Monday, September 29, 2008

[1547 - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, writer, born at Alcalá de Henares, Spain]

[1758 - Horatio Nelson, British Naval Admiral, born in Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, England]

[1904 - Greer Garson, Academy Award-winning actress, born in Manor Park, London]

[1907 - (Orvon) Gene Autry, singer, actor, born in Tioga, Texas]

[1912 - Michelangelo Antonioni, director, born in Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna, Italy]

[1913 - Stanley Kramer, director, born in New York City]

[1913 - Trevor (Wallace) Howard, actor, born in Cliftonville, Margate, Kent, England]

[1941 - Babi Yar massacre of 34,000 Jewish men, women, and children begins at Kiev in Nazi-occupied Ukraine]

Letter from the Dalai Lama

I received a letter from the Dalai Lama along with a solicitation for funds on behalf of an organization working to bring relief to the oppressed people of Tibet. In the letter, his Holiness made a poignant and convincing case on behalf of his country and his people. He described how a hostile totalitarian regime had seized hold of his country, perverted the religious and historical cultural values of the people, and was seeking to reduce their freedom through fear and intimidation. Communist China had brought in all the apparatus of a police state and was spying on the Tibetan people and encouraging them to turn in their neighbors. A system of secret prisons had been created where enemies of the state are held without charges and tortured.

I was moved by this sorry state of affairs and considered replying to the Dalai Lama's letter. In my reply, I would have said that I understood all too well the pain and anguish that he must endure on a daily basis as he watches his country being strangled and enslaved. I have great empathy for his Holiness because I have witnessed the same tide rising in my own beloved country for more than half a decade. The religious fanatics, extremists, and assorted war criminals who have taken control of my own government present the same kind of threat to the United States of America. While the process in Tibet is much further advanced than it is in my homeland, we are clearly moving in the same direction. Unless a new course is taken soon it will only be a question of time before an American patriot in exile is writing the same kind of letter as that of the Dalai Lama, appealing for help from someone.

William's Whimsical Words:

I decided that the Dalai Lama had enough to worry about in his own backyard, and that it would be unkind to burden him with my concerns, so I wrote this instead.

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