Agreed. Touchy freely oprah nonsense.
A note to you “serious-minded” folks, who pooh-pooh our memorial. In the dark days of WW II, there were a group of chassidim of the Gerer Rebbe, followers of one Matisyahu Gelman, who taught his “boys” to refuse to cooperate with any of the Nazi decrees. They would not register for ration cards, slave labor details, and as a consequence were not on the official “census” by the Jewish Committee, and were not transported until the ghettos that they were in were being liquidated. When confined to a concentration camp, they ducked out of line before the “selection”. A group of these “oddballs” were ultimately caught, and a pit was dug for them. The leader of these boys made a very short speech as they set up the machine gun. He told his boys that they were about to sanctify G-d’s name, and that they should rejoice rather than be sad, that they had been given this opportunity. They joined arms and danced in a gyrating circle, and then fell before the hail of bullets.
What has this to do with Mandalay? Everything. Death is something that must be defied. Mourning must be a celebration of the deceased’s life. Then, in that sense, the deceased have not been murdered. In the Zohar it relates that every lie has a small grain of truth, without which it would never be believed. Thus, we have the grin of truth that sustains the Holocaust deniers. Those murdered were not destroyed. They live on forever before G-d. The Irish, too, understand the importance of confirming life in the face of death, which is why they have a wake at funerals, and drink and eventually sing a reel for the dead.
These people came to celebrate music and enjoy life in a scary world. The world caught up with them, and they were slaughtered. What better way to commemorate them than with the very music they loved. “Nonsense?” “Touchy feely?” Hell, no. This is the beginning of fighting back, with the help of Roy Clark, Johnny Cash, and every other country/western artist who ever recorded tracks.
Now either post your favorite songs, or go start a thread of tears and wailing.