Annual Letter 2010 Halloween 10/31, Day of the Dead 11/1 (as life & politics overlap)

Dear Friends,

As many of you know I try to send an annual salutation on or around Ground hogs day. Events this year put off my late winter effort. Groundhogs day falls between the winter solstice and the equinox, Halloween is also between solstice & equinox so this year I’m writing at the other end of a cycle. Halloween is also celebrated as the Day of the Dead, an opportunity to connect with departed loved ones. So call this my “day of the dead letter”.

The great sadness in my family’s lives is the death of Beth’s father. He died on Groundhogs day February 2nd 2010. He had cancer 3 years ago which was removed followed by chemo, but about a year ago it came back. With the cancers return his options were more limited.

Beth’s father Mel was a doctor and teacher. He was passionate about many things in his world. He held professional achievements; he stood up on the good side of many issues. He defended the little guy. I know this because more than once when he felt that I was getting a raw deal he would express outrage on my behalf. He had a creative mind and was a life-long learner. But what really matters is the love you leave behind. Mel was loved by his patients, his students and others he touched. But none were touched so deeply as his family.

I am lucky to have Mel’s daughter as life partner. She is a pillar of strength and integrity, kindness and love, intelligence and humanness.

His Grandsons Zev and Teo each carry some of Mel’s beauty in them. Zev is thoughtful and engaged in the political issues of the world, he likes listening to NPR and he gets Mother Jones Magazine which he enjoys reading. Teo loves math and has recently completed the calculation of 13 factorial (that’s the multiplication of all the numbers from 1 to 13) Both boys are interested in the unanswered questions of the universe. For instance Teo is presently working on a project about black holes. Both boys find their own ways of creativity. Zev is writing a fantasy novel and has already written over 30 pages.

There were several others who’ve touched my life who died this past year, I’d like to honor them all, I’ll just mention one here. Liz Johnson was my beloved friend in Portland, one of the founders of Hei Wa house, we were activist together with the progressive student network and we worked together at the Soy Plant cooperative. She died of ALS this fall. A great sadness is that she was mother of a boy named Will who is about Teo’s age. She was an activist and a part of the cooperative movement; she worked in several collectives and workers cooperatives. All of my friends who have passed away lived good lives.

Reflecting on my own life and its purpose I have found some touch stones for now.

Last fall and winter I was looking at my many and eclectic engagements and interests I got insight into some key areas where I would like to focus my professional clinical studies and expertise. I am interested in the health implications of plant based nutrition. Eat your vegetables! I am intrigued by the question what can be done to promote longevity (hint: eat your vegetables.) I want to learn more about the health implications of environmental toxins as well as ways of helping individuals recover or maintain health in the face of toxic exposure (the broccoli family, cilantro, garlic & onions in particular). Finally, I have come to realize that I am passionate about addressing mental health issues by non-pharmacological means. That all said my main job involves a good bit of endocrinology and a lot of work with food allergies.

In January I identified some larger project oriented goals for my life in the coming year. I find that when I set clear goals that I am passionate about I tend to move forward in my life. They included: 1) a goal for professional productivity which I met before I had initially intended to, 2) running for the board of Ann Arbor’s food coop, and now I am on the board, 3) some specific markers regarding the building of my co-counseling, emotional support community, also essentially met. 4) Finishing the initial processing of a collection of over 5000 books which are becoming a peace library in a space carved out of my garage. These books belonged to Rich Ahern a friend of mine who died in 2004. This also is approaching conclusion. I had a grand opening in August and only have a few more books to go.

There was a fifth goal; I had wanted to build an extension on the back of our house with an eye to extreme energy efficiency. This will give us a larger bed room and it will allow Zev and Teo to each have their own bed room. In the end this goal has been postponed to next summer, something to look forward to.

Now let me offer some thoughts on my views of life and death in the wide world:

One area where I have been pleased with Barak Obama where he has gone farther than I thought a sitting president could go, is around the issue of nuclear weapons. Articulating a goal of a nuclear weapons free world, signing a treaty reducing the US nuclear stock pile by one third, reshaping our nuclear policy to promise no use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against non nuclear nations who are adherents to the nuclear non proliferation treaty, publicly disclosing the number of nuclear weapons we have. All of these are commendable major policy shifts unprecedented in the history of the nuclear era.

Reflecting on these actions around nuclear weapons I was emotionally moved. I remembered the many things I did during the 1980’s to oppose nuclear weapons. This was when both Barak Obama and I were young men, each in our own way shaping our political world view. As I marched, met, organized, protested, and resisted the arms race in any way I could muster Obama was exposed to the milieu that I was helping to create. I feel great pride in this, but I don’t say this to boast, rather to remember that small acts by many add together to create the context where change can happen, sometimes only by planting seeds for 25 years later.

Now back to remembering the dead: Americans continue to kill in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Estimated of the victims of the war on terror [or rather the war of terror] range from over 100 thousand to near one million. While most of those deaths were in Iraq, as many as twenty thousand may have been killed in Afghanistan. Those numbers will climb as long as the US is there. Mr. Obama must take responsibility for those killed abstractly, but killed in war and assassinated are two different crimes. Drones and kill lists brings the charge of assassination to the office of the president.

Trading the risk of nuclear destruction for the new weapons of the empire is not enough. I should like to plant seeds for real world peace,

The other death count we should start is that of climate change victims. The Pakistani flooding this summer had already claimed 2,000 lives by August. It’s counterpart the drought in Russia is now threatening a global food crisis. This is just the start. A UN report on probable human refugees from global warming suggests a magnitude of 700 million. That’s 1 in every 10 people on the planet!

What can we do? Many things. On an international day of action (October 10th) the participation Ann Arbor organization focused on front yard gardens (local food requires less CO2 for transportation, and what could be more local than your front yard.) I was fortunate to have a volunteer give me a hand digging up my front yard and over 100 gardens were made that day.

Ann Arbor is not the only place where gardens are a sign of hope. This summer the US social Forum was held in Detroit and Beth and I got a chance to learn about the greening of Detroit. For years Detroit had become almost synonymous with despair, post industrial decay, skyrocketing unemployment even before the recession, high crime rates. In Detroit devils’ night was the name for the night before Halloween which was known for its rampant arson, but from those ashes come gardens, hundreds of them on vacant land throughout the city, and among the gardener’s mutual aid and cooperation. Now the urban gardening movement throughout the country is looking to Detroit. From decay comes rebirth.

So amidst some sadness and loss I’d like to wish you hope and a happy Halloween.