Good Deeds

"¢ English actress Joanna Lumley is a goddess-literally. In 2009, the people of Nepal declared that she is a goddess because of her work as a very visible member of the Gurkha Justice Campaign. Gerkhas are Nepalese soldiers who fight as a part of the British army. As a result of the work of the Gurkha Justice Campaign, an ex-Gurkha who has been a member of the British army for over four years can now settle in the United Kingdom, if the Gurkha wishes.

About her elevation to goddess from actress, Ms. Lumley says, "Well, it's beyond comprehension actually, you know? Somebody explained to my son, Jamie, who was out there, that in Nepal they believe that if the gods can't handle something, a problem, they pick somebody out and send them to Earth to solve the problem, and the person who solves the problem is called a god or a goddess. And because my head was above the parapet, because my face was the identifiable one of our team - we were a team - they maybe saw me as that person who had been sent to [solve] the problem." Ms. Lumley was more than just a figurehead for the organization. When Ms. Lumley learned that five Gurkhas had been denied residency in the UK, she met with immigration officer Phil Woolas.

As Guardian reporter Laura Barton writes, Ms. Lumley "pursued Woolas around the studio and forced him into an impromptu press conference, in which he agreed to further talks on the matter." Ms. Lumley is a nice woman. She says that "with Mr. Woolas we had just come from a room where we had been talking with the lawyers and [Liberal Democrat] Peter Carroll for about half an hour about what the next step would be, and in that press conference all I was doing was saying aloud and corroborating with him what was said. But it looked a little bit as though I was giving him a tough time. So to make up for that I did invite him round for supper." He accepted the invitation, and Ms. Lumley says that "he brought two friends and we had fish and chips and champagne by candlelight."

By the way, the people of Nepal also named a mountain after her. So, what kind of things does a goddess do? She says, "I've got to tell you in service stations on big motorways I always clean up the ladies loo. I pick up all the bits of hankies, I tidy up the bins, I get using the towels, I clean the tops, I shut the doors, I pull the plugs ... Because people live like animals. And surely if it looks nice, people won't go on making it look so bad? If you walk into a midden of filth, maybe you just don't care about it? But it does baffle me how people can behave so badly."

"¢ During the summer of 1942, many Jews in Belgium were being arrested by the Nazis and sent to death camps. Some heroic Catholics worked to rescue Jews. Cardinal Van Roey, who was the Archbishop of Malines, asked nuns and monks to hide Jews in convents and monasteries. Among those responding were Sister Marie Amalie, who was the Mother Superior of the Tres-Saint-Saveur convent in Brussels. She hid 15 Jewish girls in the convent, where the nuns looked after them well. But on May 20, 1943, three Gestapo officers suddenly and unexpectedly came to take the Jewish girls away.

Sister Marie was able to convince the Gestapo officers that the Jewish girls were not at the convent at that time but would be there the next day and the Gestapo could take away the Jewish girls then. The Gestapo left, and Sister Marie informed both Cardinal Van Roey and the woman who had delivered the Jewish girls to the convent what had happened. The woman reassured her that a rescue would be made, but she did not give Sister Marie any details of the rescue. Sister Marie and the other nuns got the Jewish girls packed and ready to leave, and then they waited.

At nighttime, the Jewish girls went to bed fully clothed. Sister Marie and the other nuns knew that the rescue would take place that night, but they did not know in what form the rescue would take place. Just before 10 p.m., some people in Nazi uniforms came inside the convent. They tied the nuns to chairs in an office, and they cut the telephone lines. Sister Marie and the other nuns worried that these people were really Nazis, but they heard one of the "Nazis" speak a few reassuring words in Yiddish to the Jewish girls as they took the girls away. Inside the office, the nuns waited to make sure that the Jewish girls had gotten away safely, then they began to yell for the Belgian police.

The next morning, the real Gestapo officers arrived to take away the Jewish girls, but of course no one was left to take away. The Gestapo officers were angry, but they could do nothing. When the war was over, Sister Marie and the other nuns learned that all 15 Jewish girls had survived. Yad Vashem has honored both Cardinal Van Roey and Sister Marie as Righteous Persons. The rescuers were Paul Halter (a Jewish commander of the Belgian armed resistance), Toby Cymberknopf, Bernard Fenerberg, Jankiel Parancevitch, Andrée Ermel, and Floris Desmedt.

"¢ When Groucho Marx was 15 years old, he saw an advertisement for a job as a singer. He auditioned, he got the job, and he and the lead singer, who was also the manager, went on the road. Unfortunately, in Denver, Colorado, the manager absconded with the funds, leaving the young Groucho a long way from his home in New York City. Groucho was made of tough stuff. He got a job driving a grocery wagon and earned a little money from his singing. Soon he was able to buy a train ticket back home, and he had $10 left for meals. Unfortunately, he lost the $10. Fortunately, Groucho says, trains back then always had kindly old ladies. They gave him bananas, peanuts, and sandwiches, and he made it back home.