From A Murderer's Mouth To A Neo-Nazi's Ears

This was written back in 2009. A fellow blogger linked to it, so I figure I should let you see it.

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I am only posting this because I find it revealing and prescriptive.

I also have a rather intimate connection with the place this man shot up and murdered and injured people--people I know.

However, it is a warning of sorts from a man who seems to know what he did. I am glad he is in jail, and he needs to stay there forever. His letter to teabaggers and right-wing fanatics/terrorists seems pertinent in light of the right's desire to spread fear, hate, and soon maybe even lead.

For those who don't know or don't remember, Buford shot up the North Valley Jewish Community Center back in August of 1999. He killed a postal worker and wounded three children and the receptionist. I know the receptionist. I used to work there. I went there as a kid. My niece was there when it happened.

I present this letter from Buford to my right-wing visitors as a reminder of what racism, anti-semitism and hate will bring you (jail and a ruined life). Be careful, haters.

Convicted murderer Furrow says his mind was full of sickness

Los Angeles Daily News

Attn: Kevin Modesti

21860 Burbank Blvd., Suite 200

Woodland, CA 91367

Mr. Modesti,

Hello, I was sorry to hear that we couldn't speak during your earlier interview request. Today, I received the paperwork of the denial of that request. I have filed an administrative remedy in response to this unconstitutional refusal of your visit.

I did want to speak to you for the simple reason that I feel deep remorse for my crime. About 5 yrs. ago I threw away my racist books, literature, etc. and took up a new leaf. I now publicly renounce all bias toward anyone based on race, creed, color, sexual orientation, etc. and am a much happier person. I feel a life based on hate is no life at all.

Those people I hurt, and the man I killed that day in 1999 will probably never forgive me, but I am truely (sic) sorry and deeply regret the pain I caused. My mind was filled with sickness and unfortunately I acted on it. But, I am now a "model" inmate who has shunned criminal activity and spend my day with exercise, art, and learning prison civil law. I can't change the past, but I can damn sure change the future, and my future will never include Neo-Nazi activity again. That is all I can do. [emphasis mine]

(Unrelated paragraph removed)

Well, if you wish you may reprint or distribute this letter to anyone. I'd hope to have you write about my change of heart and the evils of hate but I guess it's not meant to be. Thanks for your interest though, write me if you wish at this address.

Sincerely,

Buford Ocq Furrow

Who knows if Buford has really reformed? Personally I don't give a shit. But his point ought to be taken by the KKK wing of the Republican soldiers of fortune haters who may just end up Buford's bunk mate.

h/t DWT

You're Welcome, Chinese Restaurants. And, Thank You!

h/t BB

It's Christmas Time For The Jews!

Dance Of A Survivor

This video of a family dancing at Auschwitz with their survivor grandpa is stirring up some controversy. As an atheist Jew (oxymoron?) I have to side with the folks who think it's very cool he lived long enough to celebrate his survival, life, children and grandchildren.

What do you think?

Palin's Jewish Problem Answered

A Jewish commentator for Commentary Magazine, Jennifer Rubin, wrote that Jews don't like Sarah Palin because we're snobs. Jennifer, a Jew, wrote this in Commentary, a Jewish magazine.

Jonathan Chait, a Jew at TNR, wrote a response at his new blog there taking Jennifer to task, and rightly so IMHO.

I have published comments left at TNR in the past, most notably from williamyard because he cracks me up and is so smart.  He's not the only one.  jhildner1 seems to have his writing chops too:

I think that I speak for most Jews when I say that one of the things that really caused us to hate Palin as a candidate, and as a person, and not merely view her as utterly lacking any of the substantive qualities one typically seeks in candidates for high office, is that she is what backward Americans refer to as a "straight-shooter." She is without affect or complicated agenda. She is "honest," like a slow Jewish child born prior to the days of genetics counseling. We Jews instinctively react negatively to this quality, as we are inclined toward deceit, unprincipled intellectual argument, and insidiously pragmatic and "values"-free pursuits geared toward enriching our people in the form of cash money and, if possible, destroying the traditional moral fabric of Christian societies such as the United States. Hence our firm grip upon the legal profession and entertainment industry.

Another thing about Palin worried us greatly. That is, the possibility and probability that, with the people's interest at heart, she would recommend taking unfavorable actions in relation to the financial sector of the economy, which we control, and through which we control most of what occurs in the world. Such action might have included refraining from giving us a lot of money -- an unacceptable setback. Although Barack Obama is a Negro Muslim, we knew, based upon secret communications held at our headquarters in the subterranean Gold Vault at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, that he would continue to offer a level of support to the financial industry not justified by what backward Americans refer to as "common sense." (Yes, "common," indeed! Ha ha.) Anyway, Obama wants Malia to go to Juilliard, which we agreed to facilitate. We also taught him how to be a lousy and annoying golfer.

Christmastime For The Jews

Lester Cohen: A Quiet Hero This Veterans Day

A friend of mine, who happens to be Lester's son, sent this to me this Veterans Day. Lester is a sweet, funny man who, with his wife Honey, raised a couple of fantastic kids. One grew up to be my friend and then go on to found the Global Pediatric Alliance, which you should find at the bottom of this blog and to which you should donate all the money you have left!

Lester Cohen. Son. Soldier. Husband. Father. Grandfather. Hero.

WWII veteran breaks silence

Lester Cohen poses at his Bangor home on Monday with a picture of his three brothers

(from left), Sam, Bernard, Lester and George,

in uniform during WWII.

BANGOR, Maine — The scars of war are not always visible.

Many World War II veterans, including Bangor resident Lester Cohen, have kept quiet about their wartime experiences during the 64 years since the war in Europe ended, attempting to hide their invisible scars.

Those veterans, now in their 80s, endeavored to protect themselves and the ones they love from the pain and grief that is associated with death and injury, and the knowledge that their innocence was lost forever.

“Growing up we were taught to be good, and the Army taught us to kill,” Cohen said last week as he sat in his Chickadee Lane home.

Cohen was 19 when he led a group of eight soldiers up the steep banks of Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day and later fought against the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge and other major confrontations in the European theater.

As he reminisced last week, he held in his lap a thin envelope of memorabilia from WWII, including a few letters he wrote home to his mom in Biddeford, his discharge papers, newspaper clippings, photos of his brothers-in-arms and one of him in his youth with his three brothers in uniform.

“It’s been a long, long time since I’ve even seen this stuff,” he said.

Cohen’s story is not unlike others from his youth. He was the youngest of seven children and all three of his older brothers and his brothers-in-law were serving this country in the military during WWII. Cohen was enrolled at the University of Maine in Orono, “and everyday I’d go to class there would be less and less boys,” he said.

Halfway through his second semester, he hitchhiked home to Biddeford to tell his mom, who raised him and siblings alone after his father died when he was 14, that he could wait no longer and that he was enlisting.

He joined the U.S. Army in March 1943. After basic training in Massachusetts he was sent to Europe with Battery B of the 110th Infantry Gunnery Battalion, which was attached to the 1st Army.

Cohen has kept the secrets of war quietly locked away for six decades, and only in the last few years has he been able to speak about his experiences.

“To say they don’t talk — that’s an understatement,” said Honey Cohen, who married him on Feb. 15, 1959.

By the time Cohen enlisted to fight along with his brothers and many others in the United States and Europe to defeat Hitler and the Nazis, millions of Jews already had died by the hands of those who followed the German dictator.

To be Jewish was a dangerous thing, and having an obviously Jewish given name placed a target on Cohen who decided to crush and throw away his military dog tags, just in case he was captured.

“I hated the Germans” for what they did, he said, anger still in his voice.

As he quietly recalled stories of the battles he fought in Europe — tales of the carnage of war — there were some good memories, of the people that he and his fellow soldiers helped to liberate.

“Have you ever seen people who were crazy with happiness?” he wrote in an Aug. 30, 1944, letter to his mother, Celia. “That is the way people are here” in France.

He recalled the French people shouted “the liberators” in their native tongue, when he and his battalion — the first Americans to arrive — made their way into Paris.
“They all tried to touch you. To kiss you,” he said, his eyes wet and far away in thought.

The fact that many were Jewish lifted his heart.

“I have met quite a few Jewish people since arriving here” in Paris, his letter states. “Many have been hiding in cellars and houses and other places for four years and many have kept their nationality a secret for fear of being harmed.”

A few of the stories, the ones that cut the deepest, Cohen just could not finish. He left them hanging in the air as silence permeated the room. Then he would gather his composure and, using a diversion technique that is well oiled, tell a story about the beautiful European women he met while traveling from town to town.

Cohen was shipped home to the U.S. before many of his fellow soldiers because his mother was seriously ill with brittle diabetes.

When he arrived home in Biddeford it was around midnight and his mother was already asleep.

The next morning, using her walker, she made her way into his room and Cohen pretended to be asleep. “She lifted up my shirt and checked me all over,” he said. “She knew if I got hurt I’d never tell her.”

Cohen has no physical scars from the war he served in so many years ago, but the emotional scars remain. They run so deep that he said he is not participating in today’s Veterans Day activities.

“It’s too tough.”

Michele Bachman Owes Us An Apology

By now you've all seen Michele Bachman's "press conference" yesterday that was really a racist rally.  There were the typical stupid signs and chants and the screams of "Patriots!!" as if they were all on the set of 300, replacing "Spartans!" with "Patriots!"

Then there were the incredibly distasteful signs with pictures of dead Jews.  I say, F*ck You to these people.  Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) decided to be a bit more respectful.

Christmas Time For The Jews!

Re: Bube & Zeda

h/t mom2015