ALTRUISM IS STRONGER THAN COMPETITION

(Irena Sendler, 1943, after escape from Pawiak prison)

I have a couple of postings at other sites to recommend to you, especially if you want hope (not the slick packaged kind) and inspiration.

The first is the story of Irena Sendler, "credited with saving some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi Holocaust by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, some of them in baskets", who died last Monday at age 98. Ma Vie in KC (a sister lesbian blog) has a great photo of her. Other feminist blogs have been writing about her, and the Life In A Jar: Irena Sendler Project site has other ways to continue her work of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world).

I've previously written about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising here at Zog Nit Keynmol.

(Sara Tucholsky got a lift from Central Washington's Liz Wallace, left, and Mallory Holtman. Photo by Blake Wolf.)

My second ardent recommendation is to view the video concerning Sara Tucholsky at Group News Blog. I'll copy in their New York Times excerpt identifying her:

Ms. Tucholsky plays softball for Western Oregon University, but in her high school and college careers, the 5-foot-2 player had never hit a home run. On the last Saturday in April, in a game against Central Washington University, she hit her first home run over the fence. But as she began to run the bases, a misstep resulted in a torn knee ligament and she couldn’t continue.

The umpire mistakenly ruled that a team member couldn’t run in her place or assist her around the bases. A member of the opposing team, first baseman Mallory Holtman, the career home run leader in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, asked the umpire if she and her teammates could help Ms. Tucholsky run the bases. He said they could, and Ms. Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace carried her around the field as she gently tapped her uninjured leg on each base.

This means that the competing team who assisted her on her home run LOST their chance at the Division II NCAA championship. Go watch the video and hope each of these young women move on to assume positions of leadership in our world, because they are the best we could have.

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