Irena Sendler

One of the greatest heroes of the 20th century died this week, but most people have never heard of her. Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic social worker, saved 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation of World War II. She smuggled them out of the ghetto, gave them non-Jewish aliases, and placed them in convents, orphanages, and homes. She kept detailed records of their true identities and preserved the records in jars buried in a friend's garden.

She was eventually captured by the Nazis and tortured, but she refused to divulge any information about the children or about the underground organization with which she worked. Miraculously spared from execution herself, she worked diligently after the war to reunite the children with their families, only to find that most of their relatives had been deported and exterminated. Most of the children were adopted by Polish families or emigrated to Israel.

She died on Monday in a Warsaw nursing home at the age of 98. After living in obscurity for most of her life, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year. But she never thought of herself as a hero. She once said, "Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this earth and not a title to glory."

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Mother Teresa of Baghdad

Madeeha Hasan Odhaib is a diminutive, 37-year-old seamstress whom some people have begun calling the Mother Teresa of Baghdad. Since 2003, she has been working tirelessly to assist thousands of Iraqis driven from their homes by the war, especially in her Karada district where some 30,000 displaced Iraqis live. With almost no help from occupying forces or the Iraqi government, she has put together one of the few effective aid operations in Baghdad.

Read more about the efforts of this remarkable woman...

Nakba

When Israel observes the 60th anniversary of its declaration of statehood on May 14, Arabs who make up 20 percent of its citizens will not be joining in the celebration. Instead thousands will gather in their former villages, which they have been barred from occupying for sixty years, to protest what they call the nakba, or catastrophe, of their displacement from their homeland.

In the civil strife that marked the beginning of the modern state of Israel, nearly a million Palestinians fled to neighboring countries, where they were housed in crowded refugee camps. Their children and grandchildren, now numbering over 4 million, are still in those refugee camps today.

Others who remained in the new state of Israel were displaced from their villages. They were granted citizenship but relegated to second-class status. The Israeli government seized their land to make room for new Jewish arrivals from Europe and the former Soviet Union. And although much of the seized land has sat idle all these years, the Israeli government refuses to allow former owners to return to it.

One such former owner is Jamal Abdulhadi Mahameed. Now age 69, he wants nothing more than to return to the land owned by his family for generations and tend to the pomegranate bushes planted long ago by his father.

In every respect Jamal is a solid citizen. His children include a doctor, two lawyers, and an engineer. But he is prohibited from returning to his own land because it is reserved for Jewish settlement. He notes that his daughter the doctor makes no distinction between Jewish and Arab patients. So he asks, "Why should the state treat me differently?"

Add one more issue to the many injustices to be redressed before the Middle East can even dream of living in peace.

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Mission Accomplished?

Five years ago today, George W. Bush pulled his tailhook landing stunt on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and declared: "Mission Accomplished!"

Five years later...

More than 4,000 U.S. troops have lost their lives in Iraq, along with more than 300 from the so-called "coalition of the willing".

Almost 30,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in action.

According to conservative estimates, more than 90,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed. The actual number will never be known.

An estimated 2 million Iraqis have fled their country and are living as refugees in appalling conditions in Syria and Jordan. Almost none have been allowed entry into the United States.

An unknown number of Iraqis - upwards to 3 million by some estimates - are displaced within their own country because of sectarian violence.

More than 100 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the start of the conflict.

U.S. troop levels in Iraq are currently at 160,000 with no immediate plans to reduce that number.

In a recent Gallup poll, 59% of Americans said that "the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq."

Egalite?

About 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in France's prison system are Muslim, even though Muslims make up only about 12 percent of the country's population. A similar pattern is found in other European countries, where immigrants and children of immigrants - mostly Muslim - make up a disproportionate share of prison populations.

The underlying causes are the same ones that result in the disproportionate representation of black Americans in the U.S. prison system, where blacks who comprise 13 percent of the general population make up 49 percent of all inmates. The high percentage of Muslims in France's prisons, like the percentage of blacks in America's, is a direct result of the failure to fully integrate minorities into the life of society. Largely excluded from the economic and social benefits of full participation, these minorities are caught in a downward spiral of poverty and hopelessness, which often ends in crime and imprisonment.

In France the exclusion from full participation extends to the prison system itself. Prison authorities have allowed only about 100 carefully vetted moderate imams to serve as chaplains in France's 200 prisons, compared with 480 Catholic, 250 Protestant, and 50 Jewish chaplains, even though Muslim inmates vastly outnumber prisoners of all other religions.

French prison officials have also refused requests to provide halal food (compliant with Islamic dietary law) to Muslim inmates. In order to observe the dietary laws of their religion Muslims must forego much of the prison food.

In another example of disparate treatment, Christian inmates are allowed to receive packages from their families at Christmas, but Muslims do not receive the same privilege during the holy days of Ramadan.

This absence of egalite in the treatment of Muslims in France's prisons should come as no surprise. The same prejudices and marginalization that contribute to their ending up in prison in the first place are perpetuated in prison as well. We live on the edge of a great divide between East and West, between Muslim and Christian. It is a divide we have made ourselves, based on our own prejudices. It is little wonder that there is no peace in the world.

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Children of Gaza

Ayman is a soft-spoken 14-year-old who lives in Jabalia City, Gaza. He wants to be an engineer someday so he can help rebuild his country. He works hard in school, but the challenges of growing up as a youngster in Gaza are daunting to say the least. Some 840,000 children live in Gaza's crowded neighborhoods. As the region continues its downward spiral of violence, isolation, and poverty, their future looks more bleak every day.

Ayman's family is poor, just like everyone in Gaza. His parents have sold almost everything they have to support their children. But they struggle on because, as Ayman's father says, "My children are my hope."

As Israel approaches the 60th anniversary of its independence (May 14) there is little to celebrate in this troubled region. The world community has largely ignored the plight of the Palestinians for over half a century. Justice is a rare commodity in the occupied territories, which might explain why peace is such a distant hope.

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War Fatigue

Surveys show that the majority of Americans suffer from war fatigue; that is, they are tired of hearing about the war in Iraq. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that only 17 percent of those surveyed thought that the war was the most important issue facing the country today.

The number of U.S. military casualties in Iraq is approaching 4,000. According to Pentagon statistics, more than 29,000 troops have been wounded in action.

The number of Iraqis killed or wounded since the invasion in 2003 will probably never be known.

By some estimates more than 2 million Iraqis have fled their country and are refugees in reluctant host countries such as Syria and Jordan.

Is all this human suffering for nothing? Sadly, most Americans are too tired to care.

A Web of Miracles

When Wisconsin National Guardsman Scott Southworth deployed to Iraq with his military police unit in 2003, he did not expect to find himself caught in a web of miracles.

In September of that year he visited an orphanage in Baghdad with his unit, and there he met nine-year-old Ala'a Eddeen, who suffers from cerebral palsy and weighed just 55 pounds.

Southworth made frequent visits to the orphanage, and he and Ala'a grew close. When he learned that his young friend would soon be placed in a government-run facility where he would "stare at a blank wall for the rest of his life," Southworth decided to adopt him.

He had to overcome many obstacles to adopt Ala'a. Iraqi law prohibits foreigners from adopting Iraqi children. He was unmarried, did not own a home, worked long hours at his job, and knew nothing about caring for a disabled child. He also had to wade through the complicated bureaucracy of the U.S. Immigration Service, whose rules made it almost impossible to bring Ala'a into the country.

But Southworth persisted until finally in January 2005 he received word that his request to bring Ala'a to the United States had been approved. Ala'a arrived in Wisconsin on January 20, where he saw snow for the first time in his life. On June 4, 2005 his adoption was finalized and Southworth and Ala'a became father and son.

Southworth persisted in his efforts because he believed that Ala'a desperately needed someone not just to feel sorry for him but to actually do something about it. But he insists that Ala'a picked him, not the other way around. They were brought together, he believes, by a web of miracles.

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A Christmas Story

Listen to a beloved story of Christmas by the late John Henry Faulk as aired on National Public Radio. If you have never heard this story, an annual tradition on NPR, it is worth a listen to learn more about the real meaning of Christmas.

Hold the Tomatoes

You should think twice about pulling into a drive-thru for one of those burgers topped with a slice of tomato these days. Consider what someone had to go through to garnish your burger with tomato.

Migrant farm workers who harvest tomatoes in South Florida for growers who supply tomatoes for fast-food chains like Burger King, McDonalds, and Taco Bell have one of the nation’s most backbreaking jobs. For 10 to 12 hours a day, they pick tomatoes by hand, earning a piece-rate of about 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket. During a typical day each migrant picks, carries, and unloads two tons of tomatoes. For their efforts, this holiday season many of them are about to get a 40 percent pay cut.

Two years ago migrant farm workers in Florida gained their first significant pay raise since the late 1970s when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott by agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound for its tomatoes, with the extra cent going directly to the farm workers. Last April, McDonald’s agreed to a similar arrangement, increasing the wages of its tomato pickers to about 77 cents per bucket.

But Burger King, whose headquarters are in Florida, has adamantly refused to pay the extra penny. And as a result the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90 percent of the state’s growers, announced this month that it will not allow any of its members to collect the extra penny for farm workers. The Exchange has threatened a fine of $100,000 for any grower who accepts an extra penny per pound for migrant wages.

Three private equity firms — Bain Capital, the Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners — control most of Burger King’s stock. Last year, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein, earned the largest annual bonus in Wall Street history, and this year he stands to receive an even larger one. Goldman Sachs has served its investors well lately. According to Business Week, the company has doubled the value of its Burger King investment within three years.

Telling Burger King to pay an extra penny for tomatoes and provide a decent wage to migrant workers would hardly bankrupt the company. Indeed, it would cost Burger King only $250,000 a year. At Goldman Sachs, that sort of money shouldn’t be too hard to find. In 2006, the bonuses of the top 12 Goldman Sachs executives exceeded $200 million — more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year.

The least Goldman Sachs could do is find a way to share some of the company’s good fortune with the workers at the bottom of the food chain.

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Angel in the Desert

Jesus Manuel Cordova was doing what half a million illegal immigrants do each year - walking across the Mexican border to enter the United States in search of work. But his trip did not go as he expected, and before he finished it he had given a new and ironic meaning to the term good samaritan.

He came upon a 9-year-old boy who was looking for help for his mother, who had crashed their van into a canyon and was pinned inside. She was seriously injured, and in fact died before help arrived. Mr. Cordova found the boy, and after trying unsuccessfully to pull his mother from the wreck, he stayed with him through the night, wrapping him in his own jacket and building a fire to keep him warm during the cold night in the Arizona desert.

In return for his act of kindness, Mr. Cordova was taken into custody by Border Patrol agents. He will almost certainly be sent back to Mexico.

Americans get pretty emotional about the issue of border security. They cannot tolerate the idea of undesirables sneaking into the country from south of the border. Little do they know that there are at least a few angels among those undesirables.

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The Worst Crime on the Planet

“The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world. The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity - it’s appalling.” - John Holmes, United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs.

Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, cannot bear to listen to the stories his patients tell him anymore. Every day ten new women and girls who have been raped show up at his hospital. Many have been so brutally attacked that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair. He performs as many as six rape-related surgeries a day. Bed after bed is filled with women lying on their backs, staring at the ceiling, with colostomy bags hanging next to them because of all the internal damage.

Honorata Barinjibanwa was kidnapped from her village in April and kept as a sex slave until August. Most of that time she was tied to a tree; she still has rope marks on her neck. The men would untie her for a few hours each day to gang-rape her. She is just 18 years old. And now she is pregnant.

Kasindi Wabulasa was raped in February by five men. They held an AK-47 rifle to her husband’s chest and made him watch, telling him that if he closed his eyes, they would shoot him. When they were finished they shot him anyway.

Read the full story from the New York Times...