Monthly Archives: December 2013

Year 2013: Reflections

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in United States

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Happy New Year 2014Happy New Year 2014
Source: Happy New Year Quotes

As Year 2013 comes to an end, I would like to thank all of you who have signed up to follow my blog, other visitors who read my posts, and those who take the time to share their thoughts and experiences. Special thanks go to Cyril Bryan of the Guyanese Online Blog for sharing my posts with his readers. My wish for each one of you in the coming year is that you realize at least one of your goals for 2014. Our plans don’t always work out as envisaged.

While I achieved my goals of completing the revision process of my first novel and having it edited by a professional, I failed to find a literary agent to assist with publication. This goal remains on my list for the coming year.

I began working on my second novel, exploring betrayal, set in the northwest region of Guyana during the period 1979 to 1980. My goal in 2014 is to complete the research required to bring the characters and period to life. Creating characters that readers will love and hate is both challenging and lots of fun.

The real world is not the same as the world of fiction. In real life, I cannot shape people and events to obtain a desired outcome. I have no control over external forces. I can only control my response.

Injustice and inequality in America are real. Homelessness and hunger in America are real. How does one respond to such chronic disorders? Overcome or succumb? Fight or flight? Hope or despair?

Year 2013 marks the end of the vestiges of hope I harbored that our dysfunctional government would free itself from the corporate stranglehold. Since corporations are not people, they are incapable of considering the consequences of their decisions and the needs of the people who sustain them. Programmed only for generating profits, they gobble up Earth’s resources and spew destruction and suffering.

The Arctic ice continues to melt. Sea levels continue to rise. Oceans are warmer and more acidic. Storms and forest fires are fiercer and more destructive. The effects of climate change are already a reality for millions of people in the United States and worldwide. Yet, the corporate culprits spread misinformation and denial about the greatest crisis facing our times.

During this year, I struggled to understand how the highly-educated elite could jeopardize the survival of the human species on Planet Earth. Are some of them psychopaths whose wealth and power protect them from prosecution under the law? Does the world they live and move in shield them from the ugly reality? Is their greed an addiction?

Whatever the reasons driving the behavior of the elite among us, one thing is certain. They get away with what they do because we-the-people let them. If we continue to let them lead our species to the brink of self-destruction, we have only ourselves to blame for our silence and inaction.

No Magic this Christmas

22 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Festivals, Human Behavior, Religion, Social Injustice, United States

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Homeless and Hungry - United StatesHomeless & Hungry
Photo Credit: DoSomething.org

 

Since a kid growing up in Guyana, Christmas has always been a magical time of the year. My poor, working class parents always found a way to make Christmas a special time of the year for me and my four siblings. My happiest childhood memories are of our Christmas celebrations.

Following the world economic crisis of August 2008, I’ve been downsizing our Christmas celebrations, in keeping with our new socio-economic reality in the United States. Job security is a thing of the past. Joblessness, homelessness, and food insecurity are new experiences for the American middle class. The situation is no better for the working poor.

What’s also disturbing is hearing high-profile people in the media, in the business community, and among our government representatives blaming the poor for their poverty. In a number of cities across the United States, it has even become a criminal offense to feed the homeless in public spaces (National Coalition for the Homeless).

This Christmas, the magic finally fizzled out.

How can I celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ – born into a poor, working class family – when it is now a crime to be poor and homeless?

How can I celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ when the labor of the poor has little value?

How can I celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ when my value as a human being is determined by my buying power?

How can I celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ when millions of people across the United States and around the world do not enjoy the basic human rights needed for their survival?

Am I expecting too much of humankind? Are we incapable of doing what is morally correct when we wield power? Was Jesus’ coming all for nothing?

The Truth About Treasure Island by Dan McNay

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Recommended Reading

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Cover of The Truth about Treasure IslandTaken from Book Cover of The Truth About Treasure Island by Dan McNay
Original & doctored photos of Robert Louis Stevenson & Joseph Dwight Strong

 

Breaking up can get nasty, more so for the rich and famous. How many of us have not only cut former lovers or partners from our lives, but also from our photos?

The literary acclaimed Scottish writer, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) – who gave us Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde – was not immune to such behavior. He went even further. He obliterated his one-time friend and step-son-in-law, Joseph Dwight Strong (1853-1899), an American artist, from the Stevenson family history.

What crime had Joseph Strong committed to have deserved such wrath?

Dan McNay Book Signing - Books used in research for historical novelResearch Resources: The Truth About Treasure Island by Dan McNay (2013)
Book Launch – 19 October 2013 – Los Angeles, California

With the passion and mastery of a literary detective, Dan McNay unearths the truth about the relationship between Joseph Strong and Robert Louis Stevenson. In Dan McNay’s novel, The Truth About Treasure Island, published in October 2013, Joe Strong tells his side of that breakup. The lives of the two men became entwined through their choice in women. Joe was twenty-six years when he married Isobel “Belle” Osbourne, an American art student. The following year, thirty-year-old Louis, as he was called by his family and friends, married Belle’s mother, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne – a divorcee twelve years his senior with two children, Isobel and Lloyd.

Joseph Dwight Strong - 'Hawaiians at Rest, Waikiki' - oil on canvas, c. 1884Joseph Dwight Strong – Hawaiians at Rest, Waikiki – Oil on Canvas, c. 1884
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Joe begins his story in 1891, during the final three years of Louis’ life. That year, Joe, Belle, and their ten-year-old son, Austin, move to the Stevenson cocoa plantation in Vailima on the Samoan Island of Upolu. Louis, sickly since childhood with tuberculosis, had finally found some relief in the South Pacific climate.

Except for the financial woes of the artistic life, Joe and Belle enjoy a happy and satisfying marital relationship. But Joe is no saint. On arriving at Vailima, he resumes his illicit affair with a native Samoan Sava dancer who he had met on a previous visit. As his marriage unravels, he must come to terms with his deception and his deepening relationship with his young Samoan lover.

Louis is no innocent bystander. With his fame, wealth, affable personality, and physical frailty, he succeeds in captivating the women around him. His step-daughter Belle is no exception. While her mother is busy managing the plantation and household, Belle becomes Louis’ personal assistant and secretary. So taken up with attending to Louis’ demands, she is rarely available for activities with Joe and Austin. When Belle and Louis are together, Joe becomes an outsider.

Fans of Robert Louis Stevenson may object to me taking Joe Strong’s side in their falling out. They may be right in their assessment of Louis’ character. Perhaps I have fallen victim of Joe’s disarming sincerity and honesty in his account of events leading to the breakup with his wife and the Stevenson family, and the loss of his son. Deceitful married men have a way of winning a woman’s sympathy to their side of the story.

Am I wrong in standing by Joe Strong? Hear his side of the story. Judge for yourself.

* * * * * *

Dan McNayWhen American author, Dan McNay, is not working at the University of Southern California, he’s busy writing stories, composing songs, painting, or singing and playing his banjo at a local festival or bar in Los Angeles and neighboring cities.

Before the release of his second novel, The Truth About Treasure Island, in October 2013, he published his first novel, It Knows You By No Other Name, in 2007.

Christmas in Brazil: My “Secret Friend”

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Brazil, Festivals, People, Relationships, Working Life

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Christmas PresentPhoto Credit: nopatio.com.br

 

At Christmas time in work places around Fortaleza, the exchange of gifts between co-workers is common. A popular practice is to select the name of your amiga secreta or “secret friend” from among the undisclosed names of all participating co-workers.

During the years I worked in Brazil, one amiga secreta stands out from all the rest: Angélica,* my nemesis.

Angélica and I started out on the wrong foot. She was responsible for the control of all incoming and outgoing merchandise. I made the unforgiveable error of pointing out discrepancies in the product codes. Other related questions about stock control resulted in a rebuke from Angélica’s boss. I was meddling in matters outside of my job description, he told me.

I paid the price in full for questioning Angélica’s competence. Her subsequent covert attempts to discredit and sabotage my work turned my work environment into a quagmire. Over time, I harbored resentment and anger towards her. When I pulled her name as my amiga secreta, I knew that it was not by chance. I was being forced to take action, to take another path.

I resisted the temptation to exchange my selection with another co-worker. I knew that I had to resolve my enmity towards Angélica.

On the Saturday evening of our Christmas staff party, Angélica and her husband were noticeably absent. The opportunity of presenting my gift in a safe and festive atmosphere did not occur as I had planned.

Some situations are never as easy as we would like them to be.

The following Monday morning I found the courage to go to Angélica’s office with my gift offering. I had discreetly found out what she most wanted for Christmas. I made my peace with her. That’s what Christmas is all about, isn’t it? Peace and joy and goodwill towards all.

She was open and responsive. We cleared the foul air between us. I freed myself of all those dark emotions. I became lighter and joyful.

In the New Year, I became a part of Angélica’s small group of friends. We shared many enjoyable Happy Hours on Friday evenings after work. Over glasses of Brazilian light beer, the four of us made plans for our future.

Then the bombshell fell.

My amiga secreta had secrets of her own. She was embezzling the company. I don’t know the details of her scheme. I didn’t want to know. I could not gloat. I could only lament that she had lost her way.

The Christmas my nemesis became my “secret friend” changed the course of my life as well as hers. This Christmas, wherever she may be, I hope that the star shines brightly atop her Christmas tree.

* Fictitious name

Nelson Mandela: A Light in the Darkness

08 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Guyana, People, Social Injustice

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Nelson MandelaNelson Mandela (1918-2013)
Photo Credit: Nelson Mandela Foundation: Living the Legacy

 

During his struggle to end apartheid in South Africa, Nelson Mandela was no stranger to the Guyanese people. I shared the pain and anger of the oppressed Blacks in South Africa. In the early 1980s, at a time when there was no Internet and online petitions, I joined thousands of my fellow Guyanese in signing the Free Mandela! petition circulating at my workplace in Georgetown, Guyana.

In Guyana, we faced our own form of separateness. The two major racial groups, Blacks and East Indians, had allowed racist politics to divide our young nation. A divide that exists to this day.

When Mandela was finally released from prison in 1990, after twenty-seven years of incarceration, I had already left Guyana with my husband and sons for Brazil. Racial violence and political oppression had culminated in the assassination of Walter Rodney, our “Mandela.”  The future of our nation was reduced to cinders.

The confinement and abuses of prison life could have transformed Mandela into an angry and bitter man. Instead, his years of isolation from society forced him to look within and to question his values, beliefs and relationship with his oppressors. He learned the power of humility, forgiveness, and love.

In his 1994 autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela wrote:

I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

At seventy-six, Mandela was ready to embrace his role as negotiator and conciliator between the minority white oppressive government and his people. Forgiveness and reconciliation with the enemy was by no means an easy sell. The transition to democratic elections with majority rule did not come without conflicts and more deaths.

We freed Mandela. Like other great leaders before him, he showed us the way forward to end the separateness of the human species. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Love.

So simple… So difficult…

The truth is that we are not yet free… Mandela wrote in his 1994 autobiography. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

A young Guyanese undergraduate has embarked on that difficult road. In her blog post of 7 December 2013, “They brand us, play us and cast us aside,” she calls attention to:

… the hate, anger and bitterness that simmer just under the skin of my country men and women; men and women whose minds have been chronically abused by the racial politics of our land.

Nelson Mandela, a man abused by the racial politics of apartheid, was a light in the darkness. With his passing, it is now up to each one of us to keep that light burning.

A Song of Joy by Miguel Ríos

01 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Poetry

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JOY

 

In my Poetry Corner during the December celebrations of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, I feature the song, “A Song of Joy,” the English version of “Himno a la Alegria” by Miguel Ríos, a renowned Spanish Rock & Roll singer and songwriter. Released in May 1970 in the United States and the United Kingdom, “A Song of Joy” hit the Top Charts.

Miguel Ríos’ song is a symphonic rock adaptation of “Ode to Joy,” the English version of “Ode an die Freude,” composed by the German poet Friedrich Schiller in 1785 and later revised in 1803. Ludwig van Beethoven used Schiller’s poem in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony, known as “the Choral,” completed in 1824, nineteen years after Schiller’s death. Sung by four vocal soloists and a chorus, the “Ode to Joy” endures to this day as a celebration of the brotherhood and unity of mankind.

Growing up in Guyana, I was exposed to classical music through movies featuring the life and work of some of the great classical composers. Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” is numbered among my favorites. Whenever I listen to “Ode to Joy,” it’s Miguel Ríos’ lyrics that I recall.

Since May 2012, the YouTube video of a Flash Mob performance in Spain of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” has been making its rounds on Facebook. The video has reached over three million viewers to date. It’s an uplifting piece of music and chorale. A better way forward is possible, it says.

The Hong Kong Festival Orchestra Flash Mob performance in August 2013 is also making the rounds on the social network. In just four months, the young musicians and singers have already attracted over 106,000 viewers.

In Connecticut, USA, the Flash Mob performance by the Hartt School of Music and Hartford Chorale in October 2012 has gained 108,000 views to date.

It’s no coincidence that Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” has become a rallying call in a time of growing inequality in the USA and worldwide and disenchantment with unfettered capitalism.

Schiller and Beethoven lived during a period of great upheavals: the Industrial Revolution, French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, a reorganization of Europe, rise of Nationalism, rise of the Russian Empire, and the height of expansion of the British Empire.

When Miguel Ríos released his “Himno a la Alegria” in 1969, the repressive dictatorship government of Francisco Franco faced widespread worker strikes and rebellion among university students. Franco’s death in 1975 ended his thirty-six years of tyranny. In the United States, eyes were on the Soviet Union and the containment of communism. The “Cold War” and “arms race” led to fears of a nuclear war.

My Haiku poem, “Prelude to Joy,” was inspired by the line for love and understanding from Miguel Ríos “A Song of Joy.”

Come sing a song of joy for peace shall come, my brother
Sing, sing a song of joy for men shall love each other.

See the complete song and more at my Poetry Corner December 2013.