Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Day 10

It was a difficult day to feel connected: I can see how I crowd the room with my other attentions. I need to allow for quiet time built into the day, when all distractions cease. Quiet, meditative time to breathe and feel connected.

Stopped off at the biblioteca to pick up Reynolds Price's Three Gospels. Picked up his A Palpable God while there, too. Waiting for the 8, I read a brief translation of one of the post-crucifixion appearances Jesus made with Peter and "the boys." Simple, spare, with the sound of something right out of the woods of the Carolinas or Alabama. Jesus at one point sez "Boys, got any fish?" I like the familiarity, the down home. It brings him in close, one of us, country. Neat touch.

While on the bus with Walden, I was reading a bit more of A Palpable God, and Walden was reading a paragraph from it as well. I handed him the book and let him read the "Jesus and the boys" excerpt: so cool to sit next to him on the bus while he was reading. We were sitting up front, one tiny tiny baby across from us (born prematurely?), but dressed up in all kinds of paraphernalia; on our left, was a little girl, less than a year, BIG baby, big Mama's milk kind of baby, though I'm not sure she was being nursed. Two tiny pigtails coming out of the top of her head.

Tina and I watched the Andrew Goldberg film The Armenian Genocide, as well as the panel discussion that followed. The film was excellent, and the panel allowed the idiocy of the official Turkish position to be exposed in all its ridiculous glory. Peter Balakian and Taner Akçam were superb in articulating their positions, as was the "moderator" Scott Simon. The two representatives of the Turkish position were exposed as complete chumps. We had been initially outraged that PBS had, we presumed, been pressured by the Turks (and may, in fact, have been) to conduct the panel discussion (for "balance," a typical Turkish ploy); some stations around the country were refusing to air the segment, but as it turned out, the panel ended up reinforcing and further underscoring important points. Both the film and the panel segment have to feel like significant victories for all people committed to bringing the truth of the genocide to light.

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