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 6 Aug 2007 @ 11:40
In the scent of plum blossoms,
Ah! the sun appears---
the mountain path.
---Basho
When we have seen Reality, there is not a grain of dust which has not a sublime meaning.
---J. Vanderleeuw
It is like archers. If they start out competing, they'll never become marksmen. It is only long after practice, with no thought of winning or losing, that they can hit the target. Same with the study of the Way. If even a single thought of winning or losing appears, you will be chained by winning and losing.
---Ying-An
The painting is called The Indian Prisoner, created by William Gilbert Gaul, 1899.
In one of the first essays I ever attempted online, I mentioned how I happened to come in contact with the famous folk music collector, Alan Lomax. I said at one point he called me "puritanical" and how stung I was by the remark. [link] It still bothers me, but I've soothed myself somewhat with the balmy knowledge that he knew of my New England education---and I was aware of how he felt about New England. I've also tried---and been forced by reality---to ease up on the rigidity of my views of 30 years ago.
I'm glad that at the time I did not begin a range war with Alan, since Texas always was home to him. I doubt any Texans have been called puritanical (unless one happened to be born and educated in New England before relocating----hmmmm) but we do know something about justice in the Wild West. Whether or not the scores of Westerns I saw at the Saturday afternoon matinees gave me an accurate history, I've grown up thinking resentments are a particular weakness in the American fabric. I think we tend to be a people that transfers our problems rather than inventories them in order to change. We go to workshops that teach us to transform failures into opportunities for growth and expansion. We spin.
When I came to Southeast Ohio, I learned that until recently spanking students with big wooden paddles was legal and routine. At first I thought they were joking. No teacher ever laid a hand on me in New York, and I couldn't conceive of it. One time in Lincoln Junior High a science teacher made a kid stand in the corner on his head for a while, but that's the worst I saw. When I worked among people here, who didn't necessarily go beyond the local high school education, I was similarly amazed when they spoke of "beating" their kids, specifically the boys I guess. I didn't think it was my place to ask for details, but I thought maybe again this was a term for strict discipline but not actual physical pain. "Beating their butt" is common parlance around here among many parents.
I've been feeling that during my lifetime the American character has changed markedly and the rest of the world is noticing. Maybe we all were mistaken, having been mislead by World War II propaganda---as Clint Eastwood hints in his film Flags Of Our Fathers. We were the fun-loving Yanks liberating Europe with dollars and chewing gum. If we never were that actually---or even if we were---do others feel we now are vengeful opportunists, motivated essentially by getting more for me and mine? Do we care if injustice is done to others in our name? Do we listen intently to testimonies of people released from our "detention centers" about what was done to them for years---or don't we want to hear about it? Have we gone off the deep end and become cruel?
I've worried about this and tried to deal with it personally, convince myself the behaviors I endure everyday by others driving cars are just momentary. The aggression will fade away when the war on terror is won and we all return to normal. But maybe it's something more permanent, a trend not so easily reversed.
And so it was this morning I came upon an article in the Boston Review. Well, maybe Boston is the best place to review an oppressive morality! The title is simply Why Are There So Many Americans In Prison?, and was compiled by Glenn C. Loury who is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences in the department of economics at Brown University. A 2002 Carnegie Scholar, he brings very recent statistics to bear on how Americans are using punishment to solve problems. More >
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 5 May 2007 @ 10:44
Without the bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance to the whole world?
---Basho
Each something is a celebration of the nothing that supports it.
---John Cage
The horse's mind
Blends
So swiftly
Into the hay's mind.
---Fazil Husnu Daglarca
All the artwork is by Richard Ross.
Something like 60 years ago I spent some summertime at YMCA Camp Onyahsa on Lake Chautauqua. It was only several miles from Mom and Dad in Jamestown, New York, but I didn't thrive in the situation. The highlight of the whole experience were a couple nature hikes with a young man named Bob Sundell. The boys all called him "Bugs." He had an intensity about what you could see in Nature and how to look that was contagious. Even other boys who weren't into this whole camping thing that much were completely involved with this guy when he showed up. Off we'd go...and immediately there was a snake or a hawk---"It's a Cooper's hawk!" yelled Harold Smith, who later had to wear a ball and chain in the cafeteria because he kept trying to escape...but "Bugs" said, "Hey, that's great!" when he knew that hawk, and Harold was proud. Or there was a flash in the underbrush...so fast I didn't see what it was: a bright blur. "A redstart," "Bugs" whispered...but it was gone and hiding.
Redstarts became my favorite bird and I always wanted to see another one, even though I hadn't really seen the first one. Maybe it was "Bugs'" influence and the way he engaged us little boys. I don't think I ever saw Bob Sundell again although I often thought to look him up when I was back in my hometown. I think he's lived in Western New York all his life, teaching at a community college there and prominent with the Roger Tory Peterson Institute Ornothological Club (Peterson was from Jamestown too) and the local Audubon Society...especially the annual bird count.
The other day, down by the main creek of 3 that run through our woods, I saw another redstart. My second. It's been 60 years! I suppose if I had really gone out and looked in the meantime---made a project of it---I could have seen a bunch by now. But I don't seem to interact with Nature that way. I'm more an alert-and-see-what-pops-up sort of guy. It may be those 2 redstarts are bookends of my life, and I'd be content with that.
I never minded when neocons snarled "treehugger" at the way I feel about Nature. They've called me a lot of things in the past 40 years, but I think hugging trees is a wonderful experience. I much prefer it to knocking down every one I see. A couple weeks ago I threw a father and son off my land because they'd brought in their 4-wheelers. I did it with so much rage I frightened myself. I don't mind hunters---as long as they let me know---but I find those recreation vehicles obscene today. When I look at my neighbors and how they interact with Nature, I feel doomed. What should I do?
And how much time do we have? Which brings me to the dire task at hand. Before today, there's always been a sense of joy or sharing or work-to-do when I've recommended information to people I know. But now I feel more like it's duty to report this. The June issue of Mother Jones magazine carries a cover story by their environmental reporter Julia Whitty. That cover is here illustrated, and the little card next to that specimen reads "Homo sapiens: -Large brain, opposable thumbs, -Primary cause of Sixth Great Extinction". After the warming and climate change, this is next and more biologists are telling us this everyday. The entire article is online and I believe was picked up by The Independent in the UK, but it's always good to support magazines at the newsstand. I'll warn you Julia begins with a graphic description of death by dehydration...but we need to know how fast it happens and after a certain point no matter how much water they give you, it won't help. More >
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 4 Apr 2007 @ 09:58
The squeaking of the pump sounds as necessary as the music of the spheres.
---Henry David Thoreau
Do not recite sutras. Do not make portraits of me. Just bury my body in the back mountains. It is enough that you cover me with earth.
---Takuan's final wishes to his students
How could the drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on.
---Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Photo by Matt Taibbi of tattoo on the foot of Sgt. Stephen Wilkerson, Baghdad 2006
I once heard a friend make a case for oil and its markets having been the fundamental cause of all the wars of the past century. I had begun the conversation, I guess, by proclaiming loudly the need for conservation of the resource. My friend replied, "The sooner the earth runs out of oil the better!" I was amazed to hear this, and it was then he launched his theory.
At this hour Tony Blair continues his call for "direct" negotiation between Britain and Iran over UK sailors picked up for prowling around some ocean borderlines. [link] Yesterday he said he'd give the process another couple days before matters become "fairly critical", whatever that means. Iran has replied they're glad to talk...but at the same time we have these curious rumors floating via "Russian intelligence" that the US is ready to let fly with the missiles on Friday (or thereabouts). [link]
Are we poised for another "regime change"? Halliburton has moved its headquarters to Dubai, perhaps so trade deals for oil can be accomplished with Iran whether there's peace or war. I believe the United States has not had relations with Iran in about 25 years, and Halliburton can't do deals with them from here. If oil is the deal and soldiers are needed to secure the wells for Exxon/Mobil, time is of the essence. But should we be doing better at our occupations...despite all the claims of progress by Madman McCain and the Bushie loyalists?
The last few days I've been catching up with an article from last summer in Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi. The long piece is called Fort Apache, Iraq, and it took me some days to read it. The writing is intense and Taibbi often launches off into a kind of loony poetry that made me stop and think a lot. Last May he spent some days tooling around the bloody roads of Iraq in a Humvee with a group of National Guardsmen from Oklahoma, and followed that up with 3 days locked in a jail cell in Abu Ghraib. Out of these experiences he fashioned this article that expresses vividly for me just what it's like for us Yanks to be over there...and how we look. This isn't the first time Matt Taibbi has put himself into very radical situations for the sake of journalistic truth. Someone has put up a Wikipedia article about him that gives his history along with a ton of links. [link] For our purpose today I'll select some excerpts from Fort Apache, Iraq, and give you the online link to the whole thing. More >
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 4 Feb 2007 @ 06:50
An old Hasidic rabbi asked his pupils how to tell when night ended and the morning began, which is the time for certain holy prayers.
"Is it when you see an animal in the distance and know whether it's a sheep or a dog?"
"No," the rabbi answered.
"Is it when you can look at a tree and tell whether it's a fig tree or a pear tree?"
"No," the rabbi answered again.
After a few more tries, the pupils said, "Then tell us, what is it?"
"It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and know that they are your sister or brother. Until then, it is still night."
---Hasidic mondo
The important point of spiritual practice is not to try to escape your life, but to face it---exactly and completely.
---Dainin Katagiri
I do not seek, I find.
---Pablo Picasso
The digital art print is Business and Pleasure by Dale Kennington.
What has happened to a civilization when the people decide government itself is an infringement upon their freedom? What is the basis of the belief that nobody can tell me what to do? Is it that rights are determined only by the might and mood of one's neighbor? How is it that a human can assert ownership of any space of ground on this earth? Is it a weapon and money to buy the very best that determines righteousness in this life?
What happens when a people are convinced government is the problem, an evil? We had a president in the United States not long ago who said so. We had a Speaker of one house of our Congress who said government workers were worthless, terrible people who should be sent away. How many feel all "bureaucrats" should be eliminated and taxes done away with? How well has this country done, within itself and in the world of nations, after eliminating the process of regulation?
Has total reliance upon the "free" marketplace been a triumph? Are we happier being consumers than citizens? Without regulation, who keeps track of outsourcing? Is it even necessary to do, since capitalism is the most perfect way for humans to organize themselves, realize their needs, and celebrate the competitive spirit of innovation?
Is it Super Bowl Sunday that has me wondering all these things? No, actually I wonder this stuff all the time. What has happened however is the introduction today of a new series on outsourcing by The New York Times. Say what you will about that newspaper, but when they send reporters to cover a process like this I declare they are doing us a great service. I don't know of the reporters who have signed off on this first story, except that Scott Shane is a writer in their Washington bureau and Ron Nixon is a projects editor at the business desk. The first article is 4 Internet pages long, and the link at the bottom is to the first page. For those without registration at The Times, here is a post of the whole thing~~~ More >
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 13 Nov 2006 @ 10:58
Nowadays there is no one capable of being dumbfounded.
---Soen Nakagawa
The fire-fly
gives light
to its pursuer.
---Oemaru
Wealth is the number of things one can do without.
---Feodor Dostoyevsky
Most of the post-election smoke cleared by this weekend here in the States---there still are some contests in contention or recount---and the weekend brought a wagonload of analysis, talking heads, menus of work to be done, and a lot of advice on all sides. With a month and a half before the Democrats move into Congress to take charge, Republicans are scurrying to cram through what they can of Bush's agenda. It won't be easy for them though...not as it's been these half dozen years. I found 3 articles this morning that might be of help and interest in the understanding of where this nation goes now. They follow this credit for Mr. Fish's devastating editorial cartoon. More >
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