December 2010

Everyday I read about miseries, old and new in all parts of the globe. It’s Haiti and the Sudan, human trafficking and money laundering, the ravages of malaria and HIV/AIDS, the impact of budget crises. It’s therefore easy for me to loose sight of the way things really are, that there are signs of hope and goodness, little and not so little successes in so many places. And then I hear Roma’s laughter. She’s still a baby and when she sees her mother make faces or looks at a balloon, or responds to playing horsey, she laughs. It’s so clear, so real, so full, so pure, so unfettered by any restraints, constraints, fear, or any other artifice. I hear it and think it is one of the world’s most beautiful sounds. I remember Robert Browning’s Pippa Scott that god’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world, and I know once again that as long as Roma can laugh, as long as any baby can, humanity will somehow triumph.

For whatever reason I’ve taken to reading the online comments after certain key articles, and I’m so dismayed. I realize people are knee jerking, reacting without taking time to think. Is that the reason for superficial, biased, thoughtless, sometimes inane comments? It’s not a right or left thing. And since most of these writers do not identify themselves, it is across the board, not belonging to any demographic group. I often read letters to the editors in the NYT or the L.A. Times, and find them thoughtful, often making valuable points that given writers or pundits might have missed. But those letters are edited and chosen for publication. While that makes a difference it does not undo the reality of online comments, just better highlights a budding problem with our democracy. It does seem that a democracy cannot long remain viable if its participants aren’t able to demonstrate at least bits of an intelligent understanding of the issues.

I’m so touched by the suicide of Mark Madoff, the son of Bernard Madoff in prison for a $50 billion scheme. He and his brother Andrew were the people who alerted the authorities after their father privately confessed. My father when he had Alzheimer’s invested in what turned out to be a Ponzi scheme and after his death the Receiver appointed by the court to recover the money came after me since I had figured out it was a strange investment and redeemed it as soon as I could meaning I was able to prevent the loss of funds. I know what it’s like to be wrongly accused, to have motives ascribed to you that are not yours, to have to defend yourself and essentially have to prove a negative whether or not you have the documentation. I succeeded because I found a lawyer who understood my situation and was willing to fight for me. But of course lawyers cost money and in my case ate up what the investment made. In Mark Madoff’s case, the legal actions against him, according to the NYT report, included his children and were far more serious than those against me. Further, he had, he believed, become unemployable. Not only must he have had many feelings about having had to turn in his father, as part of trying to prove to the authorities he had no part in the fraud, he also had to cut off having any contacts with them. Our mettle, spiritual or otherwise is often decided by how we handle injustice. Regardless of what wrong he did or what law he may have broken,injustice does appear to be involved here somewhere. Is that why he decided to forfeit his own life?