It's snowing in the 'burgh babyyyy....

Hello Stephen...wassupwitchoo?!  I hope all is well in your world. Do you have any snow yet where you live?  I don't really KNOW where you live, but if you spend your winters in Maui, you're a lucky SLOB and I'm still waiting for my invitation!

It's snowing here in the 'burgh, but nowhere NEAR as awful as it was last year.  I think we've got 2 inches so far, and it is supposed to warm up this weekend, so hopefully it will all melt away.  I've really had enough snow, growing up in Michigan most of my life, so I can truly live without it.

Anyway, I've been keeping busy with trying to decorate the house, stay organized, write out Christmas cards, (I totally forgot that Hanukkah came a week earlier than it normally does so I forgot to mail out my usual Hanukkah cards), and of course, getting Christmas gifts all wrapped and ready to go.  I like to get into the spirit of things, but I do try to avoid shopping, stores, and malls after Thanksgiving as much as I possibly can.  It's the anti-social part of me. I just don't like huge crowds of grumpy people who fight over parking spots, bargains, and whatnot. People are just plain jerks to each other, and I don't need to be around those kinds of people, especially during a time of year that is supposed to be PEACEFUL.

Unfortunately, I've noticed that, even during this time of year, people are still shithead jerks who like to cut each other off in traffic---I was driving along with my mom just chatting away when this truck on my left pulled up and sat with me for a few minutes, side by side, and when I glanced over, he flipped me off, then zoomed in front of me, and slammed on his brakes---three different times!!  He was totally going road rage on me, and I have no idea WHY.  My mom says as we curved around I leaned the car closer to the lane next to mine, but I don't recall doing that, and I certainly didn't mean to cause that guy some kind of grief.  But WOW, what a total asshat for acting in such a way.  I wanted to get his license plate number but he took off before I could grab the pen.  But, I remember that truck, and if I ever see him again, he'll RUE THE DAY. That's all I'm sayin'.

I used to have road rage REALLY bad when I lived in DC, but can you blame me really?  The drivers in that metro area all act like they are the ONLY people who matter, and they are SPECIAL and don't have to follow the rules like everyone ELSE does. I especially hated it when I was behind a Diplomat. They can get away with ANYTHING, and never get ticketed.  It's very infuriating, because they are usually the worst drivers around you the whole time you're out and about.  They even park in Handicap spots without a placard. That totally annoys me.

Pittsburgh drivers are all a bunch of redneck drunks, that's all I can figure. They swerve, don't know how to yeild, dont' know how to merge, and never use their turn signals.  Is it the same where you live, I wonder?  Do you have a smidgen of road rage yourself?  Or do you just ignore everyone and sing along to the radio like I try to do?  I smile when I think of you driving along, cranking up some DISTURBED and head-banging, singing your lungs out as you travel along!  I think I'd actually pay to see that, personally.

Dammit man, why can't you get your butt back on the stage and sing us a few songs??  I know people are quite loathsome, but for us true loyal followers of your music, you could charge an arm and  a leg, and make a MILLION BUCKS if you did that. Seriously. I'd pay half a million myself.  Hell, I'd be selling my blood, AND my ass on the street, if I had to, just to pay for that concert ticket!

Ah well, I guess there's no use trying to give you a hard time about it, I know you've been dying slowly inside without it, but it's a bittersweet death that you enjoy at the same time, being LEFT ALONE.  I do realize how that feels, believe me.  But deep down, that passion still flickers within. It'll never leave you.

In fact, I was reading my Southern Poverty Law Center "Intelligence Report" newsletter yesterday and as I made my way through it, reading about all the hate crimes against gay people, and bullying in schools, and crosses that still burn in black family's lawns in other parts of the country...swastikas painted on walls, vandalism and hate crimes everywhere....it gets a person down, actually, but I WANT to know about those things, I feel I SHOULD know about those things, no matter HOW depressing they are, and no matter HOW badly it affects my faith in humanity.

But at the end of the newsletter, there was an article written by Mark Potok, who is someone I have met several times when he came to the Museum in DC where I worked, and we talked often about how I'd love to work for the SPLC, and I even helped with a project for the Holocaust Chronicle book with him. This article he wrote mentions a Holocaust denier, a female, named Carolyn Yeager, and when I read it, I was horrified, disgusted, and ANGRY....furious actually....here, you can read it for yourself:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/winter/lying-about-auschwitz

She apparently took a walking tour, twice, of Auschwitz, and wrote an article in a well-known Holocaust denial journal that states that the tour guides don't tell you "the truth" about the camps when you go there, and that the camps were really LUXURIOUS RESORTS, with clean water, nice guards who often danced in the ballroom with the Jewish prisoners, and often married them...the camps, she says, provided cultural pursuits like a library, theater performances, musical concerts, swimming pool, bunk beds with mattresses, clean linens, indoor bathrooms and cozy stoves that heated everything properly...not to mention the wonderful flowers planted in front of every barrack building, good food, and plenty of wonderful health care for the inmates who were kept prisoner there during World War II.

I think this woman is living on some other planet.  She claims on her web site that she "used to be a liberal," until the early 90's, when she began reading hate-literature against blacks, gays, and other "inferior people," and now she feels that the whole Holocaust 'farce' is just plain LIES.  How the HELL can one woman, with Mark Potok's description as "leaden stupidity" POSSIBLY think those things, when she SAW IT FOR HERSELF IN PERSON???  She SAW the ovens.  She SAW the smoke stacks. She SAW the barracks, the wooden harsh beds, the food bowls with holes through them, shot by guards as prisoners tried frantically to drink the "soup" they were given. She SAW ALL OF THOSE THINGS, the huge piles of HAIR, the huge piles of SHOES, glasses, and other personal effects left behind before their bodies were incinerated.  She SAW hundreds of photographs of STARVING emaciated people, stacked up like cord wood, and buried in mass graves.

How can a person who SEES THOSE THINGS, reads about those things, and WITNESSES THE ACTUAL PLACE WHERE IT ALL HAPPENED actually REJECT the 700,000,000 million pieces of paper that the Nazis kept---all of their meticulous records, lists, and plans---in the National Archives, that describe the horrors of the concentration camps? How can she ignore and claim that the testimonies of the Nuremberg Trials were lies, when they were told by the Nazi guards themselves, who ADMITTED TO DOING THOSE HORRIBLE THINGS???

I mean, I read this article and my jaw hit the floor in amazement.  I was horrified.  It's horrifying to me to think that even NOW, there are so many IGNORANT people who never read history books out there trying to rewrite history based on their own prejudices.  I was so angry when I read this, I decided I'm going to cause this woman so much SHIT, for the rest of my life if I have to, until she changes her mind.

First step: Invite her to take a personal tour with me of the Holocaust Museum in DC, where I once worked, and spent many hours with actual Holocaust SURVIVORS, who told me about their experiences, their horror, their grief...their guilt...I want her to MEET THEM in person herself, to talk with them, to get RE-EDUCATED about this history.  I want so much to smack her upside the head a few thousand times with the biggest, thickest history book about the Holocaust that I can find. But, I know that EDUCATION is the ONLY answer to ignorance like that.

I actually CRIED after I read this, because I was so furious, and it felt like she was attacking MY peeps, MY Museum FAMILY, and HOW DARE SHE try to tarnish the victims and the survivors by dismissing their stories, their experiences, HOW DARE SHE attack my Annie---Anne Frank----and Miep Gies, my FRIEND???  I take this very personally, even though I know I shouldn't, but it feels like she is actually attacking ME and I will FIGHT TO THE DEATH anybody who tries to deny the Holocaust ever happened, or who tries to attack my peeps like that.

.......so my point in all this is.....that passion you feel inside about singing, will never go away, will never lessen, will never fade...it'll always be there, because that is part of who you are.  I'm glad you've taken the time to get to KNOW yourself better, though, during these years of "retirement."  There isn't a day that goes by that I miss working at that Museum.  It's in my blood, my soul, my heart...my life...and there's nothing I can do about it.  I still have a seething passion within about this subject, and it'll never go away.  It is difficult, and it can really tear a person apart if you let it.

Well, it's Christmas time, so sing some carols, pop some popcorn, have some eggnog, and enjoy the time with your family and friends...but know that it's OKAY to have that fiery passion still smoldering inside, as long as you accept it, acknowledge it, and learn to "let it go" as much as you can-------UNLESS-----you decide to give it a go once again.  I hope you will someday, I really do.  And I plan on giving it a go myself, when my web site is rebuilt, and I can write on my own about these people I love, and tell their stories after they are gone.  I will pursue my passion, with or without anybody's approval, assistance, or involvement.  It's MINE, just like singing is YOURS, to do with whatever you NEED to do.

I love you Stephen.  Please know that.  And please, enjoy the holidays.  If you feel it in your heart and in your soul, I hope that you will someday let that passion of yours grow again.

Love, big bear hugs, and warm holiday wishes to you....

Your favorite, passionate, weird blog-writing chick,

 Rebecca