Imam Zaid Shakir at CFCC April 5, 2007

Imam Zaid Shakir at CFCC April 5, 2007

“Religious people collectively no longer have the luxury to hate each other, given the numbers of weapons available in the world today.  Unless we learn from history and create new visions and new institutions, this can only lead to ongoing wars in which there will be no winners” Imam Zaid Shakir told those who came to the Webber Center at  CFCC Thursday evening April 5 when the Humanities Department and the future Muslim Students Association sponsored  an “evening of enlightenment” with the outstanding Islamic  scholar

An American Black born in Berkeley and educated both in Western and Islamic intellectual traditions, Shakir now  is scholar in residence at the Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California.   He mesmerized the largely Muslim audience by his clarity and serenity as well as his scholarship as he  discussed both Islamic spirituality and the need for world-wide systemic change rather than mere regime change as we confront the evils of current  global economic and political structures.  “We need to change the militaristic nature of society and its unending need for wars,”   he said,  repeatedly stating that “we must not lose the ability to recognize nuances.  We must not seek simplistic answers to highly complicated issues.” 

In declaring that the purpose of life is to serve God and to serve other humans,  Shakir’s description of Islamic theology did not seem  much at variance with the doctrines of other major  religions. He described his journey from a Baptist household, through  atheism and an examination of many other religions  until  he chanced upon a Christian comic book in which the author opined that the impossibility of creating something from nothing argues for the existence of God. “The human condition is wretched for he who doesn’t recognize the need for God,” said the Imam who devoted much of the evening to the need for service to humanity as a service to ourselves and inevitably  to God if done for the act itself and not in expectation of earthly recompense of any kind.

During the first hour of the evening  Imam Zafer Sabawi of the Ocala Islamic Center and Dr. Scott Olsen, CFCC professor of humanities, discussed various aspects of  Islam and responded to very active and informed  audience participation as they examined many issues such as attitudes toward violence and treatment of women  which often prove to be cultural rather than theological in nature.

In his  anthology of essays called “Scattered Pictures, Reflections of An American Muslim, ” the Imam brilliantly addresses the consequences of what happens when religion bows to political expediency and people no longer respect the sanctity of civilian life.  He debunks jihad as a non-ending war against non-Muslims and , citing  God’s words to Abraham, said that the Islamic community must be an exemplar for all humanity.          

The Imam concluded his remarks in the spirit of hope as both the Prophet and Jesus admonished us to love one another and to incline toward peace with other nations.

All the essays in the anthology  are excellent but among the most outstanding are:  “We are all collateral damage” in which he states that there will never be progress on the war on terror until” there is no they or we in this affair. . .”.  And in the essay  entitled “Not Muslim Zionists” Shakir recounts the development of Zionism and the dangers Muslims face when attempting to implement Islam, a universal religion,  within the confines of  nation-states earlier  defined by  western colonialists. 

How do we respond when government infringes on individual & religious rights?

The Interfaith Alliance forum at Joy Evangelical  Lutheran  Church January 8, 2008

Panelist Delphine Herbert, Marions for Peace:

How do we respond when government infringes on individual and religious rights?

There is only one way – with courage.  We must take a stand and act on our beliefs even if initially the whole world seems to think otherwise.  The greater numbers of our citizens prefer not to be discomforted and in fact do not see the now accelerating erosion of our constitutional rights as the current administration, with the acquiescence and complicity

 of our Congress, our economic structure and our media , presumes to monitor all aspects of our lives with  the  Orwellian Patriot Act which makes thinking for oneself a crime..

Americans not yet accessing the world wide web would be shocked to learn that US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International , in assessing 70 nations,  has ranked  the US with Russia, China and the UK as  among the worst in the world for invasion of the privacy of their citizens. The assessment is based on many criteria, including constitutional protection, the use of identity cards, data sharing between government agencies, and visual surveillance.

Right after 9/11 the author of the following words published in the New Yorker on 9/24/01 was excoriated as a traitor:“  The disconnect between last Tuesday’s monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing.  The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public.    …..Our leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is OK.  America is not afraid.  Our spirit is unbroken ……a robotic president assures us that America still stands tall.  A wide spectrum of public figures, in and out of office, who are strongly opposed to the policies being pursued abroad by this Administration apparently feel free to say nothing more than that they stand united behind President Bush…….the unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy. Those in public office have let us know that they consider their task to be a manipulative one:  confidence building and grief management.  Politics, the politics of a democracy which entails disagreement and promotes candor – has been replaced by psychotherapy. ”

The author was Susan Sontag, once president of American PEN, an organization devoted to the protection of freedom of expression for creative individuals. 

Truly free men cannot allow themselves to be cowed into conformity by the heavy fog of fear which clouds irrational response to danger.  The exceptional among us – the Dr. Martin Luther Kings, the Sojourner Truths, the Frederick Douglasses, the Daniel Ellsbergs, the Berrigans, rose to the call of history.  Now we have   Scott Camil, the Winter soldier who after serving as a gung ho Marine in Vietnam, had an epiphany in Detroit in 1971, transforming him into a powerful voice with Veterans for Peace. A homeless advocate, Clare Hanrahan, spent six month in Federal prison after protesting at the School of the Americas.  The Rev. Gwin Pratt, Presbyterian minister in Jacksonville, was arrested in the well of the US Senate last year for protesting against the war.  These voices defend your rights just as surely as does anyone wearing a military uniform.    But we who are more frail vessels hesitate.

Often, we simply don’t know what to do, where to start.  We mistrust our own ability to make a difference and we fear the censure of public recrimination.  We don’t want to appear ridiculous if indeed we are proven wrong.

Paul Rogat Loeb, in Soul of a Citizen, wrote “We never feel we have enough knowledge or standing.  If we do speak out, someone might challenge us, might find an error in our thinking, or an inconsistency – what they might call an hypocrisy in our lives……..we…..use the standard of perfection to justify our detachment.”   He went on to say that “social change always proceeds in the absence of absolute knowledge, as long as people are willing to follow their convictions, to act despite their doubts, and to speak even at the risk of making mistakes.”

It is hard for many of us to take a stand.  We all seek community – be it the community of family, church, tribe, interest groups or the universes of the intellect now expanding exponentially through the miracles of technology.  Thus there is a constant tension between the desire to appease our personal communities and the need for the expression of our innermost hearts and souls. 

Five years ago 150 people in Marion County joined with hundreds of thousands of others throughout the nation who lifted their voices against an unprovoked war by signing an open letter to President Bush which was published in the Ocala Star Banner on January 19, 2003.    It endorsed the words of national religious leaders of all creeds, beseeching the president to turn from the brink of war with Iraq as such action “will only sow more seeds of intense hatred, strengthening the extreme ideologies, and breed further global instability and insecurity.”  Two and a half years later when fear prevailed and patriotism brooked no challenge, only 80 would sign a similar letter.

The candlelight vigils and rallies which first attracted 75 people at the Ocala town square in January of 2003 now attract only a handful of regulars at our weekly street rallies.  Friction developed between those who wanted silent vigils and those who wished to voice their concerns about the immorality of a Pax Americana spread by the sword.    Many lost sight of the reason we came together – our rejection of an unjust and illegal war - not our personal stances on religious issues.   Mercy me,  if a street preacher said a prayer in the presence of an atheist.

In the local churches there were the perfunctory prayers for peace and the safety of our troops . But really supporting the troops by wanting them out of useless danger characterized one as a traitor. Just where were the strong voices standing publicly for the Prince of Peace? 

Many have mocked Marions for Peace for continuing our street rallies.  They don’t know that we read public repudiation of the war long before the politicians did.  Yes, it is hard to stand in 100 degree heat with the sun blazing in your eyes.  It is difficult not to respond in like manner to the rude and the uninformed.  But, while our numbers are small, the response from passersby has been at least 80% supportive right from the start.  And just before the 2006 election we were experiencing almost total and enthusiastic acknowledgement, leading us to believe that by our presence we were in fact giving courage to others by showing them that’s it’s alright to stand up against the status quo. There is a certain exhilaration gained both from standing with like-minded folk and from the grateful responses from the street. 

And yes, despite all the criticism that demonstrations large and small throughout the nation have accomplished little because of discord among the groups, peace people , through the power of the internet and the passion of personal commitment, have thus far stopped the administration from bombing Iran, an action which might indeed lead to world-wide conflagration.

Those who taunt Marions for Peace on the street do not realize that just about every man who has ever stood with us has served in the military, and many of the women have been nurses. Among our most faithful supporters have been:

The Rev.Mac White, retired Methodist minister, past president of the Marion County TIA  and lifelong champion of peace who marched in the civil rights protests in the 1960s;

George Newkirk, 89 year old elder of the Quakers, who until recently dragged himself to our rallies and vigils with his walker; Lee Wiggins, a retired VA nurse and her husband, Jerry Janiszewski, a design engineer who worked with the space program, Bob Zannelli, savant extraordinaire and nuclear engineer once associated with Admiral Rickover; Cynthia Merkey, former owner of a Gainesville bookstore; and Homer Detwiler, forest dweller, marathoner and member of the Marion County Chorale.    

But perhaps the most impassioned among us was Rex Weng, 86 year old veteran of the segregated military, whose heart broke each day as he learned of the latest casualties.  Now living with his daughter in California, Rex cannot understand why the black community does not see the need to stand with us since the war impacts minority communities so greatly.  Rex, who regularly protested alone against the Confederate flag still flying near the Marion County Commission headquarters, deems institutional racism and continuing gender discrimination as the two underlying reasons that multinational corporations for whom profit is the only god now  rule the world, crushing the good which globalization might otherwise bring to all mankind.  

Dr. Martin Luther King said that “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” I think this means that yes, we have rights but we also have duties as citizens to defend those rights.  How are you using your first amendment right to free speech?  Is fear of what others might think causing you to acquiesce to consensus thinking?  Or are you speaking out publicly – on the internet, in the papers, on the radio, in your churches and other groups – in the realization that killing anywhere, whether of body or of spirit, is the real terrorism of our times.

Yes, the winds of change are giving breath to the audacity of hope……..and perhaps the new thinking Einstein said we need to save mankind from extinction.                 `````

Review of Awakening with Mother Earth

Awakening with Mother Earth – Hearing Gaia Sing
By Fran Moeller Gatins

Our Mother Earth wants our souls to sing. She asks us to move beyond fear and forgetfulness into the light of universal hope and love. So saith Fran Moeller Gatins, who invites us to share her personal odyssey during which Gaia, mother of the ancient gods whose spirit is the very soul of our planet , chooses the author to become one of her “voices” in order to teach humankind that ancient wisdom is not incompatible with the evolution of our physical forms, our sacred structures and the ultimate essence of what we perceive to be the creators of the ever-changing cosmos.

This contemporary “bene gesserit” spent several years writing occasional “meditations” during travels in which she recorded her interactions with spirit guides as well as earth, wind, metal, fire and air before Gaia began the conversations in which she counseled that global shifts in paradigms do not necessarily consign humankind to obliteration if we retain a vibrant sense of openness to and respect for all manifestations of life past, present and future.

Change is a constant even for the goddess. She asks us to maintain our equilibrium through prayer, gratitude and forgiveness while we destroy old patterns of domination engendered by fear and unwillingness to listen to the truth-tellers in the quiet within.

Use this very conversational, well written and buoyant diary as a practical and poetic guide to living with the sacred in our everyday lives through a “spirit of curiosity, adventure and delight, even playfulness” as we join our Mother Earth in the hero’s journey to awaken our relationship with the universe.

"We were dancing on a volcano" Joseph Gatins

Make room Margaret Mitchell. A real-life refugee from the potato famine spawned a dynasty in which his son was among the Madoffs of his day, gaining notoriety and the attention of the Feds a hundred years ago as a wheeler/dealer stock trader known on Wall Street as a “bucket shop man.” His oldest son, in turn, transformed himself into a pillar of social and entrepreneurial respectability on Peachtree Street aided by Atlanta’s adulation of his French wife, the “Comtesse.”

Their son, Francis, the author’s father, joined the circle of American expatriates living in Paris between the great wars during which time he fell in love with a beautiful aristocrat from Colombia. As a French military prisoner of war responsible for opening cattle cars arriving at a death camp in the Ukraine, Francis was witness to the horrors of the Holocaust while his mother played a significant role in providing succor through the Red Cross to those unable to escape Paris during the Nazi occupation.

Once the reader negotiates the initial introduction to the bewildering number of Josephs and Egles , the fact-filled pages fly swiftly through one hundred and forty years of the triumphs and tribulations of this indomitable family which has survived wars, tenuous marriages, the ebb and flow of their finances and the scourge of alcoholism. Through it the women of the family were sustained by the certitude of their strong and rigid Catholic faith.

This searingly honest and well written family history will be my Christmas gift to my most cosmopolitan friends, many of whom now also are “dancing on a volcano” of global uncertainty.

RAYMOND BARRY HERBERT, DDS
Raymond B. Herbert broke the” surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God” on May 22, 2009. A pilot, a sailor and a dentist, Ray was born in the Bronx on April 25, 1942 to the late Ethel Bayuk and George A. Herbert. With his younger sister Geraldine (Stinson Wise), the family moved to South Miami where Ray attended Coral Gables High School. After undergraduate work at the University of Florida, Ray obtained his degree as Doctor of Dental Surgery from West Virginia University in Morgantown in 1966. His career included positions in both private and public practice interrupted by a long hiatus caused by serious injury to both legs in an automobile accident in 1979 upon his return from a year in Guatemala.
Ten years later he resumed work in Pinellas County until offered the position of Senior Dentist at the South Florida Reception Center in Miami. He also served at dental offices in Gainesville, Key West, Live Oak, Ocoee, Mt. Dora and Winter Haven. Plagued by continuing medical problems, Ray and his wife retired to Ocala in September of 2000.
In 1970 Ray won the I-26 North American Sweepstakes for the longest tyro glider flight in region 5 (280.0 miles), a record which still stands in any class according to the I-26 Association, terming it “a truly remarkable flight” which has “stood the test of time.”
This kind and gentle and generous soul was a Unitarian, a Democrat, a ham radio operator (K4QKE), a Navy veteran and a lover of classical music who built his own harpsichord. He leaves behind his sister, many Bayuk cousins and his beloved pets Odyssey, Maxie and Joy as he sails “the high untrepassed sanctity of space.” Ray is the love of the life of his wife, Delphine Blachowicz Herbert.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama

January 15, 2009

Monday we celebrate the birthday of a man of peace, a man who did much more than dream and voice platitudes even when other ministers, both black and white, first quavered, and a large segment of our population branded Martin Luther King Jr. a “communist,” that once most damnable of appellations, for speaking out against injustice and violence against the oppressed both here and abroad.

With a biracial man and his wife now moving into a white house built by black slaves, and their young daughters enrolled with other children of privilege in a Quaker sanctuary, part of Dr. King’s dream is being realized.

Yes, the great civil rights leader went to the mountain top and saw the promised land, a land in which little black boys and black girls join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. But today’s little children still must surmount even greater peaks in the mountain ranges beyond integration – the peaks representing war, pestilence, famine and death , the peaks even now patrolled by the four horsemen of the Apocalypse who ride among us as munitions manufacturers, diseases decimating millions each year which could be controlled for pennies per capita, exploding poverty as the seeds of the earth are deliberately sterilized for profit, and lastly, the primordial lust for power in the DNA of many of our “leaders” which renders our fragile planet subject to war without end..

Dr. King was a man of peace but he was not a man of fear. He was jailed 30 times for leading nonviolent efforts against injustice He spoke out against the pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities that mark so many of our public discourse. True, you and I are far more frail vessels, but working together we helped elect Barack Obama, another transformational figure in our nation’s history.

Now Barack, like Dr. King, is asking us to develop a kind of “dangerous unselfishness” by working in community for the common good. As the world collapses around us, how can we recapture the ability to “work unceasingly to uplift this nation that we love to a higher plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humanness?” Through service to others, through the “audacity to hope” that one’s seemingly meager efforts may make a difference.

Wendell Berry wrote in The Hidden Wound that the urbanization of our population has deprived us of the competence of knowing how to take care of ourselves. People used to be skilled in the art of making do and subsistence living off the land. . But with the relocation of most of our population to the cities, Berry writes that our ability to do things was replaced by the ability to buy things based largely on our subservience to modern incarnations of the company store. This dependency, along with our self-centered gluttony and greed, has led to the collapse of the worldwide economic system, impoverishing not only our bodies but our souls as well.

But today there is a great awakening to the fact that our world is not working. Not only are there wars on four continents but the very earth itself is rebelling against our short sighted rape of its riches as the seas rise and the oxygen producing forests disappear.

Many people now see that they must adapt. They must become the change that Obama calls for. Service to others, not lives of tepid comfort in our little boxes of urban isolation with an occasional bone thrown to the needy, must become our greater aspiration.

Martin Luther King Jr. was cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. He wrote in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail that “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. . . Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

Barack Obama extended Dr. King’s words when in Berlin he said he was a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world. Let’s help him and ourselves by making sure that the world we leave our children is better than the world we inhabit today. In other words, think globally but act locally with vigor and courage. The light and love you radiate toward others will become the light which drives out darkness, hate and fear as together we climb the mountains encircling a promise of peace and justice for all..

Cipro, Levaquin and my shattered left ankle

Cipro , Levaquin and my shattered left ankle

-thanks Public Citizen, CNN and Google

My left ankle shattered about 10 a.m. Saturday, April 5, 2008. I have no memory of the event.

I last remember sitting back in bed to finish the newspaper. During the period I cannot recall, I apparently was able to function despite what must have been intense pain as my husband found me screaming on my bedroom floor. Upon becoming aware of my circumstances about two hours later in the ER at the Ocala Regional Medical Center with my left foot extended in an unnatural position (“ fall injury with severely displaced distal ankle fracture”), I asked to speak with my husband. The attending nurse said I had already done so three times and neighbors later reported that I had spoken to them as the ambulance took me away. I had no difficulty recalling telephone numbers during and following my black out.

After an x-ray, CT scan and MRI of my brain along with a cursory interview with a neurologist (Dr. Nieves), the surgeon (Dr. Nirav Gupta) put a plate and a couple of screws in my left ankle the next day. Operative report describes procedure as “open reduction and internal fixation of lateral malleolus and medial malleolus ankle, left side.”

Following my hospitalization and several weeks at the TimberRidge rehab center, I insisted on seeing another neurologist in an effort to determine just what precipitated this event so that I wouldn’t again injure myself or possibly others should I be driving at the time. The second neurologist (Dr. Jose Gaudier) did an exhaustive interview (with my husband present) and ordered a carotid artery examination and an EEG of my brain. Again, nothing abnormal was found.

On July 9, 2008 I heard Dr. Sanjay Gupta report on the links between Cipro and broken tendons and other injuries the day after the FDA issued its “black box warning.” Public Citizen had requested such a warning in August 2006 and Dr. Gupta said on his broadcast that doctors have known about the dangers of the drug since 1992. The FDA approved Cipro for use in 2000 and Levaquin in 1996. None of the doctors who’ve seen me have mentioned, suggested or even implied any causal possibility between use of Cipro and/or Levaquin and the injury I endured. Moreover, after googling the drugs and ankle injuries, I found that there are literally hundreds of personal reports of injury similar to that which I have.

Despite a predisposition to avoid unnecessary drugs, I had not earlier connected repeated use of Cipro and more recently Levaquin to my accident. I simply ascribed the following to stress as a caregiver for an extended period.

Before my Father died May 1, 2005, I experienced difficulty stepping out of bed because of pain on the bottom of my left foot. I could not even go to the bathroom without wearing shoes. . More recently I have had trouble standing at peace rallies and walking my dog. I also have felt faint at various meetings and luncheons. . Occasionally the pain on the bottom of my left foot upon getting out of bed recurred. I simply chalked up these episodes to my exhaustion in caring for a disabled husband who is unable to contribute much to running the household and to my activities in the community. Fatigue has been a constant in my life for many years along with shortness of breath and general lassitude.

During recent years I have taken Cipro fairly frequently for recurring urinary tract infections. Last November when an infection did not respond to Cipro my internist, Dr. Jose Roman , sent me to a(n) urologist, Dr. Paul Jo, who prescribed Levaquin.. Because the infection had persisted and I wanted to rid myself of it, I took the Levaquin DESPITE the fact that I experienced considerably more severe pain on the bottom of my left foot than I ever had before. Since Dr Jo gave me a prescription with 12 renewals (?) I took Levaquin again when a UT infection recurred yet again in February, I believe.

In the months just prior to my accident I also experienced several very brief transient surges in my brain like flashes of electrical charges – basically the left rear quadrant as I recall. Then about a week or ten days before the accident I had an earache on the left side which later extended into my left jaw . I’ve had good dental care and the only thing wrong with my mouth is that a crown has fallen off a tooth. But my husband, a disabled dentist, said there was no cause for concern as it could not be a source of infection since it had a root canal. Nevertheless I went to see a dentist, Dr. Stephen Dunn ,on March 27, I believe. Dr. Dunn, after taking new x-rays, concurred with my husband’s assessment. However he said that if the pain continued he would send me to a neurologist in case I had trigeminal neuralgia. I was first to return to Dr. Dunn about ten days later. After reading about trigeminal neuralgia online and because the pain had subsided, I knew I had not experienced this disorder. The accident occurred before I was able to return to the dentist.

Please note that I was again taking Levaquin for the recurring urinary tract infection.. . When I got to the rehab center the attending physician (Dr. Gabriel Umana) put me back on Cipro because he said that it was the standard for UT.

I’ve since had much outpatient therapy but still am not able to walk well and the foot/ankle remains in large part immobile ( like concrete as one therapist observed), swollen with scarring and a protrusion on the right side where the screws were inserted. Surgeon who I see again July 24 opined that injuries such as mine take 9 months to a year for recovery although he acknowledged that the ankle will not ever be entirely normal. My surgeon and the therapists said that any injury to the foot is the most difficult to recover from (worse than hip, pelvic fractures) because the foot bears the weight of the entire body.

Although I am now 72 years of age, my parents were long-lived. They both walked every day with my Father even mowing the lawn up north until he was 98. My Father died totally competent just three weeks short of 100 and my Mother died at age 91 of breast cancer which had metastasized. Thus I have expectations of living another 20 years or so, especially given the fact that I have always been well fed, have always had good medical attention and have never indulged in personal excesses of any kind. Dr. Roman, our internist since moving to Ocala in September of 2000, has always authorized routine checkups and appropriate tests for whatever ailment I may have had over these years including a bone density test just months before the accident.

I have learned that there is an array of drugs which were used effectively for urinary tract infections before Cipro and Levaquin were put on the market. Apart from the pain and disruption to both my husband and my lives and the psychic and financial costs involved thus far, I am most appalled at the prospect of circumscribed use of my legs for the rest of my life . I hobble around the house, I can’t garden as I used to and my golden retriever breaks my heart by bringing me her leash for a walk.

I suddenly am old.