This world is killing me.

Hi Steve,

Well, first of all, WTF is going on in the music world lately?  All these creative
 musical people are dying lately!  Droppin' like FLIES.  I am very sad about the
 death of Davy Jones...he lived in Harrisburg PA, not too far from us actually,
and he was a really nice guy.  I even posted the photo here for you of my mom
and I together with him after seeing the Monkees in concert last summer.  He
had a heart attack, but he seemed so healthy and vivacious and full of energy.
Who knew...it's just so sad.  

Not only that, but Meatloaf is in the hospital, with some kind of illness that they
haven't divulged yet...that guy scared me so bad when we saw HIM in concert
last summer and he passed out on the stage!!  He claimed it was his asthma,
mixed with the hot humid weather, and he couldn't breathe. But, that happened
again in New Jersey a few weeks later, too.  So something more is going on with
him, they just don't know what yet.

I haven't mentioned this situation yet, because it is still an ongoing, ever-changing
thing, but right now, Pete's youngest son is in the psych ward at the hospital
because he's either having some kind of emotional breakdown due to the loss
of his eyesight, or he's mixed his eye medication with marijuana and "spice"
(that he smoked all the time), and it's caused him to become "borderline schizo-phrenic." That's what they are speculating right now, he's just not right, and is
talking crazy about a lot of stuff that isn't normal.  

So we don't know what the hell is going on really, he's currently in detox, but this
kid is only 26 years old....I can only imagine what it would be like to be 26 and
told that he is going blind, won't ever be able to drive a car again, won't ever be
able to work a real job, and has to remain on permanent disability benefits for the
rest of his life.  That is one hell of a lot of shit to digest all at once, for someone
so young.  He must be scared to death, but he's never expressed that fear, he's
just held his head up and tried to show a brave face about it---which means he's internalizing the fear---which leads to a lot of stress building up until it implodes.
Pete and I are going up to NY to see him next week for a few days, and you can
bet I'm gonna rip somebody a new one if they don't give us some answers by then.

Apparently there are over 20 cases recently in that town of the same kind of
situation happening---smoking spice, which is probably laced with some toxic ingredient, that causes them to flip out and get all grandiose and omnipotent, and immortal, etc., talking about portals and a mathematical equation that explains eternity...he was even trying to call President Obama to tell him he had all the
answers to the universe and wanted to help him fix things.  Soooo, this is NOT
normal behavior, and we are very worried.

Today on Facebook, on the JTA page, (Global News Service of the Jewish People), I found this article....which, again, just kills me.....like yesterday.....

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Proposed shopping center on deportation site is protested

February 29, 2012

PRAGUE (JTA) -- Opponents of a proposed shopping center to be built on the site where Jews were deported to Nazi death camps want to ensure that an appropriate monument also is erected.

Protesters wearing yellow Stars of David and pushing empty shopping carts met Monday at the site in Prague where construction on a controversial shopping center is set to begin, the Czech News Agency reported. The protesters are wary of a pledge by the United Kingdom-based developer Lordship to build a monument to the Jewish transport victims who left from the site and also want to ensure that the monument will be dignified..

A spokesperson from the municipality said the developers came up with the idea for a monument on their own initiative. Prague Jewish Community Chairman Frantisek Banyai has said there already is a memorial plaque to the site as part of the adjacent Park Hotel.

Developers said they plan to design the monument once they receive a construction permit for the now empty lot. Lordship leased the lot in 1997 and did not obtain a land-use permit until 2006.

Local residents have protested previously against the planned shopping center over potential traffic problems and its effect on neighborhood shops.

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My reaction that I wrote on Facebook with this article is as follows:


Nobody listened to me when I worked at the Museum, I've been tryin' to TELL THEM that THIS is their future if they don't cultivate the younger audience, work TOGETHER with other Museums, and amicably SHARE the artifacts (don't STEAL them and piss off Poland), but nooooo, nobody listened. I am sorry to say, the future looks quite bleak for the USHMM, but they just don't want to admit it. "Denial leads to irrational, stubborn belligerence." And then it inevitably becomes a PARKING LOT TO A SHOPPING MALL.
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Stephen, man...all I can do is shake my head in total resignation.


It is so far beyond my comprehension, I am truly at a loss. I really don't understand how something as sacred as a Holocaust deportation location could be paved over and turned into a shopping center.  An American Indian is buried, it's considered sacred hallowed ground.  A cemetery is sacred, IT is considered to be hallowed ground.  ANY LOCATION LIKE THIS, THAT LED TO GENOCIDE should also be SACRED AND HALLOWED GROUND.


Building a "monument" in memory of it is BULLSHIT.


The sad reality that I have been facing ever since I read Tim Cole's book "Selling The Holocaust," (he's the one who coined the phrase, "the Holocaust industry"), back in 1999 or 2000, is that within MY LIFETIME, the memories of this horrible time in history are going to disappear when all the Survivors are gone. The Museums are going to face major hardships when the 2nd and 3rd generation of Jews who are sick and tired of HEARING about the Holocaust, no longer DONATE MONEY to them. 


The CHILDREN of those 2nd and 3rd generation Jews aren't going to CARE about any of it, because they aren't cultivated by the Museum TO CARE, and they aren't going to be educated about it BEFORE going to the Museum, (at least not in a public school or by parents who don't want to talk about it), and therefore will have little or no interest in it, and when they grow up, won't bother to give money to it either.  


I see the "Holocaust industry" going BANKRUPT in my lifetime, CEASING TO EXIST in my lifetime, and it is unfolding before my very eyes, which makes my heart shatter into infinite myriad shards of painfulness unlike any other heartbreak I've ever known.  I see the USHMM in Washington DC being bulldozed into a parking lot, IN MY LIFETIME.


Congress matches every penny that the Museum raises themselves.  If the Survivors are gone, their kids are tapped because of a crappy economy, THEIR kids aren't going to give a crap when they are old enough to know about it---what kind of donations will the Museum get THEN??  Not enough.  And Congress can pull that funding at any time, for any reason.  It is truly a slippery slope, and it is going to fall from "Never Again," to "Who cares."


I've seen this coming, for a long time.  It's like having 20/20 vision and seeing a tornado on the horizon that nobody else can see coming.  WHY CAN'T ANYONE ELSE SEE THIS COMING????!!!!!


I hate it that God makes ME see this shit, when there's nothing I can do about it.  Why do I have to be tormented and upset and passionate about this shit?? I'm not even JEWISH!!!  Why was I the one "chosen" to deal with this stuff, when I'm just a nobody with no power whatsoever to change anything??  I really think God screwed up.  I'm not the right person to do this shit.


Anyway, I'm feeling rather reckless, frazzled and overwhelmed by all this, so I may go dip into the alcohol cupboard in our kitchen, and drink my dinner.


I have fucking HAD IT.


Bye for now.


Love, Rebecca