Real Crime Scenes

Please take the time to look at this documentary. It is an investigation of "disaster capitalism", based on Naomi Klein's proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance. All is not lost--we the people have the power to change this evil scourge that has enriched a scant few at the expense of the vast majority of citizens the world over.

OneLove

:::MME:::

The Destruction of the Poor

“Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is. Do you Mr. Jones?”

- “Ballad of a Thin Man" by Bob Dylan


When you talk to some people, it seems that either they don't have a clue on what's happening to the world's impoverished masses, or they do, but lack empathy. As much as you try to bring some detail to their attention, they would much rather talk about some nice bedroom set they saw at IKEA, what Lebron did on the court or what the ladies on Housewives from Atlanta were up to on the last episode. It seems that as long as they're eating well and living comfortably with money invested and kids doing well in school, they could care less about the numerous socio-political, educational & ecological crises that rage around them (which will threaten their own security in the long term).Vacuous people. They should all be pimp-slapped & all their possessions taken in order for them to feel for a moment the utter ruin & desperation billions of people feel every waking moment of their lives. Check out rhe following documentary and be humbled....



OneoLove


:::MME:::

Poet's Nook: Derek Walcott's "Love After Love"



Derek Walcott



I particularly like this piece by Derek Walcott. This poem can be interpreted on both a personal & socio-historical level (specifically, from a post-colonial context). I tend to favor a broader rendering of this poem as it brings to mind the gender, race & class struggles that continue to this day. This poem can also resonate powerfully with many women who sacrificed their lives for their husbands, children, lovers & forgot themselves in the process, but rediscovered who they were in the end.

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,


and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you


all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,


the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Take from it what you will, it's a beautiful thing!

OneLove

::MME::

Valentine's Muse

Love is Friendship that has caught Fire

OneLove

  ::MME::

Compromising with the Uncompromising

Cartoons are still the best medium for explaining the complicated by use of metaphors, symbols and caricatures. As an avid reader of Mad magazine and Marvel comics in my youth, my senses were primed to the absurd & heroic nature of the human enterprise. This animation highlights some of my frustrations with President Obama on many fronts, but alas, he is but a spokesman for more powerful entities, like every other President that preceded him.
Peace

:::MME:::

World on Fire

 

It takes a revolution to make a solution;
Too much confusion so much frustration, eh!

I don't wanna live in the park 
Can't trust no shadows after dark 
So, my friend, I wish that you could see,
Like a bird in the tree, the prisoners must be free
Never make a politician grant you a favour;
They will always want to control you forever....

-Bob Marley 

Times are a'changin'! Whether you're paying attention or not, you will be rocked by these shifting currents one way or another. From the mess industrial capitalism has made of our planet, we seem to be at some critical turning point. Once lush and plentiful rainforests are rapidly disappearing & the few remaining are now endangered; the seas and lands are being ravaged 'til life is sucked out of them; and to me the most troubling, a quarter of all mammals face extinction - 90% of the largest ocean fish are gone (species are going extinct at rates equaled only five times in the history of life, according to many leading scientists). These man-made events are converging on natural phenomena such as earthquakes (they are occuring more frequently with last year's  Chilean earthquake so powerful that it shifted the Earth's axis & shortened our days) and the increasing solar activity which is expected to peak this year into 2012 (potentially causing widespread disruption to aircraft navigation and emergency location systems that rely heavily on satellite navigation data). When you add the wide disparity between the haves & the have-nots and the crumbling of social/physical infrastructures the world over, what you have is the making of something that can scarcely be imagined or predicted, though many pretend to know.

The historic uprising in Egypt is only the tip of something much bigger, I believe. Demands for political and economic justice are bound to proliferate & the reaction of the powerful "haves"to these events will be quite interesting to witness. Like Tracy Chapman sang in her prescient song, "Talking About a Revolution":

Don't you know

They're talkin' about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Don't you know
They're talkin' about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the enemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion
Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what's theirs
Don't you know
You better run, run, run...
Oh I said you better
Run, run, run...
Finally the tables are starting to turn
Talkin' bout a revolution

I think we all should be unsettled by what's happening. As intelligent and decent as most folks are, I believe we can turn this thing around & make this world a brighter place for our children--but we have to do so right now.

OneLove

:::MME:::