Why Can't the West Acknowledge the Russian "Invasion" of Ukraine for What It Really Is?

To call Russia's invasion of Ukraine "an invasion" would call for a response that neither NATO nor Washington is ready to give. So the West equivocates, as it dithers and delays, incomprehensibly dismissing a mass movement of Russian troops into neighboring Ukraine as mere "interference."

Putin perpetuates this status quo by his repeated use of "lying" about his illegal military actions in an independent nation, making statements that both he and the West know to be untrue, in the process reviving the use of propaganda, a favorite tool of the former Soviet Union. 

Yet no one dares to challenge him, to call a spade a spade, to call invasion for what it is. Even President Obama himself refers to the invasion as an "incursion." 

This implausible denial of an invasion that has been occurring for the past few months is indeed a novelty I have not yet seen in Western politics. It is nothing but a form of cowardice. After all, to accurately name things, brings with it an ethical and moral responsibility to see them accurately, for what they are, and then for taking the necessary and appropriate actions -- a responsibility the West has repeatedly shown itself shamefully unwilling to accept.

So Putin plods on, plowing further into Ukraine, in large part only because we allow him to do so....

We all know what the truth is, yet the West not only keep hesitating, but also keeps searching for euphemisms, instead of simply stating and therefore acknowledging what is actually occurring.

And no, what has been going on in Ukraine has never been a "civil war," as it was formerly termed, so implying that the military actions there were arising spontaneously from within, rather than as a result of outside Russian provocation. (Also, with the use of the term "civil war," came the implication that what goes on within the nation was its own problem, making a similar shoddy case for Western inaction.)

I have even heard the Western media previously refer to the Ukraine situation as "The Ferdinand," implying that all the invasion is just an insignificant territorial dispute involving a major power and a largely unknown nation, and is therefore better left ignored, lest it become a powder keg that will set off a nuclear war. 

What does the use of all these misnomers and euphemisms and equivocations imply? Is the simple straightforward truth no longer relevant?  And what is all this use of newfangled milquetoast terms like "incursions" and "interferences" really all about? After all, we all know good communication requires clear and precise diction and avoids the use of vague, imprecise words that serve more to obfuscate than to communicate. Are we really no different from the former Soviet Union in that we no longer seem to be able to speak freely, clearly, and with conviction but express ourselves in some sort of distorted doublespeak. 

Have we all become puppets trying to appease Putin?

For how long will the West allow Putin to continue with his obvious lies in his war of aggression? For how long will we indulge him in his yearning for a return to Soviet times and in his quest for territorial expansion, as we dilly dally about sanctions and choose to not only ignore but remain oblivious to the larger implications of his actions and to the the humanitarian dictates of international law? For how long can the West deny its ethical and moral imperative to act decisively in the name of freedom, human dignity and justice?   

In the meantime, I am just getting more and more worried about Ukraine.... 

(c) Olya Thompson

Thoughts on the Boston Marathon Horror

I am absolutely sickened by the grisly photo that has by now become the iconic image of the Boston Marathon: a man who had his legs blown off to the point where one could only see jagged bones. Yet I am heartened by the story of the unidentified man in the cowboy hat who came to his aid and is credited with saving his life. I am also heartsick about the parents, who recognized their son in the grisly photo. I feel sick that an innocent 8-year-old child had reportedly died, and by the news of the latest developments, each new revelation serving to make this horror more horrific.

But what is going on in our nation? Angelic children killed in a school shooting? People gathered together enjoying a marathon event who get their legs blown off by bombs intended to main and hurt? Where is all this evil and hate and harming of innocent people coming from?

No place is safe anymore.

And we do not summon sufficient outrage to address the underlying causes -- at Sandy Hook Elementary School, for example, by responding with divisiveness and not by repealing the Second Amendment, banning guns,  and finally championing public safety. 

As for the Boston tragedy, we have yet to learn the underlying causes.... As more and more details unfold, I am overwhelmed with helplessness as I think about the trauma of the innocent victims. And whatever the cause is, we will finally need to join together as a society and address it...

I then begin think of the death of the innocent people who died at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theatre shooting. I think of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her long and brave rehabilitation. The list is endless...

I am just overwhelmed and heartsick. And then my thoughts go back to the trauma of 9/11 that still lingers here, and with each of these events, reverberates again in this City.

On Cheating at Stuyvesant High: Take 2

In the wake of a Stuyvesant High School cheating scandal in June, involving 70 students, comes a shocking recent New York Times report that reveals an astonishing underlying “pathology” of academic dishonesty at the school. Students unabashedly describe unflattering breeches of ethics and even exhibit an extravagant sense of entitlement to such behavior:

“It’s like, I keep my integrity and fail this test -– no,” a senior actually says, “No one wants to fail a test.” The latter remark is indeed true. But this very student seems unaware that there is an obvious alternative to cheating in order to pass a test -- one studies for it. Yet this very same student says studying for the test is “a waste of time.” So what does he expect? Well, he expects to cheat.

A recent alumnus blames his actions on a French teacher he says he “had lost all respect for.” The teacher taught him nothing, he claimed, taking a passive approach to learning (and so missing out on the benefits of acquiring another language). When other students were openly discussing the answers on a test, he says, “Should I not listen?”

Obviously, these students are not of the mind of Sophocles, who had said, “I would prefer to fail with honor than win by cheating.” More likely, they are apt to dismiss the great philosopher as a fool.

Instead, it looks like the tired “everyone does it” excuse has become the mantra at this most elite New York City public school: The school newspaper, The Spectator, revealed in March that 80 percent of students in a survey of 2045 students were not embarassed to admit that they cheat.

Students who spoke to the Times on the condition that their names not be used, detailed how take-home exams (that used to depend on trust and individual effort) have now become a collaborative group endeavor. They also spoke of copying homework, not to mention detailing other methods of cheating they used.

Students rationalized such behavior as a choice between keeping their integrity versus getting onto their dream college:“The only way you could have gotten there,” a recent graduate said, “is to kind of botch your ethics.”

The ringleader of the initial June cheating scandal, Nayeem Ahsan, had explained to New York Magazine that he used his cell phone to send answers to several classmates on one Regents exam, in order to get help on two others.

Such revelations are a pretty bad indictment of the values that predominate at the school. After all, it was our own Teddy Roosevelt who said, “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”

And what do such values say they about student success in future life and work endeavors, not to mention their success in the competitive colleges they aspire to? (And indeed in the wake of this scandal, comes one at Harvard, where a take-home exam turned into a dishonest collaboration.)

Also damaging to the school’s reputation are its teachers who are described by students as being “understanding” and complicit in unethical student behavior by not following policies. A student caught cheating on a math test with a sheet for formulas, for example, was not reported because she had been accepted into an Ivy League school.

One wonders if it is the teachers or the students who are running this school. One would have thought that this top city school’s mission would have been to instill those very ethical values its students see as unnecessary. Amid such revelations as those detailed above and an investigation by the Department of Education that resulted in suspensions for up to 10 days for the students involved, it is no wonder that the school principal resigned.

The new school principal has announced some changes intended to restore the school’s tarnished reputation: The cell phone ban is being enforced. Students now have to review and sign an honor code. Teachers are directed to talk about academic dishonesty. (And interestingly, one of Harvard’s responses to its own mass cheating episode was also a possible plan to require classes on what constitutes cheating.)

Yes, one would like to think the grown-ups are in charge now.

But these “new” policies pose an obvious problem. These capable students already know that the behaviors they are engaging in are wrong. So will an honor code make any difference? How is one to to believe that these students will really care about integrity?

Much more likely, it seems, they will continue in their “do-anything-as-long-as-you-can-get-away- with-it” ethos.

Not surprisingly, there appears to be no surfeit of student scruples: Rather than accept responsibility for bad behavior, a student had sued the school about a suspension that will appear on her student record, claiming that the school is damaging her chances of getting into an elite college.

It is somewhat reassuring to hear that as of the latest update, the student lost her case.

     (c)Oya Thompson

Ukrainian Socialist Realism Art Exhibit

The turnout on the opening day of the“Ukrainian Socialist Realism” exhibit of paintings at The Ukrainian Institute hit an all-time high for its programs, said Olena Sidlovych, the Institute’s General Manager. More than 300 nattily-dressed, fashionable, and arty types -- including Ukrainians, Russians and Americans -- attended the exhibit on the evening of Sept 14. They spent their time convivially viewing and commenting on this unprecedented display of Soviet era paintings -- while  drinking wine and partaking of an array of dainty pastries -- at the Institute, which is housed in the historic Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion at 2 East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue.

The decision to sponsor this exhibit was not an easy one, reflected Terence Filewych, who serves as legal counsel for the Institute. It was the result of much heated debate among the Institute’s board members about how this Soviet-era art coincided with the Institute’s mission to promote Ukrainian culture -- a culture that was much damaged by the very government policy that produced the paintings on display here. After all, it was Stalin who declared “Socialist Realism” the official art form of Soviet-occupied Ukraine, and required artists to follow this mandate or risk death. A typical result of that policy was the clichéd uninspired soul-less “happy peasant” and “heroic factory worker” art, which existed solely to glorify the building of the Soviet state.

And indeed a lot of what viewers saw here was predictable propaganda. Yet, when taken out of their historic context and put on display in a gallery space abroad for the perusal of curious and detached observers as items of historic interest, these commissioned paintings seemed to lose their original impact as works of indoctrination. "In America, we can talk about it more objectively and more dispassionately,” commented General Manager Sidlovych, referring to the art form of Socialist Realism. And indeed, in this apolitical context, some paintings seemed almost to work against their obvious didactic intent. A painting of a formidable solidly built “heroine” of the revolution, much decorated with medals, became an almost laughable caricature. A grand-scale painting of Soviet leaders (a winner of the Stalin Prize) called to mind those outsized looming portraits of Lenin (that replaced religious icons) and those larger-than-life statues that were toppled over after the overthrow of the Soviet regime. A landscape of a factory that was peopled by industrial workers became inadvertently subversive, its gloomy colors hinting at naturalism and exploitation of labor rather than implying a march toward a bright Communist future.

Here and there, however, some paintings did command more than passing attention from the crowd for their traces of lyricism -- in an expressive look in a portrait of an artist; in the thoughtful gaze of a girl in a gallery, in a still life with a rustic ethic motif . A portrait of an elderly woman in profile, wearing a billowy skirt and framed in an art-deco like border of grapes, stood out and was much commented on as an example of modernism – while its background incongruously depicted female workers toiling in the fields in the approved Soviet style.

Such an obvious political overlay made many of these works seem jarringly uneven in composition when  simply viewed as works of  art. A portrait of a young school girl was marked by the requisite reminder of the regime: the symbolic Soviet red badge on her pinafore. A scene of an attractive woman waiting alone at a train station had an ominous foreground – pointed out to this viewer by one of the gallery-goers -- that included a tattered red ribbon and a dark shadow of what could  be interpreted as a symbol of protest -- a raised fist.

"This phenomenon explains precisely why contemporary art rather than realism is now so popular in Ukraine," commented another gallery-goer.

It was somewhat disconcerting for those of us who understood the obvious political context of these paintings to actually see them in a gallery that typically exhibited works of solely aesthetic merit, as they served as reminders of an amoral autocratic regime that visited inordinate pain upon our families. It was also troubling to realize that the artists whose works were displayed here worked within that regime, while so many of that generation who refused to sacrifice their principles perished.

Nonetheless, these Soviet-era paintings -- whose style was discredited after the collapse of the Soviet state -- are now clearly sought-after as examples of a once-dominant art form. Collected and assembled by Jurii Maniichuk for the purpose of study by future generations, they undoubtedly will remain of historic and aesthetic import and interest, serving to document the era when Ukraine was a Soviet state. A selection of these paintings – from The Jurii Meniichuk and Rose Brady Collection -- will remain on view on the fourth floor of the Ukrainian Institute until 2018.

 

On Cheating at Stuyvesant High School

I should have been shocked by that cheating scandal that involved 70 students at Stuyvesant High School, New York City's most prestigious public school. But it didn't surprise me at all. Rather, it was just one more example of what unfortunately has become all too endemic in our schools.

Student cheating in this most recent incident was explained away as due to pressure. The pressure was blamed on competitive parents who expect their children to get into the best schools. And then, there was that prevalent attitude among students that "everybody does it." The students who participated in behavior that was clearly ethically wrong experienced no real consequences, other than retaking the test.

What does this say about our schools' responsibility to instill values of honesty and integrity?

Not much.

It seems to me that ethical standards have eroded over the years. I remember when cheating used to be considered an abominable breach of trust, a social stigma, a reason for expulsion. Besides, if students cheat in school, then what does this say about their integrity in future endeavors? Do these things no longer matter, because we live in a you-can-do-anything-unless-you-get-caught
society?

 Worse still, many of these parents of "high-achievers" do not model honorable and ethical behavior in their own lives. So what can one expect from their kids?

As though it were trying to explain this phenomenon away, an article I came across said that everyone will cheat, given the opportunity.

Everyone?

Well, I object to myself being included in that category. And no, I do not believe that we all are selfish and self-serving and will do anything if our behavior is unchecked. I personally tend to side with Sophocles who once said, "I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating."

Besides, school should be about so much more than test scores. There is the innate satisfaction of learning for the sake of learning that students who are only concerned about grades miss out on. There is the experience of  broadening one's horizons and developing an intellectual curiosity that an education should be all about. There is also that standard of individual responsibility and code of honor that students should hold themselves up to and follow thoughout their lives.

It is indeed sad that our culture is no longer shocked by cheating. I don't even know if  most people today would even call this latest episode a "scandal." I doubt that it will even have a lasting effect on the reputation of the school. Unfortunately, cheating these days is so prevalent that it no longer seems unusual.

Indeed, what is most telling about our culture is that people are no longer surprised or shocked by dishonesty, but by true honesty.

On Attending a Taras Shevchenko Poetry Slam

I recently happened upon a Manhattan poetry slam in the East Village, at the Bowery Poetry Club, where I was amazed to hear a few works of the beloved Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko, read aloud in English translation. It occurred to me that this event, celebrating this former serf, was yet another milestone -- another sign that his work -- and that of Ukrainian literature -- was taking its rightful place after years of suppression (first by the Czarist regime, then by the Soviets) -- in the realm of world literature.



Taras Shevchenko Self-Portrait Oil

The reading sent me back to my long-ago days at my Ukrainian expatriate grammar school in New York City, where I learned some of Tara's Shevchenko's poems by rote. His poems – not to mention the language that I spoke -- were banned at the time in the Soviet Union.

As I listened to the selections, I found myself mulling over the vagaries inherent in translation. How, I wondered, does one begin to convey a language, with its subtleties in meaning, its sounds, its syntax, all things that define an entire culture? Perhaps the words of  19^th century English linguist George Barrow said it all: "Translation is at best an echo." I also found myself wondering about the contrast between the dramatic manner of recitation -- with rhetorical flourishes in tone and gesture -- and the simple unassuming poems that I had long ago memorized that reflected the natural rhythms of the language in its purest form. Nonetheless, what was most significant here was the very act of translation that enabled these works to be shared with another culture. And what came through in all of the poems read aloud was their mood -- those all too familiar feelings of pervasive sadness and yearning, of displacement and loss, that for centuries and to this very day have articulated the sensibility of an entire nation, and its expatriate diaspora, of which I myself am considered a member.

I began to think back to a long-ago day in my expatriate school when I was eight years old and asked by my teacher to recite one of the poet's works on a Ukrainian radio program. The poem, "Na Velykden," or "On Easter Day," told the story of a group of children gathered together discussing their new holiday finery, with the exception of one orphan boy, who had nothing to display. I dutifully headed across the street to the recording studio -- wearing my navy-blue school jumper and with my hair braided into the traditional two plaits -- and unselfconsciously recited its words in my soft girlish voice, conveying my own excitement about an upcoming holiday celebration, tinged with the sadness I felt about the fate of the poor boy.

"Prekrasno!" my teacher had said when I finished the recording session. That is, "Well done."

However, still lost in meaning of the words and the mood the poem created, I did not respond to his praise with my usual bright smile of pleasure. "But why," I asked him, in all my childhood innocence, "is that little boy so alone? And why is that ending so sad?"

The obvious answer was that the poet was most likely was referring to himself, having been born into serfdom and orphaned when he was young.

But my teacher instead said gently to me, "Do not let me see that little cloud upon your face," in the language that is so evocative and lyrical that it is often difficult to convey in words. "It is just art," he continued. "Emotion is the nature of art." Then he distracted me, letting me listen to my voice on the tape, and when we were finished, he gave me a Ukrainian picture book. He inscribed it to "Sonechko," which means something like "little sunbeam." I ran off to meet my mother, having all but forgotten those flickering flashes of emotion that had crossed my face.

As though he were reading my thoughts, the speaker who presided over the poetry event brought me out of my reverie by commenting somewhat ruefully on the melancholy nature of Ukrainian art, as he then introduced a musical interlude that featured the plaintive strains of a ballad that was played on the bandura -- the national instrument.

The final poem at the reading was one that I recognized, and perhaps Shevchenko's best known one, "Yak Umru" or "When I die," which expressed his dying wish in exile to be buried in his native land, and is perhaps the most evocative of the sadness and uprootedness and pain that for so many centuries marked Ukraine's troubled heritage.

Shevchenko, who was exiled for his writing, for his use of the native language, for his gentle words of protest, died at the young age of 47, worn out from his ordeal. His fate was not all that dissimilar from that of many other persecuted Ukrainian artists and poets and thinkers.

Interestingly, however, during my time studying Comparative Literature in graduate school, I never heard any mention of Taras Shevchenko. At that time, Ukraine, and therefore its language and culture, did not officially exist.

The growing recognition of this 19^th century poet's work, I am sure, is a result of the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union, and of Ukraine's becoming somewhat of an independent nation which, though still troubled, has increasingly found the eyes of the world upon it, and with this, has experienced a growing interest in its history and its culture.

In his sensibility and love for his native land, Shevchenko is now labeled as a Romantic Poet. In his concern for the fate of his people, he is considered a great Humanist.

His poetry is indeed sad and beautiful and its verses do resonate.

Why, I asked myself at the end of the reading, are Ukrainians so emotional as a nation? Why, I asked myself, do we as a people -- a nation of artists and poets and musicians -- always wear our hearts on our sleeves? 

It occurred to me right then that the measure of love is loss. How does one even begin to adjust to the loss of the country that one loves – to that yearning for the familiar features of its land, the musical rhythms of the language one speaks, the customs one shares with its warm and expressive people. Loss is the legacy of war -- with its unspeakable tragedies and its resulting upheavals and dislocations -- that even now at times leaves one isolated and alone in a new and often unfamiliar nation that provides one with limitless opportunities for reinvention. How is one to begin to construct or reconstruct a new self in this new place, yet preserve one's very identity? And that is the very dilemma of the uprooted expatriate.

One does this -- as Bob Holman, owner of the poetry club and a founder of the Alliance for Endangered Languages, pointed out at the end of the reading -- by continuing to practice one's language, by preserving one's culture. One does this by commemorating Taras Shevchenko at this hipster poetry locale.

And one does this, I realized, by forging a dual identity as a Ukrainian-American writer, by coming to a reading such as this one, by reconnecting with the diaspora, by sharing my culture with others, and by continuing to tell the story of my roots.

On Carriage Horses in Central Park

I would walk by those horse-drawn carriages as I frequented the Wollman ice-skating rink in Central Park as a child while my father played chess. They stood on 59th Street, across the street from the Plaza Hotel, lined up in a queue. I would also see them as I walked past the Pierre on 5th, the hotel where my school held fund-raisers. Walking through the park after school, I would often see those carriages chauffeuring a couple holding hands or a laughing group that was out on the town.

A city girl, I knew nothing else of horses other than what I observed about those lingering near Central Park. To me, those horse-drawn carriages with their coachmen in top hats and tails seemed romantic. I imagined them a part of the old idyllic pre-Soviet world my expatriate mother told me stories about, clattering over the cobblestones of city streets as she went shopping or taking her over the river and through the woods to and from boarding school. An avid reader, I imagined those carriages were much like the ones heroines of the 19th century European novels traveled in, on their way to experience adventure and intrigue. And I remember watching a Fred Astaire movie, where those carriages provided a romantic presence, particularly in a scene where their doors fly open and the singer dances in the park.

So, when I was a debutante at an expatriate East European ball, there was nothing I could have imagined I would enjoy more than to take a festive ride in a horse-drawn carriage though the park, with a tuxedoed escort and me in my long white silky gown.

Years later, my preteen daughter, in the city for a summer ballet program, took a carriage ride through the park with her classmates. For her, the carriages carried no memories, such as they did for me. The ride was simply a novelty, a fairy tale come true, a memorable treat among the many Central Park had to offer. She was still young enough to delight in riding the carousel at the children’s zoo, to climb the Alice in Wonderland statue, then to wander over to the boathouse and embark on a perilous adventure, losing the oars in the park’s lake. I still have a photo of her and her classmates, posing in the drivers' seat of the carriage, its dapper young driver in a tophat standing in front, and all of them mugging for the camera.

But now, after we returned to live in the city, it seems to me that Cinderella’s coach has turned into a pumpkin, the horses into mice. And those coachmen seem -- not majestic guides to an enchanted evening --- or even drivers offering up a memorable treat -- but ordinary fellows in worn coats, determined to take their carriages out for a turn in order to make a buck.

Could it be that the city has changed in my absence, or is it me? The Cinderella story, I always thought of as metaphor for growing up, for viewing life no longer with youthful flights of fancy, but as it is.

When I see the horses nowadays about the city, they seem incongruous, out of place. A ride in a horse-drawn carriage though the park in the springtime is one thing, but to see those horses standing near the curb in inclement weather or being driven through the rain, sleet and snow is another. And to see them on the very city streets, sharing the asphalt with traffic and the dodging cabs is yet another.

What a shock it is hearing again and again that yet another of those carriage horses had bolted and died in the streets. For me, at least, such incidents serve to epitomize the convergence of modern technology and these olden carriages, the clash of the contemporary city and what some call the “charming” and “quaint” reminders of 'Old New York.'

Yes, what some call “charming” and “quaint” reminders of "Old New York" do hark back to bygone and more tranquil days in the city when the animals were a form of transport, as the many bricked-over stable entrances in the city’s oldest buildings, particularly on the East Side, attest to. The clickety-click of their hooves echo back to the New York of Henry James and Edith Wharton. But the city has long since changed. To residents such as this one, their so-called “charm” has become tired, even cruel.

I chanced to walk by those horses on 59th Street on a cold and rainy Saturday. The daylight was already turning into an early dusk. The carriages looked shabby, not at all like the purveyors of privilege they seemed in my youth. A huge sign mounted on the carriages advertised their rates. Their drivers, calling out to tourists, seemed much like any other vendors hawking their wares in the city.

There were not many takers. The horses simply stood there, gentle, patiently waiting, docile, easily led. The carriage drivers, wearing dingy weather-proofed clothing over their overcoats, waited and waited for business. Theirs was a somewhat futile endeavor, given the darkness and the weather.

I took the occasion to linger and observe. Indeed, some of the animals seemed tired, haggard, like workhorses. I saw one of them take one step forward in line, following the lead of the carriage directly in front, only to be met with a threatening gesture from his driver. Not unlike a dog that has learned to cower, the horse immediately stepped back, with nary a neigh nor a whimper. I looked away.

Yet other animals seemed coddled. They were covered with blankets in the cold wet weather, treated more like trusty friends. One was fed from a store of carrots in a sack, was gently spoken to by name.

As I watched one or two of the vehicles finally take off with a rare customer in tow amid the rainy chill, I marveled at those stoic animals with blinders on, patiently plodding with that rhythmic clickety-click in their step, pulling their load. To me, they seemed a sad symbol of forbearance in a modern world somehow gone awry

Water Globe: Some Thoughts on 9/11

I used to have a water globe, a tourist trinket, of Manhattan Island. It included the Empire State Building, the Chrysler building with its dome, a department store, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the George Washington Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, a yellow cab, and of course, the Twin Towers. The base was made of nicely beveled cherry wood and contained a music box. When I turned the water globe upside down and wound it up with the key beneath, a charming little scenario ensued: Glittery sparkles danced around and landed on the buildings to the tune of  "New York, New York," calling to mind Frank Sinatra's memorable tribute to the City, a place where anything was possible and all dreams came true.

I set the globe on a three-legged side table I had bought in SoHo. Unfortunately, I found that three-legged tables are more decorative than functional. Inevitably one day the globe went crashing to the ground. It was reduced to a mess of broken glass, water mixed with glitter, and a gray three-dimensional metal silhouette of the city attached to the inner workings of a music box. I was broken-hearted. There was something about that trinket that for me that encapsulated the city’s enchantment and promise, and the familiar and most-prominent sites in the city where I grew up gave me comfort. I went to seek out a replacement.

But when I went back to the department store to get a new one, I discovered that the next year’s model had changed. This one was set on a stark black cube. The sparkles had been replaced with snow. And the Twin Towers were missing. I suppose the designer of the globe simply omitted the towers because they no longer existed. But to me at least, that omission seemed an attempt to erase the memories, the nightmare. I thought about the gaping hole in the ground I had seen when I finally forced myself to go downtown and view the actual site. The water globe’s pristine white snow also seemed fake, incongruous in Manhattan, where within hours sidewalks are salted down and cleared, turning snow into huge puddles and mounds of dirty piles, making it impossible to cross the street. Holding the new globe in my hand, I wondered whether the glamour and glitz have gone from the city, whether the city had become a place where dreams turned to a grey slush. The missing buildings once towering over the island and a symbol of a city’s upward striving, now smacked of a city’s hubris, not unlike that Icarus who soared too close to the sun. Eerily, looking back, one can see how our tallest buildings stood out as an easy target to some unknown demented enemy.

I put the replacement globe back on the shelf and decided not to buy it.

I don’t know anyone in the city who was not traumatized by the events of 9/11. The city’s memory, it seems to me, is now divided into pre-9/11 and post-9/11. One day we felt complacent and safe, and then the next, vulnerable and on edge. I remember my daughter frantically calling me on the phone on that fateful day telling me to turn on the television. The scene I witnessed ten years ago was so unreal, surpassing any sort of imagined science fiction movie. I remember the details of that day all too clearly: the clear blue sky, the smoke from the first tower, the second airplane hitting the second tower. I personally could not watch the disaster unfold, and turned the television off after a short clip of then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani standing at the base of one of the buildings shaking hands with firemen headed bravely upstairs, not knowing what horrors awaited them. I remember the next day’s paper featured a photograph taken by a free lance photographer: People were jumping off one of the burning towers. Caught in midair were business people, men and women in suits, falling briefcases, and loose high heeled shoes. “People falling,” I distinctly remember the caption said. I wondered at that imprecise diction. People were actually jumping from the inferno to their deaths. I threw the newspaper out, yet that disturbing and shocking photo of people in midair still stays in my mind. Ever since that day when the skyline immutably changed, life in New York City has never been the same.

I remember the subsequent days and months feeling like I was living in a city under siege. There were police drills of endless rows of squad cars speeding down the avenues with sirens blaring, blocking all traffic; soldiers dressed in camouflage stood with guns posted at the entrances to Central Park and to the subway. Makeshift altars -- made up of flowers, stuffed animals, a candle, a note, a photo -- were all over the city. Everywhere I saw those reminders of those who died. Then there was that pervasive smell – of melted buildings and much worse. I remember the feeling of being trapped on an island that felt like an imminent target. Even my building handed out a protocol of instructions for emergency preparedness, including directions on how to assemble a “go-bag”, should disaster strike. “Code Orange” was the security buzz-word. A Department of Homeland Security was established as we braced ourselves for future attacks. Our city felt more like a target than a welcoming beacon. Many who had another place to go, left. The rest of us huddled closely together, our discussions dominated by whether to leave the city, that is, evacuate, or to stay. Our belief in a predictable world had been shattered. We lost our innocence.

Now, ten years later, as the city nears its day of commemoration of 9/11 and honors the memory of the nearly 3,000 people who died, the shocking immediacy of those much too visceral images broadcast over the television and indelibly captured in photographs, has mercifully faded. The imminent threat of disaster has receded over the years, as a city on the alert, still at times edgy, has returned to almost normal function. After all, no further attacks have occurred. The perpetrator of this act of war, after a long quest, has been duly captured and buried at sea. The threat is now over, we have been told. There is now a sense of closure and vindication. In the meantime, the city has moved on, has had no choice but to move on, has had to rebuild and recover. With the passage of time, that gaping wound in the ground has closed up and has now become a memorial nearing completion.

However, as I try to think back to that very day, all I am left with that image of that fragile glass globe with its missing buildings and black base, and I am at a loss for words. I dread the TV clips and photos that inevitably resurface on each and every 9/11 anniversary, and all the memories that they retrigger. I cannot bear to have all the details of the attack rehashed by the media again, and again, and again. Numerous books have since been written, documenting the event, but I have no interest in reading them. All I can remember how is exposed and vulnerable and helpless we felt in our once-invincible city when our tallest buildings were destroyed. It is still utterly impossible for me to make sense of what transpired quite literally out of the blue and its resultant trauma.

(c) Olya Thompson

Court's Busing Order is the Wong Stop

WHEN I TAUGHT English at the University of North Carolina in the 1980s, I enrolled my daughter in a private school in Charlotte that offered her a scholarship. It was not long before I learned that the academic tradition of private schools there was not the time-honored one of the Northeast. Their establishment was linked to a 1969 court ruling, upheld by the Supreme Court in 1971, that attempted to achieve the integration of two separate but unequal public school systems. One of them was for blacks and one for whites. These schools dated back to the start of the first court-ordered busing.

So, how could a Federal District Court judge recenty rule that busing was no longer necessary in Charlotte because "all vestiges of past discrimination" have disappeared? Last month Judge Robert D. Potter said that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district had complied with the original decision of the Supreme Court. But what the initial 1969 Federal District Court ruling actually did was prompt a mass exodus from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system into newly established private schools like the one my daughter was enrolled in.

And it prompted the vehement objections of those who could not afford to opt out and did not want their children bused to schools in black neighborhoods. As one of my daughter's private school classmates asserted, "My mother would never let me go to school with them. "

My daughter was not happy in her "elite" school. Being accustomed to the diversity that characterized New York City, she felt out of place in a school that was almost all white and affluent. It was not long before she moved on.

I must say that I, too, felt somewhat of an outsider in a city where old habits died hard and residential segregation and racial discrimination were rampant. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you with your people?" one of my neighbors even asked me, perplexed by my New York City and my Eastern European origins.)

Though the city's booming bank business may have had a few black employees, the races did not mix socially. The scenario was the same at the college where I taught; the student population was homogeneous - except for the occasional token black basketball player. Blacks had their own state colleges. In short, the Charlotte I experienced was a place where Jim Crow was still very much alive.

Clearly, Judge Robert D. Potter merely caved in to what had always been the status quo in Charlotte. Not surprisingly, his decision came in the wake of a lawsuit by white parents who contended that Charlotte's educational policies discriminate against whites and objected because their children were not able to go to a neighborhood school.

And, amazingly, the residential segregation that persists in Charlotte, he concluded, was not a school system's responsibility to rectify.

Black educators certainly did not agree with this decision. School board officials said they needed more time because the school system had not done all it could to eliminate disparities between the black and white neighborhood schools. In response to thenobjections, the judge found it "bizarre" that the school board took the position that busing had not achieved its goals. "Now it wished to use that order as a pretext to pursue race-conscious, diversity enhancing politics in perpetuity," wrote this former campaign worker for Sen. Jesse Helms, who even collected signatures on a petition against the busing plan in 1969 --as though the goals of integration and diversity were an aberration.

So, where does all this finally leave Charlotte,the first city in the country to implement busing in 1969 in order to equalize the disparity between black schools and white schools? The city, it looks like, has merely come full circle. Busing ended at the same starting point where it originated, with white children remaining in their schools and black ones in theirs.

It seems those "separate but equal" standards still apply. In this, unfortunately, Charlotte is not alone, but part of a disheartening trend. As has happened in other cities in the past five years, the same courts that imposed busing plans have dismantled them, officially declaring their school systems "desegregated."

Sadly, it looks like the legacy of busing and integration will not become that of a historic goal achieved but a strategy that has been exhausted.

The Story of a Coyote Named Pierre

Imagine my shock when I first heard about Pierre, the coyote that had been spotted in Central Park, in my own urban backyard -- in a place that seemed way too near.

After all, during my childhood summers in the more remote pine forests of the Catskills, the coyote was the beast I feared most. Back then, I was occasionally awakened by a distant eerie howl that echoed in the dark night. "Listen to that," my father, the wildlife lover, would observe with fascination. "A coyote." For me, a city girl, then about 7 or 8 -- who was already convinced that the Loch Ness Monster lived in the nearby lake -- that response was not reassuring. And his talk of bobcats in the area didn't help allay my trepidation.

Then came the day I was roused from my reading by an unspeakable noise -- a frantic yelping and a high-pitched, ear-piercing screeching, accompanied by howls of pain. I saw a mixed-breed mutt and a coyote engaged in a fierce fight in the broad daylight right on the newly mowed lawn. The animals reared up on their hind legs. Then the coyote dashed off into the forest, leaving the dog mauled. Its owner fired a fatal shot to get the dog out of his pain. I will always remember the starkness of the blast that reverberated in the silence of our country retreat.

However, as I looked at that recent newspaper photo of the coyote captured in Central Park -- tranquilized, strapped to a stretcher, with its paws hanging over, its pointy ears, its expression docile rather than fierce -- I felt pity rather than fear. The story of the plight of the lone animal as a terrified fugitive -- pursued by animal workers, police (not to mention a helicopter) -- dodging back and forth among my familiar childhood haunts: the Wollman Rink, the Great Lawn and the Mall, where he finally collapsed -- seemed incredible. And to many in the city, including myself, it was even heart-rending.

After all, the photo is cute; the creature seems harmless, looks much like a scruffy dog. "It's kind of neat," a friend said about the incident. "They should have left him alone," was another city-dweller's sentiment.

About the latter point of view, I wasn't too sure. So I asked Parks Commissioner Henry Stern what he thought.  "It's an extraordinary incident in the city's biological history," he said, echoing the general amazement and fascination of  New Yorkers at finding a wild animal in their midst. But he also talked about the incident tongue-in cheek, citing it as another one of the advantages of the city's leash law: "to save your dog from being eaten." He really wasn't kidding:

Indeed, there was a danger posed by Pierre, and we could not have left him there. According to the National Wildlife Foundation, coyotes have been known to attack small dogs and other small animals and even small children in urban centers all over the country; in recent years, the number of attacks have been  on the rise. The presence of Pierre, which seemed odd to New Yorkers, was but a reflection of what was happening all over the country.

While some species of wildlife have declined with development, coyotes -- much like Wily E. Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoon -- are extremely adaptable creatures.  Originally from the West, they have spread all over the country and even to the cities. In the state of New York, they have been migrating southward, showing up in recent years in the suburbs, such as Westchester, then The Bronx, and now, somehow, even in Central Park.

"We are afraid to let our pets out," one suburban homeowner said. Another, in Westport, Conn., said she fears for her child.

"There is a danger when an animal one admires from afar comes too close," said Richard Lattis, the President of the Wildlife Conservation Society. (Coyotes, after all, are natural predators; in their upstate New York woodland habitat, they kill fawns; traveling in packs, they attack deer.) "Fear causes people to look at predators in a certain way. The coyote," Mr. Lattis said, "had no chance in the city."

So it seemed. Coyotes, to say the least, are considered a nuisance, not an endangered species. From this standpoint alone, the fate of the Central Park coyote was becoming unfortunately all too clear.
Oh dear. Indeed, like many New Yorkers, I found myself beginning to fear for the coyote named Pierre.

But in what can only be described as a quintessential New York City story, the coyote has been given a permanent home. Mr. Lattis arranged to have the beast serve as the very point of the coyote exhibit, which tells how the animals have thrived, despite efforts to exterminate them. "Now he's a New Yorker," Mr. Lattis commented, not without a hint of civic pride.

"Lucky Pierre," he was named by Mr. Stern. "Lucky," I suppose, because he had been spared; "Pierre" because he was living in a cave in a fenced-in nature preserve right across from the elegant Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue. 

Soon, the coyote that won the hearts of city-dwellers will be making his debut. Having already undergone his physical at the Bronx Zoo, he is now under quarantine in Queens, getting acclimated, getting to know his coyote counterparts, preparing for this grand event. He will be stepping out at the Queens Zoo for his formal presentation to New York society. Well-rehearsed, I imagine, his silver and black fur glistening, Pierre will make his bow. Then New Yorkers will get the opportunity to see him happily ensconced in his new home, to wish him well, and to cheer.  Zoo officials now estimate that this will occur toward the end of May or in early June. 

I am a lover of happy endings, and am particularly delighted with the outcome of the story of Pierre. Nonetheless, as I now walk about the pathways of Central Park and admire the daffodils and even spot some violets, I find myself wondering about what other wild creature will next make its appearance there.

For some reason, I keep thinking of bobcats.

Carriage Horses

I would walk by them as I frequented the Wollman ice-skating rink as a child while my father played chess. They stood on 59th Street, across the street from the Plaza Hotel, lined up in a queue. I would also see them as I walked past the Pierre on 5th, the hotel where my school held fund-raisers. Walking though the park after school, I would often see those horse-drawn carriages chauffeuring a couple holding hands or a laughing group that was out on the town.
A city girl, I knew nothing else of horses other than what I observed about those lingering near Central Park. To me, those horse-drawn carriages with their coachmen in top hats and tails seemed romantic. I imagined them a part of the old idyllic pre-Soviet world my expatriate mother told me stories about, clattering over the cobblestones of city streets as she went shopping or taking her over the river and through the woods to and from boarding school. An avid reader, I imagined those carriages were much like the ones heroines of the 19th century European novels traveled in, on their way to experience adventure and intrigue. And I remember watching a Fred Astaire movie, where those carriages provided a romantic presence, particularly in a scene where their doors fly open and the singer dances in the park.
So, when I was a debutante at an expatriate East European ball, there was nothing I could have imagined I would enjoy more than to take a festive ride in a horse-drawn carriage though the park, with a tuxedoed escort and me in my long white silky gown.
Years later, my preteen daughter, in the city for a summer ballet program, took a carriage ride through the park with her classmates. For her, the carriages carried no baggage or memories such as they did for me. The ride was simply a novelty, a fairy tale come true, a memorable treat among the many Central Park had to offer. She was still young enough to delight in riding the carousel at the children’s zoo, to climb the Alice in Wonderland statue, then to wander over to the boathouse and embark on a perilous adventure, losing the oars in the park’s lake. I still have a photo of her, standing in front of the carriage, its driver grinning, and she, mugging for the camera.
But now, after we recently returned to live in the city, it seems to me that Cinderella’s coach has turned into a pumpkin, the horses into mice. And those coachmen seem -- not majestic guides to an enchanted evening --- or even drivers offering up a memorable treat -- but ordinary fellows in worn coats, determined to take their carriages out for a turn in order to make a buck.
Could it be that the city has changed in my absence, or is it me? The Cinderella story, I always thought of as metaphor for growing up, for viewing life no longer with youthful flights of fancy, but as it is.
When I see the horses nowadays about the city, they seem incongruous, out of place. A ride in a horse-drawn carriage though the park in the springtime is one thing, but to see those horses standing near the curb in January’s inclement weather or being driven through the rain, sleet and snow is another. And to see them on the very city streets, sharing the asphalt with traffic and the dodging cabs is yet another.
But what a shock it was hearing about one of those carriage horses falling dead in the cold wet street. On a rainy day, the story said, the horse was electrocuted after stepping on a Con Edison manhole cover. The frayed electrical wires beneath had been corroded by salt that had been spread on the streets.. The animal’s metal horseshoes had made all the difference between life and death. For me, at least, this incident itself seemed to epitomize the convergence of modern technology and these olden carriages, the clash of the contemporary city and what some call the “charming” and “quaint” reminders of Old New York.”
Yes, what some call “charming” and “quaint” reminders of Old New York” do hark back to bygone and more tranquil days in the city when the animals were a form of transport, as the many bricked-over stable entrances in the city’s oldest buildings, particularly on the East Side, attest to. The clickety-click of their hooves echo back to the New York of Henry James and Edith Wharton. But the city has long since changed. To residents such as this one, their so-called “charm” has become tired, even cruel.
“She liked this job,” the horse’s owner reportedly said.
She liked this job?
I chanced to walk by those horses on 59th Street on a cold and rainy Saturday about a week or so after that freak accident. The daylight was already turning into an early dusk. The carriages looked shabby, not at all like the purveyors of privilege they seemed in my youth. “Thirty-five dollars for the first half-hour,” a sign mounted on the carriages said. Their drivers, calling out to tourists, seemed much like any other vendors hawking their wares in the city.
There were not many takers. The horses simply stood there, gentle, patiently waiting, docile, easily led. The carriage drivers, wearing dingy weather-proofed clothing over their overcoats, waited and waited for business. Theirs was a somewhat futile endeavor, given the darkness and the weather.
I took the occasion to linger and observe. Indeed, some of the animals seemed tired, haggard, like workhorses. I saw one of them take one step forward in line, following the lead of the carriage directly in front, only to be met with a threatening gesture from his driver. Not unlike a dog that has learned to cower, the horse immediately stepped back, with nary a neigh nor a whimper. I looked away.
. Yet other animals seemed coddled. They were covered with blankets in the cold wet weather, treated more like trusty friends. One was fed from a store of carrots in a sack, was gently spoken to by name.
As I watched one or two of the vehicles finally take off with a rare customer in tow amid the rainy chill, I marveled at those stoic animals with blinders on, patiently plodding with that rhythmic clickety-click in their step, pulling their load. To me, they seemed a sad symbol of forbearance in a modern world somehow gone awry.

On School Uniforms

DURING MY high school years, I wore a uniform. It consisted of a dark green wool suit – a pleated skirt and a tailored jacket – and a white blouse. On the front pocket was our school emblem. Every morning, the neighborhood would witness a flurry of girls, all dressed in green, converge on a brownstone and precisely at 9 o’clock, would see Mother Superior lock the doors.
When I tell my friends this, they think my school years quaint, not unlike those of Madeline, the heroine of Ludwig Bemmelmans’ books, who marched with her identically dressed classmates in two straight lines. In fact, my school, like Madeline's, was run by an order of French nuns. My grammar school, where uniforms were also de rigueur, was run by an order of Byzantine nuns. There, the uniform consisted of a navy blue jumper and a white blouse.
So – though my contemporaries might raise an eyebrow or some, even two – I, for one, am not surprised by the recent success of uniforms in the public schools. This news, and the ensuing accolades, seem merely familiar and commonsense to me. About 50 percent of students in urban public schools wear uniforms now, and the movement is spreading.
Despite what some see as regimentation, it never occurred to me to object. I took uniforms for granted, considered them an inevitable part of life and of being a student. The doctor wore his coat, the businessman, his suit, and I had a uniform for school. My friends wore uniforms. When I look at school photos of my mother, I see her in uniform.
So, my recollection is that uniforms, while not exactly divine . . . were fine. Unlike the current discussion surrounding the introduction of uniforms into the public schools, there was no American Civil Liberties Union involved, no controversy, no exceptions made. We had to wear the uniform.
As I look back, I see the requirement enforced not so much a rigid uniformity, but a certain
equality. Since we all dressed alike, what stood out was what we accomplished. Uniforms took pressure off parents to buy many outfits for school; they also took pressure off me, particularly at an age when much time and thought went into getting ready for school.
Interestingly, on the rare day when we could wear what we wanted, the usual order was thrown into disarray. From the various jumpers and skirts, we could tell who could afford expensive outfits and who couldn’t, who was stylish and who wasn’t – all distractions that did not show during the uniform days.
Uniforms also provided an identity, a kind of camaraderie. We recognized each other on the subways, on the buses, in the streets. Uniforms created a sense of belonging. I have fond memories of riding the subways, ice-skating in the park, roaming along Fifth Avenue, easily identifiable by the clothing I wore, clothing that linked me to a school that everyone seemed to know. Wearing a uniform, we carried ourselves a bit less casually through life; we dared not do anything untoward. Somehow, Mother Superior would hear about it.
Uniforms also enforced a certain formality. They made for a serious teaching environment. Clothes, we realized, do not make the man, but they do convey an attitude.
I still find myself rather perplexed by the dilemma one of my contemporaries described – wearing “hot pants,” those short shorts that were worn over stockings in the early ’70s, to a City Hall press conference.
It may just be that our society has come to feel a bit too much at ease, and it’s no secret that some kids these days have no clue about how to dress for school.
In this casual world, where baggy jeans and T-shirts are the rule, and designer clothing and expensive sneakers seem to take center stage, it is only natural that uniforms are making a comeback. Tellingly, President Bill Clinton endorsed the movement. Even die-hard civil libertarians concede that uniforms are harmless.
In fact, in Long Beach, Calif., schools report a drop in crime of 36 percent since the start of their mandatory uniform program four years ago.
So, in the end, it’s not a bad thing that uniforms have come full circle. Educators, parents and even quite a few students seem to like them, and are coming to see their benefits. Even in schools where the policy is voluntary, uniforms are catching on. While just a few years ago uniforms were considered somewhat dated and staid, one may now go so far as to say that they are becoming the rage.
After all, even Land’s End recently created a catalog uniform department.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.