05/06/2024
https://www.aublefuneralhome.com/obituaries/Brian-Bissell?obId=31286055 #/obituaryInfo
The last time I saw Brian was in May 2013. We've been in contact through phone and his method of choice, email. Brian was immaculate from his dining room / living room pictured in front of his computer, outside with his organizing a variety of flowers and plants, handyman work with you name it odds and ends and his Tuff Shed with outdoor grounds keeping tools. He was a friend to all his neighbors up and down the D/E/F rows of manufactured homes. It is a close knit neighborhood. After Brian's passing, our Cousin, Scott Shumaker (Dad's sister's youngest son) along with some of Brian's neighbors, Brenda & Scott, Linda, Mike, and also park manager Greg all made settling Brian's affairs less difficult. I grieve that Brian and I didn't share more pictures between us.
It is emotional for me to see Brian (Picture taken by Brenda Woodside) with Auble Funeral Home's picture of the Starship Enterprise in his obituary. If not a "Treke", he was close to being one! Unlike the Star Trek original series that depicts WWIII in the 21st Century, I and many of my Veterans For Peace Friends who also are affiliated with WILPF (Women's International League For Peace and Freedom), Code Pink, and About Face work for Peace through nonviolence and a century that's legacy will be no more "Forever Wars", no WWIII, elimination of nuclear weapons, cease fire wherever there is war, always productive negotiation between parties, and sovereignty for all countries while emphasizing civility, humanity and morality - concepts not uniform ever and not what they can be now. Recently, "Not ever again - we'll do/be anything to stay free" was explained to me that, "What was done to us, we can do now to anyone else [in order that it'll never be done to us again]. WOW, if that is the rationale that allows Israel to do what they are doing in Gaza (and increasingly elsewhere in the West Bank and wherever there are Palestinians in Israel/Palestine) - I can better understand how the holocaust survivor mentality has developed to this. It still is not right - we (The United States and it's citizens) are complicit in the atrocities going on in Israel/Palestine - we've supplied the armaments! Negotiations to stop the war in Ukraine starting with a Cease Fire have not been developed enough nor supported enough by the United States again leading to our complicity! We are a country in distress. I invite you to be a patriot and fly your flag upside down - the international symbol of a country in distress! I understand things will not happen overnight. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) does not have time due dates - just the will for our country to reverse course, to promise not to use nuclear weapons as a first strike nor retaliatory strike, to reduce the nuclear weapons we have to zero, to stop R&D into "newer/better" nuclear weapons. Over 45 brave U.S. House of Representatives (including Arizona's own Rep. Raul Grijalva) have signed HR77 to support the TPNW. While only Democrats have signed it, this legislation should be nonpartisan! I urge you to send correspondence to your Representative to co-sponsor HR77 and your U.S. senators to start similar legislation in the Senate!
