MY FRIEND TRAVELS BACK TO HUNGARY and WORRIES ABOUT HIS RETURN FLIGHT IN JUNE BEING CANCELLED and a TRUE TRAVEL STORY

The third week in April, my Hungarian-American friend, who I met through genealogy, and who enjoys dual-citizenship, called me from the San Francisco airport. He had promised a call before he left for two months in Hungary and did so after going through customs and awaiting a boarding call. He'd purposely decided to fly Swiss Air - a neutral country. He bought a round trip ticket, but friends in Europe told him they were not sure about the availability of oil - fuel - and that there might be a possibility that the airline would be able to keep its promise of a round trip ticket. What with the wars -  Russia - Iran - etc.

In which case, how would he get home?

We joked about the movie Plains, Trains, and Automobiles. He mentioned Vienna being only 120 miles from Budapest and the industrious Austrians and Germans possibly being better able to obtain plane fuel. We jokingly imaged him rowing a boat across the Atlantic with one paddle.

"I'm going to go, forget my troubles in the United States, and have a good time, and try not to worry," he said. But I could tell he was plenty worried. Because Russia and Hungary were not having a good relationship over the last few months over the war in Ukraine, he said. And also that Orban, in his opinion, had been in power twenty years (not just sixteen) and had done a good job the first three terms. What was Hungary going to be like this visit with the new administration?

But it brought to mind this true story, which took place about twenty five years ago, and which I told him.

I met two sisters at a library. On was employed as a temporary worker and pretty much supporting her immigrant mother and disabled sister. The temp worker had a few weeks with no assignment and - and, as was possible back in that day - told the agency she needed the time off anyway *** The two sisters then had a very inexpensive six week vacation traveling, for which they spent about $3000.

They took the little local community shuttle near their home to the closest train station and arrived at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. From there they took a train that passed through Albuquerque, New Mexico and then went on to Florida. In Fort Lauderdale they got on a cruise ship that had a lot of cabins empty for a cruise and got a deal. The ship sailed the Atlantic to Portugal. From Portugal they traveled to Paris. The only night they had nowhere to sleep was in Paris, but they spent it at an all night café drinking coffee! The best place outside Budapest to be up all night drinking coffee. (They had so much to eat on the cruise, they felt no need to eat.) After finding an affordable B & B near Paris and traveling around Paris and locale, they took the bus that goes through the tunnel under the Channel to England and spent time in London. From there they traveled to Liverpool, where they booked on another inexpensive cruise and sailed the Atlantic to New York City. In New York they got on a train that went to Chicago, and then south, and arrived back in Union station in Los Angeles. Then, once again, the community shuttle home...

Think of how little they spent!

 (*** and returned to find they hadn't dumped her and soon got a decent permanent job from a temp assignment.).

PEACE? WAR? HUMANS?

I have a friend who is a veteran and peace activist. He networks with a great variety of other persons and organizations that are pro-peace.

We talked the other night after he returned from a Write In.

Why does it seem that all this peace activism has little to no effect?

Has evil taken over the earth?

We talked about the sociopath criminals - from those who rob stores to those who rape - and what is happening in Gaze - Jerusalem.  It seems that there are creatures walking around who only look human.

HUM

HUMAN

HUMANITY

HUMANITARIANS

Humans used to be thought of as basically good.

We thought in terms of HUMAN RIGHTS, honoring the assumed basic decency of conscious and living beings with the right to food, shelter, clothing, housing, medical care...

What has happened?

ISRAEL : I TOO AM HORRIFIED AT THE ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS

A few days ago a planned invasion of Israel, focused on Jewish civilians began - though citizens of other religions and ethnicity have and will be injured or die. I've listened to hundreds of YouTube video reports.  These range from standard news carriers such as Reuters, PBS, BBC, CNN, ABC, and NBC - to stations in Australia and France.  I've listened to "Christian" stations that suspect that what is happening is Biblical prophecy and that this is part of progression to the End Times. Protests by college students who favor the terrorists. Numerous paper - Internet journalistic reports, have also reported on the devastation and the murder of civilians including children and babies, as well as the capture of hostages and the rape of women. 

And meanwhile the war on Ukraine by Russian continues.

We have economic problems in the United States, we had 9/11, we have terrorist attacks but the mass murderers seem to be mostly the work of mentally ill persons who have access to weaponry including children. The United States has superior intelligence and when we go to sleep at night, assuming we will wake in the morning to the status quo, we do so forgetting that our military is watching over us.

Why is peace so difficult to achieve?

So much evil!

HUNGARY and UKRAINE : OPTIMISTICALLY HOPEFULLY PRAYERFULLY

I recently met a neighbor whose parents are in their 70's and going to Hungary to travel.  The neighbor expressed to me that Orban's government really is fascist and that Orban and Putin are buddies and that the people of Hungary are increasingly "brainwashed" that what's happening in the Ukraine in the war that Russia started is "all the Ukrainian's fault." Further the neighbor stated that the people they know in Hungary who were all 'liberal media' have lost their jobs.

The neighbor and her parents have been warned to keep their mouths shut and get along while they travel for a month in the country.  I'm sure they are mostly seeing relatives.  The parents come from a family that went through World War II in that country and stories of horror are embedded in the family consciousness.

I don't see how this jives with the fact that so many Ukrainian refugees have fled the country to Poland and to Hungary (and to Canada, and the U.S.) and more per capita have been taken in by Hungarians.  There is a border shared and there have long been routes into the country from Ukraine and Poland, as we know from military history.  But back then the weaponry wasn't as it is today, with satellites, drones, various air vehicles, and the enormous and devastating bombs.  The threat that Russia will keep on going, even if it ends up being a country in which there are few men to marry, is real.

I worry that the attitude that the brutalization of civilians blamed on "All Ukrainian's fault" is just like telling a woman whose husband beats her, that it is all her fault.  If this is true, then there is also a tolerance to the violation of other's people's property, bodies, families - all of it CAN be "deserved."  Bullies and Power-Over win.

I thought we ALL knew better.

As a Hungarian-American I'm most certainly living here, and have an American attitude, but one of the reasons I blog at MAGYAR AMERICAN is that I want to uphold the pride of people of Hungarian heritage and culture. I cannot be a "Hungarian Nationalist" but I can see that value. Hungary is landlocked and two thirds smaller than it was at one time and I have reasoned that Orban has been faced with the challenges that come from the country being destroyed in the past by Moslem Turks/Ottomon Empire, and other, various invasions, including the Nazi's. He has to redefine what it means to be Hungarian, and surely that is not a lackey of Russian or the Soviet Union.

The other aspect of a Hungarian thinking "It's not so bad." or "It will all work out," optimistically or hopefully or prayerfully, is that maybe they do know it is bad, that it's a treading water experience. I do believe that Putin's goal is to revive The Soviet Union" perhaps as his last great feat before he himself passes into the next world.  But at what cost to the Russian people, even the Russian army, with so much loss?

Do not be deceived.  It is hell on earth over there in Ukraine.  One may get on with their lives numb from or unable to tolerate more bad, real news, but think again because thousands have had their lives destroyed when not even a year ago they were like you and me, just going about their business, perhaps not at all interested in politics, and also believing the world was moving to be a better place.

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HUNGARY HAS TAKEN MORE UKRAINIAN WAR REFUGEES THAN ANY OTHER NATION

 That is per-capita.

A SPRING HOLIDAY HAUNTED BY WAR AND GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE : LOCAL STUDENTS TAKE AND THROW AWAY FREE FOOD

Not far from where I live there is a school.  I take my dog for walks around the school quite often.  There is a nice patch of grass there and many trees. There is also, on the days that school is in session, free lunch food thrown all over the grass, the sidewalks, under the trees.  It is a shameful waste of the food.  

Around the corner from the school there is a city garbage can.  It is often full of the plastic bags of these school lunches along with dog poop and other dirty and smelly things.  Yet I have not only seen homeless people reaching through the openings to snatch the thrown away food but I have seen SENIOR CITIZENS getting food out of there.

When I first noticed this was happening, I asked myself WHY?  Were the students badly brought up?  What lousy parents they must have! Did they take lunches with no intention of eating the food?  I asked workman, gardners, and employees of the school who all said they KNEW this was happening and that they thought it was terrible too.  But what?  A teacher cannot teach students it is wrong since the students do not have parents who can teach them it is wrong?

"I used to volunteer for a local food bank," I said, "And I can tell you that there were mostly seniors in line every week.  Why not have the kids donate the food to a food bank or take it to one of the rehabs in town?"

Although I have enough to eat, I did pick up some of the food off the sidewalk and take it home. The food is wrapped in cellophane except for fruit like apples, bananas, and oranges. There is often yogurt or frozen desert or fruit juice in a small container.  There are nuts, crackers, and cookies.  There are sticks of turkey.  Small burgers. There is pizza, and various burritos and calzones with that same cheese and tomato sauce type mixture.  Sometimes there are bags of carrots or celery or salad.

If I went into my local chain corner store and bought the like, I would probably pay at least $15 - maybe $20 retail for a typical bag of school food.

Since I could tell that what I picked up had very recently been thrown down and was still cold and sanitary, I decided to give this food a try.  I reasoned that maybe the students just don't like the taste.  Maybe it is too salty or not spiced.  I found nothing obviously wrong with the food.  The only other thing I could imagine might be happening is that the students are bored with the selection.

Still, as I read more and more horror stories coming out of Ukraine.  Not just hundreds of dogs starved and without water left in shelters that died, but also people in basements and subways and hide-aways without enough food and water - starving, I could not find it in my mind to understand or my heart to forgive these students - or their parents.  They have it too good.  They don't know.  They don't care!

Let their parents feed them then!

Now the school is on break and it looks like workmen have gone around the area and cleaned up any evidence of the food throw-away.

I so hope that by the time the school reopens my comments will have been received and someone there will put an end to this waste.

C 2022  Magyar American BlogSpot

MEMORIAL DAY - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CHRISTMAS EVE PRAYER FOR (IMPOSSIBLE?) PEACE

Recently I was with a group of people and one woman asked us all to pray for the survivors of Pearl Harbor.  She was of the generation - some call it "the Silent generation" and others "the Greatest generation" - in which her peers were involved in World War II.  World War II is not so long ago in history, but what is sure is that it remains a Hollywood film favorite subject, while other wars such as Korean - Viet Nam - and the whole big mess of the Middle East have comparatively few films made about them.  Unpopular wars, underreported wars, and wars that are no longer called wars, are going on all the time.


I spoke up and said, "Let's pray for peace instead."


Don't know that my blurt was appreciated, but to me all that was required was a moment of silence or a mental bookmark.  You see, I don't actually think there ever will be Peace of Earth, but in the West, at Christmas time, the notion of Peace of Earth is popular.  Consider that sometimes in war there are agreements that for that one day of the year, Christmas, there is a "peace fire."


And, I really do think that peace on earth has to begin with each individual, and in Christianity the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi is my favorite.  Yet, for all the empathy called for, in order to understand and forgive others, sometimes I've been considered naïve, a fool, and exploitable for all the give I have.  I've been at times sneered at for my hope, faith, belief, or innocence.  I have not been testy, suspicious.  I haven't asked enough questions.  (These days an exploiter will blame the victim, saying, "you didn't do your due diligence.")


So, while I don't think there will ever be peace of earth, and am making no claim to perfection and a straight ticket to heaven, the notion of heaven is very influential.  Heaven allows us to imagine a place that is peaceful and joyful, and where everyone else is good!


This is my open mind set for the holiday season.


A week ago I told myself I should start decorating.  I managed to get a string of lights up around the door.  I pulled out my small artificial Christmas tree, only to discover that a piece of plastic had broken off while it was in storage.  Three days later I got out my glue gun and tried to fix the leg on without that piece.  It sort of worked.


I went off to Trader Joes, were I planned to buy all the ingredients needed to manifest five different cupcake recipes which I wanted to make to gift.  It's been years since I made or gifted baked goods and I remembered the days when Christmas visiting meant indulging in baked goods from many different ethnic backgrounds.  Family and friends had married into Italians, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Irish, Germans -  we have a Persian - that whole mix that is United States of America - everyone making traditional cookies, cakes, pies, that their ancestors made.


As I made way to the location, I passed by an Armenian banquet hall.  Someone must have had a wedding, ordered in numerous floral ornaments for the tables, and when unboxing found one was broken.  Outside on the sidewalk was a beautiful gold sprayed branch that had blooming rose petals glue gunned to it!  One rose had fallen off and there was a glob of glue.  I took one look at it and grabbed it.  At home I decided not to use the artificial pine tree at all, but hang my small ornament collection off the branches of this bare limbed "tree."  I set it up and it's beautiful.  My dog lay in her swirl of blankets looking at the pretty lights.


Then I made the cupcakes.  Pumpkin oatmeal spice with no icing.  Walnut flax seed with vanilla powdered sugar,  dried cherries in the mix and topped with cherry jam,  and finally Ghirardelli Chocolate (from San Francisco) inside and melted atop plain white cake.  Improvising with cardboard shirt boxes, wrapping paper and tissue, I made up four boxes.  One delivered to a friend who lives in an assisted living.  I assured him, I used no milk, no butter, no corn, corn starch, or corn syrup.  (I used safflower oil, spring water, brown sugar, real sugar, flour, flax seed, oatmeal, real vanilla.)  Then off to the neighbor who a few weeks ago did me a huge favor even though he barely knows me.  (He came to the US as a refugee from Bosnia.)  This morning, I delivered another to a business that I frequently visit, me and the dog.  The people there have fed her endless treats.  And then I went to visit another friend who has leant me films this year, some of which I have to return, and learned he has moved!


Such is the state of art and science at this time in my life.


I wish all my readers, whatever your ethnic origins or religious beliefs, at least one day of complete and total peace, inside yourself and with the world.




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