Carol Bergman

 

"But how about my courage?" asked the Lion, anxiously. "You have plenty of courage, I am sure," answered Oz. "All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. True courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty."

 

-L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

 

 

Three young men and a young woman are conversing in the sauna about Renee Nicole Good's murder in Minneapolis. It's mid-day, lunch time, arctic cold, but the sauna is warm and warming as voices are raised. "She deserved it," one of the men says. "I would have shot her, too," says another.

 

I was swimming laps and did not witness the beginning of this encounter, but when I surfaced onto the deck, one of the men and the young woman were sitting on chairs close-to, their voices raised. At first I thought they were flirting, so I said, teasingly, "You seem to be having an intense conversation." I was mistaken.The man looked stunned, the woman annoyed that I had interrupted.

 

In the safety of the locker room, I asked the young woman—who I shall call Flo here to protect her identity—what had happened, thus the quotes in the first paragraph. Where had she found the courage to take these men on, I wondered? What had she said to them? I gave her my card, explained that I was a journalist, and suggested we meet for a coffee. She agreed.

 

Unfortunately, this is not going to be a story with  definitive answers to my questions. After an hour with Flo, a deep dive into her backstory, her work, her boyfriend, her childhood, I can only surmise the source of her courage and activism: professional supportive parents, an "elite" education without the specter of debt, a solid job. Whereas the men she had encountered in the sauna? What was their backstory? Where had they gone to school? How had they been parented? Were they employed? These questions are "begging" questions; the answers to them are equally important.

 

Flo did not blame or shame the men; she engaged them, she kept her voice steady and she felt calm. Except for the man who followed her out of the sauna to continue the conversation, there is no way of knowing what, if anything, had shifted in their "thinking," or if they even cared. There had been machismo, too; they had been showing off to each other, egging each other on, like a mob.

 

Flo remains undaunted. That very week she signed up for Rapid Response in Ulster County to protect our local immigrant population.

 

"O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in't,"  says Miranda in Shakespeare's, The Tempest.  Miranda is a mediator, an empathetic figure who wants to quiet the raging storm her father, the vengeful Prospero, Duke of Milan, has unleashed to shipwreck his enemies. Flo is her descendant. These women are brave, they are admirable, they are to be supported and cherished.

 

This post is dedicated to the courageous Americans out on the streets singing as they march. 

 

 

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.

 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Letter from a Birmingham Jail,4/16/1963

 

 

 

Mike Sweeney, Volunteer Attorney for the Ulster Immigrant Defense Network is initiating a role play during a "know your rights" workshop at the Elting Memorial Library in New Paltz, NY, and it is uncomfortable. He's pretending to be an armed, masked, aggressive ICE agent banging on the door of our home, which we once considered a sanctuary. Do we, in fact, know our rights? Can we keep calm and ask for a warrant to be slipped under the door? Has the warrant been signed by a judge?  We are flustered, unsure, and frightened. Now we try to imagine if we have children in our care, and do not speak English well. What shall we do? What if we are stopped on the street on the way to work, our children at school? Then what? And so on. The scenarios are endless, and horrific., all intended to help us help the vulnerable in our communities. How might we have assisted that five-year-old child recently detained?

 

Attendees ask lots of questions and leave the library more informed, but also  worried. There is a conversation about Renee Nicole Good who was killed in Minneapolis not many days ago. What could she have done, or should she have done to avoid that catastrophe? Some sort of passive resistance, perhaps? Hands in the air, sorry to get in your way officer? Innocently, she had engaged.  Though, sadly, she might have been shot anyway.

 

As history has shown us time and time again, nonviolent passive resistance works, and it saves lives. It takes courage and not all of us are capable of not responding  physically or verbally to violence. Silent marches, silent vigils, sit-downs and strikes, though less dramatic, are models we might try to emulate, especially in a time of rampant escalation and a federal agency and executive branch out of control. Those were my thoughts during the workshop. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was whispering in my ear. It did not take long for me to find an appropriate quote from him.

 

For the brave citizens of Minneapolis, let us wish them well, and do what we can in our own neighborhoods to help those under siege. Even a small gesture of kindness helps. I carry around the cards I picked up the other day at the library workshop with the phone number of the Ulster Immigrant Defense Network.

 

If you are local and would like to learn more, or volunteer, contact:  https://ulsterimmigrantdefensenetwork.org/

 

I write as both witness and participant in the effort to defend and strengthen American democracy and global peace with well informed small actions every day.

 

The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.

 

― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

 

 

On dark winter nights, we banish news and settle in to watch our favorite programs in front of the electronic hearth, a much-needed respite from the challenges of a working day, and the pulse of aggressive, destructive, inhumane disruptions in our daily lives in the United States. The streaming offers are varied, international, comedic or documentary, spy thrillers and murder mysteries and, of late, we have been dipping into the HBO Max treasure trove of old re-mastered movies. My interest ceases at 1950 when Doris Day held forth, often in song, about ideal American womanhood according to the Hollywood censoring titans. Though the Hays Act was passed in 1930, imaginative screenwriters often defied it. As my husband is a screenwriter, he appreciates their gifts. Not having the movie education he has enjoyed, I often let him guide our choices. And so, this week, we watched a 1940 wartime adaptation of a stage play (adaptation) of Austen's 1813 masterpiece Pride and Prejudice starring Greer Garson as the brave, forceful Elizabeth Bennett, and Olivier as the contained, thoughtful, handsome Darcy. Both actors fulfilled my image of Austen's richly written characters, without disturbing it.

 

To my surprise, one of the screenwriters was Aldous Huxley whose Brave New World was published in 1932.  He lived in Hollywood from 1937 until his death in 1963. I am sure there is a story behind the story of his sojourn in America in a biography I've yet to read. For the moment, I'm grateful he did not bowdlerize Austen's emancipated spirit in this early film version of Pride and Prejudice, and retained Elizabeth Bennett's incisive dialogue, a model for us all as we retreat from outspoken confrontation with those who challenge and demean us with political certitude and rage.

 

What an engaging woman Lizzy Bennett is, and beautiful, too, in the person of Greer Garson. Whoever choreographed the film is also to be admired as the women in their flouncy dresses glide through the rooms as though they were on wheels. Their energy fills the scenes; the men are secondary characters.  And the ending is a happy one as Darcy and Lizzy reconcile, and the world remains in peaceful equilibrium, an outcome we all deserve.

 

If you're going to be in journalism and you want to be loved, you'd better get a dog.

 

-Dan Rather, in the Netflix documentary

 

 

 

A shabbily dressed woman is sitting in front of Stewart's on Rte. 32 on a bitterly cold day. She has a child's backpack and is wearing pajama bottoms flapping in the high wind. Is she waiting for a bus, I ask? Is she hungry? I'm about to offer her the bag of peanuts I have just bought, but she shakes her head "no" so hard she almost falls off the bench, as if to say, Please don't look at me, no, no no, go away. Despite my best intentions, she wants to be left alone. Oh, how I would have preferred to talk to her, to get her story, and to write about it here, or for the local paper. 
 

New Paltz, NY is an upscale town; poverty is nearly invisible. There are homeless people sleeping on benches and pushing shopping carts filled to the brim with belongings, yet they remain quietly unseen, or forgotten once they have been seen. Ivan Echenique, the Director of  Family of New Paltz, a not-for-profit in town, once complained to me that the closest shelter is a 30 minute drive away. Ten years since he took the job, and there is still no shelter in New Paltz. I cannot testify as to why this should be so, unless I launch an investigative report. But more than one friend has warned me of getting too engaged as a journalist "so close to home." That worries me.  For what is a journalist to do but find out what is behind the curtains of our well-furnished rooms?

 

I do not write this blog, or anything else, to be loved, but I do expect to be read, and appreciated for whatever understanding I contribute. I do not self-censor my chosen topics, such as this one, for example. As a reader you are free to delete it, or to block my emails, but please do not tell me what to write about, or what not to write about.

 

Are we all now reliant only on the "citizen journalists" flooding social media for our "news" ?  Does it matter that they are untrained, opinionated so-called "watchdogs." I believe it matters a lot. And though I have strong opinions myself, I attempt to temper them with knowledge, experience and professional standards.

 

Another local friend has prevailed upon me not to quote her. She wrote a heart-rending email to me about her work as a volunteer English teacher to a refugee family, all facing deportation, and begged me not to write about the family or her work. It might make matters worse, she said. Indeed, that is the point. If the situation is super sensitive, and even the lawyers are worried, and the press is silenced or self-censored, then where are we, exactly, as a democracy with a free press?

 

Except for public radio and television, the media in the United States has always been market driven. Even public radio and television is to some extent. More so, now, as funding has been eviscerated. But over our 250 year history there has also been an underground, alternative press similar in spirit to the Samizdat publications behind the Iron Curtain.  Consider the Village Voice, for example, the first of the alternative papers. Founded by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, and Norman Mailer in 1955, it introduced "free-form, high-spirited, and passionate journalism into the public discourse," according to their mission statement. Still publishing, it has received three Pulitzer Prizes, the National Press Foundation Award, and the George Polk Award.  Even Ramparts, Rolling Stone and, unbelievably, Playboy, ran investigative stories in the day disregarding pressure from advertisers. That firewall broke down a long time ago.

 

I anticipate the rise of new publications free of corporate constraints or conspiracy theories. Unlike Substack, blogs and podcasts, they will have editors, fact checkers, and the courage and budget to commission investigative reports. And they'll need legal teams that won't cower under threat. 

 

 

 

The temple bell stops—

but the sound keeps coming

out of the flowers

 

-Matsuo Bashō, 1644-94

 

 

Every morning, I sit at my long library table facing the Minnewaska Ridge and write in my journal for an hour, or more. In the winter it is often dark when I put up the kettle for tea—a preference that reminds me of my years in London—and then the sky either brightens and floods with light, or remains overcast, the clouds hanging low over the village. I marvel at the changes in the weather, but am in a way indifferent to it. Whatever the weather outside, or in my mind and heart, pen in hand, I continue to write.

 

The solace of being a "creative," as we are called in the era of AI, is deep and sustaining. So too the privilege of encouraging writing in others, my students. I have mentored an exemplary private workshop this past year which has given me pleasure. I have walked every weekend with a friend, and made a new friend or two, a creative expedition in itself. New friendships later in life are both a challenge and an exploration. They require patience and deep listening. Who is this person? What has happened to him or her—or them—in their lives before we met?  Does it matter if we have everything in common, or nothing at all? Or if there is an age difference, now that I am older? My curiosity about everyone I meet is unbounded. I am grateful for each encounter and the tantalizing promise of connection.

 

The holidays came and went. Our daughter suggested that grown-ups refrain from exchanging gifts this year; it's a year for donations. We agreed. Family arrived from overseas and the pace of life slowed, as it did during Covid. We ate sumptuous meals together and talked into the night. We drove home on a quiet mountain road and felt like intruders as a deer crossed our path, the car slowed to a near standstill, the quiet of the winter forest settling on us.

 

The world beyond our borders is not at ease, and we will be hard pressed to ignore it as we grapple with distant troubles, and those closer to home. We have rested, we have paused, and it is now time to begin again, to gather our strength and press on into the new year.