Last summer, I felt proud that my son, Kyle, a junior at the prestigious Wharton School of Business, was working in the summer as an intern at the also-prestigious Lehman Brothers. Lehman Brothers was founded in 1850. Its website proclaimed, “The history of Lehman Brothers parallels the growth of the United States and its energetic drive toward prosperity and international prominence. What would evolve into a global financial entity began as a general store in the American South. Henry Lehman, an immigrant from Germany, opened his small shop in the city of Montgomery, Alabama in 1844. Six years later, he was joined by brothers Emanuel and Mayer, and they named the business Lehman Brothers.”
Today, Lehman’s website says, “Lehman Brothers, an innovator in global finance, serves the financial needs of corporations, governments and municipalities, institutional clients, and high net worth individuals worldwide. Founded in 1850, Lehman Brothers maintains leadership positions in equity and fixed income sales, trading and research, investment banking, private investment management, asset management and private equity. The Firm is headquartered in New York, with regional headquarters in London and Tokyo, and operates in a network of offices around the world.”
They need to change their website. After 158 years in business, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection and is being liquidated. The news cameras showed hundreds of employees walking out of the tall Times Square headquarters, with their tote bags, briefcases, computers, and suitcases. It was as if hundreds of competitors on The Apprentice Show had all been fired by at the same time and escorted out of the glass towers on Wall Street. The only difference is that these people had jobs, income, and wages that they had worked their lives to earn. They weren’t just television tourists on a TV “reality show.”
A little over a year ago, Lehman’s stock was about $80 a share and the business seemed to be flourishing with mergers and acquisitions, private equity, fixed income, and investment banking. Kyle worked over 50 hours a week as an intern and was involved in one of the large company acquisitions that Lehman had been hired to manage. He felt that something might be going wrong on one of the Lehman Monday calls. He says, “When the banks went to sell the debt in the open market (for two private equity deals,) no one bought it and it was the first sign that something might be wrong with highly levered loans. The banks then had to take on all that debt on to their own balance sheet and fund it themselves. On the call were people from leveraged finance and they said we are still open for business but looking at things more cautiously now. A few weeks after I left, almost all PE (private equity) deals were on hold since the fear that no one would buy the highly levered debt—and then it tailspinned.”
During Kyle’s last week, Lehman made him a very generous offer to come to work after college, including base pay, health insurance, travel expenses, and a large projected bonus based on past history. Kyle writes, “When I think back to during all this is all the people that tried to pitch me to stay. They were saying this is the best time in the history of the company and what a great time to start at the firm. I asked one of the MDs what would happen if the PE markets washed up and he said it wasn’t a problem since they would just do more restructuring work or sell side of companies. Everyone back then was so confident and not worried at all and even when they came back in October, when they wanted us to sign, they were saying that it was almost over and not anywhere close to what happened in 2000. I’m glad I never bought in to all the crazy things they were telling me.
“No one possible could have forecasted this last summer—there were hundreds of things that led to this collapse—it’s just crazy how psychology and fear can destroy a company so large.”
How right he was! The risky no-money-down mortgage business that most banks and financial companies had been making billions on became a plague that spread to Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Citigroup, Washington Mutual, Merrill Lynch, AIG, and Lehman Brothers, to name a handful. The losses spread and the merger and acquisition market dried up, banks stopped risky lending, and then the billions of write-offs began. And the stocks kept going down and down for a year.
But don’t fear: the government is here. Move Bear Stearns to JP Morgan with the government’s help. Take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and swallow over $250 billion in debt. Tell the businesses that the government can’t help anymore and let Lehman Brothers go under and then let a $650 billion 158-year-old company get swallowed up by Barclay in England for $2 billion. Then, change your tune and buy most of the AIG Insurance Company and give them an $85 billion dollar loan. Then, stop short-selling for awhile and discuss a government enterprise that will take over all financial institutions’ bad debt. Then, come up with a way to back-stop the trillions of money market funds that had been collapsing.
And then the stock market rises in pandemonium.
We need to calm down and liquidate our fears but it’s not easy when the leadership in Washington and Wall Street is so reactive and inconsistent.
Do you feel confident that either Barack Obama or John McCain will bring the right leadership to the economy? I certainly don’t. But I am tired of worrying about it.
Let liquidation and meltdowns take their course and let’s watch, like spectators at a sporting event…except that it’s our money, our tax dollars, our children, and us that are the athletes. And no one knows what winning looks like.
The Iraq War is not over yet but you can’t tell if you base it on its minimal news coverage. Because the numbers of American deaths are down from last year, you probably didn’t read that Sgt. Jose E. Ulloa, 23, of New York, N.Y, died Aug. 9 in Sadr City, Iraq, of “wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device.” (U.S. Department of Defense News Release, August 11, 2008.)
How many of us realize that over 4138 Americans have been confirmed killed in over five years in Iraq, many of them trapped in exploding lightweight Humvee trucks of the Army?
We are left to wonder how many soldiers might have been saved if the Army didn’t scrap David Tenenbaum’s 1995 project to improve the armored hull on the Humvees.
David Tenenbaum is a Detroit-area military engineer, a Detroit-born son of a Holocaust survivor, who was hired in 1984 by TACOM (U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command), to design safer combat vehicles, and was accused thirteen years later in 1997 of passing secrets to the Israelis.
The Department of Defense’s own Office of Inspector General admitted in a recent report that Tenenbaum was singled out because he is an observant Jew and targeted because of his Orthodox Jewish faith. The 62 page report, requested by U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was issued in July. The report said, “It was well known that Mr. Tenenbaum was Jewish, lived his religious beliefs and by his actions appeared to have a close affinity for Israel.”
John Simonini, a retired lieutenant colonel and TACOM’s counterintelligence chief, launched an investigation after coworkers said Tenenbaum spent too much time associating with Israeli contacts, made his own travel arrangements and stayed in hotels away from colleagues, which Simonini and others regarded as signs of spying. The report said Tenenbaum wore a yarmulke and brought kosher food to work rather than joining coworkers for lunch at restaurants. Colleagues questioned why David was allowed to leave work early on Fridays to prepare for the Sabbath.
The report concluded, “We believe that Mr. Tenenbaum was subjected to unusual and unwelcome scrutiny because of his faith and ethnic background, a practice that would undoubtedly fit a definition of discrimination.”
Anyone who thinks that American discrimination is a thing of the past should read this report or the dozens of articles over the last ten years about the nightmare that Tenenbaum lived through.
“You have no idea what it’s like to have your loyalty questioned, to be accused of being a traitor,” Tenenbaum told the Detroit Free Press. TACOM counterintelligence officials had Tenenbaum apply for a higher security clearance to launch a spy investigation. The clearance resulted in a 6 ½-hour polygraph examination in February 1997. Tenenbaum said the session was a “horrendous investigation session” conducted by an examiner who repeatedly accused him of passing secrets and demanded a confession. “I’ve done other Jews before, and I’ve gotten them to confess, too,” the examiner told Tenenbaum, according to the report. But the session wasn’t tape-recorded and the examiner destroyed his notes.
The examiner’s report prompted the FBI to launch a criminal investigation, put Tenenbaum’s family under 24-hour surveillance, searched his home on Shabbat, and then removed 13 boxes of the family’s belongings, including their children’s coloring books. Because the FBI’s search warrant wasn’t sealed, the news media found out and swarmed Tenenbaum’s home. David’s wife, Madeline, admitted that, “It was terrifying. I felt totally violated.”
After a 14 month leave of absence and no evidence of spying found, Tenenbaum was allowed to return to work in 1998, relegated to lesser duties, shunned by coworkers, stripped of his security clearance, an outcast.
Tenenbaum’s project to improve the armor on Humvees had been scrapped. David’s lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, reflected, “The discrimination in this case ended up costing American soldiers their lives.” His associate, Daniel Harold, said that Tenenbaum’s persecutors “have blood on their hands.”
Over 4138 Americans have died in Iraq since 2003, many in ill-equipped Humvees. We are left to wonder if the discrimination and persecution of one observant Jew may have led to the lost lives of American soldiers that the Department of Defense is supposed to protect.
“Because they did not continue that program—by going after me,” Tenenbaum said in a 2004 interview with the Forward, “soldiers have died.” When asked if the vehicle protection project would have ultimately saved lives, Tenenbaum said, “If this program would have gone through, we would have known the problems, and we would have fixed the problems.”
Because of blatant discrimination finally admitted by the Department of Defense, we will never know. We will never know.
The Iraq War is not over yet but you can’t tell if you base it on its minimal news coverage. Because the numbers of American deaths are down from last year, you probably didn’t read that Sgt. Jose E. Ulloa, 23, of New York, N.Y, died Aug. 9 in Sadr City, Iraq, of “wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device.” (U.S. Department of Defense News Release, August 11, 2008.)
How many of us realize that over 4138 Americans have been confirmed killed in over five years in Iraq, many of them trapped in exploding lightweight Humvee trucks of the Army?
We are left to wonder how many soldiers might have been saved if the Army didn’t scrap David Tenenbaum’s 1995 project to improve the armored hull on the Humvees.
David Tenenbaum is a Detroit-area military engineer, a Detroit-born son of a Holocaust survivor, who was hired in 1984 by TACOM (U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command), to design safer combat vehicles, and was accused thirteen years later in 1997 of passing secrets to the Israelis.
The Department of Defense’s own Office of Inspector General admitted in a recent report that Tenenbaum was singled out because he is an observant Jew and targeted because of his Orthodox Jewish faith. The 62 page report, requested by U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was issued in July. The report said, “It was well known that Mr. Tenenbaum was Jewish, lived his religious beliefs and by his actions appeared to have a close affinity for Israel.”
John Simonini, a retired lieutenant colonel and TACOM’s counterintelligence chief, launched an investigation after coworkers said Tenenbaum spent too much time associating with Israeli contacts, made his own travel arrangements and stayed in hotels away from colleagues, which Simonini and others regarded as signs of spying. The report said Tenenbaum wore a yarmulke and brought kosher food to work rather than joining coworkers for lunch at restaurants. Colleagues questioned why David was allowed to leave work early on Fridays to prepare for the Sabbath.
The report concluded, “We believe that Mr. Tenenbaum was subjected to unusual and unwelcome scrutiny because of his faith and ethnic background, a practice that would undoubtedly fit a definition of discrimination.”
Anyone who thinks that American discrimination is a thing of the past should read this report or the dozens of articles over the last ten years about the nightmare that Tenenbaum lived through.
“You have no idea what it’s like to have your loyalty questioned, to be accused of being a traitor,” Tenenbaum told the Detroit Free Press. TACOM counterintelligence officials had Tenenbaum apply for a higher security clearance to launch a spy investigation. The clearance resulted in a 6 ½-hour polygraph examination in February 1997. Tenenbaum said the session was a “horrendous investigation session” conducted by an examiner who repeatedly accused him of passing secrets and demanded a confession. “I’ve done other Jews before, and I’ve gotten them to confess, too,” the examiner told Tenenbaum, according to the report. But the session wasn’t tape-recorded and the examiner destroyed his notes.
The examiner’s report prompted the FBI to launch a criminal investigation, put Tenenbaum’s family under 24-hour surveillance, searched his home on Shabbat, and then removed 13 boxes of the family’s belongings, including their children’s coloring books. Because the FBI’s search warrant wasn’t sealed, the news media found out and swarmed Tenenbaum’s home. David’s wife, Madeline, admitted that, “It was terrifying. I felt totally violated.”
After a 14 month leave of absence and no evidence of spying found, Tenenbaum was allowed to return to work in 1998, relegated to lesser duties, shunned by coworkers, stripped of his security clearance, an outcast.
Tenenbaum’s project to improve the armor on Humvees had been scrapped. David’s lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, reflected, “The discrimination in this case ended up costing American soldiers their lives.” His associate, Daniel Harold, said that Tenenbaum’s persecutors “have blood on their hands.”
Over 4138 Americans have died in Iraq since 2003, many in ill-equipped Humvees. We are left to wonder if the discrimination and persecution of one observant Jew may have led to the lost lives of American soldiers that the Department of Defense is supposed to protect.
“Because they did not continue that program—by going after me,” Tenenbaum said in a 2004 interview with the Forward, “soldiers have died.” When asked if the vehicle protection project would have ultimately saved lives, Tenenbaum said, “If this program would have gone through, we would have known the problems, and we would have fixed the problems.”
Because of blatant discrimination finally admitted by the Department of Defense, we will never know. We will never know.
A few hours before presidential candidate Barack Obama’s first night in Israel, a city bus and three cars were rammed suddenly by a construction vehicle. The terror of fear and panic reigned in downtown Jerusalem a few hundred yards from the King David hotel where Obama was scheduled to sleep in just a few hours.
Ghassan Abu Tir, a Palestinian man from east Jerusalem wearing a large, white skullcap, slammed into the side of the bus and then plowed the construction vehicle’s shovel into the bus windows, nearly killing the bus driver. According to witness Moshe Shimshi, the driver then sped away and “kept ramming into cars…and rammed them with all his might,” overturning one car and injuring sixteen people, including a mother and her baby.
This vicious attack was very similar to one earlier in the month when another Palestinian from east Jerusalem plowed a large front-loading truck into a string of vehicles and pedestrians on a busy Jerusalem street about 3 miles away from the King David Hotel, killing three and injuring dozens of others before being killed by an off-duty soldier.
This time, a civilian driving nearby saw what was happening, jumped out of his car, and shot the driver, before border policemen arrived on the scene. We are left to wonder how many people might have been saved by civilian Yaakov Asa-El, a father of nine. And we are left to gasp at another new method of terror.
Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski rushed over to the commotion and commented, “They keep on inventing ways to attack us. Every work tool has become a weapon.”
The question becomes, how many Palestinians will become inspired by such atrocities? I have to wonder if this attack was inspired by the release of Samir Kuntar from Israel on July 16th. Kuntar, who received four life sentences in 1979 for murdering an Israeli policeman, a 31-year-old civilian, and his 4-year-old daughter, was greeted in Beirut to a hero’s welcome by the Hizballah leader and his huge crowd.
Kuntar was officially received by the Lebanese president and prime minister, members of the Lebanese parliament, as Hassan Nasrallah gave a welcoming speech to a thunderous ovation.
“Samir! Samir!” the crowd yelled, for this “man convicted of smashing a child’s head into pieces.” Mitch Albom writes in his excellent essay, (“Israel-Hizballah trade reveals much about both sides,” Detroit Free Press, July 20, 2008), “What God would have a child’s murder on anyone’s hands? How do people celebrate such a killer?”
Albom continues, “The total disregard for life of anyone who does not believe what Hizballah believes stands in stark contrast to the value of life—and even of its demise—that Israel demonstrated in bringing those two bodies (the two captured and killed soldiers, Goldwasser and Regev) back.”
“To men like Kuntar,” Albom simply concedes, “Israel does not exist and should never exist.”
So in a part of the world that desperately wants “a world in which Israel has no place,” the constant killing makes logical sense. In a perpetual war to destroy Israel, all murder is justified. Everyone who kills any Israeli of any age is a hero. Even if that means destroying an innocent child by smashing her head against a rifle butt. Even if that means taking a construction vehicle and ramming its shovel against a bus driver’s window.
In this honorary culture of horror, every blood-stained act is condoned and praised by thousands. Every murder is another deadly inspiration.
What must keep Jews in Israel and in the United States from despair is the thought of prayers recited amidst the candles for Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. What must keep us hopeful is the simple and noble courage of a civilian ready to stop such madness.
We must never tolerate the deliberate destruction of the innocent. Instead, let’s celebrate the miraculous moments when an unsuspecting father of nine suddenly appears from the rubble and becomes a desperately needed hero.
Closure (Elegy for the Lost)
On a spring morning, April 20, 1986, Cindy Zarzycki left her home, telling her dad that she was planning to meet a friend at the Dairy Queen and then go to church. She ate an ice cream cone at the Dairy Queen on Nine Mile Road in Eastpointe, Michigan.
She was never seen again.
The missing persons report listed the 13-year-old girl who had lived with her father, brother, and sister in East Detroit as having sandy blonde curly hair, hazel eyes, a light-colored mole above her right eyebrow, and light-colored highlights in her hair. The report said that Cindy loved playing softball, winning a trophy in 1985 as the most valuable player on her team.
Cindy was “reported missing” for 22 years though there were glimmers of hope that she had run away and some reports in the two decades of sightings of grown girls with features like Cindy.
She was never seen alive or dead until July 9, 2008 when she was found in a shallow grave in rural Macomb Township, led there by the man who admitting kidnapping, raping, and murdering her 22 years earlier. “Twenty-two years is a long time,” Cindy’s brother, Ed Jr., cried to his older sister, Constance. “The main thing is now we get to bury her on her own terms.”
Arthur Ream, the man finally convicted a month earlier of first-degree murder in Cindy’s death, was taken to the site on 23 Mile Road, his arms and legs shackled, by eight law-enforcement agents. After Ream eventually found the spot and police dug up a young girl’s body, they found Cindy’s tattered jean purse and homemade audio cassettes that her brother said she used to make.
Ream was convicted in June by Prosecutor Eric Smith’s cold-case unit after Eastpointe Police Detective Derek McLaughlin reexamined the girl’s disappearance. Police testified that Cindy went to the Dairy Queen because Ream said he was planning a surprise party for his son. Ream’s then 14 year-old son, who died in a car accident 8 years later on July 4th, was Cindy’s desired boyfriend at the time. But because Cindy was apprehensive to meet her friend’s father by herself, she asked a friend to join her but her friend testified that her mom wouldn’t let her go. Her brother, Ed Jr., asked to go instead but his sister told him to go away.
That moment haunts Ed to this day. When asked what Cindy’s brother would say to his dead sister if he could, he cries, “I’d say I’m sorry I wasn’t there. And I love her.”
In the 22 years, Cindy’s body was only a few miles away from her family but they never knew. Now, they could move her to be buried in a plot near Lexington, Michigan that they bought two years ago. Maybe they could have a little bit of closure, watching their little girl who would be 35 years old today, buried in her own casket.
On the same day that Cindy’s body was found, the skeletal remains of Pvt. Byron Fouty and Sgt. Alex Jimenez were found. The next day, military officials came to Gordon Dibler’s home and told him that his stepson, Pvt. Fouty, missing in Iraq for over a year, had been found.
“Every day that he’s been missing has been a day of ‘what could have been’ but after hearing the news today…I’m still in shock,” said Dibler, who listened with Byron’s stepsister, Sarah.
Fouty was 19, less than a year removed from his high school days at Walled Lake Central, when he and two other members of the 10th Mountain Division, disappeared after being ambushed 20 miles outside of Baghdad. The news of Fouty and Sgt. Alex Jimenez’s bodies brought a sigh of finally knowing something and a flood of grief.
13 days after the bodies of Cindy Zarzycki and Byron Fouty were found, a memorial service was held for Byron Fouty. Byron’s stepsister said that Byron was kind, talented, brave, and ambitious, “unlike anyone I ever knew” and his father, Mick Fouty, told the 200 people gathered how proud he was of him. “He’s a hero and will always be a hero in everybody’s eyes.”
Keith Maupin, father of Sgt. Matt Maupin, 20, whose remains were found in March after he was captured in 2004 in Iraq, listened to the speeches, as did Linda Racey, former wife of missing U.S. Army Spec. Ahmed Altaie, 43, of Ann Arbor, and Skip Bushart, whose son Army Pfc. Damian Bushart, 22, of Waterford, died in Iraq in 2003.
“I can only imagine their heartache, not knowing where he was for so long,” Bushart commented. “At least, they have closure.”
Is closure watching the body of your loved one as the casket closes? We have to wonder if closure is finally knowing where your son or daughter is and praying that their souls have found a better place than here.
Think of what Cindy and Byron will never know: graduations, turning 21, the touch of a girlfriend or boyfriend, the celebration of marriage, having children themselves. They will never know the joy of seeing their loved ones again; they will never know what their lives could have become.
All that’s left to do is share the grieving of the families and imagine greater penalties than prison for a brutal man who let so many suffer for so long. All we can do is imagine death, the ultimate closure, for the men who destroyed Byron Fouty and Cindy Zarzycki.
- “Remains from 1986 slaying are found in Macomb Township,” Amber Hunt, Detroit Free Press, July 10, 2008
- “Family remembers Fouty’s bravery, spirit in tribute,” Korie Wilkins, Detroit Free Pres, July 23, 2008
July 4, 2008
Straight Talk
“The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating…
…and you finish off as an orgasm.”
George Carlin—1937-2008
June 2008, the month George Carlin died, featured all this and more: GM’s stock plummeted to its lowest in 54 years, just under $10 a share. Ford’s stock price sunk close to $4 a share. Gas was about $4.25 a gallon, food prices had risen 50-300% in the last year. Business Week published an article, “Michigan: Epicenter of Unemployment,” (Business Week, David Kiley, June 24, 2008) documenting the personal pain in a state that leads the country in joblessness.
You might wonder what George Carlin would say if you could ask him about gas prices over $4.00 a gallon, a shrinking economy, a dying domestic auto industry, or a banking system that is reeling from losses, while two political candidates toss out changing platitudes that seem to originate in a lost world. He would probably smirk with an I-told-you-so look and make some comment using one of his “seven dirty words” about the U.S. If he hadn’t died from heart failure last month, he might have quoted himself, “Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that…”
Carlin was one of the few public celebrities who actually talked straight. Whether you loved him or hated him, he said what others were afraid to say. He analyzed words and their usage, he disparaged all types of politicians and every form of religion, and wasn’t afraid to rail on the United States when he felt like it. Very little escaped his sarcasm or wrath and even if you cringed, you could laugh or at least sense some bit of truth in his words.
A few years ago, I went to my first and last George Carlin performance, with my son Kyle, four of his friends, and a friend of mine. Much of it was hilarious, some of it made me uncomfortable, and I can’t remember a lot of it. I do remember when Carlin made fun of some of the most popular American names, including Kyle. I don’t know how my son felt but I wanted to shrink. But that was what made Carlin great. He didn’t care less who he ticked off or why.
First, we lost Tim Russert, another straight talker who was respectful and polite when he tried to keep politicians honest. Now, after the death of George Carlin, who are we going to turn to when we want the truth?
We are stuck in a no-man’s land, listening to two candidates mouthing inconsistent platitudes to win an election. Barack Obama tries to shift to please moderates and independents and John McCain changes his mind daily, swerving to please as many conservatives as he can. His bus is called the Straight Talk Express but in trying to please his fellow Republicans and the press, he is anything but straight.
Carlin and Russert are gone, taking with them some of the best straight talk we’ve ever heard. When a celebrity or politician appears on TV and mouths the usual lying bull…., we can imagine a probing question from Russert and then a blistering satirical stab from Carlin.
That’s about as good as we’re going to get.
On a spring morning, April 20, 1986, Cindy Zarzycki left her home, telling her dad that she was planning to meet a friend at the Dairy Queen and then go to church. She ate an ice cream cone at the Dairy Queen on Nine Mile Road in Eastpointe, Michigan.
She was never seen again.
The missing persons report listed the 13-year-old girl who had lived with her father, brother, and sister in East Detroit as having sandy blonde curly hair, hazel eyes, a light-colored mole above her right eyebrow, and light-colored highlights in her hair. The report said that Cindy loved playing softball, winning a trophy in 1985 as the most valuable player on her team.
Cindy was “reported missing” for 22 years though there were glimmers of hope that she had run away and some reports in the two decades of sightings of grown girls with features like Cindy.
She was never seen alive or dead until July 9, 2008 when she was found in a shallow grave in rural Macomb Township, led there by the man who admitting kidnapping, raping, and murdering her 22 years earlier. “Twenty-two years is a long time,” Cindy’s brother, Ed Jr., cried to his older sister, Constance. “The main thing is now we get to bury her on her own terms.”
Arthur Ream, the man finally convicted a month earlier of first-degree murder in Cindy’s death, was taken to the site on 23 Mile Road, his arms and legs shackled, by eight law-enforcement agents. After Ream eventually found the spot and police dug up a young girl’s body, they found Cindy’s tattered jean purse and homemade audio cassettes that her brother said she used to make.
Ream was convicted in June by Prosecutor Eric Smith’s cold-case unit after Eastpointe Police Detective Derek McLaughlin reexamined the girl’s disappearance. Police testified that Cindy went to the Dairy Queen because Ream said he was planning a surprise party for his son. Ream’s then 14 year-old son, who died in a car accident 8 years later on July 4th, was Cindy’s desired boyfriend at the time. But because Cindy was apprehensive to meet her friend’s father by herself, she asked a friend to join her but her friend testified that her mom wouldn’t let her go. Her brother, Ed Jr., asked to go instead but his sister told him to go away.
That moment haunts Ed to this day. When asked what Cindy’s brother would say to his dead sister if he could, he cries, “I’d say I’m sorry I wasn’t there. And I love her.”
In the 22 years, Cindy’s body was only a few miles away from her family but they never knew. Now, they could move her to be buried in a plot near Lexington, Michigan that they bought two years ago. Maybe they could have a little bit of closure, watching their little girl who would be 35 years old today, buried in her own casket.
On the same day that Cindy’s body was found, the skeletal remains of Pvt. Byron Fouty and Sgt. Alex Jimenez were found. The next day, military officials came to Gordon Dibler’s home and told him that his stepson, Pvt. Fouty, missing in Iraq for over a year, had been found.
“Every day that he’s been missing has been a day of ‘what could have been’ but after hearing the news today…I’m still in shock,” said Dibler, who listened with Byron’s stepsister, Sarah.
Fouty was 19, less than a year removed from his high school days at Walled Lake Central, when he and two other members of the 10th Mountain Division, disappeared after being ambushed 20 miles outside of Baghdad. The news of Fouty and Sgt. Alex Jimenez’s bodies brought a sigh of finally knowing something and a flood of grief.
13 days after the bodies of Cindy Zarzycki and Byron Fouty were found, a memorial service was held for Byron Fouty. Byron’s stepsister said that Byron was kind, talented, brave, and ambitious, “unlike anyone I ever knew” and his father, Mick Fouty, told the 200 people gathered how proud he was of him. “He’s a hero and will always be a hero in everybody’s eyes.”
Keith Maupin, father of Sgt. Matt Maupin, 20, whose remains were found in March after he was captured in 2004 in Iraq, listened to the speeches, as did Linda Racey, former wife of missing U.S. Army Spec. Ahmed Altaie, 43, of Ann Arbor, and Skip Bushart, whose son Army Pfc. Damian Bushart, 22, of Waterford, died in Iraq in 2003.
“I can only imagine their heartache, not knowing where he was for so long,” Bushart commented. “At least, they have closure.”
Is closure watching the body of your loved one as the casket closes? We have to wonder if closure is finally knowing where your son or daughter is and praying that their souls have found a better place than here.
Think of what Cindy and Byron will never know: graduations, turning 21, the touch of a girlfriend or boyfriend, the celebration of marriage, having children themselves. They will never know the joy of seeing their loved ones again; they will never know what their lives could have become.
All that’s left to do is share the grieving of the families and imagine greater penalties than prison for a brutal man who let so many suffer for so long. All we can do is imagine death, the ultimate closure, for the men who destroyed Byron Fouty and Cindy Zarzycki.
- “Remains from 1986 slaying are found in Macomb Township,” Amber Hunt, Detroit Free Press, July 10, 2008
- “Family remembers Fouty’s bravery, spirit in tribute,” Korie Wilkins, Detroit Free Pres, July 23, 2008
A few hours before presidential candidate Barack Obama’s first night in Israel, a city bus and three cars were rammed suddenly by a construction vehicle. The terror of fear and panic reigned in downtown Jerusalem a few hundred yards from the King David hotel where Obama was scheduled to sleep in just a few hours.
Ghassan Abu Tir, a Palestinian man from east Jerusalem wearing a large, white skullcap, slammed into the side of the bus and then plowed the construction vehicle’s shovel into the bus windows, nearly killing the bus driver. According to witness Moshe Shimshi, the driver then sped away and “kept ramming into cars…and rammed them with all his might,” overturning one car and injuring sixteen people, including a mother and her baby.
This vicious attack was very similar to one earlier in the month when another Palestinian from east Jerusalem plowed a large front-loading truck into a string of vehicles and pedestrians on a busy Jerusalem street about 3 miles away from the King David Hotel, killing three and injuring dozens of others before being killed by an off-duty soldier.
This time, a civilian driving nearby saw what was happening, jumped out of his car, and shot the driver, before border policemen arrived on the scene. We are left to wonder how many people might have been saved by civilian Yaakov Asa-El, a father of nine. And we are left to gasp at another new method of terror.
Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski rushed over to the commotion and commented, “They keep on inventing ways to attack us. Every work tool has become a weapon.”
The question becomes, how many Palestinians will become inspired by such atrocities? I have to wonder if this attack was inspired by the release of Samir Kuntar from Israel on July 16th. Kuntar, who received four life sentences in 1979 for murdering an Israeli policeman, a 31-year-old civilian, and his 4-year-old daughter, was greeted in Beirut to a hero’s welcome by the Hizballah leader and his huge crowd.
Kuntar was officially received by the Lebanese president and prime minister, members of the Lebanese parliament, as Hassan Nasrallah gave a welcoming speech to a thunderous ovation.
“Samir! Samir!” the crowd yelled, for this “man convicted of smashing a child’s head into pieces.” Mitch Albom writes in his excellent essay, (“Israel-Hizballah trade reveals much about both sides,” Detroit Free Press, July 20, 2008), “What God would have a child’s murder on anyone’s hands? How do people celebrate such a killer?”
Albom continues, “The total disregard for life of anyone who does not believe what Hizballah believes stands in stark contrast to the value of life—and even of its demise—that Israel demonstrated in bringing those two bodies (the two captured and killed soldiers, Goldwasser and Regev) back.”
“To men like Kuntar,” Albom simply concedes, “Israel does not exist and should never exist.”
So in a part of the world that desperately wants “a world in which Israel has no place,” the constant killing makes logical sense. In a perpetual war to destroy Israel, all murder is justified. Everyone who kills any Israeli of any age is a hero. Even if that means destroying an innocent child by smashing her head against a rifle butt. Even if that means taking a construction vehicle and ramming its shovel against a bus driver’s window.
In this honorary culture of horror, every blood-stained act is condoned and praised by thousands. Every murder is another deadly inspiration.
What must keep Jews in Israel and in the United States from despair is the thought of prayers recited amidst the candles for Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. What must keep us hopeful is the simple and noble courage of a civilian ready to stop such madness.
We must never tolerate the deliberate destruction of the innocent. Instead, let’s celebrate the miraculous moments when an unsuspecting father of nine suddenly appears from the rubble and becomes a desperately needed hero.
I wrote this blog last August 2, 2007. It’s coming truer as we approach the fall of 2008.
Amnesia
The world spins so fast these days that I really don’t know if I’m coming or going, don’t know what side of the moon or sun we’re on. I know the moon was full two days ago but I’ve been too busy to worry about the cycle of the sun.
GM and Ford announced profitable quarters which made us temporarily forget that both companies and their suppliers have been hurting for the last few years. We can’t forget the housing market has been awful in Michigan which has spread throughout the United States and that fear for the credit markets after the subprime debacle has intensified. The stock market has taken a beating in the last few weeks after rising consistently but when American Home Mortgage, “the Internet’s leading mortgage lender, announced that lenders cut off their credit line, panic took over Wall Street.
Credit problems, large home builders losing millions, and financial institutions watching their stocks plummeting: it’s enough to bring back memories of the 1987 crash and the Nasdaq bubble bursting in 2000 and 2001. We had begun to have amnesia in the last four years as the Dow rose to record levels and the S&P reached new highs, far from the lows of 2002. We forgot that this happened even with billions that we have mortgaged on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though the U.S. government continues to pile on record debt while the U.S. dollar has plummeted to a multi-year low.
Maybe it’s fitting that the Bourne Ultimatum, the 3rd movie in the series of spy thrillers, is being released this weekend. In the frenetic pace of the last two movies, we learned that Bourne was an assassin working for the CIA who was trained to be a lethal killing machine, whether he remembered his past or not. Now is the time for him to learn who he really is and why everyone wants to kill him. The days of amnesia may finally be over.
It’s not over for us.
We forget about the wars and overwhelming debt levels and the hurricanes of the last years, hoping like hell it’s all behind us. We forgot about bubbles of the past as people mortgaged and refinanced and bought and sold houses and condos as the prices continued to escalate. Now, I wonder if Rock Financial, the biggest lender in Michigan and the primary sponsor of the Detroit Pistons, will make it in one piece. Will it suffer the fate of American Home Mortgage?
My wife and I have bought three homes in 22 years and refinanced countless times. We had an adjustable mortgage years ago when our payments were smaller and when it went up a full 2% in a year, we refinanced again and fixed it. We were lucky to refinance two years ago when rates were at an all time low and locked it for 15 years.
So many others are not so fortunate, caught into exploding adjustable mortgages or large fixed loans on expensive homes that are falling in value while their property taxes continue to rise.
Fear is rising, the high levels of the stock market may be over, while the war is still going strong with 160,000 American soldiers far from home, fearful that their lives may end with the next IED bombing.
An election is coming next year and a change may be coming. But by then, it may be too late. Like Bourne, we may begin to remember our past but unlike him, we might be much happier, waiting for the unknown to come, lost in the pleasant fog of amnesia.
Written after the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup…
The Detroit area finally got a strong dose of medicine for the last six years of high unemployment, rising foreclosures, surging gas and food prices, a declining automobile market, and the continuing saga of Kwame Kilpatrick.
After six long years, we finally won the Stanley Cup.
We in Detroit had almost forgotten what good news felt like. When the Pittsburgh Penguins tied the fifth game of the championship series and won in the middle of the third overtime, many fans thought, “Not again.” And when they scored with less than two minutes to go and almost tied the Red Wings with three seconds left in the sixth game, the relief in Detroit was palpable.
We could finally take a breath and celebrate: Detroit was a winner again. The Stanley Cup was ours.
Forget for a moment whether Israel will attack Iran or if and when we will get out of Iraq. Forget that Ford and GM are selling fewer and fewer trucks and SUVs and that gas prices keep rising. We don’t need imaginary superheroes Iron Man, the Hulk or Batman. Instead, we are fortunate to share a group of international hockey players from Sweden, Canada, Finland, Russia, the Czech Republic, and the United States, all playing for us, the long-suffering city of Detroit. Past heroes Chris Osgood, Nick Lidstrom, and Darren McCarty, joined by new superstars Zetterberg, Datsyk, and Franzen, showed perseverance and poise as they marched toward the sixteen wins necessary to win the NHL Championship.
Did we need this?
We needed it more than anyone can imagine. If you think that it’s just a sport, just high-paid athletes who happen to play for Mike Ilitch and not some other owner in some other city, think again.
Remember 40 years ago, a year after the riots ripped through the heart of Detroit, burning building after building, block by block. I remember my father coming home from his place of employment, on Grand River, next to Wonder Bread, wondering if the building would be torched, seeing much of Detroit in flames, worried whether Detroit would survive. I remember more the miraculous comeback of the 1968 World Series, Detroit down three games to one, rising finally to beat the St. Louis Cardinals and its ace pitcher, Bob Gibson.
A city, still reeling from riots, went wild with joy. I was only 11 but I will never forget the honking horns, the utter exhilaration of our city winning the ultimate baseball trophy.
We lived in the heroics of Kaline, Horton, McLain, and Lolich. When they won it all, against great odds, so did we. We were at last winners.
Who knows how long the feeling of winning lasted? I believe that our collective psyches are indelibly affected by the world, our country, our cities. We haven’t had much to celebrate in a news world filled with Iraq, Iran, Hamas, Afghanistan, wondering why the U.S. economy pales next to China and India. And the news has been more dismal in Detroit, where the auto industry struggles and the local economy is still mired in the mud of softening sales and higher costs.
There has been almost nothing to celebrate. Until now.
40 years ago, the world thought Detroit was simply a city filled with hate and fire, and after the World Series, we didn’t care. We felt okay with ourselves.
Today, the world thinks Detroit is a ghost town filled with large cars and trucks that don’t sell and plenty of crime and murder. This may be true but we also have one of the oldest and greatest hockey teams, one of the original six, a team that has now won 11 championships in 82 years, our 4th in 11 years. We have a group of good guys from all over the world, showing great camaraderie and sportsmanship, and they play for us.
Sports can be a powerful tonic, an imaginary world that can help sustain us in difficult times. We are no longer strangers when we share the dreams and goals of our sports teams. We can swap stories about not sleeping after three overtimes and of happier moments when we can almost taste the champagne flowing from our HDTVs.
For awhile, we can feel good about ourselves. We can feel good about Detroit. Even if it’s just fantasy and escapism, it is still soothing for our injured psyches.
And that makes all the difference.
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