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Find Carolyn's
Individual Books and Audios Here:
"We can't begin to explore
the issue of religious bigotry in this country until we ask, 'Would you
vote for an agnostic or an atheist."
~Pam Wright, Pasadena, CA.
Quotation taken from Time Magazine.
Site Sponsor
A book that may interest you
is
Support Our Troops by Eric Dinyer. It is merely a little
giftbook of patriotic sayings that comes complete with a magnet ribbon
for your fridge or car. Carolyn wrote the foreword for it. A percentage
of proceeds go to support Fischer House, a Ronald McDonald House kind of
charity where families of wounded troops may stay at no charge.
Published by Andrews-McMeel.
Site Sponsor
Flying Hugs and Kisses
by Jewel Sample. How do you tell a child their baby brother or
sister is not coming home from the hospital? How could this happen?
Where did the baby go? Parents in the midst of their grief must
come up with answers to their children's questions. Flying Hugs and
Kisses answers these questions with compassion and hope.
Available in English and Spanish.
~~~
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"Diversity has been
written into the DNA of American life; any institution that lacks a
rainbow array has come to seem diminished, if not diseased. In fact,
there is a general acknowledgement, in all but the most troglodytic
precincts, that our racial diversity is a major American competitive
advantage in the global economy."
~ Joe Klein,
Time Magazine, Dec. 18, 2006
"Tolerance
is not enough because there's no educational component to it."
~ Gustav Niebuhr, author of Beyond Tolerance
"Tolerance is love;
acceptance is a greater love still" ~Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Watch here for more
information and links on tolerance, peace, and reason.
Click Here
for a list of peace and tolerance museums.
Click Here for Carolyn
Howard-Johnson's blog on Terezin. It was posted Feb. 26, 2007, after
60 Minutes aired a segment (January, 2007) on that concentration
camp in the Czech Republic. Be sure to scroll down a ways. (-:
Click here
for Carolyn's first person essay,
"Beating Time at Its Own Game," that explores age and gender discrimination.
Scroll down a bit.
For more of Carolyn Howard-Johnson's essays, poems
and other work on subjects related to war, peace, tolerance, and
acceptance visit her
"Back to Literature" column on
MyShelf.com (where old columns are archived) , or check out her books
This Is the Place, Harkening, Tracings and the foreword in the book
Support Our Troops on this site or on
Amazon.com.
Click Here
for the study guide included in
This Is the Place. ~
Rebecca Brown of RebeccasReads.com said,
"At
the end [of This Is the Place] there is a Reading Group Guide of
questions for serious discussion, which transforms this novel into a
textbook about closed societies & their impact."
"May we become all the Love we receive!" ~ Nade
Haines, writer
Resources and Food for Thought
Nonfiction
-
Galileo's Daughter
by Dava Sobel is
a pure delight as well as a beautiful book.
-
Leaving the
Fold by Jim Ure
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Beauty Bites
Beast by Ellen Snortland
-
Check out the
titles from
Gorgias Press. They specialize in
books on things like the genocide of Syrian Christians during WWI,
Iraqi folk tales, Christian minorities in Turkey, etc.
-
The works of
George Marsh Fredrickson (1934 to March, 2008). Hazel Rose Markus,
Stanford professor, says his studies "should be required reading for
anyone concerned with changing the world or creating a better one."
They include his Pulitzer Prize finalist and others,
The Inner
Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union,
The Black
Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character
and Destiny,
Black
Liberation: A Comparative History of Black Ideologies in the
United States and South Africa and Racism: A Short
History.
His most
recent, published just before his death is Big Enough to Be
Inconsistent: Abraham Lincoln Confronts Slavery and Race.
Recommended
Recent Bestsellers (nonfiction)
-
The Assault On Reason by Al Gore
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God Is Not Great by
Christopher Hitchens
-
Einstein by Walter Isaacson
-
Buddha Is as Buddha Does by Lama
Surya Das
-
Beyond
Tolerance (Viking, 2008) by Gustav Niebuhr
Neibuhr says
"Religion is to the 21st century what ideology was to the 20th."
He believes there is an need for a dialogue and acceptance
between faiths because religion is a danger to the world, a
danger as serious as the Cold War of the 20th Century. He also
believes that, though much work needs to be done, there is an
important shift in the air, one of cooperation and understanding
between religions.
Fiction
-
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
-
The Kite Runner by Kaled
Housseini
-
This Is the Place by Carolyn
Howard-Johnson
- First the Raven
by Leora Krygier
- Boy's Pond by Warren Stucki, M.D.
"BOY'S POND was first published
in 2002, yet six years later interest remains strong. Set it St.
George, Utah, ts themes are timeless. It is a multi-layered
story that explores the ramifications of the Yucca Flats
radiation fallout and sickness that ensued; government lies and
cover up; early death and conventional religion impotence in
explaining this tragedy as well as religious and native American
prejudice. A classic and well worth the read."
Fiction for
Children
Red in the Flower Bed,
a picture book by Andrea Nepa, fills a
special niche in helping children understand interracial
adoption. A review by Katie Hines of this fantastic book is
available at
http://katiehines.blogspot.com/2009_03_15_archive.html
Fiction Depicting the Repression of Women
-
A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Kaled Hosseini
-
Snow Flower and the Secret
Fan by Lisa See
-
Peony in
Love by Lisa See
-
Anna Karenina
by Leo
Tolstoy
-
Don't You
Marry the Mormon Boys by Janet Kay Jensen.
"A light
mystery-romance set with a polygamist cult background. Insight
and sensitivity. Sound research."
Articles
Insight and
understanding into Utah, its religion and culture
Books
-
Leaving the
Fold by Jim Ure
-
Sister Wife
by Natalie Collins
-
Don't You
Marry the Mormon Boys by Janet Kay Jensen. Find my review of
this book at
-
Of course, my
This Is the Place and Harkening and, yes, even
Tracings.
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Mormon America
by
Richard Ostling and Joan K. Ostling (Harpers). ISBN 0061432954)
A little Utah Memory
 
Carolyn and very long time Utah friend, Karen Bryner, in Big Cottonwood
Canyon, Utah. On the left we are in front of the old Brighton general
store. It's been around since I learned to ski. Right, Karen and I
watching moose. Ahem, the moose is center, just in case you have
never seen a moose in Utah. He was watching us watch him.
February, 2008.
Websites
Blogs
Anti-Bias Programs
-
The
Miller Early Childhood Initiative sponsored by the
Anti-Defamation League.
-
Temple
Israel's (Hollywood) A World of Difference Institute.
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Santa Ana
Unified School District's Kinder Readiness Program
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Time magazine reports that Richard and
Michele Steckel promote cultural tolerance with their
Milestone Project.
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Second
Annual National Conference on Race and Ethnicity In American
Higher Education.
Videos/VHFs/DVDs/
Although Jahangir
Golestan-Parast's primary purpose is to forge acceptance and
understanding between the peoples of Iran and America, his work also
covers important events like the 6.6 earthquake that devastate Bam. So
in addition to the video on Iran, you may also want to look up Bam 6.6,
on his site,
www.EssenceOfIran.com.
Golestan-Parast's
motto is "Humanity Has No Borders."
Movies
God's Army
earned a cult following, both Mormon and Non Mormon for its balanced
portrayal of the LDS missionary experience. My husband, Lance Johnson,
plays the coffee mug guy in this movie. Available on DVD.
Skin is not
about sex as one might imagine but about the horrors and inhumanity that
are the result of intolerance. A fine independent film, poignant and--in
spite of its theme--full of love. A portrait of what it means to be
fully human.
Invictus,
directed by Clint Eastwood. Courage, inspiration, tolerance, forgiveness
coupled with a great story.
Plays
Watch for them in
your hometown
-
Missionary Position, written
and performed by
Steven Fales. At
www.celebrationtheatre.com
until Feb. 2009 but may be on
its way to Broadway soon.
-
Confessions of
a Mormon Boy by
Steven Fales.
-
Stormy Weather,
conceived and written by Sharleen Cooper Cohen. The life of Lena
Horne. Very long but rated excellent. Pasadena Playhouse through
March 1, 2009.
-
-
A
Los Angeles theatre often
features work that celebrates tolerance,
www.celebrationtheatre.com
-
The Sierra Made Playhouse is
featuring The Foreigner by Larry Shue. If you don't get to
see the production directed by Stan Kelly, watch for it elsewhere. A
pure Downsouth spoof on the klan. Sometimes intolerance is better
tackled with humor.
www.sierramadreplayhouse.org
or 626 355 4318. Superb acting and
directing in this one, though.
Quotations That Unfortunately Prove That Intolerance is Still Alive and
Corrosive
Time Magazine, August,
2007: Michelle Obama, wife of Barack Obama is addressing her husband's
biracial credentials at a Women for Obama event on Chicago's South Side.
It was predominantly an audience of black women.
"We're still playing
around with the question, Is he black enough? Stop that nonsense."
Won't it be nice when
we don't have to address color at all?
------
Time
Magazine: August 2007: I. A. Rehman, a human-rights activist from
Pakistan, addresses the relations between India and his country:
"We must
learn to be good neighbors. And I'm optimistic. People cannot be foolish
forever."
---------
Time
Magazine: August, 2007: Vice president of soccer's international
governing body, Jack Warner, in a statement that he will block an
English Bid to host the Soccer World Cup of 2008:
"Nobody
in Europe likes England. England invented the sport but has never made
any impact on world football."
-------
Time
Magazine, August, 2007: "Eight years after the U.S. and its NATO allies
went to war to stop former Yogoslav President Slobodan Milosovic's
ethnic-cleansing campaign in Kosovo, efforts to integrate the province's
two ethnic communities have produced disappointing results."
The War
Museum at Oslo
(From
Tracings. Finalist in performance
in Norwegian Cruise Lines Star Search.
Available for reprint at no charge
with permission from the
author.)
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Raindrops
surf my windshield, slip across my reflection, tears
not
fettered by gravity. I look into my father’s face, decades gone,
rather
than my own. Years later I search for family
seeds.
Norway’s fjords shed salty droplets
on faces
like my father’s. Round faces. Eyes dilute-blue
like the
pale skies above them. Men who fought
as
Churchill’s voice crackled through smuggled vacuum
tubes.
Here miniature battles, cotton snow, charcoal
clouds,
tiny lead replicas of soldiers now gone, desperate
photo-faces of the condemned. Only days before I reached this spur,
I saw my
grandson off to war, alone. A sacrifice.
A trade.
For my father who never marched. Travis’ face
flat,
pasted behind a window, an upside down smiley
pattern
behind windows tinted khaki, his bus taking
him away
from me. I leave the dark halls, history
encased,
to sit outside fortress walls, put my head
between
my knees. Gasp for comfort. Fragile. A portrait
on my
bureau at home. Acidglass shores up the image
murlled
by time. My father, stands in sepia snow,
round
face, eyes look beyond the frame at me. He wouldn’t know
these
boys his age, his blood, resisting Hitler’s hand
raised,
his arms against them. Oceans, bodies of land
between
my father and these others. Here a disconnect,
a link I
cannot touch or breathe. Once I was a child
who did
not have to say goodbye, now a grandmother
who must
pay the price. My grandson. Heads for heat
and oil
and sand. He, too, resists. He, however,
unsure,
doesn’t know quite why or who or what.
This
Nordic rain does not, cannot wash
the
memory or the present clean or clear.
Copyright© Carolyn Howard-Johnson 2007.
--------------------
Taking a Dose
of What’s Good For You
Ever
Heard of Terezin?
(Available for reprint at no charge with permission from the
author. Learn more about Terezin from DVDs available on
Amazon from 60 Minutes.)
By Carolyn
Howard-Johnson
It was the side
trip no one talked about. And then everyone did. Some were
interested. Some were afraid. No one was enthusiastic.
"It will be good
for the younger students. You know…to learn what we remember,"
one of we more mature students enrolled in the Glendale College
Summer Studies Program in Prague said. We nodded solemnly. In
the end we all—young and old--went to Terezin because we felt we
must.
This was not a
death camp in the strictest definition of the word. It was a
camp where people were "retained" before they were sent on to
Auschwitz or one of the others where there were facilities for
mass destruction. Still there were ovens to cremate those who
died of mistreatment or starvation or overwork or natural
causes. It was no wonder there was some reticence among us.
Our tour guide was
Michal. She was from Israel and spoke so many languages I lost
count. Perhaps in her late 20’s, with curly dark hair and dark
eyes that sometimes reflected generational pain, she had come to
Prague at the suggestion of one of her professors in Israel. "My
wish for you is that one of you will find unique blessings of
Prague," he had told her. She was searching for a place to
practice her arts. She was a puppeteer, a performance art
enjoyed by many Czechs. She was also a writer. Sometimes, as an
avocation, she led tours to Terezin because she wanted others to
learn from its history. Her grandmother had perished there.
When I first saw
her she was sitting on one of the stairs among students piled on
the stairs with their daypacks. She wore a long black dress with
huge yellow hibiscus printed on it. Black for mourning? Yellow
for hope? I was busy with a journal, one of the assignments for
writing class I was taking at Prague’s Charles University.
"Are you a writer?"
she said. I noticed later that she managed to ask every one of
her charges a personal question about themselves, welcoming them
with her soft accent. She invited me to a poetry reading for
later that week. "It’s in a cellar. Just like you think of when
you think of Bohemians."
I told her that I
only write in English. "Prague is for everyone," she said. "So
is Terezin."
And she was right.
From the bus we could see fields unfurled like flags of orange
and yellow. Poppies, sunflowers, mustard weed. We were
travelling Northwest from Prague and wouldn’t be too far from
Dresden when we arrived. Berlin was beyond that. We would be in
the Sudentenland, the Czech lands where most spoke German. They
were given over to Hitler without a shot fired.
There was a
fortress on the right. Graves with poppies carefully placed at
the headstones. Past the Ohre river. Into a village. A museum
where we saw the stuff of life—sewing projects, drawings, music,
even plays—works of art done by those held in the camp. There
was a wall in the museum that had been frescoed into a permanent
display with the images of official lists of human cargo the
trains held. They were like human ghosts on bills of lading.
Michal read one
name. It was that of a child, born the same day and month I was.
I was overwhelmed and did what writer’s do. The journal I was to
keep for my creative writing class came in handy:
Terezin
Fresco
Crystal memories
Fragmented shards
Cleansed scraps
Congealed into
Stucco tears.
LÖWNER THOMAS
Child of terror
Born in April
Like me.
On the fourth
Like me.
1935
I am 60.
He is never.
When I finished
writing, my group had disappeared. I wandered the streets of the
little town searching for them. It was extremely hot (one of the
few hot days in the entire month we were there) and there was
hardly anyone about. Finally I gave up my quest, exhausted. I
sat in a town square next to an old woman who was crocheting.
"Was tust du?" I
said in the familiar of German, because I couldn’t remember the
formal.
She didn’t
seem to mind my impertinence. She took out piles of doilies from
a basket and told me she made them to sell. She also discovered
that I was "lost" and found someone who led me back to my group.
I decided that, though it was good to be back with them, I was
meant to have had this idle time sitting with an old lady on a
shady park bench. It was a view of a town with a horrible past
that somehow goes on living in the present.
We went on to
another memorial where trees "give a beautiful shadow," as
Michal worded it. A place too beautiful for a massacre.
This memorial had
been placed at Terezin by a newer generation of Israelis. They
had noticed that their generation has been deprived of aunts and
uncles for they were all dead. They also became aware that they
never saw anyone wearing boots because the memories of boots
were still too vivid. There were no dogs, either. Watchdogs had
not been their friends. The scars were still evident, two and
three generations later. A memorial would help us all to
remember.
So, in honor of
Michal, I will not dwell on the morgue or the ovens but on hope
for a better future. A better future ensured if we visit Terezin,
in person or in print. The student who said this visit would be
good for the younger students was wrong. It was good for all of
us. This was a place of horror. But it was also a monument to
the strength of spirit, both of those who died and those who
survived and those who still make a life there. Those of us who
visit history may choose to do things differently in the future.
We may respect life, the way those Jews and Gypsies and
Intellectuals and Homosexuals did, even in the face of death.
Copyright© Carolyn Howard-Johnson 2007
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Eisenhower in Dachau
Note from
Carolyn: This is published anonymously
from those missives sent around on the web with
no attribution. I feel the author will forgive
me. I also must note that most of us would
rather deny that which offends us or reflects
poorly on us. That is part of the human
condition. Only those with courage own up to the
reality of whatever they dislike most about
their own past.
It is a matter of history that when Supreme
Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight
Eisenhower, found the victims of the death
camps, he ordered all possible photographs to be
taken, and for the German people from
surrounding villages to be ushered through the
camps and even made to bury the dead.
He did this because he said in words to this
effect: 'Get it all on record now - get the
films - get the witnesses - because somewhere
down the track of history some bastard will get
up and say that this never happened. All that
is necessary for the triumph of evil, is for
good men to do nothing'.
This week,
the University of Kentucky removed The Holocaust
from its school curriculum because it 'offended'
the Muslim population which claims it never
occurred.
This is a frightening portent of the fear
that is gripping the world and how easily each
country is giving into it.
It is now more than 60 years after the
Second World War in Europe ended.
This e-mail is being sent as a memorial
chain, in memory of the 6 million Jews, 20
million Russians, 10 million Christians and
1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered,
massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated
with the German and Russian peoples looking the
other way!
Now, more than ever, with Iran, among
others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,'
it is imperative to make sure the world never
forgets. This e-mail is intended to reach 40
million people worldwide!
Be a link in the memorial chain and help
distribute this around the world. Don't just
delete this. It will only take a minute to pass
this along.
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