that he was actually watching people choosing to die from the jump rather than being burned to death.

Watching the moment of silence at the White House I remembered that on October 11 at 8:46 am in New York, we had a moment of silence. All traffic stopped. I was riding a bus to get to work when we stopped for that moment.

We all dealt with our shock and grief, whether from personal loss or the realization that it could happen to us, in different ways. I called everyone I knew just to know that at least my family and friends were all still here.

A friend of mine using her talent painted this triptych, I wish my photo was as good as the original.


The remaining walls of the buildings were a reminder of the horrors of that day.