"I'm Gonna Smile"- And Not Because I'm Happy, But Because I Can Be Joyful

And even though there are moments where I don't feel that I forgive you and I say the opposite of it, I forgive you and I'm going to forgive you-- not because I forgive you, but because I've been forgiven. And I'm going to have moments when I say that I hate you, but I have to love you even if I intensely dislike you-- because I was loved first, and not by you. And it's like I told someone in the Casey Anthony case:

 I don't agree with Geraldo and the jury, but I agree that the hate against Geraldo is uncalled for. Not that I think that hate against anyone else-- even against Casey and Jose Baez-- is okay, but I understand people being very angry about what happened. I think that we can hate what happened without hating any of the parties involved.

Same thing with you and Great-Grandma Gaydos-- among others-- regarding Pepi, Vilmosz, and others who you have hurt and betrayed over the years (and you've ultimately hurt yourselves)-- I'm learning to forgive you all.

I'm learning to forgive and forget-- not forget as in forget to ponder in my heart, but forget as in don't begrudge even though I'll have learned from experience and still be wary, and understand and know what to do (and because G-d will help me deal with what I need to deal with, and help me deal with who I need to deal with).

Kevin Still Hates That We're Jewish-- He Thinks That I'm Advocating Apostasy; But I'm Actually, Among Other Things, Holding Great-Granduncle Carl Up As a Hero

First, the part where I supplemented my original reply:

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/03/the_depths_of_f.html

Even more pro-FDR sources are conceding (even if between the lines) that FDR was a notorious, pro-Grand Mufti, pro-Hitler Anti Semite.

In a message... [I wrote]:

http://www.newsweek.com/1994/04/17/did-fdr-betray-the-jews.html

So why did Great-Grandma let the Anti Semites and Anti Missionaries scare her into enabling the murder of Vilmosz, David, Pepi, and their side of the family? Great-Granduncle Carl didn't.

In a message, [Kevin, who is being cocky and actually being rude as well as assuming in his position that the letters couldn't have been translated or that I could read at least the dates in Slovakian and/or maybe even Yidish] writes:
No mistake was uncovered. You wouldn't be able to read the letters anyway because they are written in Slovak. I don't appreciate your rudeness after the help I gave you in your genealogical quest...

My original reply:

I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm being blunt. Besides, as I said, " if the letters weren't so bad, why did Grandaunt Mary Ann not give the dates or specific contents of the letters?" Both of us have seen that this is a clear pattern in certainly the Fosko Family (I never heard that your great-granddad was sent away, let alone that you existed, for example!).



These cover ups (so many of them) have divided our family on our common and all sides right here in America; and some of us aren't even talking to each other because of the "Who's not telling what?" and "Who's hiding what?" games? Besides, how can we forgive and bring redemption into and out of family situations which we don't even know-- or talk-- about?



Whenever I heard Andrew and Julia Fosko Rusnak spoken of-- they were immigrants from Slovakia or Czechoslovakia who married in 1905, had kids, etc.. Never did I know that our family (even if I disagreed with some of the intent of their decisions)-- for example-- came over here to escape persecution after we couldn't assimilate in Slovakia; and many of us weren't just Crypto Jews (although some were, which is where I disagree with the intent: regardless of the meshuga AntiSemitism in the Church, we should've given Jesus a chance in our lives; and if and when our relatives thought that we were joining the traitors, so what?! And many of us were Jews who believed in Jesus; we were just too damned afraid and too damned quiet to emphasize that part) .



Truth is a lot better (even if stranger and more disquieting) than fiction. By the way, I look at Great-Granduncles Andy, Carl, and Joe all the more as heroes for their going over there (Well, Great-Granduncles Carl and Joe were able to; but on the homefront, there was still Anti Semitism and also that "You can't be a Jew for Jesus!" attitude that Great-Granduncle Andy had to deal with every day!).



And for example, with Great-Granduncle Carl; how would you have liked to ever have the possibility that you may have to step into especially Czechoslovakia and Hungary if the war took you there, particularly when the Germans were looking for Jewish (even Messianic (Christian) Jewish) military personnel and civilians to kidnap and ship off to murder and POW-murder camps? And given that the Rusnaks were a prominent family in Kosice, (Czecho)Slovakia (Kassa, Hungary); the Germans and other Anti Semites would be on the lookout for Rusnaks trying to come in and help Vilmosz et. al.-- and other Jewish people trying to help others.



(By the way, I'm not saying that, that excuses Great-Grandma's stopping to write either: letters seemed bad enough to smuggle; but Great-Granduncle Carl put himself there for his country and fellow Jews in and who were certainly at risk because the Holocaust-- even if you were in a Jew in the Allied Countries, you were at risk; and actually, that's part of why Great-Grandma should've helped instead of hurt Vilmosz et. al. all the more: so to speak and pardon my language, screw FDR and his isolationist, pro-UN and pro-Grand Mufti, Anti-Jewish and Anti-Israel policies!



(FDR was a known Anti Semite who wanted to not just stay out of ending the Holocaust and out of World War, but also to hurt the Jews and-- for a lack of a better term and if you will, since this how Anti Semites like FDR would've thought-- "let Europe take care of the Jews". FDR actually even wrote a letter saying that he did not support the founding of a Jewish state in the Middle East, and he appointed Bernard Baruch as his scapegoat to take blame for what was often called "The Jew Deal".)



Given, then, the example of the recollection of FDRs and other Anti-Semitic WASPs-- and Anti-Semitic Europe-- on one hand, and the Antimissionary (Anti-Messianic-Jewish) crowd on the other; Great-Granduncles Carl, Joseph, and Andy, and others who have a place of honor within the family history and within history; shouldn't we at least tell what really happened to honor those who did the right thing and brought redemption into and out of our family, instead of covering even the good up with the bad?



As I said, for instance, Great-Granduncle Carl did put himself over there knowing that the European Theater could take him in the footsteps of his parents and right into the hands of Germans who were looking for more Jewish Rusnaks and other Jews to kidnap and imprison in murder camps-- and what Mary Rusnak Gaydos did makes her brother Carl all the braver and more righteous: Sgt. Carl Rusnak basically stood up and said by standing up, "I'm going to go over there and help our family, help our fellow Jews, and help my native country-- even if many of them don't like Jews! I'm not going to let the Anti Semites and Antimissionaries scare me out of doing the right thing."



Nicole

So Let Her Dock My Grade; She Claims That She Wants Our Reflections re Her Sociology Class

My honest reflection on the Sociology class necessitates that my professor and others find me stating in no uncertain terms that I found the class to be a (so to speak) refresher crash course on just how bad liberalism and relativism is. Not that the like the Far Right, either; but if I were a Far Righter, sitting in that class and reading the propaganda of Drs. Kerry Ferris and Jill Stein would affect me so that I would come to hate sociology and sociologists, relativism and relativists, and liberalism and liberals altogether. I understand that The Real World (both the hidden-curriculum manifesto put together by Drs. Ferris and Stein, and the actual world itself) is more on the George Sorosesque (e.g., MoveOn.org) and Charles Darwinian side than any other side; but talk about verstehen, tolerance, etc.--there was obviously none of that for traditional, Jewish-Christian, and moderate-conservative worldviews and cultures in the book or the class.

This Might Get Me Into Trouble, But Here Goes My Next Sociology Assignment

"Imagine that you are getting married next week..." and coupled with an assignment that asks, "Where do you stand on the issue [of Affirmative Action]?" When I format the combined assignments into a paper (and I'm going to combine the assignments to save time, paper, and frankly a too-long explanation), I'm not going to type everything that I am typing here. Why? For one thing, calling a professor "stupid" and "hypocritical" would get me into trouble. So I'm going to have to reword my belief that for a liberal professor who is liberal (and you can spell that with a L-I-B-E-R-A-L), relativistic (and you can spell that with a R-E-L-A-T-I-V-I-S-T-I-C), and obviously leftist (and you know what you can spell that with); she sure is a hypocrite and foolishly dense- then again, with Far Leftists like that (and Far Rightists in a parallel way); the old "We're [whatever] for [or to, etc.] you so long as you're for [or to, etc.] us" maxim goes. In other words, for example; one will benefit from Affirmative Action given or applied to him or her by whoever gives or applies said Affirmative Action so long as he or she walks in nearly- or entirely-full lockstep with the Affirmative Action giver.

Affirmative Action, like the ADA (designed by the late Senator Ted Kennedy in order to get the Disabled Community's votes and (so to speak) bites on the welfare hooks), is a ploy used by both sides to (as Juan Williams noted in the example of Herman Cain's case, and so to speak) keep the sheep in the pen or gate. Meanwhile, Jews like me don't get Affirmative Action benefits, anyway; so what's the point? I note that I'm Asian on my applications, then specify "Middle Eastern, Jewish- Ashkenazi", anyway. I also note that I'm Hispanic (which I am), since Nana Allen (my mom's paternal grandmother) was a maternal granddaughter of a Crypto-Spaniard Irelander who came to the United States with his Irish wife (MaryAnn Elizabeth McCoy) and took Nana McCoy's surname as well as the moniker "John".

But for example, at College of Note Dame of Maryland (which is soon to be the bastion of liberalism known as the Notre Dame of Maryland University); being a Jew of Hispanic descent doesn't count anyway, and being disabled doesn't count (and not that the Disabled Community gets Affirmative Action benefits, either)- that is; unless you're a Jew who wills to go along with the Pseudo-Christian Anti Semitism of the Roman Catholic Church (and College of Notre Dame of Maryland), or a Hispanic or Disabled Community member (with all due respect to a fellow student) who is either willing to do the same or is even Roman Catholic and liberal (and this fellow student, as far as I know, is- at least she's Roman Catholic, although I'm sure that she's unsurprisingly liberal as well; and I have never seen a more accomodated-for member of the Disabled Community who is at Notre Dame than her. Me, on the other hand- you can guess how I've been treated and accomodated for; and any accomdation that I have gotten is either minimal and/or surface enough to look like its meets what most people think that the ADA is, or received with my and others having to really push for it.).

By the way, I will concede that at least two NDM faculty members have been an exception in this regard, even though they don't agree with my ideology (and one of them has not been so much of an exception in other regards). To the (if you will) "marriage question" (ugh; I sound like Marx or- I can't believe that I'm repeating this name- Hitler, both of them Self-Hating Jews. And of course, "the Jewish question" or any similar phrase or idea behind it rubs me the wrong way. Anyway, to the question about marriage- which perhaps doesn't sound too much better; but still): this is the (if you will) factor about which I stated that the professor is (among other adjectives which I used to describe her) stupid and dense. Then again, with her (like most people) not being disabled (at least in any uncommon or anamethea way); she wouldn't know (or at least want to know or acknowledge) that (and often times because of people like her and the culture which they shape and are influenced by in turn, although they effect the culture whereas the culture only affects them), in this culture, Cinderella and Snow White have a better chance of marrying than a child of divorce who is a disabled woman, much less a disabled woman is not a child of divorce (and being a child of divorce adds to the disabled woman's being a damned statistic of being a disabled person and/or woman who, because of this culture and the people who shape it, never marry- or at least never stay married, especially because of the damned shallow men and women who consider disabled women as anamethea and as whom to not stay married, much less marry in the first place).

"Slow and Steady Wins Races", as My Ex Points Out

 And that's one of the things that we learn with CP: thank G-d that we can't do as much in some ways. e.g., my non-disabled cousin Tommy Zinkand had the opportunity to ride a motorcycle and convinced himself that he was invincible. On June 26, 2005; he was going too fast and hit a minivan body on. On Sunday; six years will have passed (Poor Danny and Terri. Danny's his dad, Terri his sister.). By the way, that side of my Farrell-DeBoy family has not had life easy: besides Tommy, Danny's wife (and Terri's and Tommy's mom) Sylvia, cousin (and my aunt) Mary Carole Allen Hamilton, and brother-in-law (and Terri's and Tommy's uncle) Danny Dugas all died at around this time of year as well (Aunt Mary Carole on Flag Day 2008, and Danny Dugas a week ago, and Sylvie (Sylvia)... let me check... April 28, 2010. Not an easy couple of months to get through for the Farrell-DeBoy Zinkands.).

Part of My Correspondence With a True Reform Jew (i.e., One Who's Really Reforming Modern Judaism)

However, I'm going to censor out his or her name for the interim, since he or she has not yet responded to this:

Hey... (v'Shabbat Shalom!):




Thanks for the response, and I apologize for delaying in my own response. Meanwhile, I think that a good topic to cover at present would be the Casey Anthony case and the death penalty; especially because a prominent fellow Jew of ours, Geraldo Rivera, seems to unfortunately be in lockstep with URJ policy per the death penalty and is forgetting how Torah and arguably tikun ha'olam (which certainly includes tzedek) requires that Casey be convicted and get the death penalty per nefesh l'nefesh- and how any other premeditating and remorseless murderer should get the death penalty.



I think that one of the things that many- including the URJ (including Geraldo) forgets is that the death penalty is not a bloodlust-based idea or easy sanction to carry out for any Jewish or gentile person who loves Torah. To carry out nefesh l'nefesh is killing someone, and taking a life of even the most vile person is hard especially because we're all family (per Adam and Eve, and Noah) and there is a special kind of "What could have been?" heartbreak in having to execute a fellow family member who could have chosen to do the right thing instead of murder someone and attempt to evade and/or pervert tzedek (and Casey obviously chose to pervert tzedek instead of love and raise Caylee).



Nicole Czarnecki

To Geraldo Rivera's Producer, Christina Timothy

CT, morality sometimes takes precedence over the Constitution and other US law (and obviously is not in line with it at the time). Especially as a Jew, Geraldo ought to know that. In this case, he's behaving to a lesser degree and in a different but parallel way to my great-grandmother Gaydos- that is, Great-Grandma Gaydos cost the lives of relatives who died in the Holocaust because she followed US isolationist policy and did not send them the help which they requested; and in a similar way, Geraldo is costing Caylee's life and justice all the more.