Pat Taub
Covid Thanksgiving
I surprised myself by adapting to my orphaned Thanksgiving better than I had anticipated. Even though I wasn’t cooking a big turkey dinner as I have on previous years, I decided to scale-back and cook for myself as if I were my own guest. I made a turkey breast, stuffing, cranberry sauce and asparagus, topped off with a nice French Chardonnay. When my family phoned I was eating my dinner, so I actually had virtual companions at my table.
I never lost sight of the fact that so many families in my city were too scrapped to buy a turkey dinner, while beset with worries over making rent. Maybe next year we’ll witness more national compassion?
A Covid Thanksgiving for the poor was dependent on receiving a free turkey
Sophie Loren
This week I watched the Netflix film, The Life Ahead, starring Sophie Loren as Rosa, a holocaust survivor and former prostitute, who now cares for the children of sex workers. A local doctor bribes Rosa into taking on Momo, a wayward teenage Senegalese refugee, spectacularly played by Ibrahima Gueye. It’s a beautiful love story that will fill your heart as Rosa and Momo, discover they are unlikely kindred spirits. At 86, Loren remains a star in every sense of the word.
Ibrahima Geye and Sophie Loren in “The Life Ahead”
A Record–Setting Women’s Group
A few weeks ago I Zoom-interviewed a women’s group in Tampa that started as a CR (Conscious Raising) group in 1972 and quickly evolved into a weekly friendship circle. Only a few of the women have been in the group from the very beginning, but new members have their own impressive longevity, dating back to the ‘90’s.
A women’s group that has met weekly for almost 50 years has to be one for the record books!. They do more than meet in one another’s homes. They are a life line for one another, visiting when a member is sick or who needs support in general. A big take away was how much the women laughed and how much affection they expressed for one another.
A supportive women’s group similar to the one I met with.
A Global Tragedy
I have my days when I succumb to news depression overload, like this morning after I read an essay in Counterpunch by Kathy Kelly, one of the most dedicated peace workers I know. Shortly after the US started our now almost 20-year war in Afghanistan, Kathy traveled there on a peace-seeking commission. Subsequently she founded “Voices for Creative Nonviolence,” to bring about peace and an end to the US occupation.
Kelly routinely travels between Afghanistan and her Chicago home. In her Counterpunch piece Kelly describes the huge number of children killed by the US and rebel forces, citing numbers for 2019 alone, when 874 children were killed and 2,275 children injured. Wow, do we ever need to see a resurgence of the peace movement!
Kathy Kelly delivering a public talk about Afghanistan, 2015
