President Obama's Prize

I'm late in posting this because I've been sick with a cold, but my blog is not a current events or political blog. I don't feel that I have to be a slave to posting timely topics. Even though my fascination with politics has gone from minuscule in the last decade, I would never focus only on the political on here. Still I wanted to comment on President Obama being awarded the Nobel Prize. When I went online two Friday mornings ago, I saw two blaring headlines concerning the President being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and NASA having bombed the moon. I was happy that the President had received an award, but at the same time I felt that the award had come too soon. As for NASA, it seemed to me at the time that America bombing the moon was just another outlandish episode proving once again that we has a penchant for bombing. 'What next?' I thought.

President Obama was surprised too about his Nobel. I'm a regular on Twitter now after being a big skeptic for months. On Twitter I also follow the President's account. About his prize he Tweeted a single word that morning, "Humbled."

President Obama is still popular with many, but even with some of us who are fond of him, we are not holding our breathe waiting to see if he will live up to the high ideas he espoused during his campaign. People like me were not the ones with unrealistic expectations of a global Golden Age of political enlightenment bordering on the Utopian. For me, an African-American born during the Civil Rights Movement, recalling exactly where I was when I was 6 and it was reported that Dr. King had been assassinated, and always expecting that Americans would only elect a white, Protestant Christian male, the election of a black man--most seem to forget he's biracial--to the highest political office in the land was in a sublime way, a personal victory for me. I think it was this way for many African-Americans. The unbelievable had happened.

For most of the country the dark, barbaric night of the Bush years had finally passed over and seemed to be followed by a potentially bright sun of hope with rays stretching out to warm America and the rest of the world. But now much of that seems to being going in reverse, and the bad ole days of George W. Bush appear to be with us in a more civil and gracious package. I am not impatiently expecting quick fixes to complex problems that America accumulated for decades, even before Bush the younger, but the wars are still going on with the one on Afghan soil probably about to be escalated. The President seems to be taking a more Republican friendly stance on everything from the wars to Guantanamo to the government's right to capture and hold people before they have even committed an act of terrorism. When he refused to hold those in the Bush administration accountable for war crimes, I began to grow frustrated and feel disappointed in him. Since President Obama came to office racism has burst onto the national scene in new if not clever disguises from both whites and blacks. It all makes me very uncomfortable.

So much seems to be tarnished now in and for America. The rot, our moral, political, ethical, and spiritual gangrene appears to be irreversible. The President does not seem to be the hero and enlightened statesman that so many hoped he would be. The good oratory and idealism is just not enough especially when people are dying.

Right now I'm reading the President's autobiography, Dreams From My Father. I would rank the prose in that book as high as that of the African-American literary greats: Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Maya Angelou, and James Baldwin. I see myself in the cerebral parts of his story, the alienation, the loneliness, the searching for an identity and an existence beyond stifling American individualism, suburban life, and the grand mania and malaise of a materialistic society. The President seems to have changed a lot from the serious and troubled young man he was when he penned the book. I want this man to be more than a deliverer of great speeches with the aim of pumping up the populace for about 45 minute, and after that he and everyone go back to our hackneyed way of existing in this country. There needs to be real change in America. So many are just tired now and going through the motions it seems, putting on a facade.

The Nobel Prize Committee has given the reasons for its decision to give President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. I will not discuss their reasons here. As I looked at the responses the morning that the award was announced, the Tweets on Twitter were mixed. What stood out to me as I looked at some articles were the reactions in Kabul, Jerusalem, and Baghdad such as in this report in the UK's Guardian: Barack Obama's Nobel Prize Greeted with Cynism, Surprise, and Optimism.

Even though I'm African-American, I cannot look with complete jubilation at all the President does or promises to do. A wise person tries to use common sense and utilizes critical thinking. I'm not blind follower. More and more the President is only symbolic to me because of the struggles and deaths of others in the past like Dr. King. These brave people who were willing to die for justice and equality helped in their own way to bring about the day that President Obama was elected. He should not forget this. We should not forget this either. Despite my disillusioned tone, I still like the President and leave a little room to be idealistic enough to hope he will become sufficiently strong to go against the grain of American domestic and foreign policy. I hope that his promise of being a reformer will come about, but it takes more than great rhetorical skills to be a reformer. It takes courage.

Barack Hussein Obama has been the president for less than a year now. He has a little over three years remaining to have a substantive glitter. Sadly I see another Jimmy Carter in the making too. I feel that President Obama is a decent man like President Carter was with a similar serenity. Still, politics is a dirty outfit to be in. So who knows? All of us will have to wait and see.

Links:
Nobel Prize Awarded to Barack Obama
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009

Under the Bombs

My town’s public library hosts free independent films from around the world every Thursday evening. Back in the summer the award winning docudrama Under the Bombs was shown, but I missed my opportunity to see it in the library’s auditorium. Later I checked it out since the library makes the all films they screen available on DVD for the public to take home and enjoy.

When Lebanon was 10 days into a summer war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, Lebanese director Philippe Aractingi had the bravery to go out and film the bombs falling, the explosions, and the devastation that affected his country. His filming of the war led him to create a fictitious story around the horrors he saw. So Under the Bombs was formed.

Under the Bombs is more of an anti-war than an anti-Israeli film. The film begins with shots of bombs falling on Lebanon. The explosions and their ominous flashes are more ugly and frightening than any Hollywood special effect. I had to wonder how anyone could survive those monstrous bombs. This film contains raw realism and is not for the faint of heart or the sentimental. No dismembered or crushed bodies are shown, but the devastation of war is shown in its entirety, collapsed and bombed out buildings, broken bridges, children and adults forced into refugee shelters, the human anguish.

In the midst of the devastation an attractive Lebanese woman has come back to her homeland from Dubai via Turkey. Her name is Zelna. Because of marital problems she sent her son Karim to Lebanon shortly before the outbreak of the war to live with her sister who resides in a village in south Lebanon. Now she has come back to frantically search for her son. Zelna is a Shia Muslim.

Zelna arrives at the Port of Beirut during the ceasefire. She has a difficult time getting a taxi driver who is brave enough and greedy enough to drive her to south Lebanon. Finally she comes upon Tony, a big eyed squirrely fellow, who is willing to drive her. Tony has the hustler instinct, and he’s immediately attracted to Zelna. He is also a Christian. Right off the bat he starts to flirt with Zelna, but she is dignified and all business. Zelna lets Tony know that she is annoyed by his fresh behavior.

The film becomes an odyssey of Zelna’s search for her son, and how both Zelna and Tony change over time as they journey through Lebanon’s beautiful but destroyed landscape. At first Tony is concerned only with the money and whether he might be able to get Zelna in bed, but the journey changes both of them. Going from one devastated area of Lebanon to another, stopping at refugee shelters, talking to individuals, this road trip starts to transform Zelna and Tony. Zelna unleashes her worry and grief about her son, her marriage, and the war. She tells Tony about her miscarriages and the son she eventually had. She briefly talks about when she learned that her husband had cheated on her. Even though she has a husband that betrayed her, Zelna still calls back and forth to Dubai to keep him posted about whether she might be getting closer to finding their son. Tony begins to see Zelna as more than just a female he might go lucky with; he opens up about his own personal life, his son, and the mother of his son. He tells Zelna of his dream of immigrating to Germany. He even tells of his brother who lives in Israel. Zelna’s and Tony’s relationship evolves into something than just about money or the sexual. It becomes a bond of respect. Zelna’s quest to find her boy becomes Tony’s quest too. The flirtatious banter evaporates, and Tony vows that he is not going to part ways with Zelna until they find her son.

I won’t tell anymore about the movie’s plot. I will just let you check it out.

Under the Bombs is nothing like a Hollywood film. Only the two actors that play Zelna and Tony are professionals. Philippe Aractingi used actual civilians who had survived the war to flesh out the story. Everything is played out in the middle of the ruins of war. Under the Bombs shows that modern warfare is merciless to all, especially civilians. Those who start wars, the politicians and demagogues often go unhurt. It’s the population who just want to go about their daily lives that are killed and displaced when the bombs start falling and the troops move in. The film shows that war does not discriminate by class or religion. Humanity should be ashamed that we have reached a point where war does not just destroy the lives of soldiers as in the olden days of war, but war is now a catastrophe for civilians; it kills the innocents.

It’s rare that Hollywood comes up with anything but escapism. I’m happy that at least there are foreign directors that are serious enough and not so driven by money that are brave enough to produce thought provoking, artistic, and creative films. Under the Bombs is a film that might truly make you think and rethink your attitude about war.

Links to Under the Bombs:

Official Website of Under the Bombs

Under the Bombs Wikipedia Article

Where’d My Lovely Template Go?

For about two months or so this summer I had a lovely template for my blog. If you may recall it was blue and white with lilies at the top of the page. Now you may wonder why I changed one that was beautiful to this one that is just a jazzed up version of your standard Blogger template. The format is the same as Blogger’s Minima but a floral arrangement was added in. I don’t remember from which website I got the blue and white lily template, but one day several weeks ago, I happened to check my blog and my blog’s template had vanished and all that was left in its place was the Photobucket logo, the words “Account Inactive,” and what I guess is the name of the template’s designer with more about the account no longer being open for 90 days. The other day I saw that the same had happened to Iraq Blog Count’s template.

When I first saw that my template was gone, my first thought was that someone had hacked my account. Then I started thinking that wasn’t probably so because the texts of my posts were still visible, and I could still log into my Blogger account. Passwords and everything else were in tact except the template I was so proud of. I didn’t know that templates could just up and disappear. I thought that once a template was posted on a site it became the property of that site. But I guess that if the designer of the template has closed his or her account, the template can no longer be accessed.

For me, it is so nice to be able to change my blog template every once in a while. Once a year is enough for me. Hunting down a template that I like can take some time. I just wish Blogger had more choices than the standard ones they offer. They're pretty bland to me.

There are a lot of nice templates out there for Blogger, but some of them do not work. I am not a web designer, though I wish I were. When a template I like does not work, that is the time when I wish I could just go in and find out what is wrong with its setup, work on the codes, right the errors, and then post the template I hunger for to my blog. Most of the templates I have tried to apply to my blog do not work.

I finally found this template on Pyzam.com. Pyzam has hundreds of templates for Blogger with various themes. There is something for almost everybody. I use the Pyzam template now on both of my blogs. The problem with Pyzam, however, is that the Blogger template formats are not so imaginative. All of the templates offered are just Blogger’s Minima layout with colorful designs thrown in. My templates for my blogs are pretty and fit my personality and the themes of my blogs, but I wish I could find more innovative and elaborate templates. I guess for that, I will have to get my own webpage.

Three Historical Cross Dressers: Part 3, Marina the Monk

This final installment will deal with a young woman who was the total opposite of the other female cross dressers that I have written about who were both "Amazons" and in the case of Catalina de Erauso sometimes exhibited unsavory conduct.

Few would believe that there was a Christian saint who was a cross dresser, but Mariam who was later called St. Marina the Monk was such. There is no exact date, but St. Marina was born in either the 5^th or 6^th century in northern Lebanon. St. Marina was the daughter of a wealthy Christian gentleman. Her mother died when she was a little girl leaving her with a father whom she developed a very close and loving bond. Ancient and medieval Christians had a very different out look about the world than most modern, particularly western Christians do. Unlike us, they thought vertically, not horizontally. In other words, their focus was on their religious faith and God, whereas our view is very much tied to the here and now and our existence on this earth. Because of this outlook, Mariam’s father decided that once he had found a suitable husband for his daughter, he would retire to a monastery to become a monk. Mariam was also very pious just like her father and was not interested in marriage, wanting to live the contemplative and ascetic life of prayer and fasting. She cut her hair like a boy. Her father seeing that she was not going to be swayed took her with him to the Monastery of Qannoubine in Lebanon. Other versions of the story of Mariam and her father say that they were admitted to a monastery near Alexandria, Egypt.

Mariam took the name of Marinus and resided with her father in the same cell in the monastery. Father and daughter lived there together in prayer and contemplation for the next ten years or so until her father died at an old age. After his death she continued to live the way she had with none of the other occupants of the monastery suspecting that she was really a female. It was noted by some that her voice was rather high pitched for a man, but it was just thought that was it was because of her fasting and extreme devout living.

One day the monastery’s superior sent Marinus and some other monks to the nearest town on some business where they lodged at an inn. There are about three versions of the story about what happened there. One version goes that the inn keeper had a flirtatious and immoral daughter who had been having a sexual liaison with a soldier. She discovered that she was pregnant and after seeing Marinus and maybe liking “him” better than the soldier, did what some women have always done when they were caught off guard by a pregnancy: create a fiction and claim that a guy they like best is the baby’s father. A second version of the story says that the girl made advances toward Marinus, and “he” rejected her. Later when she discovered that she was pregnant, she falsely accused Marinus of seducing her.

Sometime later, the inn keeper went to the monastery and told the superior what his daughter said that Marinus had done. He raged and accused all the monks of being hypocrites. Of course, the superior and the others were shocked. The superior tried to pacify the angry man and then sent him on his way. Then the superior called for Marinus and demanded to know if the accusations against “him” were true. It is not known why Marinus admitted to having an illicit relationship with the inn keeper’s daughter and did not reveal that she was a woman, but my guess is that she was looking down the road into the future. What was going to happen to the baby born out of wedlock? It was likely that the child would have a very difficult time because in eastern societies then as now and in Christian societies up until the last few generations illegitimacy was frowned upon. The woman who was unmarried and her child were usually treated as outcasts. Perhaps Marinus felt she had a moral and humane responsibility to accept the child. She also may have felt as a highly devout Christian that she should not fight against the will of God and should accept whatever hardship and ridicule that might come her way. Maybe she felt that this experience might be God’s way of teaching her a great lesson that would make her an even better person.

The superior listened to Marinus’ confession and then banished her from the monastery. Marinus was now homeless. One version of her story says that she hung around outside the monastery’s gates begging. Some of the monks would sneak food out to her. A second version goes that she lived near some shepherds who felt sorry for her and would share their food and milk with her.

The baby that the inn keeper’s daughter had given birth to was a little boy. The inn keeper brought him to Marinus one day during her exile, dropped off the infant, and left them without looking back.

Some of the monks at the monastery begged the superior to allow Marinus to come back to live with them. They wanted him to show Marinus some mercy and forgiveness. He finally gave in and permitted Marinus to move back inside and to bring her child too. She had been homeless for four years. The superior did not make it easy for Marinus though. Marinus had to do penance for her sins by working very hard and taking on many tasks around the monastery. Marinus continued to grow in her faith. Being raised in the monastery, her son even grew up to be a monk.

St. Marinus died some time later, by some accounts in 508. When her body was being prepared for burial it was discovered that she was a woman. Shocked and guilty over the way Marinus had been treated, the superior and other monks prayed over her body and asked God’s forgiveness. One legend says that the bells of the monastery rang out on their own when Marinus died.

What happened to the inn keeper and his daughter, you might ask. Did they get what was coming to them? One story says that the superior sent for the inn keeper to tell him that Marinus could not have corrupted his daughter because Marinus was actually a woman. When the inn keeper learned this he came to the monastery and expressed his deep remorse for his accusations and actions. His daughter was said to feel so much guilt that for the rest of her days she would visit Marinus’ tomb where she would weep and pray for forgiveness. Despite their bad behavior, the inn keeper and his daughter was very different from many people now who blame the victims they had a hand in victimizing and who never show any remorse for their wrong deeds. But the characters who had a part in the life of St. Marina lived in an age that is very alien to our own.

There is an interesting story about what happened to the village where the inn was located in which all of St. Marina’s troubles began. Tourza is the name of the village in northern Lebanon where the inn keeper and his daughter lived. Legend has it that Tourza remained impoverished and was destroyed by several earthquakes over the centuries because of the sins of the inn keeper and his daughter.

St. Marina the Monk is venerated as a saint in the Maronite Church of Lebanon, the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Coptic Churches.

Some sources say that the story of St. Marina may only be a legend. After all, cross dressing devout Christians is a little out in left field, but in life the highly unusual sometimes takes place. I would like to think the story is true with its emphasis on the love of a father and his daughter and on the daughter who kept her head up patiently through so much suffering and humiliation.

Links about St. Marina the Monk:

Qannoubin Valley
St. Marina the Monk Gallery